Majorca 970323

3rd: Up the River Tapenga, (Played March 23, 1997)
Grandfather gives Captain Amerigo a shopping list and the help of some family members to accomplish an important mission of trade, exploration, and diplomacy for the family.
Adventure Background, Adventure Outline
Players: Joe White, Kara White, Ken McKinney, Sam Jennings, Scott Chelette, Ray Turney, Ron Shigeta
Summaries: McKinney, Shigeta

Adventure Background

Mercantile adventure of action, travel, and bargaining

The war with the Spini family continues even now, two months after the death of Gherardo Spini. Two groups of Spini hired men have been thwarted in the city of Avalon. Two Spini ships have been burned in Majorca harbor. But, everything has not gone well for the Lamberti family, Warlord Tanatave has been replaced by Master Fapame of the Death Head Sect as a result of the lost war with the Two Swan Tribe.

King Lucino del Bene of Jullar has a son, Prince Armando, who is marrying Astrud de Sforza of Movid. Grandfather has met with Baronet Raggio and together they decided to give a couple gifts to the Prince on his wedding day. The gifts will enhance the reputation of both the Raggio family and (somewhat) the Lamberti family with the King and the King-to-be. If the Prince likes the gifts, Baronet Raggio will be very happy with the Lamberti family. The island of Jullar is plagued by marauding giants because King Lucino has poor relations with the Golden Lotus and Tribe Heera, whose shamen called the giants from Fairie.

The Gifts
A broadsword of steel with giant slaying powers
Mithril plate armor, engraved and with a blue metallic sheen

The Timeline
The gifts need to be back in Avalon in eight weeks, or in Port Jullar in nine weeks.

Overview Steps (maybe not in order)
1. Get steel broadsword, mithril armor, and Caputin Relic, from Grandfather
2. Get interpreter to speak Teutan, from teutan marine garrison?
3. Go visit human city of Impanema, to get guide to Hillorzin
4. Visit the Hillorzin Fairie Nexus, to get camphor for the breastplate
5. Visit mountain valley of the Varamai, to get sword enchanted
6. Arrange for Geodric to forge and engrave the breastplate
7. Deliver the armor and sword
8. Attend the wedding

Background Notes

• Ancient Galeric: version of Galeric used about 1000 years ago. Galeric works at sixth skill, Old Galeric at third skill.

• Caputin Monastic Order: Named after Caputin the Apostle, the Order still strictly follow the rules laid down by Caputin. Over the centuries other monastic orders have derived from the Caputin Order, but all have relaxed the rules, but still seek the ideal Utopian society. Sins of the Caputins: ownership, killing, vanity, lust, arrogance, sloth. Example rules: vegetarian, communal property, castration, celibacy, dilligence, no individual ownership, no use of coin, no ranks, no summoning, no enchanting, no proselytizing, no hair cutting or grooming, no bathing, no praise, no awards, no eating during the day, etc. The Order is quite small with possibly no more that a dozen monastaries. Only the Abbot can leave the monastary.

• Caputin Relic: Waterproof box with five sheets of degraded parchment written by the hand of Caputin. The five sheets have notes on the Holy Trinity spell which allows creation of a version more suited to the Caputin Monastic Order than the standard spell. The Relic was acquired inexpensively by Grandfather years ago and seen as of little special value until now.

• Five Leaves of Bamboo Tribe: Most important tribe along the Havanari River, about half the tribe are Golden Skin Cursed and none follow the ways of the Prophet, but instead follow the traditional ways of goblin spirit magic.

• Geodric: Teutan craftsman and member of the Caputin Monastic Order, speaks only Teutan and Ancient Galeric. Known as a master of mithril and has special abilities in working fairie juju into items.

• Golden Lotus: Powerful local spirit on the island of Jullar in the Vasth Hills. Many spirits in Fairie on Jullar have alliances with her. The reflection of the sun off the gold dome of the Golden Lotus Pavillion can be seen from the sea and the entire Pavillion is a famous landmark around the entire Inland Sea.

  Havanari River: Tributary of the Tapenga River, with a Caputin Monastary about 10 km from the Tapenga. About 100 meters wide along its main length. The most important tribe along the Havanari is the Five Leaves of Bamboo Tribe.

• Hillorzin (Fairie Nexus): Mountain valley with lake shrouded in fog which is home to dangerous apparitions and fairie creatures. The link to Fairie is strong here and many fairie creatures can cross over and live around the lake for long periods of time.

• Holy Trinity spell: Single spell combining three resist spells (damage, spell, spirit) into one. The skill in this spell adds to the lowest of the three spells for total skill for all three. The skill increases by experience as if it was over 100%. The spell cannot be used unless all three resist spells are already mastered (90%+).

• Impanema: (15,000) Human city along the Tapenga in the Crossed Umbrella Tribal lands. Heavily influenced by the teachings of the Prophet in all cultural aspects. The city is non-violent, democratic, and communal supporting the local human famers and paying tribute directly to the Chief of the Crossed Umbrella Tribe. The inhabitants speak Old Galeric and Goblin.

• Jullar: (22,000) Rich island kingdom along the major trade routes led by the del Bene Kings for generations. The current King, Lucino del Bene currently is in conflict with the people and spirits in the wilderness part of the island. The soldiers of the Jullar Civic Guard have kept the peace between the Jullar farmers and Tribe Heera. The traders of the Jullar Trade Guild bring many fine goods from all over the Inland Sea for sale in the many markets.

• Port Jullar: (30,000) Amazing natural harbor filled with the fat trade ships of the Jullar Trade guild. The markets of Jullar have many of the best goods of the lands all around the Inland Sea. The del Bene Citadel houses the many knights who owe fealty to King. Many knights on the eastern end of the Inland Sea also owe fealty to the King and often also visit the Citadel.

• Tapenga River: Has a huge river delta which is the home of several human and goblin pirate ships. 300 meter wide along most of the main length. Several significant clans live along the Tapenga, but few interact with or embrace the Emperor Tsivory or his politics.

• Varamai: Tribe of several hundred humans living in the remote Varamai valley surrounded by the Whiskered Helm Tribe in the lowlands. The speak the unrelated tongue of Varamai, but rumors say that several goblin shamen live with the tribe. Very old tales tell of the giants that used to travel the mountains here and were slew with special enchantments by the once clan-sized Varamai. Strangely, the Apostle Vamari came from this tribe (when they were a clan) but is supposedly unknown to them.

• Whiskered Helm Tribe: Tribe mostly reknown for breeding of fine dire wolf mounts for export to the goblins in the fertile plains outside of the Tapenga Valley. The Five Mothers of Gazzir control most of the political action in the tribe and along the Tapenga Valley. These old hags have been in the area since before the goblins arrived, but embraced the ways of the Prophet when the goblins of the tribe converted.

Adventure Outline

1. Get items

2. Getting interpreter to speak Teutan
2a. Sail to Tapenga river, start counting days
2b. Get accosted by Sweet Dick Wili, goblin pirate captain
2c. Get accosted by canoe-paddling human villagers

3. Go visit human city of Impanema, see Mayor Guccio Nahara and his daughter Roxanna.
3a. Need guide from the city to Hillorzin. The Mayor handles affairs like this.

4. Visit the Hillorzin Fairie nexus to get camphor for the armor.
Forest filled with gnomes, spirits, airy music and song, wierd forest creatures
Players may not actually meet any fairies.
Fairie bride from nexus [must not comment of her orgins]
Big orgy/festival for the visitors, many fairies try to get impregnated.
Possible Gift: Fairie Oinment, allows Fairie Sight
Captured fairie beast, a camphor from Hillorzin (for blue blood)

5. Make a deal with local pre-human indigenous tribe for enchantment of the sword.
5a. Bribe guards of Whiskered Helm Tribe to travel to valley
5b. Find that the Varamai want

Giant Slaying sword causes the total damage of the sword (including all magic) to be doubled when striking a giant. If a huge task is accomplished for the Varamai a giant killing sword could be made.
[Warning: does not work against giants who have been severed from Fairie.]

6. Arrange for Geodric to forge and engrave the armor

The Caputin monastary of Geodric is along a tributary of the Tapenga, the Havanari river.
The Order will be happy to receive relic, but Geodric the teutan says he will empower the plate with fairie powers if the party does them a favor. Fairie powers allow the wearer to follow a creature fleeing into fairie, and automatically return when that creature dies. This process is like enchanting and could potentially cause trouble if the other monks find out.

The Caputin Favor: The cannoot interact with the local goblin tribe. The want the party to set up relations again with the local tribe.

7. Deliver the Armor and Sword
Courtesy roll or meeting with the Lamberti family required

8. Attend the Wedding
8a. Golden Lotus attends the wedding and blesses the young prince.

Grandfather has Fairie Sight and can see the fairie bride, knows to tell the husband to never comment on her origin.

Fairie Sight: allows seeing any invisible things, see discorporated spirits, can see fairies as what they are.

970323.McKinney

Weddings and Good Fortune

So let me tell you about how Uncle Francesco met his match.

Grandfather had given us marching orders. See, there was this wedding coming up, and Baron Raggio, who we wanted to be in tight with, needed some wedding presents fit for a prince. So Grandfather makes this shopping list, right? We have to go into the goblin lands and get a Mithril breastplate forged with the blood of this magical critter, whose name I don't recall, and then have a sword enchanted with giant-killing powers.

There's this monastery, up in the goblin lands, right? With some _really_ looney monks, even wierder than the ones we have here. Only, they've got this master smith, who can forge things with the blood of this beast, oh yeah, it was a Camphor Beast, so we've got to deal with them. Now, we had recovered this relic from the Spini's on the expedition where we killed Gherardo, and it just happened that this thing was just what these monks wanted... it was a holy relic to them. So we loaded up the boat with the relic and a bunch of trade goods that we hoped we could sell for the sword, and took off to the goblin lands. We took a couple of the boys, just in case there was trouble. Boy, wasn't it lucky that we had that relic?

Well, there was more trouble than we bargained on. We got ambushed by Sweet Dick Willie and his gang of pirates on the river. Amerigo, he's quite a captain, but he was no match for the skill of Sweet Dick Willie an we were boarded. They had more than 2 to 1 odds, and Amerigo chose to surrender rather than see everyone killed. I chose to jump off the boat.

After some floundering around while I learned how to swim, I hatched a brilliant plan: I would pretend to drown. Only, I was already drowning, so this was a plan that came naturally. I went under many times and finally got caught in the ship's rudder, where I almost died. Finally I got loose, and realizing that they probably thought I was already dead, I hung on to the edge of the boat. As the pirate and our former boat sailed off, I let go and dogpaddled to shore. Wow, wasn't I lucky to be alive?

Well, there I was, unarmed and broke in unfamiliar goblin territory. So I just started walking along the shore until I got to a goblin village. There I hired a goblin fisherman to take me to the coast, paying him with some magical herbs I was carrying. At the coast, feeling lucky that I hadn't lost the herbs, I paid for passage back to Avalon.

I arrove at Avalon and told Grandfather about the tragedy. Just then, Lorenzo comes back with a ransom demand from Sweet Dick Willie, who, it seems, is in a good mood and amenable to ransoming everyone quickly and cheaply. Now, it just so happens that Grandfather, in a stroke of good fortune, is owed a favor by some unnamed badass, and we transfer this debt to Sweet Dick Willie. I ride back with Lorenzo and we sail on in our boat.

We stop at a city called Impanema, to hire a translator, if I recall correctly. Now, Francesco, who is normally not a guy to fall for some dame, gets all swoony over this woman who lives in the city. Now I must admit that this woman is very attractive and all, but that doesn't excuse Francesco's next move, which is to get married. It turns out that this whole village is full of sorcerers, and they do this big ceremony where they lay lots of heavy enchantments on Francesco and it's clear that if he wants to stay living, he had better be a good husband, which believe me, is not his natural inclination. The woman is a religious nut and, it turns out later, not even human. How fortunate for Francesco!

We hire some trackers and trek off to Faerie to catch a Camphor beast. Luckily, we get one quickly and have no unexpected problems.

We then travel up to the Caputin Monastery, where the Smith is who can forge with the blood of the Camphor beast. We make a deal where we go off and talk to the goblins for them, who are at a loss for how to interact with the Monks, who all have vows of silence and who mostly don't speak goblin. In return for our intercession, they forge the armour, even giving it the powers of the Camphor beast.

We then go further up in the goblin lands, hiring a large escort since they won't let us carry our weapons there. We reach a village of primitive humans, and get directions to where the great shaman is who knows about giant powers and forging. I meet him, and it just happens that he's looking for an apprentice to pass on all of his knowledge to. I make the deal that I'll come back and study with him when I'm older, and he makes a sword for us, which, basically, kills any giant it touches. He suggests that I go and study with the Oak Demon Queen in the meantime.

At the wedding, we're a big hit. The gifts we get are more impressive than everything else put together, and the family and Amerigo get lots of face and credit with Baron Raggio. Sure beats being sold into slavery!

970323.Shigeta

Shopping for Grandpa
Setting out on a little shopping trip for Il Padrino, we're goin' again to the goblin lands. Seems that the son of the Baronet Raggio is getting married and the old man wants to make an impression with some NICE things. He says, "Amerigo you and the boys go get these nice things for our friends." Amerigo jumps, not walks when the old man talks. According to Amerigo the plan is, get this fairy-lizard, get the teutan to rub its guts all over this here suit of armor, let this shaman guy do his thing badda boom badda bing we're goin' to a party here.

Well most of us know better than this. Most of the cousins are still nervous about those Spini wiseguys and how easy we took them and their boat in addition to which there are lots of pirates in the river we has to go. This is why we spend like two days in some miserable goblin town looking over the local 'talent' for reinforcements. Most of them don't know which end of a knife they're supposed to hold onto. Amerigo says he's going to bamboozle these yokels with his 'sea marshall' regalia. So he walks into this bar called the Bloody Spear (the goblins have quite a way with words) with this hat thats about a foot tall with these big mucky ugly ostrich feathers on it (failed human lore roll).

Even these hopeless losers here in this mudflat selling for a town take one look at the get up and they are laughing, asking for 5 or 6 silvers a day until Lorenzo takes the leader and pounds his head repeatedly into the splintery table (sucessful oratory and human lore rolls). He is not almost the most subtle, but the nuns always gave him the best grades in composition. We got a score of them for 3 sp/day. Good thing we didn't pay very much...seeing how they were worth exactly nothing.

Up the River without a Battle
We all know the Tapenga river delta is full of lowlife pirate scum like a melon left in the sun for a week is full of worms. Amerigo is protective of the boat, see and he's going in and out of the mouths of the delta. We see a boat, we turn around. We sit at sea (again) for a while. we go in, its too narrow. Mother Mary! You'd think we were in a revolving door.

Finally we have run out of time and we are going up one of the river mouths. It's a cakewalk for a while and there's these laughable gobins trying to catch our boat with their canoes and they're throwing rocks and waving their spears, but we blow right by them.

Finally we're gettin' closer to this armadillo fairy-thing. Everything is lookin' good for quite a while and I'm getting some Zs below decks, when suddenly I hear all this commotion.

Up on decks, there's a big to-do. Another ship? Its anchored right there in the middle of the river, and it's sails are coming down as we get closer to it. Lookin at Amerigo you can see he's not sure, but he decides to try to blow past them in our faster boat. It seemed like there was 50 bloodthirsty pirates on their decks, but we have all these mercenaries see?

As we're getting closer to the pirates, we have put up lots of magic and ready for battle. Suddenly Amerigo's yelling "surrender surrender!" and the bosun's hoisting a white flag and the next thing I know we're all on our butts because the pirates have rammed us.

The deck is swarming with pirates and they have all of us covered, searched the below decks and chained up all of the heavy fighting types.

Our 'mercenaries' were all herded into a corner where they was crying like babys and some of them (the ones what still had clean diapers) are getting roughed up by the pirates. Then I hear this splash and about half of the pirates go the the side of the ship. Luca apparently went over the side of the ship. What balls, I'm thinking, too bad for him he's going to bite it 'cause these guys are good.

They're screaming at him to come back or die and there is a passle of archers ready to shoot him on the shore. I'm getting ready to throw myself at the nearest bowmen, but he never comes up. They wait and wait and he never shows up.

So we're all thinking he's dead and we're captives of this weasel named Sweet Dick Wili. He is one of the notorious pirates in the region and a real professional. He talks to Amerigo, the captain in private a couple of times and Amerigo looks more wilted each time we see him. The good Lamberti name doesn't carry much weight with cutthroat pirates. Finally we have a conference and decide that we have to send for ransoms because otherwise we're all going to be professional barnacle scrapers for life. Lorenzo is sent off to Avalon in a goblin fishing skiff to haul back our ransom.

I'm telling you for a week or so we were pretty nervous. Grandfather would probably ransom us, but when you're sitting prisoner in a pirate brig you wonder who your friends are. When we could see Lorenzo coming off the skiff, he had no chests or barter goods with him, nothing. This worried us believe you me, but at least he came back and to our suprise all our stuff was loaded back on the boat, even the sword and mithral armor we need to get enchanted and soon we were on our way back up river. Grandfather came through for us.

What was even more suprising was that Luca was there waiting for us when we get out. He had some amazing story like he had held his breath for half an hour and clung to the rudder of the boat right under the pirate's noses for a couple of hours. He is lying like a snake or he is one lucky dog because I know him from childhood that he can't swim. Anyway he was there.

Impanema: Pinko Town
The first thing on this list, and I'm not makin' any of this up mind you, is an armadillo-thing from Faerie called a Camphor Beast. This thing is found, they say, up in the river Tapenga near a two-bit dot on the map named Impanema. After our little vacation with the Sweet Dick Willy nothing much happened and we get to Impanema pretty easily.

This is a little town near a Faerie juncture where we're supposed to find these Camphor Beasts. Every one in this town is a pinko. I mean they don't even use money or even take bribes (I mean gifts). The mayor and the guides he sent to us only ask us to do stuff for the town. What a bunch of perverts. The Mayor's daughter is taking us around and Franky is giving her the eye. He is quite the mover ever since we was kids. "Your hair is like this river of gold I seen in the Imperial Palace" Dames can be so dumb. She's totally taken in by his lines. "Really? You know so much about the world." Franky has never been to the imperial capitol, the 'Imperial Palace' is his favorite bordello in Port Casal.

By the time we have our hunting party ready with two Impaneman guides, Franky wants to stay in town 'guarding the boat'. Right. The Mayor's daughter is totally in his hand and he needs a couple of days to go in for the kill.

We spend about three days in Faerie (as if keeping track of time is of any use at all there) Tessa and I are checking out all of the plants looking for healing herbs and we find a couple good ones. The hunters catch a Camphor Beast, it seems like a little harmless thing about the size of a dog, but they say that it can bite your head off so we let them handle it. We spend a couple of days waiting for another one to show, but it never does.

When we get back Franky seems to have made a slip up. He and this girl Roxanna are going to get married! Whoa, this is too much because Francesco is definitely not the marrying type - he ain't looking for miss "right", he's looking for miss "right now". He thinks he's still totally in control, "Hey boys, I got it totally figured out. She won't let me ... you know but when we get married - badda boom badda bing!"

"You're gonna get married for that?"

"Well and if I get tired of her, she can find a job at the Imperial Palace."

Roxanna is a looker for sure, but I'm thinking I don't think she's gonna go for that. She is also the "City Adjutant" and I don't know what that means in 'pinko galeric' but I think that means she knows how to add one and one. (If you're married to Francky that adds up to zero and "however many he feels like it.") Ray mentions that he can see Roxana has a great power, enough to outclass any of us, much less Franky, but he doesn't seem to want to listen to that sort of thing.

So anyway there's this party and Ray and Franky are drinking like fish. I think the rest of us don't trust these people so much. They are too happy. so democratic. Ugh. They make good mead and the boys are having a good time. Its going to be a hell of a wedding.

The next day, the wedding day Domenico and Francescoy are weaving like reeds at the front of the gathering. Nearly the entire town shows up and these guys are distinctly green colored. The mayor makes a speech about how happy they will be and blah blah. I'm not paying much attention because I didn't sleep to good. Finally they hand over Franky's dowery. Figures. Its some book on their pinko belief system and when Ray looked it over later he says there isn't a single spell in the whole thing.

At least they don't throw up until after the ceremony and they make it to the back of the building. Still Franky has to be carried off to bed from his own wedding.

We hang around for the 'honeymoon' to get over. This period can vary for couples from months to a lifetime. In Francesco's case it was two days. Grandfather is not going to be happy about this.

Monks Monks Monks and Shamans
Our next stop is the Caputin monastery where we can get the armor enchanted. This whole thing is quick. They are so excited to see these pages which Grandfather sent for us to deal with them, they will do the armor in two days - a rush job. For a little favor they also volunteer to put the 'powers of the Camphor Beast' into the armor. We discuss in typical Lamberti style about our options and come inches from blows because these monks don't speak any civilized languages and we don't know what they mean.

Still we opt for the powers to be put in the armor and take care of the favor, which is to go to the town nearby and negotiate how the monks can get food from them. Lorenzo and Domenico take care of this while the rest of us cool our heels. The armor is boss with all of those extra powers. The Camphor Blood just makes the armor blue, but the powers are a fear spell and a Fanatacism which allows the wearer to parry, but no POW vs POW spells. That ought to make Grandfather happy.

The next leg of the trip happened pretty fast too. We have to spend some time working through the Whiskered Helm goblin lands and pay through the nose to keep our weapons on us, but I can't say it wasn't a good deal since we needed to keep the sword we wanted enchanted.

The old man said we needed to get the Varami Shaman to do the enchanting. The Varami lands have a really low quality of life. They have burnt sticks for spears, but their main defense seemed like it was never taking a bath.

We spend a lot of time talking to a crazy clan shaman and his apprentice takes us to see Vara Harrack, the Varami Grand Shaman. This guy is really impressive. Says he's a few hundred years old and can enchant the sword to kill giants on contact. He's playing up to Luca though, because he wants him to be an apprentice. Finally Luca agrees to show up when he's forty or so and learn his path to power. Such a deal.

On the way back out we have to grease a few goblin palms which are pretty greasy already and Sweet Dick Wili's ship just waves at us as we pass. There's a three day storm on the way back to Avalon, but its pretty easy getting back.

Avalon
It has taken us 45 days to fill his shopping list, but Grandfather is pretty impressed by the goods. Nice, like I said. We all get back on the Graffon and we get to go to the wedding. I can tell Grandfather has been shaking his finger at Franky because he's behaving himself, combing his hair, staying home nights. For now. Of course finding out that Roxana is a civilized dryad who

At the wedding the sword and the armor are a real hit. This spirit/god named the Golden Lotus floats up to us at the reception. She is playing to Luca like nobody's business to follow her path, but she seems to be interested in us all because of the gifts we brought. She even gives Franky a gift when he's sour grapes on his wife. She says if he meditates a few weeks at her pavillion she will fall in line. I can't picture Francesco sitting still for a three hour play, much three weeks of meditation. We'll see.