Assassins in Ankar - The Land of Jo'Ril, Chapter 23

The party is attacked while they sleep by the Black Saints. 

We are playing Old School Essentials, which is another way of saying Basic D&D circa 1981.

The Party:

• Arrn, level 4 magic user 
• Wumpus, level 4 dwarf
• Waverly, level 4 ranger
• Andrew Price, level 4 cleric
• Gordon Binghampton, level 5 cleric
• Boots Stavish, level 1 half-elf
• Litera Hildetrude, a level 1 Halfling NPC hireling
• Alard Lacey, a charmed NPC man-at-arms
• Shan Luneer, an NPC scribe in the employ of Gordon Binghampton.

Here's a quick summary of their hex-crawl exploration of the land of Jo'Ril as generated by HEXROLL.

DM Note - Be aware, we are playing full-on tomb plunderers. We are aware of and deplore the real-world issues of colonialism, cultural theft, etc. We are role-playing characters and situations with different cultural mores and norms than our own. This is not an endorsement on our part for such behavior in the real world. 

The session began with an ambush!

Multiple well-armed and heavily armored veterans and acolytes descended upon the party while they slept in comfortable beds in a traveler's hostel. However, they made sure to wake them first, shouting, "This is the revenge of the Black Saints!"

Each of the characters were in different rooms and were forced to deal with their attackers on their own. 

Arrn cast a sleep spell, putting his attackers out of commission immediately. His charmed bodyguard went to work dispatching the incapacitated foes.

Andrew Price said a prayer of Hold Person, paralyzing one of his three opponents.

Gordon Binghampton likewise said a prayer of Hold Person, paralyzing one of his three opponents. As it happened, he paralyzed the most dangerous of the group.

Wumpus was on the latrine when he was ambushed. He fought off his attackers wearing no pants!

Waverly jumped out of bed, throwing the blanket over one attacker while stabbing the other with a dagger. She quickly grabbed her magic flaming sword to continue the fight.

Litera was not attacked, but hearing the commotion she rushed out into the hall to lend a hand with her bow.

Soon all the attackers were killed, save one prisoner. The proprietor of the hostel appeared and apologized profusely. The rooms were locked and only a servant girl had the key. Indeed, the hostel should have been secure. The only way attackers could have gained entry is if a worker at the hostel, someone with the master key, let them in. That person was a servant girl who had gone missing.

They turned to interview their bound prisoner. As it happened, the prisoner revealed that it was a doppelganger. It explained that it was a mercenary hired by the Black Saints to infiltrate key locations around Jo'Ril, looking for potential test subjects that could easily disappear. The doppelganger said it was the servant girl and that it recognized the party. The Black Saints had issued orders to all its agents to assassinate the party on sight for their disruption of the Black Saint's operation at the Shrine of the Feared Order. The doppelganger informed its contact in Ankar and the contact sent the assassins. The doppelganger then let the assassins in using its key.

DM Note- there was also some great roleplaying where the doppelganger taunted them, turning into each of them, allowing me to mimic the players and their characters, as well as issuing veiled threats against the characters using what it could read from their surface thoughts.

Waverly told the others that the Black Saints were capturing and exsanguinating elves, using their blood for awful experiments. They also captured human test subjects. Their goal is to create a potion that transforms the drinker into superhuman immortal warriors known as Varongir. The Black Saints is led by Alviva Nadalberga, former associate of Aleria the Alchemist. The Black Saints was currently looking for the Aclebalda family amulet. The amulet was magical, it read minds and stored memories. It contained the memory of a ritual used to summon a demon known as Amanar, who was necessary for creating Varongir. 

Waverly said that Caloanna Aclebalda's son had taken the amulet to hide it within the Caverns of the Grey Goblin. Alviva discovered this and was looking for the amulet.

The doppelganger laughed.

"You have most of it right but you are SO wrong on several key points. First, Amanar is not a demon, it's a celestial being of Law - a demiurge. It creates life. Second, that was weeks ago. Alviva has likely already discovered the amulet by now! Look, I have no love for these zealots. I can help you. Set me free and I will tell you where you can find Alviva and the rest of her cronies!"

Waverly said, "How can we trust you?"

The doppelganger replied, "What do you suggest?"

Waverly said, "Tell us who your contact is. If that checks out, we'll do what you said."

"Deal. My contact is Dolerama of Valasia. She runs the courier office here in town. She handles all the communication and correspondence for the Black Saints."

Waverly paused, "That name sounds familiar. Wait! I saw her yesterday! I gave her a package to send to our house in Kömür! She knows where we live now!"

The party went to confront Dolerama. Dolerama attempted to flee but was easily caught due to her limp. As she was dragged back to her courier office, she called out for help, declaring she was being robbed and asked witnesses to call the city guard!

DM Note - the city guard, as was previously foreshadowed in last week's session, was draconian. Thieves were impaled on stakes outside of town.

The party had short time to interrogate Dolerama. They asked her where she kept the courier packets. She confidently informed them they were protected by a heavy combination vault!

Arrn said, "That vault there?" and cast a Knock spell. The vault popped open. 

Dolerama sank.

Within were dozens of courier packets addressed to all parts of Jo'Ril. Several had small claw marks scratched into a corner. These were the sign of the Black Saints. Waverly took them. Arrn took the rest and cast a spell of Invisibility, "I'm taking these for later. Handle the city guard, I'll be around."

The city guard arrived before Waverly could examine the packets. Pylae, the captain of the guard, landed astride a magnificent hippogriff. 

Captain Pylae demanded an explanation. Waverly truthfully told her side of events - describing the nighttime attack by the Black Saints and making the claim that Dolerama was their agent. He offered the courier packets as evidence in his defense and told the captain of the guard that they had a doppelganger in custody back at the traveler's hostel. Both the doppelganger and the proprietor of the hostel could corroborate their story. 

Captain Pylae manacled Waverly's wrist to his own and ordered Wumpus, Litera, and Shan Luneer, Gordon Binghampton's scribe, to be likewise manacled. Gordon Binghamtpon and Andrew Price were not manacled in deference to their positions as priests of the Celestial Hieararchy. 

They returned to the traveler's hostel. The proprietor corroborated the account of the attack. When they went to interrogate the doppelganger, they found the servant girl bound to the bed. The servant girl was afraid, claiming that the party had attacked and tied her up. The hostel proprietor admitted he had seen no doppelganger and verified the identity of the servant girl.

Waverly said, "Wait! I can prove this is a doppelganger! Hold the girl's nose and mouth so that she can't breathe, wait until she falls unconscious, she'll revert!"

DM Note- this was based on a flawed memory on the player's part of how doppelgangers worked. 

Captain Pylae did not like this plan but was convinced. He asphyxiated the girl into unconsciousness. She did not revert.

The captain of the guard was livid, "You fiend! You will be punished!"

Waverly, desperate now, drew her dagger with her free hand and stabbed the girl in the throat!

Captain Pylae and another guard struggled against Waverly, unsuccessfully trying to restrain her. Waverly stabbed the girl two more times, red human blood pouring out.

The girl died and reverted back to its doppelganger form. The red blood turned black and ichorous. 

Captain Pylae blanched. 

With her story verified, it was determined that Waverly had killed the men in the hostel in self-defense and that the murder of the doppelganger was justified given the circumstances. Waverly and the others were released while Dolerama was arrested. Waverly and the others were instructed to leave town and not come back. 

Waverly told the others that knowledge of where they lived was heading to Kömür as they spoke. Courier riders could reach Kömür by the end of the day. Their home and anything stored within it was in jeopardy. Their plan was to use the recently discovered teleport gate to get back to Kömür before the couriers could.

The party left Ankar and traveled to the magical teleport gate in Hex 30. They built a bonfire in the circle and tossed in a parchment with the sigil of the destination, Hex 77. They jumped into the fire.

To be continued.

DM Notes-

And that's where we left it for now, on a cliffhanger. 

I had a discussion with the players, asking their opinion of Old School Essentials and B/X. This was both an experiment and an indulgence for me as DM. I had been wanting to run B/X and OSE for a long time as well as use HEXROLL to generate a random hexcrawl setting.

They players admitted that B/X and OSE was fun but not their favorite. They wanted to return to D&D 5E. 

However, they REALLY enjoyed the HEXROLL setting and hexcrawl and wanted to continue the characters and stories they started. 

So we're taking a break from this campaign for a few weeks so I can run a playtest of an adventure I'm writing for Stars Without Number - an anthology of space western stories called "Six Weeks on Zephyrus-2". 

After that, we'll return to Jo'Ril, but using D&D 5E and playing in Roll20. 

I also need to determine the contents of the correspondence that Arrn stole.