Skycrawl Dungeon World - Session 4

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Click here for part 1. 

Click here for part 3.

Dramatis Personae

Player Characters

• "Hire" – a gruff, serious ranger-for-hire who wonders if he might be the only one actually paid to be here
• Taiyo – a forest nymph bard, who was implored by the voice of the forest to seek a replacement sun and save the world, and thus joined this mission
• Wilkins – former raven familiar to a now-dead master; an illusionist and informant to Princess Claire

Non-Player Characters

• Captain Jeremiah Hawthorne – minor gentry way in over his head

• Romz deZemler – a smuggler of the leonine "lirovan" race. Tall and athletic, with a mane of golden hair. Missing one ear. Wears a fine yet functional vest embroidered with battle scenes. Friendly, if sarcastic and cynical.

• Hagora deGurn – An elderly lirovan woman. A fortune teller and shaman, well loved and respected by the community of Kighara. 

• Godom deNilmid – A male lirovan with a chiseled appearance, freckled skin, black hair. Wears the distinctive wide-brimmed hat of an orcerer. He and his wife Dorala have combined the trades of orcerer, money-changer, minter, and apothecary.

• Brien Fancroth – A member of the "spindlefolk" race, of unnaturally tall, zero-G adapted people. Short black hair and black beard. Wears glasses. Doesn’t look half as ruthless and cruel as he is. Formerly a member of the Black Worm Pirates, condemned to die.

• Thrac, the Apothecary – A member of the amorphous, slime-like "ooleum" race. Blue body. Come to the Vasana Range with a handful of mercenaries, seeking poisonous ingredients for some sinister purpose.

Summary

            In the last session, the village elder Hagora deGurn told the heroes many interesting plot hooks, but specifically asked them to seek out the local nature spirit, Kurakka the Thunder Serpent and administer a potion to heal his ailment.

            While they were gathering further information around town, the opening ceremonies of the Great Hunt commenced. Among the condemned criminals was a man convicted of piracy: Brien Fancroth, a member of the same race of the pirates who attacked them in the first session: an unnaturally tall, pale humanoid with feet-like hands. He was first mate of a ship that had flown under the same banner as the other pirates: a black squiggly line on a white circle on a black background.

            While searching the crowd, Wilkins the raven found two oolea, an amorphous slime-like race, and two glasswings, a humanoid dragonfly-like race, conversing. He quickly realized that these oolea were associates of the oolea who had come to Godom’s shop asking to buy toxic reagents. They said someone named “Thrac” needed more reagents to finish their work, and they needed to wrap up quickly to report back to someone named “Thatoo.”

            Realizing that these people were likely responsible for poisoning Kurakka and driving him mad, the heroes agreed to head towards Kurakka’s lair and investigate. Hire, meanwhile, still had not told the others about his pact with Death to kill the serpent.

            They travelled for a little over a day, and thanks to Hire’s tracking ability, soon realized that the two oolea and two glasswings they had observed had already headed in the same direction as they were heading. They also witnessed that the environment surrounding the cave was poisoned and desolate, with giant herbivorous reptiles lying dead and giant monstrous mosquitos feasting on their corpses.

            They entered the cave that was Kurakka’s lair and came face to face with one of the oolea and two of the glasswings, who held them at gunpoint and demanded they identified themselves. The heroes convinced them they were only there to talk, and after disarming themselves, were led into the cave.

            There, they found the enormous horned serpent Kurakka, drugged and dying. And they found that the oolea and the glasswings had set up a base camp and alchemical laboratory there. The leader of their gang identified himself as “Thrac,” and explained that he and his colleagues were performing biological weapons research with Kurakka as their test subject, as a plot for revenge against the zorakith people who had laid waste to their home Land of Pedrona.

Thrac offered them employment as mercenaries, but quickly became suspicious when Hire started asking them about who would ultimately get to kill Kurakka, as he was trying to fulfill his pact with Death. Ultimately, Thrac decided they couldn’t be trusted and knew too much, and ordered them killed.

Hire dove through a hail of bullets, taking the brunt of their assault, but successfully attacking Thrac. Thrac was killed instantly, and the glasswing mercenaries who witnessed this were persuaded to seek employment elsewhere. The remaining two oolea fought to the death, throwing vials of poison at the party before they also were killed.

With the combat finished, Taiyo proceeded to administer the healing potion to Kurakka. Hire watched on, knowing that his pact was in jeopardy, but hesitant to turn on his allies.

The heroes loaded up all the alchemical equipment and supplies they could carry and headed back to town. On the way back, a rainstorm came, and when they looked up, they saw Kurakka the Thunder Serpent returned to his full resplendence, soaring through the air and bringing rainclouds in his wake.

Upon their return they were feted as heroes. Godom, the local apothecary and orcerer, agreed to outfit their ship with an “orchemical sieve,” a device for extracting heavy elements from the air during flights, in exchange for the equipment they salvaged from the oolea’s hideout.

Thus their mission in the Vasana Range was complete, but with Hire’s pact with Death unresolved. Though the rest of the party doesn’t know, Hire’s life will soon be forfeit if he cannot find a way to kill Kurakka.

TL;DR

The heroes eavesdropped on a crowd until they found some of the people who were responsible for poisoning Kurakka the Thunder Serpent. They tracked them down to their lair and discovered that they were doing covert biological weapons research using Kurakka as a test subject. Attempts to negotiate broke down and they ended up fighting. Though Hire was tasked with killing Kurakka by Death, he refused to betray his allies, and they successfully administered a healing potion to Kurakka.

Kurakka made a full recovery and the heroes were rewarded. Hire, however, died offscreen due to a failure to fulfill his pact with Death.

Concluding Thoughts

I think this is the session where Van Krinkel's player decided to peace out. And Hire's player also dropped the game due to schedule conflict, so he effectively ended up dying offscreen.

One thing that was interesting about this scenario is that I essentially gave the players a branching path, to choose which one of the big story threads they wanted to chase down: the pirates, or the oolea biological weapons researchers. They chose the latter, and the possible pirate informant, Brien Fancroth, was killed in the Great Hunt.