Skycrawl Dungeon World - Session 7

Lost? Read this.

Click here for part 1. 

Click here for parts 5 and 6.

Dramatis Personae

Player Characters

• 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

• "The Druid" – A female human druid with no name
• Lieutenant Paragon Douglas – a human fighter, officer in the royal navy, and professional investigator
• Rosemary – A female human ranger

Non-Player Characters

• Lady Gavit Vesnool – A female zorakith, a powerful telepath and psion of the ruling "Mesmer" class. Middle aged with a slender build. She has long brown hair in intricate braids and wears light colored elegant gowns
• Lord Berdek Nostrod – Male zorakith and Mesmer. Middle aged, large and somewhat overweight. Dark hair pulled back into a topknot. Always smoking a pipe, to which he is addicted. Not above sending armed thugs to intimidate or rough-up his enemies. Has a spindlefolk woman as a consort, which is considered scandalous.
• Lord Gonren Nostrod – Young male zorakith and Lord Berdek's nephew. A talented telepath and died-in-the-wool cynic. Haughty and amoral.

Summary

    Following the lead from the zorakith thugs who they conscripted, the heroes went to Lord Berdek’s manor. Through Wilkin’s ability to sense magic, they inferred that the dragon eggs were being kept in a stone outbuilding, which turned out to be the stables.

    Wilkins, and the Druid, in eagle form, staked out the building until a party of glasswings arrived. Wilkins and the Druid saw that the glasswings were there to take possession of the dragon eggs, and shortly after they arrived, Lord Berdek arrived as well. They conducted their transaction, and the glasswings left with the eggs in tow.

    As soon as the glasswings left, the heroes attacked them, killing two, maiming another, and incapacitating two others. They took the survivors hostage and interrogated them, learning that they were hired to purchase the eggs on behalf of an anonymous third party. They were told to take the eggs to a land consisting of a clump of rocks with a large stone tower, where they would deliver them to their mysterious client.

    The heroes handed the eggs and the prisoners over to the Council of Mesmers, who praised them for their discrete handling of the situation. Lady Vesnool thanked them with a phire coin (1000 coin value) and also asked them to keep the affair a secret.

    It turned out that Lord Berdek had taken a spindlefolk woman as a consort, which is scandalous in zorakith society in and of itself. He stole the eggs to try and pay off her considerable gambling debt, as her family were in Casarbon looking for her at the same time as the players.

    The following morning, the players met with the telepath, Lord Gonren Nostrod, who was in fact Lord Berdek’s nephew, who was assigned to the task of helping the players commune with a Sol. Lord Gonren assured them that disputes like these were fairly common among the noble houses of Casarbon, and that he had no hard feelings against them.

    After some debate as to where to go next, the players consulted the chart and found that Trinellonde’s Lantern was drawing near, which is a land of powerful magicians who imprisoned their Sol in a cage. Reasoning that they could provide valuable intel, and that it was closer than there other two leads of Argus or Sollifex Aether, they set a course for Trinellonde’s Lantern.

TL;DR

    The heroes staked out Lord Berdek's mansion and saw him sell the eggs to a group of glasswings. They jumped the party of glasswings, got back the eggs, and learned that the glasswings were being paid to smuggle the eggs to a mysterious third party.

    Lady Gavit thanked them for handling it discretely and paid them a bonus. She also assigned Lord Berdek's nephew, Lord Gonren Nostrod, to accompany the players on their quest. And thus they set out for Trinellonde's Lantern.

Concluding Thoughts

    I left a couple of different hooks for them in this quest, but they didn't seem interested in following up on either of them. The spindlefolk looking for their wayward sister-turned-Lord Berdek's consort was a way of tying events to the overarching pirate thread, and the theft of the dragon eggs was tied to ooleum plot thread. Nevertheless, they decided to continue following the main quest of "find a new sun" by going to a place where they might learn more about Sols. On the one hand, I was glad I got to use the prep I made for Trinellonde's Lantern, but on the other hand, I'm a little perplexed on how best to raise danger and hint at looming threats when they're just going from place to place and ignoring threats on the side.

    May not be an issue since they're all having fun, but it hints at a blind spot in my prep.

Skycrawl Dungeon World - Sessions 5 and 6

 Lost? Read this.

Click here for part 1. 

Click here for part 4.

Dramatis Personae

Player Characters

• 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

• "The Druid" – A female human druid with no name
• Lieutenant Paragon Douglas – a human fighter, officer in the royal navy, and professional investigator

Non-Player Characters

• Lady Gavit Vesnool – A female zorakith, a powerful telepath and psion of the ruling "Mesmer" class. Middle aged with a slender build. She has long brown hair in intricate braids and wears light colored elegant gowns
• Brila Keiz – Female zorakith. A small-framed woman of early maturity and pale yellow fur. Wears unflattering, utilitarian clothing. An important breeder of dragons, who thinks Casarbon could stand to flex their military might some more.
• Solgen – Male zorakith. A portly, middle-aged zorakith of dark red fur. Proprietor of a public bathhouse frequented by guards and soldiers: apolitical
• Lord Berdek Nostrod – Male zorakith and Mesmer. Middle aged, large and somewhat overweight. Dark hair pulled back into a topknot. Always smoking a pipe, to which he is addicted. Not above sending armed thugs to intimidate or rough-up his enemies. Has a spindlefolk woman as a consort, which is considered scandalous.

Summary

    The players set out from the Vasana Range to the land of Casarbon to search for a skilled telepath who can help them commune with the Sols. En-route, they found a hospital ship where the crew had all mysteriously died somehow. The hospital ship was crewed by a race of people they had never seen before, which were tall, pale, and had four eyes. They had apparently died from asphyxiation on noxious fumes which enveloped the ship.

    They towed the ship to Casarbon. They found that Casarbon took the shape of an enormous tree with leafy crowns on either end of its miles-long trunk. The zorakith, the race of telepathic, anthropomorphic fox people, used mind-controlled monsters for everyday labor. In particular, there was a flock of mind-controlled dragons harnessed to the tree to pull it around.

    Upon their arrival, they were immediately taken to an audience with the Mesmers, the council of the strongest telepaths who rule zorakith society.

    The Mesmers agreed to give them a team of expert telepaths to help on their quest if they gave them the ship, and discovered who stole a clutch of special dragon eggs from the rookery, which would avoid a scandal. They went to the dragon rookery and met Brila Keiz, the lead dragon-breeder. She seemed evasive, and clearly knew more than she let on.

    The Druid shifted into a bloodhound, and thus discovered a distinctive scent trail that led from the incubator to the back door, but there were no signs of forced entry.

    The players followed the scent trail as far as they could go. It led them from the rookery to an alleyway to a bathhouse. The found footprints indicating it was a group of 3-5 zorakith who committed the theft.

    At the bathhouse, Lieutenant Paragon Douglas interrogated the proprietor, a zorakith man named Solgen. Solgen suggested that the scent they found was “trail mask,” a chemical used by criminals to disguise their scent so they can’t be positively identified. He mentioned that the guards and soldiers of many noble houses used his bathhouse, and he didn’t keep too close of an eye on their comings and goings.

    While they were there, they realized a nondescript male zorakith was eavesdropping on them, but he gave them the slip before they could confront him. They went back to the alleyway where the path turned to the bathhouse where they were ambushed. Six zorakith thugs in plainclothes, one of them riding a giant flying jellyfish (or “jellybird”), confronted them and said that they didn’t appreciate foreigners snooping around in their business, whereupon they attacked.

    The players killed three of the thugs and the remaining three were sufficiently cowed that they surrendered. They said they worked for the Mesmer Lord Berdek Nostrod, and they didn’t know why he wanted them dead. They took the surrendering thugs as “interns,” and Taiyo (who had just taken the ranger animal companion move as a multiclass move), took the jellybird as her animal companion, naming him “Shroom.”

    Thus, the party set about finding a way into Lord Berdek’s estate.

TL;DR

    The players reached Casarbon, and the telepathic rulers of the zorakith people, the Mesmers, told them they would give a team of skilled telepaths if they agreed to find out who stole a clutch of dragon eggs.

    The players were eventually jumped by a gang of thugs working for the Mesmer Lord Berdek Nostrod, and after defeating them, they plotted a way to break into his estate.

Concluding Thoughts

    I feel like this side quest got a little bit off the rails. The random encounter I rolled up for the journey to get there took up a significant portion of time, so much so that they ended up spending three sessions in total on Casarbon. This is about the point where I begin to think of traveling from place to place, and having random encounters along the way, is more of an obligation than an asset to good game design. I may need to reflect on this point more.