Dungeons and Dragons
The chase, the heist, the great escape, and how our heroes became pirates!
After chasing the sacked gold from Greenest's siege, the Laughing Stock ended up in Elturel. A sanctuary of Clerics from all over the land, the holy city and its eternal mysterious light suspended above it, it became a hotbed of spies and intrigue. Following the enigmatic spy organisation, the 'Harpers' directions, they ended up spending the night in a safehouse, a pub oddly named 'A Black Pair of Antlers', where after charming its occupants with a rousing performance, they were inducted as associates of the Harpers and gained Leosin (middle right) as a formal, though reluctant, ally.
Taking up the mission to track the gold instead of retrieving it, to find out just what the Dragon Cult had planned, the team raced across the land on Norsett horses, famed for their speed and surefootedness when supplied with Norsett herbs, which carry a small risk to the horses. After assessing the risk of attacking the canal boats en route and satisfied to observe their passage, a plan was formed....
A bad plan. A heist. Reaching the massive city of Baldur's Gate, our Laughing Stock embarked upon a robbery, in broad daylight, on a busy dock, with lots of people around...
In the most unfortunate of turns, the Laughing Stock scaled the store building, failed to unlock a window, succeeded in dropping the window frame (making a huge amount of smashing noise) and then falling inside, knocking over dozens of barrels and other stored items. Needless to say, the infamous Red Wizard Azbara and his cronies who were disguised with a glimmer spell, were immediately alerted. What resulted was an epic, horrifying and decidedly one sided battle. Some tried to stop the gold from being moved, others attacked the Red Wizard outright, and one or two spent time climbing around on roof tops. Ultimately climbing to the roof top was a benefit, considering Azbara's final blow was to raise a tidal wave in the harbour, destroying the East Baldur's Gate docks, before fleeing on his ship the 'Gythia'.
In pursuit and in larger part fleeing the imminent detainment by officials, our players boarded the 'Rollin Rhoda' a passenger ship (Bottom right), along with any number of either registered occupants or opportunists jumping on the last boat to leave Baldur's Gate. The captain laid out his plan to flee to the summer isles until things 'settled down', sadly this didn't sit well with at least one unregistered passenger... for in the night the crew were slain, making room for the Laughing Stock to take up command of the vessel and steer it back on course for the Gythia. Odd and opportune, a murder mystery was at hand, with an odd brow beaten man claiming to be a superhero one minute and a confused sickly pauper the next or a precocious female gnome who disappeared the same night.
After extensive investigation, at the same time as vetting and organising the passengers into a makeshift crew, the Laughing Stock found a small mechanical submarine ship anchored to the back of the boat. Messing with the controls forced the killer to reveal herself and implement a different plan, she now currently holds the ship hostage by rigging the gun fluid in the base of the ship to blow unless she is granted safe passage in pursuit of the Gythia. A temporary and precarious truce is now underway.
Along the way, the poor, deluded old man pretending to be a superhero was revealed in fact to be a member of the 'Hootsforce' (Lower) a genuine albeit unconventional superhero team from many years previously, now subjugated via a magical negation tattoo from his former arch enemy 'The Vole'. After freeing him by removing the tattoo, he accessed his magical 'Hootsforce' power and ascended to the sky on magical cloaked wings. To be recalled as a favour whenever our players need his help.
In the night following, a message was received, clearly coded and will inform our next adventure...
