Post date: Sep 01, 2016 8:43:25 PM
These session summaries were originally posted to The Piazza in May 2013, and have been edited to remove spoilers for future sessions. Out-of-character commentary is in italics.
Sessions 16-17 (4/13/2013, 5/11/2013)
The PCs spent some time acquiring suitable garb for the opera, and companions. Inacio asked Yahasha (the hadozee conjurer who they recently rescued from Crab Island), who in turn made sure that he would be as presentable as possible (a difficult feat, given he's an ape with a very poor Charisma). Harissa found an attractive young elf, Randal, who quickly fell prey to her charms and offered to take her. Marisol and Larkspur simply attended the opera with each other (and the druid's penguin) without any romantic overtures. Then they were off to the opera, full of curiosity about what form the curse on the play would take--and anticipating an enjoyable evening of schadenfreude.
At the Opera House, Rikard Burbage welcomed the audience, and exchanged some barbs with Councilor Nathan Grymes, one of the patrons who helped pressure the director into finally producing this delayed anniversary celebration.
The Pallid Mask is set in the kingdom of Yhtill, where the king has recently died and his queen has not yet chosen his successor. Act I consists of the debate between her and her three sons, who all loudly attest that they should be the next king. Their meeker sister attempts to make peace, but is largely ignored. Finally, the queen has had enough of the bickering, and declares that she will hold a ball celebrating her dead husband's legacy and the glory of their family. She will announce her decision about the succession there. As she finishes this aria, a city suddenly appears across the lake outside the throne room's windows.
During the intermission, Larkspur noticed that many of the musicians in the orchestra seemed anxious, but couldn't tell whether it's from nerves about the supposedly cursed play, or something more. Marisol recalled that the rumors about the cursed opera never talk about the end of the play. Meanwhile Harissa got better acquainted with Randal, who turned out to be a professional burglar, and had spent some time on boats. [Harissa's player wishes to take Leadership at 6th level, and wants a cohort who can provide some skills the party lacks, as well as help operate their ship. Assuming Randal survives the night, he will likely become that cohort.]
Act II opens with the ball, and rumors are flying about a mysterious masked stranger who has arrived in the city. This figure appears at the ball, and is questioned by the royal family. He speaks in riddles about a Last King who will soon appear. The queen commands him to remove his mask, but he claims to wear no mask. He is taken away to be tortured until he reveals who he is and what his business here is. (At this point, the orchestra starts to make several noticeable mistakes.) The ball breaks up, and the stranger is soon recalled to the throne room, where he is interrogated further, but strangely, no further mention is made of the mask he still wears. The queen is infuriated by his riddles and orders him executed. As he dies, strange lights come from the city across the lake, which now appears much closer. He proclaims that the Last King, who has a terrible Name, has arrived to claim Yhtill, which has now become Carcosa. The final lines of the opera are the royal family's cries of fear and despair about what their fates will be.
Upon the naming of the Last King (a name that Marisol recognized as one of the more obscure names for the Unspeakable One), some of the audience appeared to be entranced by the music and light show, while others fainted or screamed in terror. When the stranger died, the ghost of the composer, Fiarella Donadrien, appeared in one of the box seats. At the opera's conclusion, the stranger stood, revealing an amulet of the Yellow Sign, and Donadrien began singing her opera in the original Elven. At that point, both the audience and the orchestra turned into a panicked mob and stampeded out of the theater.
Harissa, being just a few boxes away from the ghost, acrobatically leaped across boxes to engage the ghost. Meanwhile the others, whose seats were on the ground level, took on the stranger, who cast a couple of spells upon himself, then at his attackers. They made short work of the Yellow Sign cultist, who was revealed to be a serpent person who had taken human form. Inacio made a point to stabilize the creature so that they could interrogate it later. The party then focused on the ghost, whose corrupting gaze only worked upon Randal--and nearly killed him, so he wisely left the fight to the others. Eventually they destroyed the ghost--for now, but she will almost certainly return to haunt the Opera House again.
The party now has an unconscious serpent person to smuggle out of the opera, as well as a random assortment of potentially valuable objects dropped by fleeing patrons. Rather than braving the mob clogging the exits, and anyone who might be responding to the emergency, they intend to look for a secret way out through the backstage and basement areas. Now that he's had some healing, Randal should prove invaluable there.
Session 18 (5/27/2013)
The PCs stripped loot from the unconscious serpent person, and made a quick search for any valuables dropped by fleeing patrons. Then they heard footsteps heading back towards the theater, so abandoned their idea of questioning the cultist. They ducked backstage and cut some ropes to make a mess to cover their escape. One of the boits of dropped scenery landed square on the serpent person, which neatly avoided any possibility of it identifying the PCs if questioned. As they fled, they heard the tread of armored men (likely the Watch) and shouted curses (some of them recognizably Burbage's).
The two hadozee were able to keep their bearings as the party (and their dates) fled into the bowels of the Opera House. As they reached the levels of the sewers, they were attacked by a group of monkey-like creatures who stole some of their valuables before fleeing. Thanks to a well-timed web, the little monsters were caught and dispatched, and the items recovered. [These were monkey demons, from Jade Dragons & Hungry Ghosts. They're only minor nuisances for this group, particularly since they completely failed to bite anyone (which would have inflicted "monkey madness" on a failed save).] They then found the entrance to the sewers, and made their way back to the surface without incident, apart from one PC slipping and completely fouling her finery. Randal proved useful in opening locked grates into the tunnels and out to the street above, as well as helping Harissa pass their well-dressed group off as people who belonged in the Merchant's District, rather than the lawless ruffians they really were.