Post date: Sep 02, 2016 12:42:33 AM
These session summaries were originally posted to The Piazza in May, June, and July 2015, and have been edited to remove spoilers for future sessions. Out-of-character commentary is in italics.
Now that "Winds of Freeport" has concluded, GM Notes for "Mystery of the Merfolk" (with stat blocks and other details) have been posted to this wiki.
Session 29 (5/23/2015)
Damarak heard of a retired gnome sailor, "Old Tom" Oakstaff, known for his tall tales of the merfolk. The party tracked down Old Tom in one of his favorite dives on the Docks, regaling the crowd with thrilling battles against the hated sea-devils and his bawdy tales of romancing bonny mermaids.
The PCs plied Tom with drink to learn more about the disappearance of the local merfolk. Oakstaff told them about the long war between the merfolk and sahaugin of the Serpent's Teeth, in which the sea-devils ultimately wiped out the merfolk's reef village a few years ago. He gave them the location of that settlement, and the approximate direction of the sahuagin tribe's home. Tom also shared general information about the sea-devils' society, language, and religion, and revealed their few weaknesses: sensitivity to light, and a tendency to frenzy when blooded. Tom hopes that some of his friends survived to join their distant kin elsewhere, but the race hasn't been sighted near Freeport since then. The party returned to the ship to discuss what they'd learned, and decided to investigate the ruined village before plotting revenge on the sea-devils.
When they reached the site, Larkspur and her crocodile reconnoitered underwater. They saw sharks in the area, and as they approached the edge of the village, the druid caught sight of a few sea-devils lurking in the ruins. She returned to the ship to report this, then cast life bubble to allow the party to survive underwater. The non-swimmers advanced along the sea floor, while Inacio charged ahead astride his elasmosaurus to engage the sea-devils and sharks in combat. After taking out this first group (leaving one merely unconscious), they faced reinforcements led by a priestess. This wave was also vanquished, and the priestess subdued and taken prisoner. (A well-timed glitterdust by Harissa's cohort Virali neutralized the cleric long enough to prevent her using her own spells.) The party retreated to the boat with their prisoners to rest, heal, and prepare new spells. Damarak plans to cast zone of truth the next morning to see what useful information they can get out of these two sahuagin.
The players and their characters are not optimistic about their chances of success with this interrogation. It's become an in-joke that this group can't intimidate anyone worth a damn. The couple of NPCs that they've tried to interrogate so far belonged to, in my players' words, a torture cult [worshiping Lowyatar, goddess of pain], and laughed at their feeble, clumsy threats.
Session 30 (6/20/2015)
After a night of rest (with the water-breathing prisoners tethered to the ship, under constant watch), the party interrogated the two sahaugin. They managed to intimidate the priestess enough to collect a fair bit of information:
The merfolk are dead, or gone. They were lesser creatures, worthy only to be dominated.
The local leader is known as the Marquess. Treasure stolen from the merfolk goes to her.
The sea devils now serve Dagon, the Hunger From the Depths (a demon lord). He and his chosen will consume the air-breathers, and any others who stand against them.
There is a settlement to the north of the reef, with hundreds of sea-devils, and a temple to Dagon.
After disposing of the shark-men, the party continued to lurk in the sea lanes near Windward, looking for places that sahaugin might ambush ships.
They soon encountered a Kizmiri ship, the Brass Falcon, that had been looking for them. Harissa's betrothed, Rameel, was aboard, and asked to speak with her. Grudgingly she agreed, if only to finally tell him off. He came aboard the Half-Pint and they spoke--in front of the crew, at Harissa's insistence. She eventually convinced him that she was was perfectly content as a pirate and had no intention of ever going home to her family or to any husband. After the Falcon sailed off, she explained that part of her past to her shipmates, She also vowed to kill the cleric Khalib, with whom she's fought twice in the past, and who she believes told Rameel she was in Freeport.
A storm brewed up, so the crew took the ship around to the safer side of Windward. (This proved more difficult than it should have been, as everyone but the cool-headed druid Larkspur had trouble making Profession [sailor] checks.) During the storm, Damarak stripped to the waist and stayed on deck, reveling in this display of the power of his god (Melkarth, god of strength and storms). St. Elmo's Fire wreathed the mast and rigging, and a fragment of this witchfire enveloped the undine cleric. The light attempted to communicate with him, asking what he was trying to do. When Damarak tried to explain fighting the sahuagin and looking for the merfolk, the entity showed him pictures of a great battle between the two races--then the image of a breathtakingly beautiful mermaid sunning herself near an island. Damarak instantly fell in love (and lust!) and gushed to the others about the vision his god had granted him.
The hadozee ranger, Inacio, recognized the fiery creature as a comozant, a form of air elemental that appears during storms, but he knew nothing more about them. Issalia heard fragments of Auran when it "spoke" to Damarak, so tried to speak with it. The comozant went to her, and seemed pleased to recognize her as a sylph. It then moved to Inacio, who found the thing's touch unpleasant and itchy, It showed him a treetop village inhabited by vanara, near a mountain with a rock formation resembling an ape's face. The St. Elmo's Fire, and the entity, then vanished into the sky, and the storm broke soon after.
When the party compared notes, Damarak was reminded of traveler's tales of "Gorilla Island," an earthly paradise from vanaran legend. However, the party still has no clues to how to find this island, or the mermaid the cleric saw, so they will continue focusing on the sahaugin for now.
Session 31 (6/28/2015)
The day after the storm, the PCs found another ship run aground on the reefs, but not yet sunk. Its crew of goblins and gnolls were busy trying to free it from the reef when the Half-Pint sailed closer to take stock of the situation. Inacio finally got to make use of his training in Semaphore by relaying messages from Captain Harissa to the ship in distress. He was answered by a goblin lookout, whose captain--a female catfolk dressed in even more gaudy pirate garb than Harissa--requested aid.
This, of course, was a mistake, as the Half-Pint's crew attacked as soon as a couple lines had been run to the Sea Cat. (The PCs have been wanting to acquire a larger ship for some time now!) Harissa promptly boarded across the tightened ropes, heading for the enemy captain, while Inacio followed and started mowing down goblins. His elasmosaurus, along with Larkspur and her crocodile, ambushed the gnolls who were working in the water on the reef. The animals mauled hapless victims while the druid's aqueous orb neutralized more of them. Damarak used call lightning to pick off crewmen trying to work the 'Cat's ballistas, though he drew archer fire himself--and then punished the fools who dared attack him.
Harissa's cohort Virali used glitterdust to good effect, throwing many goblins into confusion, and briefly taking the gnoll first mate out of the fight. When the goblin lookout starting lobbing bombs at her allies, she used the same spell to neutralize him. The poor gob tried to escape by diving overboard, but fell poorly and knocked himself out when he hit the water.
When Inacio and his beast messily finished off the catfolk captain (with a critical hit each!), the gnoll first mate surrendered. Harissa knocked him overboard, declaring, "MY SHIP!" With that, all that was left was to mop up, and spare enough goblins to help the party sail the ship back to port after they free and repair the ship.
The party has already chosen a new name for the ship: The Growler. Larkpsur plans to use warp wood to change the seacat figurehead into a narwhale and to help Damarak make repairs (though he'll be using make whole).
Session 32 (7/12/2015)
The party took a couple days to free the ship from the reef, make repairs, and sail the new ship to port. Between the loot from the captured ship, and selling off The Half-Pint, each PC acquired a nice pile of cash, which some of them spent immediately to acquire better magical gear. Harissa also recruited more crew--more goblins and a half-dozen half-orcs--with promises of booze and adventure.
Inacio, for his part, found an unlucky halfling to press-gang the night before they sailed out again. He did this purely out of spite--the hadozee has hated all halflings ever since the pirate Barty the Small captured a ship he served on, and is now obsessed with getting revenge.
The next couple week were spent hunting sahuagin in the waters around the Serpent's Teeth, and fighting a few battles with the sea-devils. [I skipped over playing out these fights in the interest of getting to more interesting stuff.] One night, after their latest fight, a mermaid ghost appeared, looking pleased at seeing the remains of slain shark-men. Damarak noted a strong resemblance to the mermaid from his vision (though the ghost appeared older), and engaged her in conversation.
The party learned that the mermaid, Maladara, had been slain in the last large battle between her people and the sahaugin. Some of the merfolk had escaped, including a few of her close kin, but had not returned to the area since. She knew the location of the sea-devils' temple, and informed them that the site was less heavily-guarded than usual due to the number of sahaugin who were out hunting the PCs. Maladara revealed that the leader, the Marquess, was a malenti (a mutant sahuagin who looks like an aquatic elf), was a spellcaster but not a priest, and rode a large, unnatural-looking shark.
The PCs rested that night, then followed Maladara's directions to the temple the next morning, anchoring some distance from the town then traveling underwater the rest of the way. The Temple of Dagon consisted of a large, low dome with a number of openings around the base, and small enclosed rooms projecting from the cardinal points. Maladara drew away a number of guards by appearing nearby and singing--this brazen display by a hated merfolk proved nicely disttracting! This allowed the PCs to fight their way into the temple against fewer sea-devils and sharks. Once inside, they could see that the dome was a single open chamber with a large well-like opening in the center of the floor. One of the sahaugin guards fled to warn the Marquess, who soon appeared from one of the adjoining rooms. She was a summoner, and called forth her eidolon, "Acid-Maw," a large pallid shark whose giant, fang-filled mouth drooled acid. The shark grabbed and mauled Inacio, but a well-timed grease spell from Virali allowed him to easily wriggle free before being gnawed further.
Meanwhile, Larkspur's daylight spell dazzled the sahaugin, giving her party a significant advantage. Damarak's holy word and Virali's glitterdust further weakened their foes, and prevented Acid-Maw from landing another bite before Harissa delivered the killing blow to the eldritch shark. This loss enraged the Marquess, who was soon surrounded and taken down by the heroes.
The party quickly searched and looted the temple before reinforcements could arrive. The well, from which Acid-Maw had appeared, proved to be filled with innumerable bones of humanoids and large animals. The treasure that they found in the priest quarters included two very unusual items: a long pole upon which were mounted several dozen large shark teeth, and a brass cylinder puzzle-box that they have yet to open. They will study these items further next session.
The former is a baronial standard (see Treasures of Freeport), nonmagical but of important cultural value to the tribe. The latter contains a map showing the way to "Gorilla Island," and a ring of jetting (also from Treasures of Freeport).