Last Saturday, 11th November, we went back to my Dragon AGE game for the first time since about February, or some other extremely long time ago. To attempt to remind everyone, including myself, I wrote this recap. I do intend to do a blog post / recap for every Dragon AGE session I run, mostly so that there’s a record of what happened somewhere that I and my players can read! I hope you like it.
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Our Stalwart Heroes:
Cal Sighard, the second son of Bann Sighard of Dragon’s Peak and ostensible face of this cell of Blackstone Irregulars.
Sithig ar Swannig o’Stormhold, an Avvarian warrior and general loose cannon.
Selanin, a Dalish wanderer who is most definitely not an Apostate mage.
Morribund Oggrand, a surface Dwarven brawler and Carta second-stringer
Garrulous Koe, a mostly-mute one-armed archer who has been with the group for some time before being peeled off to take on a solo assignment on behalf of Raelnor Hawkwind.
Previously, on Dragon AGE…
Having landed in Denerim the party return to the Blackstone Irregular’s chapterhouse to report in and get paid. After a short break to recover, they are tasked with yet another mission: supplies of Red Steel from Dragon’s Peak are being interrupted before they reach Denerim and there is a critical shortage about to hit, which will not do well for the nobles and knights of the city. Cal, understandably personally concerned, agrees to lead the group to investigate the trade route and see if he can find any signs of what’s been going on.
At this stage Koe is separated from the party to go South and investigate the rumours of a Blight, breaking up the winning team for the first time in several months. To replace him, a surface dwarf named Morribund is tagged into the group – a Denerim local, her knowledge of the surrounding area may well prove handy.
The party travelled a several hours out of the city and came upon the abandoned caravan, pulled off the road and left with the fly-blown corpses of the guards and drivers. Unusual primitive weapons made of an unsettling black metal were found near to the ransacked caravan, and all the signs pointed to a Darkspawn ambush. However, our heroes were not to be fooled, and on further investigation found that this was in fact merely a cunning ruse!
Following faded tracks from the scene lead the heroes to cave opening and then into some tunnels. One branch did indeed lead to a forgotten doorway into the Deep Roads and signs of an active Darkspawn presence. The other branch, however, lead much closer to Denerim – to a warehouse owned by the Carta, the shadowy Dwarven crime syndicate based out of Orzammar! A fight ensued between our heroes and several well-armed bandits, which mostly involved Sithig and Morribund jumping out of and then falling back into a hole, while Cal and Selanin did the actual hard work…
The leader of the bandits was taken alive after a hard-fought battle, and under pain of torture gave up his leader – one Jayvon, based in Denerim itself! The Red Steel had also been shipped to Denerim from this warehouse and was awaiting distribution and resale on the black market. The party left the hapless bandit bound and bleeding in the warehouse, and armed with this knowledge, our heroes returned to Denerim to attempt to smoke out the leader. The signs pointed to a notoriously rough bawdy house and known Carta hangout called the Drowned Rat. Our brave and noble heroes engaged in information gathering in their own unique and subtle fashion:
- Sithig had loud and public sex with a lady of negotiable affection while pressing her – mid coitus – for information about the Carta and Jayvon. In the middle of the bar.
- Morribund ran interference with a bouncer while Cal went out back, jumped a known Carta middleman named Fergus and threatened him publicly with death if he didn’t give Cal the information he required.
- Selanin hid on a rooftops, taking great pains to stay out of sight, and watched this unfold with remarkable stoicism.
Their unorthodox techniques seemingly paid off, and Fergus told Cal that the Red Steel and the person responsible were presently waiting in a dilapidated warehouse on the docks for a ship to come and collect them, at which point the goods would be loaded on a ship to Antiva and sold over there. With a last dire threat, should Fergus be lying, Cal let him go and the party regrouped and headed to the docks.
A good half-hour walk across Denerim found them at the warehouse in question. Choosing once again to forgo subtlety, Sithig kicked the door in and was met by an explosive trap which blew him off the docks and into the water. Fish rained down in a pungent storm, and Sithig sunk a tiny boat in his attempts to get back onto the docks.
The warehouse was alas, devoid of anything like Red Steel, bandits, or indeed anything much at all barring rats and decomposing abandoned cargo. Even the most thorough search turned up nothing of worth or interest. After about another half-hour of searching, our heroes finally realised that maybe, just maybe, they had been lied to, and as their thoughts turned to those of vengeance the session ended…
Maddam's Musings 