Majestic Wilderlands – Marcus the Training Pell

We begin where we left off, about to get into a fight with “the glasstaff” as well as Herone (connected to the dragon Pan Calderax, which can’t be good for us) and at least one other. We’ve sent a hapless courier inside, he got caught and is now either being tortured or beaten or otherwise violently interrogated.

The Paladin Marcus can’t really dig that. Presumably others can’t either.

So . . . here we go.

We hear torture impending. so we move rapidly and with little plan into the building. So pretty much par for the course. Carmina casts a quick Guidance spell on Marcus, since she finds him in touch range. 

“Surrender, or be destroyed!” he Intimidates loudly, calling his light as a paladin (and rolling 17, with an additional 4 from Guidance). Two spearmen with spears and chain mail are present; one gives up entirely, and the other actually attacks the first. 

Surprise! it’s actually Sidwin in disguise, 

Through the window, Keyar can see a guy – he’s 13′ up, so he has line of sight, and considers if he can jump the distance. STR 11 on an Athletics Check vs. a DC 20. Ooo, hard fail, but his 20 Acrobatics roll means he takes no damage on the fall. It was worth a shot.

“See what’s going on downstairs,” comes a barking voice from upstairs, and we also hear a gurgling scream as our courier is stabbed. It’s really not safe to join this party in any NPC capacity.

Carmina, waiting to see if anyone comes down the stairs, sees the glasstaff. He flings Hold Person his way, a spell resisted at 15 by WIS, and Glasstaff rolls 14, missing by 1. He’s paralyzed up to a minute; any attack against him has advantage, and any successful melee attack counts as a crit.

Someone grabs him from behind and pulls him out of the way. Leshar runs up and stops immediately behind Carmina, growls “get up the stairs, quick.” Sidwin misses the unarmed, unshielded guy. We mock him a bit.

A guy with spear and shield barrels down the stairs at Marcus; Keyar, who was waiting for such an eventuality, shoots at 1d20+8 and hits once with a 20, misses with an 18. Hunter’s Mark plus 1d8+4 hits for 11, but Second Wind brings 5 HP back. Still decent.

The guy hits once for 9 HP, and takes an action surge to attack twice more, hitting one more time for 8 HP. The unarmed guard stabs at Sidwin for 4 HP; he also takes an action surge and crits for a bunch of damage on Sidwin; he’d picked up a spear.

Marcus smacks his foe for 18 HP, expending a first level spell slot for an extra 2d8 (and rolling badly). Someone flings a healing spell at Marcus, restoring him to 36 HP in the process.

Fosco climbs up the window (stealthily) and gets a good view of three bad guys and a poor courier, bleeding profusely on the table in the middle of a couple of death checks. No one notices him, The glasstaff is obviously paralyzed. 

Herone moves to the top of the stairs, and goes after Carmina, as an obvious Mitran, with two bolts of dragonfire, one eldritch bolt hitting for 4 HP.

Keyar shoots at the guy engaged in melee with Marcus on the stairs, hitting with a crit and a regular hit for 24 HP; he goes down. 

Glasstaff fails to break free of the hold person; another guy whips out a heavy crossbow and shoots at Marcus, missing him; he dodges back out of the way to reload.

Leshar charges at the rearmed spearman and Sidwin – neither of which he knows. We joke +Tim Shorts may wind up fighting himself (Sidwin being Tim’s old character). Leshar strikes the mercenary twice, hitting solidly twice for 30 HP damage, hitting him. He snarls at Sidwin, looking menacing. Sidwin shouts (at himself) “I’m on your side! Watch for Kytherak, the rogue – he’ll be hiding in the shadows somewhere!”

Marcus charges up the stairs and hits twice; on the first Marcus suffers 15 HP because of some magical armor thing, while doing 32 HP of nonlethal damage in turn. Then she gets a reaction attack and hits me for another 22 HP of damage, rendering Marcus unconscious. I took more damage by attacking my target than I did as a fighter hitting her.

This is bullshit. The fighters seem to have the lowest damage output of anyone.

Keyar shoots Herone and brings her down. Fosco casts or throws some sort of smoke, and obscures the local area. Glasstaff wakes up, the bad guy thief is trying to climb out of the window.

Sidwin climbs the stairs into the pipesmoke, and drags Marcus down the stairs. When he comes to, he casts Protection from Evil on himself. 

Marcus, feeling pissed off, runs upstairs into the smoke. Despite disadvantage, he hits twice and deals 35 HP of damage, bringing Glasstaff down. In order to do this, however, he spends the last of his 1st level spell slots that add extra damage with Divine Smite.

A servant revives Herone, but falls at the hands of a spell cast by Carmina. Fosco feeds the courier a healing potion; he revives, and Fosco drags him under the table. He puts his hand over the courier’s mouth and tells him “Shhhh.”

Herone gets to go, of course, having been revived by her minion. She . . . does something inscrutable. 

Keyar jumps up to the top floor. He sees a little girl weeping over her fallen mother, but no sign of the newly ambulatory Herone. 

The thiefy type hits Sidwin for 16 HP total, twice with a mace. Sidwin is down to 8 HP.

Leshar runs up the stairs, and the smoke clears. Herone’s nowhere to be seen, Keyar is climbing in the window, and points at the door where Herone went inside and locked herself in. 

Sidwin casts magic missile on his foe, 2 missiles. Marcus runs to the door and kicks it down, making a critical success and shattering the door. Fosco gags and searches Glasstaff.

Herone says “you’ll never take me alive!” and hits Marcus with a firebolt of some sort for 10 HP. She gets hit for 3 HP by a poor damage roll by Carmina. Keyar invokes Colossus Slayer, and hits for 13 HP damage. She falls to the ground and breaks her neck, losing any information we could have gotten out of her.

Sidwin, the last combatant outside, finally fells his opponent. 

We’re out of combat.

Glasstaff stabilizes. Leshar is disgruntled because he only got to kill one person. Fosco finds a wand (of Magic Missiles), a Staff of Defense, Glasstaff’s arcane focus, his spellbook, and 120sp. He gives the 120sp to the courier, and tells him to say nothing to anyone about anything that happened here. 

Carmina Spares the Dying on the servant girl. Keyar and Marcus search the house. We find a summary of Herone’s notes:

• Hony from the Twilight Company dropped off Maud, sent her off to Orsal in Byrny. The Master will be pleased with the leverage over Mori.
• Eraban of The Revelers was asking too many questions, the Diamonds took care of the problem.
• Alderman Hakon the Merchant tipped me off about another one of Alderman Merin the Jewelers deals. Confirmed with with Hony of the Twilight Company. Sent the Diamonds down the Rorstone Road and they successfully intercepted the shipment and passed it along to Orsal in Bryny in the Kingdom of Thunderhold. The Master should be pleased with the magic items.
• Talked to Yelnoc two days ago about the situation, he and the rest of Twilight Company are uncommitted, through Hony I was able to remind of all the vacant seats. He is will visit the Sheriff tommorrow, must remember to cook Hony another dinner and ask what happened.
• The Melorian Order are a pain in the ass, the Diamonds unable to find them in Dearthwood. Told Kitherak that he must not fail next time. Kitherak suggest planting edivence that the Melorians were behind the death of Eraban. Told him the The Revelers would never buy it. 
• The Oaken Woods are so easy to manipulate, the Bloody Moons are not going to be an issue. 
• Pardan is overdue. Will send the Diamonds out to look for him in Phandalin if he is not back this week.

Keyar actually finds, grasped in Herone’s hand, a “familiar” sword, with a stylized Hawk hilt – a +1 Longsword.

We start the interrogations with the little girl. “Mommy works for the bad lady, who fell out the window.” Fosco offers the girl a “big lunch,” and asks if she heard any secrets. A lot of important people came in and out. Those Diamond guys are bad. 

The Revelers are an adventuring group. The Diamonds are some sort of group or guild. Kisserak or whomever is a Diamond. The Bloody Moons are a orc tribe; we bagged (incarcerated) Pardan in Phandalin.

We search the rest of the building, finding 3,000sp, 20 gold crowns (worth 320sp each). 


Kisserak had a +1 Mace. There are two horses and two full sets of tack downstairs as well. We also find, among personal effects, ritual books and scrolls about somethng called the Pact of the Dragon. 


Sounds Warlocky. It’s similar to the Pact of the Archfae, but with less illusion, more dragonfire. Planning to extract more power from Pan Calderax. 

The Merc captain had a heavy crossbow, a potion of healing, and a few suits of chainmail.

We spend a lot of time talking about Hony, a somewhat dull guy with dreams of ruling over a kingdom of burning people. The Twilight Company is somewhat factinoalized. Herone may have been using Hony for local control or in direct action on behalf of Pan Calderax.

We ask about the lay of the land with respect to the other adventuring parties on the board, most of which seemed to be mentioned in Herone’s note:

• The Melorian Order led by Willissa Entemoor a priestess of Dannu and her second in command the half-elf fighter Devin Arkeel. Averages around 3rd level or so.
• The Brotherhood of Oaken Wood led by Zantar of Cromly. With Erevan as a fighter and fanatical orc hater. Ariel is their healer. Shae is a spaced out half-elven mage. The groups take killing orcs very seriously. ARound 3rd level or so.
• The Black and White Diamonds, a hard core group of treasure seekers. Pretty much willing to do anything also long there is a penny to be made. Pretty sure that their leader Kitherak is in league with Herone. Includes Syl Long a member of the Brotherhood of the Lion, Tinare a mage, and Riker a bruiser type of fighter. Around 5th level or so.
• The Beggar Bunch. A group of Beggars in Tain, more prosperous than most. Lanar is their leader and seem honorable as Beggars go, Nanosh however is the leaders of the adventurers in the group. His buddies are Char and Vorn. Around 3rd to 5th level. Lanar is far more eperienced than he lets on.
• The Revelers. A group of treasure seekers, as first glance similar to the Diamonds but definitely have a moral code. Pretty much in for it for the good times. One of their members recently died Eraban in Dearthwood. You think the Diamonds had something to do with it. 
• Twilight Company. The most experienced group in Tain. Yelnoc is more of designated spokemen than their leader, other members including Vander a fighter and two mages Gillis and Hony who constantly bicker with each other. Hony has been seen a lot with Herone but you think he just flattered by her charm has loose lips. Around 9th level.

 We divvy up the magic items.

• +1 Hawk sword goes to Keyar
• +1 Longsword from prior adventure goes to Marcus
• Staff of Defense goes to Chubb
• +1 Mace goes to Lesahr, to ensure he can be effective against magic-only stuff
• Vognur already wields the Sheriff’s old sword, a +2 weapon
• Aevin Steelhand already has a +1 longsword, and a hand-axe