Nighthaven Redux Session 3

Three adventurers, eight Troglodytes, and zero backup

Following our last session where the party completed their objective to kill the Vampire, the party found themselves with a few loose ends to tie up. For this, they actually took time between sessions to roleplay some of their interactions with NPCs. Specifically, they took their evidence of the kill to the Guard and collected their promised bounty from the Knave Syndicate as well. From the Knaves, each of them gained possession of new magic items. Silas received a dagger that allows him to teleport up to 30 ft to its location. Alkazar got a lucky roll on a random table of magic rings and ended up with a Ring of Regeneration. Krag picked up a grappling hook that was possessed by the spirit of its previous owner, “Hangman” Hartigan. Their trip to see the Guard was a little less positive as the Guard found themselves in a bit of a pickle upon discovering that their High Commander’s son was the Vampire terrorizing Nighthaven. While they mused on killing or framing the party, they ultimately decided to employ them to find more evidence of Tobias’s identity so that Commander Renier could not possibly pass the blame on to them. With this, the players set out to hopefully avoid a life sentence on Talon Isle for saving the city from a monster.

Also in between sessions, the Scarlet Order and the Knave Syndicate came together to resolve the conflict between them generated by Graem Halford and Lady Calytrix. A random roll determined that while an agreement was reached, tension remained between the two factions. Because of this tension, other gangs have started moving into The Gate District to gain whatever advantage they can get from the conflict. It is in this tense environment that the players wandered out to find the evidence they needed. Their journey led them back to the Warm Embrace where they witnessed a tense conflict between the Knaves and another gang called the Headless. The conflict escalated to the point where guns were drawn by the Headless gangster and Krag decided to intervene on behalf of the Knaves. Tension rose on the streets, but things were deescalated by the arrival of Graem Halford on the scene. The party exchanged greetings with him and went on to meet with his new wife and the new proprietor of the Warm Embrace Lady Pauline. In the time between sessions, Calytrix disappeared abandoning her holdings and her girls and leaving confirmation of her status as a Vampire. The party investigated this evidence and discovered a lengthy correspondence between Calytrix and Tobias as well as a threatening letter from Cyrus Renier that revealed that Calytrix was blackmailing the Commander.

Pauline asked only one favor of the party in exchange for searching Calytrix’s old quarters; that they send Brother Clement over to exorcise the residual dark energy from the room. The players spent the next part of the session delivering the evidence to Captain Carver and talking Brother Clement into performing a cleansing ritual at the Warm Embrace. With all lose ends tied up, the party was at a bit of a loss for what to do next. They were in the beginning stages of putting together a raid on a cult called The Liminal Temple that had ties to Calytrix, but they had not gotten all of the pieces in place for it. To give them something to do in the meantime, I dropped a hint leading towards one of the one-page dungeons I have for GNG Vol 1. The players picked up on that hint and accepted a mission to rescue some Guardsmen from the sewer. Unfortunately, the players went straight to the dungeon without recruiting any mercenaries, henchmen or torch-bearers. They didn’t realize the magnitude of this mistake until they reached the dungeon and encountered 1d8 Troglodytes and I rolled an 8 to determine how many there were. Still, the players ended up on the winning end of the surprise roll meaning that Silas and Alkazar would kill any of the Troglodytes they hit in one shot and then, due to cleaving rules in ACKS, they would have been able to make another attack against an adjacent enemy still receiving the +4 from backstabbing and ambushing respectively. However, you can’t do that when you roll a 1 on your attack throw. Unfortunately for the party, their rolls were awful and the Troglodytes were able to use their numbers to overwhelm them. With eight attacks against three players, everyone was down within two rounds. The only thing that prevented a TPK was the Ring of Regeneration and the Blink Dagger held by Alkazar and Silas. In the process, Silas sustained yet another mortal wound, this time resulting in the loss of three fingers. Unfortunately, there was no saving Krag and he decided that it would be best to go out in a literal blaze of glory by lighting himself on fire with an oil flask to kill as many of the Troglodytes as he could. With their immolated friend behind them, Alkazar and Krag retreated to fight another day.