Fomor: Session Three Writeup (Part 3)

And so session three concludes! Not much actually happened game-wise in this session, as the party mostly just planned out their adventure route and got to a new city. But some very interesting plot developments also occurred. Also a reminder that I am moving on Sunday, and can not guarantee regular posts for the next week or two. I will certainly try to, and once I have time I will make up for any posts that I have missed.


The group decides to spend a week in Bicka while they formulate their plan. Garath takes the time to craft some magic items for the party. Kheldar receives a Belt of Dexterity, Garath creates for himself a Headband of Charisma, and Salma receives Eyes of the Eagle to increase her already-ludicrous Perception.

Strider has almost no gold, and he started with a Wand of Cure Light Wounds in addition to gear that was better than what the party had. Nobody gave him money to fund his own magic item.

Kheldar decides to make as much as he can being a merchant, and asks around for some more information. He doesn't really learn anything new. Strider preaches a bit, but Bicka is not a particularly religious city and he makes barely anything. Salma decides she wants to introduce firearms to the city, and invests slightly in making a couple basic rifles. She doesn't question too closely on who obtains these weapons, but now they're a thing. 

Oh boy. This isn't going to come back in a big way later. Nope, don't know how anybody could get that impression.

The party begins making a tentative plan. They each are pulled in mostly different directions, so they decide on doing a big spiral around the continent, hitting their respective locations in turn. Their goal initially is to find Salma's parents to the south, then loop around to deal with The Black Hand, and then head into the desert to find Neris and the coast Garath saw in his dream. Strider considers breaking off from the party to pursue his own quests in a timely manner, but then realizes that his key locations are on the path that the party is taking. Lastly, the party will loop back down to the far south to find this mountain filled with gears that Salma saw.

This was my way of letting the party dictate how the campaign is going to take place. Obviously this plan is going to fall apart at some point, since the world will continue to develop without their influence. I have some specific ideas on how that will happen, though I'm not going to go into too much detail about that right now.

The party sets off to the south once they've obtained their magic items and gathered information. Salma again encounters the information that trade caravans have been halted from the south, when they were usually a common occurrence. The party finds a few villages that have been ravaged by war, but finds almost nothing of note. Eventually they come across another city-state which they recognize as belonging to one Baron Adál-Abel - the very same that laid siege to Bicka when they last returned.
The party decides to enter the city. A quick Bluff check lets them get past the gate guards without too much trouble. Immediately upon entering, the party sees a very different city than what they're used to. The streets are filthy, and the majority of the people they see are dwarves. Pistols are very common, though Salma quickly identifies them as being mostly worthless. Kheldar attempts to steal some, but he is horrible at rolling skill checks.
Strider decides to go up and tell a random guard that he knows who destroyed the army that attacked Bicka. After doing so, he decides to take a closer look at the guards. They are dressed like highly exaggerated Spanish conquistadors, and all wear the same trashy pistols. Most also have rapiers so they can actually fight in combat. There are also propaganda posters plastered all over the city that depict Kell Deathsickle and Dul Bilderbottom as eating children and torturing people. The guard, when questioned, immediately begins belting out the national anthem for the city.

Note that nobody in the party knows what the city is actually named yet. But it's called Dogun.

Strider is pulled into the town hall to speak with the Baron. The rest of the party tries to follow and is stopped at the gate. And so begins a skills challenge! With Salma's new magic item, her Perception actually couldn't fail. In 6 seconds she completely memorizes a five and a half minute patrol route, reads the diaries of all the guards, and perceives all of their personal insecurities. Kheldar begins putting his Bard skills to work and does a tapdancing routine to keep them distracted. Garath throws a Ghost Sound down an alleyway that sounds like a fair maiden in distress, and many of the conquistador-guards chase after her. Strider is attempting to preach the evils of eating children to the Baron, but she shrugs him off.
Salma uses her Survival to quickly rush through some bushes without disturbing the patrol route that she's memorized. Garath tries tries to break the lock of the gate open with his Smithing, but quickly realizes that it's already open. Kheldar uses his Acrobatics to jump completely over him and follow exactly in Salma's footsteps. Strider attempts to use his Diplomacy to get the Baron to listen to him, but fails again. Salma again uses her Perception to discern the exact route through the structure, and leads the party into her room. Garath uses his Intimidate skill to get Adál-Abel to back down, but she refuses. Kheldar then Stealths to distract the guards before they can come to her aid, and the skills challenge ends in a success.
The first thing that happens past this point is Salma fires her gun in the air to get the baron's attention. This gives Kheldar the opportunity to sneakily cast Innocence on Garath, giving him a +10 to his already-impressive Bluff check.
Garath introduces himself as being a long-lost family member of the baron (lie). He asks to see the family tree to prove this. He uses Prestidigitation to forge his own name on a distant branch. He then offers to "enchant" the family tree to automatically update should anyone in the line of succession die. In reality he casts Spark and burns away some names of other distant family members so he seems closer to taking over. 
He makes up a number of stories and rolls insanely well on his Bluff checks. He cons the baron into giving them horses and a place to stay, as well as introducing the entire party to her as new potential allies. He states that they were at the Siege of Bicka (true) as spies to undermine the evils of Kell Deathsickle (lie) and his fearsome companion Dul Bilderbottom (lie). The baron soaks in everything Garath tells her, and instructs her men to help in any way. Unfortunately, the treasury is all but dry and they have very little men and resources to spare because of their failed war efforts.

This was a huge mistake, allowing all of this to happen. But I let them roll with it, and I'm interested to see what's going to come of all this...