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| Lev Vladimir Goriansky, 1938 |
The Party
- Odysseus (Level 1 Assassin / Level 1 Ghoul). An elf and the last member of the Company of the Blue Banner. Two weeks ago, he became a ghoul and traveled to Northpoint, the center of Church power in Wolfland. He has now been caught by Archpriest Vlad.
- Maurice (Level 1 Dwarf Fighter). A dockside mercenary hired by Archpriest Vlad as the muscle of the group.
- Nina (Level 1 Human Traditional Wizard). Nina's family has served Vlad for centuries. She is here to contribute magic to the plan.
The Prelude
The party is called before Vlad, a vampire archpriest of the Church of the Authority. He says his most powerful religious rival, Cardinal Ricardo, is leaving for the main continent in two days. He needs the party, who can operate under the nose of the Church, to sneak into the Castle of Saint Alberto, abduct the Cardinal, escape to the docks of Northpoint, board the ship The Authoriy's Wings, and deliver him to a secure location on the south coast of Wolfland. Unfortunately, Cardinal Ricardo has hired the Order of the Beetle, an organization of vicious foreign mercenaries, to protect him and enforce the Church's laws on the chaotic streets of Northpoint.
If the party didn't comply, Vlad would kill Maurice and Nina and expose Odysseus as a ghoul to the common folk of Northpoint. He promised them each one hundred gold (which in my setting is equivalent to one million dollars).
They have forty-eight hours. Go.
The Session
Day 1. The party spends the first twelve hours of Day 1 arguing over the plan in the Sober Monk Inn and Tavern. Eventually, the group settles on a plan to capture the Cardinal. Nina approaches the innkeeper and seduces him, bringing him upstairs to question him on the layout of the town. She learns that the walls are scalable if dry. She later purchases one dose of sedative from a unscrupulous looking seller.
Meanwhile, Odysseus goes around collecting the scant information about the Order of the Beetle, formulating ways to more efficiently kill them. He also buys around one hundred feet of rope and a grappling hook.
Maurice gets a custom-built grappling crossbow built by the greatest craftsman in Northpoint and secures a boat tour on the river around the castle by bribing a fisherman named Dan. Their plan coming together, the party rests in the Sober Monk Inn, dreaming of castles and coins.
Day 2. The group gets up at sunrise and haves some breakfast, with Maurice making sure to drink lots of beer. He talks to some of his contacts on the docks and gets bloody three guard uniforms.
That night, Maurice, Nina, Odysseus, and Dan sail around the castle, stopping at its eastern wall. Odysseus silently kills and cannibalizes Dan. All three of the party put on their bloody guard costumes and - using the grappling crossbow, rope, and the grappling hook - climb to the top of the wall.
The trio then grapple onto a third floor window, and stumble into the Cardinal's study. Nina searches the room and finds the Cardinal's signet ring. Maurice and Odysseus ambush and accidently kill the Cardinal's elderly butler. The soon-to-be kidnappers walk into a long corridor with an unlocked iron door at the end. Pushing open the creaky iron door, the group faces a deadly member of the Order of the Beetle.
A fight commences and the Beetle gets his massive axe stuck in the castle stone. The group takes many potshots at him, and Maurice eventually manages to kill him. Taking the exoskeleton armor, Maurice and his crew loot the Cardinal's private chapel. Odysseus manages to find a blackened iron key, which he pockets.
The group explores the rest of the floor and find the Cardinal sleeping in his lavish bedroom. Nina administers the sedative and the Cardinal falls unconscious. She searches the room and finds a secret passage behind a painting. Inside is a small, locked chest. Finding a small key on the Cardinal, she unlocks the chest and finds a medium-sized metal orb. She pockets the orb and escapes towards the window. Odysseus, carrying the Cardinal, and Nina grapple down to the shoreline.
Maurice drunkenly stumbles out the window and plummets towards his almost-death; the exoskeleton armor saves him and cracks all over. A guard approaches him and he, dressed as a Beetle, says he saw intruders trying to kidnap the Cardinal on the third floor. The guard salutes him and rushes towards the third floor, gathering his comrades along the way.
Maurice walks out the front gate and joins the two other kidnappers in the boat, where they sail off to the docks and board The Authority's Wings and travel to the secure location.
Note
I used Skerples' Kidnap the Archpriest for this adventure.
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