Continuing in the prison, the party finds the globster and infected secret police interrogating Tomas Allenbrand. They beat them, blowing up the globster's tank with a cannon. The assassin Lavinia questions Haden, who is disguised as Garth, but lets them go. Aurelian gives Haden love-in-idleness as leverage on Aurora. They meet Millicent the Rat Queen, who claims to be the rightful heir to Hollin's Gradskan royal throne.
Christian suggested that the campaign had too many threads in Game 6, and Fayne suggested a 15-minute recap in Game 7. So, we did that at the beginning of this game. I'd written a brief recap before the game, describing the threads as I saw them. I put up a list of them on the whiteboard and described them a little bit.
I asked if they would like to make Investigation rolls to get a little information (really reminders) on one or two of these, and they picked the tontine and Ishild. Haden made the rolls with Help from Elgis and Guidance from Barn. He rolled 11 for "the tontine," and I said:
DC 5: You know from secret police communiques that Lars (Guilder) had Ella killed, and that Lars (Guilder) is in the tontine. Everyone you know to be in the tontine is on the Garlington, Helmin, and Gibb list from Garth’s wallet.
DC 10: Burgess Lorentz was attacked at dinner, and Selma Ulm and Tamir Rabi’s deaths came up at the same dinner. All three are on the Garlington, Helmin, and Gibb list from Garth’s wallet.
I think we said plainly here that the "Garlington, Helmin, and Gibb list from Garth’s wallet" was the tontine subscriber list.
He rolled 10 for "Ishid" and I said:
DC 10: Besides the two guards riddle, Ishild was also using Modayle Grellen to research the paradox "this sentence is a lie." At Miss Miller’s salon in Game 6, Annie from the Quaternion Society said she was researching that same paradox.
The players, I think Mike, had asked at the last game what surprised me in the campaign so far. I said:
In the last game, Brandy and Carter Cranston had killed Ulrike, and I know said that he had on his body:
Dose of Hebona
One dose of Hebona, a poison that can be applied to a weapon.
...swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigor it doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood.
On a hit, the target must make a DC 17 CON save. On a failed save, the target takes 8d6 poison damage and gains the Poisoned condition.
On a successful save, the target takes half damage and is not Poisoned.
In Game 1, Gregor the Naturalist gave Elgis his Naturalis Historia, Abridged, which gave +1 Nature. Since Barnaby had higher Nature, Elgis now gave it to Barnaby to raise the party's best Nature score.
I asked for a clarification from the last game, whether the party took the secret police communiques they read, or whether they left them where they found them. They said they left them where they found them, and also closed the safes that Haden and Kiltak had opened.
The party finished the last game after exploring everything in the prison's east tower basements. Now they went up the stairs, above ground into the east tower proper.
The tower was large, eighty feet in diameter on the inside. It had five bricked-up cannon embrasures (portals) in its thick walls, and there were still several old cannons there, now antiques. From the tower's days as a boom tower, there were two boom chains for blocking the river, with ginormous links. There were also two giant spools for managing the chains - letting them out across the river or pulling them in.
Hobnail Prison east tower, floor 1
However, the stairs also went up again to a second floor, and they heard screaming coming from above. To my surprise, the players discussed taking a long rest where they were, despite the screaming. They decided to go up though, just pausing for Barnaby to Bless them and for Elgis to fire up the Gemfire Amulet's circling meteorites.
The second floor was similar to the first floor, again with bricked-up embrasures and antique cannons. But a man was strapped down on a table, screaming, and three secret police were interrogating him. But more alarming, they also saw:
The globster is an amorphous biomass, a ten-foot-long blob of tissue, floating in a tall glass water tank that reaches almost to the ceiling.
The globster doesn't have any identifiable sensing organs or face. It has five or six flipper-like appendages, around its body in asymmetric locations.
The globster seemed to be focusing its malevolence on the strapped-down screaming man. But when the party came up, the globster and the secret police immediately turned on them, attacking with their psychic Mind Feed.
Hobnail Prison east tower, floor 2
The globster
On the first round, Kiltak hit the globster's tank with his weapon and damaged it a little, but then realized they could try a cannon instead. I pointed out that Kiltak had found a package of gunpowder in Game 6. We decided it would take four actions to use the cannon: one move action to aim it, and three standard actions to figure it out, load it, and fire it. We also decided that the cannon would destroy the tank without an attack roll, but explode on a 1. Elgis, Kiltak, and Virgil each did different cannon actions on their turns to get it done faster.
In the meantime, the party also fought the three secret police, putting two of them down. Haden also attacked the globster itself, scoring a critical with Witch Bolt inside the tank, and we also gave the Witch Bolt extra lightning damage because the globster was in water. Christian described it as (my rough notes):
Haden puts all his effort into the Witch Bolt inside the tank. There's a loud psychic screech - you hear it in your brain. It smells like fish fry.
Virgil ultimately fired the cannon early in round 4, just before the globster could infect Haden with its "I was in the water" consciousness. The tank shattered, and the globster and the water inside flooded out onto the floor. The globster writhed on the floor and died, sending out psychic shock waves that finished off the last secret policeman.
They took a short rest and talked with the strapped-down man. He was coherent, and not mumbling about the ocean. He recognized Elgis, and said that he was Tomas Allenbrand, the father of Elgis's girlfriend Gwen. He said the secret police and globster had interrogated him about Gwen. He'd been strong though, and only told them Gwen was in Tharldon.
Barnaby did a Medicine check on Tomas and found that he was suffering from multiple levels of exhaustion. They unstrapped him.
As they were finishing their short rest, a woman came in with five or six others. She quietly studied the scene, looking from the dead globster to the dead secret police to the party to Tomas. Haden was still disguised as Garth, and she said "Garth Lankshire, an anonymous prisoner, two anonymous guards, and an anonymous Hobnail walk into a bar." This prompted a little indignation and some dour looks from the players, but I don't think they gave any actual answer.
The woman persisted, asking "What happened here?" The party said that the globster made the secret police kill each other. "The globster killed Durer?" They said the globster was "controlling these people." The woman said bitterly, "I knew that thing was trouble."
She said, "Garth, what brings you in?" Haden/Garth said "The Circle sent me," and the woman replied "Hmmm, I have a kill order from the Circle to kill you." At this Fayne said the woman was Lavinia, the assassin. Haden said, "Do you think your odds are good right now?" and Kiltak said "Just let me kill her." Kiltak also took out his greatsword and licked it menacingly, but Lavinia didn't seem intimidated.
Haden/Garth suggested that Garth and Lavinia meet at the Mooncalf to discuss the situation in a neutral place. Lavinia asked what would happen to Tomas if she let the party walk, and the party said they would take him.
Lavinia asked, "Where is Elgis, he's supposed to be here?" Fayne reminded the other players that Brandy's request for help was actually a trap to lure Ulrike and Elgis into the prison. Haden/Garth just said, "He wasn't here."
The situation was tense. Barnaby and Virgil awkwardly turned one of the cannons on Lavinia and her crew, but they just laughed grimly. Lavinia did agree to meet Garth at the Mooncalf and let them leave the prison though, telling Haden/Garth to "get the fuck out of here."
I felt at the table that the party struggled to deal with Lavinia. In particular, one of their explicit goals was to "kill Durer" and "frame Garth" for Durer's death, but they missed a chance to do that, telling Lavinia that the secret police had killed each other. I told the players this, and they decided to try to frame Garth by leaving his wallet between the prison and cisterns, where they originally came in.
They left the prison and had a long rest at their individual homes. Aurora's husband Aurelian visited Haden during his long rest, which the other players weren't immediately privy to, but Christian shared some about the visit later in the game.
After the long rest, some of the characters went to Chambers the Apothecary for more healing potions.
They discussed what to do next. They sent the real Garth a letter to meet Lavinia at the Mooncalf and planned to surveil the meeting. They thought that Lavinia would be further confused talking with the real Garth and possibly kill him, and that would be a good or neutral development.
The players discussed whether and how to forge Garth's stock over to the orphans, and although Dan wasn't at the game, they decided to revisit the "ophans need Company stock" thread. They'd found a secret police communique suggesting the Rat Queen might be secretly accumulating company stock, and they decided to revisit the Rat Queen, Millicent, in the Grand Cistern.
They found Millicent there with two others, who she introduced as her grandson Klaus the Dicke (that is, the Fat) and her great-grandson Lord Huggins. Haden rolled Persuasion to get information from her, with Virgil's help and Barnaby's Guidance. Haden rolled a 29 and Millicent shared freely. They asked if Millicent knew Helga, and Millicent said yes, Helga was her daughter.
Millicent also told them that she was the rightful heir to Hollin's Gradskan royal throne. Her family had been deposed by Hollin's trading houses, and she was secretly accumulating enough Company stock to take control of the Company, and therefore Hollin. They asked if Millicent had an alternative strategy, besides accumulating stock, and Millicent said the alternative would be deposing the Company by force.
Barnaby rolled Insight on Millicent, a 26, and felt that Millicent was neutral, not evil. They also rolled a History check to see what they might know about Hollin's deposed royalty. I think Elgis rolled with Help from Haden and Guidance from Barnaby. They rolled a 23, and knew:
Ash Brock
The Gradskan king and queen of Hollin, Bullington Brock and Stella Brock, died in 3142 and 3140, respectively. They were interred in a spacious crypt under the Brock House monument in the City of the Dead, which the party visited in Game 6 to get into the Cisterns.
Bullington and Stella's son Ash ascended the throne. But Ash never married, and he disappeared without a trace in 3152, leaving no children.
Winnie Brock, Wormworth, Brand Hill
Ash's niece Winnie was next in the line of succession, and she was crowned a year and a day after Ash disappeared.
Unfortunately, Winnie didn't have the wealth or forces to protect her throne. Wormworth, a powerful Archdruid of the Grove, offered to marry her and provide both. At the same time, a man appeared, Brand Hill. Brand stunned Hollin by claiming that he - not Ash Brock - was Bullington Brock's real son. This would have made Brand king in his own right, but he also proposed to Winnie.
Unfortunately, Winnie couldn't choose between Wormworth and Brand, because she couldn't tell which really loved her, and which just wanted her for power.
The other noble houses had been wrung by previous Brock succession wars, and with Winnie wavering, they feared a new war. But this time, instead of fighting each other, they united against Brock House and deposed Winnie. They imprisoned Winnie, Brand, and the Brock line of succession in Hobnail Prison, where they all lived out their days and died. Afterwards the houses quietly interred Winnie and the others in a modest crypt in the Brock House monument.
The houses also turned on the Grove, but the Grove's druids went underground and Wormworth was never found.
With the Brocks in prison, the houses ruled Hollin as an oligarchy. Over time the Anhault Charter Company grew to dominate the oligarchy and eventually assumed sole rule.
The current year in Hollin is 3925, so the noble houses would have deposed Winnie 772 years ago. Millicent said that Brand Hill was indeed Bullington Brock's real son, and that she was Brand's heir.
Mike said they should help Millicent. The others agreed and they discussed how. Christian said it was the Board that was in her way, that it was dominated by the Circle, and that Haden might have a way of taking control of the Circle:
I’m in a pact with the leader of the Circle, the fey queen Aurora, and her husband has given me a way to control her.
We can have her fall in love with Virgil. He might have help with a potion. What if we could take control of the Circle, take control of the Board, and help Millicent ascend?
They discussed taking out the Board with Millicent. Millicent said it wouldn't be enough to just take out the Board, since the Board would just refill with other rich Company stock owners. They needed to be those rich stock owners themselves. (Although now that I read this back, I see that Christian suggested "taking control" of the Circle and the Board, not just "taking out" the Board.)
They discussed how to forge stock transfers to Millicent, and Millicent said she could provide a list of her cistern urchins' names to use, and/or Helga could give them a similar list of her orphans' names. Millicent also mentioned that many of Hollin's guilds were founded by Gradskan royal charter, were still loyal to the throne, and were quietly accumulating stock under their guild members' names.
They also discussed how they might profit from all of this - by transferring some stock to themselves, and by getting titles from Millicent.
They briefly discussed how to find the Circle's mushroom ring and Aurora, and take control of her. I reminded them that Kasskar had given Haden generous information on fairies before, and that Gregor had given them a little. Christian also mentioned that Ishild would know about fairies, but said Haden was afraid to talk to Ishild again. We also talked about the Detect Fey spell that Haden was carrying.
I realize writing this up that Tomas Allenbrand recognized Elgis, but Elgis was still in disguise, so he probably shouldn't have.