The First Session - Part 2: Starting a Holy War

Okay, my title on this post might be a little extreme. Then again, depending on how things go in the future, it may be appropriate before the campaign is over. I have a feeling I will repeat this phrase many times before I stop posting here: Only time will tell.

Picking up where we left off, the party eventually proceeded to find their way to the temple of an evil god in the slums - a God of Famine. The temple guards demanded a payment of tribute of food to gain entry to the temple and so the party handed over some of the few rations they had on them to be sacrificed to the temple's god. I make note of this now because we will be coming back to it later. Once inside they manage to avoid causing any real trouble and, with the help of their dice, collect some useful information to help them find the evil priest they've been following. It so happens that he is a major player in the temple for the God of Evil (yes, with the big G and big E - the top man in the realm of unholy evil deities here) and with his recent return to the city there has been a bustle of activity at their temple across the city. The PCs decide they'll need to get over there tomorrow as its already very late into the night and they need a rest. Thanking their unholy hosts for the information they head back out into the slums and try to find a cheap inn for the night.

Do you see where this is headed?

Finding an inn proves to be of little difficulty, even if the only one willing to accept customers so late into the night is in what is essentially the worst part of town. Being too late to even get a meal, the party simply heads up to their room to sleep. They do make a token effort to set a watch rotation after a healthy dose of paranoia is issued from Mayu about not trusting the innkeeper. Unfortunately, some poor dice rolls end up with the person on watch (Haruka I think) actually falling asleep on the job. However this wasn't unfortunate for the PCs but rather for the innkeeper who decided to use a removable panel in the wall of the room to sneak in and try to rob the party. Haruka does wake up in the midst of this and doesn't ask any questions. He draws his knives and just lays into the innkeeper, tallying up yet another murder. (No, I don't count this one as self-defense if only because no attempt at anything other than murderous violence was employed.) With the sounds of battle, Dorian and Mayu wake up, but only in time to see the assassin finishing his job.

After a brief discussion, the group decides that actually staying the rest of the night wouldn't be the best idea if anyone came looking for the innkeeper come morning. But do they just up and flee? Oh, no no no. There is still opportunity to be had! With seemingly no more potential resistance in the building, they give the place a once over. They decide the only other patrons are too poor to rob but that doesn't stop them from searching around a bit to find the innkeeper's lockbox. That's right. After killing the man because he appeared to be trying to rob them, they turn around and rob him. Ingenious, isn't it? Remember folks - when opportunity knocks, answer the door, invite it inside, slit it's throat and then loot it's corpse. By this time it was nearly morning. The PCs decide to head across the city as far as they can and end up in the higher class section of the city. They find significantly more expensive lodging (paid for by their so-generous previous host, of course) and take a day to stage the next step in their plan.

For when time is of the essence. Or any other time if you feel like it.

Locating the temple of the God of Evil is fairly easy for the PCs but they decided they needed to know as much information as possible before trying to head inside to do something about the evil priest they've been after. Logical course of action: Ask around, maybe pass some bribes to loosen tongues, result to divination magic if necessary. The party's course of action: Find an acolyte of the temple, get him alone, knock him out, take him to a secluded location and proceed to torture him for any and all information he may have. I'm not going to go through the details of said torture here, but let's say that it also included psychological elements in addition to physical ones. I say that because throughout the whole process they continue to reassure him that he will be set free when he's answered all their questions. No, it did not surprise me in the tiniest bit when they killed him at the end of it. Murder count: 3. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against violence in D&D as a viable problem solving option, but there is such a thing as overkill. Here is where we get the first real memorable quote for the session.

DM: So what're you going to do with the body?
Haruka: We could take it down and donate it to the Temple of Famine!

That's right. Remember how I said to remember the bit about donations to the Famine temple? That is exactly what they did with the dead acolyte. This is where our title comes into play. These people from out of town have arrived, gone directly to the God of Famine's temple on their arrival, then gone to the God of Evil's temple and murdered one of their followers, leaving the broken and abused body on the Famine temple's steps. It may not exactly be a declaration of jihad, but its a start.

So, now armed with information about a high unholy ceremony at the end of the week where the evil priest will be directing the rites, along with some information about the lower levels of the temple that lead to the priest's personal chambers, the party decides on how to strike. They spend the next few days in-game collecting magic scrolls and wands to use for their assault on the temple. While their information isn't perfect it is still quite good and they have a significant advantage now. When the end of the week arrives they join the crowd of worshippers in the temple and get a good look at the priest, confirming him as their mark. After the main service has ended and one Wand of Invisibility later, they've gained access to the lower levels of the temple in pursuit of the priest.

They know that there will be a group of ogre bodyguards in a room outside of a locked corridor leading to the priest's chambers. To counter this, they brought a scroll of Black Tentacles to help defuse the situation as well as some Greater Invisibility for the assassin so he can finish whatever ogres the tentacles leave alive. There is something to be said about having the right spell for the right job. What should have been a devastating battle against a greater number of opponents turned into a joke of an encounter with the application of one spell. By the time the tentacles faded away there was one lone ogre still breathing and he didn't remain that way for much longer. (Since the ogres were just doing their job here, I'm raising the murder count to 7, because ogres are people, too. Dumb people and frequently violent and evil, but people nonetheless.) Beyond a locked door they pretty much kicked down was a short corridor full of ghouls. This bit came as a surprise to the party and an early lucky strike left the necromancer paralyzed for most of the battle unfortunately. Mayu and Haruka did manage to tear their way through the undead with a bit of brute force. Now at the final door to the priest's chamber, the players use their Wand of Invisibility again as its their best buff spell going for them at this point. The sounds of combat also gave the priest some time to cast his own buff spells and summon up some undead to help defend himself but it would sadly be in vain. Once inside, the party just absolutely went to town on him and his minions. The necromancer definitely provided some solid crowd control while the assassin just wailed on the priest who apparently forgot to prepare Invisibility Purge that day. Our bard kept the music flowing and the bonuses going and altogether it made my big, climactic battle almost as big of a joke as the ogres were. (No murder count here. Remember, this was revenge for the killing of Haruka's family.) While no one saw them come and go except the people they killed this time around, I still think this merits a glance at the title of this post one more time.

A quick once over of his personal chambers revealed a small hidden cache of gear including a magic sword (Crystal Echoblade) that the Bard took possession of after later having it identified in a less violent manner than was attempted in Part 1. They also find information about more of the murderers of Haruka's family and about a powerful necromancer out to the West that the priest was intending to recruit. Dorian proclaims that finding this necromancer in hopes of learning some new dark magic for himself will be the party's next goal, and so ends the first session.

That was supposed to be the end of the whole game but since they were just having so much fun I was asked to continue on with more for the same characters, and I have. Tune in next time as we see just how much effort can be put into casting a single spell, why the DM should just keep their fool mouth shut when the newbie player starts making rhetorical comments, and some undead ponies.

Though to be fair, we tend to bring it down on ourselves.