Something Wicked Stirs in Ardanyan

General Summary

As the winter festival approaches the party are out exploring the bustle of the traders camps of Westgate, when a large Troll goes berserk over some of his crew dropping valuable cargo. Before anyone can intervene he chops off one unfortunate sailors arm and stoves in anothers head.
The party are quick to jump in and attempt to subdue the Troll, Astra suspecting foul play cast dispel on the Troll while Giltris attempts to talk him down. Ragnaros deciding that this isn't working, attempts to tackle the troll into the river. Unfortunately the confused Troll upon being jumped by Ragnaros steps to one side and drops him into the river, whereupon he begins to sink weighed down by his armour.
Meanwhile Hauflin, who had been looking for whatever caused this, spots an old human woman squinting at them. Deciding that she must have cast some sort of spell he sends Primrose to web her up, while he summons a giant crab to fish Ragnaros out of the river before he drowns.
Deciding that he doesn't want to stick around Calbiades the troll decides to make a run for it, seeing this Giltris trips him up and sets about hog tying him.
Hauflin and Astra move to question the woman Primrose webbed up while Ragnaros and Giltris get into a confrontation with several sailors from Calbiades ship, who would very much like their captain back. The argument is soon settled by the arrival of the town watch under Sargent Saurish.
The webbed up woman turns out to be Chandipati the keeper of the local temple, she is quite understanding about being captured and asks the party back to the temple to talk, confessing that she believes that there is more going on than just a random attack.

The Temple

The temple is in the process of being decorated for the festivel due to start tomorrow. Chandipati invites the party into the back chambers and offers them tea while she fills them in on recent events.
It seems that this is not the first event.
Three nights ago, a fight broke out between Bazel, a notorious windling pickpocket, and Misaq Hardknuckles, an enforcer working for the Thieves Guild, over a game of hazard (a popular dice game). The normally cowardly windling went for the much bigger Misaq with his boot knife, with predictable results. Misaq fled the scene and is lying low.
Two days ago, Jamia, a stallholder in the Fish Market, attacked the man sent to collect her regular protection payments on behalf of the Boss of Con Artists and Racketeers. The racketeer responded in kind, beating Jamia senseless before limping away and bleeding out in an alleyway. Jamia later died of her injuries too. A young orphan girl, Ashna, saw the whole thing.
Then, yesterday, a fisherman named Param, a regular at the Temple, attacked his cousin with a fish hook as they sailed out for the morning, and nearly gutted him. Now he is being held in the Watchhouse cells for murder.
Chandipati asks if the party will look into it for her, she is too busy with the festivel, isn't as young as she once was and the watch don't see any connection. The party agree, deciding that Giltris and Hauflin should go and investigate the orphanage while Ragnaros and Astra head to the watchhouse to talk to Param and possibly Calibris.

The Watchhouse

At the watchhouse Sargent Saurish doesn't see any harm in them talking to Param but thinks it's a waste of time, "people lose their temper all the time, there's no plot just regular town violence" he says.
In the cells they question the distraught Param. He confesses that he had a regular competition with his cousin that he was often loosing and had been annoyed about that but not enough to kill, he doesn't know what came over him. Astra senses that he is hiding something and when they push him on it he confesses that he had been for a drink at the Black Dolphin’s Wake before going out fishing, he didn't want to say in case it made him look more guilty.
Ragnaros and Astra then talk to Calbiades who is unhappy to see them. They do manage to get out of him that he was just coming back from the Black Dolphin when he saw the crewmen drop his cargo.
With that information gleaned they head off to meet Giltris and Hauflin.

The Orphanage

The orphanage The Happy Hill Home appears a run down badly kept place when Hauflin and Giltris arrive. seeing no sign of children around Hauflin sneaks into the building through a first floor window while Giltris keeps watch.
Inside the top floor is devided into girls and boys dorm rooms, the beds and blankets are poor and the place looks even more of a dump than the outside would suggest. Hauflin slips downstairs discovering a dining room and kitchen. In the kitchen the food is meagre and of bad quality, all except for a locked cupboard which when opened is filled with good food and wine.
Hauflin decides that a redistribution of the wealth is in order and sneaks much of the food upstairs to the dorms, unfortunately on one trip he drops a large wheel of cheese down the stairs, It is load enough that Giltris notices from outside and can see someone moving out of the front office.
Hauflin quickly hides as and older elf woman searches the upstairs, when she goes to investigate the other dorm room he slips back downstairs and pokes around the office. In the office he finds the children's files, curiously there are dates and street names in the files. Finding the street Ashna is supposed to be on today they leave with the files and head there.

The Orphan

Hauflin and Giltris manage to track Ashna down just in time to watch her fumble an attempt to pickpocket a fire mage named Marjan.
Marjan a strangely blank look coming over her face attacks the orphan girl with fire magic headless of the crowd.
Astra attempts to put Marjan to sleep to no avail. Giltris tries to calm her down but notices that there is no-one at home behind Marjan's eyes. Hauflin gets primrose to web up Ashna and drag her to safety. Ragnaros decides to tackle Marjan but in his rage he misses her completely and goes flying into a market stool.
Marjan retaliates against the party attempting to burn them with fire. Astra and Hauflin summon water elementals to fight the fires and after a brief fight the party manage to subdue her.
At this point the Watch arrive. Ashna doesn't want to be seen by the watch so Hauflin and Giltris slip away with her making plans to rendezvous with the others at the temple. Saurish questions Ragnaros about the incident.
Back at the temple they question Ashna getting her to reveal what she had seen and that Jamia had also been to The Black Dolphin’s Wake prior to what happend.
With that the party resolve to investigate The Black Dolphin’s Wake.

Character(s) interacted with

Saurish
Ashna
Chandipati
Param
Calbiades

Campaign

Ashes of Ardanyan

Protagonists

Giltris

Hauflin

Ragnaros

Astra

Report Date

03 Jun 2018

Primary Location

The Town of Ardanyan