Session 01
General Summary
Having had some downtime since their expedition into Jzadirune the party took the opportunity to
relax a bit and enjoy life. As September wore on into October the people of Cauldron began to
look forward to the upcoming Flood Season and of course the Flood Festival.
The Flood Festival was a common event in all of the jungle island of Mochica but the members of
Magma Force had never been to one in Cauldron and so were keen to understand what they might
expect of the festival in this city. They found out that the major events of the week long festival
would be the Drink Down the Flood, city-wide drinking competition; the Crater Lake Monster
Hunt and finally the Demonskar Ball, although the ball was reserved for nobles only and was
actually a week or so after the Flood Festival had officially ended.
In preparation for the Drink Down the Flood competition the bars and guilds of the city were
holding preliminary competitions to determine the champions of each locale and club. Harley was
invited to go and take part in the Tipped Tankard Tavern's drinking competition, which he did but
failed to get very far in. Morgan, Gotrek, Harley and Camero all joined in the highly prestigious
Drunken Morkoth's competition and Morgan got to the final of that but was narrowly beaten by
the local inn champion. And finally Skie announced that Magma Force were an officially
recognised Adventuring Party and so would be allowed an entry in the main Drink Down the
Flood so they had a play off between themselves which Morgan won from Gotrek by a small
margin. Everyone was somewhat surprised that the Paladin was such a good drinker!
During September Harley spent some time getting to know his cousin Fenby a bit better and met
some of his less than savoury friends. He was also introduced to Fenby's girlfriend, Jil, who he
was left with the impression was quite a lot more "on the level" than Fenby and that this was
causing some problems between them. Harley was also left with the feeling that she had a bit of a
crush on him, something he went out of his way to discourage.
On a wet afternoon in early October Morgan arrived back at the Drunken Morkoth, having just
been doing some shopping to find that Halpeen, the landlord, had a letter for him from Lord
Terseon. Opening it Morgan discovered that he had been invited to attend Lord Terseon at the
Town Hall with immediate effect. He went straight there, deciding not to bring the rest of Magma
Force along with him at this time.
Lord Terseon explained to Morgan that the city was suffering from some extended and persistent
vandalism from goblins over the last few weeks. He wanted it stopped and the mystery of where
they were entering the city investigated and dealt with. He was keen that this was sorted fairly
promptly and that the party would not cause damage to any property or people during the course
of their investigations, but that they would keep him informed. Other than that he was happy, no
matter what they had to do to solve and stop the crimes. Morgan agreed that Magma Force would
of course deal with the matter.
The party went out into the city and found as many examples of the vandalism as they could,
realising that a lot of it was crude goblin graffiti. Getting the graffiti translated they realised that
the name "Drakthar" kept coming up and up and that there were lots of references to what sort of
creature Drakthar was. They went to the Academy and did some research on the name Drakthar in
relation to goblins but came up empty. So they found more and more graffiti and more clues and
then made a connection. The graffiti mentioned wolves, bats, rats and fog. The connection: a
vampire! Going back to the library they researched the name Drakthar from a vampire angle and
indeed discovered that there was a legendary noble vampire called Drakthar the Bloodmonger,
resident in Sasserine hundreds of years ago. This made them worried.
They went out in the night searching for goblin vandals and after a few nights without luck,
stumbled upon a group one night. Surprising the goblins Braken used his magic to freeze one, who
Harley smashed over the head with the flat of his sword and knocked out. Camero downed another
one with magic darts fired from his fingertips and the other four goblins fled into the rainy foggy
night. The bound the unconscious goblin and carted it off to the prison where they were given
permission to hold and interrogate their captive.
Interrogating their new prisoner the party were soon able to determine that it was in fact under
some sort of supernatural compulsion or domination. Again using magic they figured out that the
goblin was not magically dominated as such. It turned out Braken had a great interest in vampires
and had studied them in detail during his training in Sasserine. He was able to confirm that this
behaviour also tallied with this goblin having been dominated by a vampire. They were now
getting very worried.
Using magic Braken was able to temporarily break the domination effect and during this time the
party interrogated the goblin in depth and were able to find out that Drakthar was in fact a
bugbear. He had arrived in the goblins' home about two months ago and had slowly taken over.
Even the goblin adepts were under his spell it seemed. The goblin was also able to tell the party
that he and his companions entered the city through the home of a "red eyed dwarf". No one in the
party knew of such a person.
Asking around town and especially at the Dwarven Fastness, the party were able to find out that
perhaps the goblin was refering to Orak Stonehaven, who owned the bathhouse on Lava Avenue.
Apparently he used to be a regular visitor to the Fastness to the temple of Moradin and the local
dwarven ale house, but had not been there in a couple of months. The party realised that this tied
in with the same time period that Drakthar had apparently been on the scene. They figured that
Orak might also be dominated which would explain his lack of attendance at the Dwarven
Fastness and his willingness to work with goblins - if indeed he was.
The group decided it was time to pay the bathhouse on Lava Street a visit. Wandering up they
spotted a cloaked figure hunched in an alleyway watching the bathhouse. Wandering over to talk
to him and see what he was up to the figure spotted them, drew his rapier and in an instant
changed shape into some sort of half man, half rat. A wererat!
Chaos broke out as three other wererats arrived swiftly on the scene, jumping into the alleys and
the melee from nearby rooftops. The party soon realised that their weapons were quite ineffective
against these lycanthropes, but Gotrek hit them so hard that he was still hurting them, and
Camero's magical missiles were fully effective and so within moments all four wererats were
lying dead. They reverted to human form upon their death and a quick search of them revealed
nothing to indicate who they were or who they worked for.
Shortly a partol arrived summoned by the disturbance, and Morgan explained the party were on
city business for Lord Terseon. The patrol helped the party take the dead bodies back to the
barracks where they reported their findings to Sergeant Skylar. He was somewhat concerned that
things were getting out of hand.
The party now had to decide what to do next. If they were to be fighting any more wererats then
silver weapons were a must. Braken also told them they would need either magical or silver
weapons if they were to go up against a vampire, to say nothing of plenty of garlic, holy symbols
and wooden stakes. Also, who was this Drakthar creature? Was he the legendary Drakthar the
Bloodmonger, noble of Sasserine and ancient vampire, or was he some sort of bugbear with a
special power? And why had he seemingly dominated a tribe of goblins and then decided he
would send them out into the city to make people aware of him. And would a powerful and noble
vampire use scummy goblins to do this work for him? There were clearly many more questions to
be answered before this mystery was solved.
Report Date
11 Apr 2024
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