Mission 007: The Ring of Rotthold
The Standard gets a job in Rotthold, to the south. The client is establishing a Fighting Ring and has been having some trouble that she'd like the Standard to help with.
Mission Log
The Standard was tasked with investigating a series of disasters plaguing a newly-constructed fighting ring outside the town of Rotthold, located on the southern coast of Wildemount. Upon traveling there, the team made contact with Myhra, a former general in the Dwendalian Empire's military and the owner of the fighting ring. She recounted the problems they had been having; theft, vandalism, property damage, and a death in the ring. During a fight two nights prior, two fighters had been going hand-to-hand when a punch from one of them, Bjorn, killed the other, Casey.
Together, the team questioned Myhra, her second-in-command Coppertop, examined Casey's body, and interrogated Bjorn (who had turned himself in out of remorse). Between Monty's aptitude for the arcane, Fess's rogue knowledge, and Ye's… charm, they drew together several leads and headed into the town proper to investigate.
Making their way through town, the group was set upon by a streetside fortune teller named Imelda the Great, who quickly established two things; She did not like Ye, and Tide had a great destiny about them, urging the Paladin to be wary and giving them a Tarot card in the hopes it would help, before ɘᴎiᎸ ꙅi ǫᴎiʜƚʏɿɘvɘ ɘᴎiᎸ ꙅi ǫᴎiʜƚʏɿɘvɘ -- qɘɘ|ꙅ ■ ɒ bᴎɘ ■ ɒ ɘᎸɒꙅ ɘɿɒ ɘᴎoᴎ bᴎɒ ǫᴎimoɔ ꙅi ǫᴎi⋊ ɘɿɘʜwoͶ ɘʜT
Meanwhile, Fess stood watch on the street and managed to catch a pickpocket who tried to liberate some of his hard-earned gold, offering the young Tiefling girl a few tips about thievery… only to be thanked with a quick kick to the shin before the girl ran off.
Recovering from their encounters with the more eccentric elements of Rotthold's street life, the group stopped in at The Fuzzy Duck, looking for some drinks and some intel. Thanks to Ye's shapeshifting abilities, the group had the bartender's full attention, managing to get a fairly good lay of the land; including a great deal about their next target, Darla Blessedtongue, a pious woman who has appointed herself the saviour of Rotthold, looking to establish a church within the town and save its soul-- whether the town wanted it or not.
Heading to the meager tent that Darla was operating out of, the group tested their theories-- and the woman's patience-- before ultimately concluding that for all her talk, the woman held no real power and couldn't be behind the problems plaguing the fighting ring. But through their impassioned reasoning, they at least convinced one of Darla's followers to leave the flock, sending Mavis on her way to her Slut Era.
From there, the group made to track down the teenage thief who had absconded with Fess's gold, tracking her to an abandoned building in Rotthold's back alleys. There, they discovered that the young tiefling was the ringleader of a small group of street urchins who called themselves The Crimson Catspaw, naming themselves after their protector/mascot; A Tabaxi Monk named Catspaw.
A fight broke out-- and was promptly ended by a brutal hit from Tide, and then some canny cat-speak from Ye, who Wildshaped into a kitten form and spoke with the bewildered Catspaw. Turns out the confused cat was merely an exhibition fighter, looking to make a name for himself in non-lethal battles, and willing to break kayfabe if it meant saving his life.
As the fight deescalated and cooler heads prevailed, Fess gave the young thieves some pointers and then demanded his gold back. The youngest of the urchins, a young earth genasi named Gobi, showed them their 'stash' and let Fess take back his gold… while Monty honed in on an interesting artifact lying alongside their loot; a torn hexbag, typically used to summon malevolent spirits.
Questioning the young boy, the group discovered that Coppertop was the one behind the hexbags. From there, they made their way back to the ring (with a brief stop for a round of drinks along the way), arriving back where they had started shortly after night had fallen. Alongside a furious Myhra, the group confronted Coppertop. Incensed, the dragonborn argued that he had done what he had to for Myhra's sake-- that he hadn't been able to argue her out of opening the fighting ring, something he viewed as a gross insult to the honour they accrued as soldiers-- and so he had to resort to sabotaging it. He hadn't meant for it to end in death, but-- Whatever else he might have had to say was cut off by Myhra dispatching him with a single shot from her pistol, killing him instantly.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the group's trouble, as Coppertop's death allowed the malevolent spirits he had invoked to manifest fully in the form of a Wraith. A fierce battle ensued, with a few near misses, but ultimately Monty was able to dispatch the spirit with a bolt from his crossbow and a pithy one liner.
Bloodied but victorious, the group tended to Myhra who had been knocked unconscious in the fight, earning her admiration and respect as she realised that not only had they solved her problem for her, they had saved her life. Then, with coin purse in hand, they returned home.
SUMMARY
DM Luke
PLAYERS Mike (Fess), Mimi (Ye), Sherri (Tide), Tony (Monty)
RESULT Mission Complete
TOTAL XP 1100 xp each
TOTAL GP 45 gp each