Well?
A playtest of an adventure put together from the Dregs of Clearwine book.
Where is Dregs of Clearwine 1?
I didn’t run that, but there’s a quick rundown in IC events.
Availability?
The Dregs of Clearwine – all the plot hooks were already in this book.
Finished Playtest?
Yes. It took a session.
Follow-up. Always a session?
As long or as short as it takes. It was an intro to the people of the Dregs.
Characters
Orlakt, a philosopher
Broamast, a Humakti and his brother
Orlston, a Humakti and their cousin.
IC Action?
The three had been sent by the generous and forgiving1Lies High Sword of Humakt in Boldhome, to investigate hazia movements, probably as a favour to the Chief Priest of Orlanth. In the course of the last session, in which a ghost attached itself to them, they had threatened two of the inhabitants of the Dregs, a brawler called Furli, and a widow, Dorela.
They elected to look into the drug problem, first of all by asking Mamma Vorlena, a helpful woman whose door was always open to those in need.2Provided, of course, that she could wring some work out of them. Once she had told Broamast he was going to have to apologise to the widow for bullying her, she sent them along to the ratcatcher, who slept in the kiln yard.
There were barrels with people sleeping in them. First of all they encountered a drunk who did not like Humakti, so Orlakt did the talking, and they found out that the ratcatcher, Arlanda, was in the next barrel along, among all the cats. Arlanda, for money, offered to fix them up with Hazia. For more money, she offered the name Kandes as her supplier, and that he was often up at the Blue Mound.
They went that way, getting snowed on a bit, and found it was made up mostly of broken blue tiles with strange symbols all over them. Partway up the mound, they saw someone digging around in the rubble. Broamast went up3Failed Move Quietly. to tap them on the foot, as they were halfway down a hole, and ask if they knew where Kandes was.
The man pulled himself out. He had a fine all-over head tattoo, and did not match the description of Kandes. He first pretended to know nothing. Orlakt looked at him intimidatingly; the man then said they were brothers and Kandes had gone to Esrolia. They they heard a noise around the other side of the mound. Broamast went to investigate, and saw a strange lizard-like beast there. It walked on two legs. He called for help from the others, and drew his sword.
It called back, asking what help he needed.4And thus they met their first Dragonewt. The sound of him changing gear mentally could be picked up by Mostali equipment kilometers away. He put his sword away and greeted it. It drew a sword and put it away, and then told him that it required recompense for a broken tile, and wanted its skin back. It said that the skin was in the same house as the illusion-bearer.
On going back around to where Orlakt was not letting the rubble-skimmer escape, the dragonewt poked Kandes on the head, dispelling the illusion on him; he admitted to being himself. The three of them took Kandes back to his house in the Dregs, where Rangal and Ivarna lived. They asked if they could search it. The rather confused and defensive woman of the house, Ivarna, told them that her husband was ill. They wanted to look in his room, but while they were talking it over, he came out – he was indeed very ill and shaky.
While they were negotiating about finding the skin in the house, Orlakt accidentally insulted Ivarna5Fumbled Customs, flirted with her by accident. and was thrown out.
That evening, Broamast made a public apology for his behaviour towards Dorela, and she accepted it, and there was a big crowd to see it.
The next morning the group of them went to find a White Lady to examine Rangal, the old artist. Nobody was interested until they heard he was trembling, and then they were very interested in case it was the Creeping Chills. Orlakt was not allowed into the house again, but they waited outside, and the healer came out to say it was not the Creeping Chills. She thought there was a different underlying cause.
Those who WERE allowed in negotiated with the household to be allowed to take down the ancient bit of wall there, and sent for Andrin, the stonecutter who lived nearby. He took the day with them to take the wall apart, and found that there was an ancient shrine to Sartar the Builder there. So far that had cost them 60L to be allowed to tear apart the house, and 1 to hire Andrin. It also cost them Orlston’s breastplate and backplate to replace the dragonewt skin in the shrine as something that would go around and protect.
Orlakt, meanwhile, went out to the Blue Mound to try to find out more about dragonewts. He failed. He could not understand what the dragonewt was doing. He returned to Clearwine and helped Mamma with some document drafting, finding out that although her door was always open to the needy, she would always put you to work.
Finally, once Orlakt also apologised to Ivarna, he was allowed back into the house, and after clever questioning he managed to use Reconstruction to work out what had happened – Kandes had brought the bad news that Rangal’s son was dead. In a moment of despair, Rangal had eaten something he thought would kill him, but it had not.
Kandes, however, had fled the city. The group had not succeeded in finding out about hazia, although they had found a place where it had been. The skin was returned to the dragonewt.
OOC?
Tech problems (the GM has a very old computer) meant that one of the players hosted the Twitch stream. THIS meant that the GM could not see the chat. Chat kept making helpful comments, which was hilarious. We referred to it as the voice of the gods.
