Session 3: The Gates of the Guard (sɛʃən 3 ðə gets əv ðə gard)

General Summary

“Stepping through the opened trap door, you are led through a secondary door, and eventually step down a long staircase underneath a high arch into what seems to be a secondary common room. Round tables with chairs are spread throughout the room, with a long bar standing on the left side of the chamber. The ceiling is tall, and many banners and scraps of cloth and tapestries in all kinds of colours hang from it, making it a colourful display that brings a short smile to your lips. At the end of the room is a dais with a long table and chairs set on it, rising up about half a metre, and the room is absolutely crammed with people. You see all kinds of people; a few lanky bugbears lounge at the bar together with a number of Humans and Dwarves; you see Halflings, Gnomes, and even a towering Goliath against the back wall near the risen dais. On the left, you see a musclebound Half-Orc, playing a card game near the dais with a scraggly-haired Gnome that looks at your troupe as you approach.
“From the table on the dais, you see a Tiefling rise. She is dressed in a simple black dress, her alabaster-grey skin shining faintly in the light. Tall horns curve across her head and then turn into a faint point behind it, reaching around ten centimetres into the air. They ring faintly with baubles and decorations; an angular face is framed by long black hair, and sharp black eyes look you up and down. She smiles. “Well, well, well. Who do we have here, friends?”

— The Dungeon Master

Last we left off, you stole into Tor Tirista, the Iron City, the City of the Guard, following a mysterious letter not addressed to you, from an individual known as the Lady. Stopped at the gates by the Golden Guard, the citizen-militia, you were informed of an incident at the estate of House Galanodel, the ancestral home of Galadriël, your companion. You passed through the beautiful stone streets of the city, quickly identifying that tensions were high before you arrived in the Terraced Sprawl and the fortress-manor of House Galanodel within.
You found smoke drifting from the Galanodel estate, pillars shattered, and stained glass windows broken. An attack had clearly occurred a few hours earlier and failed, which had alerted the entire city. Such attacks are relatively rare within Tor Tirista, but usually, they are more covert and slow. This was a rapid assault. You met with the ageing butler of House Galanodel. You were informed that a dean of the College of Necromancy from the Collegium Arcanum had been summoned to reanimate a remaining corpse to give an answer to several questions. At this, you set off into the city proper.
You arrived in an area known as the Tri-Palace, a Ring of the city containing three large market squares: the Palaces of Blood and Salt, Cloth and Gold, and Iron and Stone. You split up, with Galadriël and Deimos venturing to the Palace of Blood and Salt, and Belial heading into the Palace of Cloth and Gold. You all began looking for your quarry: a tavern known as the Morning’s Dew. Within the Palace of Blood and Salt, Galadriël and Deimos found firstly a Half-Elven butcher who had very little to say, and secondly an old woman who turned out not to be a woman at all.
Belial had more success. Interrogating a single shopkeeper of a clothing and fabrics store in the Palace of Cloth and Gold, you first placed an order for a long coat for 40 gold, and then continued on to chat with the shopkeeper, who eventually admitted that they ‘come bearing many gifts’ to the Morning’s Dew, which was located a few streets away, built against the city’s outer walls. Entering, you all regrouped and made contact with the barkeeper, a Dwarf, and were eventually led down into the catacombs of the tavern. There, you found the Lady, an elusive, mysterious Tiefling crime boss, who tested your luck through a game called Avandra’s Favour and then gave you the task of clearing out an old research outpost as part of a covert war she was fighting against a rival faction within Tor Tirista’s criminal underbelly, for a reward of 200 gold.

Report Date

07 Jun 2022

Primary Location

Tor Tirista

Secondary Location

Cyren Basin

Related Characters

• The Lady