A Royal Pain
Jessica/Jessie Grey and her older brother Billy defy their tutors and caretakers in a noble but likely futile effort to prevent an oncoming and seemingly unstoppable coup d'etat.
The royal twins slip their bonds by simply utilizing the Chancellor of the Exchequer teleportation service, finding themselves far out to the west, in a small but energetic town called Hammingburg. Billy found himself immediately drawn to the local theater scene, but Jessie just as quickly stumbled upon a murder mystery that she helped to solve. Before they knew it, the twins had been in Hammingburg for three months, living freely for the first time in their lives. But they both know it's all temporary; an illusion they are procrastinating letting go of.
Plot points/Scenes
- We need to travel to Hammingburg, which will be via the expedient method of The Gilded Goose.
- Jessie hires the party to retrieve a group of loggers from the local Kobold Keep, before they are ritually eaten. She is testing them for their suitability to help them and save the kingdom from King Pladimus Cotnor's ideologic fascism. The keep is in the forest nearby, this scene happens in the Gilded Goose.
- Jessica/Jessie Grey has been dreaming of the player characters, unknowingly scrying upon them while she slept. She knows they are approaching, but she doesn't know how or why she knows. But as soon as she sees them, she knows they are the ones from her dreams. She knows their names and weird unimportant things about them.
- Assuming the PCs accept and survive the errand, Jessica/Jessie Grey will tell them of the Kobolds sudden aggression, their uncharacteristically disciplined soldiers, and an ancient map she remembers from Craysilt Keep. The legend on the map showed that it marked the location of three Dragon Shrines, each with a big, sloppy X through them made in red ink. Jessie has always harbored a secret desire to go to these shrines, and discovering the kobolds' new and miraculously effective leadership is coming from this one really piqued her interest. This scene happens in the Gilded Goose.
- The Dragon Shrines are spread throughout Pax, each with clues to the locations of the other two cryptically etched into the stones of the dome's inner walls. This one was a ruin, having been destroyed a thousand years ago by one of Jessie's ancestors. Uthooplig Islapo has restored it to its former glory, and has been training Kobold Armies with these raids on small towns and frontier stockade forts. It's all just training for the battle to take Craysilt.
- A Raven friend of Jessie's, her most effective and prolific spy, has just yesterday told Jessie of a human noble, wearing the white and blue of the Kingdom of Cotnor, accompanied by a small cohort of the Kingdom of Cotnor's soldiers, leaving the domed Dragon Shrine making for the road to the north and thence home to their northern kingdom. This scene happens in the Gilded Goose.
- Jessie tries to convince the party to follow her plan to raid and destroy the Shrine with fire, hopefully crippling the Kobolds' command structure, and stopping the raids altogether. Capturing or killing the Dragonborn leading them (Uthooplig Islapo) would be a grand bonus. This scene happens in the Gilded Goose.
- Assuming the characters accept the errand, the fight scene will happen at the Western Dragon Shrine, with one day of travel through a temperate forest to get there.
- Assuming they survive and live, the Hamlet will honor them as heroes, and offer them a nearby sheep farm. Jessie also reveals who she actually is, and that Billy is now King, meaning her eldest brother, High King Artemis, has died. Given her knowledge of the Cotnor insurrection, she fears the worst, and means to set off into the woods to the Chancellor of the Exchequer 's teleportation circle with her brother, who is a full eight minutes older than her. She will inform them of all of this at the Gilded Goose. She would appreciate their company and help.
Themes
- Frontier town
- Out in the wilderness
- Colonization
- Kobolds are 'too organized', too good
Structure
Exposition
- Exposition A: While rescuing the loggers, the player characters will encounter a squad of four Kingdom of Cotnor soldiers. One will be carrying a scroll case with a parchment reply to King Pladimus Cotnor, written in Draconic:
Ser; We need no more than the freedom to practice our religion, and the space within which to privately do so. Grant us the three small parcels of land we agreed upon already, and we will happily help you deliver the human dung beetles' little 'keep' to your pale northern King.
- Exposition B: While rescuing the loggers, any player that speaks draconic will overhear the Kobolds talking about 'taking and eating' you and your companions as a tribute to their goddess, and know this to be something unusual. Kobolds may be dragon rats, but they've never been known to throw a giant Cedar meal or anything...
- Exposition C: Jessie will spill the beans to her new friends if given the opportunity, by reading from a leather-bound notebook:
My sources tell me a large, ruined temple has been rebuilt in the forest nearby, and the immediate area around it cleared of any living thing. Statuary of a tall and slender woman with subtle dragon scales upon her back, and the back of her arms and hands. She is dressed seductively; perhaps some sort of fertility goddess? But this is a two-fold target: 1) To take out the Kobold's command structure and cripple their forward momentum, and 2) To discover what the treacherous Cotnors want with the Kobold Armies !
My sources tell me a large, ruined temple has been rebuilt in the forest nearby, and the immediate area around it cleared of any living thing. Statuary of a tall and slender woman with subtle dragon scales upon her back, and the back of her arms and hands. She is dressed seductively; perhaps some sort of fertility goddess? But this is a two-fold target: 1) To take out the Kobold's command structure and cripple their forward momentum, and 2) To discover what the treacherous Cotnors want with the Kobold Armies !
Conflict
- The Kobold Armies have organized to the point that they have been repairing ancient structures to use as fortresses and forward operation staging. They have been taking prisoners, most recently a team of loggers working for Mo Green has been taken; but this time, Jessie's sources tracked them to a small redoubt in a hidden cleft of the river.
- Uthooplig Islapo has been organizing the diverse Kobold Armies into a cohesive force to be reckoned with. He is encamped at a fortified ancient temple that he has had the kobolds restore to its former gruesome idiom.
Rising Action
The action begins rising immediately upon the player characters accepting the errand. Constant reminders that the Kobolds are working with the Cotnors. Arms and armor from the north, crossbows, siege weapons, and tactical expertise and training are all quite evident in every encounter.
Climax
- Defeating Uthooplig Islapo and burning the temple will release an enraged Chain Devil and its four imp servants, which had been busy hallowing the ground for Vekheteshaynaralax-Shayna! Imagine if all three of these temples were hallowed to the dragon goddess herself?
Falling Action
- Travel back to base, or elsewhere, digesting their new knowledge of just how far Shayna's reach has become.
Resolution
- Either decide to help Jessie and Billy, or move on to the next adventure!
Components
Goals
- Rescue the captured loggers
- Gather information
- Somehow destroy the restored temple that's being hallowed to Shayna this whole time!
- Either go with Jessie to Craysilt, or go off on another adventure!
Hooks
- The loggers are being prepped to be ritually eaten in a ceremony to hallow the temple grounds to Shayna.
- A squad of four Kingdom of Cotnor soldiers fight with the kobolds!
- The kobolds are very well equipped...with Cotnor made arms, armor, and siege weapons.
- A high ranking Cotnor officer was seen leaving the newly renovated temple with his cohort of men and horses, heading back toward Cotnor, with slaves and chests of tribute chained to caged wagons for the long trek through the mountains. Through the ice, and snow.
- Destroying the temple releases the devils that had been busy hallowing the ground to Shayna, by interrupting their concentration. This would displease them, I am told, and they would need to be destroyed.
- Return to Hammingburg as heroes, drink up, get laid, the whole kit and kaboodle.
- Decide whether or not to help Jessie save the kingdom!?
Stakes
- The loggers' lives could end as some sort of Wellington
- The hamlet, from being razed by the Kobold Armies
- If they decide to not help Jessie, the The Unified Kingdoms of Craysilt are going to fall; there will be a full on fascist dictatorship within just a few months. Any scrying, or strange aura magic sight shenanigans will reveal this in some exquisite detail.
- Casual sex and drunken reveling are on the line, here, folks!
Moral Quandaries
- Should we risk our lives to save the loggers?
- Should we get involved in any of this at all, even?
- Do we owe this hamlet anything, even?
- Is assaulting a kobold stronghold a great idea, really?
Cruel Tricks
- The Kobolds will have set cruel traps
- Uthooplig Islapo has been collecting the skulls and skeletons of the 'ritually eaten' humans and is building a bathhouse with them. The cruelty of this, however, is not outwardly apparent...these humans souls have been forced into Ba'ator, forced directly to Nessus for slow consumption.
Relations
Protagonists
- The player characters
Allies
- Jessie
- Billy
- Potentially the Burgermeister Hammingburger and the town guard
- Igle
- Stevie
Adversaries
- The Kobold Armies
- Uthooplig Islapo
- Vekheteshaynaralax-Shayna
- Kingdom of Cotnor
Backdrops
Locations
- The The Gilded Goose
- Hamlet of Hammingburg
- The Impenetrable Forest of Birkwud
Threats
- Traps
- Enemy soldiers
- Wild animals
- Shayna's minions
- Cotnor's soldiers
Plot type
A chapter
Parent Plot
Subplots
Related Characters
Related Organizations
Related Session Reports
Comments