S2 E1: A long time ago in Orendarium...
General Summary
5th of Ninthmonth, 2833 A3
- We find ourselves in the capitol city of the Realm, Orendarium. It's a sprawling, crowded city in the warm bayous along the northern coast of the Southern Sea - imagine a Medieval New Orleans and you pretty much get it. The city is made up of various smaller districts, each one virtually a city unto themselves, and our heroes all happen to be at a large Gambling hall and hotel establisment in the Elven Quarter, one of the oldest parts of town reknowned for entertainment and spectacle as well as good food and expensive drink. But the Beggar's Dice is one of only a handful of establishments where it's legal in the city to drink and gamble at the same time, so here, the food, drinks adn rooms are cheap because the gambling revenues make up for it.
- Le Chat Noir, a female Tabaxi, has been a dealer for a couple of years at the Beggar's Dice, and has a good relationship with Cochon, the owner, a morbidly obese human male who mostly keeps to the back rooms, as well as Finby, a male Minotaur who provides the muscle required to keep riffraff out and shenanigans at a minimum, but who also dresses as flashy as a showgirl and is an accomplished bard. Le Chat, in her spot at the Three Dragoncard Ante table, hears a lot of things and makes more than a few friends from time to time. And she's heard, lately, that people may be disappearing right outside the casino, at the public water pump. So far the Watch has dismissed it as 'drunks and vagabonds', a common theme regarding the Watch's unwillingness to do any more work than is strictly necessary.
- Cobalt Steel Shaper, a blue-skinned Male Tiefling, has been staying at the Beggar's Dice for a week or so, working on business deals for the Dwarven-run Ironmongers Guild which he works for in Procurement. He has a line on a large supply of Abyssal Steel which is reknowned for its sharpness and high melting point; but the truth is, he finds the work becoming increasingly dull, and sitting in the casino meeting Business developers and salespeople has left him yearning for more meaningful and interesting work - perhaps something that can put his great artisinal skills to use in support of the greater good, rather than merely the enrichment of his bosses. He finds it increasingly hard not to listen in on the juicy conversation at Le Chat's card table.
- K.C. (or Casey) seems to delight everyone who first sees her. She's a small Kobold female with bright eyes and a leopard gecko patterning and coloration, which is so rare as to be unheard of in these parts anyway; her pudgy fingers and helpful attitude seem to fire up the urge for strangers to protect her rather than oppose her. Exactly why she's at the Gambling hall is unclear, but she has a loose acquaintance with the Sisters of Regrettable Fortune who - smitten with her on sight, presumably - decided that they wanted to encourage her interest in cooking and raise funds for their charity by commissioning her to write a cookbook called Flavors of Orendarium. She's not a native of Orendarium and seems to not be a native of Tergaith at all, adding to her exotic nature and the need to be a protected little bean.
- Somewhere in this pursuit KC also recently crossed paths with Tatiana Craig, a female high elf who, like KC, is far from a native of the city but is well on her way to belonging here, with an interest in magic items, political power and the power and security that they provide. Fortunately she's not a particularly unpleasant person in this pursuit, and has hit it off with KC here at the Beggar's Dice, where she's interested in finding out more about a magic item from a Gnome dilettante named Wendell. In the midst of their conversation and gambling, Wendell tells her he knows of a Wand of Wonder that was stolen from the Ravenwick Wizard college and hidden for safekeeping by the student-thieves. He gives her the riddle he overheard them saying they hid it - "Behind the place, frozen in time, where the lord's light meets the lady's tears," and his only explanation is maybe it has something to do with the big statues in Granite Gardens near the Capitol Square, as these are bigger-than-life statues of literal Exultant ladies and lords whose statues glower down on the unwashed masses in the square. Tatiana pays for the information but has the distinct feeling she'll need more to go on to reduce the possible places this could refer to - especially since she's rather new in town and not up to date on every landmark or backalley hiding place.
- This loose group of associates is broght together by Eldara Keldran, a Shadar-Kai female whose sister Adrina has gone missing; she's missed several of the dead-drop communications Eldara and her sister used. Though she's desperate to find out what happened, she also has plenty to hide of her own, and good reason not to involve the Watch. Having heard of these abductions, she's troubled to find that Wendell has a vague memory of seeing a woman more or less fitting Aldrana's description - though partially head-shaven with tattoos that Aldrana didn't have the last time Eldara saw her; but it's been a while since they met face to face. Wendell mentions that ths maybe-Adrina was seen walking in the circle - the round street around the hand-pump well outside of the Beggar's Dice - with someone at least dressed in the robes of the Sisters of Regrettable Fortune. They're a large and influential group, but it seems an interesting coincidence to have them come up twice in casual conversation. Wendell agrees to follow them on a look around the circle.
- They find deep slash-marks in the stone near the pump, from either a very sharp weapon or impossibly sharp claws, that have not yet filled in with road grime. One egregious scrape leads to one of the side storm drains, large enough to fit an ordinary human in and spacious for a gnome. They agree to investigate further and go into the drains, which is probably illegal or at least ill-advised, but the Watch has no interest in pursuing this without proof and perhaps we don't want the Watch involved when it comes to Adrina, anyway.
- In the storm drains they find that two of the three rain drains are actually clogged by thick branches - small seedling trees, in fact, propped from the inside against the drains and then stuffed from the outside with smaller branches and leaf debris. It's not conclusive, and maybe not even related, but whoever did that is almost certainly not a one-person operation as it would take coordination from both sides of the drain at once. As they pondered this, a series of thumps and scratches was heard around the bend in the storm drain...
Character(s) interacted with
- Cochon - Owner of the Beggar's Dice
- Finby - Bouncer and Bard at the Beggar's Dice
- Wendell - Gnome gambler and information broker
Notes
- Faction: The Sisters of Regrettable Fortune are a charitable religious order made up exclusively of Exultant women who have, for various reasons, renounced their places in political society and donated their fortunes to the church (where, conveniently, they are no longer taxed on them). They are cloistered primarily in the Abbey of Regrets located in Tiremme and are open to all the social classes. They take a particular interest in orphans and wayward girls as well as female travelers of little means. As they are, regardless of their stated intent, a society made up of powerful exultant women, they exert an outsized influence in the city of Orendarium and in the Realm as a whole compared to other less funded orders that lack political power.
Report Date
05 Sep 2023
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