The Storm

The locals have already started calling it The Storm, as if certain that one of its magnitude is not likely to ever strike the city again.  Hour after hour the rains have kept falling, and at an amazing pace.  Even in daylight the city is draped in midnight darkness, punctuated only by the fierce lightning that rips angrily from the sky.  The wind howls and gusts and pushes those unlucky enough to be caught outside off their feet.  In the lower reaches of the city the streets are raging rivers hurtling towards the bay, washing away anything that isn't tied down, and quite a bit that was.  Bodies float through the streets in the Warrens, some fresher than others.  Refugees from The Docks district fight the weather as they struggle up the lonely road that takes them to the top of the Cliffs of Lost Wishes, as their homes and businesses succumb to the onslaught of nature.  Great sections of the district have already cleaved off into the churning ocean as the sandy soil is undermined.  A gathering of mages from The Inverted Pyramid have taken up station at the top of the cliffs and work urgently to save as much as they can from the ravages of the storm.  Those displaced crowd into Midtown mostly, and while the streets are almost utterly devoid of life, the inns and taverns on higher ground do a booming business. 

Already rumors swirl around the city that there is some supernatural agency at work, that a storm like this could only be the result of foul necromancy.  Most don't believe it, surely, but this is Ptolus, and one can never be sure.  After almost 24 hours, it doesn't appear that the storm intends to leave Ptolus any time soon.  As people huddle in their homes, or in the welcoming warmth of taverns and inns, tensions rise, tempers flare, and certain nefarious elements plot how to use Nature's Wrath to their own advantage. 

And So On

The party accepted Lord Zavere's proposal and went to meet with Linech Cran.  Cran told the group that he was looking for adventurers to recover his daughter's body from a shipwreck at the botton of the bay.  Cran told the group that his daughter was in a glass coffin in the hold of the ship.  He was evasive about the other cargo therein, but insisted that he was only interested in recovering his daughter.

The group agreed to take the job, and and were accompanied to the docks by one of Cran's henchmen, Seanus.  The group asked around to gain information about the shipwreck.  Meanwhile, a massive storm rolled into the bay, making it impossible for the group to find any sailors willing to take them to the site of the shipwreck. 

The Story So Far... or, A Belated Continuance

When we last left our intrepid adventurers they were on a rainy Ptolus street at sunset when a woman's scream pierced the stillness.  They rushed to investigate, only to find a young woman, Phon Quartermain, being attacked by a group of street thugs.  A short battle ensued, and one of the thugs escaped.  A second was subdued, and the third was killed.  The party soon discovered that the thugs had been hired to kill Phon.  But who hired them was a mystery.  The group recovered a note detailing where and when the thugs were to present to collect their reward.

The note lead them to a warehouse where the party ended up fighting a second group of small time hoods.  When captured, questioned, and intimidated, the surviving members of this second group of criminals were more forthcoming.  They informed the party that they worked for a half-orc named Toridan Cran, a petty criminal with pretensions.  The group set about trying to find out why Phon would be the target of a murder for hire, with little luck.  Phon broke down into hysterics when questioned.  Meanwhile, the party investigated Toridan Cran.

Before going after Cran, however, the group was alerted to a money-making opportunity in the North Market.  Our heroes were hired by a group of merchants and citizens to investigate an abandoned and apparently haunted house.  It was not haunted, as it turns out, but simply infested by goblins.  In a battle that can only be described as a comedy of errors, they defeated the goblins and then collected their reward from the townspeople, who continued to believe that the house was haunted, despite the evidence to the contrary.

After resting and recovering, the party ventured to Toridan Cran's hovel.  Again, combat ensued, and our heroes managed to capture Cran, who, under less than polite questioning, revealed that he had been hired by a mysterious stranger to have Phon murdered.  Cran simply subcontracted the job to the thugs that made the initial attempt. Cran, and his henchmen that survived the battle, were turned over to the City Watch, for which the party received an insignificant bounty.

The party, alerted to rumours of ratman activity, and assisted by Iltumar Shon, the young apprentice of the leonine weapons merchant Rastor, ventured into a non-descript basement in the temple district--a Temple of the Rat God. The party easily dispatched the tiny contingent of ratmen and dire rats which inhabited the temple, as well as the foul priestess of the Rat God and her were-rat consort. The party was intrigued to find a mural depicting a foul and ancient tentacled creature that none were familiar with.

Later, while recovering at the Ghostly Minstrel, the group was approached by Mand Scheben, an associate of Castle Shard, and invited there on behalf of Lord Zavere. The group met with Lord Zavere who questioned them about their dealings with Toridan Cran.  He informed them that Cran's older brother, Linech Cran was a more successful criminal who was largely responsible for the trade of the drug shivvel within Ptolus.  It had come to Lord Zavere's attention that Linech Cran was seeking adventurers for an unknown task.  Lord Zavere offered the group a substantial sum of money if they would take on the job from Linech and report back to him what Cran was up to.  They agreed.

Things

Expect more emails shortly about scheduling for the next game. 

Also, please do send me copies of your character sheets. For the next session I'll be using an iPad app to track combat and initiative and it would be really helpful to have that stuff. 

Thirdly, what do you think of this template?  I spent quite a bit of time tinkering around with it. I thought it was time to update our look, and frankly, the old one was really screwing with my eyes. Please note that this template supports multiple pages. There is a link to the right which takes you to "The Party." Expect more campaign content soon. 

Yes...

I'm playing with the template.