#da rp writeup

[nemossubmarine]

DA RP Write-up #16.5

And this time, only 7 days after the fact! I’ve no clue how I’m gonna deal with the next time’s write-up since it’s tomorrow and we’ll be away the whole weekend. Ah well. I’m sure something will be figured out. Anyway. Let’s see, let’s see. What went down?

B-team continues its adventures in the White Spire. Having cleared the jails with no trouble at all, they continue on on the hallway that leads them to the entrance hall of the Circle.

Merle, being the shortest and the one dressed up as a templar apprentice goes to peak ahead. And gets immediately spotted by a templar named Louis.

Merle tries to make it sound like he is a templar’s apprentice on a very important secret mission that his superior has sent him in, while his superior is at the Empress’ birthday party.

Louis doesn’t seem to be buying this. He takes Merle by the shoulder and is about to take him somewhere, when Reta, worried about the fantasy-French conversation she is hearing, throws a bag of sleeping powder at Louis’ head.

Louis goes down like a sack of bricks. Luckily he didn’t die from the fall. Kanuuna takes him to the jail and throws him into one of the cells.

Now that at least one templar has been taken care of, our heroes sneak across the entrance hall to the hallway on the other side.

In the hallway, there’s one room with the door slightly ajar. From the inside they can hear sound of talking and laughter.

Nadifa sneaks to check it out, and the room appears to be some kind of templar break room. 

One by one, our heroes sneak past the oblivious templars and finally get to the door at the end of this hallway with some kind of magical symbol on it, the entrance to the phylactery room. But more about it next time!

Meanwhile, at the party, it is announced that the mages will be having their first performance soon and after that the deputants will have their dance.

We start with Alf and his mother. Mother’s name is Amara, it turns out.

Amara is very happy to meet Alf, calling herself his mother almost immediately.

Alf asks about the circumstances of his birth and why Amara left him behind, saying that he used to be very bitter about the fact once upon a time.

Amara says that she bumped into Alf’s father Zilvmyr while on a mission in Kirkwall and then Alf happened, and as Amara was and is a Crow, she hid the pregnancy and gave away Alf.

She and Zilvmyr had planned on Sen, Zilvmyr’s former captain to take Alf under his wing as soon as he could, but not let Alf know about his parentage as they wanted to avoid any targeting from the Crows.

Amara seems to be very much still in love with Zilvmyr, mentioning that he is the handsomest man she ever knew, though she makes no mention of his whereabouts.

Alf then asks if Amara is happy as a Crow, and how would she feel if she would perhaps, not kill Edmund Pentaghast.

She says she is happy as a Crow, though she regrets that she didn’t manage to keep a second child, Alf’s half-brother Malf out of the Crows.

Thus she doesn’t like Alf’s no-killing proposal all that much. She says that if she manages to pull this one off, she is sure to rocket her house and herself up to the top of the Crow pecking order.

This would allow her to have more freedom and time to be a mother to Alf. She says she can take him to an amusement park or something.

Alf says he will not stand in the way of Amara and her target, to which she is grateful.

They hug, Amara tells where Alf may find her and then they part.

Alf calls up Jasinto and lets him know that he has found his mother and that they will not be stopping Edmund’s murder. 

Randy follows Gaspard and Katerine to the palace’s library where they have set up a gaming table for an elaborate battle game, apparently of Nevarran origin.

Gaspard asks if Randy would like to bet on the game, or perhaps join?

Randy points out that he thought Gaspard didn’t like games, and Gaspard says something about this kind of game being much more straight-forwards than court politics.

In the end Randy does decide to join in on the game, roping in Marjaleena as a helper, as she seems far more apt in the game.

They discuss strategy; Marjaleena is of the opinion that Katerine is probably the winner, so they decide to subtly support her. 

And to not make Gaspard angry, they bet on some victories for him too.

As they are leaving to see the mages, Bert reports to Randy about Humbert’s behavior and Jasinto reports about Alf.

Michael Vael has taken Elspet to meet the Empress. Michael gives her a book as a birthday present, which seems to please the young Empress.

Then Michael introduces his “friend Pamela”. Elspet turns on the charm, talking about the perfume she sent to the Empress as a gift.

Celene thanks her for the gift and then asks if she knows a lot about plants. When Elspet replies affirmative, Celene asks her to join her in her quarters after the mages’ performance.

Boshara is confronted by Hannah, who says that Amanda is missing, and she is quite mad about Boshara leaving her alone.

Boshara promises Hannah that Amanda will be found.

She searches for her and/or Auguste, and finds him among his mates.

Auguste is not very interested in talking with Boshara anymore, though Boshara tries to intimidate him.

From him, Boshara learns that Amanda has left with a Rivaini gentleman.

Everyone gets to the mages’ performance area, and watch some cool ass magic stuff. Boshara’s mother, the only elf, performs last, controlling water from the fountain and then finally exploding it into a fine mist.

Randy finds Humbert watching the performance and confronts him on his odd behavior. Humbert isn’t really into having any sort of conversation, making remarks about how well Randy has taken up the mantle of a noble-born.

Randy tries to make him believe that Randy is on his side and only wants to help, so being mean just isn’t working out.

He mentions that Alf has backed out of the murder investigation, so maybe Humbert could go talk to him about it. Humbert agrees.

Humbert is not very surprised about Alf backing out, saying something about Alf of course following his murderous mother’s footsteps.

Elspet goes with the Empress, but much to her disappointment, there’s other people there: Vivienne and what Elspet presumes to be the court mage Damien.

Soon a templar enters the room with Nesta.

Empress motions Nesta and Elspet to the table at the back of the room. On it is a potion bottle. The empress wishes to know what kind of a mixture it contains.

Elspet examines the potion and recognizes it to be an elven mixture that is used in funeral rites to make trees grow. She just can’t figure out why the Empress would have one and for what purpose.

She gives a wishy washy answer, and as she can’t offer much more, Celene dismisses her.

Elspet leaves disappointed.

Boshara tries to leave the area towards her mother, but is stopped by a guard.

So, second plan is to go find Amanda and this mysterious Rivaini gentleman, which she does.

Amanda’s Rivaini friend is in his 20′s, so almost 10 years older than Amanda.

Amanda says she was just trying to emulate Boshara, which makes Boshara actually quite happy.

Boshara says that Amanda should go make her deput with the man, and if Hannah is unhappy, then Boshara will take care of it.

Alf has decided that for the rest of the evening, he shall be the servant he was hired to be, so he makes his way to the ball room to see the deputants dance.

Boshara and Attravius make a delightful entrance and have themselves a little dance.

Randy returns to the library where Katerine has just finished her turn, and says she should go search for her husband. Randy says he would be delighted to be introduced to Edmund, but first he wants to have a chat with Gaspard, so Katerine and Marjaleena go ahead.

Randy asks Gaspard about Estelle, claiming that he knows her through an acquaintance and would love to meet her. Gaspard says Estelle would not be hard to spot, as she is the only female chevalier present.

Boshara and Alf have struck out a conversation which Elspet joins, when Humbert arrives to the scene, and very rudely starts pushing them out of the room.

They finally manage to find a corner that is somewhat quiet, and then Humbert barrels on Alf about not wanting to stop the murder.

Alf says that he met his mother, and he talked with her, and that stopping the murder would be bad for her, so he won’t do it.

Nothing Humbert says can change his mind. And Alf isn’t about to take any abuse, so he leaves.

Elspet tells Boshara that she saw Nesta and Humbert is horrified, claiming that Nesta lied to the Empress (which, as far as Elspet knows, she did not) and is manipulative.

Boshara gets very angry at Humbert for speaking about her mother that way, and Humbert grabs her by her dress front. Elspet comes in between to defuse the situation.

As soon as Humbert lets go of Boshara, a guard pops into the room and asks Humbert to come with.

Thus only Elspet and Boshara are left at the scene. Boshara wonders about Humbert and about Alf.

Elspet is very much of the opinion that they should support Alf, even though that means Edmund will die. Boshara isn’t so sure, but she has her sights set on her mother.

Humbert is taken to the guards’ break room, where he gets a stern talking to by his commander Milda.

Milda has apparently heard about Humbert placing hands on Elspet and Boshara and talking shit at Salome.

Humbert manages to convince her that he is investigating a lyrium smuggling operation, and he names all the possible Alf-mothers and Alf as suspects.

Milda says she’ll take on the investigation, but Humbert is left packing anyway.

Randy goes and find his wife as well as Katerine and Edmund.

They chat about one thing and another, and then Randy starts squaring in on Edmund, asking about whether he might have any advice dealing with enemies.

He also rolls so well that Edmund gives out information freely, mentioning Estelle wanting to marry his son, as well as Katerine’s troubles with the Mortalitasi.

Randy wonders if denying Estelle was a good idea, as maybe Kasmir did want to be with her.

Katerine seems to take a bit of offence to this, saying that surely he would have said so much to his parents.

Elspet goes to find her gf, Isabella. As Empress so rudely wasn’t interested in her, she decides it’s best to go back to someone who appreciates her.

Alf gets taken out of the room and into questioning alongside Rebecca and Lotte, both of who are very scared.

Milda asks them about lyrium connections, carta connections and where Astrid (aka Amara) might be, as she is nowhere to be found.

Alf manages to be convincing enough, so he and Rebecca are told not to talk about this with anyone and are let go.

Rebecca wonders if this is some kind of Nevarran-Orzammar conspiracy thing, and of course she is telling just about anyone she can find.

Alf emphatically agreed, probably just as confused about what is going on.

Alf returns to the dance hall and starts chatting up a nice guard by the name of Beatrix, who is very happy to have someone to talk to who provides her with fancy drinks, Alf’s speciality.

Humbert having found himself out of the palace and out of a job, climbs up the wall of the Palace, spots a guard having a piss by the wall, drugs him and steals his gear.

After having done so, he climbs to the roof of the palace and starts making his way towards the part of the palace where Nesta and the other mages are.

Boshara takes Attravius aside and tells him to find Randy and tell him that she is going to start moving towards her number one goal, that being her mother.

She makes her way towards the conference room when she spots a handsome man making his way the same direction.

This handsome man is of course, King Maric. So of course she tries to flirt with him, though he does seem a bit preoccupied and doesn’t respond with much more than empty pleasantries.

Boshara does get his signature to his book of nobles.

Maric excuses himself, and Boshara tries to follow discreetly, which she doesn’t manage, but Maric doesn’t seem to mind.

He goes to the templars at the door of the room and asks for Nathaniel Howe.

Nathaniel is brought out and he and Maric have a conversation at a corner while the templars not-very-secretly snicker about it.

Nathaniel looks as mortified as always, Maric tries to be encouraging.

And this is where we leave Boshara for the night.

Randy takes Edmund aside.

He asks whether he is a good person, to which Edmund says he tries his very hardest to be.

Randy also asks whether he loves Katerine, which is clearly not a question Edmund expected. After a bit of humming and hawing he says that he loves Katerine as a friend; clearly not the most passionate couple.

Randy tells Edmund that he really should look into letting Kasmir marry Estelle again.

And then he says that Edmund might be in danger, and takes him to talk with Estelle.

That’s all folks. For now. :O We just finished the next session, so maybe that will end up on the Webs sooner than later. 

[nemossubmarine]

DA RP Write-up #16.3

After the mini-adventure on the high seas, I’m back to continue the adventures vaguely in the direction of Halamshiral. No, our heroes still aren’t there yet, but they’re getting close!

We began the session with the so called B-team, a group of characters from our ship who would be tasked in dealing with Nesta’s phylactery. Let’s meet these fine folk:

Kanuuna, our ship’s qunari first mate, who was with our regular heroes during their time in Antiva.

Merle Belrose, a rigger and soon-to-be Mandulfr, an Orlesian dwarf we had with in Orzammar.

“Kuolematon” Charles, another rigger, an elf Raider by family and armed with amazing surviving ability.

Nadifa, a sailor, originally hailing from Llommerryn, also an elf.

Reta Vaughan, an Ander human, a daughter of two Grey Wardens, who helped some blighted people get help after our Tevinter trip.

These five gear up and are dropped off near Val Royeaux at the eve of the party. As everyone else is gone, Cahair is left acting captain on the ship.

First things first, is getting inside Val Royeaux. The city is walled off, and though people are let in pretty laxly, a qunari would surely bring unwanted attention, and our heroes can’t afford for their stuff to be searched as they are filled with burglary equipment.

They stop a farmer’s cart going to the city, and Merle asks for a ride, claiming that his servant, Kanuuna, has hurt his leg. They claim to be on their way to a restaurant owned by a man named Emmanuel near White Spire.

The farmer is intrigued by the handsome qunari-fellow and agrees to a ride. Kanuuna and Nadifa ride in the back with the farmer’s wife, out of sight.

As they are approaching the gate, Merle tries to get the farmer to agree to not mention the qunari to the guards. It takes some persuading in Orlesian, and a few silvers, but it gets done.

Once inside, they even get the farmer to give them a tour around the Circle, so they can scope it out.

The tower looks pretty impenetrable, but luckily Arkaitz had given them detailed instructions on where to go.

Our heroes go to eat and then go find a manhole, though which they can get to the sewers.

Unfortunately Kanuuna rips open the manhole without looking if anyone’s there and a local catches them in the act and asks what they are doing.

Merle tells him that Kanuuna needs to pee really bad, and they figured it’s better they do it there rather than on the street.

The person buys this, goes away and the B-team slips into the sewers.

And speaking of piss, Kanuuna asks everyone if they have done their things, so it’s a piss break for everyone except Merle who refuses to partake.

Merle says that this is way too crass for such a noble person as him, don’t they know he’ll soon be part of house Mandulfr.

Kanuuna says that maybe he shouldn’t be so sure about that, as Randy isn’t the most generous type.

It takes Kanuuna scaring Merle to get him to go around the corner to relieve himself. 

The team leaves a jelly sandwich stuck on the manhole cover as a mark (as they didn’t bring writing equipment) and head off.

They also didn’t bring any light sources so Nadifa has to help Reta along, as she doesn’t see in the dark.

On the way, Kanuuna mentions that this is not the first sewer he’s been in, as he was with our heroes in Antiva when they found Konstantine in the sewers.

Merle and Charles mention that they do not wish to find another scary mage in the sewers and Kanuuna says that they have talked about this before; no making the scary necromancer feel like he doesn’t belong!

(plus Konstantine is a total sweetheart anyway)

After a bit of wandering about they finally get to the wall that would lead them inside the tower. Reta and Nadifa work on getting an opening and everyone changes costumes; Reta, Nadifa and Charles have accurate enough Circle mage robes and Merle gets a templar tabard. Kanuuna just wears black vaguely servant-ish clothes.

If they get caught, there’s a chance they may be able to talk themselves out with the aid of their disguises.

After the wall is opened, our heroes step inside the White Spire’s prison. But that’s for next time.

Back with our PCs proper, we go a little bit back in time, before they all got separated and our heroes have a talk about what is the plan.

Alf says that he would like to have a talk with his mother, so as Alf is pretty crucial in the escape of Boshara’s mother, Nesta, they would want to find Alf’s mom before arranging that.

Of course they would also like to stop Edmund’s murder. Elspet, Boshara and Randy can talk with the possible suspect buyers while Alf and Humbert would try to locate the mother to buy more time and/or get her to reveal the name of the buyer.

After that Humbert would grab Nesta and he and Alf would help her escape, as others worked as distraction.

They also discuss potential ways to get messages to and from each other. There’s talk of different hand signals such as dabbing, Alf delivering messages in forms of coctails and appetizers and wearing a rose to signify that his mom has been found.

Also Randy has a whole gaggle of dwarves at his disposal, so it is suggested that Randy finds Boshara a man she can flirt with during the evening so that no one will bat an eye if they go about whispering in a corner somewhere. 

There’s a whole list of things Boshara wants in a man, which I shan’t repeat here, even though I could.

Some other topics of discussion: 

Alf doesn’t know anything about his mother and Randy reminds him that Sen will always be his real parent as he was the one who raised him. 

Alf does wonder why his parents didn’t want him, and Randy suggests it may have to do more with Crows than anything else.

Talk of how Boshara came to be, ie why didn’t they use a condom? 

Humbert tries to defend, Boshara asks a hypothetical what if you were in this situation question and Randy says that Humbert wouldn’t know as he is clearly a virgin.

Humbert surmises Nesta might be a primal mage, though Boshara wishes for a blood mage. Or a shapeshifter would be fun too. Both very much frowned upon at the Circle.

Randy reveals that his marriage with Marjaleena is fake, as they are both super-gay.  

With a plan in order-ish, we have time to visit each character before the party starts.

Alf and Humbert are at the palace, they go through the elves employed there and look for potential Alf’s-moms and find three. Alf talks to them and gets it down to one, Essie.

One day Humbert is ordered to look pretty as some new folk are arriving. New folk turn out to be the party people from Nevarra and Starkhaven. 

This means more elves to check and Alf finds three more potential mothers: Lotte and Astrid from Nevarra and Rebecca from Starkhaven.

Humbert tests these ladies out in two parts.

First he asks if they like Antivan wine: Essie gets flustered, Lotte doesn’t respond, Astrid says she likes all kinds of wine and Rebecca says Antivan wine is mighty fine.

Then he throws a cup at each of them: Essie catches it clumsily, almost dropping it. Lotte catches it easily and scolds Humbert. Astrid drops it. Rebecca catches alright.

This maybe tells them something. Idk.

Before leaving for Halamshiral Hannah wishes to talk with Boshara aka Rosamunda about the dog.

As Aarli Hauveli is a mabari, Hannah cannot have her come with Rosamunda to the party, it would be a sure show of loyalty to a foreign nation (just like bringing a mummified person would be a show of loyalty to Nevarra).

Boshara argues that she can’t be without her safety net, and Hannah makes a comment about Amanda having a teddy bear as a child and also that nothing bad is going to happen to her when she is at the palace with her family.

Finally Boshara asks if they could get a servant to keep the dog somewhere outside the palace, out of view, so at least Boshara would have her with her during the trip.

Hannah agrees to talk with her husband about it.

Randy is bringing quite an entourage with him to Halamshiral. Alongside the group he brought from the ship, there’s Marjaleena, Ragna (her gf), Bert the servant, Hurbin (the man for Boshara), a strongman named Brock Lesnar and several guards.

Before leaving Randy decides to get into a fight with Edmund so he’d have better changes on finding out who hates Edmund. 

So he sends him a letter offering to sell him some over-priced weaponry. Edmund replies that he should talk with his wife who is an army person. Randy replies that he doesn’t do business with women. 

...Mission accomplished?

On their way to Halamshiral they come upon a cart stopped by the side of the road and someone waving around.

Randy is immediately suspicious, this could very easily be a trap. 

It turns out that King Maric Theirin had a bit of a mishap with his cart, so Randy stops to help. They lift carts, converse a bit and Randy offers Maric a ride, which he agrees to.

Elspet gets to meet her lover’s parents for the first time on the way to the party. Isabella’s father, Cyril Leroi, is a very snooty gentleman, who clearly looks down on Elspet. At first because she doesn’t yet speak perfect Orlesian and then just cause.

During the cart-ride Cyril starts talking about business, just to make poor Elspet feel inferior, but luckily with her superior intelligent Elspet catches Cyril talking bs and schools him a bit.

This earns her a smile from Felicié, Isabella’s mother, and a silent grumpy Cyril for the rest of the ride.

And that’s about it. Next time I promise we’ll get to the party. Except for the B-team, they’ll have jail-time. Until then!

[nemossubmarine]

DA RP Write-up #16.4

So only 5 days after the session and two days before the next one, I present you the write-up for session 4: We’re finally finally finally at the party. Oh my goodness, it took us only four sessions to get this party started.

But first, as usual, B-team. They have arrived at the bottom of the jail house of the White Spire. There appears to be no way to get to the level above them, so they’ll have to climb.

Merle tries first, but throws poorly. Nadifa throws better, but her climbing is very slow. Charles has no problems. Reta’s problems mostly relate to her not seeing in the dark.

Kanuuna is a bigger problem, as he can’t climb a rope very well, having only one arm. Our heroes try to pull him up first, but it is too noisy of a project so that gets abandoned.

Luckily they find a ladder they can throw down for him. Before leaving, Kanuuna hides the hole they made in the wall with a sheet.

They start ascending the stairs towards the top of the structure, when Nadifa suddenly senses something behind her. Spinning around, she catches a glimpse of a shadow.

She informs the others and they hide in the cells. Unfortunately Nadifa, Kanuuna and Reta also accidentally lock theirs in the process.

Suddenly Kanuuna notices a boy of maybe 14 years in his cells, who whispers to him that they “are looking for something”.

Kanuuna tries to grab the boy to shush him up, but the boy disappears in the puff of smoke.

The boy appears to Reta next, telling that he wants to help. Reta tries to punch him.

Third the boy appears to Nadifa, who doesn’t attack the boy and the boy even waits for her to speak before being all cryptic. 

Nadifa asks if he could help her get out of the jail cell, which he does, walking through the cell door and it swings open behind him, letting her out.

They all gather outside the jail cells to marvel at the boy, who tells that his name is Cole. 

Kanuuna is very adamant that they should not take the boy with him, because clearly he is some sort of demon-ghost-thing.

Merle disagrees, saying that if the boy can walk through walls and stuff, he would be very helpful.

Kanuuna tries to prove that Cole is a ghost by touching him, but he is fleshy at that point.

He also tries to end all magic in the room, but Cole seems unaffected. The magical lights do go out for a bit.

Cole’s not very helpful about explaining his own nature, bursting out in cryptic tangents that seem to be half of the time thoughts of someone else than him.

In the end Cole starts leading them up to the exit of the jail, though Kanuuna and Reta are still going to drop the boy as soon as they can.

On the fourth floor of the jail structure there’s a mage in one of the cells slumped over. One of them notices that the mage is very dead.

They question Cole who says that he was helping the mage.

Reta quite firmly orders him to go away, so he disappears, and...

No one but Charles remembers anything odd happening on the way up the jail.

Charles asks if no one else saw any figure there just now, but Kanuuna orders him to drop it.

They get to the door, Reta engineers the hinges off it and Kanuuna lifts the thing away.

Thus our B-team has made it out of the jails and into the hallway, which is where we’ll pick up with them the next time.

Before we can get to the party with the A-team, we have to sort out their inventories as they are unable to take with them all the things they might need for the mission.

Most of them take pretty understandable stuff, like lockpicks and writing utensils but both Randy and Humbert go the extra mile to take some form of poison with them (for knocking out and hallucinations respectively).

Randy also gets some Stones of Farspeech (those aren’t what they are called in DA, but anyway) from Kivi-Jaakko on loan, they might not work perfectly but will have to do.

Finally, for the last time, it’s the day of the party. Alf spends some time locating the three elves he considers best suspects to be his mothers. 

He finds Rebecca cleaning up the ceremonial armor of her master, Michael Vael. After she is done, he strikes up a conversation, asking about whether she’s ever been to Kirkwall.

She reminiscences about visiting the city once, but it doesn’t seem to Alf that she is lying, so she must not be the one.

Meanwhile, before party has started, Humbert has checked out the arriving mages. Indeed Nesta, Boshara’s mother, is among them, the only elf to attend. There’s also several of Humbert’s templar friends in the group and, to Humbert’s great surprise, Nathaniel Howe, in templar apprentice’s garb.

Now, last time our heroes met Nathaniel (here) he was drugged and sent, uh, erotic dreams about Humbert by Elspet (not that Humbert would know that), so it’s almost certain he would not recognize them. Maybe. Hopefully. Best steer clear anyway.

Boshara arrives with the clan Pomdeter. Hannah instructs her to look after Amanda, so they go together to check out the other people doing their deputs at the party.

Much to Boshara’s chagrin, they are all between 15 and 17, total kids to her.

Amanda however is in the right age range, so Boshara asks what kind of man she would want and then promises her they’ll get her the hottest dude of the group by the end of the evening.

Elspet also arrives with Isabella and her parents. They head to the main dance hall immediately to see as the most important guests are introduced to the party.

Maric and Randy are on the road. They chat about Orlesian politics, and Maric tries to teach Randy the ways of the Game, though he admits not being very good at it.

Randy offers to go ahead so they wouldn’t arrive at the same time, as it would look politically charged. Maric agrees to this, and asks him to spare him a dance.

Before getting to Halamshiral, Randy pulls Carla aside and asks if she could maybe stay in guard at a road. She happily agrees. Too happily, so Randy changes his mind and makes her wait with Darian at the stables. She also agrees to this.

When they arrive to Halamshiral, Randy is greeted by his own personal Orlesian assistant for the evening, by the name of Anton. He arranges someone to take the gift bronto off to the backyard and takes Randy to his introduction.

So it’s introducing time. First up, there’s of course the empress, in her beautiful butterfly dress. After her there’s several Orlesian nobles such as Grandduke Gaspard and Dukes Prosper du Montford and Bastien de Ghislain, latter who is with his mistress, the mage Vivienne de Fer.

Orlesians are followed by Michael Vael, the eldest son of Starkhaven’s prince.

Then introduced are Duke Edmund Pentaghast, Duchess Katerine Holzer and the two Mortalitasi with them Oswald Glas and Salome Holzknecht.

Then there is Randy and his whole shebang of dwarves. Celene welcomes them to her party, expressing her happiness to have them here. Randy gives the jewelry to her as a present and then asks her to go the balcony.

She does and sees the bronto Randy has brought her. Celene expresses gratitude.

Finally, it’s the introduction of Maric. But before he enters, the templars push poor Nathaniel Howe to their frontlines, so when Maric arrives, everyone is looking at the disgraced arl’s son instead of him. Nathaniel Howe is clearly mortified and ashamed.

Maric keeps his composure. Which might be good? Idk, the Game is confusing. 

Once introductions are over and done with, the party can truly begin. Randy has his people go find everyone and report to them.

Elspet wastes no time trying to get to the Empress’ good graces, she gets a servant’s attention and hands to her a perfume bottle as a present to the Empress called the Empress’ Tears. 

The servant can make no promises that the bottle will reach the Empress, but she can certainly try.

Boshara and Amanda go find that hottest boy in the party, and introduce themselves. Well Boshara does most of the talking.

His name is Auguste and he is really quite handsome.

Before they can talk too long, a handsome mysterious dwarf arrives at the scene, posits himself between Auguste and Boshara and introduces himself as Attravius.

Boshara and Attravius start flirting up a storm, exchanging corny lines back and forth like their life depended on it.

Attravius presents Boshara with an enchanted dagger, which confuses Amanda greatly.

Finally these two decide to go for a walk, and thus Boshara leaves Amanda with Auguste.

Humbert keeps an eye on the room where the mages are kept. Bert reports to him, and Humbert totally chews the poor boy out. :(

Alf receives one of the stones of farspeech from Jasinto and instructions to call as soon as he knows something about who the contractor of Edmund’s murder might be. (Jasinto has the other stone, so Randy won’t have to disappear suddenly.

Alf goes off to search for Astrid. He figures she might still be at the room where the Nevarran group is staying, so he sneaks there. Unfortunately the door to the room is locked, so he busies himself with picking the lock.

Elspet leaves Isabella to do some information gathering. She sets her eyes on Michael Vael and manages through a complicated set of eyebrow wiggles to charm him away from his friends.

So he takes her for a walk. Unfortunately for poor lil’ lesbian Elspet, Vael is a rather boring fellow. She does however determine he is probably not the one who ordered Edmund’s killing.

She asks him about rumors relating to some Orlesian lady marrying Edmund’s son, and Vael confirms that an Orlesian chevalier by the name of Estelle Perrault had indeed tried to get Kasimir Pentaghast-Holzer’s hand in marriage, which Edmund had stopped.

Elspet gives this information to one of Randy’s dwarves, perhaps Estelle might be in the party as well.

Elspet asks Vael, if he might be able to arrange a meeting with the Empress for her. Vael says he was about to give Empress her birthday gift anyway, so they might as well go together.

Meanwhile, Randy decides that best way to get information on Estelle might be to talk with the commander of the chevalier, Grandduke Gaspard.

He finds Gaspard alone leaning on a wall, drinking straight whiskey and strikes up a conversation.

Gaspard pretty quickly makes known his disdain for the Game, so at least for that part he is easier to deal with than many, but he does seem a bit of a douche really.

They discuss some cultural differences and Gaspard notes that he appreciates both Randy’s and Marjaleena’s outfit, which are armor. 

Randy asks if there might be some lady warriors in the chevaliers, as female warriors are uncommon in Orzammar.

Instead of answering that particular question, Gaspard catches sight of Katerine Holzer and says that if Randy so wishes, he could meet Katerine and join in on a little bet they are having.

Randy agrees.

Boshara and Attravius have located Salome, one of the Mortalitasi. Boshara strikes up a conversation with the woman, mentioning that she hasn’t heard much good about the Mortalitasi, but she is interested in finding out more.

Salome is very brief in her answers, never giving more than exactly what was asked for.

Unfortunately for Boshara, Humbert joins the conversation, and starts being snide and rude at Salome, who seems rather unfazed, though she does say she shall report on the guard’s behavior, which Boshara tries to discourage.

Boshara asks about the incident with the Holzer family crypt, the one where Konstantine supposedly called a demon into the body of his late father Nicholas.

Salome tells the story, saying that weak families have weak crypts.

It’s clear she holds no torch to the Holzer family, but towards the Pentaghasts she seems respectful.

She finally has had enough of Humbert’s comments and leaves the conversation.

Boshara berates Humbert on acting out and Humbert berates Boshara on having time to neck with a dwarf.

Alf cracks open the lock to the door of the guest room. Inside there is Astrid, who comments that Alf has strayed really far.

Alf claims that he got distracted by a crow who let him here.

Fed up with word games and asking in a roundabout manner, Alf pulls out the necklace Sen left him, that he had said belonged to his mother.

Astrid asks where he got the necklace, Alf says that he got it from Sen.

There is a long silence. And then Astrid says: “Alf?” and Alf says “Mom.”

DUNDUNDUU! There has been an established contact to one of the moms. But will Alf be able to pull out of his Crow mother who wants Edmund Pentaghast dead? Will our heroes be able to stop the assassination? And most importantly, will Elspet meet the Empress?? All this and more next episode, which is day after tomorrow!

[nemossubmarine]

DA RP Write-up #16.2

Setup session number two is here. Let’s see how our heroes manage to wiggle their ways into Halamshiral.

First though, ship finances. We decide to start on two different businesses: spices and drugs. 

Spice sales go well enough, though they don’t make much profit, so we turn to drugs.

Two of our first attempts at being drug sellers go very poorly and we basically lose most all our money.

We have enough money for one stint, and everyone chips in to help, though Randy has to persuade Humbert to partake.

Once persuaded Humbert persuades some of our crew members to join as well.

Boshara does some research, mostly relating to when not to sell drugs, and Alf helps.

With this intel, we manage to sell for a pretty good price, keeping our ship afloat for the time being.

The rest of the session went between different players seeing how their players managed to get into the party. I’ll relay them here one by one.

Randy is obviously using his Orzammar connections to get an in. But to use them, he’d have to return, so first he gathers some information on how things are below the surface, so he knows if it’s safe to return.

Randy learns that King Aeducan has died and a man by the name of Decan Stonefist has become regent. He’s a middle-of-the-road kind of guy, apparently supported by Marjaleena.

The Chantry is pretty pissed off about the whole withholding lyrium shipments thing, so Orzammar has entered into trade negotiations with the Chantry to see how this might be remedied.

Randy asks Alf to talk with the carta people on board: From them he learns that Hedda has perished and a new carta leader has moved the operations back to Dust Town and scaled them back considerably from planning on blowing up Orzammar.

Randy takes a small group of people with him: his mother and sister as he wishes for them to be taken back to the house, Pitkä-Breck, Jasinto, Jasinta and Carla, the Antivan Crow, bc of course she comes with.

Randy also asks Jelaina and Darian to come with as drivers and possible get-away drivers for Boshara’s mom.

He also asks if Cahair would be willing to take Rina, his little sister back to the ship after she has been taken into the house, as a child of 2 years isn’t really party material. Cahair agrees and Richard comes with.

At Orzammar Randy manages to persuade Carla not to come in with them. He also gets Dagrun, Rina, Breck and Merle (though he is not present and has to come by to finalize the deal) to become members of house Mandulfr.

Randy and Marjaleena invite the regent Decan to a dinner and talk business.

Decan bemoans the Chantry for trying to screw Orzammar over just because there was a slight hiccup at the delivery thing.

Randy asks if Decan has maybe thought about selling to outsiders, maybe not lyrium, but other stuff. Decan is interested.

Randy mentions that he knows of the Empress’ birthday, and maybe it’s about time Orzammar sent someone there.

Decan asks if Randy is volunteering and Randy says why not.

So they set it up thus, Randy will go to the party as Orzammar’s envoy, and try to see if he can make any deals with foreign leaders to make the Chantry reconsider its demands of Orzammar.

Other than that Randy is not to take any political sides.

Randy’s friends will come with, as well as his wife Marjaleena (who Randy reveals may be pregnant), Marjaleena’s assistant (and secret gf) Ragna and perhaps some soldiers from Orzammar as well.

As for getting the invite, Randy suggests they make a power play and just send a note saying they will come to the party.

For a birthday gift they are planning on giving the Empress a bronto as well as a piece of jewelry made by Orzammar’s very own Kivi-Jaakko.

Boshara and Humbert have headed off to Orlais to meet Humbert’s sister Hannah. They have also taken Aarli Hauveli with.

On the way there, Humbert tries to desperately introduce Orlais to Boshara. It’s mostly just very awkward.

On the last night, Humbert tries to get them to agree on a story and accidentally makes it sound like he’s still wooing Boshara, which leads to a huge row, especially when Humbert, desperate to try and keep Boshara from just walking away, says he knew her mother but refuses to tell anything about her to Boshara.

Boshara hurls a stonefist at him, accusing him of being controlling and gross. Boshara’s attack causes Aarli to attack Humbert too, so Humbert punches the dog. As you do. 

Humbert tries to force her not to leave, but she slaps him and goes out to drink for the night.

In the morning things have calmed down considerably. Humbert says Boshara should be Rosamund, Evenine’s daughter, but Boshara says why can’t she just be Humbert’s daughter straight-away. Humbert agrees to this.

So off they go and meet Hannah Pomdeter. Rosamund is introduced to her, and then Humbert and Hannah have a conversation by themselves.

Humbert says Boshara is his, but claims that the mother has died. He was hoping Hannah could somehow arrange Rosamund to get a good marriage.

Hannah says that one of her daughters, Amanda is making her debut at the Empress’ birthday, and though Rosamund is a bit old, she could do so as well.

First they’d need to fake her a non-bastard parentage, which Hannah is pretty sure she can manage.

Humbert is very pleased to hear this.

Boshara, or Rosamund, is okay with the idea of a debut, and is put into the same etiquette and dance classes as Amanda.

Humbert wishes to partake but Boshara isn’t really having much of it.

Amanda and Boshara develop a friendship of sorts, especially since Boshara is much more adventurous and says-them-as-they-is -type. A clear bad influence. 

Humbert can’t stay at Hannah’s for the whole time, as he has to find another way in. So he returns to Val Royeaux and enlists as a royal guard.

Before he is hired, he is suspect to a long questioning on his motives and his family’s position in the Game. The guards don’t take in just anyone.

Humbert manages to answer well enough and is taken in for a trial period, which means lots of night-shifts and garbage assignments.

Humbert manages to break off a drunken fist-fights between two minor nobles and that earns him the respect of his instructor and a ticket to Halamshiral.

At Halamshiral he manages to make such good friends of the other guards that he can pick just about any place as he pleases for the party.

Alf is also planning on getting himself as hired help to the Winter Palace.

He goes to the alienage of Kirkwall to ask any advice on gaining an in. A friend of his, named Kari, tells that they hire from the Val Royeaux alienage and all the elves must have someone speaking for them. Kari says that a friend of his, by the name of Marie could be of help.

So Alf goes to Val Royeaux and tries to fit in. He gets caught almost immediately, but luckily him telling that he knows Marie gets the other elves to help him.

Marie is an older elven woman, who very happily takes Alf in, and says that he’ll make a fine servant, he’ll just have to learn few more words of Orlais first.

Alf stays with Marie at the alienage for few weeks. He makes some friends, though others do not like him much as he is clearly better off than the alienage elves and doesn’t even really need the servant job.

Finally Alf and the others elves are carted off to Halamshiral, where Alf will be doing laundry for the preparation of the party and at the party he’ll be serving drinks at the upper level, on the account of him being tall and handsome.

Alf gets “lost” several times at the Palace, scouting about. There’s three entrances to the Palace, the main gate, a smaller eastern gate by a guardhouse and a bigger western gate which is always bustling with people. This information Alf relays with the help of Haukka to Jelaina.

Alf also asks around what kind of people he can expect as guests and hears a lot about all the fancy folk that will be attending.

The elves are especially excited and a bit worried about Randulfr Mandulfr from Orzammar attending, as they have no clue how to act with dwarves.

Alf convinces them that they should totally all kneel when giving the dwarves drinks.

Elspet has also made her way to Val Royeaux where she is looking for a fine lady for whom she could be a +1.

She spots a lady in her 30′s at a market. Her first attempt at approach, which is to fake-fall down next to her doesn’t really go very well, but Elspet’s honeyed words very quickly catch the woman’s attention.

She is Isabella Leroi, a widow and a daughter of a count.

Elspet pretty snugly finds her way into Isabella’s bed. Isabella even pays for her stay at the fanciest inn in all of Val Royeaux, when Elspet says her friend with whom she was supposed to be staying, threw her out.

Elspet is now a lover of Isabella, but she would need to get introduced to Isabella’s friends before she can even hope of getting invited to go with Isabella to the party. Isabella is a bit doubtful, as Elspet is a Fereldan low-born.

So Elspet uses her skills as a perfume maker to make the most loveliest perfume for Isabella and some salves and samples for her friends.

Through an about two-month period Elspet finds herself a comfortable little position by Isabella’s side, before finally telling her that she would really like to meet the Empress.

Isabella is pleased to tell that she knows the Empress personally, and has an invite to the party.

Isabella’s father is loyal to Empress’ rival Gaspard, so Isabella wishes that Elspet would not be so openly pro-Empress at the party.

From Isabella, Elspet gathers some intel on the people our heroes might expect to see at the party.

The central conflict of the party is of course between Empress Celene and Gaspard, who was also hoping for the crown when the previous Emperor died.

There are people loyal to both of them at the party, plenty enough to cause some interesting moves in the Orlesian Game.

Maric Theirin, the King of Ferelden, will also make an appearance, the first time after Fereldan independence. He is a bit of a wild card, and people are wondering how Celene might be hoping to play him in the Game.

There is also the court mage, Damien Lafond, who might be getting de-throned by an upcoming mage by the name of Vivienne de Fer, attending the party with her lover.

Celene has also managed to invite an emissary from Orzammar, Randulfr Mandulfr, and no one really knows how he will play into this whole situation.

Other notable people are Michael Vael, the eldest son of Starkhaven’s prince and Duke Prosper de Montford, a steadfast ally of Celene’s.

And then there’s of course Edmund Pentaghast and Katerine Holzer, about who Elspet tries to get as much information as she can.

Edmund has no notable ties to Orlais, he has always kept up Nevarra’s ties to Starkhaven.

He has no notable enemies either, though he is a bit old-fashioned when it comes to women: he denied an Orlesian woman marrying his son as he felt she was too old (even though he is 15 years his wife’s senior) and reportedly he had wished for a wife that would be less active in politics.

He even tried to get out of his engagement with Katerine, which was done when they were both young, few years after Konstantine was born.

The envoy from Nevarra would also feature, by the request of the Empress, two members of Mortalitasi, the Nevarran death mages. Edmund’s wife Katerine is not on good terms with the Mortalitasi.

It seems like best bets on who wants Edmund dead are either the Mortalitasi or his wife Katerine.

Now everyone has found an in to the party. Next session we’ll be having a small adventure run by Räddi, so I can get my stuff together for the actual meat of this story. So for next time we shall leave behind the high-end society and go a-sailing!

[nemossubmarine]

DA RP Write-up #15.4

Our heroes’ adventures in time are coming to an end, or a beginning? No definitely an end. Let’s see how it goes!

We pick up where we left of, that is at the large cavern where the heart made out of people was ba-bumping. Our heroes are not sure what to do.

Boshara suggests magic, but Thomas disagrees. He says that our heroes can’t be certain where they’d be sent to, there’s a chance they’d end up in time where there isn’t a cavern and that would be bad.

Elspet would like to take a look at the hearts again, so Randy uses his grappling hook and in a pretty swell move, grapples two undead for inspection.

Elspet takes her first dip into autopsy-doing, and manages to do just fine.

Boshara isn’t doing so fine, she throws up again.

Elspet takes out the heart of one of the undead and takes out the pit inside its heart. As soon as she touches it, the pit starts sprouting small vines, that tangle around Elspet’s hand.

Upon Elspet’s request, Thomas uses his templar powers to de-magic the seed, which then lets go.

Thomas is rather worried about this turn of events, as he had left Konstantine alone to study the seeds. He feels must go back to check on him, Konstantine is his ward after all.

Our heroes are left alone at the ledge. Below them, the undead are suddenly becoming more active, starting to clamper towards them.

Our heroes each try to slow them down, but it’s clear they’ll soon be knee-deep in undead.

Humbert uses his sword’s special power and creates a bubble of magical energy, under which our heroes are safe from the undead.

While some of the undead try to attack the bubble, some simply wander off.

The bubble leaves a clear shot at the heart, and our heroes wonder if Alf’s electric arrow would be enough to clear it off. There’s only one way to find out.

Alf shoots so so good that he manages to shoot two electric arrows instead of one. This causes all the undead on the heart to drop off, all except one.

Elspet turns into a bird and she and Alf’s owl Haukka go to investigate the body.

It is a body of a man, dressed in fancy clothing, pierced through the heart with a stalactite, expect the stalactite is somehow fused into parts of his body. 

Haukka notices the golden necklace around the man’s neck, after all she has been trained to spot such things. That must be the time travel necklace. It looks like it’s half-stoned over as well.

While Elspet investigates, Randy decides to take care of the rest of the undead around them, before they get away. He pulls out his blood-magic weapons, let’s out a battle cry and rushes the group outside the bubble, knocking them back as he swings his weapons, hitting one, two, three! In few moments most of the undead are laid to rest, and though few feebly swing at Randy, they leave no mark. Randy chases some of the undead lumbering away down. In total he finished about 30 to 40 undead in only a handful of minutes.

When Randy returns to others, he and Boshara have a bit of an argument about it, as Boshara thinks Randy is being too much of a goody-two-shoes, which, according to her, the group has never been about. Randy says that he has learned some stuff from Humbert, which Boshara doesn’t buy.

Elspet reports back about the stuck necklace. Our heroes decide that now it’s time to try magic, but perhaps they should try to do it above the ground, not below it.

Alf manages to perfectly replicate their steps in the cellar and the caverns above the ground, leading them to the exact spot, below which the man and the necklace lay.

This time it is Elspet who uses magic to bring them back, she heals Randy and again time slows down and picks up and the fog raises.

Our heroes are in the fog, holding hands. Alf calls out to the darkness, and soon our heroes (all expect Randy) hear someone approaching.

The fog is suddenly pierced by a beam of light, carried by a figure who speaks to our heroes in a language they can’t understand, but which Boshara recognizes as Ancient Tevene.

The fog fades and our heroes realized that they are surrounded by Tevinter soldiers and in front of them is the man from the cave, the owner of the necklace, dressed in fantastic finery, half of his face a stone mask.

Our heroes are put into chains, and when Randy tries to resist, the man uses blood magic on him.

Chained, our heroes are taken to a Tevinter camp, where they are thrown into a pen with other slaves. Alf is separated from others and is put together with another elf at one corner.

Soon a person comes to ask about their names and Boshara communicates with her through writing. She introduces our heroes, and is very dismayed to find that the people are planning on keeping them as slaves, even when she tells her that she is a mage.

That only earns her some magic-suppressing handcuffs.

Finally she tells that she can speak the local language(s) (she can’t), and the woman tells she’ll go get someone.

Left alone, our heroes can get to know the other slaves, except they don’t speak neither old Nevarran nor old Tevene.

To their surprise they find that the elf speaks elven and dwarven.

She isn’t very fond of speaking with Boshara, her appearing human, but with Randy she chats willingly.

She tells that the magister in charge is name Tilano Amanti, that she was captured and the rest of her group killed.

Randy asks what year it is, and she says it’s 5328, which doesn’t say much.

Randy notes that she doesn’t look like she is well, and she says that she is fading and that “Arlathan burns”.

She also tells that she is basically immortal, but doesn’t know for how long.

Alf notices that the elf is toying with something in her hands, and gets Randy to ask to see it.

It’s a peach pit, and the elf tells that if she dies, she’ll make sure the humans will go down with her. It’s clear that she is behind the undead apparently in the future-past.

Randy asks her not to use it, but she says she can’t help it. It will activate if she dies, unless she can be freed to deactivate it.

The Tevinter people come back and Boshara tells them that she is from the future. Also she counts what the date would be according to the Tevinter count based on what she picked up around the camp and her sick math skills she learned from Fahim the qunari (callback!).

This catches the attention of the Tevene (more the time travel than the math), after all, magister Amanti owns a time travel necklace.

They ask if any of the others are mages, and Boshara tells that Elspet is, so the two of them are taken to meet magister Amanti in his tent.

Once there Boshara manages to convince that she is a descendant of the magister. Amanti is clearly rather self-conceited so Boshara plays to that. 

She tells she came back in time to learn about controlling the necklace from the very best, its creator.

Amanti agrees to teach her, but only if Boshara tells him of his and his family’s great future and Elspet takes a look at his face.

Meanwhile, Alf and Randy have cooked a plan. They ask the elf if Alf were to free her, if she could make the ground below them disappear as there’s a cavern below there. She says that can be arranged.

So Randy causes a distraction, he yells the maybe two words of Nevarran he knows and punches one of the Nevarran prisoners a bit too hard, but hard enough to cause a fight.

While everyone is distracted, Alf picks the lock of the elf’s chains and as she is freed, she starts casting.

In the tent, Elspet is looking at Amanti’s facial disfiguration. She concludes that this must be from an overuse of lyrium, and as far as she knows, there’s no cure.

She still however pretends to totally what she is doing, so she can be freed from her chains, which she is.

While she is healing, there’s angry Nevarran shouting and then rumbling like an avalanche.

Everyone exits the tent, and the outside world is in chaos; the elf has started pulling the earth itself into the cavern. She herself is riding the waves of ground, while everything else is unceremoniously being pulled down.

Boshara starts rushing towards Alf hoping to get her shackles off. Alf starts rushing towards Boshara.

Magister Amanti starts casting something, and with a single flick of his wrist, everyone still wearing chains have their arms sliced open and blood pouring out to fuel his spell.

While Magister Amanti is distracted, Elspet steals the necklace and turns into a bird just long enough to get to Alf and Boshara.

Randy rushes the magister, the two guards chasing Boshara try to slow him down, but he shrugs them off. Randy doesn’t quite manage to tackle the magister to the ground, but he does enough to disrupt the absolutely massive inferno he was casting.

Alf has freed Boshara, who takes the necklace from Elspet. The three of them run to Randy.

Boshara pretends to give the necklace to Magister Amanti, but before he can reclaim it, Elspet uses Mind Blast to clear off the people around them.

In the moment of peace they have, Boshara concentrates on home, and casts magic into the necklace.

There’s a lake now, and everyone (except Humbert) is feeling shorter than before. 

It seems that our heroes have not quite reached the right time. Boshara appears to be two years old, Elspet 5, Randy 7 and Alf 10. 

Humbert (~29 and looking mighty fine) fishes the little ones and their equipment out of the lake.

It seems that the hole the elf created has turned into a lake, and the surroundings are far less swampy than before.

This times Elspet tries to work the necklace, but it only takes them few years forward. Finally Elspet and Boshara both try, and they reach the current age.

The town of Meünzenbern has been transformed from a poor berry-picking village to a nice looking beach-village. Unfortunately this means that the deal our heroes made with Esteri in the past hasn’t happened, so they won’t be getting their wine. 

Our heroes go to the local tavern and order some sweet coctails. THE END

That’s it! And since our heroes undid the time they spent with Konstantine by going back farther, the timeline’s not all that wonky too! Yay!

Next campaign, I’m still in charge, we’ll start reaping the seeds send down for sowing with Arkaitz, as our heroes go on a mother hunt! Exciting and scary

[nemossubmarine]

DA RP Write-up #15.1

Hello, I am GM’ing again. I’d say it’s been a while, but it’s literally been less than half a year. This write-up is mostly boat-maintenance, but there’s some plot too!

Our first scene takes place before the last campaign’s end actually. Before the parts of our party who did the assassinating of King Aeducan separated from Humbert and Randy, there’s the matter of Kaino.

Kaino wishes to discuss his fate with Boshara. He isn’t very keen on having his freedom limited and is especially wary of Humbert.

Boshara understands this. She is willing to help Kaino get back on his feet outside the boat, if that’s what he really wishes, but she doubts Kaino would survive very long on his own, having the brand of the tranquil on his forehead, and no life-skills to speak of.

Kaino agrees with this, and Boshara promises to have his back if any conflict with Humbert is to arise, since she has far more expertise in dealing with him.

So Kaino joins our boat.

Now we’ll skip right back to after King Aeducan’s tragic, untimely death. As we are picked up from Denerim, Cahair decides it’s a good time to visit his clan and Vintiver, as both are relatively near.

Cahair wishes to take Richard with him, and he and Humbert have a somewhat heated conversation on the subject. 

In the end Cahair takes some friends from the ship to be extra-eyes, though he grumbles about it. Humbert also is perhaps not the happiest with the situation, but Cahair and his group are already off the boat, so there’s nothing he can do about it anymore.

It is decided that the boat should head for Kirkwall.

While away, Kanuuna and Jelaina have managed to keep the boat afloat, though Kanuuna has some bad news to report. 

There has been some strange things happening on the ship: dead birds falling from the sky on the ship and dead fishes appearing around the ship.

Kanuuna is convinced they are caused by Konstantine, who has been practically in a coma without the lyrium.

These omens certainly should be investigated, especially if they continue.

Because of these bad luck omens, at least according to Kanuuna, the ship has had some trouble with their usual trading partners. 

Some new business avenues clearly need to be opened.

Our heroes ponder about maybe dealing with some runes or rare herbal mixtures, but those would require materials they don’t have right now, so that will have to wait.

There is now lyrium on board, but it needs to be decided who is responsible for it. Two names are put forward on this: Elspet and Will Turner, Humbert’s templar-student.

A vote is had, and it’s really close, but Will Turner edges out as a winner, because many people follow Kanuuna’s example.

Having an access to lyrium really makes Humbert more energetic, and he gets really into the business side of things, as well as continuing Kanuuna’s and especially Will’s educations.

Konstantine is up and if not running at least standing upright, so the mage teaching returns to normal as well.

One day, as our heroes are closing on Kirkwall, Kaino barges into the infirmary where Elspet and Boshara are. He is dragging with him Carmen, the ex-captain of the ship, who got her mind wiped by the qunari in a previous session.

Kaino demands to know why they are keeping a tranquil person on the ship and not helping her.

Boshara explains that Carmen’s case is different, because she isn’t technically a tranquil, and they didn’t know it could be cured before meeting Kaino.

Kaino is very adamant that Carmen should be tried to be cured anyway.

Boshara wants to ask Alf first. Even though Carmen gave up her position as the captain after Nikita died, Boshara still feels it to be polite to ask Alf.

Alf gives this his blessing.

Elspet, with the help of Konstantine and with Humbert present to watch over, brings Jonathon in to touch Carmen as he did Kaino.

Jonathon however is unable to “bring Carmen back”. He says that he feels the missing parts of Carmen are somewhere too far away for him to grasp.

Our heroes surmise that they must be in the orb the qunari used to make her Viddath-Bas. 

The orb is at the bottom of the ocean near Estwatch. Carmen’s healing must wait until they go back that way.

Kaino seems to be okay with this. He is given, or rather, he takes up the duty of keeping Carmen company.

Alf has been in contact with Arkaitz and has arranged to meet up at Kirkwall.

Boshara has gotten wind of this, and approaches Alf to ask what Alf wants with Arkaitz, as our standing with the Crows isn’t the best.

Alf tells that he had hoped to hire Arkaitz to help locate Alf’s mother who Alf knows to be a Crow.

Boshara says that she has been thinking about ways to contact her mother and perhaps Arkaitz could help that as well.

So she asks Alf to take her with him when he goes to meet Arkaitz.

Our heroes reach Kirkwall. Alf and Boshara go off to meet Arkaitz at a local burger-joint.

For Alf, Arkaitz says locating his mother would probably not be that hard, if she is still alive that is. She would be at least 50, if she were alive and that is quite an age for a Crow.

Also if she is alive, she might not take too keenly on having someone dig up stuff about her.

As for Boshara, well, it’s more probable her mom is still alive. And Boshara could give Arkaitz more information than Alf, namely a name (Nesta Silvethari) and a location (The White Spire, probably). Getting information about her from the templars would require some money though.

Arkaitz says he can work with this, but he would need some cash. Somewhere between 300 and 500 gold would do.

Well, Boshara and Alf have 9 gold in their pockets between the two of them.

They start thinking about making money quick. Alf remembers a Kirkwall legend about a man named Xenon the Antiquarian, who supposedly offers ludicrous sums of money for some tasks.

Boshara and Alf decide that trying this route seems good. They’ll get back to Arkaitz when they have some cash.

During that same day, Elspet visits her elven friend at the Lowtown market and spends a nice afternoon with her.

Randy has gotten curious about the position of a boatswain, which our ship is lacking. He talks to Kanuuna about it as Randy would need to find a teacher. This is the first time they really talk after their break-up.

Kanuuna offers some tips and Randy pays back the money he borrowed from him.

Randy takes some of his dwarven friends from the ship and visits the local Raider-place to ask about a boatswain.

The owner of the place remembers a woman by the name of Usva-Kilna, who has recently retired from the sea-faring life.

The owner gives Randy an address.

The address turns out to be a yarnshop, owned by Kilna’s grand-niece. 

Merle and Brett stay behind to browse the wares, while the others go meet Kilna. Merle buys some yarn as he is part of a knitting circle held by Cahair for the riggers.

Kilna turns out to be a half-qunari-half-dwarf woman. She hears Randy’s suggestion, checks over his hand and past experience with being a handy-man, and agrees to come to the ship for a few months to teach.

The teaching would start next morning already, as Kilna needs to go sharpen her tools and she wishes to have Randy with her, which sounds agreeable to him.

For the evening, everyone returns back to ship and Alf and Boshara take up their problem with money with the others.

Humbert gets quite flustered when he learns Boshara is determined to find her mother, and tries to explain why Boshara’s parents haven’t reached out for her yet the Circle politics and restrictions being what they are, as Boshara thinks they should. 

As Humbert is played by yours truly and not his proper player, he removes himself from the situation pretty quickly. I’ll continue as Kanuuna.

Kanuuna is of the opinion that getting some money quick sounds good, as that would give them a bit of leeway to establish new mercantile relationships.

Boshara is a bit worried about how to approach Xenon, as he surely wouldn’t take just anyone to work for him.

Of course, our heroes still need to find him first.

They take to the streets to find Xenon. Some (everyone else) are a bit more subtle than others (Boshara).

At some point an elven man tugs at Alf’s sleeve and asks him and the others to follow him. 

He takes them deep into Kirkwall’s sewers, and finally to an ordinary-looking wooden door, through which they enter Xenon the Antiquarian’s Black Emporium. 

Xenon himself turns out to be a mummified man on a chair, surrounded by books and magical items. The corpse however talks, clearly alive.

He asks for introductions, which are given. Randy is the only one he really recognizes, due to his dad.

Boshara says that since she and Elspet are mages, she was hoping Xenon would hire them.

Xenon asks for a demonstration: Elspet turns into a bird. Boshara (consensually) blood slaves Alf and uses him to shoot an arrow through an apple Randy throws as hard as he can.

Xenon is impressed enough, though it’s certainly hard to read emotions off of a corpse.

There is indeed something our heroes could do for Xenon. There is a swamp in Nevarra, called Teufelbäder, near the town of Meünzebern, on which a thousand years ago a group of magisters were ambushed and killed.

One of the magisters was holding a pendant that was said to be able to turn back and forward time. It was lost to the swamp.

But there has been word of ghosts in the swamp, so Xenon believes it to have resurfaced, and would like it retrieved.

For the pendant, he offers 700 gold.

Randy checks the coin purses one of Xenon’s elves shows, and since they are indeed filled with gold, our heroes agree.

Before leaving, they chat with Xenon a bit. They learn that he is not a mage, at least so he claims.

Xenon, or one of his elf friends, gives a box that would dampen the pendant’s magic. Alf takes it.

Randy asks Xenon about how well he knew Mandulfr. Xenon replies that Mandulfr tried to search for him, but he didn’t let Mandulfr find him, as people work for Xenon, not the other way around, so the relationship between the two wouldn’t have worked.

They are given 200 gold in advance, and that should be enough for Arkaitz to start working too. 

They are led out by an elf, who tells that once they return from Nevarra, one of the elves will come take them back to the Emporium, to give the item.

So off towards Nevarra it is!

Randy finally admits to people (our heroes + Kanuuna), that he may have had some (like one or two) Crows with him when he visited Orzammar, and the “friend” of Randy who had joined our ship after our visit to Orzammar is one of them.

Boshara is quite displeased, especially since while at Antiva, our heroes had gotten knee-deep in Crow shit, but Randy re-assures everyone that Randy’s relationship with the Crows is okay and the Crow is there just to guard Crow-interests. 

However she probably shouldn’t know about the work they are doing for Xenon, so our heroes should watch their mouths.

Boshara mentions to Konstantine about their visit to Nevarra during one of their lessons, and Konstantine recognizes the place they are going on.

In fact, 30 years ago Konstantine had been there with the Nevarran army to deal with an undead problem.

Konstantine has some maps he had drawn in his grimoire that he offers to Boshara. They’re a bit out of date but could be useful.

Boshara lets everyone else know that alongside ghosts they could expect some undead as well.

As we are going by Orlais too, Humbert decides he should visit his other sister, so he’ll not be joining the others on this swampy adventure.

So that’s it. Next time we’ll be heading to the Nevarran swamps in search of lost treasures. Anyone want to make any predictions on a scale of 1 to 10, how badly our heroes will fuck up with the time-magic pendant?

[nemossubmarine]

DA RP Write-up #14.7

Things are coming to a close today, and what a show it was! Get ready for it folks, we have drama, action, adventure!! Romance?! Stakes have never been higher! 

We start where we left off last time, that is the carta’s jail cell. We’ve some time to spend while we’re there, so Cahair gets back to talking with the miners.

There appears to be some Legion of the Dead members in the cells as well, presumably ones that have never been with the carta.

Boshara continues to be impatient and gets no food for her trouble-making. Alf shares some of his so she won’t have to go completely without.

Our heroes are locked up for two days, and on the morning of the second day, Cahair realizes that he can’t see out of his left eye.

Boshara checks it over again, and realizes that it is blighted. 

Both Cahair and Elspet aren’t doing super-well, they’re shivering and sleeping poorly. The jail isn’t helping.

Luckily, it seems that Hedda has woken up and Bobin Bood comes to pick us up to go meet her.

She still doesn’t look well, nothing’s going to bring back the eye that she gauged out, but she seems less completely bonkers, so it seems like a good time to make some deals.

Hedda isn’t as giving as we might have hoped. She is willing to take us and our ship as part of her lyrium operation. This would mean that some of her men would come to the ship, but we’d get all the lyrium we’d need with no cost.

She does want us to prove to her our loyalty somehow. One of her offers is for us to deal with Lord Mandulfr, which we aren’t willing to work with at all. In fact, we’d very much like for her to leave Randy alone.

She speaks of Randy as a greedy asshole and heavily implies he was the one who arranged his own father’s murder, but that’s not a situation we want to poke at with Hedda present.

That leaves us with two tasks: Assasinate Saelac and assassinate King Aeducan, and we’re like, sure thing, we can work with that.

Before we get our heroes back to Orzammar, we’ll take a short look at what Humbert has been up to, while we have been away.

Merle, which we had put up to relaying our intents to Humbert, has gotten the nerves over the bomb-threat, so that’s pretty much all the thing Humbert gathers from him.

He goes to the Dusttown and picks up Trin, who he arranges to stay at Randy’s house.

Now it’s time to get worried about the others, as the Provings are long over, and there are no sign of them. So Humbert starts arranging a search-party. 

He goes for Saelac personally for help, and somehow, proving once again that his reputation as a convincing fellow is well-earned, he convinces Saelac to help.

The search party searches over the city first and then turns to Deep Roads.

And in the Deep Roads is where Humbert & co find the others. Boshara rushes to hug him and then hug Saelac. (Humbert also gives hugs to everyone else, though Cahair declines on the basis of being Blighted)

Boshara starts rambling about how we had noticed that Cahair and Elspet were Blighted and we went to the Deep Roads to find some Wardens. Having found none, and gotten in quite a bit of trouble, we decided to return.

This story is bought by Saelac who arranges a fine dinner in celebration of having bravely rescued Boshara, which he totally did. Yep. 

Before we can get to any assassinating, Boshara wants to try heal Cahair and Elspet, as their conditions are surely not getting any better.

Boshara asks Saelac for some quarters to do the procedures in, and is granted some rooms in the Warriors’ Quarters.

Boshara goes to talk with Randy about the situation. Randy offers himself and several people from his house as blood-letters. 

There’s something off with Randy, but Boshara is too concerned with the fact that both Cahair’s and Elspet’s life hang on her shoulders to really pay much attention to this.

All the people have gathered, Randy and dwarves from his house will give blood, as will Alf, Boshara, Humbert, Merle, Breck and Kaino. This should be enough.

Cahair will be operated on first, as his condition seems much worse, possibly because Elspet has not done the elven healing spell on him that she did to herself. Also this leaves Elspet the chance to watch over the procedure and assist if needed.

Before starting the operation, Cahair makes Alf promise to take care of Richard, in case Cahair doesn’t make it, and tell Richard that Cahair is sorry he couldn’t make it to say goodbyes.

Then it’s under the metaphorical knife for Cahair. The operation goes well, possibly because Boshara has done this before, and possibly because the Blight is not yet as bad as it was with Hedda and Harrowmont.

The Blight clings to the eye however, so Elspet has no choice but to remove it.

Boshara decides to leave Elspet’s operation for the next day, as she is tired. Before the end of the day, she visits Kivi-Jaakko and asks if he could make a glass eye for her. Inside the eye Boshara copies some of the elven symbols that decorate Cahair’s face.

Then it’s next day and Elspet’s turn. Kaino will watch over her operation as the healer, though being primarily a primal mage, his healing skills are limited.

Luckily Elspet’s operation goes just as well, leaving only a nasty scar above her left breast where the Blight was the worst.

Both sleep for few days and wake up in good health. 

Boshara presents Cahair with the glass eye she ordered, which he is very glad to receive.

Both of our Blighted friends are now saved, at least temporarily. It’s time to get to assassinating.

Boshara has been working double duty, healing and flirting up a storm with Saelac. It’s still Boshara flirting, so it’s not the best flirting, but Saelac seems charmed none-the-less.

He also seems to be interested in Elspet as well, so maybe he’s just slimy.

Boshara manages to convince Saelac to take her out on a date to the Provings Ring, with only two dwarves as guards, and even those are left outside.

They are having a lovely dinner date, when Saelac presents Boshara with a ring.

Boshara agrees to this sudden proposal, and they are just exchanging a deep loving(?) kiss, when an arrow pierces the air and hits Saelac in the head, killing him instantly.

The next arrow hits Boshara in the shoulder. 

Boshara cuts Saelac’s tongue off, leaves it on his chest, sprays blood everywhere, hurts herself a bit more, and lays down next to him, just when the guards come in to check.

In the audience’s stands Alf gets up and starts to sneak out of the building, after a job well done. One of the guards catches a sight of him, but can’t really tell who the sneaking figure is.

So Saelac is dead. Boshara plays the part of grieving bride-to-be, though she makes sure to let everyone know, she wants no claim to Saelac’s political power.

Orzammar is quite in turmoil, as there is no one to obviously name as a successor. 

Randy seems troubled during this time as well, as two of his friends, Anselmi and Berengrad seem to follow him everywhere. There’s really no time to talk with him about this, as there is an investigation on Saelac’s killing.

Carta is named to be the guilty party.

After few weeks, as the dust has somehow settled in Orzammar, our heroes head off, past the templars at the front gate.

At the front gate is also Dominique and the Tevinter mage that got Blighted in a previous adventure. They are Wardens now, so Dominique has come to say her goodbyes and resign from the ship.

They also tell that the glass statue of the little girl has been left at Anderfels; the Wardens wish to study it.

We pick up some carta members and some lyrium on our way, but there’s still a second assassination to do. Alf, Boshara, Cahair and Elspet convince Humbert and Randy to go the ship, while they themselves will go to Denerim, where they heard from Hedda the King was.

They get to Denerim with some speedy horses and use all kinds of old friends to help locate the King. Once they have done so, it’s time for Elspet to get her assassin’s creed on.

On our way to Denerim, Elspet had practiced a new form, so those are the skills she’d use. 

First as a bird, she sneaks in and locates King Aeducan and his wife. 

Then she transforms into a poisonous snake and bites the King. 

The King is dead. Long live the King.

We get back on the ship, only to find out that an Antivan-looking dwarf by the name of Carla has joined the crew, a friend of Randy it’s claimed, and she does seem awful fond of not leaving Randy alone for a moment.

We might be in some deep trouble further down the line, be it with the carta, with the Crows or with Orzammar, but we have our lyrium, and that’s all that matters. And all it took was two political assassinations. Worth it?

And that’s all folks! What a crazy morally ambiguous time we had deep down in the dark down deep down. This just goes to show that our party isn’t made for politics. 

I’ll be taking the rears next with probably two campaigns if not back-to-back only mini-sessions in between. I am very excited for the both of them, and maybe for the next one, we’ll manage to keep the body count slightly lower, perhaps.

[nemossubmarine]

DA RP Write-up #14.5

We are back from our winter break after 1,5 months. All except one. RIP Humbert. (he’s not really dead, the player is just gone for the moment) This session our group takes on the Provings’ Super-Fun Round. Let’s get this show on the road!

Our heroes are meeting at the Provings’ locker room in the morning.

Some guard comes to pick up Alf and Cahair from the tavern. Humbert’s too beat up to attend, so will stay behind with Kaino who is so bored at this point even Humbert’s company will be an improvement.

Boshara and Elspet will be coming with their own committee. Boshara takes so long to eat breakfast that they’ll be a few moments late.

There’s a squadron of six soldiers to take Boshara and bird!Elspet to the locker room. The soldiers are very happy to go, because that means they get to see the Provings.

Just to be nice, Boshara says she thinks it might be dangerous so four more soldiers are added to the group.

At the locker room, our heroes split up into two teams (Boshara &Cahair, Alf & Elspet), pick sides (B&C are heels, A&E babyfaces), talk strategy (like who would look good as winner, though in the end, it’s left up in the air) and practice the fight.

There’s a few hours before the fight starts so everyone takes a nap: Alf and Elspet in the locker room and Boshara and Cahair in a star’s dressing room Boshara got for herself.

There’s kid’s match first thing in the Provings. And after that, it’s showtime for our boys and girls.

Alf and Elspet make a nice entrance, waving at the audience. Alf already has some female fans who blow him kisses.

Boshara enters with a fake fire-breathing (actually just a flame blast), and Cahair follows completely stone-faced, not taking any contact with the audience.

The match begins! Cahair looks at Boshara, who points at Elspet. Immediately Cahair is upon Elspet, grabbing her by the throat and knocking her down.

Alf tackles Cahair and they roll around a bit, Cahair ending up on top.

Boshara goes to kick Elspet. She also grabs her and slams her in one of the pillars.

Elspet is doing relatively badly already, so she quietly heals for the turn, though there is a strange grumbling beneath the ground as she casts.

Cahair is about to go back for Elspet, when Boshara tells him to “stop” and focus on Alf, so Cahair, still on top of Alf, punches him in the face several times.

It seems Cahair’s and Boshara’s cool cruelty is making the crowd pop.

Alf headbutts Cahair and gets him off himself and is back to his feet.

Boshara attacks Alf from behind, grabbing his jaw and punching him in the gut and throwing him back at Cahair.

Elspet sneaks up on Boshara and slaps her across the face.

Cahair tries to lunge for Alf, who dodges, gets up and does a very taunting retreat, much to the crowd’s approval.

Boshara returns the favor for Elspet with a slap of her own, and then another.

Elspet uses a quiet mind blast, knocking both Boshara and Cahair down. She also knocks herself out this way.

Cahair gets up, and completely calm, menacing and stonefaced follows Alf.

Boshara goes to check up on Elspet, masking it as a mocking laugh she does at her unconscious body. Nothing outwardly seems to be wrong.

Alf rushes Cahair, but Cahair dodges, takes a few steps back and dropkicks Alf in the face.

Alf decides to go after Boshara instead, hitting her so hard that Boshara gets a nosebleed.

Boshara starts yelling insults at Cahair about how he dared let Alf touch her, and how she would curse him forever is he didn’t kill Alf.

Cahair walks up to the pair, looks at Alf and then lunges at Boshara, looking like he has completely lost it, yelling and ripping at her throat.

This is quite a shocking twist, and some kids in the audience start crying.

Alf hits Cahair on the back of his head, and he falls down unconscious. After that he offers his hand to Boshara who takes it and shakes it, giving the win to Alf.

The crowd erupts in applause.

Jon Cenas comes down and presents Alf with his Super-Fun Tournament Winner’s Belt.

Elspet is waking up, very disoriented and sits up on the sand. 

Some guys with stretches come to get Cahair, who doesn’t want to break kayfabe.

As Alf and Boshara are leaving the arena, they notice there’s cracks in the pillars and the ground in the arena.

Back at the locker room, all four stuff into Boshara’s four star changing room, and Boshara is immediately upon Elspet, asking if she is okay.

Elspet is somewhat disoriented and feeling faint, but regains her senses quickly.

Elspet and Cahair decide that they will go back to the tavern and from there maybe check up on Trin’s mom at the brick.

Boshara and Alf stay behind. Boshara takes a shower and is relieved to find no Blight.

She had suspected the worst because she was feeling a headache when using magic, similar to Elspet. Since it’s not Blight, Boshara surmises there might be some raw lyrium under the Provings arena.

Seeing that raw lyrium is extremely volatile, it’s like the dwarves are sitting on a bomb.

Boshara orders some of her soldiers to check on if there’s any suspect looking folk among the crowd. She will take the maps Cahair and Alf gave them and rush to the archives to check on them.

Alf stays behind, as he is the Master. He gets a pass to get to the VIP booths and meets up with Saelac and Cenas. 

Alf would like to talk with Cenas alone, but Cenas forces him to watch the first round of the fights.

Much of it is pretty average, but there’s one fighter, very efficient, who after the match is over, takes his opponents unconscious body and cuts out his tongue, staring at Saelac as he does.

Saelac seems rather nervous by the display, Cenas murmurs about dishonorable fighters and Alf learns the fighter’s name is Grimas.

Finally Alf gets Cenas alone and mentions about the cracks and the possibility of raw lyrium below the arena and about how at loss our heroes are in terms of what to do about it.

Luckily Alf is persuasive enough that Cenas believes him and says he’ll see who he can get to check on the situation.

Boshara goes to the archive, gets Orzammar maps and starts cross-referencing. As suspected, one of the big carta-dug caverns is right below the Provings arena. Another one is under Harrowmont’s house and in fact several other noble houses have caverns under them.

This is serious. So Boshara steals one of the Shaperate maps before rushing off again.

Outside she asks her troops what they think of Saelac and whether she should mention about this to him, and they seem to think that’s a good idea, so that’s what Boshara is going to do.

But not until next time! Things are sure getting tense. Will our heroes survive? Will Orzammar survive? Tune in next time, and we’ll see, hopefully.