Skullport Tales: Actual Play 7

In a reversal of my usual report, I’m going to start with some notes and then give you the plot-and-play synopsis. The reason is because this was the first session where I took over as gamemaster, and I wanted to give you an idea of how I prepped, along with a couple of caveats.

Notes
Because JohnG, the other gamemaster, is very familiar with the Skullport setting, I wanted to mix things up and add some elements he wouldn’t know by heart. What I did was take characters and locations from Streets of Zobeck and Freeport, and throw some plots into a blender. Sometimes I kept characters whole, sometimes I combined similar characters, and sometimes I replaced one similar character with another. If you are familiar with Skullport, Freeport, or Zobeck, be advised that in this campaign things will not play out as you may expect.

Actual Play
Continuing from the last episode, the party is back in Skullport and staying at the Temple of Eilistraee. A kobold street urchin appears in the temple asking for Umrae-aun and has a scroll for her. After asking for “the customary tip” her hands it over to her and runs off. The scroll reads as follows:

I have a lead on locating my wife. Will meet up with you in a few days. In the meantime, could you please help my friend Grigori? It seems his girlfriend has been kidnapped. He is staying at the Rampant Roach and is willing to pay.

-Codainyr

Umrae’aun has no idea who this Codainyr person is. She discusses it with Ahmatti, and she doesn’t know either. They go to find Crowbar and Cody, neither of whom is in their room. There’s a scream, and on of the sisters of the temple is standing in the hall looking into her room, where a drunken Crowbar is passed out on her bed. In attempting to wake him, he stirs and throws up all over the place. Sobering him up, Crowbar says he doesn’t know where Cody is either. Most of Cody’s stuff is there, but his adventuring gear is missing.

They head to the Rampant Roach, in the kobold ghetto in Lower Skullport. Among the kobolds having lunch there they see a drow conducting some sort of business with kobold merchants. Umrae’aun thinks she recognizes the drow but isn’t sure, which puts her on alert because she’s a refugee from Menzoberranzan.  There is also a human sitting by himself, who sees the party enter and gets up to walk toward them. He introduces himself, and says they must be Cody’s friends. He really needs help. He stole some stuff from the Eye, Skullport’s secret police, and he was going to flee the city with his girlfriend but she’s going missing. As the part has experience in liberating people from the Eye, he hoped they could help. He can’t go looking for her, because he’s wanted. He’s willing to pay. Ahmatti sumises that he’s willing to pay with some of the stolen loot the Eye is after him for, but the party agrees to follow up. He says that his girlfriend, Ilyana, has friends at the Silk Scabbard who might know where she is, or might be hiding her. Grigori slips out; the party slips out a minute later, so they don’t appear to be together.

On the way out, the male drow stealthily walks up behind Umrae’aun and whispers “I remember you”.  Before it turns into a confrontation in the street between the party and this unknown person, the city guard rounds the corner and begins walking toward them. He asks if they know the human that just left; they say no. The guard in charge says well, I may have to take you all in for questioning anyway. Umrae’aun bribes the guard, and they go away. The mystery drow goes inside, and the party ventures on to the Silk Scabbard.

After the party leaves the mystery drown Dagordroth meets his next client, a human who calls himself Brother Hendryk and appears to be some sort of cleric but wears no visible holy symbols. He is in need of a book, a journal containing some very sensitive information. If Dagordroth can recover it, he will pay handsomely. It’s in the possession of a petty thief named Ilyana, last seen at a hive of scum and villainy called the Silk Scabbard.

The party arrives and asks around, primarily inquiring with the bartender. Dagordroth arrives, sees the party, and he inquires after Ilyana with his waitress. The waitress goes and talks to the bartender, and points at Dagordroth. The party sees her point at Dagordroth. The bartender responds to the waitress, and points to the party. Both duck into the back room, and a bunch of thugs come out. A barfight ensues, which the party and Dagordroth win.

The session ends with the party and Dagordroth about to discuss why they’re both in the same place, as they duck out the back door before more thugs, the city guard, or agents of the Eye arrive.

Notes, Part 2
John kept quiet when the other players didn’t associate my missing player character Cody with his full name, Codainyr. No one picked up on the fact that the scroll was sealed with an alchemical symbol either. I got to drop some of the character background in for future roleplaying hooks when John takes over running again.

I played Grigori as Skinny Pete from Breaking Bad, which totally fit with Cody looking like Ewan MacGregor in Trainspotting. The mystery drow Dagordroth, of course, is John’s character. His character has done business with the temple of Eilistraee before, to give him a hook that would allow he and Umrae’aun to recognize each other and maybe build some instant trust, but he decided to take it another way. It was certainly appropriately noirish, but it forced me to do some jiggery-pokery to get him to the next scene with the rest of the party. That was fine; I love jiggery-pokery and I love when the plot keeps shifting, so long as things continue to make sense.