Session 12: Subterranean Revelations

Characters involved:

• Pisqual “Piper” Dunraven, human rogue and ambitious thief.
• Primeiro d’Pirazzi, human mage extraordinaire.
• Shrain, dwarf cleric of Moradin.
• Vaicht, elf monk of Kelemvor.
• Zelder, halfling rogue and pastry aficionado.

The PCs assisted Brother Hodges with the trampled and injured as the daylight waned. Ravengard eventually came over to them and “thanked” them in his own bullish way for their part in staving off what could have been a massacre. He gave them a sum of platinum pieces, saying, “I will not be indebted to anyone,” then ranted briefly that the Guild clearly wanted a bloodbath and that the patriars would happily comply—and that of course if that had happened it would have all been blamed on the Flaming Fist.

The PCs told him about the Flaming Fist corporal who had been involved in the kidnapping of Omdarsh. Incensed by this news—Ravengard knew there was corruption in his ranks but seldom had evidence—he stormed off to the Seatower to see the body of the dead traitor himself.

A short while later, a small procession of wagons approached the gate to the Upper City. It was three coffins being transported by the Candulhallows—a patriar family of morticians who’ve handled funerals, burials, and transport of Baldur’s Gate’s dead for centuries. The guards at the gate immediately parted for them. Shrain, wondering at this, quickly cast a detect good and evil spell and found a flicker of fiendish energy among the patriars’ guards who escorted the small caravan. Meanwhile, Primeiro used detect magic and saw the mild, if steady aura of alchemy radiating from one of the coffins. In order to get a better look, Vaicht feigned grief and mourning and threw himself upon the wagon in the lead. The guards started and turned their attention on him, drawing suspicious looks. But the elf monk was convincing with his false tears and was able to get a look at the guards. One of them seemed less surprised than the others and far more serious, and makeup had been used to conceal heavy facial scars. Suspicious.

Nevertheless, the guards forced them back and the procession rolled on and through the gate to the upper city. Meanwhile, Zelder spotted a figure waving to him surreptitiously from a nearby alley. He went over to discover that it was Thurgo Songbuckle, the halfling they’d met at the Guild’s gathering several nights before. Thurgo told Zelder that Rilsa Rael wished to meet with the party, and that he could lead them to a safe and discrete place in the Undercellars. There would be no need to head into the Outer City.

The PCs agreed—for Zelder, on the promise of brownies—and followed the Guild-hired halfling into an alley, through a hidden door, down into the sewers, and through a maze of passages both moist and dry. When they approached a wide junction in the stench-filled sewers, they spotted a pair of ghouls sloshing through the refuse water towards them.

As they moved forward and began to destroy the undead—somewhat easily, from a distance—Thurgo said, “I must apologize, but it’s not personal.” With that, his body contorted, sprouted bristle fur, and suddenly no longer resembled a mere halfling. He was a wererat in hybrid form, still small of stature, but much too large to be a normal rat!

He sprang up and attacked Vaicht, for the elf was the closest PC to him with his back turned.

A battle ensued, in which several small swarms of rats and a handful of dire rats also ran screeching into the fray. (It seemed the PCs had learned what might have been behind the rats plague the streets at night.) Even a second wererat appeared, swinging down upon them from above, pulling a chain, and loosing a stone-colored blob onto the scene: a gray ooze!

With arrows, bolts, blades, rays of frost, and the unarmed strikes of an elven monk, the PCs wonof The PCs won the day, but some were severely injured in the battle. The gray ooze landed a nasty blow on Zelder, burning away much of his cloak and armor and searing his back with its acidic mass. Whipped into a frenzy by their wererat master, a swarm of rats surged up onto Piper. Several clung directly to the human's face and bit into his mouth, nearly cutting his tongue in half. Blood sprayed and dripped as the rogue screamed and clutched as his mouth.

By far the most dramatic injury was dealt by Vaicht, however. The PCs had difficulty effectively harming the wererat, whose lycanthropic flesh could only be easily injured by magic weapons or silver, but the monk seized Thurgo Songbuckle in a grapple and attempted to maneuver him into the hungry ooze. After struggling in vain for several moments, Vaicht finally lifted the wererat's body around and found an opportunity to use the creature's own natural weaponry against him. Grasping Thurgo's own clawed hand, he drew it across his the wererat's own belly and eviscerated him in the process. Organs and gore showered out as Thurgo stared wide with disebelief before Vaicht dropped him to the ground—where the mindless ooze engulfed him and made a meal of his dying form.

More rats, and the still-unharmed ooze made it seem that the PCs would have to make a run for it. But a sudden search of wand-flung spells suggested help was at hand. A glance down the passage from which they'd come revealed the presence of a group of woman—warriors and mages among them. It was the Lady's Court, the bodyguards of Nine-Fingers, mistress of the Guild. And Nine-Fingers herself had come as well. She bade the PCs follow, confirming that she didn't want them dead, but perhaps Rilsa Rael had ordered their death.

"I never liked that halfling," she remarked of the now-dead Thurgo Songbuckle.

Nine-Fingers led them deeper into the sewers and finally into a chamber within the Undercellar beneath the Upper City. There, they took some rest, and she wanted urgently to speak with them about

When she’d met the PCs several days before at the Guild meeting they’d crashed, she had said she was concerned for the city, for the identity of Abdel’s assassin, and the purpose of his death. They told her about the cultists they’d seen. Now things had worsened. Nine-Fingers was worried about Rilsa Rael—her favored protégé—for the Little Calimshan kingpin had become more erratic lately, and more violent. The Guildmistress admitted that many of the acts committed or instigated by the Guild had been sanctioned by her—with the sole purpose of crippling the patriars' commerce and the institutions that hurt the lower class—but that Rael had taken these acts too far. The sewage jams, the vandalism, the arson. The kidnappings especially concerned her, for most of the wives and children who’d been taken had ended up dead with no hope for rescue. Nine-Fingers believed that something was driving Rael to greater acts of violence. To deep and uncharacteristic levels of sadism.

And on that point, Nine-Fingers had something to share with the PCs, for she believed they had the city's interest at heart and could trust precious few others. She said her agents had found the flat where Abdel’s assassin had stayed before the festival of Returning Day, and they had uncovered a very revealing letter that had been folded up and hidden by him. It was a letter written by a Bhaal cultist, perhaps even the cult’s leader. The letter's recipient was addressed to Viekang—a name the PCs had heard recently spoken by Abdel himself through the stored magic of a whispering candle.

Viekang, according to Abdel, might have been the very last Bhaalspawn beside himself, one of the mortal progeny of Bhaal from the old days many years ago. Abdel had evidently him him before

Nine-Fingers read them the cultist's letter:

Master Viekang,

Nine-Fingers

It is with considerable humility that I entreat you one last time. Your window of opportunity will soon pass.

On the Day of Returning, Abdel Adrian will appear publicly in the Wide for ceremonial and political purposes. Understand this: He will never be more vulnerable than on that day, in that moment. I have summoned my disciples to the city already and we will ensure that neither the Watch nor the Flaming Fist interferes with your destiny. I will take further steps to hire local muscle to keep anyone from among the peasantry from interfering. It matters not what weapon you wield against Abdel, so long as you can deliver a mortal wound. You possess our Lord’s power at your fingertips, as you always have. Murder is in your blood.

Viekang, listen to me now. You have lived in fear of Abdel and the others—in fear of yourself and what you are—for far too long. I offer you this final chance at absolution and ascendance. The days of the Bhaalspawn are long past. The time for Bhaal’s rebirth is at hand, for change is coming to the face of Toril and the Lord of Murder will be among the first to claim his due. With Abdel’s death, enacted by your hallowed hands, Bhaal’s divinity will coalesce within you. You will do what Sarevok failed to. You will become inviolable, indestructible, an exarch of our Lord’s will. Baldur’s Gate will be yours to claim—the first of many governments to bow before you. I will be in attendance, and I will be the first to herald your rise.

I trust you need no further convincing. It is time to stop running, to stop hiding. You and Abdel are the last of your kind, and have survived for a reason. You already wield immortal strength. But which of you is the stronger? Abdel lacks the courage and conviction to wield the power given him by the Lord of Murder. Abdel has grown old and complacent, content to rule a single city of sailors, merchants, and thieves. You were meant to rule so much more. You must now become Bhaal’s champion, the last of his children, favored above all. Do not refuse this mantle.

We will speak again when you have triumphed. Then I will call you my liege.

Azevell, First Blade of Bhaal

The PCs agreed that Viekang, Abdel's killer, must have been manipulated. The letter's composer, Azevell, had coerced him into a suicidal assassination. He'd wanted Viekang and Abdel to die. When Viekang had killed Abdel, Bhaal's essence had surged into him but it hadn't saved him or made him into a god at all. With the last of the Bhaalspawn dead, what then became of Bhaal?

Where did the energy, the divinity, go? Nine-Fingers wondered. Clearly this is what Azevell had wanted: the Lord of Murder's energy released somehow. The Guildmistress felt this was part of Rilsa Rael's bloodlust. And who else might be affected? So Nine-Fingers asked the PCs to find a way to counter this violence. Abdel's death was a blow to the city, for he'd help keep all factions from turning against one another, but clearly civil unrest wasn't the real problem now. To deal with the latest threats of violence, such as the march that had almost become a riot, the Council had scheduled an emergency session of the Parliament of Peers for the morning.

There were a few leads to possibly follow, and the PCs had some ideas. Nine-Fingers cautioned them against trusting too many people at this time. She didn't trust Ravengard—and the PCs readily agreed that while he meant well, the Flaming Fist marshal wasn't doing much good for the city—and she certainly didn't trust the three remaining dukes. She did intimate that many of the Peers of the Parliament were on the Guild's payroll, but not enough to enact the great changes the city needed.

The PCs slept the night in a comfortable chamber in the Undercellar. The next morning they set out to continue their investigations. But what came next was alarming. As they ascended the stairs up into the Wide, above, they felt the ground tremor. A rumble and a great explosion rocked the Upper City.

When they reached the surface, they looked over and saw a plume of black smoke rising in the air right above High Hall.

Where the Parliament of Peers was supposed to be in session.

Session 11: Threatening Violence

Characters involved:

• Amaril, elf cleric of Helm.
• Pisqual “Piper” Dunraven, human rogue and ambitious thief.
• Primeiro d’Pirazzi, human mage extraordinaire.
• Shrain, dwarf cleric of Moradin.
• Zelder, halfling rogue and pastry aficionado.

Though the pigeon eventually disappeared from sight, PCs did find its "roost." It was a building several streets up from the waterfront. Vaicht found it first, and Primeiro, Amaril, and Piper soon followed him to their destination. Conjuring a minor illusion of Helm's pointing fist floating above the destination, Amaril was able to direct the others: Shrain hustling through the streets hefting the ransom money in the form of a small chest filled with 800 gold pieces in. Zelder had spotted and kept pace with the dwarf as they ran.

Everybody loves stirges!

Meanwhile, Primeiro eavesdropped at the basement flat beneath a hatter's shop in the building where the pigeon disappeared. He heard raised voices, an argument, and quickly deduced these were the kidnappers of the boy in question, Omdarsh, the son of the merchant Darsh Nyach, one of the Peers of the Parliament.

As a group, PCs initially went in peacefully an attempted to offer the ransom money in exchange for the boy, who was bound inside a thick wooden cage alongside a cage of stirges (multi-winged insectoid, blood-draining beasties). The kidnappers numbered three rogueish-looking humans, a pair of halflings, and a plate mail-armored warrior. It seemed clear that the kidnappers wanted the gold, and demanded it be given over. In the last moment, however, Shrain turned and swing his axe—and a bloody fight ensued.

Though the kidnappers were defeated and the boy saved, the PCs were badly wounded, and more than a few victim to a small swarm of the stirges, which had been loosed by one of the halfling kidnappers. Both Amaril and Shrain (the party's clerics, the only ones capable of using healing magic!) were sent crashing, bleeding, to the floor by the might of the plate-armored, greatsword-wielding warrior. But Zelder reacted quickly with his healer's kit and bound both their wounds, sparing them from bleeding out.

One of the kidnappers got away, escaping into a tunnel down into the sewers. The PCs searched the hideout and found that the plate-armored man had tucked away a Flaming Fist uniform and a ring marking him as a flame (lieutenant)! This was news indeed, hard evidence that the mercenary organization had corruption in its ranks. After waiting a couple of hours for Shrain and Amaril and stir into agonizing consciousness, they made their way back to the Seatower of Balduran to return the boy and report what had happened.

Marshal Ravengard wasn't around, but the soldiers took them in and Darsh Nyach, the boy's father, was overjoyed at having his son back. The PCs took some rest, secured the traitor Flaming Fist lieutenant's body (they wished to speak with Ravengard about him later).

The next morning the PCs set out again, hoping to investigate a few more things. For one, Primeiro wished to visit Felogyr's Fireworks, for he wanted to find out more about the ceramic bowl bearing Felogyr's name, the one that smelled of smokepowder. Smokepowder was all but illegal, a product of the church of Gond. Very few places were licensed to produce or sell smokepowder items—a potent, explosive alchemical substance indeed—though Felogyr's was at least one such establishment.

Gond, the Wonderbringer, was the one
to introduce smokepowder to the Forgotten
Realms. He first gifted the secret of its
creation to the island-nation of Lantan for
sheltering him during the Time of
Troubles. The church of Gond is one
of the few manufacturers of
smokepowder. It was banned in
many cities for its dangerous potency.

On the way out of the Seatower, however, Hansen, the son of Brother Hodges, came running towards the PCs. A moment later, they heard the distant blaring of clarions. Shrain knew instantly it was a warning, a distress call, or some other means of the military to raise an alarm. The Flaming Fist was quickly responding to something.

Hansen told the PCs that his father had sent him to find them. A large number of Outer City residents had gathered in the district of Norchapel and were on a peaceful march towards High Hall in an attempt to have their voices heard. Hodges was worried that such a march would not remain peaceful, not with things to turbulent in the city. The PCs followed Hansen as he led them up through the streets to find the marchers.

They encountered them already inside the Lower City, halfway to Baldur's Gate itself, the gate that led from Lower to Upper. The PCs, especially Primeiro, attempted to reason with the crowd. They used illusions both arcane and divine to make their presence known, to attempt to stop or slow the gathering people—which had swelled from dozens to many hundreds. They were effective in culling some of the crowd's numbers, but the people were leaderless and widespread, marching through multiple streets.

At Baldur's Gate, a few hundred Flaming Fist soldiers had gathered and had formed a wall to prevent the crowd's entry. The Watch was conspicuously absent—normally they guarded this gate. Now now at least two thousand men and women had come forward. They were largely unarmed.

Though leaderless, one man did scramble up onto a low building. He called out: "We will speak with the Council of Four! We demand recognition for Baldur's forgotten, the Outer City's hardworking people!"

Up on the wall above the gate, others had gathered to look down upon the masses. They appeared to be soldiers, but not Watch members nor the Flaming Fist. They were the retainers of Upper City patriars, house soldiers and bodyguards. There were also robed Gondsman among them, and many held crossbows ready.

Marshal Ravengard soon appeared and climbed atop some neatly stacked barrels the Flaming Fist had assembled. In his booming voice, he shouted for the crowd to disperse, declaring that no one would not negotiate with a mob. They must return home or the Flaming Fist would drive them all back by force! Again they shouted that they intended to be heard before the Parliament or the Council. Ravengard shouted back angrily, renewing his stance and demanding they go home immediately.

Ulder Ravengard, Marshal of the Flaming Fist,
not a soft-spoken or nuanced man.

Meanwhile, the PCs tried to work their way toward the front of the crowd to the line of soldiers, hoping to stave off any violence. They used magic and loud voices again, even invoked Duke Abdel in attempt to appeal to the city's now-dead hero. It worked, if slowly. The PCs noticed that there were some men and women in the crowds that did carry clubs. They looked like the toughs they'd seen at the Guild meeting several days before. But by far, most of the people were unarmed.

Despite the opportunity to throw his weight around and be forceful, it still seemed like Ravengard was not pleased with the situation. With the Watch strangely absent, the Fist was the only authority represented here. Yet it was then that some of the PCs noticed Imbralyn Skoond, Silvershield's right-hand man, working his way along the line of patriar retainers up on the wall. He was speaking angrily to them—though he was too far away to hear, especially among the shouting crowds.

Imbralym Skoond

Once the PCs reached the front, Primeiro turned around and tried to address the crowd. Those nearest to him listened, for he said he would be the voice of the people, that he—as a Hero of the Wide—would try to speak to the Council on their behalf. But the thousands of people drown him out in their chants, in their demands.

One or two of the PCs even noticed another figure watching from high above, but further to the west, watching distantly: Duke Silvershield. He was too far away to assess. Was Silvershield glad of this unrest, or was he as discouraged as Ravengard by the developments? The Upper, Lower, and Outer City residents seemed ready to clash in dangerous ways. The line of retainers up on the wall seemed to swell with tensions. They began to aim their crossbows right down on the crowd!

Duke Torlin Silvershield

Using the Flaming Fist uniforms that some of them had—particularly Shrain—and the silver brooches that had been given to them early on, the PCs managed to move through the line of soldiers and speak directly to Ravengard. They managed to convince him that the greatest threat of violence right now was the crossbow-wielding guards atop the wall—not the Fist, not the crowd itself. The people seemed fearless, unafraid of the Fist, emboldened by their numbers, and Ravengard himself wasn't going to back down. He hadn't come for a fight, but neither would he cower before a mob.

Still furious—at everyone, it seemed—Ravengard began to bark orders at his men. A full third of the Flaming Fist force marched up to the battlements above to screen off the patriars' retinue of warriors and the acolytes of Gond. The remaining Fist soldiers pressed into the crowd with shields, advancing in lockstep and driving them physically back often at sword point. The people protested, but none fought. Some were trampled and injured, but in the process none were killed!

Violence had been staved off.

The PCs eventually also noticed a third figure watching it all unfold from a rooftop nearby: Rilsa Rael, the Guild's kingpin of Little Calimshan. Just surveying the crowds, the Flaming Fist, the press of soldiers, the patriar forces above.

Rilsa Rael

In the aftermath, Brother Hodges appeared and the PCs left off talking to him. He thanked them for their work on behalf of the people of the city and spoke of his concerns that violence had only been stalled, not abated. Brother Hodges said he believed there was a spiritual sickness in Baldur's Gate, a problem deeper and more worrying than mere class division. Amaril took this moment to speak up as well, telling his companions about another vision he had received the night before during his evening trance—a vision which he believed came from Helm:

In it, Duke Abdel lay dying, mortally wounded, and three menacing shadow figures drew up above him. As they drew up closer, one surged forward and pushed the others away.

Session 10: Volunteer Pigeons

The PCs awoke in a dungeon, in a spacious but very dark cell. Vaicht and Amaril, the elves among the party, recalled the presence of a woman in their fleeting moments of consciousness. She was pressed over them, whispering, a blade to their throats, seeming eager to cut. But the memory was blurry now, and they lapses back into unconsciousness for an indeterminable amount of time.

In their cell was another elf...a mage with a foggy memory of his own calling himself Arylon. Hours stretched into days, and through the bars of a raised portal, a kobold appeared each day to bring them bread and water. The captors didn't appear, but it seemed clear enough that this incarceration was the Guild's doing. It didn't feel like the dungeons of the Seatower of Balduran's probably would. At one point, a charm person spell was uson the kobold. He coudn't be coerced into letting them free, but he did go to fetch more food....and then returned later with a second kobold. Amaril immediately used and inflict wounds spell to kill the second kobold, but it didn't effect an escape, and the first kobold fled.

Sometime later, the door opened and a human hand tossed down a flint & steel...and a single black candle. And no explanation.

With nothing else to try, Shrain lit the candle. Seconds later, they heard a voice issuing from the candle itself. Some sort of enchanted candle, and it seemed to contain a disembodied voice. Shrain recognized it as the voice of Duke Abdel himself! Who he'd only heard speak once before, in the Wide on the day of his assassination. Abdel's voice said:

“How does this thing work? Magic? Whatever, of course. So what do you want me to do? Talk about...oh, godsdamn it, not him again. Not again. Sarevok? Look, I killed him. He wasn’t the last one, no...but I killed the last one. Damn it, Coran, I’m done with this. No, I’m not doing this….”

The voice drifted away. Abdel had sound frustrated. But after ten minutes of utter silence, his voice returned, issuing from the candle in almost a whisper.

“....Viekang. His name was Viekang. I don’t think he was a Bhaalspawn. He kept turning up, but…he kept vanishing. Literally vanishing: teleporting away whenever fear overcame him. That man was so full of fear. It ruled him. He was afraid of dying, and the other spawn kept going after him… That was eighty years ago, at least. Maybe more...”

And that was all. The PCs weren't sure who had this candle delivered to them. But the suggestion was, Abdel had admitted that another Bhaalspawn—another, like him, invested with the vestigial energies of the slain Lord of Murder—may have survived all these years. If so, was he connected to the Bhaal cultists who'd been showing up in the city? What of the general unrest in the city? Related?

The PCs let the mystic candle burn out, then Shrain, the only one with darkvision, set to work on the stone beneath the bars with the piece of steel. In vain, of course, but he was a dwarf and dwarves do not sit idle.

Hours passed again....

Until finally, on what might have been the third or fourth day, the door opened and a man stood there, telling them to follow. He tossed a rope down for them to climb up to the door with. Through a warren of tunnels they followed the jailor and eventually they found themselves entering the central chamber of the Undercellar, a subterranean festhall beneath the Wide. A known tavern not policed by the Watch but clearly frequented by both patriars and wealthier Lower City business persons. Primeiro was there, and had just that morning met with an agent of the Guild to secure their release.

From him, they learned of what had transpired in the city during their time in the cell: the Upper City's lockout, the fires, the continued trash pile-up and sewage problem. And in one particularly tense scene, they quickly and awkwardly learned that in their absence, old dueling laws from Baldur's Gate's early days had been reinstated. Evidently, any citizen can demand redress for a perceived wrong in a civilized "duel": at first blood, the wounded can submit to defeat. However, the first blooded can choose not to yield, in which case the fight can legally be allowed to be fought to the death. The PCs came upon a patriar adolescent dueling a lamp lad with a dagger, ostensibly defending his sister's honor, for the lamp lad had led the girl to a gambling den (i.e. had done what she had paid him to do). The PCs interrupted this incident, but in the process had rendered unconscious a pair of Watch from the Upper City. There could be repercussions from that, but they had clearly saved the lamp lad's life.


Soon after they met with Ravengard, who asked about their several-day absence and was not pleased with their obvious skirting of the truth. He gave them some recompense for their work so far, though the incident with the crypts had not gone perfectly according to plan. Yet Ravengard was willing to wave it away and let the the PCs prove themselves again, if they helped save another life: the life of a boy who'd been kidnapped.

The kidnapped was Omdarsh, son of Darsh Nyach, a prominent member of sailcloth; Nyach wasn't only a wealthy merchant, he was both a member of the Lower City and a member of the Parliament of Peers (one of the few non-patriars). During a session of the Parliament early in the day, he had received a ransom note from the unknown kidnappers. The message read:  If you want your son back, and alive, bring 800 gold pieces to Blind Darcaryn’s corner. Drop 2 platinum pieces into the beggar’s coin cup.

After the recent rash of fatal kidnappings, the prospect of actually delivering the demanded ransom and saving the boy seemed grim. Yet the Ravengard was asking them to try, to take the ransom money (a small chest of coins) to Blind Darcaryn's corner, which was a known locale in the Lower City just outside the gate to the Upper City: Baldur's Gate, the gate the city is named after. While Ravengard's instincts are to storm the ransom delivery sight, he knew that this wouldn't likely save the boy. The Guild, who he was certain was beyond all the recent kidnappings, would be ready for that. If the PCs went, perhaps they could find Omdarsh.

So they did. With disguises and strategically staggered groups, they took the chest of gold and two platinum pieces and went to where Blind Darcaryn begged for money. He sat there, with a basket beside him and a cup in front of him. When they placed the two platinum pieces in the old man's cup, he handed them a scrap of paper from his pocket. It read: You’re the pigeon now. Let’s see who’s faster, the real pigeon or the volunteer pigeons. Bring the ransom to the roost. Don’t be late.

While the message was being read, Darcaryn opened the basket beside him and a pigeon flew frantically out. A homing pigeon, trained to fly to specific destinations! Suddenly it became apparent that where the pigeon flew, the PCs would need to follow, and quick! It took the pigeon several long moments flapping through the air to get its bearings, then it started off vaguely southward. Vaicht, a monk and street-savvy elf, immediately scaled the nearest building in order to watch where the pigeon flew.

With his keen elf eyes, Vaicht spied the pigeon sail down to a building near the docks...four districts away. All the PCs gave chase, pushing or weaving their way through the crowds....

Don't be late...

Click to enlarge.