Loudwater

Loudwater

Monday, 1 August 2011

Loudwater Tales

PCs - The Burning Hand

Party Level: 3


Party XP Total: 2250/3750

1. Dolf Dragonheart, Human male Paladin of Torm - Al (Defender)
2. Ashara, Genasi female Fire Mage Wizard - Catherine (Controller)
3. Lirael Sirocco, Half-Elf female Ranger - Kimberly (Striker)
4. Esmerelda of Waterdeep, Half-Elf female Bard - James (Leader)
5. 'Drew' Girl-With-No-Name, Human Uthgardt female Druid - Damian (Controller)



Drew - by Damian
Drew  hails from the Black Dog tribe of the Uthgardt, a minor splinter tribe that has taken residence on the South edge of the High Forest. Their tribe takes its totem from the large black dogs (or small wolves) that guard the tribe.

The young squaw was 15 years of age and due to be given a name by the Great Oak on her 16th birthday (or 1st nameday), as all tribe members have done for generations. The ritual involved spending her 15th year communing with and tending to the Great Oak. However, this all went awry when a chaotic evil Tiefling came through the sacred grove, setting it alight and corrupting the life out of the Great Oak with hellfire.

The Elder Shaman of the tribe summoned the last of the tree's dying essence to cast a great curse of misadventure upon the Warlock and any who would travel with him. Not believing this curse could have worked and requiring that balance be restored, the druids split apart from the elder council entered solitude for weeks.

When eventually they emerged on the squaw's naming day, they commanded that if she were to be named as a tribe member and gain her druidic mantle, she would have to restore balance for failing to protect the tree.

Leaving the village only with the weight of her great shame upon her shoulders and her black dog yearling, Drifter, she set off for the nearest settlement to search for clues.


Esmerelda


As young girl she did not see her father a lot, as she grew up in the elven village with her mother. Her father being a human sailor, a daring raider of far away coastlines. A rugged vicious man to starngers, but a loving gentle man to his daughter and her mother.

After the Drow raid that resulted in Quarfein, her half Drow brother, her father came back looking at her mother with disgust and pity. Taking his daughter with him to a life much different from the quiet beginnings, where she quickly learnt how to impress her dad's crew with crude jokes/tales. And earnt her coppers/silvers in the taverns in the evening, with tales of wonderment over an open fireplace.

And not forgetting those months at Sea, striking at coastlines taking what they could, until they raided a temple of Ilmater, the god of suffering. A vision of all the pain her father's ship had caused on its raid hit her hard that night. and how through her own suffering she could stop much more. The next day she confronted her father over the barbaric nature of their raiding, and she wanted him to stop.

She fought him in a Duel and defeated him, winning the ship, but completely destroying her fathers bond with her. In the morning when she came on deck a small protion of her crew had left in the night on one of the smaller boats

And she decided at this moment to leave her ship in the hands of a close friend, a very affluent Halfling "Kramer", and went back with the news to her mother.

This is when she found that "Quarfein" had left to go adventuring like his older sister, but unaccompanied to Loudwater. After years of being suffering. This now almost spiritually broken Bard, put on a brave face, and went in search of her younger brother. Looking forward to time when she could go back to Kramer and reclaim her ship and the riches he had made from using it for trading.



Part One


The Adventures of “The Burning Hand” I - by James Joyce

The Forming.

Chapter 1


Three of the companions came by boat to ‘Loudwater’ all after different people, but brought to the same place by fate, by the gods, or just pure chance. These three companions would be the start of a legendary tale, a tale of “The Burning Hand”. Five persons, with incredible skills, that complemented each other incredibly.

Esmerelda, was a beautiful half elf from a village in the “High Forest”, she left when she was 18, and travelled to Waterdeep to become a legendary bard, she now wants to find her younger brother Quarfein, who was a half drow/elf her mother's son, who was never accepted and left months ago never to return, sent after him by her mother.

Dolph, is arguably the lynch pin of the party, he has come to ‘Loudwater’ searching for a Tiefling, not much more has been told of why he has come so far to find this person?

Ashara, she was a mysterious Genasi, left to her own devices on the boat, and the sailors were much more wary of this fiery character than they were of the Paladin, which is strange enough. This was mainly due to the fact that one spurt of anger from this lady, and we would all be making a long walk to Loudwater.

After their short journey these three companions go to the “Green Tankard”, with a quite depressed atmosphere. They met up with two other people who were quite new/unknown to the townsfolk.

There was the young (16) Uthgardt druidess, she was exploring for her naming quest, also after a Teifling.

While Lirael, was another more boyish lady, a half-Elf from the High Forest, a Ranger looking after the countryside clearing out monsters etc.

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After talking to Marsh Laval the halfing Landlord, the party found out about diaapearances of young ladies in the area including a barmaid called Holly, who Marsh was fearing for who had gone missing five days ago. There was also rumours of an underground mafia run by the Lady of Shadows who was charging protection money.

The lady from the shop next door (Calla Maran) was loudly and drunkly protesting against such fees, and how her general store was refusing to pay them.

The team came up with an ambitious plan after much discussion around priorities, the paladin Dolf and Ashara the Mage, decided to wait ouside casually by the general store, while Esmerelda volunteered to become Marsh's new barmaid for free. Lirael and Drew would sit in the pub seperately keeping an eye on her to see if anyone tried to take her.

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 Dolfs and Ashara's adventure - by Catherine Flick


Ashara and Dolf sat outside the General store - the plan had been to keep tabs on the store to ensure that the proprietor was safe, especially since she'd been exclaiming loudly how much she wasn't going to pay off the Lady of Shadows' gang. Ashara suggested playing at dice, since they wanted to have a reasonably legitimate reason for hanging around outside; the paladin refused until Ashara suggested playing for fake money, at which point the paladin then completely cleaned her out!

The owner of the store stumbled back from the bar, extremely drunk, and the mage and the paladin watched her enter her store, crashing noises emanating from the door as she struggled to find a light.

Suddenly, out of the shadows, a figure moved toward the General Store's door. The Genasi prodded the paladin, and they watched as the figure slipped through the door. Yelling and screaming then followed, and Ashara and Dolf bolted up to the door and broke through to see a horned figure holding the lady up against the wall and threatening her. Ashara instantly yelled out "Unhand her, foul creature!" and summoned a magic missile, which broke the creature's concentration! It turned on the two of them as Dolf bravely stepped up to protect the owner of the store. A short battle commenced, in which Ashara and Dolf were victorious, leaving a battered and blasted corpse on the floor of the store. Ashara searched the body, finding some curious dice which didn't seem quite right to her - she decided to keep them with her to further study them and find out what magic they might hold.

Dolf calmed down a very excited and terrified store owner, and they questioned her before hearing their friends go by outside the store. Hastily exiting, they followed at a distance behind the druidess, who was also tracking the bard, the ranger, and their new "friend". 

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It seemed that Esmie got distracted by the wandeing hands and big tips, because about 50 minutes after dropping off a beer for Lirael, she turned around to check if she wanted another one. There was a dwarf sitting with Lirael, and when Esmie walked across Lirael was secretly pointing across to him.

Esmie sat on his lap and started her seduction technique, taking some of the heat of her companion who was meant to be there in a supporting role.

Soon they were asked to accompany him by the riverside for a walk, Esmis made an excuse and secured her sword to her waist, just in case. As they left the "Green Tankard", Drew followed with her pet.

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When Lirael and Esmie got to the docks some strange men came out of the shadows, Lirael was alittle slow on the draw and got bashed over the head with the dwarfs club, as she drew her swords.

Esmie quickly backed away putting her hands up in an innocent fashion

"Please don't hurt me I'm an innocent lady"

As soon as the dwarfs back was turned she tried to push him into the river, unforunately he was a bit heavier than she anticipated, but the distraction let Lirael to get away from the large group of thugs.

A sailor on the ship, chucked a crossbow across to the dwarf, which he didn't catch, but landed on the floor. Lirae quickly ran around the dock to stand on top this weapon and attacked the dwarf.

A fireball appeared in the midst of the gang of sailors, burning some to cinders and singing others, it was at this point that they decided their prey was to costly and started to make run for the boat, but too late. As arrows and bolts from the ranger and bard, shot into the enclosed boat, and Drew and her dog jumped on board, with the paladin folowing closely behind. It was all over quickly as the dwarf and the captian surrendered.

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Please insert more above with a bit mor rounded perpective if you want just write post, and tell me where it should go.

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The adventurers managed to free a few girls from the bowels of the ship, and after some threats from Dolf we got the dwarf to tell us his whole operation, about the Serpent men and how he thought the lady shadow was also dealing in women for the serpent men.

He even promised to take us to the lady of shadows den and the serpent men if we handed him over to the authorities instead of the farmers.

Esmie walked the ladies back to the green tankard and convinced the handsome Marsh to give them board for the night, she even rewarded him with a kiss on the cheek. She then swiftly donned her chainmail and got back to the party, where after handing the captain over to the watch, the dwarf guided us to a warehouse, where we found yet more girls.

It was very late and we decided that it was time for resting and more investigating in the morning, esmie was all for going back to the tavern, obviously drew was for staying in the empty warehouse, the others agreed with drew, and stayed there keeping an eye on the dwarf.

Esmie took the other ladies back to Marsh again, and then went upstairs with Marsh to sleep in his comfortable bed, deftly avoiding wandering hands all night s best possible.

When Esmie went back to the group in the morning with a fine selection of meats and fruits from Marsh's tavern the gang looked tired and grumpy, but the food cheered them up alot, although some had accusing looks for Esmie.

We then went to visit the lady of the town Lady Moonfire and after a brief chat, have set out a plan for us to go after the serpent men in 7 days, meanwhile searching for the lady of the shadows.

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