Morality in D&D 2
Hey FJ, me again, continuing a story from last time. Previous installment is here: /channel/dungeons-n-drags/Morality+in+d+d/woxcLjb/
When we left off, our good-aligned party had just done some morally questionable things 'for the greater good', as it were. These left some divisions in the party that had not yet fully healed, and would only get worse before they got better. And now, everyone was morbidly curious about the strange figure they'd seen watching them...
Roland: Alright, new session, awesome. What do you all want to do?
Sovexis: We need to make this right before we dig ourselves deeper. Hold on, we got a region map from the stuff in the village, right?
Me: Yes you did. I have it somewhere, give me a moment.
I don't usually give my players the continent map as a whole, though I have the copy I drew up. Instead, they can buy or acquire region maps whenever they're entering a new area, which the party pieces together to create a much more detailed continent map than I could ever put on a single piece of paper. They began studying the map.
Thermin: Okay...lots of desert, it looks like, lots of coastal cities, and a few cities on the interior of the desert that are probably trade hubs to the center of the continent. Mountains along the coast and a different range that we crossed last session.
Galeas: Where are we, though? We took a detour, and that town was probably too small to be marked.
R: We detoured thirty miles or so to the east, and there was a town or fort guarding the pass that we were supposed to go through that's on this end of the mountain range. Let's go west until we find it, then we can hunt for information.
S: What we already know about this place is that it's some sort of parliamentary monarchy/theocracy, with a senate of elected officials and what they call the Apostle, who acts as the king or queen and also the head of this branch of the church.
Two pieces of background information are relevant here. Sovexis is a huge history nerd and also a huge fan of things like the Silmarillion- lore, fantasy history, that sort of thing, so he wheedles me for information on my world constantly. Other than me, he knows the most about the world I created because he's most interested, and writes down as much lore as he can. This helps the party out on several occasions, this being one of them. Second, there are four main gods, some 20 intermediate gods, and essentially infinite minor gods that are usually unnamed and not important. The four big ones are Val, Izakiel, Aerik, and Tyana. The latter three are the patron gods of humans, dwarves, and eladrin respectively, while Val is worshipped pretty much across the world by most good-aligned things. While the Apostle was an eladrin, Azuratiel was a pretty diverse and multi-racial place, so Val was their god of choice. Religion is a fairly important topic in the stories to come, so it's best to get the big things out of the way first.
R: Huh, I don't trust theocracies. Let's see if we can ally ourselves with the senate. Much as I hate sucking up to authority, I don't think we have a choice if we want to get out of this mess. Also, what time of day is it?
Me: Twilight. It was getting to be late day when you found the village, and you've been running or walking since then. I assume you make camp?
S: Yes. I'll keep watch.
They were all expecting to be attacked in the night, but dawn came without incident and they made their way to the nearest city, Jihlava. They made good time and were not accosted on the road, so they arrived in Jihlava by the evening hours. It was a pretty substantial fort that completely barred the pass to intruders, and looked extremely defensible. Otherwise it was a fairly normal castle town, hardly a city at all. The wall did not enclose the town, so the party entered without incident. When they were approached by a merchant hawking his wares, they all flinched, but the merchant did not explode like the poor citizens of the previous town, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Thermin: Gotta say I feel better about being in a bigger town. Hopefully he won't try anything here, since there's an actual army presence instead of just town guards.
R: That was my thought as well. Someone needs to go find accommodations for the night, see if you can chat up the inkeep for intel while we're at it. I'll go talk to whoever's in charge.
S: Thermin, you go find an inn. Hopefully you can manage that without hurting anyone.
T: Jeez, everyone's a critic today. Alright.
Franziska: Ha! Nice one. Anyway, I'm gonna see if I can find the bad side of town- I assume there is one- and pawn off some things I don't need anymore.
G: I dunno, is there anything I should be doing?
R: No, but feel free to look around.
G: I think I'll talk to the soldiers, if I can find any that are off duty.
S: I'll try and gather information on the political climate here, find out some lore.
R: And I'll go meet the mayor. Let's go.
When we left off, our good-aligned party had just done some morally questionable things 'for the greater good', as it were. These left some divisions in the party that had not yet fully healed, and would only get worse before they got better. And now, everyone was morbidly curious about the strange figure they'd seen watching them...
Roland: Alright, new session, awesome. What do you all want to do?
Sovexis: We need to make this right before we dig ourselves deeper. Hold on, we got a region map from the stuff in the village, right?
Me: Yes you did. I have it somewhere, give me a moment.
I don't usually give my players the continent map as a whole, though I have the copy I drew up. Instead, they can buy or acquire region maps whenever they're entering a new area, which the party pieces together to create a much more detailed continent map than I could ever put on a single piece of paper. They began studying the map.
Thermin: Okay...lots of desert, it looks like, lots of coastal cities, and a few cities on the interior of the desert that are probably trade hubs to the center of the continent. Mountains along the coast and a different range that we crossed last session.
Galeas: Where are we, though? We took a detour, and that town was probably too small to be marked.
R: We detoured thirty miles or so to the east, and there was a town or fort guarding the pass that we were supposed to go through that's on this end of the mountain range. Let's go west until we find it, then we can hunt for information.
S: What we already know about this place is that it's some sort of parliamentary monarchy/theocracy, with a senate of elected officials and what they call the Apostle, who acts as the king or queen and also the head of this branch of the church.
Two pieces of background information are relevant here. Sovexis is a huge history nerd and also a huge fan of things like the Silmarillion- lore, fantasy history, that sort of thing, so he wheedles me for information on my world constantly. Other than me, he knows the most about the world I created because he's most interested, and writes down as much lore as he can. This helps the party out on several occasions, this being one of them. Second, there are four main gods, some 20 intermediate gods, and essentially infinite minor gods that are usually unnamed and not important. The four big ones are Val, Izakiel, Aerik, and Tyana. The latter three are the patron gods of humans, dwarves, and eladrin respectively, while Val is worshipped pretty much across the world by most good-aligned things. While the Apostle was an eladrin, Azuratiel was a pretty diverse and multi-racial place, so Val was their god of choice. Religion is a fairly important topic in the stories to come, so it's best to get the big things out of the way first.
R: Huh, I don't trust theocracies. Let's see if we can ally ourselves with the senate. Much as I hate sucking up to authority, I don't think we have a choice if we want to get out of this mess. Also, what time of day is it?
Me: Twilight. It was getting to be late day when you found the village, and you've been running or walking since then. I assume you make camp?
S: Yes. I'll keep watch.
They were all expecting to be attacked in the night, but dawn came without incident and they made their way to the nearest city, Jihlava. They made good time and were not accosted on the road, so they arrived in Jihlava by the evening hours. It was a pretty substantial fort that completely barred the pass to intruders, and looked extremely defensible. Otherwise it was a fairly normal castle town, hardly a city at all. The wall did not enclose the town, so the party entered without incident. When they were approached by a merchant hawking his wares, they all flinched, but the merchant did not explode like the poor citizens of the previous town, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
Thermin: Gotta say I feel better about being in a bigger town. Hopefully he won't try anything here, since there's an actual army presence instead of just town guards.
R: That was my thought as well. Someone needs to go find accommodations for the night, see if you can chat up the inkeep for intel while we're at it. I'll go talk to whoever's in charge.
S: Thermin, you go find an inn. Hopefully you can manage that without hurting anyone.
T: Jeez, everyone's a critic today. Alright.
Franziska: Ha! Nice one. Anyway, I'm gonna see if I can find the bad side of town- I assume there is one- and pawn off some things I don't need anymore.
G: I dunno, is there anything I should be doing?
R: No, but feel free to look around.
G: I think I'll talk to the soldiers, if I can find any that are off duty.
S: I'll try and gather information on the political climate here, find out some lore.
R: And I'll go meet the mayor. Let's go.
So our party set out . Thermin got a room and started talking with the innkeeper, learning nothing useful at all. Frustrated, she went to sleep. Franziska got rid of some fairly useless misc. items before going to the inn as well. Sovexis, meanwhile, went to the small library that the Court Mage called home and started an intellectual conversation about Azuratiel's political history. Sovexis concluded little more than that the court mage was a crackpot eladrin that hated humans, and, by extention, the senate, which had a slight majority of humans, a few tieflings and elves, one dwarf, and a fading party of eladrin. He seemed to think that the senators were plotting to overthrow the apostle and plunge Azuratiel into chaos, like the rest of the continent. Sovexis bid him good night before he, too, went to the inn. Galeas brought some off duty guards at the inn rounds of beer, but he completely failed to learn anything useful from them.
Meanwhile, Roland was having a more fruitful discussion. Having learned that Jihlava was ruled by a senator, went off to find him. He went to the keep, meeting guards outside that barred his path.
R: Good evening, gentlemen.
Guard: State your business in the keep.
R: I'm here to see the senator, if he's home.
Guard: What business do you have with the senator?
R: I'm a noble from far to the north, elsewhere in the continent. I came here to see if we could do trade with this city by land, and by extention the rest of Azuratiel. I would have gone by the pass, but the road was blocked and we were forced to detour around it.
I didn't make him roll bluff- he hadn't actually lied about anything except why he was here. His character background was from a house of impoverished minor nobility. Being a second son, he would inherit absolutely nothing, so he hired out a ship and sought his fortune as a merchant before eventually discovering latent sorcerous powers during a storm. The road was also blocked, as the guards well knew. He looked the part of nobility well enough, as well, with his neat set of silver robes.
Guard: ...very well, I'll ask how m'lord feels about this surprise visit. Stay here.
He left Roland with the other guard, returning a moment later.
Guard: Senator Altire will see you now. I must confiscate your weapons.
R: Lads, I'm unarmed.
Guard: That's for me to judge.
The guard searched him, failing an insight roll to realize that Roland's staff was a weapon for the magically inclined.
Guard: Very well, go on through. Show all due deference.
He entered the keep, proceeded to knock on the door to the senator's office as instructed, and waited to be invited in. It didn't take too long, but it was enough to have Roland grumbling.
Altire: Come in.
He did so. I described the office as fairly comfortable, and Altire as being an adult eladrin with pale gold hair, wearing the white robes of the imperial senate.
A: Please, be seated.
R: Thank you, sir. I've come a long way.
A: Now, why did you wish to speak with me? A trade agreement, I'm told?
R: Well... not precisely. While I am of noble blood, I was just passing through. We- my party- were attempting to take the road into this city when a rockslide nearly killed us. We thought it was natural, though an unfortunate coincidence, but when we took a detour over a high mountain pass we became less certain. In a village about a day's march to the east-
A: Jotunn. You speak of Jotunn, a farming hamlet, correct?
R: Yes, sir. Upon arriving in this village we came under attack. At least ten villagers and guards died from being hit with some manner of spell that caused them to explode in pillars of flame, igniting more houses. I think there is an incredibly powerful rogue wizard in this province.
He rolled bluff. I didn't exactly set a high difficulty class for the roll, but between his roll, being trained and bluff and having a charisma modifier of +5, he passed it easily.
A: This certainly is cause for concern. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. If there is a rogue wizard attacking my holdings... between causing a rockslide on this pass which is of critical importance to the rest of the Empire, and killing at least a dozen of my farmers... I feel like I may be in danger, at perhaps the worst time.
At this point, Franziska muttered something like, 'self centered ******* , he's obviously after us, not you', OOC. The party shushed her and the conversation continued.
R: Why would now be any worse than another time, my lord?
A: The imperial senate is being called to order in the capital, Vltava. I must leave the safety of this keep, and if this wizard is as powerful as you say, I may have a problem.
R: Allow me to accompany you, my lord.
Meaningful looks were passed around the table. OOC, Roland told everyone to let him finish this before they discussed it.
A: Why?
R: I am with a capable party of adventurers and heroes that have been travelling the continent. Innocent lives were lost at this madman's hands, and we want to make sure he hurts no one else. To that end, we guard you, since you believe he may be targeting you, and once we reach the capital we can hopefully bring this man to justice.
A: I... see. I'll discuss with my captain of the guard, but go share your plan wit your party. Our caravan will leave at noon tomorrow, with you or not. You are dismissed.
Immediately people started talking.
S: Okay, so I'm with you on this, but if the dude is after him, we're putting ourselves in danger, and if he's after us, we're putting him in danger. I don't think this is right, we shouldn't be endangering people.
T: Strength in numbers, we'll be fine.
G: I'm with Roland and Thermin here, It'll be better for all concerned and we can butter up an influential senator.
F: I have no strong feelings one way or another.
S: Well, fine, we were planning to go to the capital anyway. Let's just be careful, OK? I have a bad feeling about this.
So the party set out, and the intrigue thickened. Ask for a mention if you want to see what happens next.
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