SWORDS OF THE FOUR TAVERNS PART IV: THE RISE OF THE SER-VEL

This is a report of the fourth session of our Vaaran Kingdoms Sertorius session. You can see session three HERE. 

The party:

Gaius: A Ronian-blooded aristocrat

Uloff: A Gru Trader

Garoff: A Gru Bounty Hunter

Dreckergael: A human hunter who casts spells randomly when wounded

Tauq: A human tribesmen from the march between Palus and Apprea, serving in the house of Alu-Bora under Archon Emmanuel. 

Important NPCS:

Belga: A Dwarf Sertori with blue skin who believes he is a Gru 

Vaela: A Hasri Sertori who has grown loyal to the party

Joffler: Garoff's "enemy"
Hamil Kar-Harba: The brother of the King and Gaius' uncle
Gesara: A Sertori hunter who leads a wing of the Church of Ramos against spell casters

The party returned to the tower with the ten Sertori they had rescued, intent on killing Goff-Tan. He was waiting for them and a lopsided battle commenced. Knowing that the party had started releasing his prisoners, Goff-Tan, his son, four ogres, five soldiers and his daughter tried to hold the audience chamber, while his other children, Nathreen, soldiers and an Ogre protected the baby on the top floor. The party launched a volley of arrows into the room wounding Goff-Tan's son and daughter. One of the Sertori used Avalanche of Flame from outside the door of the chamber. It filled the room and exhausted out the doorway, dropping the caster and harming Garoff. Goff-Tan fell to the fire as did his son and soldiers. They finished off Goff-Tan using Spheres of Suffocation. The Ogres were wounded. As the party stormed into the chamber, the ogres retreated upstairs and Goff-Tan's daughter disappeared in a gust of smoke. The group continued upward and found Nathreen defending the baby. The Ogres were dropped with the spell Drowning Sorrows and Vaela used Captivation to convince Nathreen to surrender. She and the other survivors were placed in the cells below the tower. They also placed the 125,000 gold in one of the cells.

After the battle Belga (the slightly mad Dwarf Sertori prisoner they had rescued) started barking orders and talking about "my tower" and "my victory". Some of the other Sertori were responsive to this and seemed to fall into line as followers, but the majority were undecided and the players made several moves to curtail Belga's growing sense of authority. In the end they called a meeting of all 15 Sertori present and proposed the creation of a council called the Ser-Vel. Their objectives would be the following: 

1) Dethrone King Hanno-Kar

2) Make Gesara pay for her crimes agains the Sertori

3) Stop persecution of Sertori in Palus

This was met with great enthusiasm but Belga asked exactly how they intended to take over the capital and how many men they believed they had who supported them. A brief tally showed they could count on 7,000 soldiers, which wouldn't be enough (but Gaius was confident they could grow this number). Gaius also proposed they elect a council speaker. Belga agreed and nominated himself, Gaius was nominated by Vaela and won the vote. Belga grew angry and Draekergael told Gaius to throw the Dwarf a bone to keep the Dwarf from causing problems, so Gaius suggested making him head of their military. Garoff objected, saying he was better suited to that position. In the end they agreed to establish three military commanders: Garoff, Belga and Golgar. Everyone appeared pleased and Gaius scheduled the next Ser-Vel meeting for the following day. 

Another development occurred outside the tower at this time, 150 villagers of Goff-Tel had seen the massive demonstration of spell power and fell before the Sertori in reverence. Gaius went outside and they kept shouting "Goffgellars!" which just means 'killers of the Goff' in Gruskel. He thanked them for their support and they asked him what Ramos wanted them to do. Gaius instructed the people to return to their village and spread word of the Sertori. 

During the early evening, after the meeting, Dreckergael went to inspect the cells. He found the prisoners all in order, but the gold chests were empty. Inspecting the room he found that a tiny ventilation shaft may have served the thief. Uloff used Bloodhound to confirm that the shaft was used to in the burglary. Following the scent, which wasn't human, led him to a burrow of Brownies, dining on rabbit liver pie. Knowing that Brownies liked food, Uloff Dreckergael returned to the tower and found some rabbit liver cakes of his own. Uloff offered the cakes and one of the Brownies came out. He was reluctant to speak at first but on the promise of more pie, he told the Sertori that a Gru woman named Joffler had paid them in rabbit liver pie to steal the ingots. When asked how they achieved it, the Brownie moved 100 yards in a quick flash, showing that transporting the ingots was an easy task for them. He also told them Joffler was on her way to Yortel with the gold on a wagon.

Dreckergael and Uloff thanked the Brownie and caught up to Joffler, who they effectively detained and brought back to the tower. It was revealed that she a bounty hunter who had a longstanding feud with Garoff. She was placed in a cell but Garoff killed her in the middle of the night.

The next morning Uloff used the Aperture of Po to communicate with Hamil who said he would support Gaius in a conflict with his brother, the King. He also told the party to make sure word of Goff-Tan's death didn't spread past Goff-Tel and said he would leave immediately to join them as the siege had been lifted.

This is where the session ended.

One interesting observation is that the adventure resulted in the death of Garoff's Enemy. The player had taken the Enemy Flaw and Joffler was part of that. However it would have been silly to give her script immunity and killing her was quite easy in the circumstances. As a general rule, how I encourage GMs to handle this is simply have a new Enemy arise or shift to the most likely candidate. In Garoff's case (because his Enemy was a Sertori) it makes sense that it might be one of the Sertori on the Servel or someone connected to Joffler.