BSSS - Session 9

Summary

The characters return to free the Sea Nymph and there is a sudden and shocking death of a party member as they do it. 

Characters

• Esho - 4th Level Nercomancer Sorcerer [Now Dead]
• Shimsusa the Archer - 1st Level Fighter
• Maru the Witch - 3rd Level Diabolist Sorcerer
• Syphon Gandu - 2nd Level Diabolist Sorcerer
• Rajini - 2nd Level Sorceress 
• Athra - 4th Level Fighter
• Gal-Naha the Giant Gecko - 3rd Level Giant Lizard
• Arrim- 1st Level Fighter

Session Recap

During the downtime portion of the session, the group gets a properly suitable vessel (an ornately decorated and blessed clay urn) in which to house the Sea Nymph, and also get called to meet with Commander Utu, the bull-headed giant of a man, who has heard of some of their exploits and wants to get the details out of them directly. As the son of a divine being himself, Utu offers some answers to the party's question regarding the Sea Nymph, though he can't really give much specific advice not being someone who has met her himself.

They are also joined by Arrim, a new member of the Hedgehogs of Mercy who's heard of their fame and exploits and wants to join in. Just as well, as Esho finally decides it is time to hold his lecture of "Why Necromancy is Totally Fine, You Guys" in front of the gathered party, mercenaries, hirelings and assorted hangers on. (He had been planning this thing for months, but keeps getting distracted by something else.)

With preparations out of the way, the party finally decided on a course of action. They will head back into the jungle (Aho the guide slightly reluctantly leading them again, this time with an even bigger pay promised) and actively look for river pirates to capture and sacrifice to in order to free the nymph. Luckily for them the jungle outside of Bastion is apparently just crawling with pirates as they run into some of them clearly set up in waiting to ambush a ship. 

There is much debate between the characters, various strategies are formed as to how to approach these guys and finally Athra and Arrim simply decide to act as decoys, walking up out of the jungle and into the river bank and loudly proclaiming their intent to to go back into town and warn the Bull Guards that they've found some pirates. The pirates in turn kindly responded with a hail of arrows, luckily none of which managed to get through the fighters' armor. A bloody and rather messy fights ensued, with spells being cast, pirates being dropped left and right (while Athra keeps shouting at people to not kill these guys as they need prisoners), some of the pirates and the party's skirmishers get into a protracted shoot out, the works.

Finally, after Esho manages to put down some of the pirates to sleep with his magic, the party mops up whoever else is left and gets their new found prisoners (along with their boats for good measure) and heads back to town. They deliver several to the Guards as a gesture of their commitment to aid the city, and after a night of rest head out with the others towards the ruins. 

Along the way, Maru the Witch, still salty and unhappy with the party's plan on freeing the nymph, decides he's going to call for some otherworldly aid and petition a demon to get some answers. He and the other sorcerers go a bit to the side from the rest of the party (not wanting to spook any of the mercenaries, or the new guy for that matter) and perform the ritual, offering the soul of one of the pirates as payment. The being summoned offers some useful, if rather obvious information...and then as negotiations break down Maru simply dismisses it. 

Back into the ruined dungeon they go, and the party is once again standing in front of the Daughter of the Sea (although Maru, as a mark of protest, stays just outside the room). Esho has the honor of drowning one of the pirates into the waters of the fountain, with the Sea Nymph now freed from her confines. She offers all the people who freed her a blessing - the ability to breathe under water. All who agree to the blessing (everyone except Maru agrees) get a kiss from the Daughter of the Sea, which fills their lungs with liquid, slowly drowning them...until it no longer does. And they realize they can now breathe despite the water in their chests.  Thankful the sea nymph went into the prepared urn, which Esho and his companion and mercenary then lug out of the room, as the rest of the party start to loot all the coins and the golden statue that adorn the fountain (the real reason why they wanted to get the Sea Nymph out of there in the first place). 

However, being distracted by carrying the urn, Esho does not spot the fleeting glimmer of a magically cloaked figure that approaches him from the back. And before he knew what happened, he ended up with a dagger stuck into his back, piercing his heart and killing him on the spot. In his dying breath he and his followers see a pale and thin woman pull the blade out of him, before vanishing into the air. 

There is much commotion, people quickly finished gathering the rest of the loot and just hauled everything and everyone (including the urn and Esho's corpse) out of the dungeon, waiting to see if they will be followed. 

As the party finally decide to head back the remaining sorcerers do spot a glowing energy out in the distance tracking the party, but as soon as they stop to pay attention to it, it darts back behind a ruined building. 

On the bank of the Serpent of Smoke the group release the Daughter of the Sea into the waters (she told them she can find her way back to her Mother from there) and as a final gesture ask if she will take Esho's body with her. She agrees, and gently picks up the necromancer's corpse, bringing it beneath the waters and taking it off to dwell in the underwater realm of the Sea Queen. 

Observations

Ho boy! This session. The big fight with the pirates actually felt way WAY too long. And that was strange - it lasted 4 rounds in-game and probably just about 30-40 minutes out of game, yet it felt like it dragged on forever. It was also not big enough to try and dust off any skirmish rules for it. I think the main reason was that the planning beforehand just took far too long without anything actually being done. I was hoping on keeping the session short, but even right before the fight finished...I had realized that if I do that literally this one fight (and the lead up to it) would have been the entire session, and that just sucked. 

The players had previously asked me if the can somehow just go look for pirates. The way I ended up ruling it is that with Aho the Guide on hand and actively looking for pirates, as they do their overland exploration any encounter they run into (if they run into one) will be specifically with pirates. This way they still didn't know just how long this might take, yet it allowed them to direct their efforts. I am happy with this as away of solving the situation. 

Then there was the Daughter of the Sea. I had this written out in the dungeon as I was keying it several weeks ago, but I do love it when characters are able to get blessings or other abilities throughout the course of the game as a result of play rather than simply leveling up. And being able to breathe underwater (for just 1 hour, but still) felt like a very appropriate blessing that the Sea Nymph would give. 

Esho's death was also rather sudden, both to me and to the players. I had rolled a random encounter, and this woman (who my players have now already starter speculating about!) was the one to show up. I had already figured out what her general approach is if she encounters the party, and Esho did have a chance to spot her (and he failed that roll) because Sorcerers in my game all have the ability to spot magic, and Shroud (the spell from Wonder and Wickedness the woman was using) specifically states that incorporeal things or people with second sight can see them. 

So, she's invisible and hasn't been spotted, and she stabbed him in the back with her dagger. Daggers in my house rules do 1d6-1 damage ( so worse than all other weapons), but have the ability to backstab for 2d6 if the target is unaware and undefended. Well...Esho was both. And he got one-shot by it. Fittingly, the player who plays Esho had in fact planned on pulling off this exact same strategy as the campaign was starting hah! 

The player took it in good spirit, and in fact actually got even more hyped up about the game, plus the final scene with handing over the body to the sea nymph felt genuinely heartfelt and touching. This is the kind of stuff I like gaming for, and this is what I feel the OSR does so well. None of the drama or emotions in this character death came from some prescriptive scenario or expectation. People, myself included, cared because Esho had been created in Session 1 of the game and had been a consistent presence in the party since then. It is the kind of attachment and meaning one gets only through actually spending the time with the game and the character. 

Rest in Peace Esho, you weird death-obsessed man. There will be plenty of corpses on the bottom of the sea for you to bother in your afterlife!