Wolfgang discusses the infected, Rosy, and Melek with Melina and Singleton. Ishild asks Beale to find 20 million gold pieces worth of doubly-refined greencake and the True Name of God. Kasskar tells Beale about Ishild, loaded on opium. The party goes to the Brock House monument in the City of the Dead. There, the party defeats Bullington Brock at the arcane vortex, freeing Stella Brock from her curse. Beale and Marina solve Winnie Brock's love triangle riddle there, freeing Winnie from her curse.
James told the other players that Beale had set up a 5e Bastion in Miss Miller's now-free apartment in the Mooncalf. Beale's bastion initially contained a library and a librarian, Penelope. Beale had asked Penelope to research Ishild and so far she had discovered:
(The details on these bullets are given in a game in the original Hollin campaign, The Mooncalf.)
Beale also asked Penelope to go to Ishild's own library, the Hollin Grimoire. She has gone there at least once, and is researching there in parallel to her other Ishild research.
In Doubt, the party met Beale's barber Matilda Clippenstein on the street, wearing bells and confused. They'd suggested that she go to Chambers the Apothecary and see what he suggested, then go to relax at Beale's Mooncalf apartment. Now back at Beale's apartment, they talked with her again.
They asked what Matilda remembered, and I believe she said she remembered working at her shop, and then the next thing she remembered was meeting the party on the street.
Matilda said she'd gone to Chambers, who thought she might have an excess of black bile. Chambers gave her senna as a laxative for the bile, and borage and rosemary for her forgetfulness. She'd then returned to the apartment.
Beale hired a carriage to take Matilda home, and flirted with her, which James said Beale "usually does."
Wolfgang received a messenger asking him to come to the Great Council Hall - alone - to tell Melina and Singleton what he'd found about Voorman. At the same time, Beale received a Message in his mind:
My good Beale. Please come to the Grimoire, we must speak again.
I believe Beale replied saying he would come as soon as possible. However, we handled Wolfgang first.
Arriving at Melina's office at the Great Council Hall, Wolfgang first noticed that Singleton looked a little scraggly, and that Melina was showing a little more gray than before - at the roots, like she'd missed a recent coloring.
Melina and Singleton first asked about Voorman. Wolfgang said that Voorman was dead - killed by one of his own creations at the shop - and Melina and Singleton were aghast. They said they would send people to Voorman's shop to follow up.
Melina and Singleton then wanted to discuss the disaster at Hobnail Prison. They said:
The first time you were here, a few days ago, we asked you to question the party about the disaster at Hobnail Prison. At the time, Melek told us "There was a sea monster that had been pulled out of the river" that had "telepathic power." Melek also said the monster "infected" people, Rosy said that it "controlled" people, and Beale said it "possessed" the prison staff. We've now been able to get back into the prison and investigate, and we're afraid that something like this did happen, in the prison's east tower. In addition, it seems that uninfected staff realized what was happening, and tried to contain the infected by hastily sealing off the east tower with brick walls. Hobnail Prison was a fortress in Gradskan times though, and the fortress's old antique cannons were stored in the east tower, and the infected blasted their way out.
Anyway, some of the prisoners and prison staff are not accounted for, and we're afraid that infected have escaped into the city. We're not asking you to manhunt, but do be on the lookout.
Wolfgang asked if they knew who the infected at large might be, and then said they could compile a list. I believe Wolfgang also asked about pay, and they suggested 200 gp for each party member who investigated.
Melina and Singleton then asked Wolfgang about Rosy Claster:
Wolfgang has now worked with Rosy Claster twice. What can he tell us about her? Is Rosy on the up-and-up? When Wolfgang first interrogated the party about the Hobnail Prison disaster, Rosy first told us "We have never been to the prison and know nothing about it," but that was clearly not true.
We believe that during the Hobnail Prison disaster, Rosy and Beale actually entered the prison with Ulrike, second-in-command of the Hobnail street gang. The Company very much wants to capture Ulrike, and it would have been very convenient to capture Ulrike while he was right there in the prison. But Rosy, Beale, and Ulrike all escaped the prison together. Not only that, it seems that the three of them actually wiped out the secret police high command together.
Also…it seems that Lars - the Hobnail chief - might be dead, which would actually make Ulrike the new first-in-command.
Wolfgang reassured them, saying that Rosy was great, and that "she was unsure who to trust" at first at the meeting.
They then asked about Melek Valentooth:
Melek twice asked Melina to confirm some information about a lich living under Gramercy Books. But we have reason to believe Melek's information came from Millicent, the "rat queen," who explicitly wants to overthrow the Company's rule of Hollin and re-establish the Gradskan monarchy in Hollin.
So, is Melek on the up-and-up, or is he gaming us somehow? For example, is he Millicent's agent?
Wolfgang again reassured them, saying that Melek was "a little unstable but gets the job done," was "naive," and was working on some fiction with Beale.
Finally they asked about Wolfgang himself. Wolfgang was a Gradskan - did he sympathize with Millicent or was he in cahoots with her? Wolfgang said he was not.
Melina and Singleton had promised the party fifty gold pieces each to investigate Voorman's shop, and they gave him that money. Wolfgang left and distributed the gold to the party.
Beale went to the Hollin Grimoire to talk with Ishild. Before Beale left, Melek had his invisible sprite familiar perch on Beale's shoulder so that Melek could hear Beale and Ishild talk.
When Beale goes through the secret door between Gramercy Books and the Grimoire, he hears faint sounds - the clang of steel pounding on steel, shouting, and screaming. As Beale descends the Grimoire's ten library levels, the pounding, shouting, and screaming get louder - alarmingly loud.
At the Grimoire's lowest level, the cavern level with the dirt floor and pit, Beale finds Ishild beating Modalye Grellen's cage with a cruel steel rod. Ishild is shouting himself into exhaustion, berating Modalye as a treacherous liar, and Modalye is screaming in terror as he crouches in the back of the cage.
Ishild notices Beale as he reaches the dirt floor. He stops shouting and leans heavily against the cage. He turns to Beale and says:
Ah Beale, thank you for coming. Please come near so we can talk.
He says:
Beale, I've been studying this liar, this reprobate, almost continually since you left the last time. I tell you sir, long days of studying, experimenting, hypothesizing, screaming, and beating this cage are laborious toil. The liar's harrowing screams also tire me. They profoundly tire me, Beale.
He continues:
You're very kind Beale, and I...I would ask you to help with my study. But no...no, I accepted the responsibility, the burden is mine alone. Extracting the universe's truths from this sack of shit is my responsibility, and I'll finish him.
Or I mean, finish the experiment.
Beale had proposed some alternatives to finding an honest person in Doubt, to the party, and now he proposed them to Ishild. Could Ishild use magic to convert Modalye into an honest person, and then instead of capturing some honest person, just capture another lying "sack of shit" to replace Modalye in the liar role? I believe at this point Ishild mentioned that Beale's librarian Penelope had visited the Grimoire, and darkly suggested that she seemed honest.
Ishild also said:
I appreciate your help in this matter Beale. I should tell you though that you're not alone in this, and I've also brought in some helpers from my own country. Well, I say "helpers," but you'd probably call them - "minions." is probably the right word.
Some of these minions have already made progress, and they report that they actually had an honest man in their grasp. But unexpectedly the honest man had friends, and the friends had a ravenous hell-hound, and the honest man and the friends and the hell-hound drove my minions off.
Just between us though Beale, those particular minions are kind of pussies, and I expect that the "ravenous hell-hound" was a normal dog - a normal non-ravenous dog - or maybe a wolf. As for the friends, my minions didn't report much. They did say that one was a tall blonde head-turner. Which makes me wonder whether the minions wanted to capture the friends or make love to them.
I'm not concerned though. I've brought in other helpers who are very capable - capable in the extreme. Between you and them, I believe we can easily capture the honest man. Keep your eyes out for a group with a hell-hound or dog or wolf.
Ishild points to a door leaning against the cavern wall and says:
In fairness to the pussies, they did bring me one of the doors for the two guards riddle. So now I just need one more door and a lion.
Beale then proposed his other idea from Doubt, solving the riddle. My cleaned-up notes of what James said:
Beale argues for an analytical approach. Not with each guard asking a question, but with one guard asking a question of the other. I think you could deduce, if a guard is a liar, he's going to lie. The honest guard is going to tell the truth, and their answers are going to contradict each other. The people asking the questions will want to avoid death...so if they ask the honest guard which door to avoid, he'll give the right answer, say the left door. If you ask the dishonest guard which door, he'll point to the right door.
That's the key, whatever question you ask separately, they will give you different answers and you won't figure anything out. You need a question where you'll get the same answer from both...if they ask each other questions...if you ask one guard what the other guard would say, then you'll get a consistent answer.
If you ask if the lion is behind the right door and you ask one of the guards, what would the other guard say about which door to take to avoid death. The honest guard would say, well he would tell the one on the right. If you ask the liar, he would lie, so the truth guard would say the left, but he has to lie, so take the door on the right.
Ishild was pleased with Beale's solution. He said someone named Winnie Brock had also been working on this riddle for a long time, without success, and he suggested Beale confirm his solution with her. Ishild said that Winnie was at Market Street and Hedge Lane in the City of the Dead.
Finally, Ishild thanked Beale for his efforts on these, but said he'd actually summoned Beale for ask for something more important:
Writing my tale and finding an honest man are important, Beale, but those aren't why I asked you here today. Indeed, if you would, I have two additional tasks for you, urgent tasks.
Beale, I need you to bring me 19.8 million gold pieces worth of doubly-refined Greencake, and I also need you to bring me the True Name of God.
James said finding 19.8 million gold pieces worth of greencake sounded difficult, but Ishild responded:
You know what, make it easy on yourself, just bring a round 20 million gold pieces worth of greencake.
20 million gold pieces worth of doubly-refined Greencake and the True Name of God. Thank you and please return soon sir!"
Ishild was finished, and he picked up his steel rod and went back to beating Modalye's cage. Melek's invisible sprite was still on Beale's shoulder, and before Beale left, it looked around for a key to Modalye's cage. The sprite did see a key, on a table about twenty feet from the cage.
Beale left the Grimoire and the players talked. Tracy asked why Ishild wanted to solve the riddle so urgently. James said he didn't know if the party knew that, and Tracy reiterated that they should kill the lich.
Tracy asked if the "honest man" could be Christopher Cotton, who they'd freed from Hobnail Prison in the Master of Revels. Nick responded that Ishild trying to catch the honest man and his friends sounded very familiar, because Melek was the honest man; the "hell hound" was Boom and the "tall blonde head-turner" was Beale the Goldenpiper.
We talked about the women trying to "steal Melek's innocence" (Nick's description) outside the Great Council Hall in the Master of Revels, and Nick said that the kidnapping attempt immediately followed his talk with the women. I clarified or gave up that the women were repeatedly trying to solicit some kind of polite lie from Melek, and since they weren't able to, they concluded Melek was honest. They asked if the women were from the Caliphate, and I think I said they could be, judging by subtleties in their dress.
Melek told Beale about the key near Modalye's cage, and said they should go to the Grimoire and break Modalye out. Tracy said again that they should kill Ishild. Beale suggested he talk to Kasskar, because Kasskar's party had killed Ishild before; but Beale also noted that if they just killed Ishild, he would come back to his phylactery.
They also briefly discussed Ishild's new requests. Melek thought the request for 20M gold pieces worth of greencake was real, but that the True Name of God was just a distraction.
Beale went to question Kasskar about Ishild. Beale found a note on Kasskar's apartment door at the Mooncalf, apparently intended for someone else:
I'm below at the usual.
Asking around, Beale found that "the usual" was a particular room in the Mooncalf's opium dens, and headed there.
Passing through the Mooncalf barroom on the way, Beale found some Mooncalf regulars: the skeevy waiter and sommelier Vincent, the pipe warden Owen, and a few of Miss Miller's Toffers. They were standing around the barroom's doorway to the market square outside, looking incredulously at the doorframe with their mouths agape - the door had been stolen. Vincent was stupefied that it could have been stolen, and said the door was probably the busiest door in Hollin.
Beale noticed that Vincent was looking pretty scraggly. For instance, his Snidely Whiplash mustache was drooping. Beale asked if he'd been drinking, but Vincent said no, alcohol isn't good for you. Beale asked if he was tired, but Vincent again said no, he was actually quite energetic today.
Going down to the opium dens, Beale found Kasskar's usual room and introduced himself. Kasskar was Keith's character from the original Hollin campaign, and Keith answered Beale's questions as Kasskar. My notes from Beale and Kasskar's discussion are here. I awarded Keith an inspiration point for kindly playing Kasskar.
The party went to look for Winnie Brock as Ishild had suggested, at Market Street and Hedge Lane in the City of the Dead. There, they found a large family monument visually reminiscent of the Madrasa of Sultan Hasan.
When I put the map down, the players initially seemed confused to find a giant building there instead of a girl. But, the party saw "BROCK" engraved in big block letters over the entrance, and they went in.
They discovered that (1) was a courtyard open to the sky, and they found a 30-foot-wide broken fountain there. The spout was still trickling a small amount of water, just enough to make a puddle on the floor. On an Arcana check, they discovered that the fountain was magic: the water from the spout was holy water, and one drink of the water was equivalent to a Goodberry - it healed 1 hp and gave nutrition for one day. Melek filled his waterskin from the spout.
I believe they asked right away what the dashed lines in (2), (3), and (4) were. I said that although (1) was open to the sky, (2), (3), and (4) were covered by arched roofs, and the dashed lines indicated that.
Starting to explore, they found a skeleton on the ground, just on this side of the entrance to (5). The skeleton was sprawled out on its stomach, as if it had fallen running, and the party noticed a little box and a golden earring near the skeleton's hand. As they went near, they noticed three or four ghostly guards watching them with increasing concern, limbering up and readying their ghost weapons. They cautiously examined the box and the earring, and as a former sailor Marina was interested to see:
Holbein Brock's Arcane Compass
Holbein Brock's Earring
I suggested that the earring could be good for Marina, since +1 Wisdom would also bump her Wisdom bonus by 1. I forgot to read the "+1 Arcana" for the compass though, and I believe there was some doubt that the compass was useful.
Although they examined the items, they were mindful of the ghost guards and didn't try to take them.
Investigating further, they found a chapel of Ajana in (2):
This room has a high arch for a ceiling. There is an altar at the far wall of the room, with an androgynous statuette on top, with spent prayer candles cluttered around it.
Five chairs are loosely arranged around the altar. On a couple of the chairs, there are piles of beige dust, partially on the seat of the chair and partially on the ground around the chair, maybe about a gallon of dust in all.
I think they asked whether the dust was organic, and it was. They examined the dust and found a fingernail and a tooth in it.
They found that (3) was similar, a chapel of Gradska:
This room has a high arch for a ceiling. There is an altar at the far wall of the room, with a male statuette as a centerpiece, with spent prayer candles around it.
They again found piles of beige dust here.
In (4) they found a memorial to Holbein Brock:
This room contains a life-size statue and portrait of a dashing man - a ship's captain or maybe a pirate captain.
There are plaques on the statue and walls, and tapestries on the wall.
Inspecting the plaques and tapestries, they learned Holbein Brock's story:
Holbein Brock
Holbein Brock was born in Hollin in 2882, during the reign of king Sturgis Whitman. He spent a difficult childhood around Braddock's docks and warehouses, but he grew into a hard man, and took control of Braddock's black markets when he was just 20.
Holbein quickly grew the black markets into a thriving enterprise. But he was a victim of his own success - when the black markets started to eat into royal tax revenues, King Sturgis cracked down on them and exiled Holbein to the frozen wasteland of Hilde.
Through force of will though, Holbein came to lead his penal colony on Hilde, and actually built it into a booming shipyard. He had the shipyard build him his own ship, Misadventure, and Holbein and Misadventure attacked rival ships and settlements on Hilde. Citing his lucrative raids, he soon won a letter of marque from King Sturgis, who'd exiled him. He became Hollin's first privateer - a royally sanctioned pirate - and made a fortune for himself and for the crown, all while in exile.
When his sentence ended, Holbein returned to Hollin a hero, and became Sturgis's favorite and right-hand man. Using royal funds, Holbein built the first Shipyards east of Braddock, and the boom towers on the river east of town, which are now Hobnail Prison. When the boom towers foiled a Naumkeag invasion, Sturgis elevated Holbein to the nobility. Of course Holbein also discretely retook control of the black markets.
Tales say that Holbein became even more dashing as he grayed, and became King Sturgis's secret paramour, invented place values, and drove the snakes, masked wrestlers, and/or albinos out of Hollin.
They continued to (5). Here, just inside the door, they found two more skeletons sprawled out on their faces. They also found:
In contrast to the open-air courtyard (1), this room has a high dome as a ceiling. In the center of the room, under the dome, there was a stone casket on a high platform. However, the platform and casket have been pushed over onto the floor. The casket lays open, and a skeleton has rolled out of the casket onto the floor.
The east and west walls of this room have four long banners from the ceiling to the floor, all showing a coat of arms. The north walls have two flags hanging from them - a jolly roger and a plain red flag.
I believe they passed a History check to know:
The black Jolly Roger flag is of course the Jolly Roger. The red flag is the "bloody flag" indicating "no quarter," which pirates would raise as an escalation if the Jolly Roger wasn't enough to scare their prey into surrender.
I believe the party skipped (6) and (7) and went down the stairs (8).
They exited the stair at (1) and went into (2). There they saw:
A large (90' diameter) rotunda features a tall 15 foot statue of a man in a crown and other royal regalia. Around the circumference of the room, six long banners drape from the ceiling to the floor. All are the same, showing the same coat of arms.
There are some piles of molting dust here, and some more complete molts, around the base of the statue.
I believe they also saw another skeleton on the ground here, with ghost guards nearby, and the skeleton had in its clutches:
Marin Brock's tabard
A tabard (tunic) emblazoned with Marin Brock's royal coat of arms - four quarters with the Brock House symbol, the Whitman House symbol, a symbol of Gradska, and a symbol of Ajana.
The tabard gives:
They again deferred to the ghost guards, leaving the tabard, and moved to (3):
Two caskets sit side by side in the center of this room. Four elaborately carved oak posts support a canopy over the caskets, similar to a four-poster bed. Effigies of a crowned man and crowned woman lay on their backs on the caskets' lids - the man is the same as the statue in the rotunda (2). Spent prayer candles surround the caskets on the floor.
There is an iron plaque on the east wall of this room, and an iron plaque on the west wall.
Reading the plaques, the party learned:
Quentin Brock, Marin Brock
Holbein Brock's son Quentin married King Sturgis's daughter Allison in 2941. Allison ascended the throne when Sturgis died in 2953.
Allison died in 2963, and Allison and Quentin's son Marin succeeded her. Although Marin inherited Allison's throne, Hollin's noble houses were paternal, so Marin inherited Quentin's name and house. So when Marin Brock became king, Brock House became the royal house.
Pictures in the family history and tree show that the man in the statue is Marin Brock.
They returned to the stairs and went down.
The stairs here went both up and down, but they exited on this level and found:
As the party exits the stairs onto this level, they find themselves in a crypt crowded with different burials and memorials.
A tall rotunda here goes from the floor to the ceiling, with banners and tapestries hung all around the outside. Inside of the rotunda they find:
Outside of the rotunda, this half of the level is crowded with caskets.
Studying the banners, tapestries, and iron plaques, the party learned:
Brock Succession Wars
After Marin Brock died in 2994, his descendants fought 414 years of succession wars between themselves, with Brock Houses's junior branches repeatedly claiming the throne. Hollin's other noble houses were pulled into Brock House's wars, supplying the armies and navies, and did most of the fighting and dying.
The burials on this floor are Marin's descendants who fought these succession wars, and a few of their most important allies.
The continued to the northern half of the floor, where they found:
The party finds many ledger stones and iron ledge plates on the floor here, arranged in a rosette around a central round desk covered with books. If they look through the books on the desk, they're Brock family histories and family trees.
Looking through the histories and family trees they learned:
Lens Brock, Bullington Brock, Stella Brock
During the reign of King Lens Brock in the early 3100's, a singular warrior arose in a minor branch of Brock House, Bullington Brock. The Coven - an order of witches inside the Church of Gradska - saw that Bullington could be the last nail in their thousand-year struggle to take control of the wider church. Bullington had no prospects inside Brock House, and Coven easily recruited him as their champion.
Bullington was indeed a prodigy, and the Coven mentored him and aided him with their dark magic. In 3108, the Coven sent Bullington against the church and he routed the church's defenders. The church's last stand was at the Cathedral of Gradska in Lofton, and King Lens himself stood as the church's champion. Bullington killed Lens and took Lens's crown, and the Cathedral became the seat of the Coven.
Bullington forcibly married Lens's daughter Stella in a Coven wedding, reuniting Brock House under himself.
As the party explored around the rosette, many Brock ghosts started to appear and crowd around them. From the effigies and portraits they'd seen, the party recognized three of the ghosts as Holbein, Marin, and Lens Brock.
The ghosts told them:
Ash Brock
Stella died in 3140 and Bullington died in 3142. The Coven interred them in their own spacious crypt under the Brock monument.
Bullington and Stella's son Ash ascended the throne. But Ash never married, and he disappeared without a trace in 3152, leaving no children.
Winnie Brock, Wormworth, Brand Hill
Ash's niece Winnie was next in the line of succession, and she was crowned a year and a day after Ash disappeared.
Unfortunately, Winnie didn't have the wealth or forces to protect her throne. Wormworth, a powerful Archdruid of the Grove, offered to marry her and provide both. At the same time, a man appeared, Brand Hill. Brand stunned Hollin by claiming that he - not Ash Brock - was Bullington Brock's real son. This would have made Brand king in his own right, but he also proposed to Winnie.
Unfortunately, Winnie couldn't choose between Wormworth and Brand, because she couldn't tell which really loved her, and which just wanted her for power.
The other noble houses had been wrung by the succession wars, and with Winnie wavering, they feared a new war. But this time, instead of fighting each other, they united against Brock House and deposed Winnie. They imprisoned Winnie, Brand, and the Brock line of succession in Hobnail Prison, where they all lived out their days and died. Afterwards the houses quietly interred Winnie and the others in a modest crypt in the Brock family monument.
The houses also turned on the Grove, but the Grove's druids went underground and Wormworth was never found.
With the Brocks in prison, the houses ruled Hollin as an oligarchy. Over time the Anhault Charter Company grew to dominate the oligarchy and eventually assumed sole rule.
The Riddle Curse
The gods / the universe / whatever cursed Winnie for holding out for true love and destroying Brock House. To find rest and peace, Winnie's ghost must solve the following riddle:
One of Brand Hill and Wormworth loves Winnie, and the other just wants her for power. Independently of that, one always lies and the other always tells the truth. With one question, Winnie must determine which really loves her.
Of course the players immediately realized that Winnie's riddle was a version, or a reskin, of their Two Guards riddle.
The ghosts told the party that there were two apparent questions in Winnie's riddle: (1) which suitor really loved Winnie and (2) which suitor was honest. (1) was what Winnie needed to lift her curse, and (1) was also the analogue of what the party needed, finding the safe door in the Two Guards riddle.
However, the ghosts had their own concern. They said that Brand Hill had had children before pursuing Winnie. So if Brand was honest, then he actually was Bullington Brock's son as he claimed, so they might still have Brock heirs through Brand. So the ghosts wanted to know (2) very much.
Further, they said that with one question, it was only possible to answer (1) or (2), not both. So they asked the party to determine (2) and not (1), which would unfortunately leave Winnie cursed.
However, Tracy/Marina quickly pointed out that Brand and Wormworth had both claimed they loved Winnie, and that with this additional information, answering (2) would also answer (1). I was surprised, since I'd created a couple versions of Winnie's riddle and thought I'd found a version that was exactly analogous to the Two Guards riddle. Tracy's argument seemed solid though and I accepted it. With this, the ghosts said that Winnie, Brand, and Wormworth were two levels down, and they asked the party to go down, solve the riddle, and break Winnie's curse.
The ghosts also asked the party for a few other things.
The kings said that the Coven marriage Bullington had forced on Stella was a black curse, a kind of damnation, that continued after their deaths. Lens Brock was particularly bitter about the marriage, since Bullington had killed him and taken his crown, and Stella was his daughter. Lens said that Bullington and Stella's crypt was on the next level down, and asked the party to end Stella's curse by re-killing Bullington.
They also said that Wormworth, as Archdruid of the Grove, had learned to molt and regenerate. He had molted continually through the years, achieving a kind of immortality, and leaving molts and molt dust piles throughout the monument. But the regeneration wasn't perfect, and over the centuries molting had left him an increasingly grotesque monster. They asked that if Wormworth was not Winnie's true love, that they put Wormworth out of his misery.
The ghosts also said that their Brock House monument was in disrepair. As the party had seen, the fountain was broken, and grave robbers had desecrated Holbein and Marin's crypts. The ghosts argued that Hollin kings deserved better, and besides, the monument also had chapels of Ajana and Gradska. So, they asked the party to find someone to care for the monument.
I believe the party asked who might do it. The ghosts said that many of Hollin's guilds were founded by royal charters, still owed the old Gradskan royalty their loyalty, and could take responsibility if no one else would. They said some of these guilds had even been chartered by Brock rulers, like the Very Fine Order of Barber-Surgeons.
We decided to break for the night and reconvene in the morning. We talked a little about the game and James said again that he didn't know why Ishild wanted to solve the riddle.
The party continued down toward the third basement, where they expected to find Bullington and Stella Brock. As they turned the stair corner they saw a gently pulsating blue light in the doorway and heard faint singing. When they arrived at the basement, they saw a floorplan similar to the previous one, but with a giant 70-foot pentagram on the floor at the far end.
The pentagram’s lines simmered with a blue fire, and five Coven witches stood at the star's points singing. The witches sang louder when the party arrived, and the pentagram's gentle blue fire burst into angry red and orange flames. The pentagram's star started to rotate on the floor, and its rings rotated in the opposite direction. Shadows cast by the rotating pentagram's fire moved fleetingly on the walls, like a horrific disco ball.
They saw two caskets in the distance beyond the pentagram, and Bullington and Stella appeared beside them. I warned the players that Bullington and Stella were 5e "legendary" creatures, and this level was their lair, so they might have legendary actions and lair actions.
They rolled initiative. The party all rolled higher than Bullington, Stella, and the witches. Bullington and Stella's lair action would happen on initiative count 20 though, after Beale and Wolfgang but before the others.
There was a lot of ground between the party and the pentagram, and Beale turned invisible and moved up. Wolfgang cast Fireball, which had 150 foot range, immediately taking out witches 3 and 5.
We discussed that the witches were singing a spell, and with a little convincing James/Beale tried Counterpoint. The remaining witches worked together on their Performance check, rolling a 24. Beale, Wolfgang, and Melek worked together on the Counterpoint Performance check though, and rolled a 25, barely beating them. I asked what song Beale would sing, commenting that Hollin songs often seemed to be about the sea, and James said:
Five witches by the sea, two are dead and now are three.
Beale replaced their Hex spell with Dissonant Whispers, targeting witch 4, but only scored 2 damage.
On initiative count 20, Stella used her lair action to summon two Bearded Devils near the party. I noted that the devils' beards seemed a little scraggly and unkempt.
The party split their attacks between the enemies. Rosy and Hughe attacked the devils, and Hughe hit with Spiritual Weapon. Marina cast Silence on witch 4, and Melek summoned a fuming fey, which immediately moved up and hit Bullington for 16 damage.
The devils attacked, and one hit Rosy with his glaive, causing an "infernal wound" that would damage her each turn. I'd missed the opportunity for Bullington to use a legendary action to Dimension Door up to the party, and now Bullington just used his normal move to move up into the pentagram.
With Bullington still in the distance, the party focused on the devils, with Beale's Vicious Mockery, Marina's bow, Boom's bite, Rosy's bow, and Hughe's Spiritual Weapon and Sneak Attack. I believe Melek finished one devil with Eldritch Blast, his sprite familiar stopped the damage from Rosy's infernal wound with a Medicine check, and his fuming fey hit Bullington for 31 damage. Wolfgang took down two more witches - I believe 1 and 2 - with a second Fireball.
Henele asked if the pentagram was a physical object, and if Wolfgang could derail it with Mold Earth. I clarified that the pentagram was actually a spell, so possibly it could be stopped with Dispel Magic, which Beale had as a spell. Wolfgang received an inspiration point.
The last witch, number 4, fled toward the door. Bullington Dimension Door'ed up to the party and cast his Dreadful Aspect, which succeeded against Beale and Wolfgang. Melek initially failed his save, but just barely succeeded when Rosy replaced his roll with her Gear Train portent roll, an 11.
We'd determined that the pentagram was a spell, and at the top of round 3, Beale tried to dispel it with Dispel Magic. However, it was a level 8 spell, and Beale failed the DC 18 check. My notes on the pentagram note that since the Dispel Magic check is an ability check, 18 would be a pretty reasonable DC for characters working together. But I don't believe the players or I suggested working together at the table.
Wolfgang fired up Spirit Guardians around the remaining devil; Marina hit it with a long bow critical, then finished it off with her second long bow attack. Hughe hit Bullington with his Spiritual Weapon, but when he hit Bullington with his normal attack, Bullington reacted with his Mace of Sorcerous Rebuke and hit. Melek hit Bullington with his Eldritch Blast, and used Repelling Blast to push Bullington into Wolfgang's Spirit Guardians. Melek's fuming fey hit Stella for 6 damage, which killed her.
Bullington was still in Wolfgang's Spirit Guardians at the start of his turn; he failed his save and died when Melek replaced his save roll with his Clock Gyro portent roll, a 1.
Wolfgang hit the fleeing witch, number 4, with a Firebolt and she went down.
The party looked at Bullington's items. He had:
Mace of Sorcerous Rebuke
Ward of Ajana
Rosy claimed the Mace and Beale claimed the Ward of Ajana. Hughe observed that the Ward of Ajana was similar to one that he had.
Searching more broadly, they found:
Construction of an Arcane Vortex, by Naima Kadiri
Flipping through the book, you surmise the following:
And then as you read further in the book:
Marina claimed the book.
Marina said that Hughe knew more than he was telling about this place, and said that Hughe hadn't been attacked. However, Hughe said that he had been damaged in the attack.
After the fight, the pentagram / arcane vortex settled back down to it's gentle blue fire. The party decided they didn't need to shut the arcana vortex down.
The party went down to the fourth basement. The stair there went down again from there, and Nick asked what was down there, but I said I thought it was flooded.
In the main room there, the party found three figures sitting cross-legged in a triangle: Winnie Brock's ghost; Brand Hill's ghost; and Wormworth, the Archdruid of the Grove. Wormworth was an unsightly monster, with bleached white skin, no hair or fingernails, and pink eyes.
They asked Winnie to talk in private, and they went into the smaller north room where they described their solution to her. She agreed with Beale's solution, and also with Marina's claim that they just needed to ask Brand and Wormworth a question they already knew the answer to.
They went back into the bigger room and I believe they asked Wormworth if 1 + 1 was 2. I flipped a coin and Wormworth said no. By Marina's logic, this made Wormworth the liar, Brand the honest man, and Brand Winnie's true love. By the logic of the Brock ghosts - Holbein, Marin, and Lens - this also meant that through Brand, the Brocks might still have heirs in Hollin.
Winnie's curse was lifted. Winnie and Brand stood up and took each other's hands, and dissolved into the air. Suddenly with nothing to do, Wormworth got up and left, going up the stair.
Between parts one and two of the game - overnight - I had time to think a little more about Tracy/Marina's argument that Brand and Wormworth had both said they loved Winnie. Actually both had proposed to Winnie, and neither actually said they loved her; Winnie believed only one did love her - thus her predicament - and the curse riddle also says this. So to me the question seemed to be: (1) was proposing to Winnie independent of loving her (in which case we reject Tracy's argument), or (2) does proposing to Winnie imply that you love her and one of them is lying when they propose to her (in which case we accept Tracy's argument). (1) was my original intention, but Tracy's argument was amazing for an in-the-moment argument, and we went with it when we reconvened the next day. Tracy/Marina also got +1 inspiration.
I generally write all the Hollin material - that's the point of Hollin. I sometimes use Gemini to brainstorm though, and two things in this game came straight from Gemini: Chambers's diagnosis and prescription for Matilda (black bile, senna, etc.) and Bullington's stat sheet (Dreadful Aspect etc.).