Doubt is an adventure set in the city of Hollin. Things spiral out of control when the party goes to check up on Voorman, a prosthetist in the Shipyards.
Thanks to the players, Amy, Henele, James, Kristal, Nick, and Tracy!
The party kills Miss Miller. They meet Beale's barber Matilda, wearing bells and confused. At Voorman's prosthetics shop, they find he was building astronomical clocks, mechanical spiders, and automatons. They discover that the automaton Hestor killed Voorman after he gave her life and free will. They discover that Hestor has built her own astronomical clock mechanical spider god Chronos, and Marina and Rosy defeat them. Beale and Manfred Unger discuss paradoxes, and Beale plans to deal with the lich Ishild.
In their previous game, the party found that Mooncalf owner Miss Miller had killed the Master of Revels Helmholtz and the Admiralty Secretary Parja, and that her butchers were grinding Helmholtz up into sausage. They found Miss Miller in a pipe dream in the Mooncalf opium dens and confronted her about the murders. However, Miss Miller waved them off, saying that the Mooncalf historically had a "liberty" that prevented the Company from enforcing its laws there.
Now they discussed whether to kill her anyway. The players discussed who the Mooncalf might pass to if Miss Miller died, and I hinted that a replacement Miss Miller was already in the wings. Beale said that he lived at the Mooncalf and Miss Miller was powerful, so maybe it was best not to agitate her. However, the party did decide to kill her, unanimously, with Marina saying that the Mooncalf liberty didn't give Miss Miller immunity "from my bow." We didn't run a combat with Miss Miller, but we made it official that the party killed her.
Afterwards they discussed whether they should rest or go someplace to eat, with Melek saying, "You don’t want all this free sausage?" They also discussed whether to try to deal with Cankerblossom / Mr. Burbage; whether to report back to Melina at the Great Council Hall; what to do with Downey's notebook and Parja's dagger; and the Globster's effect on Beale and Marina, with Beale saying, "I was possessed or had my mind partially sucked out." They decided not to revisit Cankerblossom; to hide Downey's notebook and Parja's dagger in Beale's room; and to rest in Beale's Mooncalf room before reporting to Melina.
Kristal joined this game playing the cleric Tora Loudpass. Amy suggested that Tora could have worked at the same bakery as Rosy, and that Rosy asked her to join the party because the party needed a healer.
The party rested in Beale's room in the Mooncalf, then joined up with Tora and headed toward the Great Council Hall to report to Melina.
Walking up Ballard in the Shipyards, they met Beale's barber Matilda Clippenstein. Matilda was wearing bells on her wrists and ankles, which jingled as she walked. She seemed disoriented - although they weren't at Matilda's shop, she asked if Beale had come for a haircut, patted her pockets, and said that she didn't have her scissors or razor. She didn't know where she was coming from, and didn't know where she was going - at first she said home, but then looked around and said she was going to work. When they asked about the bells, Matilda seemed to just realize she was wearing them and said, "Oh, I thought I heard ringing!" She took the bells off and put them in her pocket.
Melek's sprite familiar Grave used Heart Sight to determine Matilda's emotional state, and found that Matilda was fine and not under duress. Tora cast Detect Magic on Matilda but didn't sense any magic. The party suggested that Matilda go to Chambers the Apothecary, then go rest in Beale's Mooncalf room, and she agreed. The players discussed investigating Matilda's shop, but I recommended they maybe do it after the main adventure.
The party arrived at the Great Council Hall and met with Melina and Parja's assistant Singleton, who had helped them in the last game. The party told Melina and Singleton that Helmholtz and Parja were dead, and they were alarmed to hear it.
Singleton said that they were also concerned about Voorman, a prosthetist who served the Company's injured sailors. Singleton said that the Company relied on Voorman, and that Parja and Voorman corresponded often, but Voorman hadn't replied to any letters for about four weeks.
The party agreed to investigate. Singleton gave them the address of Voorman's shop on Weaver Street in the Shipyards, near the main Admiralty building.
The party asked Singleton to pay them. Singleton initially suggested twenty gold pieces each, but the party negotiated for fifty. Beale also asked for Company badges. Surprised, Singleton fished an Admiralty medal out of his pocket and pinned it on him.
Admiralty marksmanship medal
The party left, but Melek left his familiar Grave behind to ask Melina and Singleton a few questions about his own concerns.
The party went to Voorman's shop on Weaver Street. Weaver Street was busy, and the players asked if there were any suspicious people on the street, but they just saw the normal suspicious people.
The front door was a double door. They tried one door, but couldn't open it because it had a mail slot, and a pile of mail had accumulated on the floor inside the door. However, the other door opened easily and they went in.
Inside they found, in Room 1:
Just past the doors, you also have to climb past or stumble past some piles of delivery boxes to really get into the room.
The room is a foyer or display room. There are several mannequins fitted with artificial legs, arms, and hands, and several model heads fitted with artificial eyes and noses. Prosthetics are also displayed on all the walls.
A bell above the door rang when you came in, but no one has come to attend to you.
They asked right away about Room 3, which was a fitting room:
This room has a bench, a stool, and a full-length mirror. A small table has a measuring tape and a few tools.
Back in Room 1, they went through the pile of mail. It was mostly receipts for orders of ivory, hardwoods, and leather, but they also found one letter:
Voorman,
Our captains on Hilde tell me that the fighting there threatens to spread outside of the no-man’s-land. Please be ready to ramp up if, unfortunately, it becomes necessary. Thank you for your work as always.
-- Parja
We briefly discussed Hilde, the frozen continent covering the north pole. I explained that while the city states on the Bellem Sea maintained peace and diplomatic relations, they nevertheless warred on Hilde because Hilde was considered a no-man's-land beyond the law.
The party went into Room 2.
This room has a desk and desk chair, and the desk has a pigeonhole mail sorter on it.
The mail sorter contains purchase orders and receipts for wood, ivory, leather, etc. On the top of the mail sorter, just out of obvious view, is an open lockbox with some petty cash, 20 gp.
They found a letter in the pigeonhole mail sorter, in a pigeonhole by itself:
Voorman,
We have a new pneuma and can come over at your convenience.
-- Brunn, Herndon, Zarrada
I believe the players asked what a "pneuma" was, but failed a skill check to know what it was.
They continued to Room 4:
This room has four floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, and a comfy chair with an end table next to it.
The end table has a cigar box with a few cigars left in it, a half-empty bottle of gin, and the paraphernalia for enjoying each. There are also two books:
They asked if there were any interesting books on the shelves. Tora found:
Discoveries from the Meade Hospital Operating Theater, by Herndon
And Rosy found:
Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices, by Daria al-Haleem
They also saw some rubble in Room 4, and from there they also could see rubble in Room 6, actually more rubble, which the players asked about. They asked if it was manmade rubble or natural (natural), whether there was some damage to the building nearby (no), and if it seemed to be left there on purpose (yes).
They went into Room 5 and saw:
This dusty room has two built-in workbenches, which are heavily beaten and scarred from use, with stools.
There’s some rubble in this room, mostly around the west door to 6.
first workbench
The first workbench is cluttered with tools for working wood, ivory, and leather, and a few prosthetics in progress. Among the clutter you notice a few more curious items:
second workbench
The second workbench has several clockwork objects on it, about the size of a fist, with crank keys on them. Closer inspection reveals them to be wind-up mechanical spiders. There are also several small bowls containing different metal parts.
I showed them a picture of the camshaft-driven caterpillar like the one on the workbench.
They wound up one of the mechanical spiders, and were surprised that it started to collect parts from the bowls and build another mechanical spider.
They went into Room 6, the stair, and it went up and down. They went up to the second floor of the shop and found Voorman's bachelor living quarters, with a bed and a small kitchen. It was generally in a state of mild disarray - the bed was unmade and clothes were left on top of the dresser rather than inside. The players asked if there was any sign of an emergency or that Voorman left abruptly, but they didn't find any.
They went back down to the ground floor, then down again to a basement.
Here in Room 1, they saw:
The stairwell goes both up and down.
Besides the stair itself, there’s also some extra storage utility space here. A lot of this extra space is cluttered with piles of rocks.
Although the stair continued down again, they stayed to investigate this level. Marina and Boom looked through the rubble but didn't find anything, and Nick speculated about "self-assembling spiders digging downwards."
Rosy went up into Room 3, the hallway, planning to scan the side rooms as she went north. Looking left into Room 2 she saw:
There are two female mannequins standing here.
I believe they asked if the mannequins looked threatening, and I said they were posed in a standing position as if they were waving. Amy suggested that Voorman was building an army of mannequins and took the winding keys out of their heads. I think I also noted that the mannequins here were the same model as the mannequins they'd seen in the shop's main foyer upstairs.
They then went back across the hall to Room 4.
In this room there are two workbenches with smallish astronomical clocks under construction, 1-3 feet tall, in various stages of completion.
There’s also a book here, "Astronomical Clocks for Dummies," by Manfred Unger.
Beale read the book, and on a DC 15 Nature check, learned that "to improve on the previous state-of-the-art, designers of new astronomical clocks have had to incorporate an assumption that the universe will end in a finite time." I think the players asked when the assumed end time would be, but I said that different clock designs assumed wildly different times.
They moved to Room 5.
There are two female mannequins, seated at a keyboard and harp. There is also a worktable nearby, with several cams and a couple of empty camshafts on it.
These mannequins had winding keys in their heads like the mannequins in Room 2, but now they also noticed that the mannequins had camshafts in their spines. Melek wound the mannequin at the harp, and she played a song that Beale recognized as (or James said was) "a song about the fickle seas."
They moved back across the hall to Room 6.
This room is like the spider worktable upstairs, except the spiders are bigger, like the size of a big dog.
They went to Room 7.
There are three female mannequins in this room, each seated at writing desks. There is a worktable nearby with some stuff on it.
mannequins
Each mannequin has a winding key in its head and a camshaft in its spine. Each has written a small neat pile of papers, but has wound down and gone still.
worktable
A worktable nearby has three cams on it and an empty camshaft.
They looked at what the mannequins had been writing and found that all of the papers were Pneuma spell scrolls. The players asked whether the mannequins were copying anything, but we said that they were writing according to the hardwired camshaft program. I think Wolfgang rolled 21 on a Religion check to find:
The party wanted the Pneuma scrolls, and I believe they actually re-wound the mannequins so that they would write some more. We said that between the existing piles of scrolls and the new ones that the mannequins wrote, there were enough scrolls for each character to take two.
They decided to put the other camshaft into one of the mannequins and see what happened. Since there were three cams, which we called A, B, and C, there were six ways they could go onto the camshaft. They tried the first way, A B C, and the mannequin wrote a quaint advertisement for Voorman’s shop. They tried a second combination, and the mannequin wrote "kill me, kill me, kill me" repeatedly. A third combination yielded a quaint poem about being an automaton. After that, the other three combinations yielded those same three things.
Now Boom's ear perked up, and the party heard the clink of two large mechanical spiders coming up the stairs (1) and down the hall (3). Tracy immediately said they would attack, and we rolled initiative. Marina hit the first spider with a critical in the first round, and Boom finished it at the beginning of the second round; Boom also finished the second spider at the beginning of the third round, which Tracy described as "Boom shakes it up and throws it at the wall, and is very happy with himself."
The party went back to the stairs and went down again, to the second basement level.
They found the second basement level to be just one room.
The stair here goes up and down. The stairwell and the rest of the room are liberally cluttered with rocks and gravel.
The room has three chairs in the northwest corner - mannequins are seated on two of them. There is a worktable nearby.
However, you are alarmed to see wide streaks of dried blood on the floor, all the way across the room, from chairs in the northwest corner of the room to the southeast corner, where you see two bodies. Both men are probably about 60. One is wearing a leather work apron.
On the worktable:
Rosy wondered if the mannequins murdered the men and on an insight roll re-noticed there were three chairs but only two mannequins. Rosy took out the two mannequins' winding keys; when Wolfgang asked if they were wound down, she also explicitly wound them down. The party also took out their camshafts.
They examined the men's bodies and found that their necks had been crushed. Tora struggled with her Medicine roll but determined that they could have been dead a month.
They looked through the pockets of the man in the apron and found work tools that seemed consistent with Voorman's work. For the other man, I think they did a History check, and found, "From some subtleties of his dress, and the fashion of his haircut and beard, you think one of the men is from the Caliphate." I believe they didn't immediately discover anything about the Doubt rune.
Nick asked if Pneuma could be used to get information from the dead men. I said I hadn't been thinking of Pneuma like Revivify, but Melek had a secret inspiration point coming (see Notes at the end of this transcript), so I would allow it.
Melek cast the spell and the man in the apron roused a little. Melek asked him if his name was "Voya", and the man said, "Voorman! We serve all your prosthetic needs!" Voorman also told Melek that they cast Doubt on "Hestor" and that she killed them. Voorman strained to lift himself a little and grabbed Melek by the shoulders and said, "Doubt is free will!" before collapsing back to the ground dead.
They continued down the stars, down to the third basement.
Here they found:
The stair ends on this floor, it doesn’t go down any further. You exit the room into a large room, 30 feet x 75 feet.
Up and down the long east and west sides of the room, there are twenty mannequins / automatons standing at workstations, building more automatons. At the far northeast corner of the room, part of the wall and floor have been dug out, and a tunnel goes down from there. Big mechanical spiders - the dog-sized ones - are going in and out of the tunnel, bringing rubble out and dumping it everywhere in this room.
The automatons and spiders went about their work, not taking notice of the party. Tora cast Detect Magic again, and did detect magic, but below them.
Although the automatons and spiders didn't take notice of them, the party was concerned that if they went north to the tunnel, they would have to come this way on the way out and potentially be trapped. So, they headed north to the tunnel, but Rosy and the others took the winding keys out of all the automatons on the way through.
The party reached the tunnel. Marina gave the party a Stealth boost with Pass Without Trace, and Rosy snuck down the tunnel and found a fourth basement.
There in Room 1 she saw:
In this finished half of the level, there is a long altar-like table with an open book on it:
Astronomical Clocks and the End Time, by Manfred Unger
I believe as I read the part that "a few clocks are actually designed to hasten the end of time," Nick was already anticipating it and saying essentially the same thing with me.
Rosy went forward to Room 2, where she was alarmed to see:
This room is a large cave, but the stone of the walls, floor, and high ceiling have all been nicely finished. In addition, much of the stone of the walls, floor, and ceiling has been finely sculpted into a giant, convoluted web, and there is a Huge mechanical spider at home on the web. The spider appears to have astronomical clocks built into its back and belly.
Right in front of the party, nearby, a mannequin is bowing down to the spider, praying. You hear the end of her prayer, and can deduce that she constructed the spider, it is her god, and that she just finished praying to the god for Portents.
Hestor has built Chronos from parts in Voorman’s shop, the world Hestor knows.
Prompted by the clocks in Chronos's body, Nick said, "I love the idea of a clock telling time what to do."
Rosy was still undetected, and she went back upstairs to talk to the party. Melek suggested talking to Chronos, and they discussed whether they had to fight it. Marina and Melek were concerned that they didn't know what time Chronos might set the end of time to. Downey's book, which was still hidden back at Beale's Mooncalf room, discussed grain tower explosions and they discussed blowing everything up. Wolfgang asked if they should ask Singleton to deal with it, and Rosy said that taking out Chronos was a big job for the fifty gold pieces they'd been paid.
Rosy and Marina had extraordinary Stealth, especially with Pass Without Trace, and we discussed the idea that the two of them could stealthily disable both Hestor and Chronos.
They knew Manfred Unger, who they'd rescued from the Phyla House Moonwell, and they discussed asking him what to do. I believe that one of them (Beale?) went back out into the city to talk with Manfred, and Manfred told them to disable Chronos, they should remove its "clock gyro" or "gear train."
Rosy and Marina snuck back down. Rosy made her Stealth check and Sleight of Hand check to remove Chrono's gear train, disabling it. Marina first tried to Persuade Hestor to stand down, but failed, then resorted to Sleight of Hand to remove Hestor's camshaft. She succeeded, but barely, with Tora's Guidance.
Although Hestor collapsed to the ground, she was still able to talk. Amy pressed her on why she killed Voorman and Rana, but I (as DM) was only able to give some uninteresting answers.
They found that Chronos's gear train and clock gyro were both magic items that granted Portents.
Chronos's gear train, Chronos's clock gyro
Chronos's gear train and clock gyro each grant the bearer one portent a day, equivalent to a Divination wizard's daily portents:
"...glimpses of the future begin to press in on your awareness. When you finish a long rest, roll [one d20] and record the [number] rolled. You can replace any attack roll, saving throw, or ability check made by you or a creature that you can see with [this] foretelling rolls. You must choose to do so before the roll, and you can replace a roll in this way only once per turn.
Each foretelling roll can be used only once. When you finish a long rest, you lose any unused foretelling rolls."
I said I thought that portents were better than normal magic items, and we discussed which two characters should receive them. The players quickly said Rosy and Marina, since they had disabled Chronos and Hestor, and Rosy accepted the gear train. But Tracy said that Marina probably wouldn't be drawn to a mechanical item, and we left the clock gyro unclaimed for now.
In a previous adventure, Manfred Unger said he could tell Beale about paradoxes, and Beale decided to visit him now. Manfred was a member of the Quaternion Society, and the Admiralty had recently given the Quaternion Society their old Morningstar Observatory to use as their headquarters. Beale went there and found him.
Manfred said that before being imprisoned in the Moonwell seventeen years ago, he had been rederiving mathematics from set theory. But while Manfred was away, other mathematicians found that his derivation led to some contradictions. Manfred said one example was "this sentence is a lie," which could be expressed in the logical language of his new math. He said they were working feverishly to see if this statement implied a problem with his new math, or was a true paradox.
Manfred said that some other apparent paradoxes weren't true paradoxes, but actually reductio ad absurdum arguments - contradictions that show that some assumption leading to the contradiction must be wrong. He said a classic example was, "Does the barber who shaves everyone who doesn't shave himself, shave himself?" He said that the answer had to be both yes and no, a contradiction, so this could be a reductio ad absurdum argument that such a barber couldn't exist.
Manfred then looked around to check that no one was listening, then leaned over to Beale and whispered, asking if he knew the puzzle, "Can Ajana create a rock that Ajana can't lift?" Manfred whispered that this apparent paradox was arguably a reductio ad absurdum argument that Ajana doesn't actually exist.
Beale returned to the party. He told them about his relationship with the lich Ishild. He said that Ishild wanted to use captives to explore the two guards riddle, that Ishild had already caught a liar, and that Ishild wanted Beale to capture an honest person. Beale also gave them his own thoughts on the two guards riddle, that the guards would answer most questions the same way, and you needed to devise a question that they would answer differently.
Marina said that they should kill the lich. Beale said that he wanted to chronicle Ishild's story, but Marina said again that they should kill the lich.
Beale said that if they actually had the answer to the riddle, Ishild wouldn't need the honest person. And if they solved it but Ishild wasn't satisfied with their reasoning, they could get a spell scroll that caused people to tell the truth, and maybe Ishild could use it on the captive he already had. Beale argued that the rewards could be great if they could get Ishild on their side, "to put good in the world."
I asked why Beale was hesitant to get Ishild an honest person. I said it wouldn't be that hard to find one, and he might already know one, but James said that Beale wasn't evil and didn't necessarily want to turn someone over to Ishild.
When Marina and Boom were digging through rubble in the first basement stairwell, Nick made a comment about "self-assembling spiders digging downward" and I awarded him an inspiration point secretly, intending to tell him when they actually found digging spiders further down. This is the inspiration that we used to allow Melek to try to revive Voorman with Pneuma later.