Faile, Gwynneth, Modalye Grellen, Roland Gray, and Vesper Cotton discover two babies have been kidnapped in Dunham. They save a third baby from a strange woman who's actually a harpy disguised by the Ring of Greater Pulchritude, and who's working for “Astrid.” Investigating the theft of the Penance Stone at the Chapel of Ajana, they’re attacked by three wire-fu-fighting women who disparage Roland as Tiberius Gray's “brat.” The party defeats the women, and one says she’s also working for Astrid.
The players introduced their characters. My notes:
Carissa (Faile): Warlock, wanderer, wandering around many towns for a while, kind of an orphan. Searching for things, Hollin is her current town she’s been traveling around.
Karen (Gwynneth): Character is Gwynneth, opposite of an orphan, oldest of 9 kids, quite poor, she set out to work on Market Street, works in a weapons shop sweeping and dealing with customers, owner took a liking to her and gave her a sword. Imagines being an adventurer one day, looking for adventure, building a reputation as a scrappy fighter. Is a good member of an adventuring party, wants to get out of Hollin.
Nick (Modalye): Modalye Grellin, human late 20s, mid 30s, pendant of leaf with elven inscription, spends most of his time outside the city with other rangers, has an owl close by.
Scott (Roland Gray): Roland Gray, born as a poor person in Hollin, on the streets, stayed out of gangs largely, was eventually taken in by a wizard who taught him some basic magic, now lives in Hollin as a private investigator. Solve people’s problems, especially if they have an arcane nature, he’s an arcane trickster rogue. Also, has an owl pet, took like a theme, not mechanical reasons. It’s a familiar.
Rob (Vesper Cotton): Character is Vesper Cotton, he is a second son of a very minor noble house, got nothing in inheritance, got sent away first to seminary but found it too boring, he ended up jumping into being a church liaison with the Hollin navy, field medic / cleric, sailed with the navy for a couple years, pirate problems, now there’s a lull, so reassigned to be a harbor medic dealing with sailors coming back and treats their injuries, cures their conditions. So, he’s basically in his mid 20’s. Very worn naval uniform, has some wear. Trident and holy symbol which he wears around his neck. He’s in between posts, so sitting around curing sailors that come in...limbs treated, venereal diseases cured. Because he is the son of a minor noble, he just has the name, so he’s used for retinues if the church or navy meet each other, to slightly increase the prestige of those groups. So, now he’s basically working as the surgeon for all the sailors that come into port.
Karen also said that Gwynneth's parents were still alive and that the weapon shop where she worked was the Winter Wolf, the weapon shop from the original campaign. The players also said they'd buy some healing potions from Chambers the Apothecary.
I asked what the characters besides Roland Gray might be doing in Dunham, the administrative district, around dusk. The players said:
Faile: She might be at the tavern relaxing.
Gwynneth: Delivering something that has been commissioned to its upscale buyer.
Modalye: Probably tons of things. Cover for being there would be that his owl isn’t eating well, looking for a vet.
Vesper: There to treat a naval lieutenant, but after going to get beer.
For Roland, I said that Roland was at home in his rickety apartment building in Braddock a half hour before dusk. An errand boy came to ask if Roland would come to the Chapel of Ajana in Dunham right away, to investigate a theft. Roland agreed.
I read a travelogue of Roland's walk from his office in Braddock to the Dunham Roundabout, as a little taste of Hollin.
To get to the Chapel of Ajana, Roland leaves his rickety office/apartment and goes north on Market Street a few blocks, to the river and the intersection with Quay Street. In the square there, fruit, vegetable, and animal mongers are packing up for the day, and sailors and girls are starting to mix it up at the Mooncalf tavern on the square.
The Osborne Bridge crosses the river to Lofton there, but instead Roland takes a left onto Quay Street. He walks past the commercial docks, where longshoremen work twenty-four hours a day. Quay street here is choked with all sorts of pedestrians - like longshoremen and shipbuilders. Many are revelers, like two curious men in the two halves of a horse costume taking a stretcher of food to a celebration somewhere. You also pass Gregor the Naturalist’s home/lab, on the south side of Quay across from the docks, and you actually see Gregor hoisting some lab animals in cages up to the third story window of his house on a pulley.
As Roland leaves the district of Braddock, the commercial docks turn into construction yards and partially finished ships tower overhead, including the Admiralty's new flagship, Harbinger.
Just as the Admiralty’s Morning Star Observatory comes into view, Roland takes a left onto Ballard Street and heads south into Dunham. Ballard street is lined with beautiful two- and three-story townhomes. The townhomes have fine marble facades that come right up to the sidewalk, and wrought iron balconies looking out on the street.
Roland comes up on a hectic intersection that locals just call the Roundabout, which is an English-style roundabout where horsemen, horse-drawn carriages, and horse-drawn carts enter at speed and then negotiate inside the circle to exit. It looks wild and potentially dangerous.
Then it hit the fan.
As Roland reaches the Roundabout, he suddenly hears a frightened woman above him, shouting “Luna! Luna!” He looks up and sees a young woman, frantically looking every which way from the balcony right above him. Then she runs downstairs and out into the street where Roland is, still shouting “Luna! Luna!”
The woman ran toward the Roundabout where all of the characters could see her, and Faile and Vesper made Insight checks to deduce she was out of her head and might run into the Roundabout. But both failed their Athletics checks to grab her, and she indeed ran into the Roundabout, where she was knocked out by a speeding cart.
Vesper revived her with a 25 Medicine check. She said she was Mia Hollinshed and her baby Luna had just gone missing. She said that Luna had blond hair and was wearing a red jumper, and Roland sent out his owl Oz to look around the streets for a baby like that.
After some more questioning, Mia said their neighbor's baby Flora Shaw was kidnapped last night, so she was being careful to stay by Luna’s crib. But she still fell asleep and when she woke up, Luna was gone.
Modalye suggested they investigate Mia's house. The party searched for scratches on the door (none), Faile checked for any magical presence (none), and Vesper asked if Mia ate or drank anything weird before falling asleep (no).
Modalye went upstairs to look at the crib, and found that the second floor balcony door was open. Roland also found a very large feather, which smelled like urine or maybe a dirty animal, but he couldn't identify it. Gwynneth said it was weird that Luna didn’t raise holy hell when someone tried to take her - could the feather smell be like ether or something like that? No.
Roland found some claw marks on the balcony. Modalye looked for anything in the sky (nothing) and Vesper looked for anything perched on the roofs nearby (nothing).
Mia had mentioned that both her family and their neighbor whose baby was stolen, Zoe Shaw, sat on the Anhault Charter Company Board. She said that the Board was a dangerous political arena with finger pointing and mutual recrimination. Vesper asked if someone was trying to pressure the Board members (nothing unusual) or if there was anything conspicuous happening with the navy (not particularly).
Faile suggested they talk to Zoe. Roland gave the Chapel errand boy a silver piece to tell the Chapel he’d been delayed, and they went to Zoe's. Zoe told them there was one more Board family with a child, the Volsteads who lived across the Roundabout. The party looked over from Zoe's balcony and noticed the Volsteads’ balcony door was open.
Modalye and Roland sent their owls Greg and Oz over to the Volsteads’ balcony, and saw through their eyes that there was a woman inside leaning over a crib. Greg and Oz flew into the woman's face to harass and distract her.
At the same time, the party cut across the Roundabout as quickly as they safely could. Gwynneth and Vesper climbed up the house's facade to the second floor balcony to block the woman's escape, and Gwynneth tried to intimate the woman, which caused her to lift a baby out of the crib in one arm. The rest of the party went in the first floor front door and up the stairs to the second floor, where they found Yorvick and Leona Volstead asleep on the floor.
The party fought the woman, who put Roland to sleep with one song and charmed a couple of the others with a second, but Modalye, Faile, and Gwynneth beat her. Modalye’s Hex finished her off with non-fatal hits, which Nick described as “green flames, bubbly, and necrotic energy.” Roland handcuffed her while Vesper gagged her.
Gwynneth detected that the woman was wearing a magic ring. When Gwynneth and Modalye took the ring from her, she transformed into a grotesque harpy.
Modalye used Speak with Animals to communicate with the harpy and the party interrogated her. In crude language, the harpy said she was stealing the baby for “Astrid” and wanted to eat it, and that harpies were from “the eyrie.” The harpy repeatedly asked the party to give her the ring back and let her go, and offered to sell out another harpy if they would. Ultimately the party kept the ring but let her go. Aardist, Greg, and Oz followed her but she didn’t go anywhere directly, and flew from rooftop to rooftop for much of the night.
The Volsteads thanked the party for saving their baby Violet and gave them 1,000 gold pieces. The party took a short rest while they enjoyed some snacks and Faile identified the ring.
Ring of Greater Pulchritude
As a high-Charisma character, Gwynneth claimed the Ring.
Since the harpy wasn’t immediately going anywhere informative, Roland said he had an existing engagement and would go to the Chapel of Ajana; the rest of the party joined him.
On the way they stopped by the tavern that Faile and Vesper were originally going to in Dunham, to talk to the Night Watch there. The Night Watch captain said he didn’t know any Astrid but they suggested talking to Gregor the Naturalist about harpies.
Arriving at the Chapel:
The Chapel of Ajana is a whitewashed brick building, two stories high. It’s more modest than the marble-facade townhomes around it.
Inside the Chapel:
Just inside the Chapel’s Ballard Street doors, there’s an empty wooden pedestal standing to one side. The party might note that there’s a dark spot on the floor nearby where maybe the pedestal used to stand.
Otherwise the Chapel is a typical simple church. Two rows of pews fill most of the first floor and look toward an altar and pulpit at the far end. Ten or twelve people are sitting in the pews, contemplating or talking softly. On a second floor above, there’s a ring balcony that goes all around, looking down on the first floor.
The Chapel’s keeper Merrick is at the altar, using it as a dinner table. Merrick can tell them:
For many centuries, there’s been a large obsidian stone, the Penance Stone, sitting on the pedestal at Chapel’s entrance. It was a tradition that when people came in, they could touch the stone to dispel guilt or do a silent confession. But the stone was stolen two days ago.
Roland introduced himself to Merrick and I believed they talked about the circumstances of the theft; that often there are people in the Chapel all hours of the day and night, but that night no one was there so Merrick locked up the front door and went to sleep. In the morning he woke up and went to unlock the front door (which was still locked) and found the Penance Stone gone. They talked briefly about the second floor, and that there were windows there, and I think Roland went up and looked around the second floor.
Faile cast Detect Magic near the pedestal, and discovered that two women in the pews had magic pendants on. Those two women got up, along with a third, and confronted the party. They disparagingly said that Roland Gray being there “made sense” because he was Tiberius Gray’s “brat.” They apologized to Merrick for violating the sanctity of the Chapel, because they were going to kill the party.
They draw their weapons showfully, flourish them with a quick swipe, and bow to the party as an invitation to fight. Roll initiative.
One of the women, Annabelle, wore a modest, long white cotton dress with a red vest over it and a bonnet, almost like a puritan or a 16th century Elizabethan. The other two women, Beatrice and Clementine, wore close black dresses with silver buttons all down the front.
Beatrice and Clementine attacked Gwynneth. They had wire-fu-esque attacks and moves, with one running across the tops of the pews to get to her. Annabelle did a Crouching-Tiger-type leap up to the second floor balcony to attack Roland but failed, and Roland Acrobat'ted down to the first floor and attacked Beatrice. Beatrice answered Roland with Hellish Rebuke, and the three women generally had Warlock-like attacks.
Vesper stepped up on Beatrice and Clementine, saying “there’s no fighting in church,” and cast Shatter on them, using his Channel Divinity, Destructive Wrath to maximize the damage. Beatrice went down, and Rob described it as:
You see some visual distortion behind them, then she’s thrown forward and slams down right in front of Gwynneth’s feet. She basically bounces once on the ground and crumples in a ball, and Vesper repeats: “No fighting in church.”
Faile’s Eldritch Blast brought down Clementine.
During the fight, Gwynneth asked (I think twice) Modalye about the attackers, if he knew them, but Modalye said no each time.
Modalye Paralyzed Annabelle and Vesper handcuffed her with Roland’s manacles.
The party interrogated Annabelle but she was more resistant than the harpy had been at the Volstead house. Roland ridiculed her because the three women were beaten so easily, and she told him that they were there to attack anyone who came to investigate the Penance Stone. Roland asked why they had it out for Tiberius, he was a good man, and Annabelle replied that Roland only knew Tiberius as an old man, he didn’t know Tiberius’s entire story.
Ultimately Annabelle agreed to give them a name but only if they let her go. After one or two iterations Roland agreed and she gave him the name “Astrid” and they let her go, but Roland Gray told her he’d be coming for Astrid.
They found the two magic pendants that Faile’s Detect Magic had originally found before the fight, on Annabelle and Beatrice:
Talisman of Ajana
Ward of Ajana
Faile claimed the Ward of Ajana. Vesper and Merrick worked together on a Religion check and hypothesized the two pendant figurines might be representations of Ajana. The players discussed why Ajana worshippers might attack a chapel of Ajana, with Karen speculating they might be different sects.
As thanks for looking for the Penance Stone, Merrick lent the party his Amulet of Ajana's Asylum.
Amulet of Ajana's Asylum
The party decided to long rest and then go to Gregor the Naturalist to ask about the feather and harpies.
Modalye had the personality trait "I lie about everything, even when there's no good reason to" and the flaw "I enjoy the thrill of deception and will make my ruse ever more complex." I think we got a hint of that right away in this game, when Nick suggested that Modalye was a ranger and that he would need a cover story for being in Dunham.
The harpy with the Ring of Greater Pulchritude was the first harpy Duchess of the Wake, Golnaz, who ruled Hollin's harpies with her two sisters.
In the first Far Shore playthrough, the three witches were just called A, B, and C until Wendy renamed them Annabelle, Beatrice, and Clementine. In that playthrough they appeared in the Coven Catacombs, not the Chapel.
Vesper received an inspiration point for rolling 0 on initiative in one of the fights, and we decided retroactively that it would also be for "no fighting in church."