Session Recap: Mad Wizards, Vohlespil, and Abundance of Nymphs

Starting things off here with an lotfp session recap. For thus of you just tuning in, we're fortunately, at the beginning of what's ended up becoming basically a new arc of the campaign, so there's not a lot you won't get. You can read recaps of the first 13 sessions here. But anyways. On to the story.

While Sofiya and Ilona were making breakfast, there was a knock at their door. Sofiya went to go check it out and saw an old beggar man on the porch begging for alms and begging to be let into the house. Sofiya threw a few coins under the door but refused to let the beggar in. This prompted a coughing fit from the beggar, and a strange unearthly mist sliding under the door, floating around Sofiya's ankles, and racing down the hallway further into the house. The old man denied responsibility for the mist, and again begged Sofiya to let him in. This time, he laced his words with Charm Person spell. Sofiya failed the save and let the old man into the house. Once inside, he began chanting and waving his hands, then flung fleshy tendrils at her from the palm of his hand that attempted to wrap themselves around her but she dodged out of the way. Sofiya shouted for Ilona and the others, and the old man shouted about how Sofiya had refused to free him and now would pay, which made her realize that the old man was Calcidius in disguise. Confronting him on it, Calcidius removed his disguise, as Kursk'Vol rounded the corner with a knife in hand. 

The ancient wizard began chanting again, and Sofiya and Kursk'Vol attacked him. Sofiya grappled Calcidius and Kursk'Vol stabbed him, but Calcidius managed to get the upper hand and turned the grab back on her, then slit her throat with a dagger. Sofiya's black blood spattered the walls, and Kursk'Vol began casting. Sofiya managed to escape the wizard's grasp and finally managed to draw her punching dagger. Kursk'Vol transformed her hand into a monstrous flesh lance and struck at the wizard, missing. Sofiya jumped on the wizard and drove her dagger hard into his throat, then Kursk'Vol followed up by skewering Calcidius on her lance-arm, pinning him to the wall. Sofiya then laid into him, cutting him up pretty badly until Calcidius tore off his own left arm to escape. He drew a wand from his robe and blasted Sofiya with bolts of magical electricity that nearly killed her. Kursk'Vol started encanting another spell while Sofiya ran at the wizard, trying to stab him while he dodged her blows, then he fired his wand at Kursk'Vol, killing her instantly. Taking flight around the corner, the wizard cast Protection from Normal Weapons on himself and took cover. Sofiya rounded the corner, swung at the still-chanting wizard and found her blow deflected from his body like she was hitting safety glass. 

The wizard blasted her with a bolt of energy that threw her across the hallway and flooded her mind with eldritch micro-organisms that overwhelmed her senses with unknowable visions of non-Euclidean landscapes and alien horrors. Sofiya's brain was effectively fried, so Calcidius picked her up and threw her over his shoulder, walking past the kitchen where Ilona had been knocked out by the mist, and past the guards he'd put to sleep. Returning to his tower, Calcidius began experimenting on Sofiya. He re-arranged her limbs, switching their positions, and then implanted her with an alien parasite. When Ilona woke up, she found the house empty, Kursk'Vol dead, Sofiya missing, and the whole house suffused with a color not of this world, and sensing Calcidius' magic, set off for the tower to mount a rescue attempt. As soon as she walked in through the door, Calcidius hit her with another cloud of the mist and took her prisoner, performing similar experiments on her as well.

We took a short break to roll up new characters, and started back with two new PCs - an Old One-worshipping abortionist druid named Shoshona who was friends with Kursk'Vol (the players still weren't certain if she was dead), and a butcher-turned-bounty hunter from Argenti named Faye who had been working together for a couple of months, and had been trying to make plans to get out of Staroznka out of fear of the plague. Shoshona's about 40 and Faye's in her early 20s, and they have this kinda student-teacher sort of relationship, but also they fuck and it's a little weird for them both. We decided that Faye had a contract out for Evi LaRue (who of course, the players know is dead but the characters have no idea), and that they were headed to the Bloodworth House to try to find her, with Shoshona tagging along to help out and maybe get a chance to visit Kursk'Vol. 

As they approached the Bloodworth property, they ran into a young guard, who told them he'd never heard of an Evi LaRue but was willing to let them look when Faye showed him the papers for her contract. He told them that since the death of the Foxlowes, three sisters lived in the house, and that working there was very strange and sometimes frightening. He told Faye that he hated to go in the house and avoided it whenever possible, because 'something bad is going on up there'. He agreed to watch Shoshona's mule, and when Shoshona knocked and no one answered, the boy let them in. He told them that he didn't think anyone was home, that he'd seen one of the sisters leaving with an old man, and that another sister had left shortly after looking angry, and that he hadn't seen the third sister in days. 

Inside, Faye and Shoshona found that the house was suffused with an otherworldly color, and that mushrooms had begun to grow from the paintings, sprouting from the paint itself. In the hall, they found Kursk'Vol's body, confirmed that she was dead, and Shoshona got sentimental. She took the Necklace of the Sleepless Queen off of Kursk'Vol, claiming it as a souvenir, and told Faye that she thinks she might have loved Kursk'Vol. 

Sensing that nothing good could come of this place, Faye told Shoshona that she didn't care about the contract, since given the state of the place, Evi was likely dead or missing. Seeing that the place was completely unguarded though, they decided to steal a few things to make the excursion worth their time. In the study, they found the locked safe and Nymph and Evi's notebook of leads. Shoshona sat down and started flipping through the notebook, looking for the combination to the safe while Faye pilfered three jade statues that were sitting on the bookcase - one of an old man, one of a younger man with two heads, and the third with a still younger man with three heads. Not finding the safe combo but finding a lot of other pieces of useful info, Shoshona pocketed the notebook and Faye suggested they go upstairs and try to find the bedrooms, since rich people often hide their valuables in the bedroom. 

They entered Evi's dressing chamber and grabbed her jewelry box, then decided that they'd found enough and that it was best to leave the house before something awful goes down. In the hallway, they were met by an angry bloodhound (Nymph's dog Lazarus) that chased them down the stairs and out the door. They slammed the door, keeping the bloodhound inside, then went back into Staroznka to meet with their fence friend. Shoshona stayed outside and watched her mule while Faye talked to the fence, a mousy young woman named Porphyria Zome who runs a hairstylist's in the back of her shop and who compulsively carves chess pieces when she's nervous (which is most of the time). Oh, and she happens to be one of Faye's lovers. 

Faye haggled with Porphyria and sold the jade statues and the jewelry for a handful of gold. Porphyria then told Faye that she was going to be extremely angry if she learned that the statues and the jewelry were from the Bloodworth House. Faye lied and claimed that she and Shoshona had found them in a cave, which Porphyria didn't believe. She told Faye that she wonders what Shoshona would say if she asked her if the items came from the Bloodworth House without Shoshona knowing what Faye had told her. Faye tried to distract Porphyria by inviting her to come with them when they left Staroznka, since her shop was failing anyways and the situation with the plague has consistently been getting worse and worse in Staroznka. Porphyria told her that she wants to go but is worried about leaving everything behind. She agreed to join them though when Faye suggested that she could be their official middleman, selling all the treasure they find on their adventures and giving them a share of the profits. Porphyria told Faye to come back in a couple of hours so she'd have time for an appointment she had soon, and had time to pack.

Meanwhile, outside, Shoshona watched a middle-aged woman slaughter a bull in an alleyway while a teenage girl stood watch. Getting closer, the girl spotted Shoshona, but the woman spotted Shoshona's Ashkenazi features and told her that she could watch them, since she was one of their people, but that in any other situation she would have chased her away or killed her. The woman told Shoshona that she's performing a ritual to protect her friends and family from the plague, then proceeded to gut the bull, spread its blood around the alleyway, and then smear its blood across hers and the girl's faces. She offered to let Shoshona in on it, and Shoshona agreed, so the woman smeared blood across Shoshona's face then left in a hurry. Shoshona wiped away the blood with her sleeve and then returned to the place where she'd been waiting, at which point Faye came out of the shop. 

Faye told Shoshona that Porphyria was coming with them, which annoyed Shoshona, because she doesn't get along all that well with Porphyria and thinks Porphyria is inconsistent and useless, but agreed to let her travel with them anyways since Porphyria is at least friendly and kinda hot. Faye and Shoshona went to a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant and ate a terribly greasy dinner while making plans. They decided to travel to Vohlespil, since Vohlespil is small and somewhat backwoods, so it's possible that the plague hasn't reached there yet (and because Shoshona wants meet the allegdly-omniscient salt nymphs who live at the temple there). After dinner, they went back to meet up with Porphyria, who insisted that they needed to take a train, since she doesn't have any experience with overland travel. Faye and Shoshona agreed though that it was probably a good idea that they just hadn't thought of, and Porphyria told them that before she leaves she wanted to pawn off the stolen goods from the Bloodworth House in case they ran into soldiers who asked inconvenient questions on the rails. They swung by Greasegraft's (the sleaziest fence in town!) and sold the goods for an extremely low-balled price just to get rid of them, then bought train tickets for Vohlespil, shocked by how much the prices had inflated because of the plague. 

On the train, they encountered an elfish Russian woman (she's actually a nymph but that hasn't totally been mentioned yet) who didn't know how to speak any of the local languages, and who was sleeping with every woman she could find on the train. Bored, Porphyria went across the hall to Irnessa's cabin and spent some with her. They all wanted to, but Porphyria went first because she knows how to speak Russian. Irnessa asked Porphyria if she thinks her friends would like to meet her, and Porphyria told her that she thinks they would and would send them over after she left. Porphyria got dressed and sent Shoshona over. 

Trying to find a language in common, Shoshona tried speaking in Polish, which it turned out that Irnessa knows. They chatted idly a bit and slept together, then Shoshona left and sent Faye over. Faye found a common language in Italian. She slept with Irnessa, then Irnessa asked Faye if her and her friends were adventurers like she thought they were. Faye told her that they are, and Irnessa told them that she's an adventurer too, and that she's been looking for a group to travel with, and wanted to ask the company of the 'three enchanting women who had given her such an exciting afternoon'. Faye told Irnessa that she could travel with them, and Irnessa told them that her name is actually Araxie, but she gives Irnessa (a nickname, but a type of unique Russian nickname that she didn't know how to explain in Italian) to people who she doesn't want in confidence. She told Faye that she used to be a soldier and wants to go somewhere as far from home as she can get. Faye told her that they were just looking for work in Vohlespil, and she told them that she'd be happy to work alongside them. She sent Faye back across the hall, and Faye filled in the others on what had happened. 

A couple of hours later, the train stopped in the swampy city of Vohlespil. The train platform there was barely a platform and more a simple wooden platform raised up out of the swamp, a far cry from opulent train station in Staroznka. Faye, Shoshona, Porphyria and Araxie set out into the city, looking for a place to sleep since it was getting dark. It took a while to find an inn, since they didn't know the city. They found wide unpaved streets without the tall buildings they were accustomed to in Staroznka, pigfarms, a temple on a lake where nymphs watched the heavens while lounging on a rock, and a district of the city that was fenced off and guarded to maintain quarantine. After searching for a while, they found an inn called The Howling Moon, where they secured lodging and food for the night.

After eating dinner in their room, they decided to come downstairs and talk with people, try to pick up some leads on things they could do in town. Faye chatted with the barkeep - an old woman who keeps trained wolves. Porphyria found a small group of women who she played chess with. Araxie found a Russian-speaking adventurer who she shared a drink with, and Shoshona flitted between a group of old men at the bar and a group of young men who were squirting milk out of their eyes, trying to splash the milk across the nipples of a topless barmaid as a strange type of game. 

The barkeep told Faye about an old friend of hers, a farmer named Nahum Lomidze who had discovered a hitherto unknown valley in his back pasture - a valley that was altogether impossible. He had made a three day journey into the valley and still not found the end of it, which was especially strange because three days journey should take him across the river, which he hadn't seen hide or hair of. She told Faye that Nahum was looking to hire people who would help him explore the valley, but that he hadn't had much luck because there are very few adventurers in Vohlespil, and very few travellers come through. She told Faye that she believed there was something valuable in the valley, and that knowing Nahum the way she does, he'd be willing to give any helpful adventurers a significant cut of any treasure found in the valley. Faye told her that she might be interested, and then the barkeep told her about the last traveller who'd come to town, an allegedly famous artist named Joop Van Ooms who had liked the place so much he decided to buy a winter home there, where he was currently staying while working on a play of some sort.

The Russian adventurer told Araxie about an abandoned house in the woods that was rumoured to be filled with ancient treasures from before Vohlespil was founded, among them a mysterious flat reflective stone disc that's thought to have magical properties. Araxie shared stories of her own adventures, and the other adventurer told her about a tower she had found in the woods near Vohlespil that she believed had once been the stronghold of the cult of Duvan'Ku in days long gone. She then told Araxie about a mega-cave on the edge of the city that explorers said was seemingly bottomless, that they kept going deeper and finding more and more and more cave, and that many explorers never returned. 

Surprised to see travelling adventurers, the old men at the bar told Shoshona about a well in town that led down into an aelf barrow. He told her that his son had gone into the barrow and never been seen again, and that while he didn't have money to give her, he'd been hoping that a group of adventurers would one day come around who would be kind enough to search for his son. Shoshona conferred with the group and they decided to help the old man. He bought them a round of drinks, and Shoshona moved on to talk to the gamesters.

The young men told Shoshona that if she wanted to talk to them, she either had to join in their obscene game or show them her breasts. Shoshona took the second option and loosened her corset, flashed them, then laced her corset back up and sat down to talk. The men, while ham-handedly flirting with Shoshona, told her that they were a local gang called the Roughnecks who are basically the town guard. They told her about how badass they are, and told her about a village on the other side of the woods where people are being abducted by a cult that worships a blood god of some sort, and talked about their plans to go beat up the cultists so that all the women of the village will want to sleep with them. 

After all the talk, Shoshona, Faye, Araxie and Porphyria retired to their room for the night and prepped their gear for the task they were setting out on in the morning, and that was where we decided to stop for the evening.