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resources:adventure:nature_vs_nurture

Nature vs Nurture

Initial Brief

The Church of the Warrior will be seeking out specific individuals to ask for help. No general posters will be placed, and no information will be provided until you meet with Church officials.

You will be approached if you meet one of the following conditions: you are a known friend and associate of Senta, or if you have had prior good relations with the Church.

PCs

Debrief

After being briefed to play along with the Senta-clone until they can rescue the real Senta, the party have a discussion with the clone about what its plans are. Senta explains she knows of an artefact capable of bring about peaceful resolutions and that you can get into Dragons by climbing down really deep holes. After concluding that her plans are mad, they nonetheless agree to travel with her.

As they leave the temple a number of acolytes set upon those members of the party that they deem unworthy to travel with Senta. Senta attempt to talk them down, Jimmy simply left, Aaron Fairway beat several into the ground even as they attempted to explain that they thought he was perfectly worthy, and the others variously fought or talked their way out of fighting.

Eventually the party make it to the College of the Stars, where a professor is happy to get them what information he has about potential routes into Tuireann. While getting this information, the party are left in a room containing a slightly concerning number of superweapons, which the party mostly keep Senta (and Hugh) away from.

With all the information that they need, the party head towards Caul to collect the artefact and head into Tuireann. On the way the run into some golems who are running amok after their controller was killed in a rock slide and bring the body with them to Dewa. In Dewa they meet the High Priest of the Weaver of Words and convince him that they just want to look at his artefact, before trying to nick off with it. After a fair bit of chasing, with party members on both sides of the chasing, the “thieves” are forced to endure a magical ritual which should teach them the error of their ways, whenever they are planning to deceive someone they find themselves first explaining how they plan to perform the deception to their target. With this concluded and the artefact in hand, they head into the Blue Peak mountains.

Inside the mines, they run into acid-spitting giant snails who keep putting out their lights, push past a “Troll”, and force themselves into Tuireann. Within the great forest of Tuireann Hugh begins to have a bit of a breakdown as for the first time he is unable to detect the consensus. He doesn’t have too long to have his breakdown though, as the party are soon beset by corn-dolls and a monstrous slime-mold. Having barely survived that onslaught, they then find themselves being engaged by giant lizard-like sentries, eventually they find a circle which seems to be warded against the sentries and which contains a Dragon-Gate. The party, pressed by draconic entities and unsure whether it is possible to complete their mission, start to turn on each other. Jimmy tries to press the clone into releasing the original Senta while Senta pleads for the artefact, desperate to complete her mission even as memories of the original’s torture start to surface in her mind. Over the top of all this, the original Senta’s screams can be hear from not too far away. Armand uses a miracle of the Warrior to empower herself, growing to monstrous size and pushing through the swarms of enemies to reach Senta. Eventually freeing Senta from the vines which prevent her from waking, the two of them return to the others, where Senta and her clone start to fight each other while Hugh activates the Dragon Gate to escape. Too focussed on each other, both Senta and her Clone remain after the gate has closed. In the bay of Acryn, Armand tries to convince Hugh to reopen the gate in order to rescue Senta, which he eventually agrees to do. After a quick incursion back into Tuireann, both Sena and her clone are brought through to Acryn and fall into the bay still locked in mortal combat, sinking towards the bottom. Eventually the clone is defeated and at the same moment Jimmy Hoskins forces a new soul into the body while trying to force the Draconic influence out. This appears to be hugely successful, with the clone taking on the appearance of Lynndis, the Warrior.

The newly-ensouled “Lynndis” and Senta are brought onto the boat with the rest of the party. Hugh tells Senta she's an idiot.

They snap Senta out of the state she’s in, and check to make sure she's no longer mirroring Tuireann. She claims that she feels herself, wants to improve and reach peak physical fitness, which satisfies the others. She and Armand briefly have a slightly tense moment when she asks Armand about the fact that he’s now a god, but is satisfied when he says the Warrior doesn't mind.

Hugh tells Senta she's an idiot again as she recalls mirroring an 8 year-old and rushing off, possibly into Tuireann. Meanwhile, Armand and Jimmy inconclusively argue over what to do with the orb, which Jimmy now has.

Armand puts forward the offer to get rid of Senta's mirroring affliction using his power, but they put that off for now, and return to Acryn to go to the Warrior Church, though Jimmy doesn't join them there. Armand gives a thorough report of everything that happened, and Senta on hearing all they've been through thanks the party for coming to help her out. The Church also offer their thanks, giving 100 Riel to all present except for Senta. Thanks to arrangements he’d made, Jimmy is sent 300 Riel.

Hugh hands Senta a note to read if she feels the urge to go and take on a dragon single-handed again and calls her an idiot again at some point.

Armand attempts to contact Jimmy to ask when the orb is being returned, but find that he has already left. The cursed contingent of the party rush off to Caul to try to deal with that, but for all of their efforts at making haste Jimmy arrives before them however thanks to the Mare of Night's miracle. He returns the orb to the priest and tells him that Tuireann had a strange interest in the artifact. He suggests that for safety he should go to Acryn and set up a temple there so that the threat can be understood and dealt with.

The priest is concerned about his ability to protect the orb from the dragon alone, and so agrees to go to Acryn. Jimmy urges him to go sooner rather than later, though any preparations to do so take long enough that he is still around when the others arrive there that afternoon. They explain what was happening with Senta and the true motivations behind their actions, which the priest believes thanks to the curse on Armand.

Senta backs this up by claiming that she is a cucumber, proving that she can lie and therefore is not the same Senta that was cursed by the priest previously. She attempts to reason that her friends are good people and that clearly they were under some influence and so should be freed of the curse. Armand further curries the priest’s favour by offering his help in setting up a temple in Acryn.

In response to all of this, the priest agrees to lift the curse, but only once he's set up a temple and people are willing to listen and donations come in to cover the appropriate costs, provided it's in response to the weight of his words as opposed to hopes of favours in return. He feels that the curse should remain for long enough for them to learn their lesson.

Whilst they’re in the area, Hugh takes the opportunity to find his boat where he parked it and take it back to Acryn.

Back in the city, Aaron takes up Jimmy's offer of a nice dinner and talks to him about his curse. Jimmy tells him that his curse is a blessing as it means that he can use it as an excuse to just hit things by explaining to his allies that any lies to talk their way out of fights won't work. He suggests that it might be the best thing that ever happened to him; Aaron protests that his lightning sword is clearly the best thing that ever happened to him. He thanks Jimmy and leaves, expressing a wish for more hands to hold more swords. Jimmy says that he'll look into it.

Senta follows up in asking Armand to rid her of the mirror curse. To achieve this, Hugh begrudgingly allows the young god to declare his epithet to Hugh's crew so that he can make a miracle happen. Armand takes a while to decide how exactly to focus the miracle, but eventually decides on trying to make Senta the Heirarch that she should be, on the understanding that she is most suited to the role as her core self and not any other identity that she might otherwise pick up.

The miracle works to some degree, and rather than just mirroring those around her Senta begins to only take personality traits off people if they are in her eyes potentially a better Heirarch than she is. Armand admits cheerfully that Senta is a better Heirarch than him; Hugh celebrates this little victory. Senta feels like the effect has worn off entirely.

Hugh goes and pokes a Dragon Gate late one night to find out how they work. He indeed seems to understand their operation, and is aware of another gate that is now on the list of possible destinations, leading to the Ancient Forest. This particular gate feels slightly different to Hugh than to other gate operators, as though there is some other influence on it.

Armand uses large amounts of contacts and social links to big up the priest of the Weaver of Words, Jimmy does the same, and so he basically becomes a local celebrity within Acryn. Eventually the donations do indeed start coming in; he will be willing to lift the curse on affected party members at the end of the next adventure they each go on.

Armand is somewhat concerned about this, but doesn't know any other wizards who can help make it happen sooner. He asks Walter Cargan to help, who investigates, but is hesitant to try to remove it because whilst the curse is partly Scribing which he knows well, the rest is something else, possibly in the realms of Strossborgian magic.

Meanwhile Senta returns to the Warrior Church and is very repentant. She doesn't get a lot of complaints, but there is definitely an atmosphere to their interactions with her, despite her attempts to explain that she may have been a small child at the time she ran off into a dragon.

Armand returns a note given to him by Hugh, intended for emergencies should Hugh forget himself. Hugh gives him another note which apparently is the real one which specifies details in case he has an identity crisis, as apparently the previous one was just insults should Armand have broken his promise not to read it. The latter is not particularly amused by this, but it seems that some degree of trust is established.

Armand operates his printing press, using it to write a political treatise which is basically useful material for his future priests to hand out to people.

Meanwhile, Jimmy uses the opportunity of Armand being cursed to be a total tool towards him at council meetings. “Lynndis” has ended up in his care; Senta expresses a desire to go and see her, and Jimmy tells her that she can later, once she's back to her normal self a bit more.

resources/adventure/nature_vs_nurture.txt · Last modified: 2016/10/23 16:43 by dan