Drink Talk Roll Extended #5: Babble On

Happy New Year! It’s been a while since our last episode of Drink Talk Roll but we’ll be back soon to fill your new year with even more drinking, talking, and rolling.

Session Recap

After hearing the message delivered through Clover by an entity calling itself Legion, the party wondered what they were up against as they continued sailing towards Neil and Clover’s hometown of Rashin. Captain of the Emperor’s Breath, Hironobu Ohara, having realized where Jedah got the guns he was using, pulled Jedah aside and delivered him an ultimatum. He knew about Jedah’s past and was willing to look past the taking of the guns if Jedah was willing to stay silent about what he saw in the cargo hold. Otherwise, Captain Ohara would let Blacktooth know where he was.

A few days later, the Emperor’s Breath finally arrived in Rashin, the City of Ambition where anyone with a gold piece, a dream and some flexible morals can make it big. One of the first things the party saw as the neared the city was the Tower of Ambition, the tallest building in the city and one of the tallest in the world

Passing through the port and the marketplace, the children lead the party to their home where their father was unbelievably happy to learn that they were alive. Their mother returned not soon after.  For some reason, Jedah and Amra considering killing the kids’ parents so they could take over as parents. (I don’t even think they can blame that one on the alcohol.)  Luckily, that plan was scrubbed about as quickly as it came up. Instead, they simply accepted the Jaffe family’s hospitality.

The next morning, the party woke up to find that they could no longer communicate with each other. They could speak but the words were completely incomprehensible to anyone listening. The only one immune to the effect seemed to be Jedah.  

Luckily, written communication as well as telepathic communication through Neil and Clover was left unaffected but Clover was once again used as a conduit for delivering a message. This time, the color of the eye on her head was not the purple of Legion but instead a sickly yellow-green and the voice was the one of the Masked Man they had been pursuing since episode one. He took credit for the effect on the city and said he was waiting for them atop the tower.

Heading straight there, the party found the people of Rashin in a mild panic as the prosperous trade city had a hard time doing business when no one could communicate. The party reached the tower quickly and was able to use the commotion to get to the Moonstone elevator to the roof where the Masked Man and his goblin goons awaited.  

He made a simple demand: Hand over the gems and he would leave. The party refused and combat broke out. Now much more powerful than when they first fought, the party made quick work of the goblins forcing the Masked Man to join the fray himself. Even as powerful as he might have been, he was no match for four warriors though he did nearly kill Khorr.

The last blow is a shot from one of Jedah’s guns that shatters his mask revealing a strangely elflike appearance but with skin that is the same putrid yellow-green as the eye that was on Clover’s forehead. They take the Star Gems and his magic sword from his corpse along with a lapis lazuli necklace that Ulrich determined was magical.

With the first part of their mission done, the party rested as they determine what to do and where to go next.

Every Ending Is a New Beginning

This marked the end of the first arc of the campaign but obviously the show, quite literally in this case, must go on. For this campaign, it won’t be that difficult for the party to find some new thread to follow. Since the end of the first episode, I made sure a myth arc was in place with the need to return the four gems to their proper resting places as well as adding in new mysteries about why the School of Continued Progress and the Legion which seemed to have been the Masked Man’s boss. But, for those of you who don’t have that here’s another idea: Plot Archaeology.  

Plot Archaeology is basically just finding plot points that were raised in backstory or previous sessions but never resolved and starting them up again. Was there a murdered NPC whose killer was never caught? Reveal them a famous serial killer with their eyes on the party or maybe the deceased is now a vessel for some eldritch being that attacks the party. I did the latter in the previous version of the campaign I ran. There was a ship captain who was murdered on the high sea by an unknown assailant and the next time the party sailed across that sea, they were the herald for a kraken the party had to fight.  

Character backstory is another good place to look for potential future plot points. At the moment, if I had to come up with a way to move the plot forward, I would probably pick up on Jedah and Amra’s pirate past. Perhaps, Captain Ohara betrayed them and Blacktooth is coming to Rashin while they figure out what to do. He’s now on their tails as they leave the city and any wrong move might bring him closer until they finally fight him and his crew.  

There are also tons of tables and other advice online on crafting storylines when you feel like the plot has stalled. If all else fails, rocks fall and everyone dies.

Keep on rolling, folks. See you next time.

-J.D.