Lankhmar #2: thief! stop!

Session two in a second campaign to my main rural/medieval Belswick one. This one is a city campaign following the adventures of three people of the rogueish persuasion as they navigate the joys and perils of the great city of Lankhmar.

Lankhmar on the river Hlal, greatest city of Nehwon and home to uncountable secrets!

 

ADVENTURE

DCC Masks of Lankhmar, a two-part adventure by Dungeon Crawl Classics. I added material for my home game - will do a review after the group completes the module.

CHARACTERS

• XALO, nosy and curious gnome warlock with trouble understanding the concept of ownership; read a weird book once and is able to cast spells - and take someone's dying breath to strengthen herself.
• SIX BURDEN, half-drow rogue: a thin reed of an orphan who grew up in Lankhmar and knows every little shortcut through its mazy streets. Not a member of the Thieves' Guild, but surely that can only be a matter of time?
• BUNTY, half-orc druid who wants nothing more than to start a bakery and learn how to make the wonderful sour and hard-crusted bread she once got from a passing merchant.

SUMMARY

The trio convince Igris the Collector that they can prevent his beautiful new acquisition - a golden key - from being stolen by the Thieves' Guild; hatch a plan to stand watch during Igris' masqued ball; confront two thieves and their bodyguards from the Slayers' Guild; and are all horribly surprised when a third party takes the Golden Key from the supposedly impenetrable vault, leading to a wild chase across the city until their quarry mysteriously escapes from a walled-off alley. At least the characters manage to recover half of the Golden Key, which turns out to be hollow and contains a rolled up parchment inside...

HIGHLIGHTS

Xalo hatching a wildly complex plan to break into a bakery for the party's breakfast; Six Burden just waiting for the inevitable chaos and walking out with a still-warm apple pie.

The entire party subverting the module's plan ("you all meet in a cellar while you are trying to rob Igris the Collector") because I just had to insert a starting scene showing where the group got the intel for this heist in the first place. "Why don't we offer Igris to stop the thieves that are going to rob him instead?" They turned a heist into a castle defence scenario just like that!

Six Burden and Bunty tag-teaming Igris over second breakfast. They not only negotiate a reward of 20gp each when they manage to successfully prevent the robbery, but also secure longer-term employment as Igris' retrievers of other historical curiosities. Privately-employed thieves, the Thieves' Guild will love that... 

Bunty and Xalo negotiating side deals: 

• Bunty wants to talk with Igris' baker to see if that guy knows the origins of the sour bread Bunty craves (nope, but does know where it may come from: the bakers in either Kvarch Nar, Ool Hrusp or Sarheenmar, three of the Eight Cities across the Inner Sea.)
• Xalo wants access to Igris' library to see if there's any exciting magic to be found there. Instead, she gets a travelogue with handy phrases and sights across the long caravan route from Igris' home city of Kiraay, all the way to Lankhmar, to keep her busy during the stake-out later in the day.

Xalo sneaking off to inspect the new construction that will add to Igris' mansion; an octagonal tower laced with magical wards and conduits, all leading to a ritual chamber at the very top. It's going to be interesting to get in there when the tower is operational!

The party joining the masqued ball as servants, checking out the high and mighty coming to rub elbows:

• Igris the Collector, as be-turbaned vizier from his far city of Kiraay;
• Lord Rannash, a severe-looking man in leathers, a cruel helmet and a riding whip;
• Demoiselle Hisvin, the daughter of Hisvin the grain merchant; a platinum blonde wisp of a girl in sheer silks, silver chainlets and a rat's mask, and her dark-skinned, imperious servant woman in golden slave bands and a lion's mask;
• ...and many important looking merchants, sages, minor nobles and ladies and gentlemen of the night to keep them all company.

Xalo hiding under the stairs into the cellar, where the vault is. Cunningly, she uses her prestidigitation magic to mark the soles of the kitchen staff with an arcane sigil, so that she can recognize them coming down the stairs.

Nice reconnaissance by Bunty and Six Burden, who sniff out the two thieves Issek and Tovlis separately entering the grounds disguised as a merchant and as part a delivery party.

A cellar fight that could have gone very badly for the group, split up as they are; until Tovlis goes down under Xalo's life-stealing blade. The Gnome briefly hazes out and runs her dagger across the fallen thief's neck, while the words LET IT FLOW echo in her mind. Apparently this is a regular thing for her. Gnomes, man...

Rail-thin Issek decides to go for gold rather than combat and jumps through the magical fire ward that Igris had inscribed around the vault; opening the vault door, he then gets knocked on the head by someone hiding inside the vault - and running off with the precious Golden Key in hand! Bunty is nearest and sees the new intruder leave a jade, seven-legged spider in the vault before running off.

A foot chase across Lankhmar, in which the young woman clutching the Golden Key leads the party through the masses in the Street of the Gods, crashes through a glass pane carried by two Glaziers' Guildsmen, takes to the rooftops, then down and into the opium-haze of the House of Red Lanterns, finally to run south to the Plaza of Dark Delights before our heroes corner her near Tanitha's Pets, where a feisty jaguar from Klesh is trying to escape.

Six Burden manages to sic the jaguar on their quarry and it tackles the girl into an alley. When the group runs up seconds later, the jaguar is sitting on half a Golden Key, looking surprised at a fading doorway in purplish smoke on the alley wall. On the floor, next to it, is another jade carving of a seven-legged spider, and a mocking note that says no-one is clever enough to catch the Jade Spider - especially not a blundering half-orc, half-elf and gnome.