Terrinoth #28 - The Heist at Nimressa

The party arrive at the fort at Nimressa

Campaign Diary

Having learned of the location of a magical artifact which will help them decipher the text on the cursed obsidian tablet, our heroes set about finding a way to get their hands on it. Iwan was sent to obtain more information regarding the fort and its guardians, and the party learned that the fort was garrisoned by some two dozen guards, led by a captain. The fort also had a staff wizard. The vault of the fort was underground, carved into the rock of the cliff upon which the fort was built, and the door was guarded by a key held by the captain, and a magical lock set by the wizard.

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Seeing the formidable security measures, our heroes decided that force or stealth were not the best approaches here, and decided that guile would be required.

They learned from Iwan that Captain Sorya owed a gambling debt to Shazar, a local crime boss, and that Finaz the staff wizard was an ambitious young wizard who aspired to rise in the hierarchy of the Academy. Armed with this knowledge, they had Iwan arrange a meeting with Shazar.

Having explained their situation to Shazar, they first proposed to buy Sorya's debt off him, but was unable to pay the price of 1500 Gros. Shazar then offered a proposal of his own: that they acquire for him one of the treasures from the vault, a small wooden ball, which he claimed held a sentimental value for him. Confident of their ability to access the vault, our heroes agreed to the deal, and were given a 'letter of introduction' to Sorya, a (crude) replica of the wooden ball in question, and the letter of debt (which amounted to 750 Gros - but the value of leverage over the captain of a royal fort far exceeds the value of the amount in coins, you see...).

Entana then visited the Academy at Al-Madena to seek Finaz's professor, who turned out to be an expert in the field of Comparative Arcana, and the two wizards had a lively discussion over the similarities between rune magic and djinni magic, much of which was lost on the other party members. Impressed by the young wizard, the professor likewise furnished a letter of introduction to Finaz, and also discussed his student's thesis with him.

Armed with the letters of introduction, our heroes made their way to the fort at White Dune pass, called Nimressa in the Al-Kalim language, accompanied by Iwan, who assumed the identity of Najar, gentleman-interpreter. They handed over the letter from Shazar to the guards, and were brought to meet Captain Sorya after handing over their weapons (although Gio used the magic from Fortuna to disguise his shortsword as a flute).

Captain Sorya was not pleased to see the party, and when presented with the offer of allowing the party to access the artifact to translate some ancient texts in exchange for the canceling of his debt, fumed and threatened them, but finally relented. There was, however, he said, the issue of convincing staff wizard Finaz, for she held the password to the vault, and was the only one who knew how to use the artifact.

The party found the staff wizard in the fort library, where she was teaching a soldier how to write. Unlike her professor, she was less impressed by Entana, but agreed to help them nonetheless. Entana, Percy and Gio, accompanied by Captain Sorya and Finaz descended to the basement of the fort, while Strigoi kept the guards distracted in the mess hall with tales of how he won the various trophies which he wore around his neck, as best as he could with no knowledge of the local language.

When they reached the vault door, Finaz spoke the incantation that removed the ward on the door, and Sorya unlocked it with a large key which he kept on a chain around his neck. Inside the vault the party saw several large chests on the floor, and a few smaller ones on shelves against the walls. Taking another bunch of keys from his belt, he selected one, unlocked a small chest with it, and removed from inside it a small statuette of a scribe, and handed it to Finaz. The party then brought the statuette to the table at the guardroom, while Sorya locked the door again.

While the rest were poring over the transcripts of the texts that Percy made, Gio once more used the magic of Fortuna to lift the bunch of keys off Sorya's belt, and made an excuse to leave the room.

The texts which Percy had copied off the walls in the tomb of the Sand Lord spoke of an ancient king called Eschardon, who turned from the worship of the old gods to Anzu, who was depicted as a lion-headed eagle. The text which she had copied off the cursed tablet read that to break the curse, the cursed must bathe in the holy spring of Essilim on the day of the equinox.

Meanwhile, sneaking back to the vault, Gio called in the magic of the brooch which he had taken from the Sand Lord, and turned into a gust of wind - in such a form he passed through the keyhole, and rematerialised inside the vault! Gio set about trying the keys on the various small chests on the shelves, and just as he found the wooden sphere, he heard the others approaching the vault - there was no time to return the keys! He quickly pocketed the wooden sphere and put the replica in its place. Then, in a moment of brilliance, he inserted the key into the box which held the statuette, and hid against the wall.

Captain Sorya entered the vault, reached for the keys at his belt, had a moment of panic when he realised they were not there, looked around frantically, and heaved a sigh of relief when he saw the key still in the keyhole of the chest. He returned the statuette to the chest, locked it, shook his head at his own forgetfulness, and bade everyone to leave the vault. In the excitement he did not notice when Gio emerged from behind the door and joined the party.

When they have left the vault, Captain Sorya asked for the letter of debt from Gio, and bade them goodbye. Finaz meanwhile invited the party to join her in the library, where she said she had a book which had information of Essilim. Once she was alone with the party, Finaz confronted them and demanded to know the story behind the texts - she did not buy their cover that they had come upon the text in a library. When the party revealed the truth to her, she demanded to join them in the search for the lost city of Essilim, and the right to first pick of any magical artifact which they find there. As they knew no other means of finding Essilim, the party reluctantly agreed.

The party collected their weapons and left the fort, and after an hour Finaz joined them, and together they traveled back to Al-Madena. There, Bram and Iwan made preparations for the expedition to Essilim. It would be nearly a month till the Spring equinox, and our heroes kept themselves occupied: Strigoi practised at his martial skills, Entana made visits to the Academy, while Percy visited the markets and learned the local language.

When the day came to depart the party left Al-Madena on the pretext of journeying to Irram. For three days they traveled west into the Great Sand Sea, with Finaz navigating using a series of landmarks detailed in a book which she guarded jealously. Then on the fourth day at last they came upon the lost city of Essilim...


Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on the module The Heist at Nimressa by Jeremy Tuohy, available at DMsguild. The module as written was for a low level party, and covers an invitation to the heist, a short journey to the site of the heist, and a subplot which adds drama to the whole narrative.

I took the premise of the story and some of the NPCs for my game, but for the actual site I needed one with a battlemat with 1" grid. For this I used the Clifftop Keep from Seafoot Games, which I bought from Drivethrurpg.

I failed to prep adequately for this session, and I think it showed when I had to shuffle through my notes to find the relevant information and the NPCs' names. I had decided to leave the session pretty open, and became too complacent in the process.

I had no fixed idea on how the players would pull off the heist, but I did make it clear to them that garrison of the fort were competent and outnumbered them, that as foreigners they could easily be identified and located if they showed themselves (an orc and a gnome would stick out in Al-Kalim), that it would be difficult to smuggle anything they stole out of the Al-Madena region if it was known they took something, and that any killing of the guards will bring massive and swift retaliation not just against them, but likely against all Terrinoth merchants.

It was clear that they would have to take the stealth or the guile/blackmail approach.

When they realised that they could use the statuette without actually taking it out of the vault, it made things much easier. However, when they decided to seek the help of Shazar, I decided that he would ask for something in return; I had populated the vault with a few other magical items which I thought were appropriate and likely useful for them in the near future, in case they got greedy, and I decided that Shazar would ask for one of them to be brought to him as a price for his help.

Had they taken the stealth route, things would have been challenging, as opening the vault door required a physical key and a password (both of which I was prepared to let them bypass with lock-picking at a high DC or magic), and I had placed an Alarm spell on the inside of the vault, which would have alerted the garrison to anyone entering it without authorisation.

The players discussed sneaking into the fort inside supply carts, scaling the walls, and even getting arrested so they would be held in the jail cells in basement of the fort, but eventually decided to take the diplomatic route. This worked so well, we ran the whole session without a single combat.

Gio's player really shined this session. The players' plans entailed them distracting the captain and the staff wizard so Gio could "do his thing", and he acted on his own initiative after hearing me describe the layout of the vault and where Sorya kept his keys. While he had a magical item that allowed him to effectively cast Misty Step, he could only do so once per short rest, and once he got inside the vault there was no way he could get out in time and return the keys. When he decided to stick the key into the keyhole and hide behind the door, we all cheered at his brilliance, and I mimed the whole scene of Sorya getting shocked when he could not find his keys, and his relief and confusion afterwards.

I had Finaz fully statted out, and was prepared for the party to fight her and the rest of the garrison if things went that way. However, Entana's player surprised me a little when he asked to visit her professor, and he rolled a '20' on his Charisma check, so I had to develop her character more on the spot. I decided that she was a competitive wizard who wanted to make a name for herself, and that she was hard-boiled. I had initially intended for Iwan to serve as the party's guide to Essilim, but as there was already tension between Finaz and Entana, so I decided that it would be logical for her to want in on the expedition for her own ends, and this would let me further develop that tension in the next few sessions.

The whole reason for this session was based on the need to decipher an ancient language. By D&D rules as written the whole thing could have been solved with a Comprehend Language spell. While I understand that D&D is primarily a resource-management game where spells known and prepared are a limited resource, and such spells reward players who invest in them (at the expense of another spell), I find such spells ruin the mystery of the narrative; as such, I made the ruling that this spell did not exist in my world.

I feel the same way about spells that allow PCs to track quarry unerringly, or create food and water out of thin air, or teleport, which essentially negate the challenges of wilderness travel. I guess I want to see my game world as one where despite all the powers of magic, it is still a dangerous place and you can never be sure that you can know everything and be safe from everything.