With only two days to plan and execute the kidnapping, our villains split up to gather information and help.
They learned that the College of Sorcery is housed in what was previously a fort on an island on a tributary of the Goldflow river. The college is connected to the Great Temple of Libra via an exclusive sheltered wooden bridge, which Morgana and the senior members of the college would use to go to Goncol's funeral.
Making the rounds around the city, they learned that Morgana was guarded by her own personal bodyguards, known as the Black Guards, who were formidable warriors, and considered themselves above the law. Morgana was guarded by at least a dozen of the Black Guards every time she left the college - a head-on confrontation was not going to work.
They also learned that there was much unhappiness among the populace over the corruption of the nobles and the college elites, among of whom were the merchant Bertrand, who held most of the college's contracts - from supplying food, laundry, to the hiring of non-academic staff - but had not been receiving his payments as promised by the Bursar.
With these information at hand, our villains formulated their plan.
They convinced Bertrand that they would gain leverage over the Bursar and ensure that he received his payment if he could get them into the college. Thus, the day before the funeral Gearfried, posing as Bertrand's assistant, visited the Bursar at his office inside the college to try to collect on the debt, while Malus, disguised as a food deliveryman, entered the college via the service entrance.
The Bursar fobbed Bertrand off with vague promises, but during that time Gearfried was able to surmise where he kept his ledgers.
Malus meanwhile deposited the tainted onions which would cause food poisoning to the whole college, and then sneaked off to explore the grounds. He was confronted by Morgana's Butler, who ordered him to be seized and locked up in the gatehouse, where he would await his execution the next day as a suspected thief.
Back at the tavern, the party learned of Malus' fate from the town crier. They were counting on Malus' reconnaissance for information on the grounds, and now they would have to do without it.
The tainted onions did their work, and many of the college staff came down with food poisoning. A call went out to Bertrand to supply temporary staff to the college.
Zamm and Horovar were hired as guards, and at the first opportunity they tracked down Malus and freed him. Malus gave what information he had learned about the grounds to the two, and helped disguise Horovar as the Butler using the disguise kit they stole from Goncol's mansion, and afterwards, his nerves shot, he fled the college.
Zhora, Zul, and Silent entered the college as servants. Silent, using the information given to him by Gearfired, broke into the Bursar's office, stole the ledger, and left. Later, Gearfried would determine that the Bursar had in fact been diverting funds from the college to his own purse instead of paying Bertrand, and the merchant would use that information to not just get repaid in full, but also secure contracts for many years to come...
Zhora and Zul took a trolley of bed linen from the laundry room, and made their way to the academic staff quarters, where they eventually found Morgana's chamber, guarded by two Black Guards. Zhora was allowed into the chamber, where she found a weakened Morgana in bed. She offered Morgana a drugged drink, and when she fell into a deep sleep, placed the silver torc V had given them around her neck.
Just then the door to the chamber opened, and Horovar, disguised as the Butler, entered. Together, they bundled Morgana into a bedsheet, and hid her in the trolley. They then wheeled the trolley out, and rejoined Zamm and Zul.
Horovar shed his disguise and put on his guard uniform again, and together the four made their way to the wooden bridge. There, Horovar and Zamm sent the two guards away, claiming to be their relief, and opened the door to the bridge.
Zhora and Zul then began to lower Morgana to the river with a rope. At the same time, Penn, who was waiting with a boatmen they had hired, began to approach the bridge.
Their actions did not go unnoticed, and an alarm began to go out. Zamm and Horovar despatched the two guards at the far end of the bridge by throwing them over the side of the bridge, and jammed the door shut.
Guards gathered on the battlements of the college walls, but the archers were afraid of shooting for fear of harming Morgana. One by one Zhora, Zul, Horovar, and Zamm lowered themselves or jumped into the river, but not before Horovar destroyed the supports of the bridge using acid, causing the whole structure to collapse into the water.
The boatman rowed towards the harbour, but going was slow - Zamm and Zul went once more into the water, and swam for the bank.
Arriving at the bank, Zul made his way to the Great Temple, where a crowd had gathered in anticipation of the free bread and ale that would be given away at Goncol's funeral, and started a rumour that there was not enough bread for everyone. This soon led to a riot, which impeded the progress of the guards sent to intercept the boat.
The boat, now lighter, approached a stone bridge that spanned the river before it joined the Goldflow river. A thick steel chain spanned the river, cutting off their escape. Standing on the bridge were four Black Guards, and they held grappling hooks in their hands.
Penn nocked arrows to his bow, and shot at the Black Guards when they came into range. His arrows found their mark through the joints in the armour of the Black Guards, and one by one they went down. Meanwhile, Horovar set a bunch of herbs he carried with him, which let out a thick cloud of acrid smoke whaich hid them.
Horovar lowered Morgana into the water, leaving only her face above the water. Then, covering her face with the handkerchief of invisibility they stole from Goncol's vault, he drew a big breath, dove under the water, and dragged Morgana behind him as he swam to the bank.
Penn and the boatman likewise made their escape, but Zhora, too weak to swim to safety, was swept along by the current of the water, until she reached the steel chain that spanned the river.
Horovar reached the bank of the river, and here he was met by Gearfried, who had monitored their progress from the bank. Leaving Morgana to Gearfried, Horovar raced to the stone bridge and rescued Zhora.
By now the riot had escalated, and there were fires in several parts of the city, and in the chaos our villains were able to deliver the limp form of Morgana to the waiting ship at the harbour, and then vanish into the crowd...
That evening they once again met V at The Hanged Man, where they were given their promised reward, and asked to meet him again the next day, once he had extracted the information he needed.
Prepping and Running the Game
This mission was based on Kidnap the Archpriest, also by Skerples. I was first introduced to the module by a Youtube review, and had wanted to run it for the longest time - our "evil" campaign allowed me to finally do so.
I had to make several changes to the module, but I preserved the core premises: the party had to kidnap a VIP guarded by formidable warriors, alive, and bring him/her to the harbour. I also kept the map, which I believe saved me a lot of time.
Now the actual heist planning and execution took place over a session and a half, with the players abandoning their initial plan halfway and then improvising on the plan they ultimately decided on. The account above is a very abridged version of the shenanigans that they engaged in.
One thing about the original module puzzled me though. The college/castle building is connected to the Temple/Cathedral via a sheltered wooden bridge, which the priests would use to attend the ceremony at the latter site. Curiously, in the original module the Archpriest (the target of the kidnapping) is known to not be attending the event. It seemed like such a Chekov's gun that I could not bring myself to make that the case in my game, planning perhaps to later announce that Morgana had decided at the last moment to not attend, if the players did not plan to seize her when she is crossing the bridge.
Players being players, the became fixated on the bridge - which is fair as this was the one place they could be relatively sure Morgana would be passing through at a pre-known time. To make it easier for them to visualise the bridge and plan, I decided that the bridge looked like this one:
It seemed just about open enough for them to attempt to seize Morgana when she crosses the bridge, but eventually the decided that taking on a dozen Black Guards was not a viable option.
They also explored other options and did some prep work which did not end up being used, such as getting some expensive clothes and armour with the intention of disguising themselves as nobles, and scouting out the Temple grounds. Other work they did, like learning that the crowd could be incited to riot, hiring a 'transporter', and finding Bertrand the merchant and figuring out how to make use of his contact with the college, were cobbled together to form their final plan.
I was pretty happy with their eventual plan of poisoning the whole college and then infiltrating the place as temp staff, as well as their clever use of the handkerchief of invisibility to get Morgana off the boat and to the bank.
The whole heist did come close to falling apart (as it happens in heist movies) when Malus was caught, but thanks to his tempering with the lock on the doors to the college's treasury, it was assumed that he was just a thief, and I did not have to put the whole college on alert or bring forward Morgana's plans to leave.
We are just one session away from ending the campaign, but unfortunately for us new COVID restrictions mean that we will not be able to meet again until at least the middle of June.
I hope to spend this time planning my next campaign, and perhaps put up a post about creating characters for that campaign for my players, and inviting my readers to create NPCs for the campaign too. Stay tuned.
