Than Greyhawk: First encounter with the Red Shade
From AJS.COM
This article details a session storyline from the Than Greyhawk Dungeons & Dragons role playing game.
| Name: | Session #03 / The Red Shade: Part 1 |
| Date: | Planting, CY595 |
| Summary: | |
| A mysterious theif has been robbing from the rich and is rumored to be giving to the poor... | |
Contents |
Than's Offer
Than Investigations has been so flooded with business due to the successes of the party that Than simply cannot justify treating the party like hirelings any longer. He has offered to bring the characters in as full partners in the company with equal ownership of all assets. He gives the players 2 days to decide.
Fróðleikr
Fróðleikr is missing since the party came back from Nukford. He moved out of the room he was renting, and apparently left without word. No one has yet developed any leads on his location.
Cheadle
Soon after the meeting with Than, Cheadle began to dissapear again the way the whole party had previously. Colis immediately began trying to discover if there was anything that he could do to prevent Cheadle's dissapearances. A local researcher named Burdock in the Wizard's guild told Colis that he should wait out the time effect, but Thorgrim suspects that he was lying when he said that he did not know who the wizard that they saw when travelling was, so his theory is considered suspect.
The Job
The party returned to announce their decisions. Colis and Grin would take Than up on his offer, but the other party members refused, prefering to remain free agents.
After the meeting, Cynthia has work for the group. A mysterious theif named the Red Shade has been robbing from rich merchants and nobles and is rumored to be giving the wealth to the poor. The city guard have been unable to capture him, but wish to be the ones to perform the actual capture. To this end, they want Than Investigations to find out his identity so that the guard can capture him.
Three likely locations are known:
- The Clockwork Wizard - A specialty magic supply shop which was robbed by the Shade once before. They were to receive a new shipment that night.
- The Dirty Flaggon - A seedy tavern near the docks where the poor of Verbobonc claim to have heard of the Red Shade distributing his stolen wealth.
- Barter Alley - An alley, near which the Red Shade has been spotted.
Cynthia suggests a few combinations of staking out some or all of the locations, with focus on The Clockwork Wizard because of the fact that it's likely to be hit that night or never.
The party decided to send a single person to check out The Dirty Flaggon during the day, and then have one group stake out The Clockwork Wizard and one go watch the docks for the shipment.
The shade's warning
The shipment never arrived at the docks, but the party did discover the Red Shade at The Clockwork Wizard, where he made a clean get-away due to his amazing agility, and ability to leap across entire streets, via rooftops. However, he returned later to corner Joshua and delivered a message for him:
- I don't know you, but I have a message for you: The Clockwork Wizard is owned by your father and Rondil. You will meet again sooner than you think.
After delivering that cryptic phrase, the Shade lept away, but Cynthia felt that Joshua's description of the Shade and his voice was a good start, and enough to pass back to the city guard to get further instructions.
The Pomarj Job
Meanwhile, Than has a new job for the team. He has been negotiating with the orcs of the Pomarj, and the job is this: find a group of missing orcish scouts who were last seen near the town of Danube, near Carpenter's Cove and the Dark River. He also received an almost identical job from the Principality of Ulek, but turned them down due to the conflict of interest, and the assumption that Colis and Gylfi would prefer to work for the orcs over the humans who have been killing them for a decade, and enslaved them previosly. Than felt that this would not be taken well by Ulek, but Verbobonc is not technically in a state of war with the Pomarj orcs, and there is no ban against doing non-military service work for them (like there is against importing their goods). This job certainly skirts the edge of what is allowed by the Visicount, but Than's connections are strong enough that he feels he can take on the work and remain untouched.
The party, however, was concerned. The disapearence of Cheadle is still on their minds, and they wish to discover what is happening to him (the last time they saw him, he reported being in a strange and terrifying place that research showed is likely Mechanus. If Colis' fate is truly tied to Cheadle's, then this may mean that Colis will be in Mechanus at some point in the future....
Because of this, debate arose between Than and Colis as to whether to go directly to the Pomarj (which might resolve the Wizards prophesy that they would travel south before unleashing this temporal calamity). Colis, on the other hand, wanted to go to the Free City of Greyhawk to see if he could find more knowledgable (and perhapsh more trustworthy) wizards to help figure out what's up with Cheadle. Than eventually suggested that Colis go to see Than's fortune teller and find out what choice makes the most sense. Meanwhile, Than would research other options that might help Cheadle.
Than returned with much thed same sort of information as the party had discovered earlier, and Colis' trip to the fortune teller indicated that he should resist the fated path that he was being shown, since anything else could emperil Cheadle.
