Building Bhakashal – Session Report – Intelligence Gathering

My Friday game resumed this week. We took a long hiatus after last year because my players all had commitments in September and October. This is my longest playing group; they have been at it for 4 years now. They are all 7^th – 8^th level in experience.

Before I get to the session report, I should do a brief recap.

When you hit 8^th level in Bhakashal, you are on the cusp of being able to become a patron, at 9^th level you transition to domain play and become a Bhakashal Lord, Warlock, High Priest, etc. and start taking direct part in city politics. But to get in you need to do more than just get to 9^th level, you have to do something big for the faction to get their attention, to convince them you are a worth addition to the faction’s upper echelons.

They decided last year to enter the Bhakashal underworld to find their big thing. Once there they would establish an outpost for their Noble House and trade with the locals. Then they got there and found their first underworld city, filled with Togmu, Malu, and strange spider people. They formed a friendship with a local merchant, sharing their idea of opening up trade, and asking if there were any in the city who would be interested.

One thing led to another, and they decided that they didn’t want to establish a regular trade, they wanted to do something bigger. There were monsters here that had never been seen in the upper world, so they would capture and kill these monsters and take them back to the city, where they could be used to create new spells and magic items.

This was a far, far more important advantage to bring to their House.

But then someone got clever and asked if it was possible to create a teleportation gate of some kind, AD&D has teleportation magic, and this would allow them to bring back monsters faster than the several month long journey it had taken to get there.

Bhakashal is an open ended sandbox style setting, so the answer isn’t “yes” or “no”, it’s, “how do you want to do that?”

How to make a magic teleportation circle?

They took a few sessions figuring that out, but essentially they had to find someone who had the knowledge, and eventually, after gathering as much information as they could in the city and getting nowhere, their party priest used a high-level divination spell on a scroll to ask the higher powers where they could find what they needed. They had been saving this scroll all year, so it was a big deal to use it.

But it paid off.

The spell told them of a powerful warlock who lived in the underworld, he had a collection of tomes that included one that detailed circles of this kind. Find him, find their solution. That led to a two-week journey, where, ironically, they lost the party priest to a trio of carrion crawlers led by a hunting party of underworld Malu hunters.

They eventually found the wizard, who was a blind Yalan (snake man) who had given up his sight for various magical powers. His companion was a giant, intelligent slug. The slug “saw” for the warlock, and in exchange it was taken care of. The party decided to be friendly to the guy and it ended up he was pretty lonely in the underworld, so he agreed to help them out in finding the information they needed, in exchange for them agreeing to stay for 2 weeks and keep him company.

That gave them access to the tome that had the details on how to make a teleportation circle. There were a number of mundane components, and a design they had to make exactly right, but part of the process of creating the magical ink used to mark the circle was to slay four mind flayers, drain all of their blood, and mix it with the ink and several other ingredients (including Volt blood and ground up phase spider brains).

So that sent them off to look for an Illithid city in the underworld. Several more weeks journey, where they lost one of the two party warlocks to a trio of Umber Hulks, led them to the Illithid city. Dhargana, the illithid city, was located in an immense cave, the cave had columns of stone in a huge empty space, each column was hollowed in places to form huge caves. There was one gigantic column that held the majority of the city, and many smaller columns that held private estates. The mind flayers city existed to house the infrastructure, servants and slaves they needed to support their bodies while they explored alternate planes and realities with their minds.

At that point they had to make some decisions, as infiltrating a city of mind reading illithids wasn’t going to be easy. The city did have other races there, Vorunn (spider-folk), Emberi (humans), Togmu (frog-folk) and Malu (fish-folk) were also in the city, but the majority of Emberi were servants, laborers and slaves, and the Malu and Togmu were fishermen, hunters and mercenaries. The party would stand out as  a motley collection of overworlders (they had, for example, a Rakasta), so they decided to set themselves up posing as a renegade alchemist and his retinue, fleeing from an enemy in the overworld, wanting to set up shop in the Illithid city.

This was possible as the party has a Myrmidon, in Bhakashal, Myrmidon’s are fighter/alchemists, whose limited spells all work on potions. They also have a spell that allows them to combine the relevant components on the spot to make a potion. The Myrmidon carried a number of potions with him and could make more with various ingredients he had collected on their journey or harvested fresh.  

That is where we broke for the summer, with the party having just dropped coin to pay for a large tent from which to run their potion making business, and plans to figure out how to waylay an illithid or two…

Cue to today’s game.

We did some recap then dove right in. They decided to do business for a few weeks and see what they could learn talking to their customers. When you do stuff like this in game you can either abstract it totally (set then roll the odds of discovering something important), or you can role play it out at the table. The former can be handy, but also dull, the latter can be too time consuming.

Bhakashal’s random encounter system works for this sort of thing perfectly.

You roll for random encounters 4 times a day, at different odds, from morning to night, 1 in 12, 1 in 10, 1 in 8 and 1 in 6. With these odds, on any given day there is a roughly 40% chance you will have an encounter. Over two weeks, that means, on average 5.6 encounters. 

We rolled 8.

For each encounter, as the PCs were at the tent most of the time (they had a sleeping area in the back), the encounter had to happen there. If anyone went out and did anything, then we would roll to see where it happened if the party was not all in the same place.

Note also that the party dealt with the public more than 8 times, as vendors they would see discussion and business with many people, but only 8 of these  are “encounters” e.g., we role play them out at the table. The other visits are abstracted, and I can generate the “revenue” from those visits, if any, abstractly with a roll.

 

Encounter 1 – Day 2

Malu fishermen came in wanting something a potion of Sweet Water, during the conversation:

– “The squid-heads, they meditate all the time, that and eat brains!”

Fact this is based on: The illithids spend most of their time lost in their minds, they return to reality to eat brains and conduct affairs

 

Encounter 2 – Day 4

Thieves tried to enter the tent from the rear and encountered party members in their private section, all were sleeping but one, the party phantasmist. He heard them moving around then cutting the tent, he cast an illusion over the sleeping party members of a gigantic, coiled snake that covered the space taken up by 3 sleeping bodies. I rolled a reaction, and the thieves made off.

 

Encounter 3 Day 7

A group of Malu city guards came by the tent, they started off being vaguely threatening, making comments about outsiders and such, then they said they had heard they were hiding a monster in the back. The party showed the guards the empty space willingly, showing no evidence whatsoever that a giant snake had been there, and they left.

 

Encounter 4, Day 10

A pair of Malu hunters came in to sell animal parts to be used by the alchemist, but the price offered offended the Malu (the party gets a big negative mod to encounter reactions as outsiders) so they got angry and attacked. The party Spartan (monk) took them down weaponless and they fled. I rolled again every day to see if they came back with friends!

Encounter 5, also Day 10

A Togmu fisherman/hunter came in looking for pure salt, as the salt he normally uses to kill certain vermin infesting his catch is “dirty” and causes other problems. During conversation:

“Squidders are homebodies for sure, except for Sogogg, that crazy tentacle head is leaving on Haitam, probably hunting with the Fish-heads again!”

Fact this is based on: The illithids rarely leave the city, with few notable exceptions, one being Sogogg Brot, an Illithid that has spent time running with the Malu hunters in the caves

 

Encounter 6, Day 12

A Vorunn necromancer came into the shop, she needed a Potion of Longevity for experiments, during the conversation,

“No, the old-ones would never eat my brain, they only consume the minds of the lowest, I am more valuable to them intact”

Fact this is based on: The illithids eat the brains of slaves, servants and laborers at their leisure, otherwise they eat brains of criminals (anyone breaking a significant law is just taken to an Illithid and their brain is consumed) and random creatures captured in the caves.

 

Encounter 7

One of the party members spent the day travelling the city, and while doing so he had an encounter with a passing NPC, the PC was looking at animals that were being sold as “guard dogs” and he encountered a trio of Ettercaps, in the underworld Ettercaps interact with other groups, they are primarily hunters. The Ettercaps noticed him looking at their unique silk gear (nets, bolas, battle sashes), and started a brawl with him. Fortunately, it was the party monk, and he managed to drop them all in different ways.

 

Encounter 8

A Malu merchant came to the tent looking for a Potion of Healing. The player asked me if they could look at the monster parts they had collected to see if they had ingredients for that potion, and I told them it was so poorly lit they would need an artificial light source, so they lit a lamp.

During the discussion:

-            “Close your curtain, that fire is blinding”

Fact this is based on: The whole city is low-lit with softly glowing striated rock and flights of luminescent insects that swarm and fly through the air, as a result all of the regular inhabitants are used to extremely dim light and are light-and fire avoidant, and you rarely see fires anywhere.

If we had rolled one more encounter the city guards were going to return to ask about the monk, as he had been involved in two altercations now, both of which were seen by others.

They talked about their intel and decided to try and nail the Illithid leaving the city, he would no doubt be with guards/monsters/henchmen for protection (Illithids don’t travel alone), but less protected than he would be on his estate.

Then one of them brought up that they didn’t really know what mind flayers could DO, e.g. their powers, just some things about what they were doing, e.g., their activities.

So, to the market they headed, the plan was to pinch a servant/slave and interrogate them, surely the slaves and servants would have seen the illithids use their powers before, likely on one of their peers. They would know things.

How do you model ambushing a target in a crowded marketplace?

I told the party to come up with a plan. They said they would spend the time walking around the market and looking for opportunities to waylay someone in an area where they wouldn’t automatically be seen.

OK, I decided to model this too.

Every turn they had a 1 in 8 chance of finding a servant or slave in a situation where they could talk to them unseen while in the busy market. Also, every turn there was a 1 in 12 chance of an encounter. We rolled them simultaneously.

After an hour (6 rolls of a d8 and a d12), the d8 came up.

“You see an illithid noble riding by on his Xixia with his retinue, four burly Malu bodyguards, a large, leashed lizard of bright green hue with multifaceted yellow eyes, and a trail of Emberi slaves, each carrying a large bag on their backs. At the end of the line is a Saan, the first you have seen here, who is spotting the overstuffed bags for spillage as they move along. At once he is distracted by something between two large tents, and bolts in towards it. You have an opportunity and spring into motion, running towards the Emberi between the tents”

Now, a word about magic in Bhakashal.

The party warlock has memorized Power Word Stun as one of his spells. In Bhakashal, a warlock can memorize any level of spell. When cast, there is a chance of spell failure, and of harm to the caster. The warlock had been using this spell a decent amount, as it wasn’t lethal, and it worked well.

So when he rushed in, with the party Gyre behind him (Gyre’s in Bhakashal are raw magic users, benders, they can manipulate their particular dominion, the party had an earth gyre, essentially an Earth bender), he decided to cast Power Word Stun on the poor hapless fellow, rather than risk tussling with him and getting hurt or him getting away.

He rolled his casting odds, 82% chance of success.

95 was rolled.

The spell failed.

Failed spells have a 5% chance per level of harming the caster, 7^th level spell, 45% chance.

22 was rolled.

The warlock uttered the words of the spell and was stunned into unconsciousness on the spot for nine rounds.

This is why I love probability-based mechanics; he knew this was going to happen, but he never knows when, and each time it does happen,  there is such a gap in between that it spooks him.

I find the balance perfect.

The Gyre saved the day, when the Warlock was trying to stun the guy, the Gyre manipulated the dust and dirt  on the ground to either side of them and made a thin dome to protect them from view. In the already low light environment between buildings, it was already dark, but this would stop those who were used to low light from seeing anything.

I rolled to see what the slave would do; he cowered in fear.

The Gyre then cast a second spell; this time he used his ability to bend a metal bar into a binding for the slaves hands.

He told him that they weren’t going to hurt them, the slave looked on in confusion.

The party Gyre spoke to him in Togmu, all of the slaves knew some Togmu through their dealings with hunters and farmers, and he told him that they were looking to find out what the “Squidders” could do, as they wanted to harm them.

This produced a very positive reaction, the slave detested the illithids, so the slave asked, “If I tell you all I know, will  you let me free?”

The party was sceptical, they felt he would go back to his master and tell him of the threat, hoping to curry favor.

“If I go back to him he will read my mind, know of you, slay me for leaving his presence and then be on to you, I have no desire to die, let me flee, I can leave the city and take my chances in the caves.”

They debated this and decided on taking the information. This guy was an illithid slave for a year now, so he had seen them doing things many times. I counted up the “facts” about illithids from their description, and rolled for four of them that the slave would know. I figured the illithids would freely use their powers around slaves, so it wasn’t unreasonable that they would know things, they rolled the following:

1.           “They can read minds, but not all the time, only when they focus” (ESP)

2.           “They are not strong, but they can subtly manipulate your mind when you try and strike them, minimizing the blow” Flayers have decent Hit Dice, Hit points are not all physical, it’s left to the referee to interpret, this is my interpretation.

3.           “They can overpower your mind” - Domination ability

4.           “They can slip out of space then slip back” – Probability travel

Importantly, the slave had no knowledge of their magic resistance, so the party does not know that.

They gave the slave some coin and a dagger to defend himself and let him leave, knowing every second he was with them the odds of the Illithid noticing he was gone and would come after him increased. They then waited for the party warlock to wake and fled back to their tent.

They formulated a plan; they would try and ambush Sogogg Brot when he left the city in two days.

They still have to find him to track him when he leaves, and they don’t know what sort of party he will be leaving with, but they figure one flayer outside the city is far easier to bag than one on it’s estate or in full public view.

We stopped there.

It was a largely information gathering session, but in addition to gaining information, they tend to build anticipation, the players are thinking about their adversaries, the threats they face, and how to cheat death. Because we integrate information gathering into the encounter system, it combines both bookkeeping and role play in an entertaining way

Next session will be down to business I think.