the one with the Wedding

Last week in our Swords & Wizardry campaign came the wedding of the Leader of the Company of the Black Dragon and the alchemist Alayna. I have been thinking about whether to stage some incidents or a full adventure for the wedding for about a month. And I never really had a clear idea of how to handle it. I had nice maps for the Church of St Cuthbert where the ceremony would take place and the Ten Bells (now renamed Sign of the Purple Bugbear) Tavern. So it seemed a shame not to use them. But it also seemed unfair to attack the players on their one chance to relax.

I looked online for any adventures that took place during a wedding and bought a few. But none of them hit the right tone. The best was probably "Wedding Day" in Dungeon Magazine 59. But it was played for laughs and even a rewrite did not seem to hit the right note. So I decided to wing it based on what the players did. I created a couple of sub-plots and let them play out to see if the players interacted with either of them. One involved the bride's estranged father coming to the wedding. Nevain is a notorious poisoner who currently works for the Earl of Calwell. He has many enemies in the city who might challenge him or try to kill him. Another involved a single assassin sent by the last leader of the Veiled Society, Zweis Radu from his exile in the Shattered Islands. I had wedding guests invited from merchant families that hated each other and were prone to start fights. And finally, I had the local gang in the neighborhood of Eathwund's new Tavern try to shake him down for protection.

In all, we got a session out of it and everyone seemed fairly happy with it. During the wedding, I had to handle a lot of NPCs as everyone in town who had interacted with the party was invited to the wedding (see the in-game map below).

Session 53: The Wedding

Lakima (human magic-user), Eathwund (human fighter), Alonso (human fighter), Aashdoshan (human necromancer), Domago (human cleric NPC), Lantosh (human fighter NPC), Fenris the Filch (human thief NPC).

Accompanied by Fenris, Aashdoshan the necromancer arrives at a cemetery a mile south of Edgerton. He sees a flickering light in the window of a small caretaker shed. As they get closer he also sees activity in the graveyard. Aashdoshan tells Fenris to flank around covering him and he approaches the grave where two men are brazenly removing a buried body. Aashdoshan raises the removed body as it rests on the ground and his own pair of skeletons. One of the grave robbers screams and flees. The other levels his shovel at the risen skeleton and attacks it destroying it. Fenris fires a crossbow bolt at the grave robber hitting him in the shoulder. As Aashdoshan approaches, this second man runs away.

Aashdoshan directs his skeletons to finish packing up the skeleton on the ground. As they work on this task the caretaker appears with a lantern demanding to know what is going on. Aashdoshan placates the caretaker by paying him his “standard” fee and then departs with several skeletons in his sack. He hides the sack outside the town and returns to the Chapter House.

The next day, Lakima receives a message from Alayna telling him that her father has arrived for the wedding. Lakima heads over to her shop and home. He hears raised voices from outside the door to the shop. Lakima enters and casts Friends on Alayna’s father Nevain. Nevain immediately changes his demeanor and warmly greets his new son-in-law. After Nevain leaves for the Inn where he is staying, Alayna suspiciously asks Lakima what he did.

Alonso heads over to Cromly’s smithy and pays the smith the 2800 gold fee required for the smith to turn the black dragon scales into a suit of armor. Eathwund checks in on the progress at the Tavern. to see if it is ready for the wedding reception. Issac the carpenter tells him that a pair of men tried to run his workman off of the site, claiming there were new owners. He did not believe them. Eathwund pays Issac extra to get the exterior of the tavern cleaned up before the wedding which is in three days.

Over the next few days, preparations are completed for the Wedding of Lakima and Alayna. On the wedding day, the members of the Company travel to the Church of St. Cuthbert, and the guests begin to arrive. Before the ceremony can begin there is a brief scuffle between members of the opposing Torenescu and Vorloi merchant families. But it is quickly diffused. The ceremony is presided over by their old friend Abbot Marta and most of the name families in Edgerton are in attendance.  Once the ceremony is complete both Alonso and Eathwund are forced to intervene when an unknown guest draws a venom-coated dagger and moves to attack Lakima. The man disappears as soon as he is spotted. Lakima calms the crowd with a speech assuring them that they were not the target.

Most of the wedding party moves to the Sign of the Purple Bugbear tavern. Lakima and Alayna open gifts from their friends. Alayna is thrilled with the gift of a magical guardian from the Vorloi family. Lakima accepts a magical arrow from Ennio NeMoren. One of the last gifts opened contains a distinctive Veiled Society cloak - a clear warning. Checking the packaging they find it has no sender name on it. Wine is poured and prepared for toasts but Nevain throws his wine to the floor and warns everyone that it is poisoned. Just then, Grygori Vorloi stumbles to the floor having quaffed his wine early. Abbot Marta prays over Grygori healing him. The guests then begin to leave a few families at a time.

Late in the evening, only a few people remain. Lakima and Alayna have gone to her home. A drunken friend Nash is helped upstairs to a bed. Only Abbot Marta, Lantosh, Fenris, and Domago are in the tavern room watching the servers start the clean-up. Suddenly, one of the servers approaches Domago and stabs him with a dagger. The man then runs out through the kitchen. Fenris goes quickly in pursuit. Marta and Lantosh run to Domago’s aid. Eathwund and Nevain return from the second floor and see the situation. Nevain quickly concocts an antidote to the snake poison that is in the wound and saves Domago from death. Meanwhile, upstairs, Eathwund and Nevain find a dead man lying in one of the beds in the clothes of a server.

Domago is put in a room on the second floor. They learn that the man who stabbed Domago was disguised as the server who they found dead upstairs. The other servers tell them the man was named Ballard. Lantosh and Marta leave. Eathwund spends the night on guard in the tavern room. Early in the morning, he is awoken by someone nailing a dead crow to his tavern door. He examines the crow and finds a message in its gullet. It says “Leave Town”. Nevain arrives and lets Eathwund know that Domago will sleep a while longer but appears to be okay. Nash leaves. Eathwund heads over to the magistrates once Issac and the other carpenters arrive. Eathwund learns that he is the sole owner of the tavern. No one else has made a claim. He also goes to Lawlord Colten Brightmoor to report the incidents at the tavern. Brightmoor listens and agrees to stand extra watch around the tavern. Brightmoor also tells Eathwund about rumors that the old Black Dragon of the cursed marshes has been spotted around the Hillside villages. In that same region, people have been going missing. He tells Eathwund of a bounty on the head of the dragon. Eathwund returns to the Chapter House and tells everyone who is there what he has learned. Aashdoshan pays a visit to Ballard’s home and gifts the widow with some coin.

That evening Eathwund is again on guard in the Tavern. He is awakened by noises outside and catches a thug trying to set fire to the tavern. He subdues the thug and takes him over to the Chapter House. Lakima arrives and everyone convenes in the common room. Fenris tells them the man he chased from the Tavern lost him. In his opinion, the man is a professional killer. The thug is questioned and threatened with one of Aashdoshan’s skeletons. The man tells them he is in the Wallis' gang (the Emerald Street gang) and they were paid to run Eathwund out of town. Lakima sends the man away with a message for the gang leader Wallis. Later that day a message arrives from the same gang promising no further issues. The local thieves apparently thoroughly terrified of the Company of the Black Dragon.

Lakima and Aashdoshan head over to the Apothecary and speak to Malyn. Lakima tells Malyn he needs a protector spirit for Alayna since he will be leaving town. Malyn asks why and Lakima explains the assassination attempts. Malyn tells Lakima he does not know the Invisible Stalker spell but he does have another ritual in mind - if Lakima can afford to pay for it. A sum is agreed upon and Malyn takes Lakima and Aashdoshan back into the concealed Temple of the Dark Lady. Malyn manages to Contact a Higher Plane and is awarded the answers to three questions. They learn that an assassin has been paid by Zweis Radu of the Veiled Society to kill Lakima (the spell actually uses Lakima’s true name), Eathwund, and Domago. They also learn that the assassin is currently at the Purple Bugbear Tavern.

The Wedding Map