Well, it's been long enough since the last game that I figure it's time for a new AP thread.

That said, I need ideas for an underground library and fast. We're going into the undercity (dungeon crawls are easy to prep and run) and I need some way to let the new players get caught up.

Games so far (and what they need to know)...

Game 1: A relic that suppressed undead from the old empire, and allowed communication with dead royalty from the current dynasty, got stolen. Players were sent to retrieve it, and did.

Game 2: Nothing special.

Game 3: Players lost the urn in a hostage exchange. It got smashed. Hints that the original theft had to do with plans for a coup (setup for much later in the campaign).

Game 4: Murder mystery. NPCs introduced. No need to introduce them in this adventure.

Game 5: One NPC that died came back as the big bad.

Game 6: Big bad is planning to turn the town into ghouls and do something that'd allow ghouls to walk in daylight. Currently, they have to stay in the undercity at night. This is the big thing I want to somehow introduce.

Thoughts on undercity library adventures? Thoughts on what might live down there? How to introduce several new players to the stuff that's been going on lately?

Well, I ran the one shot and I'll tell you about it later. For now, I've got to fill in the blanks for some prep I did a while back.

The idea this adventure is just to have the PCs wander around the city trying to figure out what to do now that they know the villain's plans.

To recap, the players were able to find out earlier that the bread being handed out by a local church was tainted and would turn the town people into zombies. They also found out that there was this other ritual to be performed that would allow the ghouls and undead from the undercity to walk about aboveground in the day.

There's stuff going on around town besides that too.

The path of light (such an original name for a cult) is passing out the bad bread in the square.

Merton Blaggart (from previous adventures a noble that lost his money and always overdressed) got a good deal of his money back thanks to sponsoring the party barbarian in a competition, and he's getting all involved with the path of light now, sponsoring them and acting like he's found faith or whatever.

The Fairweathers are the guys behind stealing the urn and are still planning on that coup. Recently they captured Alan Smith, sort of the local sheriff or what have you. Players don't have to find this out, but it'll be an added bonus if they do. They may find out if they follow up on the changeling lead.

The changeling (still haven't named it, but what changeling gives his name?) escaped from prison recently. Players have already met with this one a couple of times and they hate his guts. He's masquerading as Alan Smith, sort of the local sheriff, and he's going to be really arrest-happy with these guys if they cross paths.

Besides that, there are other NPCs. Elden Milwitch is the ever-rich ever-bland patron character, a member of a rival merchant family to the Fairweathers. There's the toymaker, who is so irrelevant to anything, but the players keep going back to him because apparently they like tinker gnomes. Last week he gave our beguiler a pocket watch that enhances his hypnosis. Oh, and the farmer family (from the second adventure... there's this recurring theme where things always suck for these guys) are finally financially stable thanks to the path of light recruiting them to make the bread. This could be really awkward for the party.

My big hope is that one or more of the PCs make a fuss in the square with the path of light folks and merton blaggart. If this happens, I'll have an excuse to have the changeling arrest one or more of the players and run a break out / rescue scene. Players may even pick up on the changeling's identity if they get mean with him.

After that, there are many ways this could go. Generally, though, players expressed interest in being bad guys early on and I haven't given them enough of a chance to do that. I want to sic the system on them and have them be badasses for a session or so. So if they want to, this is the session where they beat up a rich guy at a charity auction, break out of prison, burn down somebody's house, or what have you.

Besides that there are a bunch of things they could do and I want to make sure I'm ready with (at the very least) some random generators, generic building maps, or what have you.

The party includes (at least) some warlocks (one a cross class cleric, the other a cross class fighter), a druid, and a beguiler (pretty much an enchanter) who wants to try out his hypnosis, and maybe some others. Others that may show up include a pyromaniac duskblade (fighter mage), an orc barbarian that wants to wreck stuff, and a dread necromancer.

The session turned out way different than I expected, and yet I ran it just fine. I am unsure of what happens next, and quite excited about it.

The barbarian didn't show up, so the players spent most of the session doing everything they could *but* start shit in the square for most of the session. Some of it was really smart.

Then they finally went and started shit in the square. It was a mass melee, but smart applications of a few spells burnt out the foodstuffs and allowed the party to escape. They've even taken Blaggart with them.

On the downside, I didn't get to use the changeling thing to expose the connections between the Fairweathers and the planned coup. On the plus side, I get to use that next session (Pat's back in town, and his character beat the shit out of the changeling, so this could be really fun). And another plus is that the party has befriended the Fairweathers. Some weird could ensue.

More later, when I'm thinking more clearly.

So I've waited long enough to give you the detailed report. Here it is.

Players.
Andrew: Has had near-perfect attendance since the start of this thing and is playing a human 4th level cleric of Corellian cross classed warlock. It's a gimped build (in theory), but he's actually a little ahead of the party in terms of gear and experience, and is a canny player. So it all works out. He's a little antagonistic, but is great to have around because he also really moves things along.

Steven: Was a late-comer to the party, but has been one of our more regular players as well. Unlike Andrew, Linnea, or Miranda, he doesn't live near enough to the rest of us that we can host games at his place, but he does secretary work like tracking initiative, treasure, etc. He's playing a 3rd or 4th level warlock fighter combo minmaxed for damage spam with improved unarmed strike and hideous blow.

Josh: Was there from the start, but wasn't able to show up as much as he'd like during the school year. This summer, he's kind of turned into one of the more regular players. He's playing a straight beguiler (enchantment and illusion spellcaster) and has had the rotten luck of having only showed up for dungeon crawls, so far full of non-humanoid challenges. This adventure was his first time really being able to mess with the NPCs like his character was built to do.

Miranda: Is a new player. Probably going to be a regular, and able to offer us a place to stay in future games. A place with a deck suitable for outdoor gaming. She's playing a druid. Kind of doesn't know what to do when called on to participate... even on her initiative in combat. We'll see how all that goes.

Setup
So in previous sessions, we established that the ghouls were rising in the undercity, that there was some undead badass with big plans, and that the church handing out bread was connected. Long story short, if the villagers eat the bread they get ghoul fever. It's setup for a kind of zombiepocalypse scenario. Oh, additionally I kind of throw in that Blaggart and the Path of Light are sort of working together.

The Game

The Bakery
The players get right to work tracing the bread back to its source at the Farmer family's bakery. In previous sessions, the players burnt down the Farmers' old wheat farms by accident in a mass melee with a horde of ghouls. Then the farmers went deep in debt to the Fairweather family with the failed bakery. Then one of the sons was strangled to death by a flesh golem.

Now the players go into the Farmers' bakery, and find that business is booming thanks to its new support from the Path of Light. Josh, our beguiler disguises himself as best he can before trying to sneak in the back door. Meanwhile, Andrew goes in the front to talk with the old woman at the head of the family, Harriet Farmer. Andrew finds out what he can... mainly that the Farmers have no idea what's going on, and that the Path of Light is having the bakery add "dietary supplements" to the bread. Meanwhile, Josh manages to nab some of the "supplements" from a burlap sack... it's like dirt that smells like rotted meat. Finally Josh botches some stealth rolls and Andrew bluffs all crazy, knocking over a display case of bagels or something so that Harriet will pick it up rather than hear Josh in the kitchen.

The Toymaker
From there, a few of the players go to visit the toymaker... my tinker gnome NPC. I know there are those of you who dislike tinker gnomes, and I agree that as racial monocultures (already silly) go, this one's pretty silly, but one guy with an oddities shop in town works great. He doesn't have much to give them here except Linnea's character's corpse... she got ghoulified after eating some bad bread. Apparently she's got the key to a safe deposit box in the local post office where the PCs can find the pages she copied from "the book." Players recently found an incomplete copy in a dungeon crawl, and coupled with the pages Linnea's gnome copied, the party was able to figure out more specifics on Dr. Isenbecker's plan to turn the city into ghouls.

The Papers
Specifics were things Linnea's character discovered in a previous adventure. Mainly three rituals. One would allow the ghouls of the undercity to walk unhindered in daylight (currently they have to stay underground at night or revert to inanimate corpses.. though they'll reanimate again at nightfall). Another would produce tainted bread and soup that could spread ghoul fever. The final ritual would seal the ghouls in the undercity permanently. All three rituals require the use of "the ghoul king."

An Appointment
Players wanted to check if they could get help from the local merchant families fairly early on. The first group they went for was the Milwitch family, who sponsored Steven's character in a sort of illicit fighting ladder match in a previous adventure. Players were unable to go in immediately, but managed to schedule some kind of appointment at nightfall. Players were immediately "OMGHOULS" about this. Isn't what's going on, but I almost wonder if it would be better to go with that.

Fairweather Estate
Next, of course, players headed over to the Fairweather estate. They had helped solve the murder of one of the Fairweather daughters (her first name escapes me at the moment) in a previous adventure. Players were initially unable to gain entry, but a quick disguise spell got Josh (AKA Baron William of Snellville) and Steven's character in fairly quickly. They were taken to the study/library, where they chatted for a bit and looked at the books on the shelf. Then they discussed with Otis Fairweather how the one responsible for his daughter's death had risen from the grave, and how he intended to turn the town into undead like himself (at this point, they used the copied pages and the incomplete copy of "the book" to make their case). Otis gave them what help he could with his knowledge of the old capital and what have you, and hinted that "the ghoul king" may be a more religious figure rather than literal royalty. He was, however, unable to help them locate the king.

Out of Character
There was a bit of discussion about where to go from there. Players actually caught on to a few things on mulling it over that they had missed initially. For example, why would Merton Blaggart be putting his newfound wealth behind the Path of Light? Steven and Andrew remember when they first met him that he was in (unrequited) love with Ms. Fairweather, who died in that adventure. They figured that Dr. Isenbecker had probably promised to bring her back. Eventually, the group settled on sabotaging the food itself during the dinner rush.

Mass Melee in the Square
The fight in the square was made much more confusing (and awesome) by Miranda's druid's spells. To start with, Miranda sabotaged the soup with a rat swarm. In the following round, Steven ran up punched Merton Blaggart and damn near knocked him out in one punch. Shortly thereafter, members of both the path of light and the city watch came down on those two. The head honcho of the Path of Light, Thomas Black, gained new relevance when he pulled out a ridiculously oversized heavy flail and engaged Steven with the rest of the crew. In subsequent rounds, there was a flaming sphere on the bread and, a fog cloud to aid escape, and a command spell to prevent Blaggart from getting far when he started to run away. Everything else is kind of a blur, but most of the party managed to escape, and somehow Steven coerced Blaggart into running off with him (he told Blaggart that he could help him get back Ms Fairweather, and Blaggart couldn't escape, fight, or call on his guards). Somehow, the cleric got left behind. He actually didn't really join the fray for most of the fight, but caught Thomas Black's attention somehow after everyone else had left. Thomas feinted, sneak attacked, and dropped Andrew's guy down to one hit point with one attack. Andrew was (as they say in the business) in deep shit. His solution? SANCTUARY. God I hate that spell. Anyway, a confusing fight and a half later, Andrew also manages to escape, if only barely.

And that was the session more or less... the big unexpected thing was that the players managed to kidnap Blaggart. Thought on follow up in an upcoming post.