Difference between revisions of "The Bloodsworn, Part 1"

Revision as of 19:31, 3 January 2007

About the Saga

In the wake of their battle with the shadow demon Argolith, the Blackrazors learn of the the Bloodsworn, a cult of fanatical followers of the demonic tyrant known as the Bloodlord.

Timeframe

• Greyhawk Date: Flocktime 21, CY 591
• Real World Date: September 7, 2003
• Read other Blackrazor Guild Sagas

Cast of Characters

• Gaiseric, "Scrappy"
• Kalib Ironfist,
• Greggor,

Notable Quotes

" His name was Argolith. And he wanted me to betray the entire guild and serve the Blood Lord, I said no." -- Gaiseric

What Has Come Before

The identity of the murderer who recently haunted Obsidian Bay has been captured and revealed to be the Blackrazor Guild member Gaiseric. Scrappy had been possessed by a shadow demon, who had been attempting to corrupt the rouge into serving the Blood Lord of the Plains of Chaos, an old enemy with an undying desire to see the Blackrazors brought low. The Blackrazors are now dealing with the aftershocks of "The Shadow Within" and have called in their heavy hitters to hunt down and destroy the shadow demon.

The Saga

Flocktime 21, CY 591

Recoverign from the Shadow

"His name was Argolith. And he wanted me to betray the entire guild and serve the Blood Lord," Gaiseric said, trying to force his fellow Blackrazors to look him in the eye as they gathered back at the guild hall on the early morning hours of Flocktime 21. "I said no."

"And we're supposed to be grateful for this?" Kalib Ironfist scowled at him. "Why didn't you tell Erilar and the others about your 'lost time' after being attacked by the Sellswords?"

"Well, it didn't seem important…" Scrappy said reluctantly.

"Not important … not important?! It got Ellington killed!" the Trithereonite hollered. Scrappy, who had been killed by his friends in the final battle at the Shop of the Mundane, had been able to be raised by the Church of St. Cuthbert (although he found himself once again pressed into service for the church, this time at the orphanage). Ellington though, had been killed by the demon, and like all of its victims, his soul was caught in a dark abyss from which it could not escape.

"So what 'important' things can you tell us known?" Kalib pressed.

Scrappy squirmed uncomfortably. "That's about it. I didn't get very much from him -- just what he told me … at the end."

Kalib turned to the other Blackrazors. "All right, we're going to have to find those answers without Scrappy's help". He quickly ran through what the party already knew.

Upon returning to the Blackrazor Guild hall with the fallen bodies of Scrappy and Ellington, the Blackrazors had immediately sought out their "A Team" members, as well as the cleric Ironsoul from the Church of St. Cuthbert. By sunrise on Flocktime 21, they believed they had pieced together what they were dealing with.

Argolith, Servant of the Blood Lord

Argolith was a shadow demon, an exceptionally rare type of fiend that usually served powerful demon lords. As a race, shadow demons usually served their masters a corrupting agents on the prime, and they were particularly adept at possession. This particular shadow demon, however, had powers that exceeded those of his "typical" kin, allowing him to stay in possession of a victim for hours, not the normal seconds or even minutes of the average possession. It was this unique ability that allowed him to take control of Scrappy and use him to kill the Sellswords, Calvin Cloudmore and the leader of the Darksea Guild.

The demon was also apparently a spellcaster of not-insignificant power. In addition to seeing the demon evoke a spell that ripped Fontain's hand from his wrist, they had evidence that the creature was able to shield itself from divination. After the fight they found several different spell components on Gaiseric's body, components that the rogue didn't even realize he was carrying. Research conducted by the guild's spellcasters revealed that some of the spells mundane in nature, but others … others were profoundly vile in a way never before seen. One spell allowed the demon to grow stronger every time it dealt a certain amount of damage to an opponent. Another, called "psychic poison", allowed the caster not only to protect himself from divination spells, but to cause mental damage to the individual doing the divining. And then there was the spell that turned Fontain's hand into an undead spectre.

Finally, the guild had confirmed that the wounds dealt by the demon were far from ordinary. Ironsoul's research into Calvin Cloudmore's death reviled that the source of the damage deal was considered to be "vile", meaning that it was actually empowered by the basest evil of the Abyss. While the fiend who dealt it was still alive, wounds it caused would not heal, and those it killed could not be raised. The only possible exception to this that Ironsoul could see would be to take the wounded or dead individual to one of the good-aligned planes and hope that plane's very nature would be enough to sever the vile connection long enough for the damage to be healed, and for the slain to be resurrected.

Kalib was further infuriated by this discovery, but stayed focused enough to realize that now, deprived of his spell components, the Blackrazors should be able to divine additional information about their vile foe.

Hunting he Bloodsworn

The Blackrazors quickly pooled their divining abilities, casting commune, contact other plane and other, lesser spells. By the time they were done, they had learned quite a bit about their opponent … and his allies.

The demon Argolith had been summoned to the Prime Material Plane by a group of cultists who called themselves "The Bloodsworn". These demon worshippers venerated The Blood Lord, the demon prince who'd once taken over Obsidian Bay, and whose forces had been banished from the city by the Blackrazors. These followers rose to prominence during the demonic invasion, and fell mightly when the Blackrazors shattered the Blood Lord's foothold.

They fled the city when it was liberated and took refuge in the UnderOerth, in a lair that lie beyond the Horns of Medusa. There they continued their demon-worshipping ways, occasionally sending some of their followers back to Obsidian Bay to capture prisoners to be used in vile experiments or offered up as sentient sacrifices.

It was this dependency on Obsidian Bay for slaves that proved their undoing. The Blackrazors were told by one of their extraplaner sources that they could uncover the Bloodsworn's lair if they "followed the Unwanted."

During the day on Flocktime 21, the party used Greggor's and Scrappy's extensive contacts to determine that "the Unwanted" was a slang term for the refuges clogging Obsidian Bay's Mudsitters District.

Further checks among the “Unwanted” community revealed that there had been several disappearances among their ranks over the last few weeks. It was nothing that had risen to the level of the city guard, but people had noticed that certain loners just seem to … disappear. Most seem to vanish in and around Muckway Alley, a particularly dank and depressing corridor deep in the heart of the Mudsitters District.

These individuals were on the very fringe of even Unwanted society – drunks, lunatics and others no one really misses. The two most recent disappearances were a human drunk who used to panhandle outside of the Alley, on Dorn Street and Darna, a crazed, homeless half-elf woman who believed she was a banshee. Urt disappeared on Planting 4, Darna on Planting 24.

They knew what they had to do, now they just needed to heal their friends of the vile damage they'd suffered. The guild traveled to the outer planes on Flocktime 22 and were able to find a sufficiently good aligned place to raise Ellington and heal the vile wounds that others in the party had suffered. They then returned to the city, rested, and prepared to hunt the Bloodsworn.

On Flocktime 23, armed with their knowledge of the Bloodsworn's "feeding habits" and a Find the Path spell cast by Kalib, the Blackrazors were able to trace the route of those who had abducted the "Unwanted" from Muckway Alley to the Wharf District, where they were unsurprised to find that the path continued into the Black Gulch. The followed the path into the Gulch and then into the city's sewer system, continuing until their magical divinations revealed the secret location of of one of the Cult's enclaves: The Den of Bile.

Continued in The Bloodsworn, Part 2