Nightshade & Cream - Session 1

Unfortunately, we've had time for only one game in this campaign. Here is what has transpired so far. 

"It is the evening of the summer solstice and the sun is beginning its long descent below the horizon. The tiny chorusing frogs of the reedy banks of the Reverie Stream seem to have awakened the unseen crickets and their mingled song serves to conjure up the first silver and gold fireflies of the season. The atmosphere is festive as the elite and the privileged gather for The Gilded Swan's summer wine tasting.

"In the Grand Salon of The Gilded Swan Inn, you are about to sample your first taste of a delightfully aromatic golden pear and honeysuckle dessert wine. From the corner of your eye, a seemingly out-of-place motion captures your attention for a brief moment. A slender man in rich black and violet clothing that seems too heavy for the sultry evening takes a quick and surreptitious sip from a small pewter flask. Not a liquor flask (and who would bring his own to a wine tasting?), but the kind of beaker flask you would find in a laboratory or wizard's workroom. As the man covers his mouth and nose with a monogrammed black handkerchief, you are struck with a sense of impending disaster.

"Isk laeva ko urrad. Isk abren sko galvi!"

"These words are shouted from the great bay window at the opposite end of the room, where a cloaked figure in black and gold stands with one gloved hand raised. The figure's face is concealed by a leafy mask resembling the face of a traditional Green Man, but in darker shades, and with berries and flowers. The upraised hand holds a pale object reminiscent of a large egg, but with metallic fixtures at either end. This object is hurled into the room and the figure departs through the window, slamming the panes shut behind.

"After a brief crack and a prolonged hiss...the salon starts to fill with vapor. You hear the slam of a door, then the sounds of many people coughing and choking."

* * *

Skylynn (my wife's elf PC) fails her save vs. Poison. So do a lot of the people in the room. Some die on the spot. Others are sickened and will die within the week - possibly including Skylynn. She pursues the assassin out the window but he is long gone. Through a meeting with the owner of the Inn, she learns the identity and address of the man with the flask and handkerchief - as he had dropped the latter and Skylynn picked it up.

Hurrying to the man's very fine house at the edge of town, Skylynn arrives in time for the man's butler to inform her his master has recently departed in a carriage. Taking one of the man's horses from his own stable, she pursues him. By the time she is about to catch up, she is distracted by faerie folk among the trees along the roadside. Instead of fighting, the elf offers her silver hairbrush as a bribe for letting her pass. They accept and she continues her pursuit. But, misfortune has befallen the carriage as well.

Goblins have ambushed the carriage and are in the process of robbing the owner when Skylynn arrives. After accidentally killing one of the rascals, the others seem inclined to negotiate with her and leave peacefully. 

  

The fleeing man in the carriage, Pharamin Glosk, a moneylender from town, is running from the assassin - since it seems the attempt was primarily upon his life. It seems there is a secret cult of human faerie-worshippers, seeking immortality through currying favor with the Lords and Ladies of the fae. A small group of these cultists turned to the worship of dark faerie rulers and formed a splinter sect of their own. For some reason, they seem intent upon destroying those former comrades who failed to make the transition with them.

Glosk tells Skylynn where she may find an antidote to the assassin's poison - in the berries of the golden nightshade plant that grows at the marshy edge of nearby Blacktooth Forest.