Black Spaghetti Hack Session 08: Don Hector’s Deadly Dance Party

And here here we are…

To recap: the party, a trio of rogues (Don Hector a Marionette Matador, Ha’Des a demonic duelist, and Nicolo a tinker-smith musician), have learned the location of a vast treasure hoard. It’s located in a ruined village called San Basle on the other side of the map from where they are. In between the party and the treasure are two armies. The party, not wanting to get mixed up with either army and their war, detours far to the north hoping to find a rumored smuggler’s route across the river. After a recent deed of valor, Don Hector and the rest of the party has been invited to a local lord’s house for dinner. As this is near to the mountains, the party’s only to glad too accept. A carriage takes them north, where they arrive just as the party starts…

The herald introduces the players: Don Hector, the Clinician of Pain, and his fool, Ha’Des, and musical montebank, Nicolo.

Don Hector’s “servants” are asked to perform for the crowd. Ha’Des tells jokes and Nicolo juggles knives. The crowd loves it, and the party separates. Ha’Des and Nicolo get taken into the kitchen where they spend time with the other servants and hear a grossly distorted version of what happened to Don Danny’s daughter in San Spotello. Meanwhile, Don Hector and his baby remain with the nobles.

There’s the Lord who’s the host, his morbid teen daughter (engaged to Count Chico), her elderly marionette governess, the clumsy doctor and his spinster sister, the local priest, and a visiting scholar from the university (that the party worries might be a vampire because she wears tinted glasses). Don Hector asks about the ogres in the mountains and hears a whole litany of horror stories, and complaints from the lord that his militia aren’t trained well enough to fight them.

In the kitchen, the party hears more about the rat streams and it’s agreed that all the rats are heading for San Uzzano for reasons unknown. (San Uzzano is the big local city that the party’s been avoiding.) They also learn that Gwardo Isnardo (the sage who solved the puzzle for the party) got attacked by persons unknown. This info clues the players that some other people might be hunting for the treasure by now.

Back at dinner, Don Hector is making a lot of charisma and dexterity checks to not do anything too unforgivable. He’s gotten a lot of attention from the lord’s daughter and that’s starting to make things awkward. Also, he’s had questions asked about his past – stuff like was it really true he got arrested for pickpocketing. He manages well enough, but is relieved when the lord calls in the musicians. Except when the dance party begins, Don Hector’s first partner is the lord’s daughter!

But first, back in the kitchen, Ha’Des asks about the Hagardini, the supposedly dead noble family whose lands the party will have to cross on the other side of the mountain. They get an earful of horror stories, but one makes Nicolo realize he’d encountered one of the Hagardini family while in the fey realm. He does not want to repeat this experience. One of the servants brings up how even this house they’re all sitting in is haunted.

Meanwhile on the dance floor, Don Hector has begun doing a Cossack kick dance as a way of avoiding contact with the lord’s daughter. She is into it and is about to start slam dancing with him when her dad asks that a more traditional dance be done. This sends people between partners, and sets off another cascade of charisma checks for Don Hector’s player to sweat through.

Ha’Des gets the servants to talk more about the haunting and they all agree that there is something very wrong in the wine cellar. Nicolo wonders if they might have a bottle of the San Basel vintage, and the cook says they do. Ha’Des, Nicolo, and a servant set off for the wine cellar.

Dance. Dance. Dance.

Cellar stairs. Cellar stairs. Cellar stairs.

Don Hector gets parenting advice from the elderly governess who has unexpectedly taken a liking to him. (The dice dictate!) Ha’Des, Nicolo, and the servant reach the darkest wine cellar. They hear a scraping in the wall. Ha’Des smells murder in the air. (I gave malebranches the ability to ‘smell’ sins.) Up above, the dance goes on and the Lord’s daughter waits for Don Hector when the herald reappears, clearly disturbed. She announces a late guest: Count Chico!

Heavily bandaged, Count Chico has managed to make the dance after all. Seeing the one who “caused” his injuries dancing with his bride to be is too much. The gauntlet gets cast. Count Chico challenges Don Hector. All eyes fall on Don Hector. Don Hector accepts, saying they can fight at dawn. Count Chico says no. Don Hector must face his champion now!

What champion? Don Hector says.

And in walks, Pontiacci the swordsman they played cards with back in session 2. He’s delighted to see Don Hector again and even more thrilled to learn that they’ll be fighting each other.

For some reason, our game group likes to use Doug Judy as an NPC in our games. He might not show up in every campaign we play, but there’s a non-zero chance that he might. Here he was an affable foe, like a two-handed sword wielding golden retriever.

The party guests all go out to the garden. The doctor hopes to do some resurrection. The lord’s delighted, his daughter even more so (the men are dueling over her!). The only one sweating is Don Hector, who realizes now his companions are nowhere to be found.

That’s because they’re in the deepest wine cellar with some horrible thing stalking through the dark towards them. The servant flees. The party sees a twisted marionette approaching. He’d been sealed up in the walls a hundred years or so ago Amontillado style. He’s thoroughly insane from wood rot. Battle ensues.

Above, Don Hector demands an apology from Count Chico. Chico refuses. The duel commences. Pontiacci shatters Don Hector’s cutlass. The lord gives Don Hector a family blade to replace the broken one. The duel continues.

Below, Ha’Des and Nicolo try to slay the deranged marionette without inhaling any spores from his rotted wood. After fire and the clash of steel, Nicolo pins the marionette to the wall and Ha’Des manages to kill it.

Above, Don Hector reveals how Count Chico got injured and needs cash. He also manages to disarm Pontiacci. Count Chico is too furious to end the fight. He gives Pontiacci more gold to keep fighting. Don Hector tries to reason with Pontiacci, but there’s no stopping the swordsman.

“A mercenary has a reputation to maintain,” Pontiacci says as he swings.

Crunch!

A crit.

Pontiacci’s sword connects squarely with Don Hector. Maximum damage is rolled. Don Hector is down. The recovery roll fails. Don Hector’s head been severed from his body. A hushed silence falls over the crowd.

Elsewhere, Ha’Des and Nico find the servant and gather some wine and return to the kitchen. They tell the tale of their encounter with the crazed marionette. They also learn what just happened to Don Hector and rush out to the garden.

The mood is somber. The doctor is apologetic for letting their friend die. The Lord is sad. His daughter spits in Count Chico’s face and breaks off their marriage. Even Pontiacci is sad. He breaks his contract to Count Chico and goes to console the lord’s daughter. The lord tells Ha’Des and Nicolo that he’ll pay for Don Hector’s burial. And the village priest takes away the body. But the governess steps forward. She announces that all is not lost. She shows the assembled crowd the marionette baby Don Hector had kept hidden under his hat throughout the party.

… and so the adventure ended.

Don Hector is dead.

Or is he?

Next time, it’s Session 09: Over the Mountains.

NOTES
I really recommend splitting the party and cross-cutting between groups. Games like Dungeon World, Blades in the Dark, and Brindlewood Bay really reward this sort of play. Raw D&D maybe not so much, but once you get the hang of it in Blades in the Dark or wherever you can get an idea of how to do it in D&D. The tension in this adventure was pretty fun and couldn’t have been done without exercising those chops.

Use old paintings and etchings to make tokens, point crawl maps, and scene backdrops! Brancalonia especially benefits from this. You don’t have to photoshop them like me, but it’s a real simple way to get some coherent flavor to the game.

For rumors and gossip during big social encounters with lots of people keep things to three categories: local lore, current events, and set-up. Each NPC has a primary one they’re interested in and a level of knowledge of it. This way you can more easily keep track of what info each NPC in a scene might know and how accurate it might be. So the scholar talked adventure set-up, while the doctor talked current events, and the old gardener dispensed lore. It motivated the players to try and chat with as many people as possible. Also, mix in inaccurate stories about the party’s own exploits. Things that make them sound better or worse than they are.

Dead PCs. Early on in the campaign I thought up death twists for each of the PCs. Something that would happen when/if they died. I’m not sure how well this works as an idea, and whether it removes the tension of potential character death from the game, but that’s what I’m trying in this campaign. These twists have also changed as the campaign’s gone on and the party has entered different regions. I’m still not sure if this is a good idea or not. With the introduction of a rival party, it gives you a group to switch to if the main one gets TPKed.