After the tollhouse battle…

The party spends the night with the mercenaries, and it’s a chance to divulge some regional lore. In this case it’s a mercenary singing a song about a witch who lives in the marshes to the south east and has a tendency to turn unpleasant trespassers into animals. Meanwhile, Toad-Faced Larry and his crew continue to give the stink-eye to the party.

Morning comes and people split up. The party joins the group heading to the nearby city of San Spotello. This includes another malebranche who tries to strike up a friendship with Ha’Des. The two get along fine, but split up when they reach San Spotello. That town is divided between Swansickle and Emperor Joe forces with a lot of brawls, but so far no battles fought in the streets. They also learn Count Chico managed to survive his house explosion, and they also start to hear tales of great rivers of rats moving across the countryside.

The party’s in town to find a chef named Bolli Bentpot who owns a bistro. They hire a tout to guide them, and before long they reach Bolli’s place. The party sits down in the dining area, but gathers that Bolli and his chefs are busy prepping for some function. Nicolo and Ha’Des distract the host and learn Bolli is prepping for the wedding feast of Don Danny’s daughter. (Don Danny being a local crime lord.) Don Hector takes a chance and heads to the back to try and find Bolli. Bolli’s easy enough to find. He’s working on a wedding cake. Don Hector starts asking where San Basel was located. Bolli’s about to tell, when there’s a commotion back in the front of the house.

One of the other customers has revealed themselves to be a former cafe owner driven out of business by Bolli and now he’s going to have his revenge. He’s gotten his hands on a fairy stone, and with this he unleashes a magic storm in this cafe. This of course makes all the plates assemble into cutlery golems and all the food in the place come alive. This includes the wedding cake Bolli’s working on.

Nicolo and Ha’Des do their best to keep the cutlery golems at bay, while Don Hector dodges evil cupcakes and the monstrous cake to grab Bolli and drag him from the bistro. The cakes and foodstuff follow, collecting more food stuffs now from surrounding houses. It grows into a giant blob and starts spewing cutlery and sausages as a breath weapon. Nicolo and Ha’Des harass the thing from the rear, but they never get too close since neither of them wants to get cake splattered and have to do laundry.

Don Hector drags Bolli to a guard tower. The guards ain’t happy to see them, but can’t do anything because soon the food golem’s in the place attacking. Don Hector and Bolli flee higher up the tower. The cake monster starts climbing the side. Don Hector and Bolli reach the top of the tower and have no where left to go. Don Hector tries to drop some rocks on the monster, but does minimal damage. The creature reaches the top of the tower. Nico and Ha’Des watch from the bottom of the tower. Don Hector looks around and sees a full water cistern in an alley below. He grabs Bolli and leaps off the tower. The creature leaps off too.

Death saves and Dex checks get made.

Don Hector and Ha’des pass. Bolli, Cake Beast, and Nico fail.

SPLAT

Ha’Des and Don Hector see if it’s possible to revive Bolli or Nico. Fortunately, both manage to recover. Bolli tells the party San Basel was located across the river to the north west. He also tells them that Don Danny won’t be happy to hear how they ruined his daughter’s wedding cake. The party decides it best to leave town, battered and filthy as they are. They grab food and clean outfits in the market but don’t even pause to change.

Night starts to fall.

Now all they need to decide is how they’re going to get across the river.

• This whole adventure was inspired by the polenta golem in illustration in the Brancalonia main book.

And we’re back to it…

When last we left our knaves they had just learned the whereabouts of a great treasure and fled town ahead of a nobleman’s wrath. Their plan’s to find a chef who can tell them where the village with the treasure’s located. The party has the village name, but not it’s location. They also know the village was famous for its wine, hence a chef being the one likely to recognize the name.

I gave them three options of chefs and they headed towards the middlemost one. As they set out they gossiped with some farmers and learned some current events.

• Count Chico’s house blew up with Count Chico in it. (The party figured as much.)
• There are soldiers on the road ahead.
• The soldiers could be avoided by going over a hill, but a witch lives on the hill and is not always nice to strangers. Or the party could avoid the soldiers by cutting through a marsh, but that would bring them close to a reclusive family of possible cannibals sausage makers.

(My rule of thumb’s been to give three options at each point, and while they’re not all combat, I try to make them all interesting and eventful. But, yeah, this whole give the party three options, then detail the one they choose thing is my loop for GM prep.)

The party opted to try and bluff their way past the soldiers and continued down the road.

They find a discarded pack near a sign post and Nicolo’s ambush sense starts tingling. The party approaches the pack with caution, and it opens to reveal a marionette with a crossbow. Other crossbow bearing mercenaries appear, including Toad-Faced Larry and his crew. The party tries to bluff, but learns they won’t be able to move farther south anyways because there’s a battle brewing for a toll house a short ways to the south. The marionette recruits them to his force and away they all march with Toad-faced Larry asking why the party wanted to talk to Gwardo Iznardo so bad. The party ignores his questions.

At the tollhouse, they see the Swansickles have mustered their own force, and Nicolo notices Tall Hat among some knights on the opposite side. There’s a small stream and bridge with the toll house across the bridge. The objective of the battle is to claim and hold the toll house.

(I ratcheted up the farcical nature of Renaissance warfare and make the military battles more drunken football matches than actual warfare. At least at first, later things change… but the party doesn’t know how or why yet.)

Battlelines form. A horn blows. The battle begins!

The enemy knights charge. Arrows fly. A band of brawl monks charges the knights. The bridge gets blocked by bodies. Don Hector leaps into the ditch to ford the stream. The dice hate him and he face plants. Ha’Des and Nicolo use their flame throwing abilities to good effect. The knights are routed and flee, Tall Hat with them. Nicolo curses. Don Hector makes it across the river. Ha’Des burns more things and pins down the enemy archers. Don Hector reaches the toll house. Ha’Des sees an opening on the bridge and sprints across. Nicolo takes cover and starts prepping his sleep box. Don Hector and Ha’Des defeat the enemy troops in the house. Nicolo’s box puts a large number of combatants to sleep.

The battle ends. The party’s side has won!

The party decides to spend the night with the mercenaries in the tollhouse. The party also bathes in the river, and I think this was when we developed soap landlordism with Ha’Des (I think) renting their soap to the others.

During the night, the party keeps ignoring Toad-face Larry, but gets more intel about the region.

• An old smuggler’s road crosses the river a few days north, but the woods around it are home to a band of ogres.
• In the south, the witches seem to be having some dispute over whether they should take part in the war.
  The monks and the knights hate each other because the knights took over the monks’ monastery.
• All around San Uzzano the armies are skirmishing, but the party should be able to make San Spotillo (the town with the chef they’re looking for) without a problem.

So, in the morning, that’s exactly what the party decides to do.