# Return to the Known Lands - of Pirates and Ettins
# Session #27 (4/24/21)

## PCs:

* Louis (FM 3)
* Osan (Elf F/MU 3/1)
* Omes (Half FM 3)
* Arro (MU 1)
* Habru (Cleric 3)

## NPCs:

* Habru's war dog, named Dog
* Horace - Habru's retainer - Cleric 1
* Bunco - Omes' Knave 1

## Hirelings:

* Samtik - porter
* Durdoon - meatshield

## Session notes:

In our previous session [0], the party had defeated the river
pirates, and were questioning the captives. As per their agreement
with the first-mate Lt. Dann, they let him go in exchange for his
information on the Golden Axe Society. They demanded he remove his
armor and gold necklace, and allowed him to jump into the water and
swim to shore with just a dagger. He fooled the party, however, by
pretending to throw his necklace in the river, keeping it in his
fist as he jumped off the boat. No one noticed until he swam to
shore and put the chain back on, but they let him run off
anyway. The few remaining pirates were sent back to their own boat
and tied to the oars, under the watch of Louis, Horace, Arro and
Omes. Both boats then got underway, again downstream towards
Dolmvay.

Day six on the river was uneventful, and Arro took advantage of the
time to place the captured Golden Axe leader Capt. Brant under a
charm spell and question him further. The Captain told his new,
trusted friend Arro that the Golden Axe was secretly under the
command of the Dolmvay Harbormaster Gary Horn, who setup this entire
kidnapping plot.

Day seven saw an attack by giant toads on the pirate vessel. They
were killed but not before one of the captured pirates was eaten by
one of the toads.

The string of bad luck continued on day eight when an Ettin
approached the barge from an island in the center of some shallow
water, and demanded to be fed a meal, "preferably a maiden". Osan
decided to try and move Claudia away from the barge to protect her,
so he took her into the tied-up rowboat on the other side of the
barge where she would be out of sight. As he did so, he noticed
Claudia was wearing an amulet around her neck that he had not seen
before. When Osan questioned her about it, Claudia admitted she had
bought it from an old woman in Larm, who told her it was a good luck
charm. Osan, however, recognized the symbol on the amulet (a circle
with crossed daggers) as that of the followers of Xerxes, a chaotic
god. He tore it off of Claudia's neck and threw it into the river.

As that was going on, Habru tired to engage the Ettin in some
meaningless parley, but the Ettin grew bored and started to walk
towards the pirate boat. The party opened up on the Ettin from both
vessels with missiles, flaming oil and a light spell, eventually
killing it, but in the process catching the pirate boat on fire.

To be continued...

## LL Notes:

The players finally had an explanation in this session for the
unending string of attacks on their barge and overall bad luck, the
"good luck" amulet given to Claudia. They also gained some key
intelligence from the captured Golden Axe leader on his contact in
Dolmvay, the city Harbormaster himself. Since they were just two
days away from arriving in that city by boat (and most likely being
confronted by the Harbormaster), they knew they had to come up with
an alternate plan to get Claudia into the city. So the players
ruminated on that until our next session.

[0]: gopher://gopher.smolderingwizard.com/0/rpg/play_reports/known-lands/return-known-lands-26.txt