Liverbirds Journal - The Last Dance

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Date 7/7/3518 - The 7th of Greenwake, Kin Day

Cast of Characters

Daar Na Tosh - Human Berserker

Kaz - Troll Swashbuckler

Aletta Poquette - Dwarf Sneak

Suzie Walnuts - Human Paladin of Isanna

Tahd Thurstenhill - Human Armsman

Verilyn Vickery- Elf Magician

Summary

On a slow evening at The Liverbird one week after the Challenge of Champions, a black carriage pulled by a lone black horse pulls up in front of the bar. They watch curiously as the driver, an older hook-nosed man in a dark jacket, climbs down and comes inside the bar. He introduces himself as Sydney Solomons, and he is seeking the group known as The LIverbirds. A Madame Tuvache, his employer, would have a word with them in the carriage to discuss an employment opportunity. Some of them enter the carriage and listen to the offer. Madame Araby Tuvache is a widower and owner of the Jerretier Estate. She believes some monster has crawled in to her basement; it roars and creates a ruckus, and she want it dealt with. The party accepts the offer and agrees to come to the estate the next morning. Of course, nothing is at presented. The party gets locked in the basement with a poisonous bomb, and once they solve that puzzle they are faced with a house of corpse puppets, a grisly dance scene, deadly gremlins, and a confrontation atop the estate clocktower!

NPC's Introduced

Sydney Solomons, the aging butler and former dualist who serves the lady of the house.

Madame Araby Tuvache - an older woman who has plunged into madness in her attempt to relive the days of dancing and parties at her estate before she learned of her husband's dark secrets. 

District Guards

• Emlyn Easom
• Enoch Hardy
• John Gatrell - 37
• Reginald Kill
• Roderick Course - 31

Locations Introduced

Jerretier Estate (Last Dance)

Session Notes

The party eventually learns that the entire house is filled with mechanical devices run off an underground waterwheel. To stave off complete bankruptcy, Madame Tuvache has taken to luring people to her house to take their money and use their bodies as mechanized puppets for her amusement. She also has made deals with Fey Gremlins to build and maintain the machines and clocktower. The party kills the gremlins and defeats both Solomon and Araby atop the clocktower. They summon the town guard, who take them into custody. (Although before calling the guard, they liberate the house of the horse and carriage, some valuables, and a small pile of doors for use in The Liverbird.

Reputation

Kinsgbridge: 2

DM Notes

My favorite part of this scenario was the player's initial response to the monster in the basement hook; I sensed that they were like, oh, we are doing this old thing again? I kept my evil DM chuckle to myself. The funny thing is, the initial basement deathtrap as presented did have an actual rat encounter, which to me didn't add to the scene. I went straight into death trap mode. This adventure was originally presented as a Ravenloft scenario and contained more supernatural elements than I used. Suzie encountered one ghost or haunt (a dismembered head under a bed that only she could see). It made sense for the story and added to the overall creepiness of the manor. This is a grisly adventure, and the opening sequence where the party is trapped and has to disable the poison trap was wonderfully tense. My players figured out the corpses on tracks and wires quickly and took them out efficiently. The gremlin fight in the lower clocktower was dangerous, and the final standoff at the top of the tower surprised me. When Sydney (who I renamed from the book) took enough wounds he surrendered, and my Madame Tuvache didn't have supernatural powers and proved easy to subdue. I think overall it played well as a mix of skill challenges, exploration, and combat, with my changes it fits well in the city, and further to my surprise the party wants the estate as a new base. More to follow on that.

When the party called the guards, a squad responded to secure the scene. Of course they wanted names of the guards, and Verilyn proceed to flirt with Roderick.

References

Last Dance by Jeff Crook; Dungeon Magazine #64, 1997