Actual Play – The Thuggee (1/21/2016)

GM: Edmund Metheny
Players: Sophie Lagacé, Adrienne Mueller, and Sean Nittner
System: Dungeon World
Setting: Land of 10,000 Gods

Fish for Dinner

In between sessions, Edmund shared this bit about the setting:

Fish-For-Dinner is a bustling seaport town on the coast of Wet Plains.

Tags
Prosperity: Wealthy
Population: Growing
Defenses: Watch
Other: Resource (fish), Trade (City of Heroes, Big Drum City), Personage (Pratik Iyengar).

Fish-for-Dinner is also the unofficial “capitol” of organized crime, particularly the “I-Team” criminal cartel (named after it’s head, Pratik Iyengar). Iyengar maintains a large estate just outside of town, though his operations are almost entirely outside of Wet Plains, and he uses his considerable influence to assure that Fish-For-Dinner provides a clearinghouse for various organized crime groups throughout Wet Plains and beyond. It is rumored that he even has connections with the dreaded Thuggee assassins.

SPECIAL MOVE (Fish-for-Dinner)
Crime Hub: because the town acts as both a safe haven and organizational meeting place for various organized crime groups, attempts to Discern Realities regarding organized crime activities receive a +1.

Amulet of the Timinga

He also told us something about our loot from last session, however it wouldn’t apply this game, as Merit had the item, and Karen wasn’t able to make this game session:

A large, beaten copper amulet, stained with verdigris and smelling faintly of the sea and decay. Depicted on the front is a stylized Timingala. The amulet gives the wearer the ability to place certain tags on themselves during the course of an adventure. No more than one tag can be acquired per scene. The tags are:

• Angry – the character is angry with just about everything.
• Messy – the character’s actions, physical, mental, and social, tend to leave rather a mess behind them. Subtlety is unlikely.
• Remorseless – concepts of good and evil, right and wrong, become irrelevant. Only what is necessary is important.

For each tag, hold 1.

At any time the character may spend the entirety of their hold as a bonus, so long as the player can explain how each of the tags is affecting their actions. The bonus cannot be divided among multiple rolls. Once the bonus has been spent, the amulet becomes inactive for the remainder of the adventure and the character loses all tags.

Meeting with the Sidar

Our sessions started as we met with the Sidar and tried to find out what her game was. She told us her problems of over population and the inability to fined enough skilled laborers. These didn’t seem like the kind of problems heroes were suited for… and then an arrow flew from inside the room and struck her right in the chest!

We sprung into action… as you do! Rahi leapt at the assailant in the shadowy corner, Kanta inspected the fallen Sirdar determine if the blow was fatal, and Ram stood guard to protect the mage. Rahi’s blow was brutal, it should have been fatal. With her divine blade she severed his arm at the shoulder and assumed this would fell the diminutive assassin, but surprisingly he sprung forward with a dagger in hand and slipped past Rahi like a seed spitting forth from the pulp of a mashed fruit.

Ram stood in his pass, but the Yaksa used the blood fountaining from his arm to grease his way past the warrior and make a lunge toward the Sidar with a poisoned dagger. Kanta, unskilled in martial ways could not stop the assassin, but she swept her cloak in his path and between blood and fabric, his poisoned dagger was knocked off it’s course. Rahi, recovering from the moment of confusion swept in with another mighty cleave that took off his other arm.

The creature began choking to death on his own blood but Ram promptly used to fingers to clear the passage in his windpipe so he could ask one question “Who sent you?” The only answer was “Death to the Sidar!” followed by a gurgle and then death.

Clues left behind

The dagger? Poisoned. The arrow, enchanted. With her third eye open, Kanta saw superimposed upon the tip and maul, which explained why the Sirdar’s armor and ribs were crushed rather than punctured. Of the assassin himself, the only object we found was an empty vial with a bit or residue from some alchemical concoction.

Our investigation led us to warring merchants in the bazaar (each promising they offered the finest wares), a prince among organized crime, and finally to the Thuggee, or at least whispers of them. Normally bandits and brigands who prey on unprotected caravans… who for some reason were willing to send an assassin to die in order to kill the well guarded Sirdar.

Now we must find the Thuggee!