Dweller of the Forbidden City

They raised suspicions, how was I to model the Red Arachne’s response? I decided that the Guildmaster would have the party tailed for a while, to see if they were worth concern or not, and determine who they were aligned with. Every threat in the setting is worth investigating as there are many factions in play, and any group of PCs could potentially be aligned with powerful foes.

Every session I would roll a chance that a PC would make the tail in the crowd, the assumption being if they were being followed there was a chance that one of the PCs might notice the same NPC appearing nearby on multiple occasions. The odds were pretty low, 1 in 20. Two sessions ago they spotted someone in the crowd that they had seen several times before, unfortunately they were fleeing and couldn’t stop to investigate. 

Every session I also rolled to see if the trackers would attack. At some point the Arachne would decide that the party’s machinations merited a response. I know that many DM’s like to schedule out these things rather than rolling, but for me, not knowing makes it exciting. The idea was as the party did more and more notable things under the Red Arachne’s noses, the odds of a response increased.

That response happened in this Saturday’s session. 

The party was waiting in the city for Maur Hogelin to return, they had received the approval of their patron to bring Hogelin in on their machinations, and use his connection to the Arachne to get access to the Guildmaster. Hogelin was back in 3 days, so they had 3 days to kill. They could have left the city for a spell, but decided to stay and take care of some housekeeping tasks.  

I rolled a 1 on a d20, that meant the trackers would reveal themselves, tasked with bloodying the party’s nose to warn them off, and grabbing a PC to question. They ambushed the group while traversing an alley on the way to the market (the alley in question is circled in red). The Bhakashal open air market (to the left in the picture) is substantively big, and they had a few things to purchase.  

As an aside, in Bhakashal, like in AD&D, dragons can be subdued. Essentially if you assert dominance by beating them in a fight, they treat you like a pack leader, until a time that you show weakness, abuse them needlessly, or put them in danger while avoiding it yourself, then you roll to see if they flee or attack. Dragons are also intelligent, so they very quickly determine if they are being dominated and abused by someone weak, and will take bloody vengeance when the opportunity arises.  Young dragons make good pets for Brave mid-to-high level NPCs who maintain discipline, as long as they aren’t abused and the owner appears powerful, they will serve reliably. 

The trackers of the Red Arachne were a trio of 7th level chitin (insect folk) mercenaries, they had brought two young red dragons (2 hp per die, 9hd creatures, so 18 hp total) with them to slap down the party. They shouted to the party from the rooftop, there were 2 trackers there, each holding back a young red dragon, a third was hidden away at one end of the alley. 

They shouted down, “You search for the Red Arachne, you court death!” 

Then they released the dragons, they plunged into the alley from above, initiative was rolled. The  party Seer (priest) decided to cast a 4th level spell with a long casting time. The Garudin (bird-folk) Slayer (ranger) flew up to try and wound the dragon’s wing on a last second pass. The party Mercenary (fighter) prepared to meet a dragon with his bardiche. The dragons decided to not get that close, and did a strafing run, both spewing fire. The Seer failed both saves and was burnt down to his bones by twin infernos. The Slayer was moving so only had one save to make, and made it. Making a save doesn’t mean no damage, it means half damage, and if he was reduced to below half his total HP he would have to land…  

The mercenary, on the ground, made both of two saves and took damage. One of the trackers up above threw a javelin of lightning that arrived next. That missed, hitting a nearby wall explosively.

One dragon pursued the slayer, the other looped up to come back for another dive. The slayer was faster than the dragon, and decided to head over the tents of the nearby market, gambling that the dragon wouldn’t pursue him there. The mercenary ran to the charred body of the Seer to retrieve any magic items that had survived the breath weapon attacks. 

It was a bold move. 

Then the dragon who had looped up landed on the mercenary’s back, claw, claw, bite. After attacking and lifting the mercenary off his feet it dropped the mercenary and flew up to loop around again and finish him off. The mercenary rose and staggered down the alley, bloody and bruised, and smashed full shoulder in the door to a building in the alley. He ran inside before the dragon could loop back around and was safe from breath weapon or physical attack. 

He ran through the room to the next door and through a hallway to the other side of the building. No one met him. He emerged with the dragon nowhere to be seen on the North side of the building on the right, on the street that led directly to the market. Unbeknownst to him, one of the three trackers was behind him in pursuit. 

The Slayer was now over the market at a height of around 60 feet (the yellow line follows him from the alley to the market), garudin flying overhead were not at all unusual, but when the young red dragon barreled out from the nearby buildings and over the market there were screams.

The dragon pushed hard and caught up to the Slayer (Bhakashal has aerial pursuit rules), landing on his back and grabbing him with claws, pulling up and veering towards the city wall. The purple line traces their trajectory together. The Slayer stabbed up at the dragon but couldn’t get past its armor. They just cleared the wall. Several arrows flew in their direction from soldiers on the wall. Two bounced off the dragon’s scales, a third just missed the slayer. Both of his hands were free, but his wings were damaged.

He drank a potion of stone giant strength he kept on his belt and stabbed again, this time piercing the dragon’s hide and doing enough damage that it began an uncontrolled dive. The slayer asked if he could direct the dragon’s course towards the river and try to spin them around so the dragon was underneath him. He had just imbibed a potion of stone giant strength, and Bhakashal has a system for resolving “feats”, it uses multiple saves based on task difficulty.

We decided that the slayer had to make two saves, one to target the river, the other to spin the dragon around. The dragon was sub-adult, 20’ long, and unable to fly at this point, so the PC hauled on alternating arms to twist it mid flight, hoping to flip it over as it plunged. He made both saves, and crashed into the river with the dragon beneath him taking the brunt. I ruled that each successful save halved his damage from the fall, the damage was 10d6, so it could have easily been fatal if not for the saves.

The dragon’s appearance led to screams and the attention of the ward patrol, the bloodied mercenary ran down the street to the marketplace, stumbling out just as the ward patrol arrived. This happened during the early evening at a busy time in the Bhakashal market, a Ward patrol is rarely far away, particularly when the crowd starts to make noise. A justiciar showed up, grilled the mercenary, and the patrol pursued the dragon, having seen it go over the wall. 

The party Seer was dead, the slayer and the mercenary, the party tanks, were beaten and bloodied. The slayer couldn’t fly. The city watch claimed the fallen dragon, and only close questioning by the Justiciar convinced him they were the victims and thus should not be punished for this breaching of the peace. 

They also now know that the head of the Brass Blade Spider’s Guild knows who they are and can have them trailed or attacked at any time. They had split the party, leaving their warlock, a Spartan (monk) and a Thaumaturge (thief/magic-user) behind for this trip to the market, and it was almost a TPK for those who were there. They were lucky the mercenaries gave up the chance for surprise in order to announce their doom at the hands of the Red Arachne.

This is, BTW, a VERY Bhakashal thing to do, announcing your patron before slaying someone on behalf of that patron is entirely in setting behavior!

Taking the fight to the market was a smart idea, it made the trackers leave to avoid tangling with the patrol. In this case the player realized that his foes might not want to have to deal with the interest of a Noble House in their affairs. My players are good at reading the factional implications of their hijinks.  

The city provides a backdrop for this sort of combat, open rather than constrained by dungeon walls, on land, water and air, in urban and wilderness spaces, and involving ward patrols and Justiciars (local law enforcement). 

The dynamics of a fight in the city are very different.

Also, they left the Seer’s body behind, which means either the Ward Patrol will find the body and someone from that Ward might decide to investigate further, or their enemy may arrange to access the remains and have necromantic magic used to learn the party’s secrets. Bhakashal is a factionalized environment with divination magic, you leave bodies behind at your peril!

One of the advantages to rolling for things like this is that I don’t know when they are going to happen, so I don’t accidentally telegraph what’s going to happen. I genuinely believe that this makes the campaign more immersive. When everyone at the table is surprised, when I don’t have to worry about giving away what will happen BECAUSE I DON’T EVEN KNOW, the game feels real. The world feels independent of the PCs and out of my direct control as well. 

In my experience, this is one of the best sources of immersion in the game, and it has paid off handsomely. 

The player of the slain Seer did not have another active PC (3 of the 5 players run multiple PCs), so he decided to roll up a Bhakashal Beastial (druid) as his next PC. Beastials have a lot of power in Bhakashal as it’s a tropical setting surrounded by wilderness where the city is completely grown over with foliage. 

Beastials are badass in Bhakashal!

RIP to Haeral Vorek, Seer of Vekka, god of the waters, consumed by a conflagration of dragon fire while pursuing the downfall of The Red Arachne!