Play report: What Happened to the Silver Spoon Boys? Part 1
Warning: contains spoiler alerts for What Happened to the Silver Spoon Boys? by Munkao. Also contains minor spoilers for Deluge at Drizzle Distillery. Rulings and judgment calls indicated with highlights.
Warning to my players: turn back here if we haven't finished the module yet.
I finally joined the early 2000s and drafted this report by dictating it to my phone for transcription. I don't love it, but it sure saves time!
We started this adventure in a new session with the epilogue to Drizzle Distillery (see play report). The party earned an invitation to the party hosted by House Itsiang, thanks to helping it procure Drizzle Water for cocktails and bolstered by the renown they gained in helping Zaya take back his theatre. At the party, the PCs were approached by members of The Awat Guild of Happenings, who were looking for information on the disappearance of the Silver Spoon Boys. Since one of Awat's agents had been killed in the distillery and they were now short-handed, the PCs were recruited to investigate. The Awat reps told the party that the Boys were last known to be headed to the Cave-Temple of Kin Knot but hadn't been heard from since. They also issued their report forms and outlined the payment structure.
Payment has taken on new importance to the players since I told them that we're going to play an early release of Snakes and Cleavers after this module and that, after that, they were on the hook for the Bawan Meddling Association's 880g annual membership fee (core book, p.6) and have to pony up if they want to use these characters in future excursions into Kala Mandala.
I ruled that members of the Silver Spoon Boys' families were at the party. The players decided to approach members of the Walaman family since, as the least prestigious of the three families, they had the least to lose if they mistepped. So they courted the matriarch of the Walaman family Chawati (named rolled from the core book) who, as it turned out, had heard of the party's work at Zaya's Theater (see The Tragedy at Zaya's Theatre, "Consequences"). However, she was tight-lipped about her son's whereabouts and seemed uncomfortable at the questions. She told them her son was on a tour with his friends and that he was old enough to go where he wished, but her demeanour told them there was more to the story than this. After taking her leave, one of the Walaman servants furtively suggested to the party that the family would be very pleased for the return of their son and would likely provide a handsome reward if merited.
One player despaired that these rich people always short-change you and haggle down your reward to almost nothing, which hardly covers the non-insignificant cost of meddling (especially in light of their upcoming dues payment). I found this ironic since I thought the module's stated reward of 2,000g was actually quite good for an adventure like this, and teased the value of the reward. He still thought it ought to be 1,000g per PC until I reminded them that they had all read the recent article in Modern Meddler Magazine on the importance of diversifying your income stream in the present economy. Between the commission from Awat and any money they might receive from the families, they were doing what every modern meddler was being encouraged to do.
The party debated whether to try to get promises of money from the families in return for the safe return of their sons but decided against it, realizing that they might come off as kidnappers and ransomers themselves. Thus satisfying, they left the party and department for the Cave-Temple of Kin Knot. With the time leading up to the party and preparation to leave on this new adventure, I ruled that they had sufficient time to heal up any attribute damage, refresh their inventory and buy some torches, and recover any skills/abilities.
We fast forwarded to the region of the Cave-Temple: I ruled that there was a very small collection of huts about a 30-minute walk away, which was where pilgrims might stay or get food when visiting the Cave-Temple. One PC committed a ration from his inventory to feeding the local cats rats and dogs at the behest of his heirloom. The party asked the handful of locals for rumors and information about the Silver Spoon Boys and about the Cave-Temple, learning (some of these details are judgment calls on sharing limited info from the module):
- the details of what Kin Knot did as a medium;
- Kin Knot hadn't been seen in 9 months or so and that word was getting around so pilgrim traffic had effectively died off;
- The locals had no idea what happened to Kin Knot but feared the worst;
- The were sure the Cave-Temple was now haunted due to strange howls and whispers coming from the area. There was debate among the locals about what they had heard (some of the claims true to the module, others rumour and exaggeration);
- The Silver Spoon Boys had been by about 3 weeks ago and hadn't been seen or heard since. They were very rude. The party took their commission to write a report very seriously and assiduously noted every detail and drew some wild inferences and connections that will surely make for an interesting report. For example, they were somewhat convinced that the villagers may have killed Silver Spoon Boys for their rudeness - at the very least, it made sense that they wouldn't have warned the brats away from a possibly haunted cave.
Into the cave, then!
R1: the party entered the temple by torchlight. They noticed the notes written in chalk on the floor. One PC found a piece of chalk and wrote "thank you for allowing us to explore each room in your chamber safely." I thought this was a nice touch but I didn't feel like deviating too far from the module so I figured that Kin Knot would simply not have read this message by the time they met.
On the way out of R1 they investigated the hallway and noted the barricade at the north door. However, they decided not to remove the barricade and went to R2 instead.
R2: they met the scared but relieved servants, who told them about Thanan (he had been by as recently as that morning) but didn't know anything about the other boys or their servants (who would have fled). Wo-mak found the nerve to promise to teach them how to draw her sigils if the party could return Thanan safely. Upon request, she a sigil on one of the PCs' armoured parasols. In the down time after this module, I will offer sigil drawing as a possible skill (special technique and a prayer required to make it work).
R3: in this room the party was immediately drawn to the pool in the northwest corner. One PC used the Power Parasol from Drizzle to suck up the steam arising from the water ("Are you thinking you'll spray it back out as a weapon? It might cool first." "No, I just thought it might look cool when I do spray it"). While investigating the pool and expecting to find a secret stash behind the temple wall where the cave rock was exposed, a Howler (random encounter) crawled through a crack in the barricaded door to R4 and howled for a Chomper. The PC with the Power Parasol sprayed the steam (no damage) and another character dove to capture it but it escaped. Instead, the Chomper promptly arrived. One PC found it very cute and did not want to attack it; another wanted to give it food but needed to rummage in her pack for a turn, and the others hesitated to attack. The Chomper bit one of the PCs, almost causing serious damage (if we were playing with Cairn's scars, he would have taken one), so the party did away with it quickly.
For no peculiar for no particular reason, one party member decided to bite the dead Chomper (I decided it would taste and feel like a wet, vascular (American) football). Another PC took a tooth.
R4: when the party entered this room and heard the haunting whisper, one PC was convinced it was Thanan and called out to him to stop joking around (no response).
R5: the party spotted the tongue and immediately attacked it, making short work of it. We had been taking our time here so I rolled another random encounter and two chompers came in through the North door. Combat was quick and effective.
R6: one PC straightened up the donation box and put the scattered money back in it, presumably treating it like a shrine in previous modules. While investigating the body of the would-be assassin, the party figured out that the items of the dead could be used to commune with ghosts and were determined to find out how to do this. They figured the too for doing this must be somewhere in the cave. They took the gold dagger.
R7: the party tried to respond to the haunting whispers again, still no response. They did not pick up the daggers in this room in order to keep inventory slots available. One PC bagged up the shattered bits of bangle in some cloth, figuring they were something special. They decided to keep turning left at every junction so they picked the lock to R9 and went south. A random encounter made a noise and had the torch flicker.
R9: they discovered Kin Knot. One PC took the spirit robe and they got the info dump from Kin Knot, as well as the healing potions. They should that her dying on the verge of healing would make for a delightful tidbit in the report.
Now that they could communicate with the ghosts, the party went back to R6 to speak with the ghost of the assassin. There was a random encounter with a Howler, which they killed before it could summon a Chomper. In R6 they invoked the spirit of the killer and learned about Mina but the ghost started to dissipate upon learning that Rajag had been killed (which the party pieced together from Kin Knot's information). Our PC with the Animate Text scroll used this on the bloody list of rich people in order to find out which other names were on it by ordering the letters to march onto another paper and arrange themselves as they currently were. I ruled that they were four other names and rolled them according to the core book's name table. The party thought that these would be useful not just for their report but also for meddling potential in the future.
They also returned to R7 where they had a quick conversation with the bratty twins. The twins had died before Rajag, I ruled, so they did't know he had died. They were defiant and didn't have much other salient info, although they did mention the room of magic objects before dissipating.
We had to wrap there for the night. Next session on September 1.
GM notes
Only one big question coming out of this first part of the module.
- To what extent and how promptly can Kin Knot can investigate the cavern? For example, once the party has the spirit robe, can they ask her to check what's on the other side of a locked door? How thoroughly does she know what's going on in the rest of the temple? It came up only incidentally so far, but I'm sure it'll come up at the next session. I would not have her draw a map for them.
- Since this is a dark dungeon for once, I ruled that the whole thing would be dark except for small glows coming from R2 (Wo-mak and Wo-yen) and R21 (Thanan). Since the party's torch would no doubt be brighter and they wouldn't get significant notice that there was light in those locations before getting there.
- I ruled that mawlings are blind and won't automatically notice the characters due to torchlight.
Three mechanical questions about Kala Mandala came up:
- How much to recharge a scroll (core book, p. 36)? I think I ruled 300g, which got some grumbles but, especially since they don't take inventory slots (core book, p. 20), I think there should be some limitation or cost to their use. This actually came up after Zaya's but I think I forgot to document it.
- How do torches work? They're listed as replenishable (core book, p. 24). I can't decide if that means that a single torch has effectively no limit on the number of times it can be relit, or if it functions as in Cairn. I don't think it'll matter too much in this module.
- Are fire pistons small? I'm handwaving the mechanics of lighting torches right now, because I don't think that's where they keep the fun in this module (I am, however, making sure the players can account for someone holding a torch and ensuring that it doesn't conflict with holding weapons or armour/parasols).
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