Session 1

TLDR

Smuggler-watch turns up dead Phoenix knights, a bound elf, and coded documents. The Crown Prince dies. The party relocates to the capital and starts working the social circuit.

Key Developments

• Ari joins the party, bound to Gnaeus via his ring — see Ari and the Ring
• The Recovered Documents secured (Gnaeus rewound time to save them from a trap)
• Crown Prince Awad is dead — see The Death of Crown Prince Awad
• Order of the Phoenix presence in Hazad confirmed — see Why Did the Phoenix Knights Come to Hazad

Notes

• Ismad, Uncle’s eldest son*, tends to be the one who gives us orders
  • Party has been together a few months
  • First mission was to escort a diplomatic mission to the Aman Highlands, which went well
  • Other of Uncle’s troubleshooters we’ve met
    • Dolgrim - burly dwarf
    • Jinan al-Karim - Quiet and Shrewd
    • Harad and Jabari al-Faruk - twin brother soldiers
• Ismad assigns us to watch a point where smugglers are known to drop off illegal immigrants and to report on concerning people
  • We encounter three people coming off the ship
    • Older gentleman
      • Master Gandolfini (One of the other knights mentions his name)
    • Two younger men, with Morschatti accents
      • Bren and Arnolf
    • All three struck Haroun as disciplined, perhaps Knights
  • Farraj notices someone who arrived with the people waiting for the boat who had gone off earlier raise a crossbow from hiding
• Fight ensues, older knight dies, we kill the sailors who attacked the knights
• Gnaeus’s ring reacts to one of the chests
  • Which then turns out to have an elf woman in it
    • Ari?
      • Dusky skin
      • Straight dark hair
      • Strange golden eyes
      • And claims to serve Gnaeus now?
        • Apparently this is due to his ring
          • Highly heretical!
      • She says Knight-Confessor Gandolfini, Bren, and Arnolf are members of the Order of the Phoenix
        • She was bound to service by the Order; Gandolfini was her second master
          • Knight-Confessor Adalberto was previous
      • She can heal and poison with her blood, etc?
  • A surviving sailor says that Gandolfini mind controlled the crew of the ship until the captain broke free and arranged an ambush
• One of the chests is trapped to destroy the papers inside, Gnaeus rewinds to prevent this
• Reported to Ismad
  • Ismad’s people manage to open the locked trunk, which has a lot of coded papers. They will need time to decode them → The Recovered Documents
• The next day the town exploded in rumors of the Crown Prince dying while exploring Dwarven Ruins to the north.
  • We confirmed with Ismad that this was true, and there is a funeral being planned in the capital
• We head to capital and set up at the Ulpia Estate
  • Servants appear to not love that I have Ari
• Gnaeus goes to a party at the Balventia Estate
  • Julius Menennius
    • He’s a bit cold towards me, likely due to my reputation
  • Camelia Balventia (Hostess)
• Haroun and Farraj go to a party at the Al-Fahd Estate
• Post fancy party drinking
  • Rumor has it that Baahir has been hanging around with a seductive elf

* Ismad is Uncle’s second son (Maajid first) — confirmed (GM); session note kept as written.

New People Met

Gandolfini † · Bren · Arnolf · Ari · Julius Menenius · Camillia Balventia · (mentioned: Adalberto, Dolgrim Zum-Akar, Jinan al-Karim, Ahad al-Faruk, Jabari al-Faruk)

Loose Threads

• Fate of Bren and Arnolf: released by the party, later captured by Uncle’s Men for “extended questioning” (GM)
• The “seductive elf” rumor around Baahir