Tallavanor’s Tales: The Return

Greetings everyone! Tallavanor’s Tales have finally returned! If you’re missing out on things, check here to see what you’ve missed. It’s been quite some time since I’ve written up what’s been happening in our D&D campaign where I play a gunfighter in a low-fantasy style setting. You can hopefully expect more Tallavanor’s Tales in the future, but in the meantime, here’s a rundown of what you’ve missed!

In essence, our group (we still don’t have a name…oops) includes Monk Spy Gregario, One-handed Bard Claudia, myself, the gunfighter watch investigator Tallavanor, and our occasionally present companion, the “War Hero” and secret alchemist, Alastair. We’ve been joined most recently by our connected rogue friend Maxwell, who has helped us navigate the bustling and mystery-laden city of Mulhussen.

We arrived in this city following threads of the information from the city of Orsund, where we were investigating the death of Count Usher (not by us, although we were ordered to kill him if he didn’t comply, so that’s a grey area) by someone called Count Magnus. Chasing the strands of information to the city of Mulhussen, we heard about the death of the city treasurer. Upon further investigation (and breaking and entering) we found a connection between him and several events in the rest of the city.

The following information is what we’ve figured out.

• The City Treasurer’s death is likely at the hands of, if not ordered by, Count Magnus.
• The Treasurer paid for mercenaries to be sent to an eastern city – Apamea, at the behest of Magnus (directly or indirectly) to intervene in a city-wide civil war between magic users and the local government. Apamea was also critical in the most recent nation-spanning war.
• The main person up for the post of City Treasurer in the death of the previous one is Lord Ramfk. This would be a demotion.
• Lord Ramfk’s eldest son, Prince Erik, recently went missing, and there are rumors of him going crazy, being committed, or something darker.
• Lord Ramfk’s youngest son – Prince Rudolph – is quickly being groomed to take over the family business.
• He is connected to several other people of note, including a Lord Dunbar, Johan Gaard, Ralph Pedest, and Gert Halfden, who the party meets, well, at a party!
• Upon talking to several of these people, including…uh…temporarily securing Lord Dunbar in protective custody in order to ascertain the nature of the threats…. the name of Count Magnus rings many a bell and makes many people VERY afraid.
• Further mentioning of Count Usher (and the possibility that he may be alive, even as a lie) really upsets the apple cart.
• A bunch of murders in the Dwarven District, also called the Factory, seem to be tied to a monster that we believe to be Prince Erik. This seems also to be connected to Count Magnus.
• Chasing down several of these leads, we nearly get murdered by Johan Gaard, kill his guards at a ‘safe house’ then turn around and ambush him and his men in their building across the street. We discover a locked and sealed chamber with an awful lot of claw marks and scratches. With this safe house in the Dwarven district, we wonder if this is where the ‘murderous monster’ slash ‘Possibly Prince Erik” has been staying.
• Naturally, instead of waiting a day to rest up before confronting the monster, we plunge right in. The fact that the monster appears to be a vampire, downing two members of our group (including one VERY scary moment where Gregario was one roll away from actual death, and both him and Maxwell lost a lotttttt of hit points thanks to vampire bites) and only dying once I smack it with my oil-filled lantern, and Claudia sets it on fire. We were closer than I’d like to admit to a TPK for that moment, but it was very satisfying to finally kill such a hard target.

So, what did Tallavanor learn? First, I need to get some blessed weapons or maybe something that does slashing, rather than piercing, damage. Second, I need to get my hands on some holy water! Third, our group really should pay attention to our spell levels of the only caster, Claudia, and thus ensure we have enough to actually keep ourselves afloat in the future.

Also, look forward to a tentative map in the future!