Welcome, dear Guest!
The day Urda Sank is a three-arc pulp horror scenario in which Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen counter the vile plot of Deep Ones and their alien deities wishing to submerge the world under a catastrophic flood. Each arc of this adventure should take one gaming session, but if you have a spare day (or, even better, a night) you can invite your friends for a gaming marathon and complete the entire story during one long play. What I have for you today is the first part – The doom that came to Lyonesse, an urban adventure about krakens, vile bargains and families with unspeakable secrets. Have a good read!
The Day Urda Sank – part one: the doom that came to Lyonesse
It’s quite possible tha Our Ladies and Gentlemen are already preparing a polar expedition…
This story begins when Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen are walking down a street in Uldport – an old and respectable district of Lyonesse. The newspapers are full of sensational news about storms raging around the North Pole and wildest speculations on what is happening. Your players are probably eager to investigate this matter but before they manage to plan an arctic expedition a radio message captivates their attention:
Warning! Warning! The sea level is dangerously rising! Newport docks could be flooded at any moment! Every person capable of physical work is asked to help in the construction of the dike! Every Lady or Gentleman is asked to help in overseeing the construction! Once again: Newport will soon be flooded!
Between the hammer and the anvil
After getting to Newport the PCs see simple men and women of all races carrying bags of sand and putting them on the dike. Humans are working alongside orcs and halfings looking like gangsters, everybody is united to save their city. Of course the members of the upper class don’t work themselves, but they coordinate others’ efforts.
Give Our Ladies and Gentlemen a moment to help the workers. If they work physically, the morale of ordinary people will be boosted (giving each player a token) but handwork is a minor scandal for Ladies and Gentlemen. They can also meet the leader of the whole operation – lieutenant Henry Griffin, an aging human. He explains that the rising tide was observed in Everness in Caledonia about three hours ago and now it reaches Lyonesse.
Then, suddenly, a giant tentacle pierces through the dike and tries to snatch one of the PCs! A Kraken!, shouts one of the halfings, and most of the workers flee – leaving the dike unfinished. What’s worse, some halfings draw their luparas and begin to shoot – not at the Kraken, at the PCs!
Time for a combat! The PCs’ enemies are three halfing gangsters (treat them as bruisers with firearms 9/9+) and the Kraken (see Giant Squid in the rulebook). The stake is the dike – if the PCs win, it survives, if not, it doesn’t and Newport is flooded. Players may suggest some additional stake – for example, capturing and interrogating the halfings against losing a gadget. Remember that Kraken is in the water so the PCs can attack him at close range only if they enter the water too (-3 to all tests without swimming equipment) or if they delay an action to attack his tentacles when he attacks them (he can’t be finished this way).
If PCs lose, they should help with Newport’s evacuation – it takes an athletics TN 15 test to offer a significant help and regain a token or Reputation point. Failure costs a point of Constitution.
Treacherous little pasta-eaters!
No matter what the result of the combat was Lieutentant Griffin is still here, impressed by Extraordinary Ladies and Gentlemen’ bravery. He asks them if they would like to help the government in investigating the mysterious incidents around the North Pole that surely are connected to the unnatural flood. If they agree – and who would say no? – he leaves in a great hurry to discuss this with his superiors.
He doesn’t want them to accompany him because the situation is still dangerous there’s something important that they must do: the betrayal of the halfings and the very appearance of the Kraken suggests that halfing families also have something to do with the flood. He asks the PCs to investigate for the glory of Alfheim. I hope they’ll agree – if they won’t you could remind them that halfings allied with a Kraken to kill them.
Below are the most probable trails that Our Ladies and Gentlemen can follow. Although I don’t repeat information written before most of them can be pursued independently.
That’s how most people imagine Profondia family. And they are right.
The traitors: if they caught the halfings, they can interrogate them. If they didn’t, they may look for them now – it takes a TN 15 notice or streetwise test to find them and an opposite test of any well-explained skill to catch them. They are genuinely sorry about what happened but they simply had to betray Lyonesse: their godmother Electra Vendetta (a TN 15 streetwise roll reveals that until recently the godmother was Bianca, Electra’s mother) explained them that if they won’t do this the city will be destroyed anyway while allying with the invaders will allow her to safe their family. They don’t know much more but they have heard that Bianca Vendetta has recently met with infamous Nunzia Profondia, godmother of the most brutal and dreaded scylla in Lyonesse.
Contacts and knowledge: a PC trained in streetwise can make a TN 15 roll to remember that he heard about a recent unrest among halfings. A raise allows him to recall that the Profondia family was very active lately and that they arranged meetings with godmothers of most other families. This family doesn’t live in Quirnale (“Little Scylla”), but in the suburban fishing village of Old Ipswich. With two raises he knows that Nunzia Profondia never shows in public and is said to be stuck with a rare and deforming disease. Almost every member of her family is slightly deformed, but she is the most monstrous. A halfing can make this test using common knowledge.
Home of the halfings: Quirnale is a district openly called “Little Scylla” and (less openly) ruled by three powerful scyllas: Vendetta, Chiaramonte and Fumadore. Right now it’s the most dangerous part of Lyonesse (save for Newport if PCs failed). People have heard about halfings’ treachery at the dike and a mob of angry men is assaulting the rich villa of Vendetta family – the only one to keep its base of operations public. The PCs can help in the assault (firearms, brawl or expression TN 15 to succeed) or sneak into the villa (stealth or streetwise TN 15) but they won’t find anyone important inside – only low-level criminals. One of halfing gangsters, seeming genuinely sorry about what is happening will explain to them that Electra Vendetta, the daughter of Bianca, has taken control of the scylla and imprisoned her mother in Frutti di Miramare, family’s restaurant.
The restaurant is closed and guarded by well-trained ogres and halfings disguised as cooks (use bruiser stats [p. 506] with the competent ability, and, in case of halfings, firearms 9/10+). Getting there requires a good diversion or at least an opposite roll of some combat- or stealth-related skill.
The main hall of the restaurant looks repulsive (Fear TN 15) – a young halfing woman (Electra) is preparing some kind of unholy rite, pouring blood from small vials onto the walls and inscribing strange symbols into it. Another, much older witch is floating in a huge aquarium in the center of the room, seeming asleep but alive.
Electra is not a heartless villain, but a likeable rogue desperately wanting to save her family. When Our Ladies and Gentlemen arrive, she asks them to leave Lyonesse and start a new life somewhere far from the sea. She won’t explain why, but a players can start a discussion to change her attitude. They can, for example, persuade her that together they have a chance to save the city or convince that honourable death is still better than allying with krakens against humanity.
If they win, she’ll tell them that Nunzia Profondia, that terribly deformed godmother became possessed by some alien entity calling itself “The Messenger” who knew about the coming flood and promised to save other scyllas if they help to destroy Lyonesse. A striking feeling of superiority and power surrounds the possessed godmother and none of the other halfing witches even considered saying “no”, save for Bianca Vendetta who had to be silenced by her own daughter before “The Messenger” does the same in much more brutal way. Electra says that the blood she poured in this room is taken from the members of her family and that she needed this blood to connect them with a ritual that Nunzia is going to perform on the top of Tall Tom, the clock tower of Alfish parliament. A ritual that was to change the bodies of the halfings so that they could survive when the world changes… the world? Yes, says Electra. This flood is meant to overrun most of Urda’s lands with water.
There is no time to lose! Let’s head to the clock tower!
A rotten village: alternatively Our Ladies and Gentlemen can investigate Old Ipswich instead of Quirnalle. This old, fishing village on the suburbs of Lyonesse smells of rotten wood and the sea, but there’s something wrong in it. Our Ladies and Gentlemen are watched distrustfully by murky-eyed, sickly people who show no respect to visitors of noble standing and don’t want to talk with them. Asking about Nunzia Profondia makes them openly hostile (but not aggressive) and a TN 20 test of a social skill is needed to make them reveal the location of Profundia house – an inconspicuous building standing by the sea.
There is no one in there, but when the PCs are near to this house they can make a TN 15 spot test to notice that they are being watched from the shadows by two halfings and an ogre. When they notice that they are discovered, they begin to run! What’s more, the Mist begins to flow through the streets of Old Ipswich. It’s denser than usual and terrible things can be seen out of the corner of one’s eye.
It’s a chase against the three gangsters. The mist causes difficult conditions for Our Ladies and Gentlemen, but not for the shady members of Profondia family. Additionally any PC with clubs (§) as his initiative card notices something scary in the fog – a silhouette of an alien being, a hazy non-Euclidean landscape and so on – and that forces him to make a TN 15 Fear check.
The gangsters are no match for Our Ladies and Gentlemen, co they are caught no matter who wins the conflict. However, if PCs lose one of the haflings gets away and warns Nunzia. Anyway at least two of them are captured. They are a very unsettling sight – with murky eyes, peeling skin, strangely sharp teeth and slurred they seem very piscine. Luckily they are also very stupid and while they don’t want to cooperate it won’t be difficult to trick them into revealing where Nunzia is: in Tall Tom! If Our Ladies and Gentlemen won’t trick them into revealing that you can simply decide that after some time the ogre says that because he believes that it’s already too late to do anything.
Finale: The Ogress!
No one can enter Tall Tom today – it’s an order of Ronald Rowen, the curator of this historical monument. There is a very faithful guard at the door and sneaking past him or convincing him to let anyone enter requires a TN 20 test of an appropriate skill. If the test won’t be successful the PCs can, of course, break into Tall Tom but this will warn Nunzia.
Her ritual takes place just behind the clock face, in an old and powerful nexus. Nunzia Profondia, with distant stars in her eyes, stands in the middle of a glyph composed of thin, intertwining curves that seemingly defy the laws of geometry. Four halfings bow before her, their hands inscribed with similarly enigmatic carvings. In the corner of the room stands “Ronald Rowen” – in fact a Deep One wearing Rowen’s skin thanks to his race’s alien technology.
But what was this ritual for? Well, it depends. If the PCs stopped the Kraken, Nunzia tried to elevate the level of Tetera river. If they failed and Lyonesse is sinking, the Ogress wants to fulfil her promise and change halfings into Deep Ones so that they can survive underwater.
When PCs reach the room, Nunzia greets them with a deep, echoing voice. Her eyes, black orbs looking like a starscape from the edge of the universe, chill Our Ladies and Gentlemen with cosmic void, but they are not the strangest thing about the godmother. First and foremost she’s an ogress. Yes! – a female ogre, probably the only one in the world for only the corruption as vile as this running in Profundia family’s veins could cause the birth of such a strange creature. Nunzia, or rather “The Messenger”, seems amused by PCs arrival and their astonishment. It congratulates them on getting so far and asks them to join its cause for they would make a perfect Deep Ones leaders.
This offer is absolutely unthinkable for any Lady or Gentlemen, but it doesn’t mean that they must refuse at once. This final conflict can be played both as a fierce combat against the powerful being or a discussion in which the PCs try to outsmart or simply distract the strange entity. If they attack, a Deep One tears through Rowan’s skin and helps The Messenger in combat.
The stakes for a combat are quite obvious: if the PCs win, the ritual is interrupted and The Messenger leaves Nunzia’s body, if they lose it pushes them out of the clock tower and finishes the unholy rite. In a discussion your players may be a bit more creative: maybe they want to bluff the creature into believing that they want to join in, take part in the ritual and then interrupt it? Or maybe they want the halfings to rebel against this alien demon? Or their plan is simply to talk so long that the ritual won’t be finished in time? Anyway if they lose a discussion The Messenger learns their True Names! Now it can do almost anything with them and it uses this power to make them run away from the tower. What’s more it will surely use these Names the next time it meets Our Ladies and Gentlemen.
Aftermath
It’s best to finish the first session just after the conflict with The Messenger. It will be more dramatic that way. What’s more, when you explain what happened next at the beginning of the next session you’ll make sure that your players remember and understand the whole plot. Because of this the aftermath of The doom that came to Lyonesse will be described at the beginning of On Alien Tides – the next arc of our adventure, taking place in the submarine that takes Our Ladies and Gentlemen to the North Pole. This arc will appear on Monday.
Stats of NPCs and monsters
Most enemies faced by Our Ladies and Gentlemen use stats from the core rulebook without major changes. Some, however, require more attention:
Electra Vendetta uses the stats of Ophelia Drakmoore (p. 496), but she hasn’t got the elven racial traits. Instead she uses spells: missle (with firearms 12/9+), suggestion and telekinesis. Additionally, as a halfing witch she gains a token every time somebody rolls a fumble during a conflict with her.
The members of Profondia family from Old Ipswich use much upgraded stats od slyboots (p. 507). Not only each of them is competent but each also has one challenge marker so that they can endure one attack before being finished. They still have a dice pool of 1d10 each but they don’t count as extras and thus the whole group can’t be finished in a single attack.
Nunzia Profondia (that is, “The Messanger” possessing her body) has the stats of a demon (p. 475). Its powers are smite, shield, illusion and temptation while its spells are boost power (smite, shield), dispel magic and reflect magic. It uses occultism 12/8+ to activate there powers. Smite and shield manifest as a swirling mass of faces that both protect The Messanger and bite those around it. Additionally this being has one powerful ability: when its opponent is using a card it may spend a token to make this card add a penalty to the test instead of a bonus (so, for example, an ace lowers the result by 5 instead of increasing it). Jokers are immune to the effects of this ability. The Messanger can do such incredible things because it is a being from a dimension so alien that its presence alone makes everything work wrong.
Steamagination 