A Splash of Wine

GM: Erik Hanson

Players:

Beth Bartley: Liliana Scarpelli: 15 year old Genoese noble seeking to marry into the Sforza family of Florence.

Joshua Kronengold: Ipolitto Sforza, a 12 year old noble

Lisa Padol: Roggerio, a musician and ex-diabolist, in Ipolitto's service

Matt Stevens: Rafael Marancini, Jewish Cabalist and advisor to Ipolitto.

Note: The following write up contains much analysis, done after the session, with 20-20 hindsight, and with the GM's participation. I enjoyed both the session while playing and the analysis after.

In Renaissance Mystical Italy, it is said that men would kill for a sip of Dorvinian wine. It is accepted wisdom that men have killed with a sip of Dorvinian wine. The Sforza family discovered that the two truisms are linked, for the Dorvinians use their alchemical skills to create vintages which kill the imbibers if they fail to have at least a sip of the wine every few days.

Unfortunately, the Sforzas learned the truth about Dorvinian wine only after hosting the Dorvinians' annual wine festival. As luck or divine providence would have it, no one in the Sforza household drank the addictive wine, but many among the city's nobility and high ranked clergy had.

Young Ipolitto Sforza and his entourage, along with Liliana Scarpelli, set out to find the necessary ingredients for the antidote to the wine. They succeeded, and they also succeeded in getting an item to thwart the plans of a group of Diabolists who had acquired a griffin's feather, a lock of hair from a faerie, and one of Baba Yaga's thumbnails. With these, they planned to create a creature who could dominate the realm of mystic beasts, the realm of faerie, and the realm of the spirits of nature.

At this point, Erik had created a double bind. Our Heroes had been told that, terrible though the Dorvinian threat was, it was but a temporal threat. The Diabolists posed a spiritual threat, one which might end the temporal world altogether. As Rafael's mentor explained, if one viewed the world as an egg-like container filled with vital liquid, then the Diabolists were making cracks in the container. Each individual crack was trivial, but the more there were, the faster the fluid leaked out, and the greater the chance that the container would shatter, spoiling all of the liquid that was the world.

So, while the evening's adventure was intended to be about the Dorvinians, the PCs had good reason to fear the acts of the Diabolists more. Erik handled this by allowing a relatively quick solution to the Diabolist problem.

The item to thwart the Diabolists was the left thumbnail of Baba Yaga. The Diabolists had her right thumbnail. Roggerio had once been a member of this group of Diabolists and was still on friendly terms with its members. He knew a simple minded man named Mook. Mook was nimble enough to swap thumbnails while remaining undetected, provided he understood what was required, especially if Roggerio provided a mild distraction by talking with the Diabolists.

This worked, especially as we dealt with the problem of explaining what Mook was expected to do by having a fairy who enjoyed watching his antics do the explaining. This was the NPC's problem to solve because we didn't want the entire session to be devoted to dealing with Mook's antics. Had Erik focused on the Diabolist plot, it might have become a PC problem. Or perhaps Mook wouldn't have been involved at all.

Regardless, given that Erik wanted to focus on the Dorvinian plot, but had GMed himself into a corner by stressing the importance of the Diabolist plot, he was right to streamline the Diabolist plot. Matt was disappointed that, after all the build up, the resolution was that simple. This was a valid point. However, IMO, Erik chose the least of all evils. He can create another Diabolist plot, and this was the first time it appeared that the PCs scored a clear victory against their opponents.

While thwarting the Diabolists, it became very clear that the Dorvinians were planning to strike a decisive blow against the Sforza. What this blow was formed the central mystery of the session.

There was growing discontent in the city, and some servants of noble households had taken to spilling wine on anyone from the Sforza household. It made sense: The Sforza had campaigned hard to get the Dorvinians to hold their festival in Florence, and the other noble houses had paid the price. Rafael, who did not actually wear Sforza livery, was one of the few in the Sforza household to escape being splashed.

Erik asked what each PC was doing, and tailored his clues to that. So, Liliana, who spent time with her noble peers, sewing and embroidering, learned that the nobles who had instigated the wine flinging had been some of those most desperate for more of the addictive wine. They had received more from the Dorvinians in return for spilling a rather different vintage on the Sforza.

The Sforza alchemists analyzed samples of the flung wine. They were able to determine only that it had unusual properties. Someone, perhaps Ipolitto, went to speak to the Comte di Ceprano.

The Comte was an enemy of the Dorvinians. He had only recently recovered his magical signet ring, which the Dorvinians had given to their ally, Ciacco the Hog. Ceprano had removed Ciacco's finger, refraining from taking the whole hand out of courtesy to the Sforza. He sent the finger to the Sforza to do with as they would. Rafael advocated sending it to Ciacco, who might be able to get it reattached. Rafael deserves good karma for that.

Eventually, it was decided that the finger would be sent to Liliana's parents in Genoa, where Ciacco resided. The Scarpellis could either return it to Liliana's unwanted suitor or not, as they chose. The Comte di Ceprano had made his point.

An enemy of the Dorvinians, the Comte wished he knew more about what the wine splashing portended. He spoke of 2 stage poisons and of the Dorvinians' great alchemical skills.

The Peruzzis supplied the next clue. Although traditionally enemies of the Sforza, they had agreed to help them, both for certain considerations and because they didn't like how much power Leo Dorvinian wielded -- and weren't convinced the Dorvinians were unassailable.

The Peruzzis' power lay in its connections, noble and base, legal or otherwise. Their network of contacts stretched far, and one of the things they used it for was transporting goods. They had been transporting wine and other things for the Dorvinians and were well placed to spy on them.

The Peruzzis explained that some of their agents had recently shipped something for the Dorvinians in a crate. One agent had tried to get a look at whatever was inside, but had died mere minutes later, a small bite on his arm.

The PCs guessed that the crate contained some kind of poisonous creatures, perhaps snakes or scorpions. Erik told us out of character that the creatures were spiders. Josh and I employed different methods of dealing with this OOC knowledge. Josh bent over backwards to keep player and PC knowledge separate, having Ipolitto become convinced that the Dorvinians had scorpions. I tried to find a way for the PCs to learn what the players knew so I wouldn't have to worry about separating the knowledge. I also asked, nervously, if Erik planned on using visual aids, as I am an arachnaphobe. He assured me that he was not.

Meanwhile, Liliana and Duke Sebastiano Sforza performed a divination to learn when the Dorvinians would act against the Sforza. They discovered that the attack would be that very night.

This did not leave enough time to bathe everyone thoroughly of the wine, baths being somewhat unusual.

Erik: So, it's Bath Day at the Sforza Manor?

Another plan was to send many of the servants to spend the night elsewhere. This, too, was discarded, as such a move would be a death warrant, not salvation, for the transplanted servants, as they would not have Sforza protection from natural and supernatural horrors.

Ultimately, magical wards were set up in a few areas, there not being time to ward all places. As expected, someone managed to carry the spiders over the wards around the manor. Then, we discovered the role of the spilled wine: Something in it attracted the spiders.

As the reader may recall, the alchemists had been analyzing the wine. Erik now ruled that, as he wanted -some- kind of dramatic tension, and as we hadn't specified that the alchemists' lab was magically warded, the spiders headed there en masse.

The PCs rushed to the lab, finding some of the alchemists dead and the rest cornered, trying desperately to hold off the spiders with brooms and the like. Thinking furiously, they decided that Roggerio would use his magical lute to get the spiders to follow him into a mostly warded area. Ipolitto would then finish warding it, trapping the spiders, but not Roggerio. The musician would leave the area.

This worked, although there was a tense moment. As Erik noted, spiders, unlike scorpions, could climb on the ceiling and drop on one from above. This happened to Roggerio. Fortunately, Rafael struck the one that actually landed on the musician with a corner of a book, knocking it to the ground, while Liliana swatted at another with a length of cloth as it began to drop from the ceiling.

Once the spiders were contained, they were burned. Sforza men then marched to the Florence house of the Dorvinians.

The Dorvinians were not fools. While there were some terrified servants left, most of the household had retreated to Milan, the Dorvinians' own city. The Sforza decided to take the battle to their enemies.

Josh: Next session: The Sforza go to war.

Mystery plots are tricky to run, so, after the session, Erik and I listened to Josh's ideas of how he would have timed events with great interest. Erik had tried to drop clues based on what information would be where each PC was looking. Josh said that the better approach for this session would have been to drop clues based on the optimal order for the PCs to discover the clues.

So, with 20-20 hindsight, Josh said that, while it was correct to drop the news about the wine splashing early, the fact that the Dorvinians instigated that should not have been revealed so quickly. Instead, the next clue should have been the Peruzzi's, that some kind of poisonous creature was being shipped.

As the PCs tried to learn more about what was shipped, they should have discover that the Dorvinians were using it that very night. And, we all agreed, no general wards against poisonous critters, just specific wards against specific ones.

Only at the eleventh hour, as the attack was about to begin, should the PCs learn from whatever channel seemed most appropriate the true cause of the wine splashing. This would have allowed a much higher level of danger and tension without postulating that Duke Sebastiano and the PCs had been stupid enough not to protect the alchemists.

As I said, I enjoyed the session regardless. I know firsthand how tricky running a proper mystery can be, so I filed all the advice away.