HRE Campaign Session 1
Published:
September 18, 1631:
The Great War has been raging in Germany for 13 years. The empire is bled dry. Battles, famine and plague have wiped out cities and depopulated swaths of land. The remote county of Grenzland is one of the few that has so far been spared the catastrophe. The inhabitants attribute this to the work of St. James, who is buried in a tomb below the town of Brucktstadt. But the festival in honor of the patron saint could not take place this year as planned. The saint, the people are convinced, will therefore no longer hold his protective hand over Bruckstadt.
The mercenary group arrived in the town of Bruckstadt. The PCs meet Count Reuben Wolfsgrau, ruler of Bruckstadt, who offers them a mission: retrieve the burial shroud of St. James from the crypts before the end of the month and the party will receive the deed to a nearby castle (all recovered treasures belong to the party). Every ten years, the town celebrates the memory of St. James, the patron saint of Bruckstadt, by replacing his burial shroud during the holy feast of St. James. This year’s celebrations could not be completed because a gun powder depot explosion on September 3rd destroyed the small Church of St. James and blocked access to the crypt. Count Reuben realized that clearing the rubble would take weeks. Luckily, there is another way to access the crypt of St. James–via the old Roman catacombs North of the town wall. On September 5th, Father Brin (the local priest of the Church of St. James) and three militiamen descend into the catacombs, but do not return. September 6th, the Count sends more militiamen after them, but they also fail to return. Captain Steinblick refuses to send more men, so the Count has turned to the PC’s mercenary company.
Additional events on 9/18/1631:
The PCs hear a rumor that there exists a secondary entrance to the catacombs.
The PCs hear a rumor about a burial mound outside of Bruckstadt, along the Wetterstrasse, where a king has watched over his treasure for a thousand years. Refugees from the religious war are camped outside of town. The townsfolk are not fond of the situation.
The PCs meet the proprietor of Fassman’s Weapon Store. He can procure plate armor. The PCs order some and it will arrive on 9/21.
The PCs meet Giacomo Cafarelli, the local scribe. He is a strange character that can offer various services (e.g., sell scrolls, buy scrolls, identify magic items).
The PCs meet Simune Schippel, the local midwife. She can heal PCs and is knowledgable about the wider region. She also sells Belladonna poison.
9/19/1631:
The PCs make their first foray into the Roman catacombs. They encounter a group of grave robbers that has “claimed” the catacombs. After some back and forth, violence ensues. The group is able to kill several of the robbers, including their leader (Trutzkopf), who turns out to have been a werewolf, unbeknownst to the rest of his gang.
The PCs spare some members of the group and make a deal with the wizard Boltan Raureif, who is searching the catacombs for the hidden grave of King Cronman Carr. The wizard needs the PCs to find the skull of the tomb’s architect (hidden on a deeper level). Raureif will use the skull to speak with the dead architect and locate the hidden tomb. He offered the PCs 250 gp per person for the skull and a quarter of the loot from the hidden tomb.
Looting a sarcophagus, one PC was cursed to be attracted to teeth.
The PCs recover assorted treasure (e.g., an odd ivory casket) and discover a hidden room with the statue of an ancient god/devil: a toad named Joz’Quatl. There, they find a hidden chamber with a book: ancient, bound in leather, written in a foreign language. The scribe Cafarelli is able to tell the PCs the book is written in the language of the bog elves Dun Gaer. He is willing to sell the PCs a Read Language scroll or translate the book–for a price.