Easy Money Summary

From RPGnet
Jump to: navigation, search

A summary of the Easy Money PBP WHFRP game.

ROSASalvator.jpg

Aubentag Evening

After a brief encounter with the peddler Wilhelm Braun, the group are hired to keep an eye on the warehouse Harm van Eyke, supposedly containing textiles

Otto discovers that there's actually gunpowder hidden underneath the velvet. Bad Wili and his gang try to rob the warehouse -from them, the group that learn that van Eyke has been associating with one Johannes de Silentio. Otto, Manny and Eckhart go off to substitute soot for the gunpowder so they can later blackmail van Eyke, while Johann and Gottfried stay to guard the warehouse.

The trio of Otto, Manny and Eckhart stop by Manny's priestess of Ranald sister, Elsa. She tells them the story of Johannes de Silentio. Later, they see a black house symbol among the graffiti in an alleyway. Otto hides the gunpowder in his brother-in-law Eberhard Hagenberg's house, but Hagenberg catches him in the act.

Meanwhile, Johann and Gottfried are arrested. Once they're in the watch-station, it is revealed that they are actually wanted in connection with Braun, not van Eyke. It appears that the old peddler assasinated Karl von Metzradt, a major Ostlander noble, and this has caused a riot among the Ostlanders forced to live in a refugee camp outside the city. They talk to Braun in the watch-house and he reveals why he did it: Karl von Metzradt and his men apparently raped his common-law wife Katarin during the war. He is more concerned with something called 'the Nachthaus' however, saying that he helped to build it and is now paralysed by guilt. Once the guards come in for interrogation, Gottfried makes a break for escape. During the scuffle, a lantern is knocked over and Braun is killed in the darkness. Gottfried escapes and finds the others.

The group return to the warehouse, but van Eyke arrives just a moment too soon for them to plant the false gunpowder. Instead, they hold it to ransom and he grudgingly agrees to pay thirty crowns for its return. Since there's still an arrest warrant out for them, the group decide to lie low and spend the night at a brothel Gottfried knows.


Marktag

The next day, the group decide to go and question Johann's master, Horst Seehoffer, since van Eyke has hinted that he may know a way to get Johann out of prison. Seehofer cannot, however, and he explains why. The man interested in the group, who put out the warrants in the first place and later withdrew them, is the Lector Benedict von Logau, a very powerful man in the cult.

The group then separated. Manny went to the theatre and there became involved in protecting the lovely Bretonnian actress Marguerite Devaux from anti-Bretonnian rioters, enraged because of border troubles over a newly discovered tin mine. He also made the acquaintance of various people, including an Ostlander lawyer called Bertholdt Dreisen, who was acting as an advocate for the Ostlander rioters arrested on the previous night.

Gottfried went to see his friend Anna Amalia, whom he had heard was looking for him. He found a thief, Heinrich Kramer, going through her rooms, and after a fight, he persuaded him to talk. It seemed that he himself worked for the Nachthaus, that Anna was now imprisoned in it, and that he'd been sent to her rooms make sure she'd left no indication of where she was going. The thief said he knew more but would only talk when he got a new supply of Crimson Shade. Braun had been his former supplier.

Otto went to arrange the handover of the fake gunpowder to van Eyke. However, it proved to be a trap and van Eyke's Tilean mercenaries ambushed him. Otto managed to escape and made his way to the smugglers' tavern, the Drowned Dog, where he struck back against van Eyke: he spread the rumour that he was cheating his employers (including the mysterious Johannes de Silentio). He also met Bad Wili and his gang and they agreed to work with him, also suggesting that he go and see a priest called Vincenz Briemle to get Johann out of the Cult holding cells.

Eckhart went to the new Emperor's Griffin clubhouse to audition. While there, he met a mysterious man called Urs von Baltasar, who claimed to be a magister of the Grey College. He invited Eckhart over to his rooms in the college to discuss 'the house Braun built in Altdorf' and then performed a cryptic piece called 'the Black House'.

Backertag

Otto woke up to the news that his brother-in-law Eberhard had been murdered at his office. After some discussion with his sister and his brother's business partner, Aldo Lorenzo, it became obvious that the murderer was Johannes de Silentio or someone in his employ and that he knew Eberhard had the gunpowder. Otto successfully traced the leak: Eberhard found what Otto had hidden in his house and asked Aldo for his advice on what to do. Aldo told his Ostlander wife about it -Otto had previously learned that van Eyke was having an affair with her. She was obviously the source of the leak.

Johann was brought out of his cell and met with the blind lector Benedict von Logau. Logau explained that he had been searching for the Nachthaus for some time and that he had been aware that Braun was one of its agents. He had been having him watched for some time in the hopes that he'd lead them to more important people. Braun's out-of-the-blue assassination of von Metzradt had shaken everything up. Logau had the guards interrogate Braun about the Nachthaus but he refused to speak. Logau suspected that Braun feared that some of his fellow cultists were among his interrogators. He thought he might speak more freely among his own kind, and so the Lector had had Johann and Gottfried arrested and put them in the same cell as him. The plan was foiled by Gottfried's escape and Braun's subsequent murder, but Logau had discovered that Braun actually left a document of his confessions, including names of major cultists, somewhere in Altdorf. He was temporarily releasing Johann on condition that he and his underworld friends tracked down these confessions.

Otto had arranged to meet everyone outside the priest Vincenz Briemle's chapel. Although he was no longer need to help free Johann, he had some information on the Nachthaus. His parish had been hit hardest of all by the series of disappearances centred around the house and one of them, Dorotea Frey, had actually come back -mutated and completely insane. He had hid her in the Monteufel asylum.

The group then repaired to a tavern to discuss their next move. Otto voiced doubts about their investigation of the Nachthaus and even suggested that he would leave Altdorf but was eventually brought around. Manny bought a Rumster pie, only to find inside it a ring last seen on van Eyke's finger -it was obvious that Otto's ruse to turn his employers against him had worked all too well. The group again split up -Manny and Otto went to visit the island asylum while Gottfried, Eckhart and Johann went to try and find Katarin, Braun's widow, in the hope that she might have his confessions.

Gottfried hired a local gang-member to lead them to Katarin's rooms, but it turned out to be a trap and a local gang ambushed them. The trio survived, although Eckhart's leg was broken, and managed to negotiate a truce. The gang revealed that they had been hired by Bertholdt Dreisen, the Ostlander lawyer whom Manny had met, to see off anyone trying to find Katarin Braun. The trio decided to cut their losses and seek medical attention from their ally, Doktor Liebenfreud. Afterwards, Gottfried went to play a game of cards. He won a large sum, but the judge he was playing against tried to organise an ambush to get his money back. Thinking quickly, Gottfried changed clothes with a naive young Border Princes man and managed to escape. He was later told by Stilts, a mad beggar, that Johannes de Silentio had been at the game that night, and hoped to play again soon.

Eckhart, meanwhile, woke up to find that he had sleepwalked all the way to the eerie Grey College. He gained entrance to the college only to find that his contact, von Baltasar, had been murdered. Eckhart took Baltasar's journal and left the college grounds pursued by phantom guards.

Meanwhile, at the asylum, Manny and Otto were met by the asylum's director, Monteufel himself. It soon became clear that Monteufel was as mad as any of his inmates but he spoke a great deal about Dorotea Frey and her experiences of the Nachthaus, saying that it had inspired him. Monteufel turned out to be an impostor -an anonymous inmate who had led an inmates' revolt against the wardens and taken over the running of the asylum. He was also, inspired by Dorotea's description of the Nachthaus, a worshipper of Slaanesh, although not in connection with any cult. He managed to feed Manny a hallucinogenic which gave the protagonist horrifying visions. Manny and Otto killed the impostor and his guards and talked to Dorotea, who said that the Nachthaus was in a 'dark place where the winds stopped' and also that it was 'where all the roads ended'. Otto then torched the hideously mutated woman and the two fought their way out of the asylum.

Once back in town, Otto and Manny organised a meeting of drug-dealers, in order to gain access to supplies of Shade and opium. Three factions responded: Fan Lung's Cathayans sent a representive, Song Fang, who, puzzlingly, did virtually nothing but politely turn down Otto's offer and leave immedietely afterwards; the Estalian Alejo and his Harvesters, who offered Otto a deal on Crimson Shade, and a Kislevite student Kowalczyk, who claimed to be working for Braun's supplier, who also possessed the peddler's confessions (which the group had been looking for). He was willing to trade the confessions for another document, and asked to see the group the next day.


Bezahltag

The group now went to visit Kowalczyk's master, who turned out to be an Arabyan scholar named Abu al Khayr, who lived with his niece Kâramanèh. Al Khayr offered them a deal -Braun's confessions in exchange for certain papyri that he wanted from Altdorf University. Al Khayr believed that these papyri, a hymn of praise to the Great Necromancer Nagash by his granddaughter Enheduanna, contained the secret of eternal youth and that the Cathayan Fan Lung was looking for them. He wanted the papyri in order to keep them safe from Fan Lung and others.