Castle Xyntillan Session 28: Judgement Day

In the last sessions, the party returned to Tours-en-Savoy, taken over by Rel and his orcish forces, charmed The Auditor, broke Claude and Giacomo out of prison, revealed Claude's true inheritance, recovered the Will and escaped to the county of Wolkmarstal, where they hatch a plot to overthrow the illegitimate Count of Chamrousse and install Claude. How will they legitimate the will? With their newfound love of 10' Invisibility spells, is there anything that can stand in the party's way? All this and more in this week's session of Castle Xyntillan!

The Party

Longo Lightfoot, Halfling Thief, wears a sky-blue headscarf. Played by CaptainSabatini.

Corby the Joyful, Human Cleric of Sucellus, wears a short, conical hat. Played by diregrizzlybear.
Idred the Most Omniscient, Human MU, wears a full-visored greathelm. Played by David Perry.
Boroth Swinney the Joyous, Human Fighter, wears a masked helm depicting a happy human face. Played by Justin Hamilton.
Francois, Light Footman, noticeably dogless. 

Clovis, Heavy Footman.

Jorg, Lightbearer

Yessica, Arbalist

Kaleb, Arbalist with a nose for booze and a magic pipe

Eric, Light Footman and cart driver.

Oscar, Arbalist of unusual strength

LaBeouf, Camp Cook.
Raymond, Mule.

Casualties

None

Loot

Crusader's Cloak +1

Legal standing

The Game

• Safe in Wolkmarstal, the party sold off the goods from the last expedition... totalling nearly 30,000gp in total. They also identified a pair of items, Maltricia's iron-linked heart necklace which turned out to be a necklace of deflection, and the Gran Roulette brandy, which turned out to function as potions of healing, except for one which was dosed with a deadly poison.
• They conspired with Claude and the Count of Wolkmarstal, and figured out how to legitimate the Will. Claude cautioned against taking it to the Beast, as his quarters were isolated and difficult to access, even for other family members; his recommendation was to take it to the Judge in the Lake Tower courtroom. 

• He provided the party a copy of the Will, along with a letter swearing on his soul that it was genuine. Thus, the party returned to Castle Xyntillan, with replacements for their lost hirelings.
• They entered under cover of invisibility through the gardens, following Claude's directions until they reached the boulder corridor. They moved along it until they reached the door which last time had been blocked by the boulder, and passed through it rather than risk the strange purple bubbles. They were pleasantly surprised by a delightful tea room, and passed through. 
• Further along, they encountered a black draped room, the ceiling covered in glowing yellow eyes, in which a blindfolded skeleton's headed floated off its body and cried out 'Only the blind shall see! Prepare yourselves!' while another skeleton appeared carrying a platter of plucked-out eyes and rushed at them with a spoon.
• So, yeah. That happened.
• They were unnerved enough by the skeletons being able to see through their invisibility, and lost the protection of the magic item as it was dispelled. Still, destroying two skeletons was trivial.
• Idred put on the blindfold after the combat, and found that while it effectively blocked his sight, he could see clear as day a door in the west wall. He directed the party to open it, and they entered a secret room, where they saw a table spin through the air as a ghostly hand conducted a séance. 
• They approached closer, but a trio of razzle-dazzles emerged from a rainbow-bright portal and disgorged glassy crystals onto the floor. The party remained in the room long enough to see what the hand was spelling out before fleeing the room very slowly.
• The hand spelled out, 'Samuel suspects but does not know; the Blind Beast knows but does not see; the crusader knows but does not tell.' Claude had previously informed them that Samuel was the other hunchback in the castle, who ran errands and took care of the prisoners. 
• They continued apace, until they found the great double doors leading outside onto the bridge, right next to the cadaver of a horse, stripped of organs and crushed under a collapsed roof. 
• They moved to open the doors, but the cadaver opened its eyes.
• "Why have you forsaken me? You promised me flesh!"
• It rose, knocking aside the debris and standing up, on its hind legs like a man. It then charged the party, kicking Corby in the chest in a thoroughly unhorselike way.

Corby: What, like a karate kick?

GM: Yes.

• Still, the party succeeded in bringing it down, and opened the doors, looking out over the great bridge that spanned the waters of Lake Xyntillan. Dark shapes moved under the water, and the party moved quickly.

• At the other end, by the door to the tower, they found a winch and chain leading into the water. They pulled it up to find an iron cage which held a coffin. They knocked, and a shrill voice inside asked, 'Hello children. Would you like some candy?'
• It introduced itself as Uncle Montfort, and after a short discussion, the party dropped the cage back into the lake. They passed into the tower, where they found a huge idol of goat-headed Baphomet with glittering green eyes, and frescoes of knights questing, jousting and doing other, altogether less wholesome, things with goats.
• Longo climbed the statue to plunder its emerald eyes, but as he got close, he saw that the eyes weren't jewels at all, but slime. A rumble grew inside the statue, and Longo barely swung out of the way as the idol sneezed caustic green slime onto the floor, which began to sizzle and burn.
• In the tower's cloakroom, the party located two cloaks which weren't disintegrated. One was a dead cloaker, and the other a magical crusader's cloak. Boroth took it, liking the symbol of a sword on it. 
• They passed carefully upstairs, up to the second and then third floor, where they saw the pegasus-rider symbol of the Judges Guild. They knew they were in the right place.

Judges' Guild, established 776

• Boroth was first through the door. He saw row on row of skeletons in black robes in the pews, and a podium, flanked by two animate armors, where sat the ghost of Judge Roberto Malevol.

Judge: Boroth Swinney the Joyous, you are on trial for the charge of *looks at papers* TREASON!

• Boroth was ushered to the stand, and was offered a lawyer for an outrageous fee. He declined, and the rest of the party took the place of his legal counsel. In a gambit to reverse the momentum of the court, the party brought forth as evidence, the Will of Aristide Malevol.

• Gasps went up from the pews. One skeleton fainted. The Judge looked over the document and questioned the party. He asked them what witnesses should be summoned to the courtroom. The party choose to bring to the stand... Vincent Godefroy-Malevol, lawyer of the bar and witness of the Will.
• With a strike of the gavel, the Vincent appeared from thin air on the stand... halfway through eating his breakfast.

Vincent: Oh, fuck.

• He was cross-examined by the party, with the judge asking pointed questions of his own. Boroth read the lawyer's mind, and found that he was desperately trying to figure out how to get out of this. In the end, sweat beading down his face, he took a plea bargain. He admitted to looking the other way while the contents of the Will he witnessed were perverted, but insisted he did not know precisely who did it or how. 
• Shock! Horror! Cries from the pews! One skeleton refused to be silent, and with a crack of the gavel the Judge telekinetically threw him out through the window and into the lake.
• In the end, the Judge made three rulings: Boroth Swinney the Joyous, not guilty of treason. Vincent Godefroy-Malevol, guilty of legal malfeasance. And the true Count of Chamrousse, legally speaking, was Claude Malevol. 
• And so, the game concluded. The contents of the will are revealed to all and legitimized, but the Count won't go down without a fight, and nor will the family members that support him. Where will the party go from here? Will they try to seek out the Beast to gain his support? Find out in the next session of Castle Xyntillan!

Takeaways

The party is back in the dungeon! Very nice to be back on solid ground, where the game runs the smoothest. 

I screwed up in a couple places with the invisibility items, not emphasizing that the party lost it in the fight with the skeletons and invoking it when the Razzle-Dazzles showed up. 

I have no knowledge of how legal trials actually work, let alone in fantasy medieval Switzerland. Neither did any of my players, so we just flailed about with our knowledge of courtroom procedurals. It turned out just fine. 

The horse encounter was one of the creepier things I've read in the book, and the players really seemed to find it engaging.

Next Chapter: Curse of the Horned Helm