Wednesday 21 February 2018

Blazing Sands campaign diary #1: Pretty racist


We've just concluded the first session of the new Pathfinder campaign I'm running called Blazing Sands. You can find background information here, but it's in the style of Arabian Nights.

The action kicked off with our heroes: Amir (Human Lore Warden), Younis (Elf Arcane Illusionist) and Razeem (Human Shaman) were on patrol in the spice district of the Grand Bazaar, when they came across a group of thugs racially attacking an orcish merchant. Words didn't seem to be working - the thugs were headstrong - so it came to a short scuffle which ended with two unconscious, one dead and two best up and surrendering.

After being carted back to the cells the PCs reported to Harun, the Sultan. Shortly after, an old man in rags burst in carrying a sandstone tablet with strange text on it. The man changed his visage to be Vizier Shar, who had been given the tablet by a desperate man who was apparently murdered by a dark spirit moments later. Younis determined that the stone was probably a couple of centuries old, but decided to find a scholar of ancient history for more information, taking a charcoal rubbing rather than the actual stone. At the Al Bidar college they found Daniel, who excitedly revealed it was written in Minean, a language not spoken for 3000 years. He said he needed a few days to translate.

The PCs continued their patrol, focusing on the meat district where the orcs often gathered. After some investigation, they found rumours that thugs had been attacking orcs, elves and halflings because they were emboldened by the apparent revel group The Black Viper.

On returning to the palace, they met with the jailer Maxima, a bloke built like a bear, who had been brutally interrogating the arrested thugs. He revealed a possible location of a Black Viper meeting place - Rhazza's opium den. They went and decided to disguise as civilians, and Younis as a human using illusion. The plan was to go in and act like racists in order to attract the attention of any Black Viper members. After insulting Rhazza, the half elf, they bought a room in the den and waited, the shaman sending out his scorpion, Anubis (who I gave a Birmingham accent, much to the dislike of the player) to scope the place out. Younis started to stumble into rooms, throwing around slurs like 'filthblood' to try and guage reactions from the humans there. This didn't exactly work out, as the session ended with Rhazza and a retinue of guards appearing in the tent.


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