(Hackmaster) The Journey of Mutumbo #2 - The Scepter of Amun-Ra

Journey of Mutumbo #2 -- The Scepter of Amun-Ra

The party arrives in Nodhaven and spends the night drinking telling yarns, and teaching Arbeow the difference between right and left. As they drank, a young woman approached them, explaining how a band of men had killed her husband and now were looking for her….

Just then, five men burst through the door and chased her out the the back, but not before one stopped to warn the party to stay of their business. (Dalmar's Journal, “I thought it a good idea, and I did”.) Later that night the different men broke into the party’s room searching for a scepter. (Dalmar: “When I said I didn’t know what they were talking about, they just spouted some religious mumbo-jumbo and attacked.”)

Cecelia, warrior-priestess of Sif, chased her attacker out of the inn and into the woods, only to see him struck down by a dwarf and the five fellows she had seen chasing the girl. The dwarf threatened the half-elf to return ‘the artifact’ or else. The party slept uneasy the rest of the night, weapons in hand….

The next morning things finally cleared up for the confused party. The girl showed up at breakfast. She said her name was Katerine and that she and her husband had received a magical scepter by total accident. She was trying to return it to its rightful owner, a Khemmet priest of Thoth named Kamen-Non. The rest of the party pressured Dalmar to help her make the delivery that night.

The exchange was your classic FUBAR combat. Katerine and the party at one edge of the clearing, Kamen-non and his cronies on the other side. Of course, the dwarf and his men appeared on a third side and all hell broke lose….[GM Notes: The combats in the rooms were versus Kamen-Non’s underpowered cronies, who quickly ran away. This was the first extended combat of the campaign. Cecilia, lucksword in hand (which she was unaware of its powers, beyond the saving throw bonus), said something to the effect of “I wish you guys would slow down and think about things…” All NPCs were then slowed for a number of rounds…. *one charge burned* Otherwise the combat was incredibly uneventful. Mutumbo dealing the only critical of the session]

Soon, dwarf and his men had either fled or were killed, Katerine disappeared, but Kamen-Non had possession of the Scepter. He healed the party, and was kind enough to explain the Scepter was a holy relic of Thoth and it had been stolen months before….

[More GM Notes: I had converted “The Sceptre of Amun-Ra” from Journeys #1. Katerine was actually a low-level assassin who had acquired the Scepter and planned on selling it to the highest bidder between the Priest and the Dwarven merchant. She killed her partner “husband” out of greed, and conned the party into being her back-up. I planned on using Kamen-Non as a connection when the party was high enough level to run the Mythus version of Necropolis]

Next stop on the Journey …..Nobquin’s Keep.