Role: The party’s patron, a minor noble of Godshome
First met: Session 1 Recap - The Baronet’s Commission
A well-dressed older man with a professor’s build, who made his fortune selling water and married into the Sorrel title. He says the born nobility have never respected him, so he has turned to religion, which he calls “the next rung on the ladder of power.” He has given heavily to the temple of Zehir and been made only a minor acolyte, and he wants a seat on its conclave.
He was Sandy’s employer before she walked out on him without notice. Her summons said: I know where she is. Come visit me.
His household
- The palais (The Palais de Sorrel), in the wealthy ring of Godshome, one level up and out from the great stair. It has trees out front, a courtyard garden with a working fountain, and a study kept like a museum: dragon skulls, idols, monster teeth and bones, and a Tome of Abyssal Magic that Elunia could read, at the cost of a headache. Its curved stained-glass window is signed by Hugo Syro.
- Greta, his armoured bodyguard.
- His daughter, about thirteen, in a modest green dress, who put her feet up on his desk. He says she is his child from an earlier affair, now recognised as heir because “there are no heirs” otherwise. Sandy had never seen her before.
- Sasha, a maid in the formal dress of the Capital, wilting in the heat.
- Gate guards in white-painted heavy armour. They let slip that other groups came before the party, then denied it.
The commission
- Recover a green rod that glows faintly and is carved with unreadable symbols. He says it is a relic of a god of serpents and poison, lost since the Sibling Wars and now in the Dungeon of Lost Things in the The Valley of Lost Bearings.
- Payment: a fist-sized diamond worth about 2,000 gp, plus one piece from his collection for each of them on their return. Elunia negotiated the second part.
- Deadline: three weeks, after which he sends the next team.
- Support: transport on his private airship to Bitter End, six hours away, where he is delivering water anyway; and two leased camels.
- To Sandy alone, quietly: in place of her pick from the collection, he will promise to leave alone the girl Sandy rescued from his household.
What the party knows about the rod
Thalan recalls from temple lore that the rod is a great source of magical power that drains whoever uses it, and that it has killed bearers who overused it. It does not belong to any one god.
Heard in Bitter End
From Session 2 Recap - Three to the Dawn.
- The party’s transport was a ticket on Ouroboros Airways (Wingnut and Ramrod), a weekly water freighter to Bitter End. The tickets carry a snake swallowing its own tail.
- About a month ago he visited Bitter End with Greta, trying to buy trading rights there. Those all belong to other noble families, and he got nowhere. The The Innkeeper of the Stewpot thinks he went inside the Bitter Market.
- The innkeeper’s verdict: “Bit of an ass, if you ask me.”