Clockwork & Chivalry - Session 05

14th March 2020

It's a Saturday night and we're at Matakishi's for some RPG goodness.

Tonight, we will be continuing with the 'Clockwork & Chivalry' campaign 'Kingdom & Commonwealth'.

Due to the ongoing threat of the Covid-19 virus, this would be the last time we met up in person for a while.
​Anyway! On to the game.

---

Time: April.

Several months  had passed since our last meeting with Sir Reginald.

We had received an invitation to Oxford to meet with Sir Reginald and a 'Henry Ireton'.

Oxford was heavily guarded and a Royalist town. Luckily, we had been furnished with the required papers to enter the city​.
So we found ourselves at a pub charmingly named 'The Splattered Receptacle'. It was a fairly busy place. We noticed a band of armed men here - possibly soldiers? The were also some 'rowdy rural types' and 'subdued students'.

We were taken upstairs for our meeting with the two men. We were surprised to find that they had been accompanied by a lady?

Henry Ireton introduced himself and explained that he was taking a great risk coming here. Even though the wintry weather we had endured in our previous endeavour had long faded away, the atmosphere in the room had become decidedly frosty.

Ireton explained that both Sir Reginald and he were strongly anti-war and wanted to prevent this situation from getting worse.

Sir Reginald then asked all of us to take an oath, we agreed and did so. Then Henry Ireton introduced us to the lady.

'Hilaria Edgecombe' was her name. Hilaria explained had served as a 'lady-in-waiting' to a 'Lady Elizabeth Hopton'.

Three years ago, Lady Hopton had been in the town of 'Penwith' whilst travelling Cornwall. Hilaria told that Lady Hopton had been cursed by a witch. A witch called 'Magi Friggi'. Lady Hopton had spent some time wasting away until she died.

Hilaria showed us a 'Poppit'? Something made and used by witches.

Ireton then went on to explain that he suspected that something was spreading from Cornwall. Ireton believes it is magic of some sort - but not alchemy.
​Ireton wants use to investigate.

Finally, Ireton warns us that Cornwall is held by Royalists and we will need to proceed to carefully.

As the conversation concluded, we heard -and felt- an explosion, the room was blasted and we were thrown to the floor.
We picked ourselves up and assessed the situation, the room was burning and Hilaria was dead!
We looked downstairs, the entire area was littered with bodies and billowing smoke from a fire somewhere. This was no way out, we would choke to death before we could blindly scrabble our way out.

We tried the windows, it looked like a way out. But before we could do anything, we spotted what could only be described as 'a manical woman in a conical hat who cursed us'!
Sir Reginald is abruptly set alight as flames from the fire flicked out and caught him. Fire did not normally behave like this! Something had affected it, magic of some sort?

Ursula used her own witchcraft to counter this 'fire-magic' and we managed to save Sir Reginald.

Then we all managed to escape. Henry Ireton made his farewells and fled Oxford.
We conducted a brief investigation of events and witnesses told us that they saw the farmers burst into flame!
There was little for us go to on here.

Sir Reginald invited us to his home.

---

It is decided that we must find the root of what is spreading and head to the sea town.

Sir Reginald provided us with a guide to help us in our task, his name is Kit.
Before leaving for Cornwall, we conducted some research on the region.
Cornwall is ruled by three witches, who apparently draw their power from dark sacrificial magic.

Kit told us the whole of Cornwall is under their spell!

The journey to Cornwall took a week. Just before entering Cornwall, we spent the night at an inn called 'The Royal'.
The next day we entered Cornwall, at some point during the day we crossed a bridge guarded by soldiers. The paid us no attention, but they saluted Ursula!

​As we travelled through Cornwall, we came across many isolated hamlets and solitary churches.

Late one day we reached a castle, we inquired withing.
It is ruled by a man called 'Hopkins'. He invited us in for a meal.

During the meal Hopkins attempted to have us put into his dungeon. We resisted and a battle ensued. We dispatched Hopkins and dealt with his guards or took them prisoner. A  few moments later, more guards charged in and we dealt with them.

We decided to take the initiative and stormed the remaining guards. There numbers had been whittled down, so we managed to clear out the last soldiers. The castle was ours.
We took the time to free the prisoners that Hopkins had incarcerated.

We rested for a couple of days to recuperate and in that time some Royalist guards arrived.
They were surprised to see us here, but they were not unhappy to see that Hopkins was gone.
The leader of the guards was called 'Penrose'. We charged him and his men with guarding our castle in our absence.

We asked Penrose and his men if they anything about the three witches.

The told of three wise-women who were sisters and lived in Penzance.

We decided it would be a good idea to go Penzance and 'speak' with them.