To Delve the Dungeon Deep GM Turn Post 1

You have received invitations to a party being held this evening at the Lantern Lodge, the beautiful and exotic estate of the Tian venture-captain, Amara Li, in Absalom’s Petal District. Tonight is the Snapdragon Festival, a traditional Gokan holiday featuring fireworks and rich plum wine. A handwritten note accompanying the invitation encourages you to dress to impress and to seek out the hostess and head of the Lantern Lodge, Amara Li, upon your arrival.

Only the luckiest or most influential Pathfinders receive invitations to Amara Li’s annual Snapdragon Festival celebration, and wise recipients take advantage of them. The aroma of blooming orchids and flowing wine mixes with the acrid tang of recently exploded fireworks, and the sound of strangely discordant music comes from a duo of Tian women playing an unusual stringed instrument and a reed flute. The crowd mingles calmly, most guests clearly hoping to be seen more than actually paying attention to those with whom they converse, though the plum wine seems to have affected many who now move about the lodge’s grounds waving sparkling wands of fire and shooting whirring, whizzing fireworks into the sky above the koi pond.

After you have been at the party for a few minutes, you are approached by a servant and invited into Amara Li’s private study, where you find her seated on a reed mat before a low table set with an exquisite porcelain tea set. She motions for the party to sit with her around the table. Once the door is closed behind you and you are seated, she begins talking in a low, hushed voice without even the hint of a Tian accent:

“Well met, Pathfinders, and welcome to the Lantern Lodge. I hope you find the Snapdragon Festival and my hospitality worthy of your time and energy. I have not brought you here for mere pleasantries, however, and wish to ask you to partake a dangerous mission on my behalf.”

“Long ago, one of my most esteemed ancestors, who was rich in power but poor in sense, gave a gift to a foreign prince, a gift that prince did not deserve and my foolish ancestor had no right to give—a ceremonial jade katana. At the time the gift was sent, its recipient was invading this island. He laid siege to Absalom from his fortress in the foothills of the Kortos Mounts. Like those who came before him, the warlord failed to take Absalom and perished in the attempt. On the very day of his defeat, his castle crumbled to dust in a violent earthquake and has been lost to the centuries ever since. My family’s heirloom was lost with it.”

“A recent report by a group of Pathfinders gives me hope that they have finally found the ruin, and I might finally recover my family’s treasure. I’m looking for an intrepid group to retrieve it for me, and I’m hoping that is you. The fame and wealth you will doubtlessly recover will bring you much honor within the Society, and if you deliver the katana to me, you will have my favor as you begin your careers as full agents of the Pathfinder Society.”

“The exploration of this ruin would be as Pathfinders, but retrieval of the katana would be a personal favor for me. You will find directions to the ruin upon this scroll. Please enjoy yourselves at the Snapdragon Festival tonight and head out to the Cainlands tomorrow morning."

Did your character take the opporunity to dress up (i.e. did you purchase better clothes and/or jewelry)?

Do you do enjoy the party as the Venture-Captain suggests?