The Copper Piece Gang

D&D Session Summary

This session opened with the party arriving in Red Tower and finally getting a broader look at the place they had been hearing about. What they found was not just a random frontier town, but a settlement built around a long, ugly history. Red Tower itself sat near the woods and the river, with no major road leading in, and the actual tower did not quite match the scale or placement people expected from the stories. The local history tied the site back to an old elven citadel later taken over by dwarves, who manipulated the area’s resources and bred owlbears for battle. Over time the dwarves lost control, trolls and ogres turned on them, and the region became a layered ruin full of elven, dwarven, and later tunnel networks. Right away, the town felt like the edge of something old, violent, and only half-understood.

The party gathered rumors as soon as they arrived. Another traveler warned them about the massive briar groves around the region, thick walls of thorny overgrowth that could slow travel or injure anyone trying to force a way through. That warning mattered later. In town itself, the party began making the rounds of notable locations and quickly picked up on two things at once: Red Tower had a lot of local color, and a lot of local scams.

One of the first major stops was the Cage, the town’s famous tavern built from the rib bones of a slain titan. It was exactly the kind of ridiculous fantasy establishment everyone immediately loved. The owners, Ariadna and Ambrosie, had inherited the place from earlier adventurer-founders, and the tavern still displayed old trophies like a green dragon head and a basilisk. Those trophies impressed Rae in particular, but the group also noticed something important: most of the trophies were old. Very little recent success was being added to the walls. That suggested that adventurers still came to Red Tower for the nearby ruin, but many did not come back with much worth celebrating.

This was also where Nucky’s side hustle fully matured into a real subplot. While the rest of the party explored town, Nucky worked the Cage like a bard, a salesman, and a mildly dangerous confidence man. He pitched himself as a business opportunity, leaning hard into his supposed following, his ability to draw traffic, and the idea that the tavern needed fresh energy, fresh performances, and fresh memorabilia. He also implied he could help improve the supply chain or at least secure some of their specialty stock more cheaply. It was all exactly the kind of thing that sounds suspicious until it also sounds useful.

He sold it.

With a mix of charm, exaggeration, and a helpful use of magic, Nucky convinced the owners to cut him into a preliminary business arrangement. They brought out the ledger, and he secured a five percent stake with the possibility of another five percent based on performance and improved business. He even bluffed his way into claiming notary competence to help formalize the arrangement, which somehow worked because the people of Red Tower clearly had no idea how many things Nucky should not legally be allowed to notarize. He also looked for evidence of a second ledger and did not find one, which only made the place feel more suspicious.

Beyond the tavern, the group explored several religious and mercantile sites around town, and each one added a different piece to the puzzle. At the decrepit Temple of Kors, they found one of the last remaining worshippers of a god of strength, honor, and vigilance. The temple had been neglected for years, but the faithful man they met viewed its ruin not as abandonment but as a test. The whole place was built around octagonal patterns and symbolism that made theological sense but terrible structural sense, which probably explained why it was falling apart. The man also had a grudge against Conrad, the merchant, implying that Conrad was less respectable than he wanted people to believe.

That suspicion deepened at Conrad’s shop. Conrad came across as a former adventurer or battle mage who had spent real time in dangerous places and now turned that experience into shopkeeping and custom magical nonsense. The moment the party entered, he cast a spell on them to size them up, which immediately made him feel like exactly the sort of merchant who smiles while checking how badly he can overcharge you. He assured them everything was custom and then proceeded to sell them one of the most entertaining collections of weird consumable magic items imaginable.

This shopping spree became one of the defining scenes of the session. Conrad’s stock included a bag of beasties, effectively a bag of beans that summoned little disposable fighting creatures; a tiny silver stylus-like missile item that cast multiple magic missiles; a stone that polymorphed weak enemies into rodents; a pocket lens bought for Nucky; giant toenail clippings used to sharpen a weapon for a temporary combat bonus; an elixir of strength of memory that let a caster reuse a spell; an orc tooth that granted short invisibility when rubbed; a silly healing scroll that required reading nonsense to cast cure magic; a polymorph-self slime that looked suspiciously like lotion; and an ice-pick-like item that created a wall of ice. The party basically raided the fantasy joke shop because every item was weird, single-use, and somehow too funny not to buy.

Conrad also gave them more lore. The Scarlet Citadel lay west of town, about a half-day’s walk beyond the arch, and it aligned with the old stories behind Red Tower and the red stone. One rumor held that every time an adventurer died in the Citadel, some mysterious artist painted another stone of Red Tower crimson. Whether true or not, it was exactly the sort of story a town like this would keep alive. The bigger point was clear: the place had a reputation for killing people, and everyone in town made money off that fact in one way or another.

The group next visited the smithy and the tanner. At the smithy, they met Agnieszka, another retired adventurer type who used to travel with Magdar war wagons and who could make serious armor, up to level six medium or heavy pieces. Selganth got measured there for possible future gear. At the tanner, they met Witek, a superstitious leatherworker who wore three rabbit’s feet around his neck and happily sold them a “good luck” charm for the Citadel. Rae, being Rae, later took that charm and tried to actually bless it in the river, on the theory that luck deserved a little divine reinforcement. Something did seem to happen, though the exact mechanics were left open.

The party also visited the Temple of Rava, goddess of machinery and craft. Cecilia, the serious human priest, and Norneth, the quiet elven acolyte, ran the place. Norneth immediately pinged as suspicious. She kept glancing at the party’s gear with the cold calculation of someone trying to predict what would kill them in the Scarlet Citadel so she could later strip their corpses. Rae’s interaction with her eventually confirmed the group’s suspicion: she was not just pious and quiet. She was a spy for someone, gathering information about adventurers headed into the ruin. More usefully, she let slip that there was a dangerous sound-based threat early in the Scarlet Citadel, which was exactly the kind of warning adventurers need and never receive from honest people.

Finally, the party followed that chain of warnings out to Tobias, the “crazy” old man living in a repeatedly mauled hut near the river. As they approached, they heard him shouting for help because a baby owlbear was chewing on his house. Selganth tossed meat into the woods to lure the creature away, and that solved the problem without a fight. Tobias, immensely relieved, turned out to be much more useful than the town’s gossip suggested. He was not really crazy. He was just honest, which in Red Tower apparently looked like madness by comparison.

Tobias confirmed what the party had started to suspect. Much of the town was built on swindling, exploitation, and self-serving rumor. The so-called mayor’s mark was likely a scam that increased prices rather than helping honest trade. Tobias also let them help him with the magical curse or effect on his home. Food had been spoiling unnaturally fast there, and the party discovered strange carvings in the foundation stones that seemed to be causing it. Rae prayed over them, the group reconstructed the pattern in reverse, and the effect shifted so that food would now keep longer rather than rot faster. That simple act of fixing his home turned Tobias from a rumor source into a genuinely sympathetic ally.

In return, Tobias gave them practical intelligence. He warned them about wolves, gargoyles, unstable owlbears, bandits near the arch, and a shadowy figure moving in and out of the Scarlet Citadel. He also warned that many would-be adventurers never even reached the ruin proper because harpies and owlbears killed them on the approach. He pointed out a few of the few actually trustworthy locals, including Cyborg and Eva and their son Gabe at the orchard, while also noting that Eva’s loose lips made her a good source of rumors but not someone to trust with sensitive information.

By the end of the session, the party had transformed Red Tower from “the next town” into a real campaign hub. They learned the place’s history, made contacts, got tangled in tavern ownership, uncovered merchant scams, bought a pile of bizarre one-use magic items, identified a spy inside a temple, helped an outcast local, and gathered the clearest route yet toward the Scarlet Citadel and the shadowy figure tied to it. The session did not revolve around a single battle, but it did something just as important: it built the world around the dungeon and made the journey into the Citadel feel like the next step in a much larger mess.

Quick Recap

• The party arrived in Red Tower and learned more of its history as a former elven and dwarven stronghold with owlbear-breeding dwarves and layered tunnel systems.
• They were warned about huge briar groves around the region, giving them an edge on spotting and navigating them later.
• At the Cage tavern, the group learned the place was built from a titan’s rib cage and that most of its trophies were old, not recent.
• Nucky successfully bluffed and charmed his way into a preliminary business deal with the tavern for a five percent stake plus a possible performance bonus.
• The party visited the Temple of Kors and met a lingering worshipper who treated the temple’s neglect as a divine test and hinted that Conrad was shady.
• Conrad proved exactly that by assessing the party magically and then selling them a pile of weird, single-use magical items.
• Their purchases included a bag of beasties, magic missile item, rodent-polymorph stone, lucky pocket lens, toenail sharpening box, spell-memory elixir, invisibility tooth, silly healing scroll, polymorph slime, and an ice wall item.
• At the smithy and tanner, Selganth and Zarnak got measured for future gear, and Rae bought and later tried to bless a rabbit’s-foot charm.
• At the Temple of Rava, the party realized Norneth was likely a spy trying to figure out what would kill them in the Scarlet Citadel so someone could loot their bodies later.
• Norneth also let slip that an early danger in the Scarlet Citadel involved a sound-based threat.
• The group went to Tobias’s hut, drove off a baby owlbear with thrown meat, and learned that Tobias was not crazy so much as one of the only honest people around.
• They reversed a magical spoilage effect on Tobias’s home so food would keep longer there instead of rotting quickly.
• Tobias warned them about wolves, gargoyles, owlbears, bandits, harpies, and a shadowy figure moving in and out of the Scarlet Citadel.
• The session ended with the party better equipped, much better informed, and finally ready to head toward the Scarlet Citadel for real.