In which the minotaur turns out to not be what he appeared. This session sums up so much of what I love about Dungeon World. The characters went to a library, tried to seduce a minotaur, and went shopping. Oh, and levelled up. It was awesome.

SPOILER ALERT (for hypothetical readers who are NOT in my campaign): The story is building more and more foreshadowing for when the characters get to The Maze of the Blue Medusa, so if you’re looking forward to playing that (outside of my game), maybe don’t keep reading. On the other hand, I’m adapting it to this campaign pretty heavily.

Everyone’s in the octagon! It’s bright, well-lit. Chameleon accidentally touches one of the beams of light, which activates a dart gun to fire, she’s hit and crumples to the ground.

Someone is hammering and bellowing on the western door of the Octagon (assuming we came in from the eastern door, all directions are relative down here). There is green mist oozing out from under the door to the south, which doesn’t look healthy, so we head for the north door. Clovis is carrying Chameleon and hits another of the light beams, so Chameleon takes another dart. Going through the door, Tsafnur leads the party through and down the stairs to a blank wall where he looks for traps or secret doors, and he finds a latch which opens the wall into another short passageway with a door. Tsafnur notes that much of the wall is actually an artificial material made to look like natural stone.

The party goes through the fancy door and arrive in the library. The walls are covered with shelves and books. High up there are tapestries and stained glass windows (which are letting in a lot of light considering how far underground we are). Also in the library are the minotaur (with reading glasses on a chain around his neck), who offers them some sherry, and Rook! She was being carried by a chameleon woman and the minotaur rescued her.

Talisa looks around at the stained glass windows and tapestries. The style of one tapestry reminds her of the painting that was stolen from them. One of the stained glass windows seems to depict a chameleon woman. The minotaur (who introduces himself as Asterion), gives Talisa a packet of powder dissolved in some water to help Chameleon with the worst effects of the sleeping darts. Enkirash asks how they can get to Moonbeam island and Rook asks if he (Asterion) is the librarian. Asterion tells them that he is the librarian here and master of the labyrinth, although he did not make it and he is not its only inhabitant. He tells them the chameleon women are also librarians of a sort, although their methods and archives are quite different from his own, and that the chameleon women are part of a recent resurgence to rebuild a long-dead reptile empire which has many secrets hidden on Moonbeam Island, along with 3 perfect sisters who were trapped there because their beauty was too terrible for this world.

Tsafnur mentions that the chameleon women stole the painting. Asterion informs them that it is a painting of Ashen Chantrelle and that it is a gateway to another dimension.

Everyone takes a nice sherry break (Talisa only sips from her water flask). Clovis ponders becoming a seductive librarian, but she’s not a great reader.

Talisa asks Asterion about finding the kidnapped girl, who is the daughter of Lord Feranthale of Kalika. He has no info and doesn’t know how to fix the compass either, though he points out that a wizard could fix it with a ritual. Clovis tries a new tack to seduce the minotaur by playing dumb about a book. She gets him into a dark corner of the library, all alone, but he’s just not getting it.

Asterion take the party out of the library and through the labyrinth to a room where the chameleon women and their lizardmen servants are resting. Enkirash turns Talisa invisible, Asterion opens a portion of the wall, and Talisa slips through to steal back the painting successfully.

Asterion takes the party to the underground Night Market, and bids them farewell. The party decides to split up to shop. Clovis looks for a weapon shop and buys a new battleaxe and some polishing oil, a silver knife, and two daggers. Rook finds a pawn shop and sells some jewelry. Talisa buys a boot sheath and dagger as well as a healing potion and more arrows. Enkirash buys some booty shorts, a black t-shirt, and a black and green reversible cloak, custom-made to be picked up later. She also buys some thigh-high boots with dagger sheaths, a bow and arrows, and a bag of mushrooms.

Next session will be on February 14th, the Feast of Saunt Valendtses in the Night Market.

For mood background on the market, it is inspired heavily by the Floating Market in Neil Gaiman’s “Neverwhere”, so I highly recommend reading, watching or listening to that, along with the epilog “How the Marquis Got His Coat Back.” There is a bit of Fallen London’s Echo Bazaar in it too, but there are and will continue to be more influences, based on what the players get up to.

Infinite thanks to Sara (Rook) for taking notes, which I have presented here with only light editing.