What's Happened- adventure 2: Hyberoan

A few points: first of all, the characters in Hyberoan figured out that just about every store was busting over with stuff. Clearly, the guards have been selling the possessions of the people they've arrested. So, basically, the guards in Hyberoan have sold all the belongings of Kaydtch to the stores, who have now doubled their stocks but who have no one to sell all this stuff to. The characters witnessed once a guard threatening a store owner if he refused to buy the guard's loot.

Second, the guards are all Redguard, a race of humans from outside of Sturmgort. They were brought in to Aversill as mercenaries under the leadership of Beinvan Drodswell, a local noble who did not go off to war but stayed behind to police the frontier against invasion. Groups like his have acted in the past as protectorates of the realm, but as there has been less and less for these groups to do, more an more accusations of treason to the baron have been made by the groups. Anyone who is convicted of this crime forfeits all land to the barony, and therefore, arresting as many people as possible for this crime is a great way to increasimg one's political standing. The accusation is made against anyone housing the enemy at a time of war. Benivan and his men (Drodswell's Defenders) have arrested the entire town of Kaydtch for this crime.

The characters learn from the guards at Hyberoan that they cannot simply pass through and onto to the city of Streckhorn because the intervening woods have become plagued with a vast number of ghouls. The defenders fearing the forces housed by the people in Kaydtch have relocaed the townsfolk to Hyberoan where they awaited a magistrate of the barony to hold trials. Of course, the dispossessed traitors serve as a great warning to the townsfolk of Hyberoan who are daily forced to cator to Benivan and his men.

The guards at the gate also alert the characters that they will not allow the halfling caravan into the city (they are allowed to set up north of the stockade but cannot expect the guard's protection) nor will they allow Gringulia into town as they perceive her as one of the enemy. After some discussion, the characters convince the guards to let them appeal to a higher authority--the Defender's second in command Virgil Kleetch.

Virgil is less than enthusiastic about the characters (they are after all, real soldiers, whereas his authority is more ceremonial than anything else). He does not want them interfering with Defender business and he refuses entrance to Gringulia. The audience is, however, interrupted by Benivan himself who is only too happy that the characters are there as it lends his operation some legitamacy. He attempted to talk turkey with the characters, allowed Gringulia entrance into the city, and offered them barrack in a local farm (which the characters took).

Gringulia, Emord, and Neri headed towards the farm to set up. Earthmoon and Feldon headed off to the woods on a hunch that the ghouls were a story made up to scare people into behaving. It turned out that this hunch was wrong. Feldon abandoned Earthmoon to her fate. Earthmoon turned into a bird and escaped the clutches of the fiends. She then headed off to commune with nature on what to do about this blight.

Meanwhile, the characters were approached by an agent of a local bookseller Eugene Pollipard, who had a task he hoped the charadcters could help him with...