The Glittering Trumpet of Kutaraja: Nan Madol
The GM's sheet for the Nan Madol port of call.
Act One
In Media Res
During ritual greetings from Nahnmwarki Paul, a group of canoes in the lagoon is attacked by Nan Smawohl eels!
Introduce Key GMCs
- Nahnmwarki Paul
- Nahnken Nahawa
- Benjamin Pease
Establish Seeds
- Mohit: Pease is a slaver! Free his slaves and stop him capturing more.
- Loki: Perform a magical ceremony on the roof of the house of a monarch (Nan Danwas is the most powerful centre).
- Charlie: Con Paul into making gifts to the church, that you take.
- Lady T: Defeat Nahawa in a duel
Act Two
Key GMCs appear and reveal Wants
- Paul: The picaros can help defeat (ideally, convert) Nahawa.
- Nahawa: If the picaros refuse to leave, coerce them into defeating the liet.
- Pease: Pretend to be the picaros' friend, stir up trouble between them and Paul, then deliver the picaros to Nahawa as a "gift."
Describe GMC relationshhips
- Paul → Nahawa: dangerous but a throwback; to be pitied.
- Nahawa → Paul: an obstacle to be thrown down in order to capture the throne.
- Nahawa → Pease: take over his operation, either making Pease subsurvient or just eliminating him.
- Pease → Nahawa: to be buttered up and endebted to me.
- Pease → Paul: a has-been, only useful to curry favour during his elimiation.
- Paul → Pease: a noble, trusted ally.
If the picaros don't interfere...
Liet attacks on Nahawa's people intensify. Paul prays for protection. Nahawa's fightback is ineffectual. Pease sells rifles to Nahawa, which has some effect on those possessed by the liet.
Pease eggs on Paul to stage a wedding on the Altar of the Turtle, against the advice of Paul's other allies. Pease feeds the plans for the ceremony to Nahawa.
Paul stages a Christian worship ceremony on the Altar of the Turtle and marries Karolin Sturges. Nan Samwhol rises up, in the form of a bed of giant, hungry eels.
Hahawa attacks the ceremony.
The Atlantean cache cracks open, releasing a huge spirit that rampages to Nan Madol, eating all in its path.
Act Three
Suggest destinations
- Samarkand: Abdul Malik Tura's name is still on Phisut's list.
- Chichen Itza: Alice de Plongeon has the pendant to open the cache from Angkor Wat.
- Clipper Hill: a liet reveals it is the captured god Amadioha. Myram bint Umar Tall in Clipper Hill might be able to find the truth of it.
Bangs
- Dhien and Marian arrive from Kutaraja, to recover the Glittering Trumpet.
- Pease's workers ask the picaros for rescue.
- One of the picaros sees Karolin in Paul's hut. She passes them a message, outlining her plight.
- Paul demands oaths of Christan piety. (Pease does.)
- Paul offers the picaros hospitality, then demands gifts in return. (Service? Their airship? A hostage?)
- Paul commands the picaros to show their honour by attacking Nahawa.
- Paul asks the picaros to take a gift (of women) to Pease, in return for guns and information about Nahawa.
- Paul confronts the picaros with evidence of their wrongdoing, evidence that could only have come from Pease.
- Nahawa simply attacks the picaros on sight.
- Nahawa demands that the picaros find the source of the liet.
- Nahawa offers some concession to the picaros if they push out Pease.
- During another liet attack, Nahawa offers sacrifices to ward off the liet, executing those who were previously posessed by it.
- Pease passes on rumours of Atlantean caches in the Altar of the Turtle and in the island's central volcano. Could either of these be the source of the liet?
- Pease offers to sell distilled eel blood to Mohit, so he can continue his mother's work with it.
- The picaros discover Pease's back-channel communication with Nahawa.