10 March 2021

Actual Play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part IV - The Show

Following up on the previous posts about playing through the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine by Evlyn Moreau. Links to Part II and Part III.

The Kobolds cross paths once more with our party on the night before the pre-wedding ceremonials.

Some time has passed and much of the senior family including the Earl and the General, mother to the cleric, have returned from the war-front for the wedding. During this transportation the foe managed to strike the court wizard who is locked in temporal stasis to prevent his own death. The bard and sorceror sought help from the head of the Mage University who gave them a horrid bat-cat stitched together thing that they are to kill to let the master of the university know they want him. The party is not keen on dealing with this and have been pushing the horrible thing off on one another over the course of the day.

As night falls, the sorceror shoved it into the bards room while she was at dinner with an old pal. After some late night altercations once the bard spotted that her fireplace was blinking at her, the thing they have named an imp has been left to sleep in the fireplace with a screen in front of it. The bard tucks in and everyone sleeps soundly. The imp is just resting however and so when the kobolds come around distributing invitations for their exhibition it is the only thing to rouse.

Invitation bearing younger Kobold by Evlyn Moreau


The bard is startled awake to find a party of junior kobolds fending off the imp while it attempts to defend its new mistress with the fire poker. Some deft footwork by the bard splits them up and gets the imp to return to the fireplace. The kobolds pass over the invitations to the exhibition, starting the day after the wedding as agreed with the Lady of the House. The bard shoos the kobolds out and spots them pushing the invites under other doors and waiting to present invitations to the other two party members, their honoured friends.

The bard decides to preempt things and marches into the clerics room along with the kobold. While the groggy cleric is being brought up to speed, they hear voices; the Earl who sleeps on the floor above coming to investigate. The bard rounds up the Kobolds and then front-runs them to the Earl.

Arriving onto the landing below his rooms, the Earl finds two of his nieces in their night-gowns with a trio of candle-wearing kobolds and is presented with an invitation to the exhibition. The cleric explains while the bard sends the kobolds on their way.

Two nights later, midnight strikes and the party is in their fanciest garments after a night of social committments. The bard and sorceror just came from seeing a map of the whole world at a leading trade house that shocked the bard who had previously thought herself well travelled. The cleric arrives with her sisters from a gathering of her immediate family and their vassals. Together they join a troupe of other nobles as they descend the reopened old section. This one-time seat of their great-grandfather was sealed long ago by their grandfather the Duke and just recently reopened by the party on the Dukes deathbed instruction. Servants lead the excited band of nobles down through the basements that party cleared out in the past few weeks and into the deep fortifications built into the hillside beneath the palace. Opposite the old throne-room of their distant ancestor they find the gallery where the kobolds have set up their exhibition.

A cluster of kobolds waits outside the gallery in the hallway, fresh candles atop their heads, leather coats buttoned up tight and every copper detail polished to a shine. The adults greet their guests while the younger kobolds fidget and do their best to mimic the formal curtseys and bows. There is a distinct air of youngsters aggressively spit-shined by their mothers and aunts about the younger kobolds.

Curator Zisk by Evlyn Moreau


Entering the gallery the party finds the Lady of the House (mother to the bard) and Curator Zisk, leader of the Kobolds, waiting to welcome them. The exhibition has a few new additions - a great shrouded painting along the near wall, a sketch on an easel by the fireplace and a stack of barrels set on stands in the corner. More of the kobolds have creatively repurposed what looks like items of palace silverware into platters bearing mushroom nibbles and these circulate as the Lady of the House welcomes the guest and then turns the floor over to Zisk. The curator casts tongues on themselves and opens the exhibit - they will guide the guests through the paintings in the gallery, then offer tours and art critique of the rest of the palace.

Wine is served, a stack of glasses from a wide range of eras standing ready by the casks. The kobolds serve with more concern for generosity than the fit of the wine to the food. Once glasses are in hand the curator leads a tour of the paintings and the party, having already spent much time in close contact with most of the works, drifts towards the new sketch by the fireplace.

Drinks bearing younger Kobold, sketch by the bard


Here they find a charcoal sketch of the glorious Kingmaker masterwork that they went to significant trouble to clear access to some time before. They fall into discussion with Art Historian Drap Vru and after listening for a bit in pidgin draconic the cleric realises there might be something important they need to know and casts comprehend languages. Some further questions reveal that the Earl and the General have refused to part with the Kingmaker and so the kobolds made a sketch and went exploring further into the palace basements. Vru displays a previously unsuspected gift for mimicry in so perfectly portraying the Earl and the General by their stance and attitude that they were instantly recognisable even in the form of a kobold. Vru claims to have found another work, one that represents wildness and chaos to the heirarchies and law of the Kingmaker piece. On hearing that this new piece has been spotted but not yet accessed, the party guesses with some trepidation that they may need to come back and help the Kobolds once again.

Excusing themselves they make their way to the portal painting to try and estimate how much time remains before the Kobolds will move on. Here they find another dragonblood like themselves, this one a youth the same age as the bard and dressed in a manner similar to the apprentices in the elven artificer mage they had invited. He tells them that his master has sent him along to look at everything and bring back the memories and asks them who their hosts are. With the clerics planar knowledge and excellent recollection of some deeep lore early on, they recognised the kobolds from legends; the mage was trying to figure out if they were goblin half-dragons or mini-lizardfolk. The party realise as they talk that they also know considerably more about the paintings compared to this young mage and horrify them with stories of their ventures into the painted hell of the Murderpainting to rescue their servant.

Art historian describing the masterwork, sketch by the bard


Trying to read the Portal painting and guess the Kobolds next destination the party get only elements of high craftwork and carven halls, design elements very different to anything they have seen to date. They suspect fire giant or dwarf craft but the lack of means to scale the picture leaves no clue which of these it could be.

The main guided tour has wrapped up and Curtor Zisk calls attention to the great shrouded piece by the far wall. With the help of a team on the balcony above the picture is unveiled; a Bosch-style doll-house sketch of the palace that the curator presents to the Lady of the House to remember them once they move on. Examining the work the party recognises a number of details including the cleric healing a mortally wounded kobold, the fight against the ash-dogs, their rescue of their petrified dwarf servant from the Murderpainting and other details. They spy their cantankerous bat-ling servant Inkwick portrayed as a demon and being trapped in a room. They find a small version of the Kingmaker in its place in the throne room with the forbidding figures of the Earl and the General driving the kobolds away, contrasted by the angelically portrayed Lady of the House graciously hosting and helping the Kobolds. The bard notes that her mother must love this detail.

Assuming this is a caricature of the Kobolds adventures so far the party observes that while in the sections of the palace above there are numerous people asleep in their rooms and children sneaking about in the attic, the levels drawn below the gallery there are numerous representations of the kobolds in places they do not recognise - kobolds fleeing walking furniture, tangling with a tomb with a toothy maw, making their way past what looks like trees in one place, tombs and shrines in another, and in one particularly deep corridor a kobold being dissolved by a cubic entity. The party connects these to some recent events - the appearance of a mimic in the pantry during the wedding, the presence of fey-connected wood panelling in the old section - and move their next venture into the depths of the palace up their to-do list.

The story continues with the Tour.

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