Actual Play: Kobolds Art Exhibition part V - The Tour

Following up on the previous posts about playing through the Kobolds Art Exhibition zine by Evlyn Moreau. Links to the review and part I of play using it, Part II, Part III and Part IV.

The exhibition begins to wrap up as the time creeps into the small hours of the morning. Half of the guests join one of the three tours that the Lady of the House has arranged with the kobolds and our party follows Historian Vru. The sorceror is momentarily dissappointed that the tours are not going to be into paintings of the palace but foot tours.

Curator Zisk, sketch by the bard

First they troop across the hall into the Old Throne Room where the historian starts in kobold, notices the crowds failure to follow him and pulls out a scroll of tongues, casts it and continues briskly. Marched rapidly around the room the party has works they would have identified as quality pieces denounced as derivative junk, things they thought were war trophies praised as outstanding vernacular works of giant- and dwarfcraft and the trio of great pieces along the back wall, the bi-part Kingmaker portrait and the huge saddle praised as masterworks.

Ascending through the basements into the ground floor of the reopened section the historian waxes enthusiastic about the wall crafts showing evident rejuvenation of moribund elven artistic traditions and derides the savagery of the stuffed hunting trophies on their plinths in the main hall.

Up a level the party realises that their bedrooms are included in the tour as Vru leads them in to admire the elven-inspired portaiture hanging on the wall. The party members find themselves used as live references for the portraits of their ancestors before the tour moves on. A single occupied bedroom is not included in the tour before they finally arrive at the bards room. A tense moment passes while they wait to see if the bat-cat-imp-thing they have stored in the fireplace decides to protest at the company but it chooses to remain hidden until only the bard lingers after everyone else has left. Fearful of leaving it behind for another tour the bard stuffs the thing into a satchel and slings it over her shoulder.

A log jam in the stairwell as Vru and Ags tours encounter one another allows the bard to catch up before they reach the next level. On the uppermost level of the reopened section they enter the room of the misplaced princess. Vru expands on the wonderful carved elven wall pieces, forest reliefs in wood panelling all along the walls. The party find no evidence of the missing princess and know they will be back here the next day to try and find her.

Next door, their cousins room, who had brought their princess and more of the panelling. They know the princess came on the arm of the sorcerors brother and has subsequently dissappeared for days at a time. Their cousin-in-law, the elven mage, tracked her into these enchanted wall panels and told the party she 'slowed her down' to teach her a lesson. The party is hoping that fishing the princess out will win her gratitude, leave her in the sticky spot of having to explain why she was prying in the walls and give them the diplomatic upper hand.

Next along the end are the old ducal chambers, repurposed as a bridal suite, where the tour is told by the groom through a locked door in no uncertain terms that the room is off limits. Diverting to the next room they enter to find the grooms studious brother reading a book and puzzled at this fresh late night interruption. The party greet their cousin and exchange awkward pleasantries while Vru tries to restore order to the group. The last bedroom is similarly skipped as they find the Earl, father of the groom and current heir to the Duchy awake and standing in the doorway. He tells them to move along with a pointed look to the party.

Notable events of the tour, sketch by the bard

Out across the snowy courtyard the tour arrives at the workshop of Grinsworth, the current palace portraitist. The party having been there less than 24 hours before for the after-hours drinks of the wedding musicians are surprised to see how neat and tidy it has become. The slothling maintainer of the palace watches from his office as Vru walks through the many sketches the family, including the party, have sat for over the past week. The blocked out massive family portrait is in one corner and while Vru talks through the other portraiture as outstanding examples of contemporary art the cousins rib one another about their relative positions in the large portrait. Their great-grand-children will come to this much as they are finding out about their own ancestry from the paintings they are unearthing in the reopened basement and the only child bard will be clearly seen while the youngest-of-six sorceror, child of the second-youngest will have to walk almost the length of the painting to point where they are.

Vru declares an end to the tour, states there ought to be another 2-3 tours before they finally depart and sets off back to the gallery with his two assistants. The party makes a note to figure out how to facilitate the bedroom tours with minimum disruption, noting that the Earl and other senior members of the house are due to leave for the Northern front the next day and if they also move the portraits out of their bedrooms into the downstairs trophy hall they can keep the kobolds happy without having late tours interrupting the sorceror and bards vital eight-hour spell recovery sleep. Already they have to scramble to get enough sleep before the times they have arranged the next day to meet their cousin-in-law and the sorcerors brother ahead of attempting the rescue of the princess.

Our next encounter with the kobolds is here: the Chase.