Session 51 - The Red Gold Reckoning (2026-06-28)

Summary

Twelve days after setting out to face Old White Death, Deez Nuts sails back into Luskan aboard Captain Larusta's ship with the rescued Maccath the Crimson and crewman Carl — and finds the city wrong. The dockmaster shakes down his own hometown captain, Ship Kurth's bridge guards charge a gold per head where a silver used to do, salt cod has jumped from two coppers to a silver, and every Luskanite eyes every other like a thief. Gootcha pickpockets a bridge guard and finds the answer glinting in his purse: blood-red gold coins — the same infernal coins the party hauled out of Garmok's Mine and then, in an all-time blunder, knowingly spent (6,000 of them) at the Gilded Albatross before sailing north. The town's paranoia and greed is their own mess come home.

At the half-rebuilt Host Tower of the Arcane, the mage Zelene — bloodshot, sleepless, running theater with a fake "truth orb" — welcomes Maccath back and reveals the Arcane Brotherhood has hoarded 2,400 of the coins "for study." Maccath's analysis shows the coins are not cursed in any ordinary sense: they are saturated with raw infernal energy from decades beside the open rift to the Nine Hells, undetectable to Detect Magic but blazing to Detect Evil and Good — and the Brotherhood itself is compromised. The party resolves to gather every coin in the city. Baelgrum's Remove Curse frees Halvard Greyskein — who has lost two weeks and cannot fathom why anyone would charm him into cleaning — and the party buys back his 3,000-coin hoard at face value, earning three greater healing potions in thanks.

Working from a familiar-sweep map of ten coin "pings," the party clears Luskan site by site: honest trades with the grain-seller Mela and the profiteering halfling innkeeper Joss, an invisible safecracking at the hostile Superior Stables (regular gold left in exchange), a gaseous-form infiltration of the school past a wall of cat-struck children, a mid-handshake Remove Curse on the sword-gripping dockmaster, and simple buybacks across the captains' courts. At a smithy on Half Moon Street they crack the cure: the coins shrug off mundane fire, but a cumulative third level of magical fire — Karma's Heat Metal stacked with Baelgrum's Burning Hands, then Flaming Sphere — melts them into inert gold bars, each melt releasing a psychic shockwave of dissipating infernal energy.

Rested, the party returns to the Host Tower, where Baelgrum feints handing Zelene the coins and slaps a Remove Curse on her instead. Horrified at her lost two weeks (she had unknowingly recalled all 42 regional mages to the tower), the freed Zelene teleports Shade, Baelgrum, and Karma directly into the sealed vault, where Karma's Flaming Sphere melts the final 2,400 coins. The pulse ripples through the tower and the coins' grip on Luskan breaks instantly, city-wide. Zelene, chastened, confesses her earlier promise of aid had been an empty brush-off — but no longer: the Arcane Brotherhood is genuinely in the party's debt and will send mages to Waterdeep to stand with the Council. Meanwhile Shade has cheerfully convinced half of Luskan that the rival Bronze Blades are carrying red coins and should be searched "thoroughly."

Detailed Chronology

Homecoming to a changed city

The session opens with the party pulling into Luskan's docks early on day 12 of the voyage, everyone long-rested. The trouble starts before anyone steps off the ship: the dockmaster Bargan Thrust (name uncertain — the recording renders it "bargain thrust" and "Argan"; a wide dwarf, met on the way out) refuses to waive Captain Larusta's docking fee, a courtesy every Luskan-based captain has always enjoyed. She pays, fuming. Insight and perception sweeps (Gootcha and Xanphina highest) reveal a city-wide sickness of the spirit: people crossing streets to avoid each other, glancing over shoulders, treating every stranger as a suspect — different in kind from what the drachhorn once did. Maccath the Crimson murmurs that this is not the town she left. Larusta heads for the Captain's Court to investigate, lending the party Carl ("Aye aye, Capt'n," he says, sweating) as a local escort, while Maccath needs to report to the Host Tower.

Walking the beachfront, the party overhears the city's new economy: "Salt cod went for 2 coppers last month, it's now a silver!… Gold only, they say. Redder the better, if you take my meaning." At the Kurth bridge, guards with drawn weapons demand a toll — a full gold per person, ten times the customary bribe. Baelgrum's attempt to pay in leftover crab (+9 persuasion notwithstanding) earns only a squint: "Don't play dumb, you know how this works." The party pays 8 gold for eight people, and Gootcha, itching to use a +10 Sleight of Hand that never gets exercise, lifts a guard's purse on the way through — burning her Tempered Soul mid-attempt to steady old instincts ("I'm feeling my past and how good I used to be at this"). Inside: 20 gold, 18 of them blood-red, plus a gold ring set with a blue gemstone, which she immediately puts on. The party's stomachs drop in unison. "So that's why everyone's messed up."

The Host Tower and Maccath's debrief

Crossing to the Host Tower island, the party finds reconstruction almost suspiciously advanced for two weeks' work. Guard mages challenge even Maccath — "Prove it" — until a flick of Minor Illusion satisfies them. Zelene receives the party in her office, eyes bloodshot from sleeplessness, and sets a globe glowing green and red on her desk as she talks — the party immediately clocks it as a truth-teller and watches it all conversation.

Maccath delivers her debrief: she did reach Old White Death, Arauthator, who carried her to his lair — not to kill her, but to audition her. His mate (a second white dragon, still alive in the north) had a tiefling wizard companion of her own who died, and the loss has driven her insane; Arauthator wanted a replacement wizard to restore her. Maccath stalled, researched — dragons, Arauthator, the Cult of the Dragon's plan to bring back Tiamat, and a great deal about the drachhorn, which she studied at length — until Deez Nuts arrived, freed her, and slew Arauthator outright. The orb pulses low green throughout. Zelene hands over a sending stone and a vague pledge of support "when things reach their culmination."

Pressed about the town, Zelene admits the Brotherhood identified the cause about ten days ago: a type of coin circulating among the people, with "a strong effect on the weak-willed and weak-minded." The Brotherhood has collected 2,400 of the coins into its vault "for study," and would appreciate help collecting the rest. When Gootcha produces her 18 red coins, Zelene's eyes go wide and her hand stretches out — give coins — and the party's insight checks (Keyleth highest) land the horrible truth: the Brotherhood has been keeping the coins close, and the coins have been keeping the Brotherhood. Shade's investigation confirms Zelene is compromised while Maccath is clean — genuinely curious, uncorrupted, and willing to study the coins properly. Gootcha politely declines to hand anything over ("What safeguards does the Brotherhood have in place?" — "The Arcane Brotherhood is the most well-known and most powerful organization of mages in the entire Sword Coast," Zelene bristles, which is not an answer). Maccath quietly asks the party for the coins instead, promising to identify the plane and the magic needed to reverse the effects — and, in the session's quietest comic beat, exposes the truth orb: "That orb is… just a light, right?" It is. It always was.

"This is our fault, isn't it."

Over the conversation the arithmetic assembles itself: the party took 6,400 red coins from Garmok's Mine — found beside the still-open rift to the Nine Hells — and knowingly spent 6,000 of them at the Gilded Albatross on the Amulet of Health, precisely to be rid of them. Ashley's out-of-character epiphany becomes canon: "The light bulb just came on. I had no idea. This is our fault, isn't it." The DM confirms the party was shielded the whole time — coins carried in a bag of holding don't leak. Maccath's later analysis fills in the cosmology: the coins are not magical — Detect Magic, Identify, and Dispel Magic all show nothing, but Detect Evil and Good "lit up like a firestorm." Decades beside the open rift saturated the gold with raw infernal energy; it affects the susceptible, it is slowly dissipating on its own (weeks or decades), and — the crucial insight — "it's actually the form that is being imbued, as opposed to the material itself." Change the form, release the energy. She also, looking at the ice-hunter disguises and Shade's habit of testing Vampiric Touch on pirates, gently suggests the party "may want to meet with a priest… you do seem to be going down a path of evil as well."

Halvard and the first cure

At the Gilded Albatross, a fresh sign reads "Gold only, no gems, no trade, no credit — no exceptions." The shop is obsessively polished, prices have doubled, and Halvard Greyskein — manic, sleepless — denies having any red coins while his eyes flick to an iron-banded box newly bolted under the counter. He rambles about The Goosebear and twice offers to fund an expedition to its treasure hoard, for a cut. Maccath lays out the options: Remove Curse frees a person; per-coin cleansing would take 6,000 castings; destroying the coins should release the energy at once. Baelgrum doesn't have Remove Curse prepared, so the party retires to the Hearthstone Ledger inn — its dwarf innkeeper Dwessa unaffected but bleeding staff to the inflation — and takes a long rest.

The next morning Baelgrum claps Halvard on the shoulder mid-conversation and casts Remove Curse. Halvard surfaces from two lost weeks profoundly confused: "Who the heck would break in and clean everything?… Now, where in tarnation did that come from? I've never had a chest that was bolted down before." Volunteering to open the chest, Baelgrum fails the DC 15 Wisdom save and spends Tempered Soul for the exact margin (12 + 4 = 16) — with real stakes, since his infernal feat means a failed save lets the afflicting force command him to move or cast: "this shop does seem to be in fireball range, so I'm glad we passed." The chest holds 3,000 red coins; the party swaps in 3,000 ordinary gold at face value, and a grateful Halvard presses three Greater Potions of Healing on them. A shopping interlude follows: the party keeps its cold-weather gear, sells ten ice-hunter outfits (100 gold) and Xanphina's four spears (4 gold), declines a 10,000-gold Potion of Speed, buys out Halvard's potion stock (one Supreme, two Superior, eight common — 6,400 gold) and three healer's kits, and the DM rolls out the new crafting and harvesting system (see DM Rulings).

The familiar sweep and the coin map

The DM rules that 2024-style familiars — celestial, fiend, or fey spirits in animal shape — can feel the coins' infernal resonance. Shade, Karma, and Gootcha's familiars sweep the city and return a map of ten pings, marker size proportional to hoard size, the Host Tower and the Albatross towering over the rest. The party works the list:

• Superior Stables — suspiciously fresh-scrubbed; the proprietress swats Karma's bat familiar Batty out of the air with a horsewhip, killing it, and grips a dagger: "You're not taking my coins. Not that I have any coins, but if I did, you wouldn't be taking them." The party withdraws rather than start a street war.
• The dry-goods shop (rendered "Tolan's/Tolerance Full Measure" — name garbled) — proprietress Mela, only a day exposed, is persuadable: she counts out 75 red coins, verifies the swap on her grain scale with a bite test, and retreats unnerved to her back room.
• Red Sail Inn — the halfling innkeeper Joss is genuinely unaffected ("just a strong-willed individual"), which has not stopped him warehousing coins as a speculator: 60 coins at a 20% premium (72 gold), plus a tip that Master Vance at the school is buying red coins at the same markup. "Pretty much all gold is pretty, if you ask me."
• Superior Stables, round two — Gootcha re-summons her familiar as a cat, Catalicious, to scout (the horses approve); the coins sit in a safe in the stock room. Under the Cloak of Invisibility (from Arauthator's hoard) and Keyleth's Pass Without a Trace, Gootcha posts an untouchable 34 Stealth, cracks the safe with thieves' tools, takes only the 120 red coins from among ~2,500 gold and jewelry — and leaves 120 ordinary gold in their place. "What little bit of goodness that I have, I am only going to take the red."
• The school — Catalicious is instantly mobbed by a dozen children (the DM grants kids advantage to spot cats, "because they're kids, and they see the cat, and they're like, kitty!"), so Karma's tiny spider familiar takes over, locating Master Vance's numismatic collection — Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter, Elturgard (garbled "Eltregaard") mints — including a display box of 90 red coins. Still-invisible Gootcha slides under the doors in Gaseous Form from her Harper signet ring, swaps 90 gold for the 90 red, and gasses back out. Clean.
• The docks — at the words "red coins" the dockmaster's hand goes to his sword; Baelgrum wins initiative and delivers Remove Curse by touch (spell attack 28, then Tempered Soul to 31 anyway, "trying to set things right") — and the curse washes through so powerfully that Bargan, unique among the cured, keeps his memories of the coins calling to him. Two weeks gone; the news that Old White Death is dead staggers him. He surrenders his own bolted-down box of 130 coins — Xanphina tears it free of its bolts with a Tempered-Soul-fueled 21 Athletics, hardware pinging off the walls — and the party overpays him with a pearl worth more than the gold. He pledges to spread the party's name to Ship Kurth. Shade, seizing the moment, plants the rumor that the Bronze Blades carry red coins; Bargan vows Ship Kurth will "search them good." Baelgrum: "Spread the word of these nuts, indeed."
• Captain's Court, High Captain's Court, the Cutlass — straightforward buybacks (30 + 40 + 37 = 107 coins), and a reunion with Captain Larusta, relieved and grateful on behalf of Luskan's captains.

The forge test

Maccath's form-not-material theory goes to trial at a smithy on Half Moon Street near the Cutlass, its owner shooed out for his own protection. The mundane forge fails outright — the coins have resistance to non-magical heat. Karma's Heat Metal (2nd level) softens them; Baelgrum's Burning Hands (1st) tips them over into a full melt, and Gootcha's Arcana check formalizes the rule: a cumulative third level of magical fire or heat, stackable across casters, melts them. Each melt releases a psychic pulse of escaping infernal energy — Xanphina fails the first Wisdom save and takes 6 psychic (Keyleth, in an end-of-session retcon, spends her Tempered Soul channeling "the wisdom of my elders" to shield her own mind). Karma's Flaming Sphere (3rd) industrializes the process, four molds at a time. Final tally: seven clean gold bars (~3,500 coins melted) plus ~500 red coins kept deliberately as evidence and props for the tower. After a night's rest the bridge tolls have already fallen to 2 silver — though Kurth island still charges a gold, because the biggest hoard in the city is still radiating from the Host Tower's vault.

The vault

Back at the tower, Baelgrum runs the play once more: he offers Zelene the coins — "hold out your hands… they're pretty precious" — wins initiative, and lands Remove Curse (19 to hit, with advantage). Zelene comes back to herself appalled: two weeks gone, and in that time she has, without knowing why, recalled all 42 of the Brotherhood's regional mages to the tower — the coins gathering their hoard guards. She remembers the origin, too: the Brotherhood sold magic items to the Gilded Albatross and took payment in red coins. The vault, however, cannot simply be opened quietly — so she shares a one-use teleportation imprint of its interior, and Shade casts Teleportation Circle from her magic tome (burning all five of its daily charges). The circle is one-way; the vault blocks outbound teleportation; the door — a one-minute ritual only Zelene can perform — is the sole exit. Sending stones work through the walls. Zelene declares the vault off-limits for a week as cover.

Shade, Baelgrum, and Karma step through into a 20-by-40-foot room shelved deep with the Brotherhood's treasures — staffs, rods, wands, armor, potions, stacks of spellbooks — and one bread-loaf-sized chest humming with 2,400 red coins. Karma drops Flaming Sphere on it. The melt tears loose the largest pulse yet (Wisdom save DC 20): Baelgrum rides it out clean; Karma and Shade each spend Tempered Soul on principle — "hardened resolve and confidence," "I too am feeling confident that we can do this. And I like fire" — and take 2 psychic apiece. Upstairs, a mage abruptly cannot remember why he was guarding coins. The curse breaks city-wide, instantly.

Denouement

Zelene opens the vault, and with her faculties restored offers something rarer than a sending stone: honesty. "As I'm remembering… I was actually just trying to get you to leave. I had no intent of actually providing help had you asked. But that has changed. We will be at your service." The Arcane Brotherhood will dispatch mages to Waterdeep to stand with the Council against Tiamat. Shade doubles down on the Bronze Blades slander with a 26 Deception — now the Brotherhood's mages will be searching them too. Maccath will stay a few days to write up her drachhorn and dragon research, then travel to Waterdeep; the party may escort her or strike out on their own. The session closes with loose-thread review (Varram the White (garbled "Varm the Wh—") still to hunt for the Council; the Council two updates behind; the Prophecy of the Thorn-Born Star (rendered "Thornborn" in the recording) research handed to Maccath; the Collected Works of Marfol earmarked for the tower), the unveiling of the new faction-support tracker, and the Tempered Soul roll call. Next session: July 12. Sarah's sign-off lands the epitaph: "We saved everybody from something we didn't cause." Ashley: "This whole science fest was our doing."

Notable Characters

• PCs: Xanphina (Amber), Keyleth (Patty — present all session but nearly voiceless from mic failure; inputs relayed), Karma (Shanna), Baelgrum (Richard), Shade (Sarah), Gootcha (Ashley)
• NPCs: Maccath the Crimson (debrief, coin analysis, moral compass), Zelene (corrupted → cured → genuine ally), Halvard Greyskein (corrupted → cured, potion benefactor), Bargan Thrust the dockmaster (name garbled; corrupted → cured, remembers the coins' call), Captain Larusta, Carl, Dwessa (Hearthstone Ledger), Joss (Red Sail Inn), Mela (dry goods), the Superior Stables proprietress (hostile, never cured), Master Vance (unmet; coin collector)

Locations

Luskan (cured city-wide) • Host Tower of the Arcane (+ its vault: 20×40 ft, teleport-in only, ritual door) • Gilded Albatross • Hearthstone Ledger inn • Red Sail Inn • Superior Stables • the school • Captain's Court / High Captain's Court / the Cutlass • Kurth district and bridges • Half Moon Street smithy

Factions

• Arcane Brotherhood — from hollow brush-off to committed ally; mages to Waterdeep; 42 mages currently at the tower.
• Ship Kurth — tolls and suspicion; now favorably disposed via the cured dockmaster; primed to harass the Bronze Blades.
• Council of Waterdeep — standing quests (Varram the White; overdue check-ins).
• Bronze Blades — framed by Shade as red-coin carriers; two factions now set to search them on sight.

Items

• Blood-red gold coins — all 6,400 accounted for: ~3,500 melted to seven clean gold bars, 2,400 melted in the vault, ~500 kept as coins (status flag: those 500 were never melted — still infernal in the bag of holding).
• Gained: gold ring with a blue gemstone (unidentified, worn by Gootcha), sending stone (Zelene), 3 Greater Potions of Healing (gift), 1 Supreme + 2 Superior + 8 common healing potions (6,400 g), 3 healer's kits, a pearl spent to the dockmaster, 7 gold bars.
• First field use: Cloak of Invisibility (Arauthator's hoard, 3 charges); Gootcha's Harper signet ring (Gaseous Form ×2 charges); Keyleth's Ring of Spell Storing surfaced on-sheet.
• Permanent: Keyleth gains Leatherworker's Tools proficiency; Shade gains Jeweler's Tools proficiency (crafting-system feats).

Creatures

No combat this session. The Goosebear resurfaces as a live hook (Halvard offers to bankroll a hoard expedition for a cut). Arauthator's insane mate — a surviving white dragon in the north — enters the record via Maccath's debrief. Sole casualty: Batty, Karma's 1-hp bat familiar, felled by a horsewhip.

Quests

• CLOSED: The blood-red infernal gold — cause identified (the party), cure engineered (cumulative 3rd-level magical fire), Luskan cured city-wide.
• ADVANCED: Alliance against Tiamat — Arcane Brotherhood committed; faction-support tracker unveiled.
• ADVANCED: Maccath & the drachhorn intel — research being written up; she departs for Waterdeep within days.
• OPEN: Find Varram the White (Council of Waterdeep); Council check-ins overdue.
• OPEN: The rift beneath Garmok's Mine — still open, still seeping.
• OPEN: Arauthator's Mate — insane, alive, in the north.
• LEADS: The Goosebear expedition (Halvard's funding offer); Prophecy of the Thorn-Born Star research (with Maccath); ~500 red coins still in the party's bag; the Bronze Blades frame-job time bomb.

Quotes

• "Salt cod went for 2 coppers last month, it's now a silver!… Gold only, they say. Redder the better, if you take my meaning." — DM, as a Luskan townsperson
• "The light bulb just came on. I had no idea. This is our fault, isn't it." — Ashley (Gootcha)
• "You may want to meet with a priest when you have the chance, because you do seem to be going down a path of evil as well." — Maccath, to the party
• "Two weeks! Just… charmed to… clean? That's the strangest spell I've ever heard of." — Halvard Greyskein
• "You're not taking my coins. Not that I have any coins, but if I did, you wouldn't be taking them." — the Superior Stables proprietress
• "My favorite part about all of this is I never asked if you were spending the red coins. You specifically let me know… even though you had like 20,000 non-red coins." — Wes, DM
• "Spread the word of these nuts, indeed." — Baelgrum
• "I too am feeling confident that we can do this. And I like fire." — Shade, in the vault
• "I was actually just trying to get you to leave. I had no intent of actually providing help had you asked. But that has changed. We will be at your service." — Zelene
• "We saved everybody from something we didn't cause." — Sarah / "This whole science fest was our doing." — Ashley, closing the session

Session End

The party stands in the Host Tower, Luskan cured around them, roughly day 14–15 of the journey. Choices ahead: escort Maccath to Waterdeep or strike out independently; hunt Varram the White; deal with the rift under Garmok's Mine; and decide what to do about ~500 still-infernal coins riding in their own bag of holding. Both Ship Kurth and the Arcane Brotherhood stand ready to enthusiastically strip-search the entirely innocent Bronze Blades. Next session: July 12.