In the previous session the constables of the Royal Homeland Constabulary discovered the details of a smuggling plot to provide the eco-terrorist Gale with magical wands from Crisillyir. So the next morning they planned on how to intercept those wands and capture at least the local smugglers bringing them in. The group decided against naval combat [Their group in this campaign is stronger in melee but weaker in ranged combat than their group in the previous campaign]. So they decided to let the smugglers go and make the exchange on the open sea, and capture them at their docks when they returned. On advice of their boss, Chief Inspector Stover Delft, they also brought a RHC steam cutter to prevent the smuggler's cutter from sailing away once they discovered the group.

Capturing the dock once the smugglers had departed was easy enough, with only two minions standing guard that were easily overpowered and hid bound and gagged in the building on the docks. Then they hid out of sight of the pier and waited for the smugglers to return. Fortunately for them the smugglers did return to there, and didn't unload the three crates of wands elsewhere first. So when the sailors had lowered and rolled up the sails and attached the cutter to the pier, Aria the sorceress shouted out: "Stop, police! You are under arrest, drop your arms!".

However there were quite a lot of smugglers: A captain of the ship, 7 sailors, 4 thugs of The Family (a mafia-like organization the constables had recently become aware of), and the two gnomes Blander and Danica Waryeye. The gnomes were actually the most dangerous opponents. The constables had had the opportunity to take them out separately before meeting up with the smugglers, but had decided against that to not spook the smugglers. Well, it made for a more interesting fight!

The other fun element of the fight was that the smugglers were sitting on three cases with 50 magical wands each. These were designed to be easily usable by common people, without the use of magic or even a command word. But they were unpredictable, providing one of 12 random magical effects. Nothing useless or harmful for the user, not like wands of wonder, but with effects of different strengths and usefulness. That turned even the sailor minions into potential threats.

The players used the terrain to their advantage, using powers that moved enemies to push them off the pier and into the piranha-infested waters. They were lucky that Danisca's main power, a domination effect, failed due to a low dice roll. Blander was more successful, as he could move by teleportation and used that to teleport into the building, where he summoned three badgers that were then "badgering" Artus. But Merian came to Artus' rescue, and the avenger abilities to pursue a single enemy turned out to be very strong against the gnome magician.

The random wands produced some fun effects. Apparently one of the writers of the adventure was a Harry Potter fan, so there was an Expelliarmus effect that robbed James of his main weapon. But he was able to push his opponent into the water with his bare hands and then picked up a cutlass one of the fallen sailors had dropped. The constables weren't totally consistent with what they were trying to achieve, some using lethal damage and others non-lethal damage to subdue the smugglers. When Danisca was bloodied and Merian had brought down Blander to 2 hit points, the two gnomes surrendered. And with most of the other smugglers being already down, the remaining smugglers also let themselves get arrested. The constables loaded the prisoners and the contraband into the two cutters and returned to the RHC headquarters. Eldion considered letting the gnomes go to "turn them", but then the group decided that this wasn't really practical and might just get the gnomes killed by The Family.

The next morning, after reporting their success to their boss, the group received an invitation from Morgan Cippiano, godfather of The Family, inviting them for coffee. They went and received an offer (which in spite of the reference they *could* have refused) to let the Family smugglers free in exchange for help with their investigation. They agreed, and Morgan Cippiano promised them to contact the dragonborn arsonists that had escaped them in an earlier encounter and send them that night to the house of the gnomes on an arson mission, so that the constables could arrest them. With that plan we ended the session. To be continued in August, after the summer break.