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DnD-Campaign-Two/4. Session Prep/Caford - The Vault Singers' Church - 7-9-26.md
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2026-07-27 23:29:05 -04:00

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Session Prep — Caford: The Vault Singers' Church & Felix Tanner

Prep date: 7-9-26 · Party location: Caford, Falduhir — inside the front hall of the Vault Singers' Church, having just retreated from the warning voice in the rear yard.

Where We Left Off

Session 8 (8. Oils - 6-29-26) at The Pigskin: the automaton Oils - The Pigskin handed the party the truth. The Ashfall Squad entered the mountains through a cave mouth connected to the mines, and that shaft was reported flooded the very next day — so Janos's vanished companions may be sealed inside. Oils named Felix Tanner - Vault Singers' Church as the man who knows more (and begged not to be named as the source), placed "the Reach" as a Suits objective rather than a place, and confirmed a man matching Commander Taylor's Proposition sat at a map-carving meeting overseen by the Spade. Janos read Felix's location from Oils's mind — behind the Vault Singers' Church — but a hidden voice out back threatened them, smelled the Gnomes among them, and drove them off. They then came in the front doors: a hushed, library-like hall of desks and shelves tended by indifferent black-robed attendants, wrapped in strong warding magic with a necromantic pulse beneath it.

Three Reveals Now in Canon

  1. Felix Tanner is an ancient automaton. The "haggard old man in a nest of boxes" is how he sat in Oils's memory — not what he is. Felix is an ancient Automatons, the living power source and conscience of the vault, there of his own free will. The "necromantic pulse" Six felt is Felix — an ancient core sustaining preserved magic, reading as necromancy because it holds things past their natural end. His "sniff" is a sensor array finer than any nose.
  2. The Church is a doomsday archive. It is the Vaultsingers Overview' Caford vault, racing to store every magical secret before the Campaign Premise and magic dies. Not an enemy — the campaign's counter-conspiracy. The wards are their song-magic; the archivists are banking knowledge against an extinction only they (and now the party) can see.
  3. Taylor is a double agent. He plays his role in the dark circle (the map meetings, the Spade's table) but is secretly steering the party toward the truth — the mine map, the "proposition," the introductions were all breadcrumbs. He cannot break cover and will read cold, even villainous, if confronted. DM irony: the party is on track to file him as an enemy exactly when he's their most valuable hidden asset — keep their suspicion alive.

Likely Scenes / Locations

  • Vault Singers' Church (Caford) — a temple that is really a library; reverent hush, robed archivists who won't meet your eye, and something dead humming under the wards. The session's center. Front archive-hall + warded rear yard.
  • Felix's rear yard (behind the Church) — a crude nest of crates and blankets behind a loose fence slat. Where the "hidden voice" waits. The way in is sincerity + the Ring, not a con — he is the Church and already rebuffed the "we're from the Church" line.
  • The cave / flooded mine (back toward Brefield, the Ironreach Range) — the entrance the Ashfall used, marked on the party's map; leads to The Collapsed Reach / Shaft III. The "flooding" is the falsified-condemnation cover in the Decoded Ledger. The next expedition beat.
  • The Pigskin (automaton tavern) — safe harbor and re-hire point; Oils - The Pigskin lodges here under Karen - The Pigskin's protection.

NPCs in Play

  • Felix Tanner - Vault Singers' Church (ancient Automatons, Archivist-Class — the vault-core).
    • Voice: low, unhurried, mechanically precise; from the dark it's a warning-growl. Sniffs/scans before he trusts. Speaks of the ley lines like weather.
    • Wants: preserve every magical secret before the lines close; keep the Vaultsingers honest; guard ley-line truths.
    • Gives, if earned: what he knows of the Ashfall Squad and the flooded cave — guardedly, only to those who prove they aren't the circle drilling the mountains. Offering The Explorer's Ring is the key.
  • The Archivists (robed keepers, some automaton). Indifferent by design; a filter, not a welcome. They notice relics before they notice people.
  • Karen - The Pigskin (Automaton — host & fixer of The Pigskin). Neutral haven-keeper and favor-broker; can quietly find a person or answer in Caford. Off-screen ally, standing contact.
  • Oils - The Pigskin (small Automaton — investigator/appraiser). Loyal, re-hireable; reads relics and memories with his stone slate. Do not expose him as the source of the Felix tip (Odatina's hard line).
  • Commander Taylor's Proposition / "the Spade" (off-stage, looming double agent). Steering the party in secret; must keep cover. Let him act the part when watched.

Factions & Agendas

  • Vaultsingers Overview — relic-keepers running the vault as a hedge against the end of magic. Potential major ally. They covet memory-storing relics: the Explorer's Ring and Oils's stone slate are exactly what they exist to preserve. Revealing the Ring is the party's key in — and a risk (they may want to keep it).
  • House of Suits Overview — the live hand of the conspiracy; the Spade oversees the land/ley-site division; money flows "up to the Reach."
  • Caford's automaton community (Karen - The Pigskin, Oils - The Pigskin, The Pigskin) — a quiet support network under the shadow of the Automatons; a local face of the automaton-rights throughline.
  • The conspiracy (Campaign Premise) — drilling to fracture and choke the ley lines, revive Rangrim's imperial ideology, and re-enslave the automatons. The flooded mine, the Reach, and this vault's very existence are fingers of the same hand.

Open Hooks & Threats

  • Cracking Felix without a con. He can't be lied to and clocked the gnome. Sincerity + the Ring opens him; deception or force does not.
  • The stakes escalate from crime to apocalypse. Earning the archivists' trust reveals the drilling isn't theft — it's the potential end of magic, with the automatons (Six, Oils, Felix) enslaved in its wake.
  • The Ring is a beacon. Inside a Vaultsinger hall it may win an ally or mark the party as looters of exactly what the order guards.
  • The mine still ticks. "Before the season turns" / the Shifting. Janos's people may be sealed alive; the cave back toward Brefield / The Collapsed Reach is the next expedition.
  • Protect Oils. Don't let the Suits — or the Vaultsingers — trace the tip back to him.
  • Complication seeds: a Suits watcher trailing the party; Felix testing them hard before yielding anything; an attendant noticing the Ring.

Runtime Dials (table calls — no prep needed)

  • How much does Felix reveal vs. withhold this session? (He guards ley-line specifics.)
  • Do the Vaultsingers ask to keep the Ring, or copy it into the vault and return it?
  • Does anyone recognize Six/Oils as kin to Felix — a beat of automaton solidarity (the Broken Choir)?

Loose Threads / Housekeeping