Story Arc 7: Overthrowing the Petty Kingdom of Materino

Part One was late March (I think)   Part Two was April 8th 2023 (I think).   Part Three was April 22nd 2023.   Part One the PCs were traveling through the Petty Kingdom of Mateoreino when they got some signs that the kingdom was a horrific place. There were tarred heads on pikes in a public square with broken lanterns at their feet, clearly marking the deceased as Lanterns.   The PCs personally witnessed Princess Morena of Mateorino using her station to bully and rob the subjects eating the only egg laying chicken of the inn keeper's family and generally being a brat.   The PCs made some discrete inquiries, and they also got contacted by a spy for the Paladins of Dragon Springs Barony who helped provide and/or corroberate the other information they found.   The PCs found out that the King Matteo essentially ran a kleptocracy and turned a blind eye to his soldiers occasionally raping his subjects or arbritrarily beating them up. His eldest daughter Princess Dulce of Mateorino helped him balance the books and direct his wrath towards rule breakers efficiently and Princess Morena was a bullying brat.   They PCs plotted to overthrow the regime. They realized they didn't want to leave a powerless vaccuum. They went looking for a potential local leader who was a decent person and found the head of the local militia and recruited them. Then they plotted some decapitation strikes.   King Matteo was going on an extended hunting trip soon, so the PCs planned to ambush him while relatively exposed, then attack the hut cluster where his ogre thugs lived, then to try to target any surviving lieutenants before they could organize a response.   Part Two was a relatively short session. The players set up an ambush site where they though the king was likely to pass through. Aranil and Svetlanna shot a few arrows thinning out the king's entourage and then Aranil and Neffrey ended up charging once their targets started to rally.   They ended up killing King Mateo, Prince Belisario of Materino, and Matteo's son-in-law and right hand, and a couple men at arms. They took two or three men-at-arms as prisoners and knocked them out with a sleep spell, and then proceeded to the ogres.   Part Three Boosted by invisiblity, Svetlanna applied alchemist's fire to the ogre's hut then ignited it. Aranil and surprisingly Neshik shot at them as they fled while Svetlanna stood ready on cleanup eventually finding out some were trying to knock down a wall for a new exit away from the arrow shooting and she and Neffrey took out the ogres that tried that maneuver.   The PCs killed 21 ogres without even taking a single wound.   Then the PCs headed to the king's castle, and Neffrey used a mix of illusion magic and deception to bluff the party's way into the castle, where the PCs quickly overwhelmed the soldiers (including an ogre which they killed) and got them to surrender pretty quickly. They captured all three of Matteo's daughters. Eventually they decided to sneak the middle child out to let her go into anonymous exile and turned the other two to the militia leader to stand trial. After making sure the new regime was at least going to try to make things better, the PCs proceeded on to Dragon Springs where the Paladins removed Neffrey's brand as a reward for helping overthrow the tyrant Matteo.