much a work in progress, added to by both the players and myself as the weeks continue (barring real life interruptions such as working day jobs and having spouses/girl friends ;-) ;-).
Cheers,
Colin
Indeed...rumor has it that he is , indeed, the Man...
Not to mention endlessly modest ;-) ;-)
Cheers,
Colin
Chapter Two: The Journey South
Part I: Tribal Rhythms and a Betrayal Most Impolite
Part II: The Way-Station
Part III: Angry Lizards
Part IV: The Mad Fugue of the Unquiet Dreamer
Part V: Please Allow Me to Introduce Myself
Part VI: Forgotten Soldiers of a Damned Tribe
Parts I and II have been played out, and will be recounted in the coming days...
Cheers,
Colin
Part I: Tribal Rhythms and a Betrayal Most Impolite
Wherein the party investigates the sources of lizard-folk violence in previous months, attempts to find an elemental bale-stone to tie up a favour previously owed by Akarthis to Langwellan the sage, and searches for caches of Oeridian weapons and magic in the same watery tomb that the bale-stone is rumoured to be buried in....
Moonday, Patchwall 3rd, Common Year 591
After compiling their sources of information, rereading their maps and resupplying themselves with consumables, the party of five (Iellios, Penello, Scarssis, Jee'Na, and Thorn) set out towards the nearest lizard-folk encampment, by following the path of the Duntide river to the south.
As they tramped through the sticky muck of the east-bank of the Duntide, they came upon wisps of smoke in the distance, in the same approximate location as the encampment indicated on their map. The two scouts (Jee'na and Scarssis) approached cautiously, and soon came across lizard-folk guards and their hidden pet alligators.
To be continued...
The lizard-men guards were soon joined by a larger kinsman sporting a huge battle-axe and flanked by a formidable looking entourage of four more lizard-men. The party began to negotiate passage through the village and tried surreptitiously to ascertain the location of the Oeridian ruins simultaneously.
The party was led back to the lizard-folk village where a minor celebration was going on; a score or more lizard-folk were dancing and bellowing in their hoarse reptillian voices while a mysterious young woman, barely beyond pubescence, led them in dance while playing her stringed instrument. She was dressed in garish, mismatched colours, and appeared to have her skin adorned with indigo scales, tipped with silvery highlights.
As the party was made a guest of the noon-hour festivities, they became aware of an imposing lizard-man, dressed and decorated in the style of a shaman or primitive priest, who seemed to lead the tribe's attention whenever he deigned it necessary to growl commands in his gutteral tongue.
When he went away to have a conference with his burly lieutenant (the large lizard-man with the battle axe), Scarrsis attempted to sneak away and listen in on their conversations, but realized quite rapidly that they were on to him, and he snuck back to the party, which was slowly winding down.
As the music ceased, and the dancing and chanting of the reptilian humanoids came to a slow halt, the shamanistic leader called for attention and announced (in Draconic) that in honour of the guests (who were vile, polluting, city-dwelling humans) contests would be held to determine whether these barely-tolerated visitors were in fact deserving of hospitality.
The first contest was a wrestling match, and bold Iellios took up the challenge against a hulking brute of a lizard man. The match lasted for over a minute, but in the end Iellios couldn't match the sheer physical strength of his barbaric foe (who was boosted by the encouraging words and music of the scaly-skinned young woman), and Iellios was pinned.
The second contest seemed to be one of agility and skill of balance, and involved leaping across several moss-slicked logs drifting in a stagnant, alligator-laden pond nearby. Jee'Na took up the challenge, and despite a number of falls, very nearly leading to a grisly demise at the teeth of a number of hungry reptiles, she managed to regain her stance and poise with enough celerity to win the contest to the deep-throated bellows of praise from the lizard folk.
Having succeeded in at least one of the challenges, the shaman deemed the group worthy of his attentions and the tribe's hospitality. In the halting conversation that followed, this scarred and body-painted leader informed the party that the ruins they sought were a few hours away, but that they should be quite cautious due to the presence of several fiery creatures, most dangerous being the efreeti. Despite the fact that Langwellan had mentioned the bale-stone as being linked to water and was in fact Marid-linked, the party was not suspicious of the shaman's new overtures of friendship, and accepted his offer of having his lieutenant (the battle-axe weilding menace they had been gruffly escorted by previously) lead them to the Oeridian ruins.
To be continued...
Cheers,
Colin
P.S. As always players, feel free to chime in with clarifications, misrememberances on my part, and any in character/out of character comments :) :)
Doh! It appears that my mind is even less than it previously used to be, and I misremebered what an Ocarina is (the instrument played by the spell-scale bard at the lizard-folk feast) and it is in fact a wind instrument not a stringed one.
My thanks to the player (Ryk) for the clarification....I'm lucky I have such a forgiving bunch of players who put up with my lack-wittedness and the porous nature of my memory :) :) :)
Cheers,
Colin
Part I: Tribal Rhythms and a Betrayal Most Impolite continued...
The lizard warrior led the party through the trackless muck of the Gnatmarsh for several hours, until they arrived at a trio of ramshackle, moss covered wooden huts (scarcely the sort of impressive and formidable ruins one would expect from the zenith of the Oeridian empire) and encouraged the party to approach as he scouted ahead, behind the huts (assiduously avoiding certain areas in the forefront of the primary hut).
As the party got nearer, two giant crayfish emerged from the swampy mire before them, and the lizard-man made haste to conceal himself behind the hut. In short order, the snapping chilipeds of the behemoth crustaceans had grappled one party member and threatened to snap tight on another. However, despite the grievous damage the vicious claws inflicted on the group, the heroes made short work of the enormous decapods, and split into two groups to move behind the hut and attack the traitorous lizard-man from both sides.
Unbeknownst to the party, the barbaric turncoat had not only consumed several potions during the combat with the giant crayfish, but had also used a magical gem of Water Elemental summoning scant seconds before, and thus was fully prepared and no longer alone...
To be continued...
Part I: Tribal Rhythms and a Betrayal Most Impolite concluded...
The soul-knife Thorn and priestess Penelo went to the north of the hut and thus encountered the water elemental, whereas Iellios the dragon-shaman, Scarssis the urban-paladin, and Jee'Na the rogue went to the south and encountered the now raging and "buffed" barbarian.
The water elemental proved a disastrously strong opponent, and would have very nearly slain Thorn were it not for the timely interference of Lady Penelo, who was also quite instrumental in keeping several of the other party members alive with an unusually puissant spell the likes of which shant be seen again ;-).
The raging lizard-man barbarian was also a formidable foe and dealt a great deal of damage to the dragon shaman, but was ultimately laid low, allowing the party to focus all its attentions on the elemental, although it disappeared before it could be destroyed, returning to its home plane upon the expiry of the summoning spell contained in the gem.
The region was searched (after healing of course) and nothing of interest was found; a dead-end, a red herring.
The following morning, the camp was approached by the shaman and four lizard-folk escorts, with a mammoth viper in the lead. Despite a feigned concern in the treachery of his lieutenant (which the party was not believing for a second), the shaman soon revealed his true colours, unleashing the snake and his savage henchmen, as well as transforming into his actual form, that of a genie-kin known as a Jann, who had of course been misleading and controlling the lizard folk.
As the Jann enlarged himself and turned invisible, battle was joined. Emerging from the swamp where she had been quietly and carefully trailing the shaman, was the spell-scale bard...who soon revealed herself to also be a sorceress when she launched supporting attacks against the lizard-folk to help the party.
The snake poisoned two party members, but was dealt a quick death from melee blows and a bead from a necklace of fireballs which was also used to soften up the slavering lizard-men. The reptilian humanoids proved worthy adversaries, but could not stand up well to the combined efforts of the party, even though they were distracted by their attempts to look for any sign of the invisible jann.
When he did suddenly appear, his large scimitar of the suddenly visible jann inflicted some grievous wounds on the party, particularly lady Penelo, but one genie-kin against six well-armed and ensorcelled adventurers has a very low life expectancy... ...
After gathering up the loot, the party returned to the lizard-folk encampment and informed the inhabitants of what had transpired, including the fact that they had been used and mislead by beings from another plane of existence. Saddened and chagrined (as much as lizard-folk can be...), the villagers offered compensation for the suffering of the party, and also provided them with a clue as to the actual location of the Oeridian ruins (and therein the marid-linked balestone) in the form of the last known location of their druid, who was certainly aware of where the ruins could be found.
It appeared that their druid had been highly suspicious of the interloping "shaman" regardless of the jann's illusions, particularly of his constant urgings for bloodthirsty violence against all nearby humans, and for his temerity had been sent to the Way-Station, a place that was previously a stopover point for weary travelers through the eastern Gnatmarsh, before its sudden abandonment.
And so, the party armed itself and set out that same day to find the Way-Station, and hopefully to find the lizard-folk druid and finally find out the truth about the ruins and what might be found within...
Next, part II, The Way-Station
Cheers,
Colin
Part II: The Waystation
With trepidation, the party set forth from the village of the lizard-men, set in their purpose of locating the elderly reptilian druid who could once and for all point them in a definitive direction towards the Oeridian ruins wherein could be found the source of the lizard-folk unrest and the marid-linked elemental balestone.
They shortly came across the stout but ruined structure, consisting of a circular chamber within which was a well, attached to a sleeping/cooking chamber. The walls were heavily laden with moss and vines, and much of the stonework of the walls and flattened roof had collapsed both inwards and out into the swamp. Jee’Na and Thorn set forth into the structure to scout out the inner environs, and found little but unsettling sensations, and the sounds of skittering animals in the undergrowth. Further investigation revealed bloodstains, torn apart remains of animals and humanoids, not to mention scattered equipment all spattered with gore.
As the party continued inwards as a group, Jee’Na was spooked by a series of crawling noises coming from something moving just out of eyesight. Investigating the sounds, Jee’Na found scratches and claw marks on the walls, some with bloodied shards of torn-out fingernails still embedded in the soft brick. Taralilia and Thorn found charcoal stick figures sketched low on the walls of the sleeping chamber, all depicting small humanoids cavorting and delighting in the capture, torture and murder of larger humanoids such as humans and lizard-folk. Most ominously, the primitive art work seemed to culminate in the transformation of some the larger humanoids into the stunted underground dwellers following a strange ritual depicted as involving a secret cave, clumps of a strange plant/moss, and a series of hooked, serrated surgical blades…...
As some of the other party members investigated the mossy well they heard some of the same scuttling noises coming from around the corners of the ruined walls, just out of sight. Despite these unnerving events, the party decided to stay for the night, feigning rest so as to draw out the perpetrator(s) and hopefully get them to reveal the location of the lizard-folk druid.
With the moon in ascension over the mire and the ruined Way-Station, the party rested uneasily, most pretending to sleep, but some succumbing to their heavy eyelids and exhausted limbs and actually falling into slumber. Emerging from the darkness, unseen to the party were two small, grotesque figures. Soon, a series of flickering lights appeared away from the way-station, but none in the party were so easily tricked as to blunder out alone into the swamp in pursuit of the drifting phantasms.
Sensing that these would not be easy prey, the meenlocks launched a full-out psychic assault, but were relatively unsuccessful…..except for Lady Penelo, who found herself bombarded with mental images depicting horrific scenes of her family being led into diabolical/demonic servitude, while being harried by gaunt, undead figures.
The party soon recovered from the surprise assaults and began to bring the fight to their physically weak but mentally puissant assailants. As the meenlocks continued to launch mental attacks from the crumbling rooftop, spells and arrows were launched at the diminutive abominations, and some even scaled the wall to battle the little monstrosities directly.
Eventually, both were slain, and as the night continued, the party elected to follow the meenlocks, knowing that they would emerge again to attack the party later in the night. But where were they hidden? The charcoal pictograms seemed quite clearly to indicate a subterranean lair, but how to find it?
With much searching of the surrounding area, the party found a hidden trapdoor in the mire not far from the Way-Station, and they descended the shaft. At the bottom the adventurers discovered that tracking tiny creatures in their own lair, on their own terms would be problematic; the tunnels were very small, and several had to shed their armour in order to adequately maneuver.
As they made their way through the tangled maze of cramped corridors, the party was surrounded by strange noises and unnerving sights, mostly phantasms concocted by the meenlocks. The party was attacked at one point from the rear, forcing only the character in the rear to be able to attack the creature physically.
With their Sanity shaken, the adventurers continued onwards, eventually coming upon the chamber of the Twisted King, a sorcerer meenlock of no small power and his two bodyguards. Upon a nearby stone slab in some hideous torture chamber or possibly operating chamber was a heavily mutilated reptilian figure partly transformed into a meenlock.
The battle was joined, and their opponents quite readily dispatched by the party, although one of the servitors of the Twisted King was able to dimension door to safety. As the party healed themselves, Scarssis approached the whimpering, tormented figure on the slab. The horrifically mutilated lizard-folk revealed himself to be the druid of the village, and he conveyed his tale to the party. As he also informed the adventurers of the location of the Oeridian ruins, he begged for release from his twilight state of torment, and with gauntleted fists his head was mercifully dashed out by the knight.
The party returned to the manse in Aylesbury, and sought out training and equipment in nearby Callistor to prepare for their upcoming assault on the ruins and whatever reptilian defenses could be mounted by the brain-washed primitives of the swamp.
As usual, please feel free to correct any errors I have made (it's been quite a few weeks since we last played), and email me with any updates to your characters or questions that you might have. By all means use these boards for inter-character communication or questions for the DM, and of course you can also post updates to your characters on the Wiki (nice journal entry, Mike :)
We will be playing this Friday, so if there's any nuts-and-bolts issues that you want cleared up, by all means let me know before then,so we can leap right into playing :) :)
Thanks for your patience in not hassling me about updating the various pages (we're all rather busy these days, I know).
Cheers, and I look forward to reading your posts in the coming days (provided you have the time of course) and I'm certainly looking forward to Friday's game :) :)
Cheers,
Colin
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Cheers,
Colin
Part III: Angry Lizards
Waterday, Ready'reat the 5th, Common Year 591
The party, having rested and levelled up, stood amassed three hundred yards from the waiting ruins of Tantyr-Nago. Splayed before them in the distance lay ruined statues, shattered columns and collapsed walls, interspersed with half-buried stone heads and outbuildings. As they approached closer, it became readily apparent that Tantyr-Nago doubled as a burial chamber (Scarrsis informed the party that it was common amongst the conquering Oeridians to bury the bodies of minor mercenaries and other soldiers of non-noble descent in shallow, though marked, graves, unlike the more important soldiers, priests, war-mages, etc. who received far more intricate and elaborate burial crypts).
Upon one of the out-buildings, a sentry lizard folk with a vermillion crest and equally red throat pouch stood guard, while in the muck below him, between the out-building (perhaps a crypt?) and some grave markers, two large, undefined shapes heaved about in the murky mire.
The party decided, perhaps unwisely, to split into two groups of three, each approaching the sentry from a different angle, but not only were they spotted, but their approach was made quite painstaking and arduous by the depth of the muck (difficult terrain). The party came closer, firing off the occasional volley of bolts and arrows, but generally trying to make as quick an approach as possible so as to limit the amount of time exposed to the sentry’s bow.
With the soul-knife Thorn, the dragon-shaman Iellios, and the young spell-scale Taralilia making a move towards the out-building, the shapes in the bog made themselves readily apparent to the eye and two huge alligators made to intercept the soul-knife. As the rest of the party haltingly approached, slowed down by the huge reach of the two mammoth reptiles as well as the sharp drop in mobility engendered by slogging through the muck, Thorn was grabbed in the toothy maw of one alligator. As the two members of the party closest to Thorn endeavoured to engage or at least distract the alligator without themselves become prey to its voracious appetite, while simultaneously trying to take down the roof-top sniper, Thorn struggled to free himself from the grip of the powerful jaws. It was all in vain, and within a few seconds, Thorn lay dead in the mouth of the huge reptile, although its fate was sealed by the combined efforts of Iellios and Taralilia.
Meanwhile, the lizard-man on the roof called for reinforcements from a nearby ruin…..As Taralilia inspired courage and peppered the other huge alligator with magic missiles, she was attempting to convince the sniper with his poisoned arrows that this was all a horrible mistake and that the party meant them no harm, and certainly was not intending to step on any hallowed ground. Her shaky yet moderately effective attempts at a diplomatic solution were causing the sniper pause, but as he was pausing his attacks to ponder the spell-scale’s words of peace, the second alligator was making a slow but sure bee-line for the second set of three characters (Lady Penelo, Scarssis, and Jee’Na).
Shortly, thanks to the hesitation of the roof-top sniper and the quick weapons of Iellios, the red-frilled lizard folk lay dead, and shortly thereafter Iellios mounted the body to serve as a steady platform from which to defend the party’s position without having to worry about the difficult terrain of the bog. However, the reinforcements were coming….
With Iellios making a stand against the five lizard men approaching from the south, the second alligator launched itself at Jee’Na (who had been wounding it from afar this entire time, as had Scarssis). Within a few moments, Jee’Na was grappled in the jaws of the beast and soon, just like Thorn, lay dead, her lithe body no match for the cold-blooded ferocity of the reptilian menace.
The ‘gator quickly began to move against Lady Penelo, but thanks to her and Scarssis’s actions (as well as a few more magic missiles and scorching raysfrom Taralilia), the beast was put down to a muddy grave.
So, Iellios was surrounded by angry lizard-folk, as he maneuvered himself across the back of the dead alligator, but he was quite able with his sword, and as the rest of the party eventually moving in to support him, and with Taralilia confusing the leader of the reinforcements with her incessant pleas for peace and statements of innocence, he was able to vanquish his foes.
The party holed themselves up within the set of ruins from which the lizard men had emerged, and rested for the nights, after burying the bodies of their lamented comrades, Thorn and Jee’Na.
The next morning, the four remaining party members began to explore the various out-buildings. The two closest ones had out opening double doors, adorned with magical glyphs symbolizing power and the elements. The first door symbolized magical power and the element of Earth, and the second symbolized power and Water. Scarssis recalled that among some variant sects of the Oeridian people, the four elements were prayed to frequently, in conjunction with the usual gods of Hextor, Heironeious, Zilchus, etc. Given that the party was seeking a gem linked to a marid, the party selected the water doors, and when swung open revealed a dank crypt-like chamber with an open vault beneath which were stairs leading down.
Of far more importance though, were the two mud slimes that assaulted the party. Despite grappling Iellios and enveloping him, the two creatures were dispatched with relative ease. The party continued its exploration of the chamber and eventually descended the stairs leading into the damp earth.
Rounding a turn in the stairway, the party happened upon four lizard folk gaurds, including one dressed in master-work hide, indicating a certain level of prestige (also seen on one of the guards from the reinforcements above). The battle was quick and to the point, and shortly (despite one of the lizard-folk remaining behind as a final guard) after its inception, the barbaric lizard folk were slain.
Opening the double doors in the lizard-folk guard chamber, the party was confronted with a long hallway, decorated with busts of Hextor as well as other war-like religious decorations, urns, etc, all ensconced in eight alcoves, four to a side. At the end of the long hall, were two snarling but unarmed lizard-men.
Scarssis led the charge towards them, but triggered a large trapdoor, which dropped him down a chute to points unknown…. …..
To be continued... ...
Tantyr-Nago – The Sinking Burial Hall
Scarssis knows all too well of several other locations similar to Tantyr-Nago, ancient remains of a once Great Kingdom, devoted to the burial of the honoured war dead on the surface, but equally devoted to the temples and laboratories of the war-priests and war-mages of the Oeridians down below.
Above the Oerth would be grave sites and mausoleums, but in the depths beneath the realms of the honoured dead were huge subterranean halls, worshipping areas, vaults for treasure, libraries of historical, martial, and magical lore, as well as magical and mechanical research laboratories, most infamously the laboratory of General Lum the Mad in the Halls of Boccob, buried deep below a series of crypts devoted to war-mages and sorcerers devoted to the use of magic for combat purposes somewhere near Rauxes.
In some cases, the burial sites of the dead above and below were not even for the honoured dead, but in some rare cases, the despised and ill-thought of dead, as there were occasions where mercenaries and officers of a more repellant and/or contemptuous aspect were laid to rest in disrespectful fashions replete with mocking statues and unflattering murals, in order to taunt them for their failures as good warriors and citizens of the Great Kingdom, even in death.
Some of the temple regions were devoted to particular god (Heironeous, Hextor, Zilchus, etc.), others to ideas and philosophies (Burial Hall of Vengeance, Burial Hall of Memory, Burial Hall of Law, etc.), and still others to one or more elements, para-elements, or in extremely rare cases, quasi-elements.
Depending on the nature of the commander in charge, some of whom oversaw the creation of said burial halls from their death biers in their final days (or in the cases of some strife-liches, from beyond the grave in their undead states), these locations may have had the atmosphere of hallowed churches, somber cathedrals of mourning and meditation, or even rowdy wake-halls, where carousing and celebration of the dead and the joys of battle were carried out with underground taverns and breweries, not to mention full time harlots in the employ of the resident general or patriarch.
Some of these burial halls (the “Tantyr” in the Oeridian tongue) may have had multiple purposes and themes in their lower realms, and depending on the nature of the commander (particularly if he or she was of a decidedly evil bent), the inhabitants may even have organized into distinct factions and played out sepulchral war-games and power struggles, scheming against their rivals in the sprawling complexes.
Given the predilection of the Oeridian peoples of six centuries ago for paying homage to anything and anyone that granted military power, it is unsurprising that some of the elements, particularly in their more violent, war-like aspects were given great respect and even outright worship. It is in that philosophical mindset that the Princes of Elemental Evil were occasionally turned to, although less frequently their more benign, neutral relations were also consulted and bartered with, and even less often, the true Princes of Elemental Good were dealt with (usually by priests of Heironeous, and others of a more benevolent cast). Still other elemental beings and old gods were turned to in order to grant puissance at any cost… ….
Part III: Angry Lizards continued
Earthday, Ready'reat the 6th, Common Year 591
Scarssis plunged out of sight, and unbeknownst to the others, dropped over 40 feet into a shallow pool of stagnant water, clogged with the bane of adventurers all over Oerth, the foul organism known as “Green Slime”. Not only that, but he was also in a split-level room, with the level above him (joined to the pool region by two narrow sets of stairs to either side of the stagnant pool) inhabited by two slavering lizard-folk warriors led by a burly individual equipped with a fine club and an individual who could only be an adept or priest of some kind based on his face paints and style of dress. Scarssis wasted no time in issuing a hoarse cry for assistance from below the shaft….
Above, Lady Penelo and Taralilia pondered how best to deal with this request for help while Iellios let go and dropped into the self-same pool, just as Scarssis was hauling himself out to confront the two lesser lizard-folk who had scampered down the stairs to flank him as he emerged, dripping from the slime. Scarssis promptly sliced off the offending patches on his flesh with his hand-axe before more damage could be done.
Meanwhile, the lizard-men facing Penelo and Taralilia snarled at the pair, and one made a go of leaping across the pit to meet them hand-to-claw, and failed miserably, plummeting to his demise in the slime. The two distaff members of the party launched ranged and magical attacks at the remaining lizard-man, Taralilia electing to cease her song of inspiration in order to focus on magical damage.
Below, Scarssis (having been badly damaged from the fall and the Green Slime) was sent to unconsciousness by a claw attack, leaving Iellios to distract the warriors, after first burning off Green Slime with his breath weapon. While he did this, the two leaders held off on attacking and instead prepared for the adventurer(s) to come up the stairs, forcing the issue.
Penelo dropped like a stone to the pool below, and was forced to launch a Searing Light attack against her own flesh in order to burn off the Green Slime, and then joined Iellios in attacking the two lizard-warriors (after spending some time applying curative magics to Scarssis).
In the chamber above, Taralilia was left with one solitary lizard-man on the other side of the pit trap, and as he tired of her blasting away at him while he could do nothing to touch her, he made the fateful decision to leap across, falling prey to the same fate as his clutch-mate.
Taralilia joined the party, her Green Slime mysteriously being blasted off by a gout of flame from an unknown source, just as they finished off the two warriors and made their way up the left stairs to attack the fiercer of the two leaders, while the skulking adept finally made his presence known with a Scorching Ray.
However, confronted with a party of four relatively capable adventurers, the two leaders were not capable of sustaining an effective assault against the humans, and were slain.
On the raised section of the room, the party found a large dweomered statue of Hextor, which shifted its fighting stances to offer a variety of poses and appearances, depending on which side it was viewed from. They also found that beneath all the murals and battle decorations were a long series of doors covering the left, right, and rear wall of the raised section. Down below (in the sunken area with the pool) there were a set of locked double doors.
After Taralilia quaffed a potion of levitation and ascended to retrieve her Ocarina, the party healed and considered their options, including a group re-ascension to the original level from which they had jumped/fallen by using Scarssis’ Rope of Climbing, an exploration of all the small doors on the raised level, and/or a breaking open of the double doors on the lower level. Judicious application of a Detect Traps spell revealed that the double doors were trapped, and the single doors were not. After opening all the doors lining the walls, they discovered crypt after crypt featuring stone sarcophagi with posed skeletons held together with copper wire, and dressed in battle stances. The nameless nature of the crypts seemed to indicate that these were lesser mercenaries, not worthy of a more noble burial, and there was little of interest except for pouches containing a final, token payment to guide the mercenaries to the after-life. Penelo and Taralilia “harvested” the loot and the party opted to use the Rope to travel back up the shaft and avoid the trapped double doors…….
………Finding instead that the double doors to the other side of the pit on the level above (which the two reptilian primitives had been guarding) were also trapped. The spell-scale bard/sorceress elected to disable/spring the trap with mildly disastrous results as she was suddenly held fast by several spring-loaded metal clasps with reversed hooks digging in to her skin and clothing. After much painful tugging and pulling, Taralila was freed, and the door opened. Beyond was a large (10’ diameter) pit in the center of a room with three large alcoves, each with a statue of Hextor, but with a series of aquatic changes (gills, legs fused into a single piscine tail, use of multiple tridents instead of his traditional weapons, etc.). There were also two primitive lizard-folk warriors without weapons and a fierce-looking warrior with a large club at various points around the pit.
Wasting no time, Iellios bull-rushed one of them….but he was not knocked down. The other reptilian sapients began to arrange their positions, and the leader issued a hoarse cry and leapt across the pit….failing miserably and plummeting down out of sight. In relatively short order, several of his colleagues had been pushed/thrown down the pit by the party, and as they tried to climb back up using a rope ladder, they were cast down yet again with several hoarse bellows of dismay as the spell-scale burned her way through the rope, sending it to the bottom as well.
Within moments, the party elected to defile the statues as a symbol of their disdain for the Lord of Battle, Foe of the Arch-Paladin, largely by demolishing them via a speedy descent down the pit. With much shoving and straining, a series of three statues were sent to their demise, falling one at a time down the shaft, crushing two of the four lizard men remaining alive down below.
Hearing the calls of alarum from below them in Draconic, the party withdrew to the hall with the pit-trap and used it to descend to the second floor so as to approach from another angle (opting not to drop down into a room full of alerted and angry lizard-men).
Knowing full well that it was trapped, they decided to bull their way through anyway, resulting a series of a deep gash to Taralilia from a series of swinging blades (it would have been far worse had she not the foresight to cast Shield). Before them lay a square chamber with a pile of three statues in the middle, and three other sets of double doors; within the chamber (other than the statues) were seven lizard-folk arranged around the statue-mound (including the wounded survivor from the battle in the room immediately above them).
With a couple of globes from a Necklace of Missiles the majority of the lizard-folk were slain, but in the meanwhile a canny individual fled through a secret door and warned the inhabitant of the room at the other end…..While the rest of the lizard-men were being finished off with melee, an invisible, enlarged Jann emerged although he too was quickly slain. One sole surviving lizard-man surrendered (named “Yrkyl” by the party) and revealed how they had been bullied and cowed by the genie-kin, and tried his level best to describe what little he knew of the complex and what other forces dwelt below.
The party opted to push on, and opened the doors to all the other rooms, confronting in one a Jann and a Large Water Elemental, both of whom were dispatched (though not without some harm to the party). With that, the party decided to return to the surface to rest and with Yrkyl’s assistance, plan their next assault on Tantyr-Nago… ….
Part III: Angry Reptiles concluded
Ready'reat the 7th, Common Year 591
The party (together with their new guide/traveling companion, Yrk) once again descended into Tantyr-Nago, but found some resistance in previously explored rooms, as the forces of the genie-kin guided by the Balestone had reorganized forces to prevent an easy re-access to the lower reaches.
In the hall with the pit trap, an angry, large water elemental sloshed and burbled threateningly from the opposite side of the pit, seemingly posing little threat, as shaft lay wide open before it and it obviously could not cross. Yrk’s keen ears detected the slightest amount of breathing from within the shaft of the pit, and the party tossed a coin with a light spell on it down the shaft to investigate further. The coin fell down to the green-slime below, but not before first bouncing off of something invisible lurking in the shaft.
As the party deliberated over their next course of action, the invisible, enlarged Jann lost patience, arose from the shaft and swung at the party (missing by a great deal, but becoming visible). The battle was on, and despite a sharp blow from the Jann on Yrk, a keenly fired crossbow bolt from Scarssis into the shoulder of the Jann, and the party’s generally quite good defense levels rendered the combat somewhat one-sided. Within a few moments the Jann was slain, and the water elemental was dispatched within a few more rounds.
Using Scarssis’ Rope of Climbing, a rope ladder was quickly strung across the pit, and the party ably traversed the shaft...except for Lady Penelo, who mistakenly tried to jump across the rope rather than climbing across it hand-over-hand. A quick trip to the bottom of the pit landed her in the midst of not only Green Slime, but also two pacing, hungry water tigers, elemental predators from the Plane of Water.
As Penelo pulled herself up, and wasted little time in scorching off the slime with a searing light spell (wounding herself in the process) but suffering from the fall and the damage dealt by the slime itself, found herself in dire straits with the ravenous, aqueous felines preparing to pounce.
The remainder of the party re-arranged the Rope of Climbing to form a vertical strand which they could climb down, but with four additional party members (Scarssis, Taralilia, Iellios, and of course, Yrk) not to mention the 40 foot plus descent, the climb down was painstaking, and Lady Penelo was knocked unconscious by a paw strike from one of the tigers.
Soon all the party was below, and the battle moved up to the upper level with the shifting Hextorian statue and the burial crypts. The tigers fared not as well as they could have (much to the party’s delight) due to some unfortunately poor attacks, but were still enough to bring several characters (particularly the feisty lizard-man warrior, Yrk) to the brink of disaster. However, they were eventually dispatched and the party regrouped and healed.
The party next elected to investigate the hatchery (on the other side of a secret door in the main crypt room), and found a dank, cold natural chamber with over a dozen eggs tenderly placed on the earthen/rock floor of the cavern, with two tunnels branching away from the main room. Within were two lizard-folk who seemed to be made not entirely of flesh and bone, but instead of an admixture of eddying water overlaid and swirling about the meat and sinews, and they were supported by a medium water elemental.
The battle was short, but not short enough, as within moments two more elementals had surged in from one of the chambers to the south of the hatchery. No substantial damage was sustained, and the party moved on to the passage that hugged the walls of the crypts rather than the outside tunnel, since Yrk had informed the party that it was a very cold place full of nasty dark mold that drained heat.
In the next small cavern they found a storage depot, mostly full of potable liquids, oil, torches, dry rations etc., but also with a small chest shoved against the rear wall, which upon opening contained twelve vials, ten of which detected of magic, and two of which did not. Using the language skills of Yrk, Iellios, and Taralilia, the party was able to piece together the draconic symbology adorning the vials and determine that eight were curatives, two granted strength, and the two non-magical vials probably contained some type of poison or venom.
Moving on, the party found another small cavern with a set of worked stairs descending into the darkness, guarded by three more half-water elemental lizard men. In the short battle that followed, one aqueous beast attempted to sway Yrk back to the side of the watery, sleeping lord, the Master of Unquiet Dreams. However, while he was tempted, the brave lizard man did not submit to his baser urges, and maintained his allegiance to the party. Two of the water-elemental lizard-men were slain, and the other surrendered, sulkily leading the party down the stairs to where the “sleeping one...lay with the balestone.
At the base of the stairs was an irregular chamber, expanding outwards like a funnel, notched with square angled walls. Hanging from the walls were numerous suits of rusted armour, decorated with the heraldry of several different noble houses of the ancient Great Kingdom. More curious was the way in which the walls themselves seemed to drip water, filling the chamber to a depth of several inches, and how the masonry and rocks seemed to shimmer and twist as if the light was being bent by being under water.
Lady Penelo and Taralilia handily realized that they were close to some object (no doubt the Balestone) that was acting as a planar conduit, spreading the effects of elemental water throughout the compound. Down in this entry chamber, the first true room of the burial complex of Tantyr-Nago, the party found three medium water elementals who quickly sloshed towards the party. They did hesitate temporarily once the aqueous lizard-man begged them to reconsider, but their allegiance to the Sleeping Master was far greater than to any mere servant, and they forged ahead with their assault. Luckily for the party, they posed very little threat and were dispatched with no difficulty.
Led on by the aqueous lizard-man, the party stalked down a long hall, bypassing two doors made of swirling water, and coming out in another long hall branching left and right to either side of the entry hall (forming a T-junction). They watery reptile indicated that the Sleeping Master could be found down the right-hand tunnel. Beyond the unlocked door lay a massive chamber with a deep, clear pool in the middle, with only a five foot wide walkway around the pool. Rising from the center of the pool was a column of eddying water, 10 feet in diameter; at the base of the tumultuous column was a in the middle of the column, suspended in watery slumber above the pool was a marid...but not a normal genie-kin....its face was surrounded by writhing tentacles, with a squid’s beak and radulla protruded from the center of the tentacles, and a series of blinking red eyes and silently opening and closing maws on the blue skin. Lady Penelo could plainly see that The Far Realms had torn through, no doubt using the watery Balestone, corrupting the influence of the Plane of Water, and infecting the Marid with its strange, chaotic energies.
Stalking across the left side of the walk-way was a water tiger and a strange-looking Jann with four arms, bearing two gleaming scimitars, and on the right walk-way was a Jann who possessed a squid’s visage, and a battery of small tentacles and eye-stalks emerging from every exposed surface of skin...obviously this genie kin had also been touched by the Far Realms.
Yrk dove into the water to begin to drag the Balestone to the edge, so as to make it easier to remove, while the tiger pounced upon the aqueous lizard-man, dealing severe amounts of damage, which was soon made even worse by the two slashing attacks of the mutated, four-armed Jann. Iellios moved to attack the twisted, pseudonatural Jann, as Scarssis moved in to attack the four-armed Jann and the water tiger. Lady Penelo supported the party with healing magics and two globes from a Necklace of Missiles, as she slowly moved into the chamber, and Taralilia sang a song of courage to boost the party’s confidence.
As Iellios landed blow after blow upon the pseudonatural Jann, it failed time after time to cast its spell-like abilities defensively….until finally it succeeded with a Stinking Cloud. By this point, the water tiger had eviscerated the aqueous lizard-man, and Yrk (having successfully dragged the Balestone as close to the edge of the pool as he could) was trying to attack the four-armed Jann from below...with mixed results...such as being cut asunder/injured beyond all hope of curing by slicing scimitars.
Both Scarssis and Penelo were overcome by nausea and had to leave the chamber, but luckily for Taralilia and Iellios they were not alone with three opponents, as even the four-armed Jann was overcome by nausea...however, the battle continued to rage between Iellios and the pseudonatural Jann (who had just shifted his shape into an amorphous, scimitar wielding, tentacled horror from beyond man’s imagining), and the water tiger started to bat around Taralilia like a dying sparrow, which forced her to leave just as she failed her saving throw against the ever-present cloud of vomitous vapours. Over time, the others overcame their fits of regurgitation and were capable of re-entering the room, at almost the exact same time as the spell itself dissipated.
Scarssis slew the water tiger, while Taralilia rallied her courage (and her stomach) and began to fire off more magic missiles against the four-armed Jann, and Penelo inched her way (hey, it’s tough to hustle your arse in full-plate mail ;-) ;-) towards Iellios, just as he was dropped unconscious by the flailing tentacles of the now incomprehensible shape of the pseudonatural Jann. With some curative magics from the priestess of Pelor, he soon regained his footing, began his aura of Vitality, and launched a final assault on the Jann of the Far Realms.
Having carefully avoided waking the pseudonatural Marid in the column of water throughout the entire battle (either with area effect spells or stray missile fire), the party now sunk their ropes and began to haul up the Balestone. As they removed it from the water, the Marid stirred, but did not waken, but later, as they removed it from the confines of the dungeon itself, who is to say that tentacles did not twitch, and an eye open?
Once on the next level, they rescued the eggs from the hatchery (in honour of a promise that they made to Yrk) and set about destroying the Balestone with gouts of flame from the breath of Iellios, a few pints of oil from Taralilia, and a mysterious final burst of flame from the spellscale from an unknown source....no doubt the same occult source which produced the flame which cleansed her of the Green Slime. With a loud cracking sound, the Balestone splitd apart, and the elemental seep-over that was infecting Tantyr-Nago ceased, perhaps even with a roar from an awaking pseudonatural genie... ...
The party of heroes returned the eggs to the lizard-folk tribes, trekked south towards the river-side town of Paducah and from there rode the ferry across to the other side of the river, entering the County of Eventide. Just before boarding the ferry, as they distributed treasure, Iellios bid the party goodbye and set out to return to his (adopted) home city of Greyhawk. Amidst fond farewells and firm handshakes, Taralilia, Scarssis, and Lady Penelo bid their adieus to the Dragon-Shaman and made their way east. They then headed forth to the port city of Shantadern to seek training, access to some creature comforts and the chance to re-equip, as well as to book passage (if they could) to Scarssis’ home city of Rel-Astra, to seek adventure in the Great Kingdom and take the fight against evil to one of its dark, beating hearts... ...
End of Chapter II: The Journey South
Sorry about changing plans, I guess we wanted to get out of this area.
Penelo addresses the rest of the party, "It appears that we are stuck in town while they look a halfling who was been murdering the aristocrats. Perhaps you have heard of the Nightingale Street Slicer? It turned out to be a halfling by the name of Peck. I believe we need to help with the local guards to help capture this creature. He preys upon the weak in the city and they must be protected from his evil."
What Has Come Before
Shantadern was a quiet, homely old fishing village, seated on one of the most barren patches of scrubland to ever face Relmor Bay, inhabited by several hundred coarse, but good-hearted fishermen and tenacious farmers, determined to eke an existence from this unforgiving landscape. And then, the wars came, and the able-bodied were shipped off to the east to fight the forces of Aerdy (the once and possibly future Great Kingdom) and to the north, to fight the piecemeal armies of the Bandit Kingdoms under the clawed fist of the Old One. When those who could still walk came home (whether on pegs, crutches or hobbling on their own) they brought tales of horror and carried nightmares aplenty, more than enough to last for years to come. And with a loss of sanity their new eyes opened to the shocking horrors that war can bring (especially war with undead and fiendish soldiers) came a more hardened approach to life, one not so clouded by such flimsy illusions as altruism and kindness.
And with so few priests to heal the sick and wounded who had managed to drag themselves back home, to the only place they knew that felt safe, fishing and farming became even more difficult still. Smuggling was easy, and relatively victimless (and who cares for the cloaked and cowled identity of who was buying what goods and for what purpose, when what you really care about is feeding your family and drowning the shrieking nightmares that claw at the edges of your sleep?) and certainly robbing a few rich merchants on their way to Beetu, Wragby, or even dwindling Callistor harmed no-one (except for a few bumps and bruises if the guards resisted), for after all, the wealthy could afford to “share” a little of their wealth, and furthermore, is stealing really a crime when it is done to put bread and fruit on the table for your wife and children?
But the lack of moral compass that can come when one’s view of the Oerth is shattered by months and months of mind-numbing horrors seen in battle with demons and armies of rapine, barbaric humanoids is the start of a slippery slope, and at the bottom of that slope is self-serving evil without redemption. Smuggling and simple highway robbery becomes banditry of a more organized sort, and when certain ships come to call, bearing the scarlet flag of some far away nation and offering you money beyond your wildest dreams, more than enough to clothe and feed your family for months to come, who is to say that you would refuse it? And so comes piracy, sometimes even preying on ships of your own country, although some twinge of morality prevents this from happening too often, and you usually satisfy yourself with robbing and hulling those vessels bearing foreign flags. And, if one’s ability to judge right from wrong becomes sufficiently clouded, then perhaps the crews of said foreign ships are not set adrift in a life-boat, but are rather bound with chains and weights to the masts and railings of the sinking galleon and laughter is heard to ring out from the pirates’ ship to echo a counterpoint to the howls of gurgling despair coming from the drowning sailors.
Such things were not unheard of in the devolution of Shantadern, and while such villains were a minority amongst the vast majority of the inhabitants of the coast (who possessed not black-hearted villainy but rather amoral pragmatism) one thing certainly leads to another, for evil is much like a cancer, and those with increasingly flexible notions of morality are the vehicle of its metastasis…. ….
In Common Year 590, Shantadern was declared the capital “city” of the County of Eventide, a title which had previously been held by Nessermouth, a naval city at the juncture of the Nesser River and Relmor Bay and the source of most trade up the rivers to Callistor, Beetu, and all points further north. This came as a surprise to many, but not to those who truly knew the nature of the freshly appointed Viscount Estward Ventrose, called on by King Archbold to replace the corrupt and vile-hearted Count Levalle.
Count Levalle had been overthrown by an uprising of the general peasantry, the royal taxation forces (who tired of enforcing the Count’s brutal and impossible taxation demands), and even the Royal Navy (who saw first hand that much of the money Count bled from the populace ended up not in the Royal coffers to fund military action and fortifications but rather in the Count’s own bulging treasure chests), as well as the actions of a group of adventurers (The Band of the Broken Mask) who not only infiltrated the Count’s keep and found evidence aplenty of corruption, but also magically subdued the Count to prevent his escape.
Why then did the appointment of Ventrose and then the subsequent renaming of Shantadern as the capital of the County come as a surprise? Ventrose (a minor member of the Royal court back in the capital city of Rel Mord) had been consistently embroiled in rumours revolving around his involvement in numerous smuggling rings and possible membership in not one, not two, but three separate thieves’ guilds (an unheard of feat given the often lethal levels of rivalry between guilds). Thus, to those who believe in Ventrose’s corrupt nature, it makes perfect sense to not set up shop Nessermouth, the current head-quarters of the relatively loyal and morally quasi-decent (relatively speaking…) Royal Navy, but rather to establish one’s base of operations in a large town with access to limestone tunnels, docks, and a ready and willing pool of increasingly skilled rogues, smugglers and pirates….
Over the course of the last year the echoing of hammers was almost incessant, as fresh new docks, shipyards and warehouses were erected, and a new “Noble Quarter” was established to give the wealthy of counties further north an ocean-side home in the new capital, as well as allow increasingly affluent “merchants” (i.e. smugglers) an opportunity to put on airs and try to be that which they have been denied for years….respected members of society.
Even as the population continues to bloom (and is now at 1200 souls), the farming outside the freshly mortared city walls continues, and the fishing still goes on in the bay, but changes are brewing in this quiet town (now “City”) of Shantadern. The air still carries the salty tang of Relmor Bay’s prevailing sea breezes, and the pungent yet pleasantly familiar stench of the fish cleaning tables at the piers still seems to sink into the clothing of anyone who even wanders by the dock quarter. But the darkness in men’s hearts calls with a voice all its own, and many who have lived in the grey now find the means and the support to drift into the black….
Recent Events
There has been an increase of late in the number of ships bearing the scarlet flag, and while some are sunk by pirates and/or privateers, the lack of any firm, official Royal policy concerning dealings with the Scarlet Brotherhood means that there are many who will do business with them, and trade has been quite brisk bringing a great deal of coin to the coffers of several merchants and traders in exotic goods. This economic surge has trickled down past the middlemen, and even some of the lower class of Shantadern (such as the farmers and fishermen who still form the backbone of the community) have been able to reap the monetary benefits of this morally debatable trade.
There is of course a fly in the ointment, and that is the recent sealing of the wharfs and gates to the city, allowing only travel into the city, but most assuredly not egress. The cause of this drastic turn of events is the escape of the Nightingale Street Slicer, a maniacal Halfling murderer who had been preying on the inhabitants of the noble quarter (which didn’t cause much unease in the general populace, and even had a certain following amongst those who perpetually root for the underdog, but created terror in those who dwelt in the well treed lanes of the higher class). In order to appease the (more or less) financially powerful nobles, and create the appearance that something was actually being done to protect them beyond the usual corrupt, drunken bumbling of the local guardsmen, all traditional means of exit from the city were sealed (and even a few untraditional ways like some of the smugglers tunnels that worm beneath the city….or at least the few known to the local government).
And so, the garbage scows that carry the city’s filth remain docked at their piers unable to leave, heaped high with offal and waste, bringing a most unpleasant and almost toxic addition to the salty sea breezes coming from the east. And with the marooned garbage scows have come the rats….huge specimens demonstrating an almost keen eye for the food and even backpacks and belt pouches of travelers and locals alike. The rodents are a huge pest, and with the guardsmen and militia involved in combing the streets for the Slicer, they have almost taken up a residence of sorts in the dock quarter.
Despite the interruptions to trade and commerce, some things have been continuing as normal; visitors can expect to be threatened by press gangs (usually sponsored by pirates and privateers, but possibly even by special “Naval Recruitment Officers” sponsored by the Viscount, and on rare occasions even by traders in human flesh), accosted by beggars, beaten and robbed by thugs, or just have their coin pouches snatched by wandering cutpurses. Increasingly, these are just typical occurrences in what was once just a quiet, homely old fishing village inhabited by coarse, but good-hearted farmers and fishermen… … …
|
Scarssis looks at each of his fellow party members.
"I regret to say that I must continue my quest alone. It seems that we have come to a fork in our journey and it is here we must leave each other's company. I have pressing business in Rel Astra that cannot wait-I shall leave on the morrow. Fare thee well and may Heironeous bless all of your endeavors."
Scarssis you mace will be missed. You have been a great assest to this group. May you journey be safe and Pelor also bless your journey.
My Bad, Ignore the previous post. I thought that was a dragon shaman leaving.
(Now back in character)
Scarssis you will be missed. May your travels help you to find your brother at peace. We wish you would reconsider, we are for there are only two of us, myself and Taralilia.
Your path leads you in a different direction than ours, I understand and may Pelor light guide you yo peace.
Taralilia was excited to be back in the big city. Big cities mean people - endlessly fascinating people! - and big cities mean taverns - great places for music and laughter! - and big cities mean Three-Dragon Ante. Three-Dragon Ante was a game at which Taralilia excelled, and she never failed to win big whenever she played. As soon as they came to town, she found a few others who seemed interested in taking advantage of such a bright-eyes youngster, and they set in to a game.
One of the best things about taverns was the excessive gossip all around, all the wonderful stories told and retold, getting bigger and better with every retelling. She enjoyed telling stories as well, and her bardish skills tended to make her the focus of other's attentions. Little surprise, then, that within a few hours she discovered that someone was searching for her.
At first she was irked. Was it her parents, expecting her to return to the home she had left less than a year ago? Was it Old Man Venebulus, her spouse-by-arrangement, who wanted to get her wedded and bedded? Was it at least someone interesting who wanted to kill her for a little while?
In fact, word had been put out in several of the larger cities and trickled down to smaller villages as well. Quintius and Hephzibah - her bandmates! - wanted to stage a reunion. They had set off as a duet several weeks ago when Taralilia decided she should get first billing - she as the bardess, after all; anyone could beat percussion or scream lyrics - and apparently had discovered they wanted her back.
That sounded pretty cool to Taralilia, so she sent word of where she was (which should get out to the others even though the city is on lockdown) and set in to play some high-stakes Three-Dragon Ante.
Only once did she think it was unusual that Penelo didn't seek her out, but she had a Color Flight to worry about. If Penelo wanted her, she knew where she was.
Ante Up!
Yeah, I'm taking up the challenge of maintaining a journal again....as always, any mistakes/ommisions in the narrative are purely a function of my crappy memory ;-)
Players, feel free to add any in or out of character comments....
Cheers,
Colin
Sunsebb 14, Common Year 591
With the skin-bound, demonic magic infused “map” illustrating the wandering of the damned ship “Emperor of the Waves” and its perverted captain, Krell, firmly in their possession, the company departed the salt-water caves on Nyrond’s southern shore and returned to their manse on Nightingale Street to ponder their next move. With the warlock having departed due to “family commitments” (an ominous sounding situation indeed), the company was thus reduced to four; the young Incarnist, Lady Penelo (priestess of Pelor), Esme (sorceress of Wee Jas), and Adelard Fache (stout dwarven fighter of no minor skill). Their vow to assist Vertheg, the drunken ½ orc, and his equally besotted master, Aubreck, would have to wait…
While pondering the way to tap into a heretofore unknown divine energy source within herself, Penelo sought advice from the church of Pelor in Shantadern, and was pointed towards the White Cormorant to seek out the Hag, an oracle of unknown sorts, who reportedly could point the party in the direction of the Temple of Dreams Incarnate, where such things (and indeed, any wish or desire) could be granted.
After braving the watered down alcohol, a syphilitic and profoundly unattractive nude dancer, and a typically uncommunicative dwarven bartender, the party ascertained that the Hag dwelt below, in the sewer access chamber for the pub. After overcoming the stench, the party wandered towards the blind old witch and her other three guests, the elven warrior, Valen, the half-elven bard, Xeon the Excellent, and the human rogue, with the most unlikely alias of Jimmy the Hand. Before the Hag was a bound troll, chained with heavy steel manacles to the dripping wall.
Producing a knife, the withered oracle slashed open the howling creature and disembowelled it, reading the future in its still spasming entrails. As she practiced her heiromancy, the Hag informed the party that they would find the Temple in a Fading Land accessed by a sacred tree (with a hollow most strikingly reminiscent of a woman’s genitalia) in the Gnatmarsh swamp, marked by a peculiar monolith.
With these (vague at best) instructions, the new comrades (cautious of each other, indeed some members filled with a wariness which could lead to levels of suspicion which might bring about the death of all involved) purchased horses and set out for the Gnatmarsh.
As the party attempted to find their way through the swamps they realized that they had no tracker of any great skill among them, and were in dire danger of becoming lost in the trackless fens that are the Gnatmarsh. As they wandered about, increasingly unsure of their direction, they were ambushed (unsuccessfully, thanks to the keen senses of some of the party members) by a group of Carnal Fey, who peppered the party with arrows envenomed with a lustful venom, not to mention domination and charm spells. As most of the party slowly but surely succumbed to the effects of the venom, attempting to couple with their mounts and even a nearby tree and Adelard stripped himself of his armour due to one of the aforementioned spells, it fell to Penelo to fight back and break some of the enchantments, which led to the quick demise of the faeries as the party returned to normalcy, overcoming their unnatural ardour.
Within a hollow tree (which one of the party members had been attempting to couple with), the party discovered two stripped captives, who fortuitously possessed a map and some cold iron weapons… ……… ………….After sending the two men on their way and following the map, the party came upon a tattooed man strumming on a small harp. Following a duet with Xeon, the stranger revealed the location of the banyan tree with the suggestively shaped hollow, but also warned of the dangers of the Fading Land found within, a realm of malevolent and spiteful fey, where the magical and physical rules of Oerth did not necessarily apply.
The party continued on its way and after another day’s travel they found the monolith and the attendant tree….but also a guardian fey with arms, legs and eyes made of twitching vines, as well as her animated briar beasts. She angrily challenged the party, but did allow that they could pass without violence should they bring the appropriate gift; in this case, the gift was ten murderer’s fingers (the number of fingers being commensurate with the crime, for example twenty thief’s fingers could also suffice).
Retracing their footsteps back to the ambush site, the party hoped to sever the digits from the fallen Carnal Fey, but instead found a group of malevolent swamp faeries scavenging from the site. Battle shortly ensued and victory was decisive. Having removed the hands from both sets of fey, the party travelled back to the waiting portal guardian and secured their passage beyond.
Once in the strange earthen tunnel which lay beyond the curious tree, the party found a lone female, chained to the wall, who claimed to be the daughter of a prominent merchant family in Beetu. Determining that this was a lie, the party forced the young woman to admit that she had been kidnapped by Redcaps for purposes most depraved, and was in fact not from Beetu at all.
While the party tried to decide what to do with their newly rescued, yet possibly untrustworthy damsel, Xeon strolled forward out of the tunnel, emerging into a vista of purple shaded hues, with vast violet mushrooms reaching five and six feet into the air to both the left and the right, with a simple path leading forward into the lilac distance. He also heard the sounds of someone or something approaching, and was able to ambush a murderous dwarf with a bandolier of severed hands and his pet, a two headed wolf of enormous strength. The bard attacked, and the party soon followed, achieving yet another decisive victory.
However, having won the fight, several members of the party fell to bickering loudly over the fate of the prisoner as well as what the next appropriate action to take would be. Attracted by all this noise, a series of briar beasts attacked, hurling large splinters of jagged, thorny wood as well as huge thorns.
Felling these arboreal abominations, the party attempted to regroup, and with Xeon the bard in the lead, they moved forward into the strange faerie realm.
** ** **
The party next stumbled into the path of a group of murderous Redcaps (and their yet unseen, invisible leader). Fierce fighting ensued, and the Redcaps were savagely effective with their steel boots and vicious scythes, however soon all but one of the vile fey as well as their leader were dead, and so those two fled off into the mushroom forest. Jimmy the Hand and Valen followed, keeping pace with the diminutive murderers by virtue of their superior running skills.
A showdown ensued, and regrettably Valen was eviscerated by a lowly Redcap while protecting Jimmy (). With this noble death enough time was bought for the remainder of the party to arrive and deliver defeat to their foes. Valen’s lifeless body was carried by the party using a travois rigged from rope and an oversized mushroom cap, in the hopes that he might be returned from the dead upon the successful completion of their quest for the Temple of Dreams Incarnate. Jimmy and Xeon also snapped up the dripping red caps that give those faerie brutes their name, and Adelard pulled out their teeth (having recollected that in some stories and legends, the teeth of Redcaps could be used for magical benefits).
The party noticed that as they progressed the colour scheme changed instantly from hues of purple to shades of emeralds and other greens. As this transition occurred, they found themselves in a small glade, surrounded by almost lethally thorny trees. Jimmy spotted a group of tiny, lithe female faeries, dressed in plates of dragonfly exoskeleton, watching them from above.
The party walked into the glade nonchalantly, and saw a graven arch with an obelisk likewise covered in feathery script beyond it. Xeon advanced through the arch and after being blasted with a defensive spell that he successfully resisted, he was able to approach what was revealed to be a Challenge Obelisk. The faeries revealed themselves and summoned forth a dragonfly swarm in order to finesse their threats, and uttered a musical challenge to Xeon. Xeon passed but one of the three tests of song and musicianship and was forced to accept a challenge of wisdom; he called forth Penelo from the group, and she likewise successfully resisted the arch’s defences and thus could participate in the challenge. Three riddles were posed, and only one of the three was guessed at, leaving the gleeful faeries with the option of either demanding a sacrifice of the challengers, or submitting to the test of mettle.
The sacrifice of something valuable yet intangible was decided on, but before Penelo could sacrifice some fraction of herself into the strange magical box the faeries produced, Jimmy leapt forward and interception the ray of magical energy that burst forth from said box. He thus selflessly demonstrated that despite his roguish ways, and occasionally amoral actions, he was certainly a worthy member of the party, thus ending the intermittent (yet no less destructive for that) squabbling that the party had subjected itself to.
The party was allowed to pass onward and after a few hours of travel came to a rickety wooden bridge, suspended many feet above a fast-moving black, tar-like river, with yet another portal on the other side. Predictably, a massive giant dwelt beneath the bride and roared up to defeat the trespassers. Xeon and Jimmy found themselves at the fore of the combat, at which point Jimmy’s cap took temporary control of his mind and he lashed out at Jimmy, scoring a sizable blow. Returning to normalcy, Jimmy flung the cap from his head into the tarry goo rushing past below them. The giant destroyed the cold iron dagger of Jimmy’s and during the mad rush of the melee Adelard intimidated the giant using his fierce dwarven fighting skill. However, while the shaken giant was eventually slain, during the course of the combat Adelard fumbled his cold iron axe, which fell into the ebon slime below, leaving the party with only two remaining cold iron weapons…. ……….
The group passed through the portal/arch and found themselves in another forest glade and they decided to stop for the night……which was an open invitation for the wood guardians to appear and prepare to attack for the offence of trying to start a fire in their woods. Luckily, diplomacy won the day (despite a slip of the tongue by Xeon which very nearly undid the peace pact) and the party rested and healed, preparing themselves for the journey to the castle of the fey, within which lay the portal to the Temple of Dreams Incarnate…. ………
Penelo: Poor Valen, you have been a worthy ally. If only you didn't run off after does darn redcaps. We hope that we can reach the temple of incarnate and have you raised so that you may continue your quest for riches and be famous. This region worries me. We have found many different types of creature, the faylands are very different than the prime plane we come from. But we must continue our journey.
It seems as though it has been forever since we were in action.
Penelo: Poor Valen, you have been a worthy ally. If only you didn't run off after does darn redcaps. We hope that we can reach the temple of incarnate and have you raised so that you may continue your quest for riches and be famous. This region worries me. We have found many different types of creature, the faylands are very different than the prime plane we come from. But we must continue our journey.
It seems as though it has been forever since we were in action.
In the meanwhile, Valen's player should get a new character concept moving along ;-)
And yes, this Fading Land of the fae is quite.......contrary to traditional reality................................
Indeed, it has been awhile since the brave company of adventurers furthered their quest towards the Tempel of Dreams Incarnate. But soon, yes, soon..... ;-)
Cheers,
Colin
Cheers,
Colin
What are you talking about with the prisoner stuff????
What are you talking about with the prisoner stuff????
Sorry, I could have phrased that MUCH better....I just went back and read what I wrote......and even I couldn't make heads or tails of it ;-)
I was alluding to our chracters being imprisoned in your game, and how we don't know the reasons yet, but also giving a virtual nudge-wink that if I was a rude SOB, then I might have read through a thread that is no doubt spoilerific...
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/4thEdition/youveBeenF ramed&page=1#4
Sorry, mate....in retrospect neither clever nor amusing in the slightest.
Of course, the question remains about when we're going to get a thread to write our in-character thoughts in :) :)
Cheers, (and sorry for confusing you with one of the most convoluted sentences in the history of message board posts....not to mention the fact that I forgot the word "enough" just after "discourteous". Sheesh...Daddy need sleep BADLY....)
Colin
Sorry, I could have phrased that MUCH better....I just went back and read what I wrote......and even I couldn't make heads or tails of it ;-)I was alluding to our chracters being imprisoned in your game, and how we don't know the reasons yet, but also giving a virtual nudge-wink that if I was a rude SOB, then I might have read through a thread that is no doubt spoilerific...
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/community/gaming/4thEdition/youveBeenF ramed&page=1#4
Sorry, mate....in retrospect neither clever nor amusing in the slightest.
Of course, the question remains about when we're going to get a thread to write our in-character thoughts in :) :)
Cheers, (and sorry for confusing you with one of the most convoluted sentences in the history of message board posts....not to mention the fact that I forgot the word "enough" just after "discourteous". Sheesh...Daddy need sleep BADLY....)
Colin
Guess that's what I get for not posting spoilers in the heading. One the bright side I think you are the only one to read it. Note to others don't read the post.
As for the for the thread for your characters in my campaign, maybe I can get to it tonight.
Guess that's what I get for not posting spoilers in the heading. One the bright side I think you are the only one to read it. Note to others don't read the post.As for the for the thread for your characters in my campaign, maybe I can get to it tonight.
Well, as I implied, I haven't read it yet either (not being a rude SOB and all that ;-).
So you're all good!
And as for the thread, I was busting your chops a little....take your time....better to get it done right than get it done quickly and rush things.
Cheers,
Colin
No need to quote.
And now back to our regular thread of Something Rotten in Nyrond
....And now back to our regular thread of Something Rotten in Nyrond
Was this thread EVER anything remotely resembling "regular"? ;-) ;-)
Having spent the night secure in the leafy bowers of the tree women, the party awakened to find themselves in the presence of a new companion, the druid Lawrence () and his dire wolf “Tater”.
Having been held a (willing) prisoner of a dryad for Boccob only knows how many years (at least according to the fae…..a fickle bunch, not much beholden to the truth as mere humans perceive it…..thus another explanation could lie at the heart of the matter, but Lawrence’s memory is somewhat foggy, so additional postulations on the subject may have to wait).
Somewhat leery of their new companion, or at least his massive “pet”, the party nonetheless sets out to continue their quest for the distant Castle, always just one more hill and glen away. Travelling with them were the five somnambulant warriors which sprang forth from the Redcap teeth that Adelard planted the previous night.
They soon come across a grisly scene of three humans being horrifically, bloodily transformed into plants in an eerily calm forest glade. One, a human male, is being transformed into a tree, his arms becoming tree limbs, while his owl companion flies helplessly about his head. Another, a human woman, is being ruptured from within by piercing, jagged branches as the plant seeks to work its way out of her. The last, another human woman, gags and moans to little avail as dozens of thick, flowering vines work their way out of her belly and past her throat and mouth; she plucks and tears at the vines, gasping for air, but more continue to force their way outward.
Jimmy quickly spotted four sultry faerie women with iridescent butterfly wings scattered throughout the nearby trees, but none of the others could see them. After a quick discussion with Adelard, Jimmy advanced into the clearing, while Lawrence informed the party quietly about what he knew about this sort of brutal transformation (faerie curse on the transgressors, no doubt for lingering too long in the grove). Never being one to give up the chance for a fight, the dwarf likewise meandered further into the grove and began to unleash the power of his dwarven urinary bladder on some unsuspecting flowers. Needless to say, this gave rise to shrill cries of outrage in the Fae tongue….luckily, one of the party members spoke Sylvan, which is a kissing cousin of the aforementioned language, and the threats of violence were relayed to Adelard. The dwarf moved his steaming stream to another hopefully less offensive location.
One thing led to another, and soon (regardless of the best intentions of all involved) a pitched battle broke out, resulting in a complex melee which I sure as hell am not going to try to recount. Poisoned faerie arrows flew like pollen, entangle, darkness and confusion spells were discharged by the malicious, diminutive vixens, and all the while they hovered in the trees, far above the reach of all except skilled tree climbers and missile weapons.
In the end, the faeries were slain (including two that were chomped and devoured by the doughty and hungry, tree-scaling dire wolf, Tater) and with the use of multiple dispel magic spells, and numerous curative efforts, the poor unfortunate humans were restored to their normal selves and brought out of unconsciousness; they could do little to assist the party except provide them with half-hearted directions and some of their magical items.
The party made its way on further into the temporally and geographically elastic Fading Land of the faeries, and in an instant found themselves shrouded with the half-light of dusk (some scant few hours after they had awoken) and in the presence of some bizarre ruins, consisting of a broken wall, four strange grave markers, and a blasted tower, all covered with vines on the shore of a small, still swamp.
Closer inspection by Adelard revealed that the stones were held together with bone mortar and the matrix of the stones themselves was littered with shattered shafts of arm, leg, hand and foot bones. Jimmy attempted to pry up a loose section and was rewarded for his efforts by a shrieking spectre arising from the stones that left him shaking with fright and a little less mentally composed than normal, an apparition which none of the others noticed. This feat was repeated by another party member…..however they were more fortunate and seemed unaffected by what they had witnessed (or not actually witnessed at all, as the case might be).
The party overheard whispers from behind the gravestones, but first Adelard noted that he had previously heard some quiet chanting from within the walls of the shattered tower, and while he could not recognize the precise diction, it did indeed sound like the chanting of a spell. Another party member likewise heard the chanting and realized that whatever the nature of the first spell, the second was almost certainly a ghost sound spell.
Bravely, several party members advanced on the tower, with Lady Penelo trailing in the rear as usual due to her cumbersome armour. The tower was remarkably empty, and the party spread out into its confines….until Jimmy bumped into a large, hairy figure that was invisible…..but not for long as it savaged the rogue with a fearsome bite, revealing itself to be a massive humanoid wolf, armed with a gleaming battle axe. The creature proceeded to hack and bite into Jimmy, severely wounding him. A later mental assault, where Jimmy was confronted with horrifying visions of the fate that had befallen his family failed to shake his morale, and with some magical healing from Penelo, he fought back. The dire wolf, Tater, mounted the walls and attempted to bite the beast from above, but fell into the adjoining swamp.
Being penned in by a Wall of Good spell, the beast scaled the walls and dropped down to the swamp, attempting to double back and savage the party from the rear. Luckily, other members of the group were present and accounted for on the outskirts of the tower (only a few could fit into the tower at one time….) and the battle continued, eventually resulting in the death of the horrific creature.
And that is where we will continue tomorrow…. …..
Cheers,
Colin
Penelo:
Also, how do you change the color of the text.
Also, how do you change the color of the text.
Damned if I know :P ;-)
This almost gives you a dark black, but other than bolding and Out of Character versus In Character, I'm not certain whether there exist any BBCode tags similar to HTML code that can alter font colour....
[color=red]Let's see if this works (I googled the appropriate tags....now I just have to stop myself from using the correct spelling of colour ;-) )[/color]. I'll preview the post and see if it works....
Nope, apparently it's not in use....so it's bold versus italic versus IC versus OOC (and with font size changes as well, so big versus small versus normal....but that's just a pain in the arse to read, eh).
Damned if I know :P ;-)
This almost gives you a dark black, but other than bolding and Out of Character versus In Character, I'm not certain whether there exist any BBCode tags similar to HTML code that can alter font colour....
[color=red]Let's see if this works (I googled the appropriate tags....now I just have to stop myself from using the correct spelling of colour ;-) )[/color]. I'll preview the post and see if it works....
Nope, apparently it's not in use....so it's bold versus italic versus IC versus OOC (and with font size changes as well, so big versus small versus normal....but that's just a pain in the arse to read, eh).
I got the bold down, I use that in my campaign journel to title the chapter and give the date.. I was just wondering if I could use a different color other then the ooc color.
Sorry....based on what I read in another thread on the website, colours are disabled so people don't write in tons of ugly, eyeball-gouging font colours, thereby detracting from the look/feel of Paizo's boards....looks like the basics are all we get :(
Cheers,
Colin
Having slain the wolf-creature, the party paused to heal, search the area and collect treasure from the corpse and a large chest found in the tower. In addition, the necromantic magics were largely banished by a blessing by Penelo.
As the sun set and dusk set in, a nearby hillock appeared on the swampy island near the ruined tower. Approaching this previously invisible mound of earth, the party ascertained that there was a plaque of some sort imbedded near the apex of the hillock, and posted upon it was a riddle.
As the party answered the riddle correctly, the middle section of the hillock descended into the ground with Jimmy, Adelard and Penelo upon it, eventually arriving at the mouth of a tunnel which led to an iron door fixed with yet another plaque inscribed with riddle written in Common. After a failed attempt to answer the riddle correctly, causing numerous darts to spring from the walls, and then several attempts to disarm the dart throwing devices met with critical failure of the perforating variety, Lawrence the Druid Guy decided to get ‘er dun, and joined the party down at the base of the vertical shaft. Upon examining the plaque it became apparent that there was a riddle on the reverse side, this time written in the language of the Fae (close enough to Sylvan to be loosely translated by the druid).
After much brain-storming and debate, a passable solution was finally proposed, and the door opened, revealing even more of the tunnel and eventually terminating in curtains drawn across a rod. Peering around the curtains revealed only darkness as far as the dwarf was concerned, but peering through the curtains revealed a fire-place lit room with a crone in a rocking chair surrounded by mewling cats.
Jimmy tried to sneak into the room, but was noticed by the felines who alerted their mistress to the presence of the rogue. A strange dialogue ensued, with the upshot being that there was a way to reach the castle of the Erl King, overseen by Robin Goodfellow and from thence the Temple of Dreams Incarnate, but it required the sacrifice of four beings on the necromantic slabs adjacent to the ruined tower above. Also, before the witch/crone/hag would provide any assistance, the party would have to obtain some Soul ‘Shrooms, an ominous sounding series of fungi likewise found near the stone slabs engraved with necromantic runes.
Accomplishing these tasks, the party was rewarded with potions, some advice, and opting to slay the red-cap tooth constructs upon the slabs (hoping that despite their lack of intelligence and soul, they would still qualify in order to activate the path-magic….a correct assumption), they created a minor tremor which shook the earth, shattered the death-stone slabs, and opened a tunnel into the earth.
Following the tunnel, it quite suddenly opened up into a purple-tinged landscape of ramshackle dark-faerie huts and leaning unseelie barrios on the other side of an ominous looking bridge. However, the party crossed uneventfully, noting at all times the glaring eyes of unpleasant dwellers in the bizarre toadstool shacks and lean-tos as they followed the path further into the depths of this Faerie Fading Land.
Having passed through the dark faerie ghetto, the landscape once again changed, this time to a canyon filled to the left and right of the path with cages containing seelie fae, bemoaning their imprisonment, all haloed with an aura of green-tinged fire as a warding. Feeling that there was little they could do, particularly in light of the huge volume of evil faeries immediately behind them, the party moved on, steeling themselves against the piteous moans of the fettered fae.
Suddenly (as they are wont to be in Faerie) the party was before a vast castle, with a locked double door in front of the path, guarded by a trio of vicious redcaps. While the battle was a close one, the party prevailed and faced the door, which was covered by yet another damnable puzzle/riddle key, featuring numerous tiles upon which a strange statement was placed, one letter/character per tile . After some consideration (and clever application of the detect magic spell), the solution was reached by pushing the correct tile and the party entered the castle.
Advancing further into this strange edifice, the party found itself in a vast ballroom with scores of faeries on a series of raised tiers rising to either side of the ballroom floor. A trio of flickering chandeliers hung from above, illuminating the place, and a string quartet of demented unseelie musicians drew their bows of bone, skin and hair across equally ghastly cellos and began a lurching waltz-like dirge, much to the delight of the capering fae.
The presence of the party most assuredly did not go un-noticed by the major domo of the castle, the Puck, Robin Goodfellow, temporarily free of the attentions of his perpetually cuckolded master Oberon and his fickle mistress Titania. After offering the party food and spirits (wisely declined due to advice from Adelard who recalled some of the childhood tales told to him about eating and drinking things offered by faeries…. …..), a challenge was issued by the Puck, throwing down the metaphorical gauntlet for the party to entertain the dangerous and capricious crowd (and of course the Puck himself).
The bard Xeon played a tune, accompanying the dwarf Adelard who recounted a magnificently long joke (an epic saga of the shaggy dog variety of humour), and ultimately won the approval of Robin Goodfellow. The Puck offered free passage through the castle towards the Temple of Dreams Incarnate, mentioning the three Mistresses who guarded the place, and (as many others had uttered previously during the adventure) made oblique and baffling references to the dreams of a sleeping girl. Robin Goodfellow also issued an ominous warning about the Erl King to whom the region ultimately belonged, and mentioned slyly that the protection of a mere Puck would not suffice should the attention of the Erl King be drawn to the party in their journeys…. ….
And so we shall (hopefully) conclude this adventure this Friday, continuing on through the Castle of the Erl King, and thence into the Temple of Dreams Incarnate.
Penelo: This is getting stranger and stranger every step we take. What I thought was a simple journey to spontanous spell casting has turned into a journey for our very lives. We have already lost one of the party. I pray we do not lose another. This reminds me of when we battle Zuggmonty's aspect and lost Sampsa very nothing but a roar of moooooo.
I hope this doesn't get any worse...
Penelo: This is getting stranger and stranger every step we take. What I thought was a simple journey to spontanous spell casting has turned into a journey for our very lives. We have already lost one of the party. I pray we do not lose another. This reminds me of when we battle Zuggmonty's aspect and lost Sampsa very nothing but a roar of moooooo.
I hope this doesn't get any worse...
After leaving the banquet/ballroom of the dark fae, presided over by Robin Goodfellow, the party wandered the castle, searching for some means of egress that would lead them to the Temple of Dreams Incarnate.
They soon found themselves in a hallway lined with bookshelves; while some members of the party searched the shelves and books, the remainder entered the door at the terminus of the hallway. Beyond the door was a curiously shaped lounge, lined with bookshelves. Three windows interspersed between the shelves looked out over a curious vista of swirling, multi-hued mist, and two doors appeared to exit the chamber. The first door revealed a small bedchamber with a chest on a table (within which the dwarf found thirty infant skulls), while the second opened out into a long throne-room, whose inside dimensions overlapped impossibly with the dimensions of the library/lounge.
As Lady Penelo, Adelard the dwarf, and Xeon the bard entered the room, the rogue (Jimmy) decided to further explore the bookshelves, triggering an explosive burst of Dust of Sneezing and Choking, rendering him temporarily helpless with uncontrolled gagging and choking.
Xeon explored the two thrones at the far end of the long chamber, and found them inscribed with the names, Lord Oberon: Master of the Seelie Court, and Titania: Cuckolder of the High Lord. Exploring them further and then daring to seat himself in the throne of Titania, the bard found himself granted a musky, sexual odour and a pair of diminutive, curving ram’s horns. Further exploration of the king’s throne revealed a shaft below it, descending into blackness. While Penelo searched the walls, and Adelard made a move towards the throne to assist Xeon, the bard triggered a wailing alarm trap, which summoned forth the dreaded Erl King, who (being invisible) summoned forth a wall of thorns to trap the three party members in the throne room and prevent any assistance from Jimmy (who was temporarily quite incapable of providing much help in any regard), Lawrence the Druid, and Callista who were still searching the lounge.
Despite several highly damaging spells (fire seeds and a few strokes of call lightning) the pared down party still found itself quite capable of dispatching the Erl King (particularly due to the dwarf’s devastating axe blows). With the death of the throne room’s grim defender, the wall of thorns dissolved into nothingness, and the party was once again whole.
Finally shoving aside the stone throne of Oberon, the party descended the shaft and suddenly found itself drifting through the strange, prismatic sheets of billowing mist that they had viewed through the lounge’s windows. Off in the distance reared a blurry, shimmering apparition of an immense sea-horse, hundreds of feet high, crowned with a sea-shell of equally impressive proportions. As the party willed themselves towards it (having no physical earth to walk upon) the characters noticed a strange beeping/cheeping sound combined with a hissing, rhythmic wheeze suffused the realm, creating a bizarre auditory environment. Nearing the sea-horse, the party soon realized that the perimeter of the spiralling mollusc’s shell was not unguarded; three brutish, hulking centaurs armed with long spears and with bows firing arrows smeared with faecal matter were lead by a bizarrely proportioned giant (some sort of fun-house mirror distorted ogre-kin) hurling boulders.
Thanks to some remarkably skilful diplomacy, the party avoided conflict with very few blows exchanged, and entered the sea shell (which they instinctively realized must be the Temple of Dreams Incarnate) relatively unmolested.
Within they found the inner walls of the shell were pink and moist with mucilaginous secretions, and tentatively made their way forward, soon coming around the corner of a spiral arc to find themselves face to rotting face with three zombies and a skeletal archer of no mean skill. Being curiously semi-intelligent rather than the usual run-of-the-mill undead, the zombies were actually capable of interaction, and following the turning of two of shambling brethren, and the rather quick dispatching of the archer (despite his immediate “resurrection” due to a magical crown/circlet about his bony pate) the third agreed to act as an ally of sorts (a mono-syllabic, decomposing, but at least non-hostile guide).
As the party continued to follow the rising curve of the molluscan shell, they abruptly found themselves in a segment decorated as an impromptu bedchamber of sorts, complete with rotting tapestries and scented candles. Sprawled upon a rotting four-poster bed was a grotesquely obese female figure, fondling herself while strings of bloody sputum drooled from her incongruously lusty mouth. This was one of the three mistresses that both The Puck and the old hag in the swamps had forewarned the party of; clearly this was Mistress Corpulosum, a creature of self-described immense appetites, appetites which based on her choice of words with the party were clearly not merely gastronomic in nature… …. …..
As Xeon played a tune to fascinate her, Jimmy spent several torturous moments debating whether to be the one to satisfy her lusts….fortunately for the rogue, several skilfully worded attempts at diplomacy by the rogue succeeded in bypassing the dim-witted Mistress and no-one had to debase themselves unnecessarily.
As the party winded their way to the next level of the ascending spire, they found themselves suddenly transported to another realm, where they were within a slimy, wrinkled tube of slippery tissue, terminated by some bizarre flesh door, most sphincter-like in appearance. Their ears were bombarded with strange hissing and peeping sounds from somewhere beyond the tube, akin to those which suffused the misty realm of the sea-horse, but MUCH louder….some of which sounded strangely like steady breathing of a most wheezy, mechanical nature. Within the slick, alimentary passage were several ghasts of varying power and a fearsome ghoul hound, who were feasting upon the slowly regenerating tissue, but who were clearly eager for a change of diet.
The battle was somewhat more complex than expected as manoeuvring about the mucilaginous secretions of the tunnel was a matter of some dexterity, both for the party as well as for the opposition. Additionally, damaging the walls of the tunnel proved disastrous for all involved, as reactive peristaltic waves threw unprepared combatants prone. However, the turning skill of a servant of Pelor is nothing to be discounted, and three of the five enemies were driven to the far end of the chamber, resulting in a fairly short combat (although several party members were paralyzed and/or infected with ghoul fever).
Having opened the way to the sphincter, there was still the matter of opening the clenched ring, and worming one’s way through proved to be a difficult and slightly dangerous (acidic secretions…) option. Eventually two members of the party forced the sphincter open and then the dwarf (last one through) wriggled his way to freedom, only slightly seared by the acids of the tract.
On the other side of the ring lay another, smaller layer of the spiralling mollusc shell (of appropriately smaller size), but this one was line with doors on the inner wall. The first door contained a strange figure seated at a table, who was interrogated by Jimmy and (shortly there after) Xeon. The being, while initially appearing human, rapidly began to shed layers of himself with each additional piece of advice/information about the Temple that he offered to the bard and the rogue, like some bizarre actor shedding layer after layer of clothing. Each visage was stranger than the last, soon becoming twisted and otherworldly (as befits a self-described emissary of the Far Realms), causing sanity to quickly be stripped from the characters which resulted in some lingering psychological effects…. …….
This emissary of points beyond the normal dimensions described how the Fading Land of the Fae was nothing more and nothing less than a parasitic outcropping of the dreams of some little girl, relying on her unconscious mind to craft and maintain the faerie tale landscape that the unseelie fae were currently calling home, and continued to say that he himself was quite satisfied with the situation, as an entire demiplane cultivated from dream-stuff allowed him to spread his influence with great ease into other worlds, planes, and even dreams. The two party members quit his company before further sanity could be eroded by his presence….
The next room had a large deck of cards on an otherwise featureless table….the fabled Deck of Chaos, a far more varied (yet certainly weaker) version of the Deck of Many Things. Much drawing of tiles by various party members then followed, resulting in a potpourri of effects both beneficial and malign…..
In the third room was a strange conglomeration of male and female limbs, torsos and heads, mostly withered and desiccated, writhing together in some disturbing mating dance.
The fourth room (of five) was empty, and, forewarned of something around the bend of the shell by the relentless rustling of hair being combed, the party opted to stay the night and rest/recuperate before moving on.
Upon awakening, the party opted to explore what lay behind the final door of the second layer within the molluscan shell, ever mindful of the omnipresent shushing sound of long strands of hair being combed and brushed coming from around the next bend. Thanks to the effects of the Deck of Chaos, the party was lower on equipment than would have been preferable, and Adelard in particular was utterly lacking in armour or weapons (or anything beyond a jury-rigged loincloth for that matter).
Opening the door and entering, the adventurers found a dusty, umber sandscape, filled with clouds of eddying dust. Before them lay a vague path of sorts that meandered between colossal upright leg-bones emerging from the rusty sand, leading towards some distant cliff city. This bizarre demiplane seemed to be a necropolis of some sort, but its exact nature was uncertain, and despite the mental urgings from Adelard’s dire boar companion, and the keen eyes of Jimmy the Hand, both of which detected movement between the mammoth femurs, the party opted to choose discretion as the better part of valour and continued their mission within the Temple of Dreams Incarnate.
Turning around the bend in the shell, the party (as they were becoming accustomed to by this point…) found themselves in an entirely new place, a long stone hallway, widening at regular intervals to eventually terminate in a large room with a narrow crevice at the entryway, blocking easy access. The chamber was black as pitch, but between the everburning torch and Adelard’s darkvision, the adventurers pressed onward. Within the terminating room was a steep sided ziggurat, upon which was a thin, almost emaciated woman with long flowing hair, tangled with briars, thorns, and countless giggling pixies who combed her hair this way and that. Behind the pyramid was a row of three dragon statues, and in front of it were two large balls of animated hair, which flew towards the party, latching on to Jimmy and eventually Adelard as well, forcing long strands of asphyxiating hair into their mouths and nostrils. Meanwhile, the strange woman (Mistress Trichinella) began to cast a series of protective spells upon herself while occasionally letting loose with Darkbolts and [/i]Lightning bolts[/i].
With the help of Lawrence, who hurled ball of flame after ball of flame into the strange hair golems, and the savage gore attacks of Adelard’s dire boar companion, eventually the hirsute constructs were dispatched (releasing foul smelling clouds of burned hair smoke). The party advanced on the ziggurat, and with bounding leaps (Jimmy) and stubborn, methodical climbing (Adelard), two of the adventurers reached the ziggurat’s peak (disrupting a particularly vile spell, the Dance of Ruin), and despite her protective spells, Mistress Trichinella was soon slain.
After finding several magical weapons atop the ziggurat in piles of bones, the party then searched for a means of egress, and finally (after much debate, a long bout of searching, and finally a disabling of the) found a dark, moist shaft beneath one of the dragon statues. In a pattern that had become almost predictable, they soon found themselves some place else, in this case a series of slime-lined grape-like sacs, connected by narrow tubes of flesh; the background sounds of pulsing beeps and hissing wheezes returned full force.
Cautiously exploring the spongy tunnels the party came across a whitish blob of gelatinous goo feeding on purulent fluid filling the sacs and tunnels to an ankle-high depth. Some were able to leap over it, but the dwarf elected to give it a gentle shove to move it out of the way; regrettably, the slimy beast did not take kindly to this and began to lash out with acidic tendrils. Several characters lost weapons to the corrosive slime which coated the protoplasmic mass, but Penelo merely waded through it, dissolving her metal boots in the process. Eventually the beast was slain while the party headed up one of the tunnels which seemed to be an exit, but two more joined the fray from a side tunnel; luckily they were equal parts slow-moving and dim-witted and were easily eluded by the remaining character.
They emerged from the bronchioles and found themselves on a misty plain, studded with upright stakes, each adorned with two mangled and conjoined corpses, one male, one female forcing themselves upon the other with moist susurrations muffled by the utter lack of mouths (or eyes or any other facial features for that matter). Stepping past this disturbing tableau the party found themselves on the third “floor” of the spiralling mollusc shell, a substantially smaller venue than previous layers. The walls were draped with strange tapestries of a glossy, smooth material never before found by the characters(). As well, upon a small table were three books in an unknown tongue (the bard and priestess’s Comprehend Languages spells were predictably useful) that were revealed to be tomes on poetry and folklore of little significance to the adventurers, but possibly of some note to their players ;-). Passing once more into the next (and based on the decreasing floor area, no doubt last) layer of the shell, the party found itself before a large gothic cathedral made not of mortar and stone but of knit together bone and sinew.
Cautiously broaching the “doors” of ligament-bound bones, the characters crept into the church with as much stealth as they could muster, unfortunately offset by the clanking plate mail of the priestess. The interior was unlit, and a Light spell cast upon a coin then hurled into the darkness beyond the current light radius of the Everburning torch was used to great efficacy. To the left and right of the doorway were stairs leading downwards, while stretching out from the party towards the darkness were rows of pews and columns stretching to the ceiling, as well as regular support pillars for the upper balcony. Strands of almost invisible cobwebs hindered movement through some pillars, and brushing through them triggered psychic flashes of someone else’s memories, scenes of abuse and molestation, as well as the chanted words, “Mommy needn’t know, Mommy needn’t know”.
Further exploration (and more coin throwing) allowed the party to explore the remainder of the cathedral, dominated by a vast, raised altar complete with a strange cruciform statue, and a lectern dominated by a golden eagle. The two side branches of the cathedral held additional psychic assaults/visions as well as stairs up to the balcony level.
The dwarf’s examination of a book on the lectern revealed a series of exquisite sepia-toned paintings of an almost life-like quality () featuring a little girl (well, young teen anyway) and her three aunties….two of which bore an uncanny resemblance to the first two Mistresses of the Temple. Later illustrations also featured a rather gaunt, cadaverous fellow in robes of black with a white patch at his throat, sometimes with an unsettling leer pasted to his pale face ().
Meanwhile, Lawrence the Druid Guy and Xeon explored the balcony layer, and eventually moved to the shaft of the bell tower and began to ascend to the apex; they were later joined by Jimmy. Upon reaching the zenith of the bell tower, Lawrence elected to pull the clapper rope, thus causing a frightful din to descend upon the church, answered in turn by a loud, guttural roar from somewhere below the stairs to the basement. As Callista, Adelard, and Penelo made haste towards the stairs, and the remainder of the party raced down the stairs to rejoin them, a hulking undead monstrosity with massive needle-like fangs and disproportionately huge claws, clad in tattered black robes with a still visible white collar, lurched up from the basement stairs, shattered manacles dangling from his wrists. Its/his first action was to pull aside the remnants of his robes and disgorge three rotting cadavers, which in turn shuffled towards the party. Due to a curse from the Deck of Chaos, both Xeon and Adelard were deemed preferential targets, although the lower intelligence of the three putrescent corpses hindered their ability to adequately distinguish between opponents….the same could not be said of the large undead behemoth which made -hastily for Adelard.
As Callista in particular and later Adelard (none to difficult to strike due to his lack of armour) and the rest of the party were to discover, the three man-sized decomposing undead may have been lacking in brain power, but their level draining more than compensated for the absence of good decision making skills.
Eventually all the undead were brought low (with Callista being the proud owner of five negative levels, and Adelard owning four of the same), and the party descended to the basement….well, Xeon raced down the stairs first, and then the others followed.
Several potent effects were brought to bear as the party entered (in a piecemeal fashion) the lair of the beautiful but diabolical Mistress Arachne….first (and in order of entry) Xeon, Jimmy and Adelard were instantly seduced into utter lustful malleability by the powerful enchantment magics of the final Mistress (who thankfully could only cast that particular spell thrice daily). Callista was not enthralled, but was webbed against a wall and failed in almost every effort to free herself with Strength checks. Lawrence (and his Dire Wolf) and Penelo had little to fear in regards to seductive mind-control magics, but were instead teleported to other rooms, a dank chamber with a large central pool and a flooded storage chamber with stray crates and empty flasks and kegs bobbing about respectively. It is notable that Mistress Arachne was present in these two additional chambers as well.
With Xeon, Jimmy and Adelard taking turns being bitten and poisoned by the chelicerae of Mistress Arachne (and continually failing the {admittedly high DC} additional Will saving throws that this permitted) as they all tried to get to know her in a most carnal fashion, and with Callista glued to a wall, it fell to Lawrence, his wolf, and Lady Penelo to defeat the wicked harlot. Penelo opted for a more diplomatic approach, attempting to converse with the lethal lady to suss out secrets and motives before resorting to combat, while Lawrence chose a more direct approach; Flame Strike and Call Lightning. While Lawrence had no way of knowing this, the damage that he inflicted on his incarnation of Mistress Arachne appeared on the other two iterations. His attacks, as well as Penelo’s goading prompted the spiderphilic Mistress to enlarge into her actual form, that of a spider-bodied female (similar to a drider), with two saw-blades for hands and a nasty set of chelicerae sprouting from her maw.
As the three hapless males in the other chamber were being “willingly” assaulted, the venom took its toll on the Dire Wolf and Lady Penelo as well, but the savage bite of the wolf was more than sufficient to end Mistress Arachne’s life, as un-dextrous as the canine may have been at the time.
With their final foe defeated, the group reunited via some inter-dimensional hallways and tried their best to use curative magics to restore the damage done. While the others searched the room and its strange statues (tall, masked figures with long gown and curious masks over the lower halves of their faces, each wielding a small knife), Lawrence and Adelard wandered off down one of the hallways from which they had actually entered (as their were magical fields that they detected) and found themselves in a long hallway lined with closed and slightly ajar doors, but terminating in an open set of double doors from which those strange beeping and wheezing sounds seemed to emerge. Strolling in, they found themselves in the final chamber of the mollusan Temple of Dreams Incarnate, with a slight, frail, bruised young woman on a strange bed with numerous strands connecting her to arcane devices which seemed to be the originators of the bizarre sounds. By her bedside lay a “Wish Book” full of wishes for her to get well soon. Soon thereafter, the other party members showed up, and with some curative spells, the young woman was restored to a state far more conducive to conversation.
Long story short, the party did what they could to help her, wrote their own desires in the “Wish Book” (to be the most powerful druid in the land, to have a pouch which would always have enough gold for the rogue’s needs, to have a pet dragon, and to have the ability to cast divine magics spontaneously….the dwarf abstained from inscribing his desires), and then allowed the girl to write her own wish into the book, upon which time the room and everything in it vanished, and the party was birthed from the vulval folds of the bizarrely shaped banyan tree into which they had crawled to enter the Fading Lands of the Fae. The party then headed back to Shantadern, minus Callista who made her own way home to someplace northeast of the Gnatmarsh.
And so, for now, the tale is concluded.
Yeah Penelo's Player was busy almost having his brakes come off on the way to visit the in-laws.
What is next for our heroic characters? Will someone ever remember to use turn undead?
Sounds good, man I wish I could be there. So what's next. I got the XP and am ready to level up when I get a chance. What can we do to take care of Adelards negative levels.
Penelo: Jimmy, I hope this adventure has been an experience for you. It would seem in your desire to hold onto the treasure for the entire party, it was all lost. My father (bless is soul) has a saying, "Don't put your eggs all in one basket", he was a wise man. Next time, we may wish to divide items up through out the days so that this experience of losing all the treasure because of some bad luck (that deck did us no favor) again.
What do you think Jimmy????
I think you're right. I guess we do this for the enjoyment of posting. If only half of the stuff was lost, what else is there? I don't remember Penelo carrying any items so I have nothing to add.
And after almost a whole year of being off. The adventurers continue on. The party has changed to include Penelo cleric of Pelor, Jayrn a rogue/soulblade. Alyx the duid, Gryx the brave fighter, Aldalard the dwarven fighter, and some witch.
Welcome back guys.