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Born less than 24 hours ago in the verysame lodge, Wormcaller takes leave outside to observe the city around him, getting lost in the bazaars and architecture of the great city itself. Contemplating his new existence, he heads to a grove and collects the detritus of fallen leaves and bones of small animals and adorns his skull with them, creating a ”headdress” of sorts, serving as a focus for his primal magic.
Coiled inside of his ribcage, something living stirs, writhing like the living guts of what might have once been flesh organs.
He turns his cervical vertebra as the next PC enters…
The sandswept nation of Osirion is truly ancient. Its first pharaohs arose from the warring factions along the River Sphinx, and a succession of pharaohs ruled over the land for millennia. This period came to an end in conquest, when the forces of Kelesh assassinated the pharaoh and brought Osirion under their rule. But just over a century ago, Osirion regained its independence. Under its new pharaohs, the Osiriani people have worked to preserve their cultural history and protect it from outsiders who might seek to exploit their ancient treasures. In recent years the Osiriani policies on allowing outsiders to investigate their tombs and sites have become far more strict, following several disasters originating in opened tombs. The Pathfinder Society has retained its permits for several sites where it had already begun work, which the Osiriani government has honored, albeit with additional supervision. The Society has sent agents to review one of the last sites the Society received a permit to excavate, uncovered less than a year ago by shifting desert winds.
But these Pathfinder agents have just arrived in the Sandswept Hall, Osirion’s Pathfinder Society Lodge, and are allowed to stay for a day before they are sent for their mission.
As Pathfinder agents, you know the following facts are common knowledge among yourselves about the Pathfinder Society:
1. Pathfinder agents are adventurers who travel throughout the world, exploring new places and chronicling both history and modern lore.
2. The motto of the Pathfinder Society is Explore, Report, Cooperate.
3. The Pathfinder Society publishes the records of its most exciting and significant missions in a series of journals called the Pathfinder Chronicles. Most of these Chronicles are available to the public.
4. The Pathfinder Society’s bases of operation are called lodges. The largest and most prominent of these lodges is the Grand Lodge in Absalom.
5. The symbol of the Pathfinder Society is the Glyph of the Open Road, .
6. Most Pathfinders carry a type of magical compass called a wayfinder. Because wayfinders are rarely seen outside of the Pathfinder Society, they often serve as symbols of membership in the organization.
7. The Pathfinder Society leaders agents are most likely to interact with are called venture-captains. Venture-captains organize missions for other agents, and they typically manage their own lodges. At the top of the Pathfinder Society’s hierarchy are the Decemvirate, also known as “The Ten.”
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A small fungal creature wearing the head of a stuffed bear (if one had to hazard a guess, the stuffed bear currently in their arms sans head) enters the lodge, munching on what seems to be the remains of a dried shrub they collected from the desert outside. "Too dry." they say. "And not enough moss. Unsure why they sent us here, but hey, they're the bosses." They take another bite. "Maybe they're just really lacking in puppets." The bear head does not move as they talk, but as they eat, a mouth is visible on the creature's fungal neck.
After a second, they turn and see the other agent in the lodge, and immediately light up at not being the only odd non-human present. "Hey!!" they say excitedly, running up to the skeleton, a sock puppet dangerously close to falling out of their bag as they move. "You've got bones! I've got bones too!" They hold out their arm, an internal structure of warped bone revealed beneath fungal flesh. "I mean, most things have bones, apart from me here--" they gesture to the headless bear, "--but normally the bones are on the inside so they're all wet and you can't see them. We've got bones on the outside!" They pause, cocking their head. "Yours are more on the outside than mine, though. You've got some leaf things, too, but they don't look like they're a part of you, at least not like my mushrooms."
They pause for another moment, perhaps realizing some degree of social faux pas. "Was that rude? Sorry. We're new to this." They extend a bony hand to meet the skeleton's own bony hand. "Vee-one-one-five-dot-oh-four, Vee for short. I'm Amanita, and I'm Barry." They gesture to themselves and to the headless bear, respectively.
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A young woman with blond hair and green eyes strolls slowly into the hall, rubber-necking to take in everything. Next to her is what at first glance appears to be a silver wildcat about the size of a halfling or a gnome. It is, in fact, a construct using clockwork insides to function. It pauses and stands upright, its joints shifting to give it a bipedal form, as it looks at something resting on a table.
The woman puts on a pair of wire-rim glasses and looks at the sandstone walls and the barred cells around the edge. She wears a scale-mail suit of armor, but much of this is covered by a pair of baggy bib overalls. She has a variety of gadgets fixed to her wrists, waist, thighs, and ankles, as well as tools, belt pouches, and so on. She has a shield slung on her back and at her side is what at first glance is a mace, but is really a sturdy socket wrench, which she in fact uses as a mace in fights.
She also has a crossbow, although it is different from most crossbows. It is fashioned with elegant curves and has a cocking mechanism that is spring powered and a chamber housing bolts. It has a number of tools attached to it while preserving its overall elegant design. Weapon experts might recognize it as a sukgung, a crossbow with much greater range than normal and a nasty ability to inflict serious wounds if fired with precision. It has a grip that allows it to be fired with a stock braced against the shoulder, but it can also be fired with one hand.
The woman's eyes fall on the Pathfinders already in the room and she hesitates, taking in the sight and thinking before speaking. "Hello. This is the Pathfinder lodge? Sandswept Hall?"
As no one corrects her, she continues. "Then you must be Pathfinders too. I'm Agate Stark, newly recruited and looking forward to my first adventure. I'm from Absalom. This is Cranky." She gestures to the mechanical lynx which responds by sitting and again looking more like a normal feline.
The two walk purposefully over to offer a handshake to the leshy and skeleton. Her face reveals she is not entirely comfortable but making an honest effort at showing professional respect for each.
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"Given the circumstances of my being" our skeletal hero chitters between teeth "I am bothered not by the mispolite" he grins here, the expression lost due to lack of skin and facial muscle, appearing as little more than a momentary closing of his mandibular jaw.
Turning his cervical vertebra towards the fully-fleshed agent before him, he counts "Five of us so far, or rather..."
◆◆◆) Manifest Eidolon
Uncoiling from it's master's chest cavity, a segmented beast of some sort emerges itself, a powerful bodied worm with teeth of molten lava, slithering onto the ground, massively long, where perhaps to the utter horror of standers-bye, out of the cylindrical creature's anus, indeed, extrudes another mouth and opposing pair of visual sensory organs, gesticulating with twin tremble;