SHATTERED STAR CAMPAIGN - GAMEPLAY (Inactive)

Game Master Daniel Penfold 351

"Evens or odds? Sure! I call odds!"

"And wait a sec, Calvon, I'm coming!"

"Let us hope then that she was working alone and not serving someone else higher." Or that she did indeed die and that was not merely an illusion meant to trick us while she prepares herself for further combat. Having no overwhelming interest in what was left behind by the imposter, Tatsuo joins Calvon and Oster on the teleportation pad.

"We all go. There will be no splitting of the party"

There is a flash of white light. You arrive in another room. The walls of this oddly shaped room appear strangely moulded, their surfaces like sweaty pink clay infused with bits of glittering crystal. The floor looks like dry, cracked mud, dark red in colour, and the ceiling arches only eight feet overhead. A disturbing sound fills the space, resembling the endless exhalation of some bizarre, hulking beast. A mosaic of a coiled snake sits on the floor in a small alcove to the side, while all along the walls of the strange room sit numerous interesting-looking objects-but none more intriguing than the triangular shard of red metal that sits alone on a shelf at eye level.

Calvon's eyes rest briefly on the shard. He hesitates for a second, thinking that perhaps he should let the others, who have experience with shards already, take the thing. Unfortunately, wisdom has never been one of his virtues and he has got in trouble before by acting without thinking. Hopefully, this isn't one of those times.

Calvon takes the shard.

I hope nothing bad happens, but I have tried to consistently play Calvon's low Wisdom score whenever something of interest to him is available.

Oster looks around, seeking traps and foes.

Perception: 1d20 + 16 ⇒ (4) + 16 = 20

And then he sees Calvon go for the shard...

Memnosyne blinks away the confusion from the teleportation effect. She's not sure she'll ever get really used to that. As her senses adjust, she starts looking around, ready to cast detect magic. And then Calvon moves.
"Wait!" She already has the ioun in her hand as he grabs the shard.

[i]Oster you do not see any traps or foes.

Calvon, you reach out for the shard and hear Memnosyne call out Wait!

I really want to pick up the shard just to see what everyone is so worried about. However, I don't think Calvon is that impetuous.

Calvon freezes, with his hand just about to close over the shard. Whatever is going on, it sounds serious. He keeps his hand where it is, just in case pulling it back activates some trap that he didn't see or something like that.

"Why? What do you see? Is it trapped?"

"Worse than trapped. Cursed." She steps forward and holds out the ioun in her hand. "You have to neutralize it first or... it can be bad. We can fix you if it happened, but I'd rather not have to knock you on your ass first." She reaches over and slots the stone into the shard. "Okay, should be safe now." She motions to Calvon to take the shard.
"We need to get back to Heidmarch. Let's make sure we've got the maps she wants. And, we should probably explain to the incubus what happened to the demon." She looks to the others. "Anything I'm forgetting?"

Oster is keen to get moving and visibly relieved to see the ioun stone slotted into the shard.

"That sounds about right, Mem!"

Calvon pockets the shard for now.

"Don't get ahead of me here. There's got to some kind of Thassilonian magic around here. Let's have a look around first."

Tatsuo is a little disturbed by the decor of the room but contents himself to simply standing and suspiciously watching the snake mosaic. "You would think that an incubus would know that slaying a demon would result in the body disappearing, leaving no head for us to bring back. What do you suppose his game was by allowing us to leave but threatening to attack us if we failed in his quest?"

"Perhaps he means to toy with us. We should be ready to face him should he decide to alter our deal."

"Technically the deal was to bring back her head. Without it, he will most likely consider himself well within his rights to try to kill us for not upholding our end of the bargain."

"Well if he tries to slay us, we can send him back!"
Xango smiles as they finally find the third shard.

"He either plays ball or gets dead!"

Calvon, more concerned with what's in this chamber than the discussion about the incubus, is casting detect magic and checking out all the other interesting objects in the chamber. After that...well, we will see what happens with the objects first.

Other than the items already described, you find another teleportation portal which seems to lead outside (back into the swamp).

With that he disappears in a puff of smoke.

[i]Other than the items already described...

Sorry if I seem stupid but are you referring to the items that Ashimantallu had on her?

Apologies didn't realise that bit didn't save

In the shard room you find:

a dozen tourmalines worth 100gp each
6 black pearls worth 500gp each
2 blue sapphires worth 1000gp each
a bag of holding type 2
Orb of consumption
boots of striding and springing
dust of appearance (1 dose)
dust of dryness (1 dose)
200gp
dust of illusion (1 dose)
an immovable rod
a whispering coin
goggles of night
ring of minor electricity resistance
+1 light fortification breastplate

Looking at the boots Xango shrugs.
"Well if I loose on the hasty boots, I would call dibs on the other boots. What is a whispering coin and the goggles of night?"

"I believe the goggles allow one to see in the dark. The coin... I think you can ask it a yes or no question, flip it, and it will give you the answer, once per day."

re:the incubus "Well, that wasn't so hard. Let's get moving. Anything else we've forgotten?"

Returning to Magnimar and Heidmarch Manor she congratulates you on a job well done and gives you a reward of 1000gp.

"Have you discovered where the next shard is?"

"Ahh, let's find out. Calvon, do you mind passing over the Shard?"
it might just zap him when he touches it, we kinda skipped over that part

also is that 1000GP each or total?

1000gp each

Xango smilingly counts each and every coin.
"Can we split the loot. There are a few things i would love to buy!"

The powers of the Shard of Lust are not really that impressive to Calvon so he happily hands it over.

During the return trip to Magnimar, I have begun to read the tome of clear thought. I need 48 hours over at least 6 days in order to read the whole thing. Hopefully, we can stay in Magnimar long enough for me to finish.

Going to move things on

You concentrate on the shard of lust to get the location of the next shard. You see yourselves flying from Magnimar until you are over a large city which appears to be walled all around in some kind of valley. The image zooms in and focuses on a single building, you get the impression that the shard is somehow below this building. Then the image fades

Knowledge geography

"It's a large walled city in a valley," Mem says holding the shard. "I'm afraid I don't know where it is." She describes the vision as well as she can in hopes someone else will recognize it. (no kn:geog...doh!)

Knowledge Geography: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (11) + 5 = 16

Oster, you recognise the description as the city of Kaer Maga, a city in the Storval Plateau about 600 miles away.

"Kaer Maga is a big place. How are we supposed to find this building? Was there anything distinctive about it?"

"Some clues would be handy alright!"

The building looked like a library and you are aware that there is one main library in Kaer Mage, known as the Therassic Spire.

"So the spire then!"

"I do not suppose there are any quick means of transportation between here and there? Even by horse, such a journey will likely take a couple of weeks."

"Maybe we can join a caravan for added protection. I do not know the others, but it can be a loooong walk!"

"I'm fine with any mode of travel that takes us a week or longer to make the journey. I need a few more days to study the magical tome anyway.

"If we must journey alone by horse, then I fear your attention will be needed on the road keeping an eye out for bandits, not on a book, Calvon."

"Sounds like a caravan would work out better. I'd prefer Calvon bringing some solid magical artillery!"

At this point Sheila Heidmarch speaks up.

"The easiest way of travelling from here to Kaer Maga would be by riverboat up the Yondabakari River which will take you most of the way to Kaer Maga. I can arrange for passage for you all on a riverboat called the Lucky Jenny which will take 2 weeks to get to Kaer Maga. Here is the pink rhomboid ioun stone for the next shard. Also while you are in Kaer Maga, if you can find out what happened to a former Pathfinder called Eando Kline it would be very much appreciated."

"Sounds good! Any details on Eando? Looks, speciality, leads?"

"A river boat sounds far better than weeks of bouncing up and down on a horse. Thank you, m'lady." Mem reaches out and takes the ioun stone and stores it in her pouch. "An excellent idea, Xango. While our transportation is arranged, let's head to the market and offload some of this gear."

Going to allow you to have a bit of time for shopping, etc before we move things on.

"I never met Eando I'm afraid. He found a valuable ioun stone himself but he was banished by the Society (which I don't agree with by the way) due to unfounded suspicions that he was trading artefacts to the Aspis Consortium."

"I'm not much of a sailor but a river boat would allow me the 8 hours each day I need to study the tome."

"Venture-Captain, is there any place in Kaer Maga that you know of that Eando Kline was fond of? An inn where he stayed, perhaps. Or a place where he had friends or informants."

"I did hear that he tended to stay in the area known as the Warrens which is close to the main entrance to Kaer Maga from the Dusklight Path. I don't know of any specific building or inn he went to."

Oster smiles.

"It's a start. Cheers!"

You head down to the docks and see a large riverboat called the Lucky Jenny. The halfling captain Othlo Janke tells you he can do the journey to Kaer Maga in 2 weeks. You are shown to the guest quarters and the Luck Jenny sets sail.

At this point you can have the 2 weeks downtime to do anything else you want to.