The Eighth Runelord's page

It's Thassillon and yes, the runewells may nurture them.

Actually, it's Thassilon - one 'i', one 'l' - unless you're from one of those dreadful Azlanti provinces where the yokels speak - and even spell - with funny accents, or one of those snobs of the 'Ellucidated' Order who put extra letters in words to make themselves seem super-fashionable.

Who has disturbed me? What... Ah. Yes. This is a good and noble cause, lauding two much underpraised ladies...

Lanx wrote:

Asgetrion wrote:

Ooh... Karzoug looks really mean there! Even a bold, fearless Chelaxian dwarf like myself cannot help feeling a strange shiver running down his spine...

I think it's a great cover for GameMastery Guide, and another "hit" for WAR! :)

Now you know how puny your tiny little Empire of Cheliax is compared to the might of Thassilon.

Well, it's just a *tiny* shiver, mind you -- nothing to compare to the feeling of being tied to the rack and tort... questioned by our Beloved, Respected Inquisition, or the feeling of a Hellknight mailed fist grabbing your shoulder! Er, not that I have experienced those feelings, because I'm a lawful, obedient citizen who only exists to serve his Empire according to the will of our Blessed Majestrix and the Almighty Asmodeus!

Thassilon? Bah! We're the true heirs of the Azlanti bloodline, and Thassilon was just a minor backwater hamlet compared to us! ;P

For such a mighty empire, you seem to have remarkably fragile rulers. How many is it you've gone through in the past few decades? Half a dozen now, is it?

Edit:
My pardon. The ruler of Cheliax does actually feature on the cover of the Gamemastery Guide. She appears to have been transmuted into a more appropriate form, and to be hanging in a cage to the left of the throne of my colleague, the Runelord of Greed.

;)

For a moment, a Thassilonian archmage strides through the dreamscape, and then he is gone.

Accustomed by now to the waits of months or even years between reports back from Yames Boornd, the Eighth Runelord turns his attention to affairs in the Realms of Dream.
Several of the potentates and areas of the shifting and wondrous realms bother him, not least because collecting data of any kind on them is so incredibly difficult.
Still, it is useful to have left the problems of the worlds beyond behind now; as he had surmised, the Realms of Dream seem almost entirely free of Eldest Elemental Evil activity. Whatever fences were erected in the early days of the multiverse were put up strongest and have been most enduring here...

The Runelord nods in acknowledgement of the joke, traces a door in the air, opens it, steps through into what lies beyond, and pulls it shut behind him.
Then the door is gone, and the grass where he stood so long in silence slowly begins to straighten, erasing the last physical traces that he was here.

With respect, Great Erl, now that the Spring Sapling is gone, there is nothing left to protect you now from me, should I be tempted to take routes more expedient than effective. There were futures where... His voice aches for a moment.*

However. That is irrelevent now. I am sufficiently familiar with the functioning of the web of life to know that no matter what the good intention, some things can never be the way that they would have been, and that in those cases it is only the foulest of necromancers or they who have utterly lost their reason that try to put back together something which has gone. Things must move on, and those who try to deny that will be crushed by the juggernaut paws of a Giant Space Hamster. That last was a joke, by the way.
He sounds very weary now.
By your leave, Erl?

* Sometimes it really sucks to be a Runelord of Divination and to have seen those 'might have beens'.

Several tribes of goblins trudge across the plains, to where a rift in the fabric of the planes awaits them. They are pushing a variety of handcarts piled high with assorted items, carrying packs on their backs and heads, and singing as they go:
'So long, farewell,
We're off - we don't know why,
It's hard to leave - but we don't want to die,
Farewell.

So long, farewell,
The nights draw in we hear,
The nasties come, their minions drawing near,
Farewell.

So long, farewell,
To those we leave behind,
Your doom, it comes, we really shouldn't mind,
But we do.

Goodbye.'

As usual with these goblins it is difficult to mistake the sound that they make for that which by anyone else's standards might be music, although the hills certainly ring with the din of it...
And then the last of them are gone, into the Realms that wait beyond, and the rift knits shut, leaving no trace that it ever existed.

I was disappointed with events in the recent clash with the vampire aasimar. I made the most effective contribution I could have, given my absence, and the harlequin still defeated the entire army of life, hands down. I had specified the importance of Spring Sapling, and apparently my words were not found worth paying attention to in the heat of battle.
As a result, unless something beyond foreseeing intervenes, there will be a fire coming, Great Erl, and it may well raze this grove. The shadow will grow; at this point, I must give thought to my people, Great Erl - my placement of trust in a universal effort appears to have been the wrong decision to take - and so it is likely that I will be looking to withdraw to a place apart and mind my own borders.
I have some respect still for you, of all of those allied to or commited to the cause of the so-called 'champions of the boards'; I am currently disappointed and irked at the way that things have fallen out, but I felt that I owed you at the least an apology and explanation for where and why I will be gone, and the caution that very bleak times - and the fall of many trees - lie ahead.
I would that things were otherwise.

A goblin enters, whilst the Runelord waits, and passes him a scroll; the Runelord breaks the seal, glances at the scroll, frowns, and then waves the goblin away. The goblin looks tired and nervous as he departs.
The Runelord continues to wait in silence.

The Eighth Runelord arrives, formally dressed in his very best robes, and stands waiting to be acknowledged by the Great Erl.
His expression is grim.

I believe that the Giggler has caused more serious problems than anyone else anticipates.
If we are heading for a future in which The Giggler still exists, I will issue my agents, underlings, and diverse minions with orders to terminate with extreme prejudice.

Perhaps other methods may exist to lay her to rest, the Runelord shrugs. At any event, I must depart.
The goblins start circling on their broomsticks, and chanting...
'Gypsies, gypsy witches, on the heath,
Dancing, circling, dancing, 'cross the ground,
Gypsies, gypsy witches, on the heath,
Cursing all and sundry who around...'

The Runelord rolls his eyes at this point as if to say 'you see the minions I have to work with?' and then vanishes, taking hs escort of goblins with him.

He has let his passion rule his strategy, the Runelord shakes his head. There are a multitude more futures that I see where PlantJack has done more harm than good with this unplanned and unco-ordinated attack against a dug-in foe.
The vampire girl has little patience. That could have been used as a weapon against her to her army's undoing. Someone had best get your friend Plantjack out of there.
He frowns.
I had not foreseen this - Riders of the air, from out of the Realms of Dream...
He recalls himself to his current situation.
You are unlikely, even if you beat her army, to be able to make an end even temporarily to the vampire girl without a suitable weapon. I have knowledge that Ebony Jaguar, when he took her under his wing, tied to destroy three stakes of mountain ash, each bound with a band of silver, inscribed with runes sacred to a long gone sun god. He found he could not unmake them, so scattered or hid them instead.
One is in the possession of the Runelords, but there are restraints upon its use - it cannot be used except in defence of the interests of at least four of the senior Runelords. Another was cast into the Realms of Dream, and is beyond my sight. The third was recently in the possession of the dracolich Candle Lighter - it may be that he still has it, though he might not realise that he has it. Or he might have traded it away, or had it stolen from him. It might be disguised in some fashion...

The air shimmers and attended by half a dozen goblins riding on broomsticks, the Eighth Runelord appears close to where Jay Frogskin is. (The archmage himself has the appearance of simply standing on empty air.)
You have a problem, he glances at Frogskin.
Someone I have been attempting to monitor has been tampering near the Sanctum of the Sun, I have reason to believe. I could not be certain of their actions, but I believe that they mean the place ill. You may like to inform Plantjack of that, in whatever place he has currently gotten himself to.

Edit:
He is near here, is he not?
The Runelord shades his eyes and looks in the direction of the Place of Winds.

The young waif manages to steal past to notice of active commerce. Ducking under the baker's stand, he looks up at eye level, scans to the left, watches the merchant, scans to the right, then pull two long loaves of bread off the stand. As soon he turns to sprint, he hears outrage.

"Stop you little runt! Come back here with my goods!"

With his nickname outrageously yelled across the Bazaar. Tristan takes off as fast as his feet can carry him. He sprints in the general direction of a certain magic shop.

Hmm. Apparently the coins dropped all over the place when the goblin attacked the other goblin went unnoticed by Tristran. <sigh>

Elsewhere, up in the northern lane of the bazaar, towards the citadel of the merchant-council, a skinny helf-elven waif, dirty and unkept in all his seven or eight years, eyes the pedestrians within it's central corridor. His target, a bread merchant, no less than fifty or sixty feet away. His belly empty for two days growls at him relentlessly. He thinks a loaf or two would make a good day's meal.

Two goblins walk down the street bickering at one another in their own language. Close to where the waif waits, one of them falls a little behind the other, takes out a much darned green and pink woollen sock which clinks, and whacks his companion across the back of the the head with the sock, sending the companion sprawling, and some of the copper coins used to 'load' the sock jingling across the cobbles.

The dark-haired woman in the bright red dress idly lays out a harrow deck, reading the portents as the crowds wander by.

A crowd of goblins pass by, pausing at the harrow-reader's table to riffle through her deck, turning half the cards upside down, and leaving a pouch behind when they grow bored and and move on. The pouch is full of buttons: brass button, bone buttons, ivory buttons, silver buttons, and even the occasional ornamental crystal one.

KaeYoss wrote:

You give us back Seoni, and we give you that Fire guy there and put in a good word for your ridiculous demands.

I'm afraid I must reject your offer. You see, my ridiculous demands have only just begun. To my previously stated list of demands, I am now adding the following:

More cowbell.

As Runelord of Divination, I would like to warn you, Mr. Morton, that you will attract some very unsavoury attention.

Folds arms and glares at the other Runelords who have been asleep for months, and only just now come out of hibernation for a 'Seoni hunt'.
I had to get the PostMonster General to relocate our thread whilst you were all off in Kadath playing 'tickling' with the Nightgaunts.

A goblin messenger arrives with a scroll for Alaina. Trembling, he hands it over, then disappears.
The scroll reads:

The goblins all have the sense to take whatever they've scavenged, and to disappear.
At speed.

I shall leave you to your current concerns. Pray give my words concerning the Oasis some consideration, Lady Lynora.
The Eighth Runelord bows briefly and formally and leaves the grove.

The Runelord seems lost in his thoughts for a moment; he shakes himself out of them to answer Jack Hammer's question.
Auruns conveyed the item intact, yes. I hope that a future does not arise when I have need of the item, but I have learned bette than to trust most deities to have good sense - or indeed sense of any kind. The rare few who have an almost mortal or once-mortal perspective on life are much less problematic.

A terror of the ancient world, long banished, so the tales say, but who could gift her servants and their allies with magic of almost unsurpassed potency with regard to misdirection.
I hope that such things are nothing more than fireside tales, but I have heard a man once speak another name, and saw what came of that. And I have seen marks on the skin of fanatics that screeched that name as they charged into battle, and died.
The Runelord seems afraid to say much more.
In the film of the same name Beetlejuice is supposed to come when someone says his name three times... well think of something much less funny and much more terrifying and this is what the Runelord's concerned about. Well seven things like that actually, to be completely accurate, although I'm not sure yet if he's completely certain of their numbers.

Candle Lighter has taken up with hobgoblins who are mustering their forces in several different locations; it is likely that they can come together to fight with one another very quickly by means of the dracolich's magic. The dracolich himself is at this moment in the 444th layer of the Abyss, with the mischief maker the Demon Lord of Tribbles, although Candle Lighter comes and goes frequently. In some futures, he is paranoid enough to think you might come after him, and has set a trap for you if you attack him there, whereas in others he has taken no such precautions. There is more uncertainty at present than I can spare the attention to resolve. I fear that servants of something old and evil may be abroad, carrying marks of the Queen of Air that shield them, usually, even from me.

Kobold Cleaver has enemies, and they will catch up with him, almost certainly, in whichever of the near futures comes to pass. Whilst the Oasis may be a pleasant spot for rest and romance, and a problem for some living enemies which might be bothered by having to mass and fight beneath the heat of the sun to fight, many of Kobold Cleaver's enemies are demonic, or undead, and are little bothered by such conditions. And whilst sand underfoot may prove treacherous, the open nature of the terrain yields a considerable advantage to whichever side can gain dominance of the air.
It is not necessary for Kobold Cleaver and his allies to seek to move immediately, but the risks of an assault against the location and the dangers and destruction which will come with it will grow with every passing day.

The goblin with the giant gecko, Auruns, the Runelord explains. And I do not require your assistance today, Lady Lynora, but came rather to take counsel with you. Events at the dissolution of Club Calistria required my attention, but I am recovering.

Edit:
The Runelord isn't interested in interfering with what Jack Hammer has or hasn't told Lynora about events in the grove whilst Lynora was in a swoon, as he regards that as personal and private (in so far as things can be private) to them.

In a moment of absolute silence, the Eighth Runelord arrives. His face is a little strained, as if he had made a great effort of some sort recently, and he glances about sharply at times, head turning almost like a hawk's to survey the grove. He bows briefly and formally to the oldest of the trees, and then turns to face Lynora and Jack Hammer.
Greetings. I trust my servant did not discomfort you too much the other day. I was indisposed and unable to come in person.

Woooot! Ratatosks! Everyone's favourite berserk* squirrels from the world ash.

The troupe of goblins scarper, leaving the area as fast as their spindly legs can carry them, shouting out threats about 'squirrel stew' in between trying to cover their heads and picking themselves up after tripping on inconveniently placed logs.
Their shouts and wails fade into the distance.

Edit:
* Well some of them were berserk in Dead Gods anyway...

'They thought they saw a heffylump that frolicked in a ring,
They looked again to see it was the letter of a king,
But what the dratted reason was, it could be anything'...

A troupe of goblins wandering nearby are thwacking at the bushes and singing, but break off in a cry of ouches and ows as a hail of acorns and pine cones drops on their heads, driving them off.

The chances of their gaining entry to the grove I assume to have been nil, even if they had been trying.

Amongst other things that she sees, Lynora sees the extent of the empire of Thassilon, and its cruelties and rulers, and the mysterious Eighth Runelord flickering and dancing down through history long after the seven great tyrants slept, the Eighth Runlord being pirate, robber, thief, judge, temple slave, and hero by turns, flickering between shades of neutrality; she sees something horrible and which must not be named, things of slavering nightmare, shrouded and cast out beyond the void, ancient evils that long to slay even the gods; and she glimpses from the corners of her eyes immutable absolutes, shadows cast by their own great and terrible light, and hears the funeral dirge of a dwarven nation...

You will be welcome in my tent any time you come across me in the desert or at the bazaar, Sir Jack, the goblin takes the phial carefully, and makes a clumsy bow.

Darn. Now I'm going to feel obliged to come up with an alias for this goblin.

My thanks and those of my lord to you and your lady; I hope that she is well, the goblin looks at her for a moment here with some awe and concern.

And my thanks to you for tolerating my presence, Great Erl. The Goblin bws to the Erl. I would like that some of my kind were more respectful of your forests.

Have to go and deal with domestic chores...

The goblin makes more clumsy bows to everyone generally, then carefuly stows the phial away, heads back to his gecko, and rides off.

The Eighth Runelord wrote:

You are her champion, the knight of armour, yes?

That might work.
The goblin looks hopeful.

You have been ninja'd by the Winds, goblin.

Umm, the winds left Jack holding the phial.

Edit:
The goblin, trembling with awe at the situation, holds out one hand to Jack for the phial.

Emperor7 wrote:

There is power in sorrow, small one. Easily turned to Black.

There is power in compassion. Easily turned against the Black.

Which tears does your master seek?

Her last tears were born of love. I will grant your master this boon whilst the tears still moisten her cheek.

You are her champion, the knight of armour, yes?

If the goddess slayer is asleep, she cannot help, and I have got here too late, the goblin says.
He mumbles something about maybe he should not have stopped for that fifth carrot pie that the boggarts offered him.

I don't know, the goblin looks confused. He came back from the destruction of Club Calistria very tired and concerned, and sent the Hornetface and Frogsuckers straight off to scavenge for anything that they could find in the swamps where the big Palace of Skulls used to stand.
He keeps his secrets to himself.
He said he would find another way if the goddess slayer chose not to help.

Since nobody has objected, the goblin goes on. He fumbles and produces a small crystal phial. My master requests a few of the tears of sorrow which the goddess-slayer has shed for her injured friends, and the places destroyed. He apologies for the, the goblin screws his eyes shut particularly tight here, and wrinkles its forehead, impertinent intrusion and awful liberty at this time of great sorrow and solemnity, and he will find other paths to take, if this is something which you do not wish to consent to.

Uhh, excuse me. The goblin intrudes. My master, The Eighth Runelord, is recovering currently from the effort of magic he worked during the dissolution of Club Calistria to try and contain and minimise damage, and to allow things worth saving to be salvaged. He would be here in person, but is too fatigued to present himself with proper etiqette due to such worthy personages. The goblin is occasionally shutting its eyes still, not so much from being dazzled as to assist in recalling something; some of what he says he recites in an almost sing-song voice.
He requests a very great thing, of one of those present...

A goblin in the rumpled robes of a desert traveller happens to arrive at this most sacred of moments, leading his gecko mount. He has to shield his eyes carefully for a moment from the brillant flash of the ritual. After that he spends a while blinking, dazed.

If I find myself using this goblin much more, I may spin off a separate alias for him.

You have a problem.
The Runelord addreses the assassin.
We all have problems but you have perhaps more than most. Your past may be coming to catch up with you.
The Runelord turns and departs, behind the last goblin, and the portal closes again, winking out as if the tear between the planes had never been.

Make of that what you will; Poetry can take that anywhere that she wants... It could be related to one of the current arcs, or something completely different.

Grumbling slightly at the early morning return of the travelers so soon after sunrise, the goblins rouse themselves, and start to clear up. There are many squabbles over who has 'borrowed' someone else's sword, and complaints about mushroom wine the previous night, as they clear up, and regird themselves.
A portal tears open again, and the Runelord stands in the entry, watching sternly as the goblins file past back to where-ever it is that they came from.

Goblins arrive and begin to scavenge items of wreckage from both the palace and (as they occasionally surface in the swamp) from the remains of Club Calistria.
The occasional tasty looking frog or toad ends up in goblin mouths too, although it is uncertain whether this is more dangerous for the amphibians or goblins given the natural toxicity inherent in some of the frogs in these parts... Or would goblins get a natural bonus to resist being poisoned from things which they put in thir mouths?
Occasionally the scream of a goblin as it spots a snake - or the panicking hiss of a snake as a goblin picks it up and tries to use it as a scarf - fills the air.
One goblin spots the top of one of the crystal hives from the club, and picking it out of the foetid water tries to wear it as a hat. A few wasps emerge and attempt to sting the goblin, but it swats them away.
The swamp's intelligent leech population has the sense to stay well out of the way...

The Runelord marks the final death throes of the Club, and scans the debris for certain signs and portents which he has anticipated will indicate Calistria's frame of mind regarding these events.
He notes them, and then he departs, leaving the flotsam bobbing and turning slowly in the interethereal sea.

The chaos echoes and whirls, scattering random fragments to different parts of other threads. The plot of land where the Messageboard Oracle was buried and anything that was nearby to that disappears to a private location of the Runelord's choosing. Lightning and fire strobe through the remaining debris - an eerie echo of the lights that used to twirl and spin over club-goers - as the club subsides and thrashes into a maelstrom of final dissolution.

A wind whispers secret words to the Runelord of Uncaring...
See the OTD OOC thread for the basis of an idea I've had...

The Eighth Runelord arrives and speaks a single word of power....
If you want to save the place, or move any part of the surrounding area out to another thread, there's your chance, Patrick.

Spring break? That sounds a distinctly US institution, and I post from the UK....
No, that was pure Friday night television dramas, followed by some analysis of Axis & Allies. Back to business, however....
Throughout the afternoon the goblins splash around in the pool and feed the octopus, annoy the other oasis residents generally or lie around on the edges of the pool wearing very little. Hmmm. I wonder what colour a green skinned goblin sunburns??? By evening some of them are shouting, arguing, shrieking, and accusing one another of being 'silly dumbass goblin', usually the latter whilst applying some sort of salve from crude white clayware pots to one another's areas of sun-crisped skin.
Some of them get campfires going and start to toast some sort of puffy white fungus on sticks over them.
Eventually they finish eating, and most of them eventually settle in for the night.
Speaking of which, I believe that I will too. Goodnight.

A portal rips open in the air - the result of ancient and powerful Thassilonian magic - and dozens of goblins begin to tumble through, shouting and screaming. A couple of them set up a booth where the others start tossing aside their weapons and armour, before running towards the pools shouting something about a 'summer holiday'. A couple of them have buckets brim full of lobsters which they start to toss to the octopus if he surfaces...

The goblin gives an annoyed grunt.

Uggh. I think I must have the wrong oasis. There were supposed to be heroes in these parts trying to save one of their friends from themself.

He turns the gecko around and heads back out into the desert, singing as he goes.

'Angel from the future realm,
Weaving webs of paradox,
Trying fate to overwhelm,
Though your efforts at she mocks.

Riding with a banjo and no hope for a friend,
Riding to the ends of the world,
Riding with the east to the setting of the sun,
Riding with a stranger with a scythe.

Yes the pain it is so hard to bear,
Though you knew it would be there,
Stabbing like a kni-ife through your heart,
Do you tear her wings from her?
Do you let her die her way,
Do you fight yourself or an-nother?

Riding with a banjo and no hope for a friend,
Riding to the ends of the world,
Riding with the east to the setting of the sun,
Riding with a stranger with a scythe.'