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I thought it would be interesting to see what other GMs have been writing as answers to Revelation Quill questions. Anyone doing something interesting with it, beyond farming ink?
In my case, the player's are looking for where the Runeforge is now, and piecing together the names and maps from today and those found in the Jorgenfist Library. The question posed by the players is in the "quoted by" text below:
Face to face for centuries, the stones all hold the key.
Within the face of Rimeskull's bluff, a death by ice for thee.
Anyone have some examples of their own, or anecdotes on how they handled this artifact?
Disclaimer: It's been many a year since I've ever considered crafting a phrase in Iambic Pentameter, so I apologize in advance to the English Majors among you who are cringing. :)
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Well, I made it clear that the Quill doesn't 'answer questions', but that you envision a goal or a course of action, and it takes over your hand and writes something relevant to that.
Some of mine have rhymed and some have not (just based on what I thought of at the time). My general rule (which I told them about) was that broadly envisioned courses of action (exploring Runeforge) would get vague, but useful information, and very narrowly construed questions would get persnickety answers. If they envisioned a very narrow set of circumstances (to get a very specific answer), then the quill might give them a stanza that was only useful if they did exactly what they had envisioned in every detail.
For instance, first, the wizard simply envisioned exploring Runeforge, so the quill told him which wing was the least dangerous, and something useful about that area:
The Abjurant Halls hold but a singular foe,
but Envy's fall brought magic's woe.
This told them that the Halls had only a single enemy (the fiendish mustard jelly) but also should have hinted to them that the halls contained something inimical to magic. They didn't pay enough attention to that! However, it also told them a little about the history of the place, too, that the Halls of Envy had been brought low by something or someone.
When they decided to explore the Halls of Sloth, the Tien monk meditated on it, so it wasn't a rhyme in Common, but a poetic form common to Tien. Translated into Common, it went roughly:
Within the baths of the Halls of Repose,
the least of the wardens of Sloth
bartered soul and heart for endless indolence.
Now, like a canker he festers,
in the center of the maze.
This was useful to them on many levels. They knew the halls were the domains of Conjurors, but now they suspected this guy was in league with evil outsiders (bartering his heart and soul). They also prepared for a watery area (the baths) and an area rife with disease. Going through this region with Water Walk and Life Bubble active made it pretty darn easy to navigate! They were kind of irritated that he wasn't at the 'center' of the maze, until the wizard pointed out that all of the water flowed from the tunnels to his central pool, so he was really the center of the circulation system. However, it also let me tell them a little bit about the history of the area that they might not have chatted long enough with Jordimandus to find out.