Major Catch-up

The start of semester this year has been the worst I've ever experienced, so the best I can do most evenings after getting back from work is either collapse in a heap or join the kids in binge-watching Dr Who. I can't even be bothered painting. However, the campaign has been continuing; I just haven't had the energy or time to update the blog. This post brings everything up to date.

Anakheera and the Gardens of Ynn
After returning to Anakheera, Destiny tells the others that she really wants to take time out to study, now that she feels powerful enough to finish Theleb K'aarna's grimoire. The problem, however, is that it still remains in the group's base at Gorjhan. She tries to summon a one-off teleport demon for a quick round trip to fetch the grimoire, but fails spectacularly. Perhaps their current location far to the east of the Young Kingdoms is having an effect on the standard magical formulae.

She then asks the others to accompany her to the entry area of the Gardens of Ynn, theorising that the interplanar location might help. Instead of a demon, though, her ritual summons her parents in person, the two Menastrai they spoke with the last time they entered the Gardens. This surprises everyone, including the Menastrai, who were certainly not expecting something like this to happen. There ensues an especially intense discussion about the current strategic situation, especially as it pertains to the impending Conjunction of the Million Spheres. Amongst other things, the Menastrai tell the characters that they think Emperor Elric is a powerful aspect of the Eternal Champion, a being that fights in various incarnations throughout the multiverse to keep the balance between Law and Chaos - some even think this entity predates the Cosmic Balance itself. He must have a great role to play in the future, and it is up to the characters to help him achieve it by travelling to R'linn K'renn A'a, the ancient capital of the Menastrai in the forgotten jungle continent to the southwest of the Young Kingdoms. They tell a tale of the convocation of the Lords of the Higher Worlds, the fate of J'osui C'ren Reyr, the man who cannot die, and a giant avatar of Arioch.

The Menastrai left their ancestral homeland at the behest of the Lords of Chaos, travelling to Melnibone and encountering the dragons. However, there is one thing the Lords of Chaos do not know: the Menastrai/Melniboneans are in fact descended from dragons, and the whole of history has been engineered by the Balance to reawaken the dragons under the Champion to usher in the next eternity of the multiverse. At one point, Destiny and her friends will have to travel back in time to ancient Melnibone, not long after the arrival of the Menastrai, at the culminating point of the great civil war that finally ushered in the rise of the Bright Empire. As a parting gesture, Destiny's parents create a dimensional portal, reach through and grab Destiny's grimoire for her.

Umpire's Notes
Apart from Cate's initial roll to summon a demon of transport (a fumble!), this session was entirely composed of roleplaying and conversation; there wasn't even another die roll. We didn't have very long, having started later than usual because Thomas needed to go into town to buy some extra bits and pieces for the start of the new school year. I have a list of major pieces of information that I am doling out to the players as and when it seems appropriate - basically whenever they do something that might advance the timeline. This means that the overall campaign plotline is being slowly uncovered a bit at a time, depending on their actions. This probably isn't exactly Proper Old School, Man, but I want the players to have a say in the future of their world because they are all teenagers; an epic plotline seems to suit them. Cate became really excited at the mention of the Champion, perhaps hoping that her character would be an avatar, but that's too powerful. Besides, one or more of them might get killed, and losing an aspect of the Champion would really put a crimp in things. I want them to be important, but not to have plot immunity; the idea is that the timeline is still in flux, and their actions will matter.

The Valley of Shenkh
There is some debate about what to do next. Destiny really wants to study, while Avan Astran thinks the expedition needs to move southeast to its next destination: Valed-Hal, the capital of Valederia itself. At the same time, the Runestaff is pointing resolutely eastwards to the headwaters of the River Shenkh as it debouches from the great mountain range that divides this part of the continent (the majority) from Eshmir and Changshai. This river widens until eventually it becomes known as the Yaan River, one of the greatest waterways in this part of the world. A compromise is reached: Destiny, Sir Blanque and Marion will try to locate the next part of the Runestaff while the others go to Valed-Hal. There they will all meet up together.

The three player-characters ride towards the Valley of Shenkh, surprisingly with little incident. The river emerges in grand style from the mountains, cascading in a great torrent from a source somewhere inside the range. The hills and mountains here are pocked with a great many caves; the Runestaff points to one of them in particular. It leads into a warren of caverns and passageways that winds ever downwards through the heart of the mountains. The group proceeds with great care, encountering all sorts of strange things and creatures:
This place is huge. Taken from "The Rod of Seven Parts" boxed campaign set.

  • A chamber covered with facets of crystalline deposits. It's just as well that the characters are able to see in the dark due to innate abilities and magical means; torchlight here could alert anything in range.
  • A cavern just off the crystal chamber that contains around half a dozen weird ambulatory fungi about the size of a person. Sir Blanque figures that these could give off spores, and urges quiet and caution. The group sneaks past them.
  • A series of passages that seem to have paper-thin wall sections; presumably something nasty lurks here in ambush. The group takes special care to exercise even more caution.
  • A Y-junction. Down one passage Marion sees two very large spider things (Size 12, the same as an average human) clinging to the ceiling. Thinking that these are effectively guard dogs, the characters decide to take the other route. They have done well up to this point, but this is where they are spotted. There is a very strange looking mutation in a cavern here, a Dharzi man whose torso is fused to a gigantic spider body. He spots them and attacks insanely, even though he is well outnumbered. Sounds of movement come from a passageway to the south - four more of the same creature as reinforcements. Eventually the party captures the first Dharzi creature and Marion threatens to kill him; this produces a stand-off that results in a parley. The Dharzi say that they have been ordered here to keep an eye on the Aboleth and its cohorts, and are willing to  escort the characters on there way. "After all, what do we have to lose?" says the leader, who has been magically healed by one of his compatriots. "We win either way - either a Melnibonean or an Aboleth dies. Fantastic!" Destiny is astonished by the mention of the fabled oceanic beings, abominations from before the dawn of time. It would seem that it has a piece of the Runestaff...
  • The Dharzi cheerfully wave the characters off to what they hope will be their doom. Eventually they come across another large cavern with weird fungi, just like those they found previously. Multiple passageways lead off from this location, and the characters hug the wall to their left as they sneak past the strange mushroom things. This leads them to a mud-filled passageway; they have already noticed the air becoming more humid as they progress downwards, and this confirms their suspicion that there is a substantial amount of water here somewhere. The watery mud seems to be about ankle deep, and has some rather odd looking eddies. Rather than take any chances, they use an earth elemental to 'part the waves' and walk though on dry ground.
  • There is now definitely the sound of rushing water. The twisting passageway leads them to a chasm, at the foot of which a large river flows at great speed. Marion's enhanced shadow senses allow her to spot a very fine filament reaching out across the chasm at the point where one would need to cross - she suspects a trap or perhaps a creature of some kind. She takes a running jump and clears it easily, bering a rope and grapple. She sets this up and the others cross safely. 
  • They find another bunch of fungi, this time two kinds, including the ones they found earlier. There are many passageways at this point, and from one of them comes the sound of digging. The group sneaks past the mushroom things towards the noise, and find a group of slaves digging listlessly, watched by some weird mutated fish men. They ambush the overseers and try to free the slaves, but they all turn towards them and speak in a monotone: "The Master sees. The Master knows. Leave now while you can." Weird.
  • The characters return they way they came, again passing the fungus creatures. They avoid some rather dodgy looking pools of water and emerge onto the shoreline of an underground lake. This must be the exit point of the river they saw earlier. There is a small island off to their left, and a whirlpool to their right as the water rushes down into the depths. A disembodied voice makes cold telepathic contact; Destiny and Sir Blanque both reckon its origin is behind the island, perhaps being submerged. It warns them about disturbing its parent, and at that point the Runestaff creates a wall of water effect at the whirlpool.
  • The characters climb down what is now an air shaft. A supernaturally large crustacean thing attempts to attack them from a side passage when they reach the floor, but Destiny uses an earth elemental to seal it into its hiding place so that they can pass safely. This whole place is under water, but the Runestaff creates a sort of air passage through which the group can travel safely.
  • The tunnel ahead has some rather strange holes on the right, at various heights all the way towards a cavernous opening. The heads of tridents can be seen poking through the holes, and thinking that something is behind the walls ready to thrust at them as they pass, Destiny again uses an earth elemental to seal the walls shut as the group passes.
  • Ahead is a large cavern with various exits, and this is where the group is surprised. Seemingly from the walls emerges a war band of the strange fish men they saw earlier, and the group has a hard time fighting off the ambush. Fire elementals help, though, and the creatures retreat through one of the passages.
  • A portcullis ahead is guarded by an enormous mutated crustacean, much larger than the one they encountered previously (Size 18). The Runestaff glows bright orange, and creates a suction effect through the water ahead of the party. A strange telepathic cry is heard, and the next section of the staff flies through the air and through the portcullis, spinning madly, to join up with the main part carried by Marion; it seems to be dripping weird alien mucus of some kind. At this point a blast of telepathic power envelops the group. Destiny's eyes glow, and she turns to attack her compatriots, grinning fiercely. 
  • Sir Blanque invokes his boon from Baleer of Chaos, and the three of them blink into existence in front of the main gates to the city of Valed-Hal, along with their mounts. A faint sound of laughter can be heard in the distance.
Umpire's Notes
This was a long session, fraught with peril. The crystalline cave was designed to shine reflected light onto the fungus thingies, which were of course that old D&D favourite, the Shriekers. Basically, this was supposed to be an early warning system, but the party managed to avoid them. The strange wall sections belonged to a large denizen of the depths, an Umber Hulk - another standard D&D monster. Again, they managed to sneak past it. This is where playing a skills-based game plays dividends; the only way a full party can get through an area like this in D&D play without disturbing its denizens is by using some magic, which of course reduces the party's resources. Only thieves or elves or rogues or whatever they are called nowadays can do this normally. 

The mud and pools contained some rather nasty leeches, which again they were able to circumvent. The fish men were mutated humans under telepathic control of the Aboleth, which I wanted to have a powerful ongoing degenerative effect. The slaves were in the first stages of full control. The first telepathic contact came from a child of the elder one that controlled the depths here; it was hoping to use the characters to kill its progenitor. It was itself not yet fully grown, and so was wary of taking on a group of powerful adventurers that had made it this far - better to let them and the parent fight it out between them. Aboleth obviously don't have much time for family values. 

The tunnel with the tridents was a trap; the wall was relatively thin, and many fish-men were waiting with pre-set tridents. An earth elemental took care of that, but then the party was ambushed by more of the fish-men. The players didn't realise this, but the Aboleth Master was using its powers of illusion to make the cavern seem smaller than it actually was, hiding its servants from view. Judicious use of fire elementals saw them off, however. The climax to the adventure came when the players encountered the giant guardian crustacean in front of the portcullis; behind that was a final tunnel leading to the lair of the Master. Here the Runestaff intervened, ripping its next segment from the body of the Aboleth. It retaliated in turn, and Destiny fumbled her Power struggle, turning on her compatriots. Sir Blanque decided that he really didn't want to fight a Melnibonean under an Aboleth's psychic domination, and used his one-off boon from Baleer to invoke aid. They arrived safe and sound at the meeting point with the rest of the expedition, and now have five parts of the Runestaff. Only three more to go...

Savage Swords Against the Necromancer
As a Mythras adventure, this is easily converted to Stormbringer.

I've been saving this one up for use in the eastern kingdoms. The Runestaff is now pointing towards the city of Kasaio in the wild lands of Okara. Avan Astran wants to keep the main expedition in Valed-Hal for a while longer, because this is one of the main points of negotiation for the trade route he wishes to set up with the Young Kingdoms. Destiny elects to stay with him, because she wants to catch up on her studies, so the Duke gives his bodyguard Nadjana permission to accompany Marion and Sir Blanque further to the southeast; the Melnibonean lends Nadjana her elementals for the trip. First, they go east towards the river border town of Y'shath, a major trade point with the Valerian Directorates. Technically it is part of Okara, but more or less functions as an independent city-state. From there, they proceed southwest to Kasaio itself. Again, they get lucky, as there are no major encounters.

Kasaio is extremely run down, with crumbling walls and what passes for gatehouses. The few guards don't even notice their approach. The three of them pass into the town itself, or what's left of it. There are fading memories of grandeur, with weeds growing from the cracks in the buildings, and furtive people scurrying about their business. It's getting late, so the group finds an inn and pays an exorbitant price for rooms and stables. They then go into the two as night falls, following the pointing Runestaff.

Up ahead, they hear a scuffle in an alleyway, and catch a glimpse of half a dozen men hurrying a struggling woman into another alley. She has a bag over her head and is mumbling incoherently; from the way she is walking, Marion surmises that her hands are bound behind her back. She still has plenty of fight left in her, though, as she tries to kick one of her captors. Marion invokes her shadow dance abilities and jumps up onto a nearby roof, while Sir Blanque and Nadjana rush after the men, who are all wearing identical robes. The men hear them coming, and four of them charge to the attack, while the other two spirit the woman off through a ruined entryway. This slows Nadjana and Sir Blanque; the four men fight to the death with cudgels and knives, but they are no match for seasoned warriors. All four bodies are found to be carrying amulets with a peculiar sigil - cultists of some kind? It looks like three tentacles emerging from a central eye. From her vantage point, Marion is able to see where the two others have taken their struggling victim. It looks like an old, decaying noble house of some kind, with walled grounds.

I like the isometric view for the ground level.

The players decide to try to gain entry from the rooftop, in case the cultists are waiting in ambush on the ground floor. There is a trapdoor on the flat roof, and they descend into a corridor that is full of mutated hairless rat things. Most of them are very large, with six legs. A fire elemental is used to drive them off, and the group descends to the ground floor, where they find a secret door to a hidden chamber, with a substantial set of stairs leading to a basement:

And yes, the idea is that the dead do indeed rise...

A large vaulted chamber houses three large slabs, each of which has a body resting on it. Three cultists are smearing the dead with a beautifully sweet smelling unguent, which they are taking from a large clay pot in the middle of the floor. A fourth cultist is at a shrine in the far corner relative to the three part members, talking to an image of what is probably the high priest in a mirror; its frame is carved with all sorts of nasty looking symbols. Five more bodies are lying in a heap , and the room is festooned with various items of clothing, backpacks and accoutrements, presumably taken from the dead. A heavy bronze door is lying open, and beyond it is a rough-hewn tunnel leading out, presumably past the city walls, or what is left of them.

The characters easily cut down the three nearest cultists. The high priest sends four tendrils of blue energy from a much larger amulet he is wearing through the mirror; three are heading towards the bodies on the slabs, and the fourth towards the heap of five on the floor. Nadjana uses a fire elemental to fry the remaining cultist and the tendril near him, and between them the group slices and dices the remaining tendrils before they reach the bodies. Surmising that the captured woman has been dragged off through the tunnel, they grab the jar of ointment and rush off in pursuit. A quick look tells them that the ointment is extremely potent stuff; it might even help an amputated limb re-attach, and certainly could be used to keep an undead creature supple. They are stopped in their tracks by a horrific creature that has a body with a gigantic maw, but no head; it moves by virtue of three large tentacles emerging from beneath its abdomen. They smell it well before they see it. A combination of fire elementals and massive damage kills it, but it has slowed them down enough that they are unable to catch up to the kidnapped woman. In the desert moonlight they see a stretcher in the distance being carried off at running speed by four unnaturally moving undead people. There is a blanket over the stretcher, and someone is wriggling underneath.

It's too far for the group to do anything about it, and even though the zombies are moving off into the desert, they will be untiring in their efforts to keep going through the night and then the heat of the day. The Runestaff is pointing in exactly the same direction, so the hope is that its intended destination will also lead to the captured victim. The characters return to their inn and mount up; they then head off in pursuit.

Umpire's Notes
This was another relatively short session. The scenario is good fun, and is deliberately and joyously tacky - real swords & sorcery stuff, with a captured woman, cultists, zombies, a horrible beastie and the obligatory cackling high priest. I changed the encounter in the basement, using a magic mirror to replace the presence of there high priest in person. I figured it would be too easy for the party to kill him, and I wanted him alive for the climax.

Riding through the desert
The only encounter they have during a day's pursuit is a pack of unfeasibly large desert jackals that try to keep up, hoping that one of the mounts will stumble through exhaustion. Eventually they give up and lope off disconsolately; the characters have been using water elementals to keep themselves fresh, even as they cross a nasty expanse of burning salt plains. They see a large red mesa rising out of the desert in the distance, and sense some water from an unseen location off to their left, partly around the craggy outcrop. Closer inspection reveals a pathway going to a rather unpleasant-looking cave entrance part way up the mountainside; four sets of tracks, spaced as if by running men, confirm this is where they taken their prize. There are, however, no tracks leading towards what tuns out to be an oasis - after all, what would the undead need with water? The group heads towards the oasis for a quick refresh, and finds the water level quite low. This in turn reveals a tunnel entrance part way down, leading off towards the mountain - perhaps a back door that the cult doesn't know about?
A nice big red mesa.What's not to like?

The party follows a long tunnel, with seeping, stinking water that reminds them of the creature they fought the previous evening. Sure enough, there is another nasty here, this time an undead giant snake with two large heads. Again, fire elementals and serious damage wipes it out, and the group continues to a hidden entrance to the cult headquarters:
Most of the mountain's interior is hollow - note the scale at the bottom right hand corner.

Inside the mountain is a huge amphitheatre, the ground floor of which is covered with hundreds of zombies. A staggered stairway leads up to a small ziggurat platform, on which is an altar with the woman they have been following about to be sacrificed by the high priest they saw in the mirror. On the ground before the ziggurat is a large crack in the floor, shaped exactly like the cult emblem. Nadjana uses an earth elemental to pull the struggling victim inside the altar, and the air elemental to keep her breathing. The high priest has absolutely no idea what is going on, and cries out to his forbidden god Gish. Nadjana then goes completely berserk. She charges up the rear stairs of the ziggurat, screaming at the top of her voice, and takes the head right off the surprised high priest with a single swipe of her Elenoin greatsword. The undead collapse forever and the victim is saved. At this, the crack in the floor is sealed and a door opens in the front of the ziggurat: a gateway to another plane. The Runestaff points right through it and the group immediately makes ready to proceed. The beautiful Yulin introduces herself as a ballet dancer in high demand amongst the nobility for bespoke performances; the cultists grabbed her as she was just leaving one. It's obvious what they intended next...

An unfeasibly large temple/cathedral complex thing.

The three characters proceed through the newly activated doorway to a rather ancient looking, and rather enormous, temple complex. The front gates provide the planar gateway into its grounds, with the Runestaff pointing forwards and downwards. Shrugging, they proceed, and go right through the main doors. They could explore this place and see what is going on, but they are here for a reason and instead of checking out the ground floor, they proceed down some stairs in one of the suspiciously octagonal towers at the front of the building. They see various side chapels and have a quick look; one of them has a dangerous looking pool, and another contains a strange set of standing stones. They decide to ignore them and go forward into the main body of the basement itself which directly parallels the main floor above in design. Off to their right is a maze of very large rat holes, and again they ignore these. The central part of the cathedral basement houses a small reliquary box, guarded by what is obviously a Demon of Protection. It gives them its obligatory warning in a gravelly voice, so Marion points her dream staff at it and sucks it right into stasis. The reliquary seems to have no keyhole or anything like that, just an octagon of Chaos. Nadjana surmises that it is itself another Demon of Protection, and overcomes it in a Power struggle. The octagon slides apart and Marion  acquires the sixth segment of the Runestaff. As has happened previously, her skin darkens once more and she gains a point of Charisma.
Shall we shake on it?

At this point a rather jolly Chaos lordling turns up, introducing himself as "Gish, at your service." The characters tell hm about the cult, and he seems genuinely surprised. "I built that ziggurat to hide the entry to this domain; I wanted to keep at least one part of the Runestaff out of the clutches of that horrible spider queen of the Dharzi. There's no way any of us in Chaos will ever trust her!" There then follows a bizarre conversation in which Gish of Chaos pledges to help the bearer of the Runestaff (i.e. Marion) against the Dharzi at one point in the future. Marion seems surprised at this, but of course Chaos is really good at fighting itself most of the time. The group then returns through the gateway, picks up Yulin and heads across the desert back to Kosaio.

Umpire's Notes
Nadjana's past probably hides some rather unpleasant experiences; after all, it's not common for a Pan Tang woman to try to escape that forsaken isle of her own accord, and survive to tell the tale. Maybe there is a temple or sacrifice or something lurking in her memories. At any rate, she rolled a critical success on her Dexterity to bound up the stairs of the ziggurat, and then made a called shot on the high priest's head, which went roll, roll, thud. 

The Rod of Seven Parts has some really useful parts, and some that are not so useful, at least in the world of Elric. There is a major section where the party is supposed to encounter giants in a castle, but that just won't work in the Young Kingdoms, or the East for that matter. This is a perennial issue when converting D&D scenarios - many of its standard monsters just will not translate well. Still, the general plotline works, and so I am just scattering bits of the Rod (i.e. the Runestaff) around various scenarios and encounters. Mythras works especially well, of course, because it's a percentile system.

Comments

  1. Great to see you back, Paul! And that is an epic post, by the way. Glad to see you've been getting so much adventuring in!

    Cheers,
    Aaron

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Aaron, it’s good to hear from you. I’m owed holiday time from last year, so I have taken the week off, same time as the kids. I’m hoping to work through a bit of a backlog of various things. I really needed the break!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

First Post

The Dam in the Hills

The Halls of Tizun Thane