Desert of Desolation XIV

Sir Blanque - swordsman and handsome, dashing noble half mer-person
Marion - stabby stabby dagger specialist; Nihrain who currently carries the Runestaff
Destiny - Menastrai sorceress covertly raised on Melnibone
Bomilcar - Weeping Waste nomad from a chieftain's family

Campaign Narrative
The four friends can now get back into their flying reed boats and head towards the ancient citadel of Medinat Muskawoon, which lies in the middle of the so-called 'Skysea'. Apparently, this is a river of glass created from the heat of the original battle 1,000 years ago when Martek captured Khalitharius. The final Star Gem is apparently located somewhere in the city, and there is supposed to be a way to use all five of them to gain access to Martek's Sphere of Power; this can then be used to get rid of the Fire Lord once and for all. 

As they travel, they see signs of combat between Khalitharius and the Djinn they released to cover their backs while they search for the last gem. Parts of the desert sands are scorched and/or scoured by great winds and fire, telling signs of the passage of the two powerful elementals.

Eventually, after over a week's travel, a strange glistening can be seen where the horizon should be. Instead of there being a line where land meets sky at the edge of vision, there is a sparkling merging of the two. They decide to camp for the evening and approach the region the next morning.

On closer inspection, it becomes clear that the sand has indeed been fused into glass to quite a depth (10'  in places), looking like the ripples and waves one would expect at sea; presumably these used to be dunes and sand markings that were petrified during the legendary combat. It is indeed a veritable sea, but there are serious problems here of an environmental nature. Although the glass is soured and pitted by one thousand years of sand and weather, it nevertheless presents a serious obstacle for the group. Even from several hundred yards away from the 'shore' it is obvious that the temperature above the phenomenon is off the scale, as the air shimmers and shifts constantly; the desert sun is being reflected back into the sky by the glass. There is no way the adventurers will be able to use their reed boats to fly over that, and even with elemental help they will struggle to survive long enough to reach the city somewhere in the midst of the aptly-named Skysea.

There is, though, a small anomaly darkening the sand near the shore about half a mile to their right, so they go to investigate. Jutting out from the sand at an angle is a strange looking boat. Runners are attached to the keel, and stowed inside is a sail made from an unknown, shimmering fabric. A large rune has been painted onto it as a sort of insignia, and Destiny recognises it as a permanent rune for speed; the hull is etched with permanent runes for cold. The players don't know this, but it is one of the fabled sandrunner boats, designed somewhere in the last thousand years for travel on the Skysea. The boat is magically protected against the heat, which the sail gathers and uses for propulsion to skim across the fiery frozen waves. It is large enough to take the four of them, but they will have to leave their horses and reed boats behind them in the care of Destiny's demon horse, Lyshal. 

Adventurers on a sandrunner - picture from the module.

Skimming across the Skysea is a surreal and exciting experience. Their skiff picks up speed, rather dangerously so, and the team has to work almost exactly as they would in a boat at sea, trimming the sail to catch the correct eddies in the air and control the speed of the craft. The landscape is eerily beautiful, and the complete lack of natural life is remarkable. It is difficult to reckon the passage of time here.

After whats seems like several hours a dark smudge appears in the distance, an island from which a 'tributary' of frozen heated sand emerges:

Maps from the module. The hex at the top shows the layout of the island, with the tributary emerging in a north-easterly direction.

The characters guide their strange boat into the smaller 'river', entering a forbidding channel that leads arrow-straight to 'docks' in the middle of the island. Now that they are no longer on the Skysea proper, the temperature outside their little bubble seems to have dropped a little, although it is still probably unbelievably hot. Crags line their route to both sides, and eventually they come to rest in the city itself.

Various ruins, and some reasonably intact buildings, dot the surrounding area; to their right as they arrive is a large plaza, in the midst of which is a 100' high needle obelisk (location 2 on the map). A wide boulevard heads straight out of the city towards the northwest. The group decides to start their explorations here, and then move counter-clockwise around the remains of the city. I gave them a map of the area traced onto acetate with water soluble pens to indicate everything they could see. The heat here is more bearable than on the Skysea proper, but even so they have to order water and air elementals to keep cool.

The obelisk has a message for them, and ancient Quar inscription that they are able to decipher (probably with some unobtrusive aid from the Runestaff):

Star is hidden from sunlight by the Sun.

Four tests must ye pass before it shines

forth. To hunt treasure ye must treasure

hunt. From the gods, their gifts seek.

Cleanliness is next to godliness. When

ye have a friend's tears, the fiery gift,

and the hawk's wings, carry ye the four-

teen golden links to bridge the swamp.

Only then can mortals hear the chimes

and then may the Star light the way.

Beneath the writing is a fist-sized indentation that looks exactly the right size and shape to take a Star Gem, presumably the one that is lying around here somewhere.

Sticking with the plan, the group moves out to the north-eastern area of the city to investigate the large colonnaded temple that is point 10 on the map. Unknown to the players, all of the religions represented in the city are from real Earth mythologies. This is in the module, but I decided to keep it anyway because I had the battle maps, and also because I wanted to introduce more of a concept of the multiverse. This one, for example, is a temple to Prometheus, and the players recognised the Greek style. It has a wide central aisle running on the east-west axis, with the eastern end completely enclosed by a wall, pierced in its exact centre by a small, 12" diameter niche. The middle of the aisle contains a large but simple iron brazier. The characters have guessed that the niche in wall is aligned with the rising sun, realising that the shaft of sunlight will fall directly onto the brazier. Close investigation of the niche shows the remnants of glass shards; presumably glass should be used to focus the sunlight. Since it is now evening anyway, the group decides to stay here and camp overnight, then take some glass from an old mirror in their special null-dimensional bag just before dawn. This will just about fit the niche, and they can then watch what happens. As dawn arrives, the sunlight hits the brazier and, even though it contains no fuel, a magical light appears within. Marion pokes at it with the Runestaff, and she now has a magically enflamed cosmic artefact that gives off no heat. She reckons this must be the fiery gift mentioned by the obelisk inscription.

Their next target is point 9 on the map, another temple. Here 40' pillars surround the gigantic statue of a seated falcon-headed man wearing a double-tiered crown (this is Horus, although the characters don't know that). This god's eyes are bright gemstones of different colours. The right is a beautiful yellow citrine, while the left is a gorgeous milky-white moonstone. The reference to hawks' wings in the obelisk riddle makes the party think this temple also has a gift for them. Marion waves the runestaff at the god and decides to tell him that they are here to claim the last of Martek's fabled Star Gems - after all, since you're in a temple, you might as well supplicate the gods. The eye gems of the statue run down his cheeks, forming tears that shatter into four smaller gems each - presumably a set for each character. Destiny looks through hers without putting them to her face, gaining a sense of light movement similar to a levitation rune. She reckons placing these gems to one's eyes will imbue the power of flight for a short while, thus solving that part of the riddle. Presumably this means there may come a moment when they might have to make use of the god's gift...

The four companions continue to wind their way through the city in their predetermined counter-clockwise path. This means that the next location they reach is that marked 24 on the overall map. This is an entirely ruined temple, so they keep moving to point 23. This is an enormous former public bathing area with various subdivisions; Sir Blanque reckons this must be the reference in the riddle to cleanliness. They have to fend off two wraithlike undead in a closed room at one end of the complex, which means that the only areas they haven't yet searched are the baths themselves. Marion and Bomilcar go down and sift through the debris that has been gathering over the centuries, and come up trumps: two golden plugs with slightly odd protrusions underneath; when twisted together, they look like the first two links in a chain, and according to the rhyme they need fourteen of them in total.

Locations 21 and 22 are both ruined more ruined temples; the module gives deities for these, but the characters would be none the wiser, so I don't describe them in any detail. Location 22, however, is an enormous series of concentric rings, and in a small temple at the centre, the four friends are greeted by three women; one is very young, one mature, and the third is extremely old. They keep passing yards of yarn between themselves, and never stray more than a few feet from one another. Sir Blanque, Destiny and Marion each hear the women's triple voice resonating in their heads. Marion is told to seek the Red Amulet; Sir Blanque is to find the Sword of the Dawn; and Destiny is told to look for something called an Entropy Configuration. The women then vanish. The party is excited by this, because they have in fact already come across an Entropy Configuration - it was the device used to navigate the planes by Gunther Pugh, the interplanar adventurer from Amarehk they met on the Shadow Plane two years previously. Perhaps another of the fabled machines is within reach, which means they might be able to travel the multiverse themselves. A quick investigation of the little temple leads to a strange sight: spinning slowly and majestically in front of them is an unsupported globe, the representation of a planet unfamiliar to them:

After examining this, they move onto point 19, a ruined hippodrome; it contains nothing of interest. Point 17, though, is a large temple warded by two gigantic eyes with strange markings, almost like stylised cosmetics:

The eyes seem to be watching them, and the place is bombarding them with divine magic; their witch sight is going crazy. Sir Blanque suggests this is perhaps the place they are to bring all of the items they are supposed to find in the city - at least, that is how he interprets the riddle on the obelisk. The others agree, and decide to investigate the rest of the city before trying this particular place.

The area marked 18 on the main map is rather surreal. It used to be an academe, and the dusty remains of an old professor are still standing, lecturing to the badly damaged remains of an empty lecture hall. They give this a miss, and head off to number 16. This is another large public bathing house, and this time the group destroys three wraiths while gathering two more of the golden links. Luckily, the ruin marked 15 is another bath house, this time with no wraiths, but four of the links - they now have eight. Building number 14 is an ancient gymnasium with its own internal baths; another three links are found in here. 

The large complex marked 13 lies directly opposite the obelisk square, and looks as though it was once an enormous caravanserai. There is nothing to be found here, to the adventurers move onwards. No.11 is a ruined temple, and the last reasonably intact area in the city, number 12, is another bath house with the last of the links, so the players return to the temple with the funny eyes. They think that since this is the only area they have not searched, it is where the final Star Gem is located - besides, the obelisk riddle seems to suggest as much.

As they approach, each of the four senses that the eyes are judging them, but a short test of Power sees them able to pass between the columns flanking the only entrance to the temple. Bomilcar reckons they were allowed in because they are carrying everything they are supposed to have, while Marion is pleased because she thought they might have to use the power of flight to go in over the walls to the open courtyard beyond. She wants to keep her enchanted eye gems because she is thinking of trying to see if she can replicate their powers permanently.

The players now find themselves in a colonnaded courtyard, each pillar topped by an intricately carved blossom with many petals. The columns are pitted with many holes and, as the party approaches, hundreds of snakes pour out to meet them. The creatures form a guard of honour when they see the light at the end of the runestaff and the party passes between them, unmolested.

They are now in the inner temple, and beyond that is a gigantic space that should an inky expanse in which floats an altar powered by the final Star Gem. The players throw the linked golden chain towards the altar, but the last link winks out of existence. This doesn't deter Marion, who crawls across the chain and then jumps to the altar; for some reason, the chain remains rigid. She notes that the ground far below this void is a vast murky swamp - presumably something else to do with the strange mythologies they have been encountering. She shadow teleports back to her friends, and the gateway or whatever it is seals shut behind her, leaving only a blank wall.

Umpire's Comments

The various elements of real world mythology went down really well, as did the weird Skysea and the exploration of Medinat Muskawoon. The wraiths didn't put up much of a challenge, but then the players mostly aren't too fussed about combat; Marion's player is the only one who seems to want to mix it in person once in a while. Destiny's player freaked rather nicely when she realised in a conversation after the game that they had just met the Norns...