Copper Sands and Broken Dice

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Summary

Adventure: Copper Sands and Broken Dice
GM: Jono Bean
Session: Winter 814
Night: Starting Wednesday the 11th of June starting at 6:30pm
Location The Quadrant, 12 Waterloo Quadrant, Auckland CBD
Level: Low -- Medium.
Information: Information from players for Jono.
House Rules: Quickness & Slowness, No 'B' Colleges please

The Party:

Employer & others

An Elven Ranger named Silver Wind, who has been watching the stars of the night sky, wishes to employ an Elf, a Hobbit, a Human with blood in the Northlands, a Gythja of Hel and a Dwarf.

He understands that some creature is at risk of returning from the Gatar Depression and wants to talk to the group of adventurers he has seen in the night sky.

Payment:

He has secured payment in the form of favours to the value of 30 60 Arcane Points each (doubled for rescuing the slaves) from the court of the Duke of Carzala with the Mages of Freetoun.

Scribe Notes

Session 1

Prologue

Quincey, Leif, Aleeza and Ragna have been working for a guy for the last few months. Turns out he was running a scam and was picked up by Baron Balrain, a cattleman who holds Gugnir's Hope. The Baron hanged him, and we are now on his wanted list. On the upside the adventurers "inherited" a decent amount of the dead boss' takings.

Briefing

We meet with Silver Wind, who work for the Duke.

The Duke's children having been having nightmare involving guild members so needs us to be redeemed. If we do some jobs for the Duke, they will quell the investigations and quash rumours.

He wants to arrange codenames and a "drop", but we don't bother.

Job No. 1 At Gugnir's Hope, west of Seagate there have been unspecified problems with the ruins under the town. The sheriff, who is definitely the Baron's man, seems to be "not investigating". We should check it out, without raising any alarm, and report back.

The town was built on the ruins of a Dwarven settlement. It can be seen well over six miles away, because of the large stone 
walls. The inside of the walls are about 30 feet high above street level, and the outside of the walls are well over 70 feet 
high. The town has outgrown the walls with buildings spilling out on the southwestern side of town. It is common knowledge 
that there are old tunnels running under the town. Most of the outflows from the tunnels have iron bars on them. The local 
merchants have run Hobbits out of town based on their race.

He gives us four rank 6 Waters of Healing

Job No. 3 Far south on the edge of the Gatar Depression there is movement of sand creatures trying to animate a long dead whale to fly out to sea.

I have a feeling about bloodmagic in that area.

To work

Since there is a price on our heads where we are going we plan out a route avoiding the main roads and towns where we have had trouble - via trails to Daggergrove, Goodblood, to the main road, then to Moncks Corner, tails to Whitecros, Redtree to Gugnir's Hope.

Someone arranges Chicken Mules (Q has one of his own). We get Greaters at the bargain price, sponsored by an amazing creature called Sabrina.

As we have a witch and a dark celestial, and want to avoid eyes, we decide to travel at night. As we step outside the guild there is and old woman there, with a cooking fire and a cage full of bunnies.

She reads the entrails of a bunny for Aleeza for 2sp and gives her the rabbits foot. "Something dark is coming for you".

She recognises Q, was there at his birth or something and they talk about his home and family. She gives him 3 amulets, of woven grass, from her basket. They protect the home (or where you sleep) from bad dreams and harm; from the venom of biting creatures and allows the breathing of air that is only suitable for the dead. She gives one of the former to Leif. They have the side effect of causing itching sometimes.

She tells us about an orc and a human, with a black crow, who were asking after Quincey, at the Hinsted lace on the Venture road.

Quincey should talk to his Aunt, the one that nobody mentions, she has a secret from the time that he was born. She also says something to him about wolves.

We have some stew which "enhances the ability to see strange things". We have some bread that restores fatigue used in the last hour, after Quincey does us all Lessers and Strength of Stones and she lets us have two loaves which are each four pieces. He backfires and we hears a boom in the distance.

She does a reading for Leif. Ragna has been sent to stand over his fallen body. The Girl (we figure out this is Aleeza) is in need of his help this season against those who seek to end her line. Ragna will bring him back from the dead. He chooses to know the time of his death. When he is among the mules, at a near deserted village, at dusk or dawn and can see a line of crows on the roof of a wooden lodge house. When javelins strike through his chest thigh and neck.

Quincey finishes off his casting with a few more backfires.

We see a wall of rain approaching from the direction of Seagate, then two Erehleine running ahead of the rain. This is worrying to me, I don't know much about the weather in this area, so I run back into the guild, followed by the rest except for Algie, Leif and the old woman who is not allowed in.

Turns out the runners were just messengers and have a message to the guild about something stalking an elvish family, that concerns the guild, and the danger has come close.

Them out in the rain are just wet. Seems that Quincey's backfires did stormcalling

So we set off. With Chicken Mules. We travel all night and it is very cold and tiring. Just before dawn we pass Goodblood and the farm of the Ebon family, who work in woods and the the source of Witch Nails, that slow down mages if nailed into their footprints.

In the lightning flashes I see a 30ft high Wicker man, which gets closer between flashes but doesn't move while we can see it. Then skeletons erupt from the ground. The wicker man is not a valid target for Hand of Death and a mule gets it instead. The control is higher than mine so I can't control them. Aleeza decides that being alone in the barn is a good idea. Unfortunately but not unexpectedly, she is not alone. A greater undead (??) casts something nasty on her but she resists and flees back outside, where we are cutting down skellies. It comes to the exit and cast on her against, something that makes her twist and contort, unable to act and taking damage and dislocating her shoulder. She can hear a loud angry voice speaking in her head in an ancient language.

We deal to the wicker man who says "You can't protect the elf forever" and "from the master" and " knows what she has done".

Then we deal to the creature in the barn. We find an invisible dagger and a lightning gem.

Quincey tries a healing on Aleeza but backfires again and doubles her damage. She also looks like she might need a higher rank healer for the shoulder, so we might need to go back to the guild.

Session 2

We rest in the barn as we are too exhausted to walk back to the guild just yet. The area of the barn is clearly being avoided long term by the local and travellers, which is good for us, and I can detect no more undead in the area. Aleeza is feverish and hallucinating and we determine that she is transforming into undead, so we plan to rest only until noon and then set off, in good time to be back at the guild before midnight.

Some of Aleeza's hallucinations include:
Three disapproving horse-headed black crows (figure that these are the chicken mules) on with her on a column of rock. Something is being kept at bay.
Red and green scarab like beetles on the walls
A coyote that walks through walls and sinks into the floor.

Billy dreams of a chime which signals that a spectral hunter has been sent.

Mid morning the watch hears a group of about 15 humanoid footfalls. They carry on past, but Leif recognises the leader as an orc who was a rival card hustler who tried to frame us. Billy says that he saw them yesterday camped near the guild.

Afternoon we trek back to the guild. On the way we spot three gryphons flying overhead towards the guild with riders. About 8pm,arriving back at the guild, there is a market set up outside with caravans, wagons and tents.

We quick to the healers. The head healer works on Aleeza, drawing a huge amount of mana and eventually draws out a number of large black slug-like undead things. I put them in a jar (they are dead). She then proceed to the rest of her wounds while lesser healers deal with the rest of us.

About 4am we are all well and about to find comfy beds, when the guild bakers come to us for help, as the elemental powering the ovens has gotten loose. We get it back into the oven and they pay us two more loaves of mouldy magic bread, and some more waters of healing, plus some fresh bread.

About 6am we are all about to find comfy beds, when a chicken mule comes with a message that the old woman is being roughed up. Turns out that there is a big fight going on outside between a binder with an ogre and a bear bodyguard and a lot of golems, and the witch with some of the caravan guard so we join in (against the binder). We are doing alright and the binder goes into retreat with her ogre, but then a couple of incoming "Falling Stars" come down which take out everyone still standing outside. Leif is killed (despite rabbits feet), and Billy injured but Quincey rescues the old woman.

She appears to have been cursed with one wolf's foot. She gives us one ore rabbits foot and tells us that the binder is working for Quando who wants a treasure map that she has. She seems about to give us the job of finding the treasure "for her", but sees that Quincey's soul is black and changes her mind. Leif ties to pickpocket her but she bites of three of his fingers.

She tells Aleeza that if she returns after her journey to the west, still pure (ie not having killed someone that didn't deserve it) she will give her the map and teach her to make medallion out of fingers.

We get Leif resurrected, and the kitchen staff have a whip-round to replace his greater. We are also given the paws of the binder's bear which function the same as rabbits feet. We get Leif's fingers reqrown (clearly something is wrong with this timeline).

We try to rest until this evening when we will set out again.

Session 3

With the regrowing of fingers, the morning of the 4th rolls around and we are woken by a knock from guild security. The Lord of the Bats has arranged for a cloud to transport us.

We decide to land at night in a storm near Bluegrass. (two sets of scribe notes describing Bluegrass - Ath's diary & Daizy's notes). The guild has friends there and strange magical commodities are available. We will go and visit the witch, Catelin, who is grumpy and has a big ghostly wolf guardian.

Quincey buys some pre-poisoned darts, are we buff before leaving and the buffers consume hot meals that restore 14Ft for 7sp each. Leif's Strength of Stones is a backfire and alternates between +5 and +16 EN until damage is taken.

We meet the young airmage at 3pm who takes us by cloud to near Blue Grass and will come back to pick us up at dusk on the 6th.

The town is a bit run down. There is one distinctive house, a hut surrounded by hedges with a huge tree growing out of it. There are three gates in and a maze. Billy does a limited precog about us entering by the left gate and the result seems good so we choose that. We are in a misty maze and it takes us about 2 1/2 hours to get to the house.

We meet the witch Catelin, who DAs as long lived sentient but looks human. It seems that someone has cast the curse on her hedge as she is finding it very annoying. The likely culprit is a water fae illusionist in the mill pond, the Water Queen. The witch annoyed her by summoning an alligator, which was probably controlled, and waking her up. She then summoned a basalisk to deal with the alligator, and some gargoyles who took the basalisk away. The witch thinks the the hobbit, as an earth mage should be immune to basalisks. The curse can be removed as a minor curse or counterspelled by the caster, so maybe we will negotiate with her.

Catelin gives us some blue grass amulets, amulets of luck, grass voodoo dolls and healing salves. The blue grass amulets absorbs backfires but get corrupted. Billy suggests that we use them for a while, then throw them into the mill pond.

There are some cages hanging from the ceiling behind curtains which contain piglets.

When Quincey comes back inside after DAing the maze, Algernon sees a dark shadow follow him in, so we all go outside while the witch drives it out. We are reminded of rumours of shadows hunting elves.

We leave the hut. The big dog is outside and Quincey chats to it. It claims to be a person. She was Grizelda who lived across the road from the witch and the witch turned her into a dog when her dog died. The witch shoos us away from the dog. It takes us about an hour to get out of the garden.

We get to the outskirts of Gugnir's Hope at around 3am. Reminding the party that we are not to contact the authorities who have been behaving in a dodgy matter regarding the strange goings on, we begin to circumnavigate the town. We find a pond near the wall, with a stream leading away, and a landing in an opening in the wall covered by a grill. Detect undead shows 2 skeletons in the pond and some kind of greater undead in the tunnel (within 150').

Quincey and Leif climb along the wall to the landing. A ghostly hand reaches out and drains Quincey of fatigue. The *ghost*? steps through the grill. Billy takes out the ghost with a mental attack, and as it falls it makes more of a solid thunk than we would expect. A DA gives nature of magic as wraithcloak.

Leif pulls open the grill with a loud screech. We all enter the tunnel except Algie who watches over the Chicken Mules. There is a trap with a swinging club to avoid and Quincey eventually disarms it. I remove the gauntlets, which drains me, and the person is no longer wispy. We tie him up.

Three burly dogs with spiked collars come barrelling down the hallway towards us, followed by three shadowy figures. We deal with the dogs and the shadowy figures run off after being blackfired.

Algie deals with the skeletons when they come after the mules. Quincey finds the operator for the grate.

We set off to explore the tunnels. ESP tells us that there are three entities down there, off to the right, concentrating, and six others alarmed.

A little further in is a disused storeroom behind a secret opening, containing very old stored alcoholic beverages.

There is a large tunnel with a body of water and canals with ropes for pulling boats along. Some arrows come out of the dark and we resolves to go after them in canal boats with shields at the front.

Session 4

We go back to the room with the crates and booze to get wood for shields, but we hear three people in the room talking so we listen. They know we are in the tunnels and are planning to ambush us so we ambush them. We dispatch them quickly, and take their stuff.

  • Necklace of stone giant bollocks - protection
  • Titan belt of healing - ranged healer
  • Small red river stones x3 - vs fear
  • Skeleton ball - storage of the fallen
  • Blackened rank armour
  • Several bottles
  • Sash of Dry Waters - +18 PS, can't drink, drools
  • Magical shield.

I put on the undead gauntlets. We take some wood and close the cellar door. I see a ghost in the corridor of one of the guys we killed, and another of an old man. Nobody else can see them, and they can drain me but I can't hit them. I try to suck them in to the skeleton ball, and they go in along with the three corpses. We faff around here for too long are come under attack, from the direction of the way out.

A porcelain doll runs up to us and explodes splashes everyone but me with a liquid containing iron which make it difficult to cast. It also flows across the floor. (To Quicey who is lurking above it looks like many small swallows). It is followed by a two more dolls and a human letting of the leash 12 huge, ferocious dogs. Leif gets a barrel of booze and bowls it down the corridor. It bowls one of the dolls, then as it reaches the dogs, Aleeza ignites it. Too much success! We are sprayed with the liquid in the two dolls and dog bits and take massive damage from magical fire.

Eight dogs are still coming and we suddenly realise that a dozen or two skeletons plus some superior undead have come up on us from the other side. We retreat into the cellar room and close and bar the large door. Quincey has taken some nasty damage from the undead, but they are unable to reach us for now. Aleeza has a moment of hallucination wherein her brother is yelling that it is important to come soon to help.

The trapdoor up out of the cellar is bolted shut from the other side but Leif smashes through.

Emerging into the room above, we find a girl of about 8 years old baking bread. She seems unfazed by stranger breaking in from below and ask whether we have come for some bread. We start of pretending that we are with the bad guys, but soon let on that we are not. She sells us some of the extra special golden bread, 6 loaves for 60 gold, it give restoration, purity and healing, more than your highest attribute (or Quincey's).

Her sister Olivia, who is 17 is held by her boss, to force her to work, and she wants to rescue her and run away. If we promise to help her, she will help us get out of town and nobody will know that we came this way. She tells us that the cellar of the building over the murder holes now contains a giant snake. We agree to her deal. She also tells us that one of the guys who went into the cellar earlier was Gwill who works for the town watch as a thug. She says that McGreedy's name should not be used as he has a "Destinian Log" which records speech that include his name.

She leads us to the wall at a good place to climb out. She asks us to rough her up a bit so that she won't get in trouble, but it doesn't happen because Q is an assassin and L is too strong so the job is given to A who is a wuss and neglects to do it. She mentions that there are people in the woods who turn into huge dogs and are on the side of the bad guys, who will hunt us down,

We climb out over the wall and return to the mules, who are looking at an object which turns out to be a magically trapped stone with Curse of the Spiders in it. Leif disarms it and we pocket it.

We travel downstream in the stream to hide our scent and it seems that we have lost any pursuers. After about an hour and a half we come to a mill that appears abandoned or not at different distances. Assuming that this is the lair of the water queen we go around it.

We travel downstream til we get to the main road, then on to Dwarf Hold arriving at about 11am. The leader of the town is Wug. Aleeza lets him believe that she is some other Aleeza who is important and famous so they plan a feast for us tonight.

We find an inn, get rooms and sleep. Aleeza gets no rest as she is troubled by dreams of her brother who is swinging through the trees. He tells her to stay off the ground as an elemental is pursuing the family.

Leif is awakened about 2pm by a young human man called Ratface tapping on his window. He is offering all kinds of shady services, including cheap silvering at 30% cost, dust of obscurement (100-500sp), undead blade balm (20sp), something to stop people in their tracks, a doll to remove track and scents (400sp), paralysis poison. He gives Leif a freeby healing poultice. He tells Leif that a creature is following us, because the elf is marked with a rune of pursuit. He says that he can help with that and that it will involve burning 3 dolls and 2 pinches of dust. Then he ask for 10sp protection money which Leif gives him. They arrange to meet at the feast.

We wake up at 4pm and are brought robes and slippers and offered baths. Aleeza has a bath (50sp) which takes her to a tropical island in the isles of adventure, where she gets a full rest in 1/2 an hour. It turns out that this is not an hallucination. Quincey gets dumped in a water barrel outside near the forge. I get a beer bath.

Then the dwarfs ask us to help with a problem. One of them (Ernest) has gone into the bath world and hasn't come back and they can't catch him. They will give us 2000sp towards dwarven work on the forge and help Aleeza with her hunting mark. Either gargoyles or pirates have probably caused him to get stuck.

They give us four Hero sandwiches each which will feed us for four weeks (bath time, not real time, we should be back in time for dinner). They also give us pigments for the face and amber to snort.

We should watch out for gargoyle and fishmen who take slaves, We should mark the right bay to return to. There are friendly nixies in the bay. Ernest is probably afraid.

The dwarves get a divination done on Aleeza. She has a soul hunter. Her family was marked in the recent war by the drow and/or ancient elvish magic. They can't remove it but can make up a special hiding charm for her.

We all get a massage which gives +2 MD and AG for 48 hours.

Session 5

We swim down through the bath into an underwater cave in warm waters. We swim out of the cave (there are nixies there).

Swim to the surface and to the beach; to the south end of this bay there is the hulk of a burnt out ship. Algernon backfire a locate a twice, which are absorbed by his amulet. He then casts speak to enchanted and talks to the nixies. The complain that the dwarves are overdue their payment. Ernest headed north along the beach. They can't come with us or fossegrims will move into the cave while they are gone. They give us some coral that will feed us if we suck on it. (Our hero sandwiches are soggy). The coral doesn't DA as magical.

We discover that our packs have blue petal in the seams that make them lighter, but that they have gotten dislodged by the water.

We can here distant drums inland (west). We set off northwards. We notice really big (2 ft across) seagull prints in the sand.

Off shore are 4 islands and there is a bigger island to the north with 3 ships pulled up on the sands for repair. As we come over the rise to the next bay, we see 200yds offshore an iceberg, with giant penguins and walruses wielding spears. As we watch about a dozen come ashore with some snow leopards. We go down to talk to them. The captain is sent ahead nervously to talk to us. He is blue and white, fine furred about hobbit sized but bottom heavy and speaks to me in about rank 5 Ivinian, but later we talk in common. They have a whale.

He asks whether we have found the portal, have we found the soldiers, do I claim this island, do we work for him and other strange questions. They are searching for Freya's lost love. They didn't think that dwarves were allowed in the competition (on seeing Billy). It seems that this is our Ernest and that he is not lost but is called and looking for a gate to Freya to help her with something. The ice creatures are going to help out the priestesses too, who also called them but not magically, by following him.

They think that we need to get to an island that is offshore north from the "Isle of the Six Dwarfish Kings". The big island to the north of us now is a dodgy pirate port. We agree to go over there and either buy a map or hire a ship and crew to take us there. They give us some money for this and they will quietly follow after us when we go. They give us a silver fish so that we can pretend that we know where the silver fish treasure is located and tempt the pirates to take us there.

They send us over on an iceberg which Leif cunningly disguises as a raft (about 4 hours at 2 knots), and we land some distance to the west of the town.

We walk along the beach for a couple of miles and pass occasional small house that have been burnt out and abandoned for some time and have claw mark on them. As we approach the town it is nearly dusk. There is a large graveyard on this side of a river and the town on the other. The town appears to be pretty much abandoned with parts of its pallisade torn down. We can see that in addition to the 3 beached ships, there are 3 at dock with camouflage nets on them.

As we get near the river we can see that the bridge to the town is about 50 yards up river and is pulled up. There is a cart smouldered near the bridge with half a dozen fresh corpses. There are many figures moving in the graveyard but they are in the shadow of the jungle and are avoiding the sunny areas which are quickly diminishing as the sun sets.

I take control of some of the ghouls in case we of trouble and we hurry along the path past the graveyard. Leif finds that it is very difficult to get down to the river with brambles etc - it appears to have been deliberately made that way. Some talk?? occurs in the graveyard, discussing that they should control me.

Billy turns into a swan and flies across the river to winch down the drawbridge. Algernon throws the corpses into the river from the beginning of the bridge and they appear to be already infected but to be cleansed by the flowing water. Some casting comes from the graveyards as we wait, and I set my ghouls on a caster; the whole melee goes down a hole.

Billy winches up the bridge and we cross. (I have a strange urge to go back but not strong enough to outweigh the foolishness of going back in the dark.)

When we are across and go forward we find that the town is suddenly very neat and must be under some kind of illusion, and we realise that although we could see smouldering buildings, we couldn't smell smoke.

We talk to a woman who is taking in her washing, and ask for directions.

  • At the Gabrielite bakery they will stab you to let out sins.
  • For a crew we should try Ernie who is repairing his ship, the Black Gull
  • For gambling and fighting try the dwarvish pit, the 3rd door.
  • Our target island is on a destinian trade route
  • Two dead captains in the graveyard are raising the dead to take over the town. Since about 4 years ago when they and their crews were slain
  • If we get ingredients she will cook for us and we can stay the night there
  • We should hurry because the civilised version of the town is closing down for the night
  • Her name is Susan (and the name carries some weight, gets us good quality and price
  • She is a witch
  • Ernie is bent on getting rid of destinians and the Goblin Pirate King on Cyclops Island
  • A seagull has stolen a magic ring that makes it wise and big
  • Brown Willy might be a better be than Ernie because he likes treasure. He is looking for a coral crown and the rapier of stars. He is also more honest
Regarding the Silver Fish Treasure: Freya mourned her lover and cried into a pool and all the fish in it turned to silver. It has been looted several times and moves around. She sent her lover with the reply to a message from a Destinian but the Destinian didn't like the reply and stabbed the messenger to death.

She gives me and Leif some sunburn medicine which turns us very dark brown all over.

Morning comes and we breakfast then hit the town at 8am. There are many the worse for wear on the streets.

Session 6

Some kid (jacob) leads us to a tavern/brothel.card den where Brown Willy and his crew are staying. BW will be on the top floor. His second, Jasmine (he magically smells of it) deals with us, while BW is asleep. He says they can take us in a week and a half when they've all drunk their pay.

We show him the fish and we make a deal: one for us, one for the officers, one for the crew and repeat.

We are approached by and elf, who wants to meet us soon down past the boats. Jacob says that he is a gambler.

We go down and meet him. He is Carrion. Hr asks us some questions, then tells us a lots about the Isles of Adventure

To get to the Dwarven Kings would take 6 1/2 months sailing west or 3 days east

He is here with a seer from up north, keeping an eye on the destinians.

If we meet a mermaid with a coral crown we should let her know that Carrion is in the area. He is looking for a cyclops with a magic ring. Tinker makes metal golems.

Maybe we can cure Feneric of his curse (he may be part minotaur, bottom instead of top). It would make summer easier, allowing the proper influence of the summer king.

The isle with the priestesses are shrouded in mist, the silver fish are in the rainbowed mist at the bottom of a waterfall.

Getting back her is a problem if you are not born here. Jasmine was.

On day 3 Quincey goes missing. On day 4 we get a ransom note. They want 500 sp and the silver fish. We ignore it. Duncan the barrel maker has him. He needs money because his barrels are rubbish, made from graveyard trees. He is fine there; Duncan has 3 fine daughters. Day 5 Quincey turns up and steals the fish. We catch him and get it back.

On day 6 Carrion and a blue tinged woman who doesn't speak. The invite us all for a walk in the mountains to check out a mine. The trip, towards the centre of the island, but on the safe side of the river, will take about hours each way.

She is dripping, some magic that keeps her wet out of the water. After about two hours she talks.

When we get to the mine it turns out that it is a trick to get us out of town while Destinians attack the town, as we would fight and some of us would die. From the mountain we can see 4 large and 4 small Destinian ships. After about an hour they sail off.

We walk back down to town. The Destinians have taken half a dozen pirates that they have been looking for. About 75 new pirates, in 4 bands, have come to town, in 2 galleys, since the Destinians left.

Jacob tells us that BW wants to see us. Suddenly he is in a hurry to leave. They are packing up.

We sail.

Session 7

As we sail Algie and Qincey brew up two doses of a "goop of death" ie elephant rot poison which is tarlike and they each spread it on their blades.

We notice that 1/3 of the crew are various kinds of freaks and limbless. We eventually figure out that the officers are alive, but that 3/4 of the crew are undead under control of the ship, run by the able seaman 3rd in command. He claims to be sometimes a celestial mage and sometimes not a mage.

The ship is majorly broken and held together by ship strength.

In the evening we hear sirens and all living crew leave the decks to the undead.

We get to the 6 Kings late in the morning which is way sooner than we expected. There are flocks of gargoyles. We are told that diving for the pearls attracts the gargoyles so we attempt to try it by walking gargoyles from on shore but there are basilisks on shore. We go out in the dinghy and the gargoyles come closer; getting into the water, I see that they are also coming underwater so we scram back to the ship. They stop chasing us and we get back with only the loss of a couple of undead crew.

Meanwhile the crew inform the rest of the party on the boat, that when we are turned to undead, we can be brought back to alive by the goblin queen.

There is a patch of fog approaching from the side and we eventually work out that it is our penguin friends following us.

So, we have to figure out which direction to go through. If we can figure out which is north the crew know which way to go they say, and the tallest statue is north. Billy turns into a swan and flies up to take a look. In crown of the nearest dwarf is a roc nest with a baby roc and lots of stuff which he resists the urge to take. He can also see some wrecked ships, one of which looks like a blue and white spotted monster. He lands on the side of the nest next to some non animated gargoyles and turns back to dwarf form whereupon his feet crackle and feel warm, then when he has ascertained the tallest he jumps off chased by two gargoyles, but he loses them.

So we sail out through supposedly the right gap for the rat queen island but come to the white island instead.

We go ashore and end up coming back with an extra skeleton and a skeletal rat to replace the ones we lost. We see a tusked humanoid riding a skeletal elephant heading up a valley towards a tower. There is also a scruffy twisted wooden tower sticking out of the water and someone mentions the demon prince of towers but I don't know whether that was relevant.

Another dinghy approaches the ship before we leave with two people on board, so we bring them aboard. They were sunk by a huge whale with tentacles and a spiked fin. They tell us that there are destinians on the rat queen island

The boy on the boat tells us that one of the dead crew is going to murder one of the rescuees because he has green eyes so we inform the captain.

Quincey tries to cantrip his eyes brown, but his eyes begin to weep putrified blood. We figure out that every time Quincey (earth mage) tries to use magic, even talents, while on the boat, he drains some life from the live people on the ship.

After 3 more days we get to the jungle island and the two new guys have noticeably aged.

The crew insist that we go ashore here and kill the giant alligator for lucky teeth then go to the other side of the island to see the witch to find out which direction to go and to get luck amulets.

We make an alligator bait by putting hobbit clothes (the gator is supposed to favour hobbit snacks) on an undead then putting elephant rot poison on it, and a red shirt, but we never use it.

We go ahsore to a dock with shrunken heads hanging from it. There are 6-8 wrecked ships.

All sound stops: music in the distance, frogs etc.

We see a heavily fortified wall only two foot tall and six guards hiding behind it only 1 foot tall. We can then here many small feet approaching. The little people are primitive looking with blowguns and hatchets; they have darts which put things into stasis.

Suddenly they take off as we are attacked by a giant, not quite crocodile.

Session 8

We fight the crocodily thing, which has a big clubby tail that it can hit with, and also two siblings. Then a giant crocodile herder comes along and smacks me on the back of the head a couple of times. Quincey has the bright idea to tie the giant bollock amulet to one of the crocs.

The giant is duly enraged at the croc and dives on it. This causes its backpack to explode killing all remaining enemies but only injuring some of us.

We retrieve 64 croc teeth, 32 claws, 3 skins, some guts and a ring (protection) and a dart (damage) from the guts. The giant has nothing remaining intact except giant boots but they are not magical.

We load up and get back to the boat and the crew help to start to cure the skins. (Half of the living crew are no longer living).

We sail up the river till about 11-12pm, then walk the rest of the way over the centre of the island (this has to be in the dark because of the baboons. It is about 6 miles and takes 2 hours. There are a couple of Destinian ships in the bay, and a village of 5 houses. We head for the weird one to visit yet another witch.

We trade in the croc teeth for 20 +5/+5 amulets of luck and a 4ft across wooden bowl to be used for divining which direction to go.

The witch thinks that

  • the rat queen has cursed the crew and that an elf will help us on the pirate island (maybe Carrion who already did).
  • the 4th door along the corridor, on the right is correct
  • the baker will befriend us and betray us to slay the girl, but we need to befriend him to find her sister.
  • the 3rd in command of the rats would gladly betray the two above him and not pursue us.

Quincey who is waiting outside makes friends with a dog, who tells him that there are bad men in the water with webbed fingers and water in there heads. And bad small men in the trees. He wants to show some bones to Quincey but Q is reluctant so the dog brings back a dagger sheath (preservation of duration), then a dagger (glamour) then a belt trying to convince him.

We figure that we don't have time to get back to the ship before dawn walking, but the witch says that if a celestial drinks the cocnut milk they will be able to cast wave riding. The coconuts are in a massive unstable pile and there is something dangerous inside the pile, but they can be retrieved carefully. Unfortunately Leif cannot drink so we use a funnel and some of the gut of the croc (animated by me) to pour the milk into his stomach. After nearly killing him, but leaving him immune to 9pts draining per day, this succeeds.

We now have plenty of time to get back and decide to follow the dog.

There is a patch of magical purple plants (attraction) which also cause hallucinations and a 20' tall animated tree tending them. After escaping the plants we have a few gems. We send Quincey in tied to a rope with counterspells to find the treasure but he gets put to sleep by a giant mushroom and we have to pull him out. His hair also falls out.

We surf the river back to the top and down to the ship. One of the croc skins they have been working on has become resistant to 2pts of undead drain.

We sail back to the Dwarvish Kings about mid day and use the divining bowl. We get it wrong and end up back at the pirate island. We sail back to the Dwarvish Kings, another 2 days and try again. This time we re at an island with a coral reef that the crew thinks is the right place.

Billy flies over as a swan and finds the expected lake in the middle. There is a skull fortress carved into the cliffs at the edge of the lake. There seem to be 30 or so figures manning the walls but nothing is moving. In the centre is a frozen tableau of 3 fighting a multi-headed creature. The humans look about to lose.

Some 70 or so mermen are pursuing the ship. The crew will sail round to keep them occupied. We are told that if we die on this island we can't be brought back as we will be turned to stone.

At about 4pm we go ashore with difficulty due to the reef. We take two skins to maybe throw over the head of the multi-headed thing. We walk up the riverside to the lake. There are slithery tracks everywhere and webs of shed skins through the trees that would turn us to stone if we touched them, so we all go walking unseen. As we approach the lake there are also very thick spider webs down to about 10 ft.

At the lake we hear siren singing and Q and L fail to resist. I grab Q to stop him and L is immune to water so doesn't drown. Billy controls him and brings him out. I grab the sash, put by head in the water and tell them to leave my boys alone.

Algie starts to walk around the lake. A woman of kelp and water comes out of the lake and says something like "Priestess, retrieve your fallen". but it is hard to hear. Then we remember that we have mud in our ears to resist the sirens. She slips back into the water as we come close and leaves a conch on the sand (flash flood).

We climb up the cliff. On the way up we find a stone hobbit that has been changed by basalisk gaze. We realise that our unseens have all come off.

Session 9

Billy, Algie and I climb up (unseens replaced). From the eyes of the skull waterfalls flow. At the hairline level is a worked flat area that we call the balcony. There are a door at each end and 6 stone figures.

We pick the door at the left end and go up a spiral staircase with stairs 35' wide and a 20' core, which debouches at the top of a 40' tall windowless tower in a courtyard. There is a 20' gap to a staircase down (would originally have had a drawbridge) and a larger freestanding keep a short way off.

There are tracks of heavy cloven footed bipedal entities having traversed the area repeatedly over a two year period, but not within the last month or so

The sun is setting over a battle in stone, including a 6 headed hydra.

We put across a rope to cross the gap to the stairway and go down to the courtyard. There are hoofprints down here too, and they seem to have removed many of the "humanoid" side of the battle, leaving monsters - minotaurs, bear-men, orcs, goblins etc.

The hydra has one set of its jaws around our rescuee, about to snap shut.

We spot a rat creature at the exit arch from the courtyard to the jungle of the rest of the island. Algie skewers it with a crossbow bolt and goes to investigate. Just outside the gate is a group of rat humanoids with an 8' high lizard riding beast with a collar/frill which prevent it from seeing behind it (basilisk). They work out that Algie is there and track him as he moves back into the courtyard. He keeps them distracted while I climb up onto the hydra and cover the head with one of our croc skins. Billy goes down to Leif as a swan and gets the sash so that we have the strength to move the statue of the hero (figuring that once he is released the whole scenario will start up).

Algie is cornered on top of a statue and tries to negotiate with the rats to all leave in peace, with what we came for, but they want to take him back to their queen for some side mission that we don't need (or for that matter trust). So combat happens. Algie gets feared and runs around for ages trailing a passel of rats that seems to increase in number. The rats ignore me and Billy but the basilisk takes a few pot shots at us with its gaze that we mange to avoid by dodging behind statues. This is going to end badly soon. We find a ring of peace in Billy's bag and he and I use it to make the basilisk unable to attack us and vice versa.

Session 10

Leif climbs up to the balcony. He finds a red glowing crystal and crumbled clay in a niche that must have been exposed since we were down there. It DAs as destruction and touching it nearly kills him so he leaves it, then he and Quincey come up to the top of the tower. Meanwhile the rats and Algie have come to the other side of the gap and Algie is trying to get across to the tower, followed by 30 or so rats by now.

Since Billy and I cannot be attacked by the basilisk and Algie is keeping the rats occupied Billy goes to the keep in search of another way and and I go to get Ernest

Billy finds that the large keep and contains some undead dead adventurers which he takes out with his axe.

I run over to the hydra and drag the statue of Ernest to the doorway of the keep.

Just as I get him there and the undead are dispatched the stone magic comes of and everything wakes up. The bites at where Ernest was, roars and sets off in the wrong direction. Ernest and I step into the keep with Billy. Ernest tells me that I will have 3 great children and that the second will be the best.

Inside the keep are a number of skeletal flying lizards chained up and riding gear for them. There is also a ramp out to the roof for leaving by. I control the lizards, we tie ourselves safely on, and we leave. From above we tell the rest of the party to scarper and we meet them on the balcony and then fly back to the ship. Did not loot the adventurer corpses!

We sail for 3 days and get to the island with the portal. On the way we collect disgusting undead infection goop off Algie.

We fly over the gate and recon. Our options are to try and kill Feneric or remove his curse which is preferable.

We get together with the penguins. They pay us with a huge shark to put in the pond and turned to silver. They also have a magical treestump which produces curse removal grenades. We extract 3 and they say we can have the stump. (We later arrange for the silver shark and stump to be delivered to Seagate in 9 to 12 months, on their way back).

We fly back to the gate and land near the pond. I approach Feneric and toss a grenade from point blank but miss. Algie throws one from a distance and is successful. Feneric transforms, shedding his minotaur form, of which I retrieve the horns.

He is grateful and says that if Algie returns in about a year and a day with friends, he will lead them to great treasure. Then Feneric sleeps.

We collect silver fish. Our share is the shark, one each and one spare (9500sp each)

Ernest goes through the gate to do whatever he is here for. And I go to. And the penguins to deliver a request for aid. In there I receive a mission related to my pact, and Ernest reveals that he would like to marry me.

We get back to the portal, which the nixes open for us. Back at dwarf hold it is two days later so we have missed our cloud. We negotiate payment in dwarf works each.

Some options are

multishot crossbow/catapult
potions of bow aiming
earth lesser bracelets
copper nails
weapons that will hold weapon spell while sheathed
weapons that will ignore formerly living armour or non-living armour

We feast. They then fling us back to Seagate in a magical catapult ball. (Ernest is still with us).

Session 11

So back at the guild we want to interrogate the thug in the skeleton ball. The ball seems to contain about 65 corpses. Speak to the dead won't work unless we bring the entity out and we have no way of extracting the right one.

We go to castle Chilton to report. We tell all. They want us to go and rescue the girl and all slaves. For this they will double our pay. So we still need info from the thug in the ball, and there may also be some of the Dukes guards in there who never came back.

A divination showa that there are about 85 in there, including the missing guards. Any drawn out will be draining undead. They need to be pulled out in the dark and "killed". Then their spirits will be available to be resurrected into corpses of bad guys or to be "questioned".

We do this in Castle Chilton with Duncan. All up we get out 19 ghosts including the thug and the guards and one very big nasty. Ernest is killed by the nasty and collected by a giant woman???

We question the thug and find out where the prisoners are. We also find out that some but not all of the guard are bad. The tunnels are under the charge of a werewolf and a magic using cult worshipping undead.

We send Quincey on windwalk with investeds to release the prisoners.

We climb into Gugnir's Hope and rescue the baker girl and 3 others.

A few days later the town guard at Gugnir's Hope is replaced, and the sheriff who was charmed is also rescued. He was charmed by a merchant refugee from the war up north. They smoke out the tunnels.

We get a 400sp reward from some parents.

The merchant has escaped and there is a reward out for him.

Buffs & Mil Sci

Long Term (assumed always on)

Magic (caster) Rk Effects Dur Qu Le Al Ra Bi Al
Lesser (Quincey) Rk -1 off all percentile dice rolls 2 weeks Y Y Y Y Y Y
Strength of Stone (Quincey) 8 +8 on stat 8 hrs EN EN EN EN EN EN
Witchsight (Lief) 6 See invisible, see in the dark 7 hours N N N Y N Y
Spell (Caster) Rk Effect Duration

Short Term

Magic (caster) Rk Effects Dur Qu Le Al Ra Bi Al
Spell (Caster) Rk Effect Duration

Watch Order

Marching Order

DAs

Quincey:

  • on Leif - last magic to take effect

Leif:

  • on Quincey - last magic to impact

Loot

Outgoing

550sp to fix Aleeza's undeadness
4500sp Leif resurrection
4800sp regrow Leif's fingers
600sp for Q's lesser
14sp 2 hot meals
60 gold for magical golden bread
inn at Dwarf Hold - 12 sp per person per night + 6 sp per dinner
10sp protection money to Ratface in Dwarf Hold

Quentin personal

Poisoned darts
sleep x 15
paralysis x 15
all up 300sp including 10% discount for merchant
out of combat they work, in combat 4xEN save

Incoming

Guild
WoH rk 6: x4, +4+20 (-2)
WoH rk 2: x4,
bear paws: (like rabbit feet) x2
Witch outside the guild gate
Loaves of bread: 4 doses per, cure all fatigue lost in last hour, x4 (-7 doses)
Four amulets
Rabbit's feet: x2
Undead near Ebon Farm
an invisible dagger
a lightning gem
Witch (Catelin) at Bluegrass
Amulet of Bluegrass: x8, absorbs backfires, but gets corrupted
Amulets: luck: x5, Hypericum, iron, jade, jet
Healing Poultices: x12, 8pt healing applied to a wound
Grass voodoo dolls: x3, as per silver set S9, target for enchantments, lesser, medium (-2) and greater
False ghost
Gauntlets
what else?
Dogs x3
??
Gwill, under Gugnir's hope
Necklace of Stone Giant bollocks
Titan belt of healing
Small red river stones x3
Skeleton ball
Blackened rank armour
blue waters x 3
broken glass x2
Sash of Dry Waters
Magical shield
Little girl baker
Loaves of gold bread x6
Outside gugnir's hope
Magical trap - curse of spiders
Ratface
healing poultice
Dwarfs for bath trip
hero sandwiches x 4 each (1 week food) but everybody's except Leif's got soggy.
amber to snort each
face pigments each
undead balm
Nixie
food coral
Penguins
a silver fish
unknown
ring of ion
soul dagger
Crocs
2 x skin
1 x skin resistant to draining 2pt
croc gut
ring (protection)
dart (damage)
20 +5/+5 amulets of luck
another witch
bowl of direction scrying
dog
dagger sheath (preservation of duration)
dagger (glamour)
belt
Leif is immune to 9pt draining per day
purple plants
gems (at least 3)


Interim Carrying

Item No. Qu Le Al Ra Bi Alg
Waters of Healing rk 6 28 5 5 3 5 4 4
Waters of Healing rk 2 4 2 2
Healing salves 12 2 2 2 2 2 2
Amulet of Bluegrass 8 2 1 1 2 1 1
Amulet of Luck 8 1 1 2 2 1 1
Bread 4 1 1 1 1
Rabbit feet 2 1 1
Bear paws 2 1 1
Golden bread 6 1 1 1 1 1 1
Healing poultice 6 Y
Invisible dagger Y
Lightning Gem Y
Grass voodoo dolls Y Y Y
Guantlets of Undead Y
Necklace of Stone Giant Bollocks Y
Titan belt of healing Y
Small red river stones 3 Y Y Y
Skeleton ball Y
Blackened rank armour Y
Several bottles
Sash of Dry Waters Y
Magical shield Y
Magical Trap of spiders Y
Ring of Ion Y
Soul Dagger Y
Broken Glass 2 Y Y
Blue Waters 3 Y Y Y
Undead Balm y

Tasks

  1. The Duke: Job No. 1 At Gugnir's Hope, west of Seagate there have been unspecified problems with the ruins under the town. The sheriff, who is definitely the Baron's man, seems to be "not investigating". We should check it out, without raising any alarm, and report back.
  2. Silver Wind: some creature is at risk of returning from the Gatar Depression and wants to talk to the group of adventurers he has seen in the night sky. Far south on the edge of the Gatar Depression there is movement of sand creatures trying to animate a long dead whale to fly out to sea.
  3. Quincey should talk to his Aunt, the one that nobody mentions, she has a secret from the time that he was born.
  4. Putting the elemental back into the oven
  5. Save the old woman outside the guild from the binder working for Quando
  6. Catelin: Deal with the water creature in the millpond at Bluegrass
  7. Save the dog who is not a dog from the witch at Bluegrass

People

An Elven Ranger named Silver Wind - our employer
A witch outside the guild
Catelin the Witch at Bluegrass

Places

Ebon Farm (near Goodblood), work in woods and the source of Witch Nails, that slow down mages if nailed into their footprints.
Bluegrass
Gugnir's Hope