The Engines of God

Summary

Adventure The Engines of God
GM Stephen
Season Winter 823 WK
Night Monday
Location New Windsor
Area The Grand Tour
Level High+

Party

Bromli - Dwarf (m) Namer - Nick MS
Mario - Human (m) Mind Mage - Dean PL
Mortimer - Halfling (m) Wicca - Martin
Tsayoi - Giant (m) Lava Mage - Chris C Scribe
Cher - Saurime (f) Binder - Sean E

Employer: Marindel Glynran

Mission: Save the world(s)

Payment: 40,000sp each or equivalent in training/knowledge

Scribe Notes

Duesday 18th Vintage 823wk

A courier races from Seagate to the Guild well paid to follow odd instructions. Arriving at the gates he asks for someone to accept a message on behalf of the guild, the gate guards call for an officer who calls for a senior Namer. After due precautions the officer declares she will accept the message, as the courier stretches out his hand as if in delivery he is surprised to see a fine scroll case appear in it. After an awkward 10 second pause, the officer receives a subtle signal and accepts the scroll, she says it is to be opened by one of the guild members summoned to a tower two years ago, she knows them and will track one down. Looking relieved, the courier leaves, enjoying a nice pie from the Halfling vendor near the gate. A couple of hours later the Namer's report states the officer is unharmed but unknown mind magic planted a 'meme' in her mind. The scroll case has an inherent and nasty doom on anyone except one of five specific people who opens it.

A week later, one of the 5 is tracked down and under supervision the case is opened, contents divined and letter read.

To the adventuring mercenaries who rendered service 279 days ago,
I require field agents capable of surviving investigation into confidential matters on other worlds
that are pertinent to the continued stability and potentially existence of Alusia.
You will be recompensed for your service.
You should bring a learned scholar who can understand complex matters for you.
The door to accept this offer shall remain open for another 9 days then I shall seek other agents.
- M. G.

An astrology reading was done on the intentions and good will of this potential employer. The Astrologer reported a clear High Elven answer in condescending tones which he did not appreciate "Yes, of course this is genuine. Stop wasting time."

Duesday 1st Frost 823wk - Guild Meeting Day

We all met at the Guild. We have Tsayoi the Giant warrior, Cher the Suarime socialist, Mario the Wine Merchant, Mortimer the Hobbit sage, Bromli the Dwarf fighter and Mebh the Air Mage Warrior.

We agree party roles with Mario as our erstwhile leader, Tsayoi as the scribe and Bromli as the Military Scientist (he can be Mil Sci while in combat), so we fulfill the Guild Requirements.

We get prepared for the mission and get Greater's, Lucky Numbers, Healing potions and the like while at the guild and its relative safety. Once ready we are all prepared, we exit the guild and check out the scroll. We find its magically challenging and so after some investigation we get the message embedded in it and we head off to Old Seagate.

QUOTE: Bromli about Mario "Mario's only concerned with Back Door entry"

We get to the intended destination and enter a portal to get to the Tower of Marindel. We initially encounter Timothy Zylie "Timmy" or "not now Timmy", who is the apprentice to Marindel. He leads us to Marindel who spins us a tale. We listen intently and we note that Mortimer and he are forming a philosophical bromance over the details being discussed - while comparing published papers and the like.

Anyway, the story is thus; there is a Cosmic Multiverse involving the ascension of entities to be the gods of the next dimensions and such events. Anyway, there has been some issues with wear and tear on the God Engines which power the worlds, and more importantly the god Engine for Alusia which is being impacted, detrimentally by the degradation and ongoing destruction of the linked plane Klikeg which is having unexpected consequences.

The mission is that we need to cross to Kirkyl and break the link from that plane to Alusia without causing further issues to Alusia and ourselves. The hard part is that breaking the link will make our return to Alusia problematic and so a philosophical discussion ensues about how to do the task and live.

We discover that the God engine(s) for Alusia are conceived as a Rose Garden where minor changes in the garden may have significant effects on Alusia. We obviously are concerned with protecting the garden.

Plans are discussed, thoughts shared, options posited and much cogitation. Discussion of escape options continued including astral and elemental planes (fire, air), and call Mistress. Further discussion of practical considerations for travel across Kilkek including cold weather gear and provisions as we need to journey to a polar region to access the spindle.

Marindel creates a one-week duration portal from his tower to a workshop at Mortimer's Gravesend property outside New Seagate. Party get busy acquiring provisions, consumables, gear etc. Mortimer and Cher work on safety platform for descending access tube.

Duesday 8th Frost 823wk

(One week of prep later)

8x Celestial Banish scrolls
2x Max resist cold scrolls -36
10x charges of -20 resist cold
1 x special celestial Banish scroll (so Mortimer can cast it)
Cold weather clothes and provisions.

Mario dream walks party south, stopping for a tryst in Damascus before continuing on to the tepui-top Elven commune of Bandorian. We take a break among drugged out, fruitarian, acid head elves that make their most tree hugging Alfheim brethren look like slash and burn industrialists.

We fly out NW and spend the day traveling 600 miles past other tepui that are "places of the gods" and apparently quite dangerous.

Late in the day we arrive at a point in the jungle near a lake where the Klikeg Ogres have settled. They have scattered villages around a restored zigguart dedicated to a old fertility goddess that the Ogres have adopted as their own. We spend an evening with the Ogres and Mario... indulges his particular vices with an adventurous ogress.

Unfortunately the Ogres know little of the polar regions of Klikeg, but they do warn against journeying south (they have worse stories about this area and there are probably fewer landmasses), firming up our decision to head north once we arrive. They do confirm that Klikeg has "great hunting" from its big game, sabre toothed whatzits, and ferocious sea monsters. Oh joy.

We clear away the rubble from the area of the broken rune portal until we have a clear 30ft circle and then Tsayoi puts down the portal engaging device and we feel pulled far away.

somewhere new

We arrive at the other end of the portal after a long time, almost too long but we made it!

We look down and see below we're standing on a solid block of ice, in fact a plug directly above what appears to be the void - so we'll just move on me thinks. We look around and see 2 large figures moving away from us towards a domed area surrounding the broken swords world void cruiser. We decide to head north away from them in order to avoid contact.

We're almost successful and get some 500ft away before we're spotted and we speed up and take evasive maneuvers to avoid enemy response. We spend a lot of time ziging and zaging but finally get away. We come to a mile high cliff almost at the end of our flight and we land and camp for the night.

9th of Frost

We breakfast and continue 'northwards'. Around midday we note that we are in a relatively calm area with sever weather crowding in around us, with firestorm fronts converging on our position. We smartly enter a bubble of force to get through the weather. We head through the nasty maelstrom event and bounce off at least 1 huge air elemental but avoid the combat area between Fire/Air vs Earth/Water.

We continue and just before sunset we espy an island below with lights and a nice jetty, along with a small figure gesturing at us (at which point our bubble of force 'pops'). We decide to go down and see who they are.

Its a small man named Tanto who is the assistant to Master Ricardo Volde, who is 'expecting us'. This is a place of dreams - a fantasy island of sorts. We share a dinner and have a great nights sleep in quarters 'tailored' to us as individuals. Night Passes and mario gains a dream point.

10th of Frost

We depart and continue north and 5 hrs later while flying we are accosted by revenants causing us fear. Mortimer deafens us to their pleas and we continue onward. We pass dusk and find a spire of rock above the water which we alight upon. Sleep

11th Frost

We fly northwards and the bump of north gets wider and wider, which leads us to think that we're getting closer.

We travel some ways and see in the distance a winter palace / city that appears to be several miles across. We suspect that the location we seek is that, in there, under there or some other option, therefore we head towards it.

About a mile out we land to show our good intentions and we travel across a barren icy waste towards the huge set of buildings. There appears a large number of ice entity 'citizens' on the walls watching us approach with some curiosity it would seem.

We note a series of figures emerge and travel towards us and we slow our movement to wait. It eventuates that these are ice creatures/elementals and some or up to 40ft tall while most are around our heights.

The close and stop around 200ft away and we send our mind mage, all round nice guy, Mario forward to be our spokesperson as everyone likes him. The language problem is an issue and so Mario projects images to them to establish communication. We've apparently been ruining perfect ice gardens while we have been ice traversing towards the city and they are pretty miffed.

Things go well until they don't and the big 40ft tall creature (let's call him Kazansky - or The Iceman), grabs Mario and starts moving away while telling his minions to deal with us. A short fight ensues with us avoiding wholesale decimation in favour of targeted release method which succeed in melting the hand holding Mario allowing him his freedom, while some of us took a whole lot of ice projectile/shard damage from the opposition.

We take flight above the danger zone and assess what we need to do. We espy the location we're looking for in the north of the city in a location that looks unassuming. We are wary of going in there as the city is well aware of us and its dangerous for us to approach. We cogitate how to go where we need to while surviving the entry and travel through to where we need to go.

We observe, plan and finally, while invisible enter the plaza. Nothing happens as we land so we continue. We enter the center of the area and find a layer of Illusions covering the area. We use magic and pass through to a glyphed stone cover over the end of the proported shaft. We enter the next level down and we have more issues. We work out how to avoid the banishment and annihilation wards and we start down the shaft. We travel for 8 hours before we stop and rest.

12th Frost

We travel downwards, carefully and at measured pace. The day passes.

13th Frost

We travel downwards, carefully and at measured pace. The day passes. We should be there by now!

14th Frost

We travel downwards, carefully and at measured pace. Sod it. We drop the flying and drop like stones.

15th Frost

We arrive at a winding area. we gain entry and enter the centre of the world and find a complex of mud pools

16th Frost

We experiment and get some understanding of where we are. We wander around and find the old masters chambers that look deserted (by an order of many many years) and it appears he/she left and went elsewhere when the plane started getting drained. - perhaps they were 'disestablished'. Anyway nothing interesting is found. We experiment and undertake what is required of us.

17th Frost

We enact our plans and enable a port through to the abyss. We fly down to the ground and then immediately banish to hopefully the nearest planar boundary to Alusia. We banish to the Alusian boundary mesa area. We unexpectedly come to a huge chasm and a buttressed suspension bridge across it. We fly closer and prepare for action. The are a number of figures upon the bridge and we think things are about to get loud. we close on the bridge and some of the guards come out to meet us. It appears that it is the swords world border guard which is there to keep out the nasties from the Alusian side.

We engage in conversation and almost come cropper when we don't have the appropriate passes, so we proceed to attempt a bribe. But .... things almost fail to work (note when bribing entities try not to use the currency of the enemy realm) but we get through the field of wards. Almost at the end the jig is up and the alarm is raised.
We flee a while, then land and banish again. We get to the base of the Alusian mesa and encounter 'Moonlight' (a completely black man) who was guarding the area from 'someone coming from the direction of the 'Sword Worlds Confederation'. He would like our help to deal with a problem assaulting House Kerberoth.
We get to House K and we go see the family. Apparently some angels have come down and starting to lay down some certainty in the land of chaos. They would like us to encourage the tresspassers to move on and go annoying someomne else. The area involves Fire Angels and Thrones and a major angel named Beburos, the angel at the end of the earth?
We rest and recuperate for three (3) days. Followed by 1 day of travel along a defined path. We get to the Heights of Chaos and see what we think are our quarry and so we move onwards.

21st Frost

we wander down the switchback toward the 'excavation', encounter 2 thrones and they don't respoond to parley from mortinmer. we withdraw up the previous cliff and wait. An angel turns up and we get frstrated with it and then it goes on its way back to the twon it came from.

We proceed to annoy the thrones to get them to come to us and we succeed and they come at us apace. A fight ensues.

19th Frost

20th Frost

We get back to ALusia

Locations

Klikeg Ogre Plane. Marindel claims they're part of the Sworld World Federation, their gods are dead and the Calimar use the Ogres as elite ground troops. High rank warriors & MilSci, decent weapons & armour, not much shaping, advanced Alchemy (much better than ours), 'cauldron magic' & potions instead of investeds. Ogre-Magi competent in colleges (Namer, Mind, E&E, Celestial, Earth, ...?) and using potioned spells from each other. Honourable in their own way. Use Orcs and Goblins as archers and auxiliaries. Didn't appear to recognise Dwarves, Humans, or Elves but knew of Devils/Demons and didn't like them. At least 3 mages, officers and a dozen warriors escaped to Tac. Likely to be healing and regrouping to try again somehow.

Buffs & Mil Sci

Lucky Numbers

Tsayoi 86 Cher 49 Mario 70 Mortimer 58

Long Term (assumed always on)

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Duration	Br	Ma	Mo	Ts	Ch
Strength of Stone (Ts)	16	+16 PS or EN	17 hrs				Y
FireArmour (Ts)	14	60pts fire dmg protection	15 hrs				Y	Y
FireProofing (Ts)	8	Prot vs Normal Fire	9 hrs				Y	Y
Ice Traversal (Ch)	20	Travel over ice and/or snow without slipping or sinking in. (+7 TMR on flat ice)	7 hrs	Y	Y	Y	Y	Y
Familial Defence (Mo)	18	+43 Def, absorb 3 DP/Strike	10 hrs			Y		Y
Instil Flight (Ritual)	15	0-80mph, 800 lbs lift, 16 hrs/day	16 weeks			Y
Spell (?)	?	?	?

Short Term

Magic (caster)	Rk	Effects	Dur	Ts
Weapon of Flame (Ts)	16	+17SC and +8DM (+16 vs cold/water/undead)	21 Mins	Y
Spell (?)	?	?	?
Spell (?)	?	?	?
Spell (?)	?	?	?
Spell (?)	?	?	?

Misc

Dance (Cher): 5 mins dancing every morning for Reroll 1 failed MR or ignore 1 stun

Snail Shell (Cher): 1 each, crush to undo one terrible consequence

Watch Order

Hour:	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12

Marching Order

Skirmish Formations (Front)
Default	Single File

Calendar

Winter: Frost 823 (7)
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
		Samhain	1	Guild Meeting Seagate	2		3		4		5		6
	7		8		9		10		11		12		13
	14		15		16		17		18		19		10
	21		22		23		24		25		26		27
	28		29		30		1		2		3		4
Winter: Snow 823 (8)
	5		6		7		8		9		10		11
	12		13		14		15	Solstice	16		17	The Duke of Carzala's Winter Ball	18	Yuletide
	19	Days of Chaos	20	DoC2	21	DoC3	22	DoC4	23	DoC5	24	DoC6	25	DoC7
	26	DoC8	27	DoC9	28	DoC10	29	DoC11	30	Twelfth Night	1		2
Winter: Ice 823 (9)
	3		4		5		6	First Plough	7		8		9
	10		11		12		13		14		15		16
	17		18		19		20		21		22		23
	24		25		26		27		28		29		30