Burning of Nihlus

Scribe Notes

Summary

GM: Sam
Season: Winter 824 WK
Night: Wednesday
Location: Massey
Level: High + More

Party

1. Flamis - Mil Sci
2. Phaeton - Scribe
3. Ben - Party Leader
4. Rowan
5. Jaycey
6. Sooty

Employer

Neloth, God of Nihlus

Mission

To save the Nihlus vault from destruction / theft. Saving Nihlus itself is a bonus.

Scribe Notes

Session 1

Met up in the meeting room having decided to go on an adventure because Rowan was going even though I still had things to work on. Had already picked up a Greater for that very purpose. There, along with Rowan, was Ben Gaul, Sooty, Jaycey aka Gerald, and Flamis. Military Scientist - Flamis, Party Leader - Ben. Scribe - me.

  Jaycey - 'The Party leader has a dignity stat'

  Guild Security - 'Now the appointment of the obligatory scribe'
  Phaeton, while sighing - 'Where's my pen?'

We met up with Jakos, who most of us had met before. He was here to provide transport and told us that 'horrible horrible things were going to happen to a city in the Empire and our job was to save it' - and it could happen at any moment. The city in question was in the midst of the Empire, it had a population of 20-30 million people in it, and occupied an area of roughly 250 square miles. Our employer was an entity called Neloth and we would be leaving immediately. That caused a mad rush as some of us had things that needed to take care of first but it wasn't long before all of us were ready. Jakos opened a portal gate and we went through.

The Gate popped us out about ten to fifteen miles from the edge of the city - scale was difficult to ascertain but, from what we could see, most of the buildings were three floors tall and were well cared for. Some areas, including the central area were walled off. That turned out would be our destination as fast horses were provided and we rode into that area. As we went, we noticed that many of the buildings were built from blue marble rock with gold coloured streaks in it. Probably not real gold, it just looked like it.

The central area was terraced and ascended up in concentric tiers with a castle like basilica at the very top. It was that which was our ultimate destination. We were led inside and encountered an eight and a half foot tall being, wearing full plate, and working his way through a veritable mountain of paperwork. While we waited, I DAed the floor and discovered that, this room at least, was under a consecration to a deity called Neloth.

It turned out this was the actual deity, not an Avatar. He had built (created?) this city and it was also called Neloth. A month or so ago, he had done a future reading and had seen the city being consumed in flame with the result of complete destruction. He wasn't sure what had caused it but a siege was suspected caused by entities unknown. This led to a side discussion of determinacy and free will and we concluded that there was an extremely high probability of this event occurring in every alternate timeline. Our task was to defend a vault or strong room that should not be opened and ensure that the contents did not fall into the wrong hands. He claimed it could not be opened. Of course Jaycey wanted to test that and I started wondering if it could be penetrated by going through alternate higher dimensions or through planes such as the Ethereal, Shadow, or Astral.

From the last time I was here, this time last year, there had been no stars in the sky owing to some sort of insubstantial dimensional barrier around the plane. The plane itself consisted a sphere that was 43.5 thousand miles in radius, had a day of 24 hours, and accompanied by two moons and a sun. Now, something was causing the barrier to have holes in it. Whether these 'holes' corresponded to a star, or was revealing a star field, was not known at this stage but lots of observations had been done. With the aid of my planetarium I was able to later establish that these 'stars' rotated around at the same rate as the planet so it was like they were geostationary - which seemed rather unusual. The time that the barrier went up was equivalent to our War of Tears and some magical events had occurred as these 'stars' appeared. Whether or not there was a connection or just a coincidence was unknown at this stage.

Basically we could do what we liked as long as if it was relevant to our primary purpose. There were other groups, doing other things which were also relevant to the survival of the city. He suspected that it could be a force from the Old Empire that we could be dealing with. He also offered to make us immortal. In Flamis's case, her soul could move from vessel to vessel.

  Jaycey - 'Ooooh. She could become a water mage'

Once dismissed from Neloth's presence, we were sent to see Landon, our commander. He led us downwards into a large room that was full with documents. On the way down, we discovered that the blue marble rock was magical with a Nature of 'Complicated'. Apparently there used to be a mountain of the rock here before the Sealing.

Basically the chain of command was: Neloth, him then us. And his job was to provide what we needed, tell us what needed to be done, and provide us with information. He certainly did the last one - and it was a LOT of information pertaining to the city and what resources we had available i.e. four Kastrian Forges, three coven groves, and ten mercenary groups. This was going to take a lot of time to assimilate so I requested a pianoforte and a supply of tea. But, before we started that, we went to get our Greaters and Lessers from the nearest coven as well as our requested equipment, such as an Amulet of Diamonds etc.

Session 2

Afterwards we headed out looking for a more permanent Base of Operations for the party, settling on a house of the edge of a residential district near the industrial zone. In the morning we assigned some mercenaries to a very important warehouse to start some fortification and defence work on it. With the mercenaries underway we headed out to explore the city, learn travel routes, source supplies and do some counter spying.

The next morning Landon turns up with a guy named Ted. Apparently Ted now lives with us for our convenience. Giving Ted some instructions we headed out. Sooty went for a meeting with Neloth and the rest of us headed out to investigate the Ritualistic sites that had been mentioned in our briefing.>br>

At the closest site to us, which happened about middle of the timeline of rituals, we were greeted by a regiment of guards who gave us all a specialized counterspell, and headed downstairs. We found ourselves resisting an aura of Dread which emanated from a waxy ash outline of a person in the middle of a runic circle. Continuing to investigate we learned that the waxy ash, is a formly living avatar of Engliher. A name we recognise from the Towers in the city. The other things we learned was that the circle was last used to preform a ‘disposal’ ritual. At this point Sooty turned back up looking a little beaten and bruised.
Some divinating of the area is done and we got visons of people in barb wire clothes, with implements in their hands, a few of them having to many hands. A skeleton starts to form and muscle begins to form shortly before the form ignites. Rowan comes out with just one sentence:>br>

 “Cultists in Barb wire bikinis”

Heading to the second site, which was created last night, We found a similar situation, expect the aura impact was Fury, the runic circle was huge taking up an entire large room. We also found multiple piles of ash and souls that were not present in the other site. Cause of Death for the ash was Rampant Disintegration. WE also found the Last Ruitual used in the circle was, Divine Reforging. During this the souls were yanked away by an unknown force.

Going out to ask the guards some questions we found the entire regiment of 20 guards dead. A voice called out to us so ask some quick questions through ventriloquism we were greeted by a group of Crows who had taken down the attackers. The Attackers were a group of six men associated with Engliher carrying very basic equipment and looking very average, uncomfortably too average. Getting a feeling we went back to check the ritual site and found the ash piles gone and key information had been ‘cleaned up’ and the last magic run through the circle was Disposal.

We did a quick check of the oldest site the answer some hunches, finding a tiny circle with an aura effect of sorrow. Learning all this we made the decision to go and check in with Neloth.

Session 3

As it turned out that's not what we did. We just returned to the small mansion we had been allocated.

Next morning we discovered we had been allocated a woman by the name of Jill, who was well versed in magics that we were not, as an assistant. We also decided to go and investigate those mana cleaning towers, known as the Engliher Towers, that were interspersed through the city. It seemed that they were leaking a black sludge like substance that had interesting properties after refinement. Also, each tower was built around a quasimagical crystal core that directed and purified the mana flow. It wasn't advisable to cast near these crystal cores as they strongly affected the local mana flow, directing it through the core. Presumably that black sludge was the impurities found in the processed mana. So, we got a tour of the Tower from one of the attending mages but they weren't able to explain how it worked, mainly because they didn't know. Neloth probably did know but he wasn't telling. Also, any piece of the crystal that broke off the core promptly disappeared so there weren't any samples for analysis. We were able to obtain some of that black stuff though.

Later on that day, there was an explosion, and when we got there we saw that there was a large crater where a building had stood. At the bottom of this crater was a mirror. Jaycey and Sooty flew down to investigate and discovered there were figures in the black, reflective, surface of the mirror. The back side was also black and reflective. They tried talking to them. At one point, an arm came out and tried to pull Sooty in but he managed to prevent that from happening. we thought there was going to be an explosion but nothing happened.

A soul flew out and we flew off after it. Behind us, the crater and mirror vanished, replaced by the building that had been destroyed as if nothing had happened. A passing wizard was able to catch and contain it and, given what had just happened, we decided it was time to report to Neloth and tell him what we had found out.

Neloth was able to reconstruct the body that the soul had been in. It was a male elf and he had been killed, either as a sacrifice or a prisoner in order to contain a shard of Engliher. It seems there are a lot of these shards around and some entity was attempting to gather them up and put them all back together. This, we were told, would be very very bad. It was discovered Jill had a shard as well.

As for the stars, they weren't suns, but globes of pure mana. Getting near one would cause instant death.

Mil-Sci

Daily pattern

‘’How much time does the party spend sleeping, eating, travelling, doing rituals, etc. each day’’\

• Morning and Evening one hour ritual time each.

Travel Magics

‘’What travel magic options does the party have, how far per cast/or per day if duration is longer than usual travel time.’’ ‘’Can the party eat/sleep/etc on the mode of transport.’’

• Wings: 45 mph, 300+ miles range.
• Wildfires: 50 mph, 350+ miles range.
• Instilling Flight: 60 mph, 600+ range Duration 10.5 hrs.

Watch Order

Day Watch. ‘’Used when stationary, or on a larger transport such as a ship’’
First - ??
Second - ??
Third - ??

Night watch
First - ??
Second - ??
Third - ??

Marching Order

Skirmish Formations (Front)
Double File	Single File

Buffs

Rowan has Circle Magic which means long term buffs maybe cast as a group ritual, each participant may contribute a spell and each covers the fatigue cost of the buffs on themselves.
(Same spells 'add' increasing rank until 20 then extra ranks act like Enhance Enchant.)

General Buff Notes

Buffs listed in the table don't need to be detailed, other buffs not on the table must be mentioned at the time they are cast.
Y means always on, N/- means never on, 'Sit.' means when the party has time for buffs before a fight.
Weapon Spells which weapon/s it is going on normally should be noted also

Long duration buffs

Magic	Rk	Effects	Dur	Flamis	Phaeton	Ben	Rowan	Jaycey	Sooty	Rowan's Golems	Jaycey's nightmare	?
Disguise Illusion	15	Ht +/- 15%, Wt +/- 30%, Voice and Clothing, Gender or Race. PB +5	16 Hrs / 12 Days (Perm)	?	?	?	?	?	N	?	?	?
Iron Shield (So)	20	+42% Defence if using a shield, +21% Defence if not. Extra counterspells	10.5 / 18 Hours	?	?	?	?	?	Spc	?	?	?
Thermal Control (So)	18	5 towards gauge 7, reduce fire/cold by 5.	19 / 34 Hours	?	?	?	?	?	Tal	?	?	?
Primordial Armour (So)	20	125 Magical ablative.	21 / 36 Hours	?	?	?	?	?	Y	?	?	?
Armour of Ithan (Ro)	15	160pts ablative	16 Hours	?	?	?	?	?	N	Y	?	?
Shadowform (BG)	20	+42/21 defense	10 1/2 Hours	?	?	?	?	?	N	?	?	?
Ash Armour	##	EN Armour, doesn't stack with other sources.	? Hours	?	?	Y	Y	Y	Y	?	?	?
Inner Flames of Purity	##	Some stun/poison stuff.	? Hours	?	?	Y	Y	Y	Y	?	?	?
Eleutherian Ward	##	Less encumberance.	? Hours	?	?	Y	Y	Y	Y	?	?	?
Strength of Stone	##	Extra EN	? Hours	?	?	Y	Y	Y	Y	?	?	?
Name (??)	##	????	? Hours	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Name (??)	##	????	? Hours	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Name (??)	##	????	? Hours	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Short duration buffs

Magic	Rk	Effects	Dur	Flamis	Phaeton	Ben	Rowan	Jaycey	Sooty	?
Enhance Enchant	15	15 Ranks to Duration, Damage, Range, Area	17 Pulses	-	-	-	-	-	-	?
Heroism (JC)	15	+16% Def 16 Die modifier to Fear Checks, +16% to reaction rolls	150 Mins	?	?	?	?	Y	?	?
Weapon of Steel	12	Can hit incorporeal, ignore 4 protection, +13% strike chance.	? Mins	?	?	?	?	?	Sit	?
Durability	15	+3ft +2en	160 Mins	?	?	?	?	?	N	?
Strgnth of Darkness	20	+11 ST	210 Mins	?	?	?	?	?	Sit	?
Light/dark Sword	20	21sc 5 dmg	25 Mins	?	?	?	?	?	N	?
Name ???	??	????	? Mins	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Permanent Effects the GM needs to know

Magic	Rk	Effects	Dur	Flamis	Phaeton	Ben	Rowan	Jaycey	Sooty	?
Rank of See Invis	??	????	? Mins	?	?	12	20	20	20	?
Ranger Detect Ambush	??	-5% per opposing Ranger rank.	? Mins	?	?	94	93	?	143%	?
Sixth Sense	??	????	? Mins	?	?	?	107%	110%	131%	?
Counter-Shadowing	??	-5% per opposing Spy rank.	? Mins	?	?	?	/75%	~95%/71%	126%	?
Name?	??	????	? Mins	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Name?	??	????	? Mins	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Buffs for the Mercenaries

Magic	Rk	Effects	Dur	Golem Handlers	The Once Dead Legion	Lady Zavarins' Tested	Scorch Marked Battalion	Heavy Earth	Bargus and Jargus Demolition	Clockmakers of Darus	Xaviers' Titan Slayers	Hidden March	Bob and Bob	Jill and Jill	TBC	TBC
Defence Magic	??	????	? Hours	N	Y?	Y	Y	Y	?	?	Y?	?	N?	Y	?	?
Travel Magic	??	????	? Hours	N	N?	Y	Y?	N	N	?	Y?	?	N?	Y	?	?
Mechanician Skill	??	????	? Hours	?	?	?	?	?	20	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Warrior Skill	??	????	? Hours	?	?	?	?	?	20	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Name?	??	????	? Hours	?	?	?	?	?	20	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
Name?	??	????	? Hours	?	?	?	?	?	20	?	?	?	?	?	?	?

Calendar

Winter
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
	Samhain
Frost (7)
			1	Guild Meeting	2	Explore City	3	Investigate Rituals	4		5		6
	7		8		9		10		11		12		13
	14		15		16		17		18		19		20
	21		22		23		24		25		26		27
	28		29		30
Snow (8)
							1		2		3		4
	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	DoC 2	21	DoC 3	22	DoC 4	23	DoC 5	24	DoC 6	25	DoC 7
	26	DoC 8	27	DoC 9	28	DoC 10	29	DoC 11	30	Twelfth Night
Ice (9)
											1		2
	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