Homecoming Part 8

 Ginjo and Sukh spent several weeks resting in Ronkan and giving their retinues the chance to celebrate their accomplishments. The Traldar cautiously ventured outside their houses after nightfall, relieved that the walking dead had finally found rest. But there was clearly still a great evil to confront.  As Ginjo had predicted, the tentacled monster became more active.  Sukh and Ginjo, after conferring with Ben-Kraal, decided that they should give the Hutakaan a chance to join in destroying the common enemy.

So one fine day, Ginjo, Sukh and company made their way to Byxata.  They were welcomed.  "We knew that you would come when you were ready for the truth."  Several Hutakaan families opened up their homes.  The high Priestess Kfaz invited the bakemono shamans to share her dwelling.

Kfaz was reluctant to join with the Traldar for any reason.  "It was their ancestors who released the monster in the first place, why should we expect a better outcome this time?"

An agreement was made that the party would meet Kfaz at the temple.  And the party would travel via Ronkan so Sukh could ask Ben-Kraal to contribute help.

As Kfaz had predicted, Ben-Kraal refused. "We risked our neck with the ghosts and zombies, it's their turn!"  He also warned Sukh against leaving the temple with the Hutakaans during thenight. "Enter in daylight and leave in daylight."

So Sukh and Ginjo together with their followers, met the Hutakaans and entered the temple.  Sukh had made a careful and so they explored the crypt and other places the party had visited with the Traldars.  There was no obvious way to track down and fight the tentacled monster, except by going into the dark pit.   In discussing various options, Kfaz learned that Ginjo had taken books from the temple library and the two began to argue.  The argument seemed ready to come to blows when Sukh noticed several tentacles emerging from the pit. Dripping with sticky slime, one tentacle caught Irak and another caught Dew Blossom.  Immediately their companions charged with their weapons and began hacking at the hideously writhing appendages.  The tentacles were like thick, slippery leather.  All but the strongest blows slid or bounced off harmlessly.  Meanwhile additional tentacles emerged until the entire monster, a huge green mass, a bloated stomach studded with teeth and dripping slime and acid, crawled out of the pit.  The heroes charged toward this horror, shielding their helpless friends from the gnashing teeth while hacking at the disgusting monster.  One-by-one, they cleaved the tentacles from the body of the monster, leaving it helples and then stabbed it with spears until it fell still.  Only when the monster was dead, did the Hutakaans approach it.  They had seen the large key embedded in its gullet.  And when Ginjo also reached for the key, a struggle ensued.  Ginjo slipped out of the Hutakaan's grip and dropped her onto the body of the monster.  The gelatinous mass jiggled and slid into the pit, carrying the hutakaan with it.

Later, Sukh was say that more outrageous than anything else was Kfaz's cavalier attitude with regard to her own assistant.  The high priestess sniffed, "It seems the key will remain in the temple for now."

"Don't you want to do anything about this?"  Sukh demanded.  And then Sukh asked for assistance in getting into the cage.

They lowered Sukh into the pit and a darkness so deep, he couldn't see his own legs.  He asked them to lower him under and then pull him right back up.  The darkness, below the top of the pit, was complete, even with a torch, but Sukh re-emerged unscathed with the torch still burning.    He asked them to lower him further and then to pull him up when he shook the chain. Bo Jing and Saw turned the winch until the chain went slack.  A few seconds later the chain began to shake and they winded it back up.  

Sukh was relieved but disappointed.  "I reached the bottom and it was still dark.  I couldn't see anything and the ground was slimy beneath me.  I listened for the breathing of our companion, but heard nothing.  Sadly, she must be dead."

Kfaz and the other priestess shrugged and left the temple.  The sky, visible through the hole in the dome, was still dark and so the party, remembering Ben-Kraal's warning, remained in the temple to wait the dawn.  

As the Hutakaans were gone, Sukh began laughing and pulled out the slime-cvered key that he'd tucked into his tunic.  It was dark at the bottom of the pit, he confessed, but not pitch black.  In the flickering light of the torch, he'd seen the crumbled body of the unfortunate hutakaan priestess, and , emerging from the dissolving  mass of the monster, the large, oddly-shaped key.  Phubi revealed that sshe, too, had located, a fantastic schedule, a set of scrolls with powerful healing powers, including a chant for calling someone back from the brink of death to full health.

About an hour later, as the sky turned pink, the party left the temple, very cautious and weapons at the ready.  They were ambushed-- badly-- by a group of Traldars waiting on the roof.  One spear glanced off Gentle Foot's shoulder.  The Traldars called out an apology.  Sukh was angry and suspicious, but accepted the Traldars' apology on the condition that they return to Ronkan with the Traldars leading the way.

The Traldar complied, and by their conduct when they reached Ronkan, proved that they were not shapeshifters.  Most of the warriors of Ronkan were gone, and those that remained were in an expectant mood.  The reason, one giddy Traldar matron revealed, is that the day had come to extinguish the Hutakaan.  Having learned that Kfaz was gone from Byxata, Bem-Kraal and a large party had rode out at dawn to attack the Hutakaans.  Without their leadere to protect and lead them, the jackal-headed tyrants would be slaughtered!  Every dog bitch and pup!

Sukh resolved not to tell the Traldars about the key.

Homecoming Part 4

 The silver needle, when inserted into Kwam-Rak carpet, slipped out of Ginjo's and, seemingly with a mind of its own, began to embroider the carpet with a golden thread.  The thread grew as the needle worked, passing over every square inch of the carpet to add line, shading, definition, even the illusion of flowing water and fluttering leaves.  The abstract shapes became a map and a beautiful landscape on which well-known landmarks were clearly visible including Lake Pasar, the Cave of Discord and hundreds of villages including the Kwam-Rak compound.  Pasar itself was only a small village and the map did not show the empires to the west or their roads.  The needle finished its work in the jungle near Lake Pasar, seemingly at the exact point where Ginjo now stood in the Monastery of the Two-Fold Path.  Ginjo and Sukh agreed that they must show the carpet-map to their bakemono friends.

By the time they reached the bakemonos' lair in the forest, the needle had moved. It had embroidered a pathway, using tiny letters in a script form of bakemono: "Now is the time for the dear ones to reconcile and return home."

Sukh and Ginjo discussed the matter with their bakemono friends and decided that they would use the carpet to find their way to the bakemono homeland together.  Sheng and Shek, plus Irak and a few other sohei would join them.

Relying on the carpet as a guide, the travelers returned to the Caves of Discord and the Shrine of the death cult, where they found a blocked tunnel.  Working diligently, they moved enough boulders and rubble to reveal a passage deep under ground.  After provisioning themselves with torches from the stores of the death cult, they ventured into the hidden underground highway.  They followed its course for many miles, soon realizing that they must conserve their torches by allowing the bakemono to lead the way while the darkness-blind humans made do with the light of glowing embers.

They spent two nights in the tunnel, crossed an underground river and found themselves in a maze of smaller tunnels.  As with the expansion of Pasar into a large town and the blockage in the shrine of the death cult, the carpet-map did not show this presumably more recent construction.  The maze seemed to be part of an abandoned mine.  The party lit additional torches to find their way and fought off attacks from an enormous, half-invisible spider.  They found their way at last by following a draft of pure air.  They came upon a wide tunnel slanted upward at a steep enough angle that a trickle of water ran steadily down it.  Following that tunnel they emerged on a blustery cliffside in the middle of the night.  After spending the night inside the tunnel, and waiting for the dawn, they ventured outside once more.  According to the carpet-map they were still on the right way, and would follow a path on the side of a cliff for several more days.  

At the end of those days, the travelers were confronted with another disconnect between the map and current reality.  The beautiful stone bridge that arched over the chasm to a pair of enormous iron doors had collapsed.  The party camped, rested, and discussed what to do.  Sukh had recovered a few magic potions from the lair of the bull monster.  According to wise woman he'd consulted in Pasar two of the potions had properties that might assist them in crossing the ravine.  

The party had enough rope that they climb down the wall of the ravine without expending any of their magical resources.  Despite a couple close calls, everyone reached the bottom safely.  They drank deeply from the river and rested on the soft grass.  Then they prepared to climb the other side.

Ginjo drank a long draught of dank, frothy liquid and within a minute, grew to five or six times his normal size.  His clothing and possessions-- including the rope-- also grew in size.  Climbing up the the other side of the ravine was a strenuous challenge, especially with Irak holding onto him.  But he was large enough and strong enough to use the ledges and outcropping like the steps on a ladder.  When he reached a large enough ledge half way up, Irak let the rope down and helped the others climb up it.  Then Ginjo and Irak repeated the maneuver to reach another ledge near the top.  The ledge at the very top was the too narrow and unstable to support the enlarged Ginjo.  He gave Irak a push and helped ther others climb up to the to ledge.  Then when the potion wore off and he returned to his normal size, Ginjo joined them by way of the rope.  

Now it was Sukh's turn to make use of a magic potion. He unstoppered a small glass vial and tossed back a dull blue liquid that turned to mist as it poured into his mouth.  As Sukh inhaled the thick mist, he too turned into mist and, in the form of a dull blue cloud, rose up and over the pair of tall iron doors.  For a moment, he took on the sight of the bakemono homeland.  His vision was blurred, but he could make out a verdant valley that matched the carpet-map, with towns and roads and other small structures dotted throughout.  He was not able to see any movement or detect signs of life.  Not knowing ow long the potion's effect would last, he descended to the ground on the other side of the doors.

On the inside, the doors were flanked by a pair of eight-foot jade statues-- humanoids with the head's of foxes or jackals.  These figures looked like what Sukh would call bakemono but their flowing robes, haughtily serene demeanors, and especially the artistry of the statues themselves were suggestive of something very different from anything Sukh had encountered in the Caves of Discord or his kind-hearted but simple friends.  Sukh was distracted from his musings by a chortle of laughter from Dew Blossom and Gentle Foot on the other side of the doors, still held shut by an iron bar.  With a shout, he heaved the bar off its brackets and called to his companions.  They pushed their way inside as the jade statues came to life.  

Relying on battle-tested tactics, Sukh and Ginjo each attacked one of the statues directly with a flurry of aggressive slashes while their companions made coordinated flanking attacks.  The jade statues were terrifying opponents, the faces set in fearless disdain but they fell to ruin under the rain of blows. They had reached the lost valley of the bakemono.

Immediately before them was a collection of stone buildings, the beauty of their proportion and precise construction still evident in their ruined state.  For they were ruined.  Roofs were missing, walls had collapsed, moss grew thickly, and, as they wandered into the town, they found the streets strewn with rubble, a tree growing from a dry fountain.  Looking closer, it seemed the destruction was deliberate.  Carvings and frescoes were deliberately defaced and marked by graffiti, in a style reminiscent, in form, style, and substance, of the Caves of Discord.

Welcome home?

Beatriss and Tetsukichi learn that different groups of indigenous peoples claim different cultural practices.

Beatriss and Tetsukichi had plans to return with Golfo and their companions to Xitaqa, the place where Golfo had been imprisoned, and loot the wizard’s treasure.  But on their way up the River Lam, a ragged man on the shore waved frantically for their help.  Their sense of duty and fatalism outweighed their paranoia and they approached him.  He explained that he was from one of the sister villages of Quitokai and that he and several and his neighbors had been captured by slavers.  He had escaped, and needed help to rescue the others.  Beatriss and Tetsukichi agreed to help him.

The villager led the party into the jungle for about an hour and then stopped to point ahead at a wisp of smoke.  There was a clearing there, he explained where the prisoners were held.

The party approached until they came upon a path, where they were spotted by one of the slavers’ sentries.  Before they could raise their bows to fire, the sentry ran away down the path, shouting the alarm.  The party pursued him to a clearing and there a battle ensued.  Beatriss and Tetskuich led the charge, but they were knocked to the ground, stunned, by a hidden spell-caster.  Afu and Ju-Mei called on the power of the Sun Goddess to apprehend the slavers’ archers.

The slavers, numbering about half-a-dozen, commanded another 10-15 men from the jungle.  Hunters rather than warriors, several of these men fell quickly under the blows of Golfo, Naron, and Al-Fitar, and the others fled.  Beatriss and Tetsukichi recovered from whatever spell had affected them.  The villager found his captive friends and began freeing them from their bonds.  Immediately, the freed villagers began attacking the other prisoners with sticks and stones.  Beatriss intervened.  “What are you doing and why are you doing this?”  The man they’d met at the river explained that, several of the captives were not village people, but jungle people.  “They are the ones who help the slavers to find us and catch us.  If you free them, they will kill us later.”  Beatriss ordered that the “jungle people” should not be killed and should not be freed either.   The party ordered the “village people” that they should follow them out of the clearing so they could be taken back to Quitokai.  Golfo stayed behind to free the remaining captives, leaving them to find their own safety. 

, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

The company returned to Quitokai without further incident.

NDT 22 Play Report: Ochre Jelly

There are people, like me, for whom D&D figures as a alternate outlet for their thwarted writerly ambitions. (Was that dependent clause necessary?) But it's likely a mistake-- though a mistake I'll keep on making-- to recount an evening's session and expect it to sound like a passage from a readable novel. We reached the lowest levels beneath the temple and even found the bottom of the flame-encircled pit that dominates the main temple room. Wandering through the maze of rough-hewn tunnels, with Roger directing us-- "East, east, and if we can't go east, go southeast"-- we at last came to a dead end. There was jackal-headed statue. Martin approached, ready to duck behind it when . . . gobs and gobs of gloppy blobs of yellow-brown bloppy goo slip and slobbed out of the statue's mouth and began eating away Martin's flesh! (not a direct quote of the DM) [Crazy stupid right? But it was super-awesome to play and gets better.] Thinking fast, Pavel announced his plan to invoke his gods' power to protect Martin from fire so they could burn off the goo without harming him. Thinking faster, Martin pulled out a magic potion to dissolve himself, his clothes, and his posessions (all temporarily) in a floating cloud of vapor. The thwarted writerly ambitions goo landed on the floor! And then dwarf stepped up and brought out his special bottle, and sprinkled poisonous powder all over the goo and it froze, crystalized and disintegrated!

D&D Miniature: Ochre Jelly (!), a photo by Ochre Jelly on Flickr.

NDT 21 Play Report: Hutakaan Temple

#529. Anubis, a photo by hawhawjames on Flickr.

Our group left the scene of the battle, and allowed the Traldarans to escort us back to one of their encampments. Like their lowland brethren, the Traldarans are a stiff-necked lot, coarse, bad-tempered, and unreceptive to wisdom, more likely persuaded by displays of power than reason and insight. They do not know of any way out of the Lost Valley, and hope to achieve secure freedom by eliminating their Hutakaan overlords. That campaign began three seasons ago and they have had considerable success, including the take-over of the Hutakaan temple about a month ago.
The Hutakaans have tried several times to re-capture their temple. And, various evil undead things have been coming out of it. So our group proposaed and the Traldarans agreed that we should go inside, find out what’s there and destroy it.
The temple was a large stone rectangular building with a dome roof and, according to the Traldarans, an extensive network of underground chambers, most of which they had not explored. Roger climbed up on the roof and, peering through a hole in the dome, confirmed that the main Temple room was safe to enter. The Traldarans opened the main doors and our group entered, accompanied by two of the Traldarans. The most notable feature in the Temple room was a pit surrounded by blue flame and with a person-sized cage hanging over it. Roger climbed on top of the cage so that he could peer into the pit. Darkness.
Leaving the Temple room, we immediately encountered a large group of re-animated skeletons and walking corpses. Pavel and Nitely, calling on Halav, Petra, Zirchev introduced the formerly benighted Traldarans to their powerful and benevolent gods and obliterated the undead horrors.
Beneath the temple, our group discovered a Hutakaan crypt containing still more of the restless dead. Not just skeletons and zombies. But also “fast zombies” whose mere touch will kill most mortals, and who gave the stalwart Olimarus a little cold taste of death. And, in a disgusting pantomime of life above, a long-dead, jackal-headed Hutakaan despot, his mummified remains most unnaturally preserved and animated with evil, lorded over the other undead. Like the flesh-and-blood Hutakaans, this mummy was something of a coward. Late to join the battle, it was destroyed by Martin’s magic fire, by Olimarus’s hammer, and by Roger’s well-timed shot with a vial of holy water.
In searching the crypt, we claimed the mummy’s crown and scepter, and found a narrow unworked tunnel descending still lower into the earth. Eager to share news of our success with the Traldarans, we resealed the secret tunnel and returned to the surface.

NDT 20 Play Report: Traldaran National Congress

When Pavel agreed to accompany the party to the Lost Valley, he was not, like the rest of them, looking for treasure. He was looking for a purpose. And now he's found it. A community of Traldarans, separated from the rest of their people and enslaved by the jackal-headed Hutakaans for generations, had recently found the courage to throw off the yoke of oppression. There are obstacles. These Traldarans have never even heard of Halav, Petra, and Zirchev. And it shows. They ride lizards. They originally attacked the party. They use crude weapons. Compared to the tall, slim, well-spoken, and brie-eating Hutakaans, there is something very red-state about these Traldarans. But this is where Pavel comes in. He can teach them about their gods and then together they can stick it to The Man. Or rather, first stick it to the Jackal-Man and then stick it to The Thyatian-Man. The Hutakaans with their honey tongues encouraged the party to come and talk to their high priestess so they could hear the whole story. And Martin, not yet entirely ready to free himself form mental slavery, seemed willing to listen. But Pavel asked these Hutakaans why they couldn't tell the story themselves. Why had they enslaved the Traldarans? The Hutakaans had a good story. They had taught the Traldarans about metal-working, and then they took some of them as slaves. This was what Pavel was waiting for them to say. And it was enough for Roger. He shot one Jackal-head with an arrow. And Pavel hit one wit his flail. Olimarus killed the third. The Traldarans are very stubborn. Even after seeing us kill their oppressors, they seem unsure whom to trust. Pavel is patient.

NDT 19 Play Report: The sun has rised the sun has set and we are in the lost valley yet.

Wizard Island II, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

The “city” on the other side of the gate turned out to be a small settlement of not more than a couple dozen stone buildings. We followed an ancient road out of that village of passed through a couple others of similar size and construction. All blissfully empty of people. The ancient Traldaran architecture is magnificently durable and well-designed. Except for the carvings of jackal-headed people. Pavel reasons that sometime after the Traldarans left the Lost Valley, some other beings entered to make the weird jackal carvings. Many of them have been restored to their original undecorated form, and Pavel has done some restoration work of his own.
Although they haven’t seen any other people, they have encountered signs of life. After we tossed a light into one of the shrines that stand by the road, the inhabitants— hundred of small green lizards— scurried out, swarmed all over the outside of the building and then rehid themselves in its nooks and crannies. Another shrine was home to evil, fire-breathing dogs. The blast of heat from their furnace-bellies would have killed, cooked, and charred a lesser man, but Pavel stood fast and slew the monster. (With some help.)
After two or three days travel we came to a clear lake surrounded by rocky cliffs and with a small stone house next to it. Again, this seemed to Pavel a good place to spend the rest of his days. If something could be done about the other party members.

Play Report: Kāi'ěrwén to Quitokai

Following the merchant’s directions from Kāi'ěrwén, the party rode upstream along the northeastern branch of the Lam River, choosing the southern bank so they would not need to cross again at Mǐ shā’s Ferry.

Near midday, as the river curved sharply between walls of thick jungle, they unexpectedly rode into the middle of a brigand encampment. The outlaws had apparently been preparing an ambush for river traffic and were caught off guard by mounted travelers approaching from inland. Confusion lasted only seconds before arrows filled the air.

Beatriss and Tetsukichi immediately drove their horses into the startled archers, cutting through the camp before the brigands could properly form ranks. The mounted charge broke the ambush almost at once, but farther back on the trail Tsao Ho and his monks came under heavy attack from spearmen emerging from the brush. The monks fought bravely but lacked the experience of hardened frontier fighters.

By the time the fighting ended, the brigands had been scattered or killed, but one monk lay dead and several others were badly wounded. Afu and Ju-May tended to the injured while the survivors buried their companion beside the river beneath a cairn of wet stones.

Two more hours of riding brought the travelers to what they believed must be Mǐ shā’s Ferry. On the opposite shore stood a squat stone building in the same ancient style as the ruined outpost where they had sheltered in the mountains. A weathered ferryboat drifted loosely against its moorings. Most importantly, a rough road led southward from the riverbank exactly as the merchant had described.
By late afternoon they reached the final landmark mentioned in the directions: a narrow footpath disappearing eastward into dense jungle.

The trail quickly became oppressive beneath the heavy canopy. Heat and insects closed around them. After some time they began hearing faint human voices somewhere ahead and thought they glimpsed firelight through the trees. Encouraged, they pressed forward, catching the smell of cooking fires drifting through the humid air.

Then, abruptly, the sounds ceased.

The silence unsettled them. They dismounted and attempted to force their way directly toward the lights through the undergrowth, but after nearly a hundred yards of hacking through vines and tangled roots they found no clearing at all and began to fear losing the trail entirely. Reluctantly they returned to the path and continued east on horseback.

Roughly half an hour later the jungle finally opened before them. They saw lanternlight reflected on water, heard the sound of a river nearby, and glimpsed buildings raised above the mud on timber pilings.
A group of armed warriors waited for them at the bridge leading into Quitokai.

The guards did not attack, but their suspicion was unmistakable. When Beatriss explained that she and Tetsukichi knew Gwinch, the warriors conferred briefly and agreed that the two foreigners would be permitted to speak with the village elders.

The meeting was direct and without ceremony. Beatriss openly explained why they had come. Gwinch was their friend, she said, but troubling rumors had reached Khanbaliq. They wished to know whether he had truly allied himself with slavers operating along the frontier.
The elders answered just as plainly.

Gwinch, they said, had defended Quitokai against the slavers and had helped organize resistance among the jungle settlements. Not long before, he and his companions—including two powerful sorcerers—had led an assault on a nearby stockade, freeing many captives before continuing deeper into the jungle in pursuit of General Goyat and Governor Kawabi.

The elders welcomed the travelers to remain in Quitokai as guests.
Over the following days, the party debated what should come next.

For Beatriss, the answer seemed simple. She had confirmed that Gwinch was not openly serving the slavers, and that was enough. Her instinct was to return north to Kāi'ěrwén and Menkan and eventually reunite with her children and household in Anca Sansar’s grazing lands.
Others disagreed.

Tsao Ho believed their mission had never been merely to locate Gwinch, but to continue the hunt for Goyat and Kawabi themselves. Golfo, to Beatriss’s irritation, seemed inclined to agree. Tsao Ho in particular spoke openly of following Gwinch’s trail deeper into the jungle.
And there was still another possibility.

Among the captives freed from the stockade were survivors who described the raid in disturbing terms. According to them, Gwinch’s sorcerers had unleashed some terrible creature during the assault—something that tore through slavers and guards alike while Gwinch evacuated the prisoners.
But not everyone had escaped.

Beneath the stockade, the survivors said, there remained a dungeon where many more captives had been imprisoned. Most assumed the creature had slaughtered them together with their captors. Yet hope persisted that someone below might still be alive.

NDT 18 Play Report: We find the lost valley

Every boy’s been warned by his loving father against reaching into dark holes: “You leave them alone and they’ll leave you alone!” Poor Martin grew up an orphan. Olimarrus is a son of the Earth, and the Earth doesn’t teach its lessons plainly. And Roger, I don’t know about Roger. So not only did the three of them climb down the cliffside to peer into dark (and large!) cave, but when something popped out, they stayed to fight it. Because it had insulted them. Or because it had offended their sense of justice. Or because they thought it might have cursed itself with a treasure that they hoped to convey upon their own person. With magical fire and trickery, they slew the beast in its home and then ransacked its middens. That lady-priest Knightley is a smart girl and the guide from Threshhold isn’t stupid. They stayed on top of the cliff with Pavel and enjoyed a hot meal of boiled beef jerky with moss.

fortress, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

We followed the road and the road led us deeper into the ravine and then, as roads do, it ended, and left us to find our own way across the ravine to the door on the other side. To the bottom of the ravine they lowered Pavel on a rope and then they lowered Knightley but the rope broke, and so Martin struck a deal with the spirits of the air and on an invisible throne, lowered the rest of them one by one. We made our camp on the floor of the ravine, on the grassy banks of a bright and gurgling stream where Pavel asked himself if this was the lost holy place that he’d long sought, the secret treasure of Traldar. But in the gray hour before dawn, a pair of metal-eating monsters assaulted him and disabused of his naïve dream—the world was not right, even in this secret pocket. He awakened his companions who drove the monsters away. And then, after a quick breakfast, they began their ascent to the other side of the ravine. And again, Pavel marveled at what his ancestors had accomplished, having crafted a pair of stone doors set between two mountain peaks as a portal to the hidden valley belong. Martin once again called upon his magic to lift the party members first up to the narrow ledge before the doors and then over the doors to the other side where a small valley contained a well-crafted, but seemingly deserted city.

Play Report: Menkan to Kāi'ěrwén

Menkan itself was orderly to the point of oppression. Soldiers patrolled constantly, curfews were strictly enforced, and the governor’s authority reached into every corner of the town. Yet beyond its walls, travelers spoke of near-lawless conditions—banditry, abandoned villages, and isolated settlements surviving through uneasy alliances with whoever could protect them.

The party remained in Menkan for several weeks gathering information. Rumors concerning Gwinch were plentiful but contradictory. Some described him as a defender of frontier villages; others hinted that he had become entangled in darker affairs. Everyone agreed on only two points: he now lived in a jungle settlement called Quitokai, and reaching it would not be easy.

By the time they departed Menkan, Sansar’s escort had fallen away entirely, leaving a much smaller expedition. The company now consisted of Beatriss, Tetsukichi, Afu and his assistant Ju-Mei, Naron of the Steppes, Al-Fitar, the increasingly insufferable newlyweds Golfo and Phi Phong, and Tsao Ho of the Shining Mountain Path Monastery together with ten disciple monks.

They followed a broad dirt road that traced the course of the Lam River through largely empty country. Signs of former cultivation appeared everywhere—collapsed terraces, burned farmhouses, irrigation works overtaken by weeds. They also found evidence of why so much land had been abandoned. One morning they passed the body of a dead man lying beside the road, pierced with arrows and already half-picked apart by carrion birds.

Near midday the same day, they were ambushed.

Arrows erupted from the brush along the roadside, cutting down several of Tsao Ho’s monks in the opening volley. Rather than retreat, the party spurred their horses directly into the attack. The brigands broke quickly once engaged at close quarters. Most were killed; several fled into the trees. One prisoner was taken alive.

The captive proudly proclaimed himself a member of the Black Flowers, boasting that his brothers would avenge him. The party questioned him only briefly. When he later escaped into the undergrowth during the march, no one bothered to pursue him.

By evening they reached Bùqiāng bīng, a small riverside settlement dominated by an impressive stone temple. The inhabitants were polite but unmistakably wary of outsiders. At the inn, however, the travelers met several merchants who claimed familiarity with Quitokai and with Gwinch himself. They offered to guide the party there, but Beatriss declined. The men shrugged.

“Then simply follow the river,” they said. “You will arrive soon enough.”

The advice proved questionable.

For the next five days the party traveled downstream along the Lam, heading south and west through increasingly isolated country. Along the way they encountered first a lone wanderer who shared their fire for a night, then a group of weather-beaten soldiers who demanded five taels apiece for “travel papers.” Both insisted the party was moving in the wrong direction.

Eventually Beatriss and Tetsukichi concluded that either they had misunderstood the merchants at Bùqiāng bīng or that the directions had been intentionally vague. They turned back upstream toward the great fork where two tributaries joined the Lam from the north and east.

There they discovered the substantial settlement of Kāi'ěrwén, which they had previously bypassed.

In Kāi'ěrwén, the road to Quitokai was widely known, though difficult to describe to outsiders. A merchant preparing to travel there offered to guide the party in exchange for protection against bandits. Conditions around the jungle settlements, he explained, had deteriorated badly. Hunter tribes from the deep forests had begun raiding agricultural villages along the frontier.

When Beatriss mentioned that she knew Gwinch, the merchant reacted with visible relief. He spoke of the foreigner with admiration touched by uncertainty, praising him for helping organize Quitokai’s defenses against the raids. Yet even in praise there lingered hesitation, as though no one was entirely certain what Gwinch had become.

Before departure, the merchant suggested they visit a local temple and receive traveling blessings. Beatriss agreed, though she remained faintly suspicious of the proposal. The ritual itself proved entirely ordinary: a modest ceremony at a small temple devoted to the Path. Nothing seemed amiss.

Afterward, however, the merchant abruptly changed his mind. He apologized and announced that the omens were unfavorable for travel. He would remain behind after all.

Instead, he provided careful directions, explained the advantages and dangers of several possible routes, and ended with a final warning:

“The people of Quitokai do not trust strangers. And they are very good at protecting themselves.”

Play Report: Khanbaliq to Menkan

The caravan traveled south from Khanbaliq for several weeks without major incident. Everyone had reasons to welcome the city’s disappearance behind them. Some hoped for imperial commissions or titles. Others dreamed simply of cleaner air, better grazing lands, distance from court intrigue, or the chance to live beyond the reach of the Emperor’s politics. Golfo and Phi Phong were newlyweds.

Yet as they entered Chu Yuan Province, the journey became steadily more difficult. Years of neglect and misrule had hollowed out both the countryside and the spirit of its people. Villages stood half-abandoned. Irrigation ditches had collapsed into mud. Farmers watched the passing herds with resentment, and townspeople greeted travelers associated with the distant Emperor with suspicion or outright hostility.

The farther south they traveled, the sharper the tensions became. Though Anca Sansar’s warriors were strong enough to defend the caravan, the khan preferred not to spill blood merely to protect grazing animals from starving peasants. He therefore divided the company.

The larger body of the caravan—most of the civilians, the bulk of the herds, many of the warriors, and families including Beatriss’s children and servants as well as Tetsukichi’s wife and infant daughter—would turn northwest and take the longer route around the Lincang Mountains toward the grazing lands that were their ultimate destination.

Sansar himself retained only twenty or thirty riders and herders, and a small goat herd. With this reduced but still formidable company, he would escort Beatriss and Tetsukichi toward the southwestern frontier by a more dangerous but less populated mountain route.

The crossing proved arduous. Snow still lingered in the high passes, and several storms forced the travelers to shelter among bare stone ridges where the wind cut through wool and leather alike. On the second morning, herders discovered unfamiliar footprints crossing a nearby snowfield—too large for wolves, too deliberate for ordinary animals.

During the worst of the storms, the caravan found refuge in a ruined stone outpost left behind by some earlier empire. They remained there for several days while supplies dwindled and the passes cleared. A few goats were slaughtered for meat. No one complained, though the silence around the fires grew heavier with each day.

After nearly ten days in the mountains, the travelers descended at last into the southern valleys and reached Menkan, the final imperial town of Chu Yuan.

Sansar Anca parted from them there. He intended to rejoin his herds farther west, while Beatriss and Tetsukichi would continue toward the frontier settlements where rumors placed Gwinch. Their farewell was brief and practical; everyone understood that the roads ahead would likely separate them for a long time.

NDT 17: Above Foamfire Falls

Trekking up the ravine, and following the Foam Fire River toward the falls, we heard the storm gathering behind us: drums, war cries, hundreds of stamping feet, the half-disciplned cadence of the gnoll horde. We cast aside the tapestry, covered ourselves with the magic invisibility powder and doubled our own pace until we reached the falls. There, we found a doorway carved into the rock, the dedicated work of a more long-sighted time. In crossing the river to reach the door, magic powder was washed off us by the the mist in the air, and our enemies, too, began to reach the pool. They saw us, washed of the powder and we saw them, washed of the cheap bravado of bloodlust. The sight of a expertly-carved stone and those who carry light into darkness left them awe-struck and we entered the halls under the mountain unharassed. We climbed up a stone staircase to the bridge and tower that spanned the top of the floors. Below, the impotent horde japed and howled-- but did nothing.


http://www.obsidianportal.com/campaign/bigharas-ndtb10/adventure-log/3rd-soladain-yarthmont-ac1000

Great Falls!, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

NDT 16: wasting time in a dumpy fishing village outside an overgrown logging town

Resolved: What makes D&D awesome is that sometimes it's not awesome at all.

In our last Night's Dark Terror Session, the party arrived in Threshold, a walled logging town and jumping-off-point for expeditions into the mountains. Because of an attack by members of the Iron Ring while we were in Kelvin, we were cautious about how we should enter and argued about how to enter without attracting too much attention-- especially because of the dwarf. We decided that Martin should cast an illusion to make Olamris look like a human-- like a dressed-down version of Golthar (the weird wizard with the dragon bone bed) in particular. The guard was friendly but wanted us to give up our weapons. Pavel, hoping to cut the conversation short, asked the guard about his religious beliefs, but to no avail, and then Martin lost concentration on his illusion.

Who likes towns anyway? Not Pavel.

So we went to the little fishing village outside Threshold and found an inn there. We ate fish and we talked to Mischca, a crazy old lady with a crazy old cat who told us stories about the giants who live in the mountains and the lost valley beyond the firefoam waterfall. Or something. And on the one hand, I think all the players were wondering, "What are we doing? I could talk to a crazy old lady on my own time." But for me, at least, it was really great. It's the prosaic details that help distinguish D&D from pokemon.

fish, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

NDT 15: Raise dead and continual light

On their way back to Kelvin from Xitaqa, the party suffered the misfortune of encountering a bad-tempered dragon with a poison-barbed tail. If it weren’t for Martin the Ineluctable and his skilled use of the magic wand we’d grabbed from the evil wizard, many more lives would have been lost rather than just tragically, ironically his. The party carried Martin’s body to Kelvin and went to see the priests who told us to come back in the morning and talk about whether there might be something they could do. They dropped him off at the temple morgue, and spent a quiet night at the tavern—not exactly somber, because they knew the priests would raise him and were just letting us stew a little so they could get more money. But the party weren’t in carousing mode either, because they didn’t know how much it would cost.

5,000 g.p. and a system shock roll, followed by two weeks of no-adventuring and no-spellcasting. Pavel spent the downtime casting Continual Light onto rocks. (And also finding deserving families to hold onto his share of the hoard before he went in search of the lost city of Hutakaa. (In Swahili, Hutakaa means “You will not stay.” Hmm. Prolly coincidence.))
We, the players, also talked about what a world changer continual light should be. Streets and houses should be lit up just like in our modern day real world. Dungeons might look more like shopping malls.

fire sale!, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

One of the great luminaries of our hobby would chide me for being a DM who wants to "crock magical effects he's not competent to deal with" and there are plenty of people eager to agree with him. Here are some of the "reasons" why continual light rocks are not a world changer:

• They’re inconvenient to extinguish when you want to sleep (no bushels)
• They cost 500 g.p.! (The DMG says so!)
• The thieves’ guild likes things shadowy and so they steal them all and hire magic-users to extinguish them so that they go back later and pick people’s pockets. (This is why they all still live with their moms.)
• People stay up a little later, so what, they still need heat.
• It would be a sacrilege. (This one had a really nice description of a Greek Orthodox festival featuring special candles that “people don’t use in their privies.” )

The last two are ok, except that a world where every family who lives within a couple miles of a parish church should have a little niche in their home where they keep a little glowing icon. Of course they still need fire for cooking, and they don’t (necessarily) throw their glow sticks into holes to see whether they contain coins or snakes—but they are a prominent feature of life. And the village priests who won’t hand them out are as lonely as the adventuring-priest who won’t use his cure light wounds on party-members who torture goblins.

My thought. Magic is almost by definition something that cannot be predicted. Cleric magic (miracles!) maybe even more so. God(s) made the world in a particular way and don’t allow it to be futzed with except for particular reasons. Continual light works when a cleric is going into the dungeon because he or she is going to do battle against the forces of evil. It is both a practical and a spiritual aid. In the village or the city, people just need to huddle together around their fires and talk about how to invent electricity.

Minor wrinkles to figure out: can Pavel cast continual light on lots of rocks while safe in his room in anticipation of going into the dungeon? If Pavel creates a continual light rock while in the dungeon, can he bring it back and give it to someone to hang up over the bar? Major wrinkle: If people are getting murdered in a particular alley, isn’t that serious enough to warrant a continual light spell? Wait, is this theology class?

Ultimately, I guess whether we speak of the gods of tough-love or the thieves’ guild photophobia, it’s really just a matter of one's preferred flavor of DM-ex-machina. Right?

NDT 14: Area hermit, dwarf nearly bite it

After seeing one of his associates enveloped by a semi-intelligent mass of neurotoxin in the form of an eight-foot tall, transparent and gelatinous cube, Pavel, Bishop of the Thicket tentatively set about attempting a single-handed rescue only to stumble into the cube himself. According to an unidentified eye-witness, the cleric, who had recently assisted his fellow “adventurers” first in “defeating” that weird-guy-in-a-yellow-robe-who-actually-bought-one-of-those-dragon-beds-from-the-sharper-image-catalog-as-if-he-actually-expected-a-woman-would-want-to-look-at-that-while-well-let’s-not-even-go-there-he-was-living-in-a-TOWER-can-you-say-compensating-much . . . and then in “outsmarting” the weird guy’s pet steer, was perhaps burdened with excessive hubris beyond even that commonly associated with a holy scourge of law. According to witnesses, after standing there and watching the rest of his “party” (woo-hoo), put distance between themselves and the aberrations which had so no-handedly incapacitated their companion (who is an outlander), Pavel moved in the exact opposite direction and actually got closer to the cubes. Contrary to the expert opinion of sages who state that all cubes, regardless of their composition, have no means of locomotion and that the self-important and deluded fool must have been “seeing a vision” and just walked right into what by all rights should have been his final and complete demise, Pavel himself asserts that “The unnatural composition of deadliest poison so animated by the evil intelligence that labors in constant rebellion against the unchangeable and insurmountable precepts of law went aquivering and ajivering and slidng across the stone floor just as if it had slipped off a porcelain platter onto a lopsided buffet table.”

Gelatinous Cube (detail), a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

His quick thinking companions, following through what one explained “was the whole plan all along” assaulted their gelatinous foe with burning oil and magic fire. Stefan, an area horse-trader whom the adventurers had found tied to a chair on the third floor of the weird guy’s tower (Related story in Life, D5) explains that this wasn’t metagaming since, “It’s just common knowledge or even logic that a sword just isn’t going to do much to something that lacks a skeletal, circulatory, or nervous system. But fire—or heat of any kind— will affect most any substance, whether causing rapid oxidization or a state change. In this case, it was the latter, and the liquid form proved to be entirely inert. Again, I want to thank Pavel, the dwarf, and their thoroughly capable friends for extricating me from what was starting to look like an inextricable situation. Now if they can help me find my lost tapestry.”

NDT 13: Rescue!

We’ve rescued Stefan! Or, anyway, we found where he was being held-- tied to a chair, in a room with a minotaur where everyone who steps into it becomes invisible. But I think we’ve got him out of there, and so, assuming that he survives the surprise the evil wizard must be preparing for us, then rescuing him will just be a matter of escorting him over the moors back to Rifilian or Threshold or Sukyskin.

The Minotaur, a photo by STEHOUWER AND RECIO on Flickr.

Surely we are a holy scourge of law. Entered the old library with the two giant black widow spiders: zip, zip! Spiders dead. Cut through the cobwebs and up stairs to the back entrance to the tower and encountered the hobgoblin chief and his frost-breathing wolves: full-on magic assault and they’re dead. Then up the tower. Yes, the minotaur made Pavel feel something he hasn’t felt for a long time: pain. But only for a minute. Now let’s go get that wizard!

NDT 12:

Although deprived of the advice of his genius for several days, Pavel accompanied the party in their “quest” [his word] to find the lost city of Xitaqa, supposedly with the hope of rescuing some hostages. (Pavel is beginning to believe that the hostages may have already perished—and for the greater purpose of bringing himself and his associates to this fabulous construction that could only be the work of Traldaran hands.) On the way, the party encountered a giant (whom they slew) and trolls (who slew, one of their number, the brave warrior Fyodor, and put the survivors to flight.) Disheartened, the party was on their way back to civilization, but decided to rest in the cave where they had encountered the giants. This cave was now occupied by a Traldaran warrior, name Spear Hunter, and an outlander whose name is characteristically unpronounceable. Pavel, once again animated by his guardian angel, declared that these two wanderers were worthy of trust and should be made fellows in the quest. The rest of the party agreed and their number was brought to six: Pavel Bishop of the Thicket; Knightly, the lady-priest; Martin the “Ineluctable” (Thyatian word meaning “half-breed”); Roger Agrippa, an honest Traldaran; Spear Hunter—who hunts the foes of Halav, Petra and Zirchos with his spears; and the short but strong Outlander whom Pavel believes may actually be a Traldaran under some kind of curse.

Resuming the quest for Xitaqa, the party spied a tower on the top of a ridge with a road cut into the escarpment. They avoided the obvious approach, and instead climbed the ridge several miles to the west and approached the tower from the side. They reached the outbuildings—small houses carved into the sandstone in the dry rivulets radiating out from the base of the tower.

look for the horizon, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

This area was inhabited. The party came upon a group of goblins and baboons. The party killed the goblins—and despite Pavel’s attempts to win some simian allies—drove off the baboons. After poking around some of the buildings, the party at last found the monumental stone doors that appeared to lead into the tower itself.