Steve

Adding druids is a distraction from your main idea, IMHO. Not inherently bad, but I would play them down.

My group does it slightly differently:  the attacker still rolls.
 
11 + OCV -3d6 = DCV hit.
 
In your above example, PC "I attack God Monster".  Rolls 3d6 = 10.  11 + 8 - 10 = 9.  "I hit a DCV of 9".  GM "Prayer hits.  Roll damage".
 
GM "God Monster is peeved He attempts to attack Prayer."  Rolls 3d6 = 8.  11 + 7 - 8 = 10.  "God Monster hits a DCV 0f 10."  PC "Prayer is hit."
 
As an alternate, you roll and note where the roll is compared to 11.  For every point under 11, you hit that many points over your OCV.  For every point over 11, you hit than many points under your OCV.  If you roll 11, you hit your OCV.

Older (shudder) Hero players will remember this.
 

I just wanted an excuse to post this.
 

The  presence of the Wizard(s) makes it necessary for some specialized craftsmen.

Book Binders will be busy making folios for the Wizards, and binding notes, and such.
 
A Blacksmith is a given, but tool makers, Glass Blowers and lens grinders will be needed for the instrumentation for the wizard's  experimentation, same with white smiths making small instruments. Tinsmiths for containers, and the like. 

You may see a  specialist trade company, trading in refined materials for these craftsmen, and then trading back refined tinctures and the bulk biproducts that the Wizard(s), plus a side industry in surplus production. 
 
This would make for a very "middle class" sort of  population in the town with a large population of professionals, and a very happy group of farmers that can charge up their produce in the markets.
 
masons would consult with the Apprentices to line the roadways and arrange the buildings in such a way to make the town more defensible with the methods that the Wizard uses.

Given the size of the town, most of the population would be farmers and similar food producers.

However, given the fae influences, food might be mostly gathered/picked rather than grown in cleared fields, with plowing and all that messy mortal stuff. So lots of orchards and gardens. Probably not monocultures here - various useful plants that can be harvested at different times of year.

But still, bread is useful. The areas that aren't immediately adjacent to the forest could be used to grow grains of various sorts.

Livestock, even mundane plow animals, could have a fae streak in their ancestry. The area might breed "interesting" horses, even if they are scrubby ponies. And once in a while, you might even get a unicorn... They'd be impossible to domesticate, but a horse with unicorn ancestry could be worth a fortune.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions.
 
Yes, I was thinking businesses providing wizardly materials would most likely be the town's core industries, so making paper, vellum and ink, along with bookbinding would indeed be thriving businesses. And any excess not needed by the wizard and apprentice could be traded to other towns and faraway cities for items not made locally. Spinners and tanners would also find buyers for their wares, and sheepherders and their flocks would support them in turn. Likewise, for candlemakers, glassworks and silversmiths. I had not thought of beekepers in all this, but the beeswax and honey might have some minor magical properties from fairy dust-infused pollens the bees picked up from flowers in the woods and grasslands surrounding it and so be in demand by wizards and temples for their properties.
 
Grammarspire is not huge, perhaps only a few hundred people or so (about 500 or less), and there is a certain "Grammarspire Look" among the locals whose families have been here for more than a generation, a certain Fae quality to them. Visitors to the town have also noticed that the local women, those who did not originate from elsewhere, are all very attractive specimens, even those who are past their youth. This is due to a town secret: no girl children have ever been born here, long believed by the locals to be some kind of fairy curse on the town. This situation has gone on for so many generations now that no one living knows why things are like this, and it caused the founders of the town to look to the woods for a solution when they first realized the problem. Young men nowadays have a rite of passage when they reach a certain age, taking with them a special charm necklace provided by the wizard and seeking out one of the nymph glades to capture themselves a bride. The binding charm only lasts until the human dies or releases their mate, freeing the captured nymph to retreat back to the woods, forgetting their brief years (or decades) among humans as they revert back to their Fae selves and abandon the more human-like guise the charm imposed upon them, even causing them to appear to very gracefully age if they remain longer than a few years. At any given time, there are dozens of such nymph brides in town, taking care of households and children, and working alongside their "husbands" in local businesses and trades. They are constantly smiling and always appear happy, giving off a "Stepford Wife" sort of vibe.

The Fae of the forest owes fealty to Aurora, the Winter Queen. One can reach her realm in the Otherworld through a passage in a cairn raised on a bare hill in the middle of the woods. She has little interest in the mundane world, but she has been known to take lovers from men who have found their way to her cold land.
 
Almost invariably, they have been afflicted by frostbite in sensitive areas.
 
"Worth it," they all said.
 
Sorry.

Even though it's not on a major trading road, it's likely some trading company would have a major presence there. The locals have to produce something and need something else. And a business being able to ask favors from the wizard and point out your importance to the community as an inducement for her to grant it would be a powerful fringe benefit.
 
Banking since it sounds like the place is stable financially. Heck, any place that's not in danger of being raided and has law enforcement is practically heaven so I'd expect every occupation to be there if the tower has been around long enough.
 
There's likely a logging industry, particularly if there's a river to send the logs down. Though likely the wizard, the fae, or the local government limits the amount or types of trees which can be downed.
 
Fishing if there's a river or lake along with docks and perhaps a port facility. Boatmakers if there's a port. Ferrymen if there's a river. Makers of sails, rope, nets, anchors, etc.
 
Likely a monastery or large church presence if the place is as safe as you are telling us. Young monks need to learn their letters and numbers somewhere and better that it's somewhere safe. Perhaps a large scholastic presence if there's church-owned books which need to be transcribed from older languages to new. Winery for monks.
 
Granary and mills.
 
Glassworks if there's a beach for sand. Saltworks if there's an ocean. Saltery for preserving fish.
 
Weavers for making grain bags. Crockers for crockery. Coopers.
 
Tanners if there's good hunting in the forest. Bowyers/fletchers for the hunters. Cobblers and armor-makers if there's a steady supply of leather.  
 
Orchards. Chestnuts, walnuts, pecans, almonds, hazelnuts since those are easily stored and are found naturally in many forests. Also the more typical fruit trees.
 
Swineherding since pigs will eat acorns, leaves, and other forest debris.
 
Quarry and stonemasons. Miners. Blacksmith.
 
Apothecary
 
Surgeon/dentist/barber
 
Candlemaker
 
Wainwright, wheelwright, carpenter
 
Hostler, stableboy 
 
Innkeep, cook, maid, waitress
 
Clerk (accountant), scribe
 
Cockfights, dogfights, pit fights
 
Soapmaker, basket-weaver, spinster, baker, teamster

If the forest has been subject to Fae enchantments and powerful wizardries for centuries, that's likely to have mutated the local flora and fauna. Not necessarily enough to produce "monsters," but at least some of its indigenous wildlife may have changed in ways that would make them valuable for commercial exploitation: birds with unusually hued feathers, distinctive fur-bearing animals, ornately horned or antlered creatures, unique herbs or spices, wood of unusual hardness or beauty, flowers to make perfumes from, trees with exotic fruit which can be dried or fermented, etc.
 
Given the size of town you want, there's probably not enough of those things to create a major economic boom, but still worth apothecaries, woodcarvers, tanners and clothiers, and the like setting up shop there. However, if there was originally more, the arrival of the wizard might have led to a minor "gold rush" and a larger settled population for a time, until over-exploitation caused the resources to wane.

First, I love the name of the town.  🙂
 
Putting aside typical occupations for a town -- @archer has covered it better than I could -- it seems like businesses to support the tower would focus on collecting/creating "wizardly materials":
paper/vellum/ink/bookbinding - scribes, supported by spinsters/tanners candles to read them by - candlemakers, supported by beekeepers? flasks/vials/fine metalwork - glassworks/silversmiths, supported by miners? generic "material components" - So many apothecaries, supported by scouts/rangers/gatherers (not sure the correct occupation name), who are in turn regulated by a forester Then again, it's entirely possible these are jobs for which the apprentices are responsible....
 
 
Doug
A great resource: https://gamingballistic.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Medieval-Demographics-Made-Easy-1.pdf

A fairy-infested forest is not easy to navigate. Unseasonable mists, paths that seems to meander, a closed, dense canopy that makes it hard to see the sun and landmarks ... And hey, did that tree just move? And then, there's the faeries, too.
 
If you want to explore such a place, what you need is a faery woods expert. And Grammarspire's leading expert in the field is Ordgar the tracker, a short, dark, slightly scruffy man around forty years of age. But what strikes people who makes his acquaintance the most is the impression he gives of being absent even when speaking with you. He rarely smiles, and friends of his say that he hasn't actually laughed in a couple of decades. He doesn't get angry, either -- a cocked eyebrow is the most annoyance he's shown in a long time, and that was when he had broken a leg.
 
He loves the forest. If anyone mortal can be said to know the woodland on his five fingers, it is he. Also an excellent archer, a fair hand with a spear, an indifferent horseman, and a tracker second to none.
 
So, if you want to go through Grammarspire woods and come out again, with good odds of keeping most of your limbs, speak to Ordgar.

20,000 Names has a category for witch names.

My "Plenary Empire" setting has barbarians as appropriate to the quasi-Byzantine setting.
 
First are the barbarians within the Empire. I remember reading about "Hill Tribes" in India, maintaining their separate cultures and sometimes acting as "professional barbarians" -- outsiders the settled lowland princes sometimes hired as mercenaries. Orcs are the mst notable such professional barbarians: the orcs of the Bone Desert, the Togrian Hills, etc. still live as semi-nomads or in rough little villages, allowed to govern themselves by their traditional folkways, as long as they don'tbother their neighbors. The orc tribes supply a steady stream of recruits for the Imperial Legions: See the world, get paid to fight and kill people, maybe come home with a bit of swag, what's not to love? And the chow is good! (Good compared to orcish cooking, anyway.) The orc drill sergeant is a trope of popular culture in the Plenary Empire; the orcs' chief god, Gruumsh, now has extensive worship among non-orc legionnaires.
 
Outside the Plenary Empire, the human Savaxi are the former horse nomads who conquered a swath of Imperial territory and still press for more. A century after the Savaxi swept down from the highland steppe to conquer the fertile Macrine plain, Savaxi live off tribute from their subjects rather than herding and stealing cattle, but they maintain skills of roping, riding and war, and a culture of extreme aggression. The uniter of the tribes, Harix the Great, served the Plenary Empire as a mercenary in his youth -- which is where he learned Imperial military doctrines, and how the highly mobile Savaxi could break them. Harix also pushed the natural arrogance of the horse nomad, confident in his ability to rob and kill settled folk and get away, into a code of Master Race megalomania as a tool to unite the feuding Savaxi tribes. So the Savaxi aren't just pseudo-Mongols: They are pseudo-Mongol Nazis. Yeah, they are one of the villain groups.
 
Since this is a D&D campaign, there is also the barbarian class. Only within the Plenary Empire, most members of this character class don't come from barbarian cultures. They are just people who practice channeling rage into combat prowess. Could be a Bone Desert orc, but more likely a streetfighter or a really badass farmer.
 
Dean Shomshak

I have done campaigns with and without barbarians; I suspect I shouldn't be so honest, but mostly it boils down to whim as to whether or not there will be barbarians, and just what it is that qualifies them.
 
A few of the more memorable:
 
One campaign featured a race of giants that were the barbarians.  They were barbarians because they lived on a large (think "the size of Italy) island / mini-continent that was a line of dormant / smouldering volcanoes.  The toxins, etc, given off by the regular emissions of gas and smoke stunted neurological and brain development.  As a result, they tended to travel in bands not much larger than nuclear families, had only the most rudimentary basics of language, and that was usually unique to each clan, were aggressive on sight, and occasionally were cannibalistic. 
 
Why?  Why would a GM do this?!
 
Well, they were giants, and as such were physical powerhouses.  Other side effects of the neurological stunting included a staggering amount of Stun-only defenses on top of everything else.  They could periodically be found as slaves elsewhere, but were extremely rare outside their native lands.   So they _could_ be encountered or seen-- and perhaps the party should free this slave!  But what of the fallout of a free giant with zero rage control, etc?   Made for interesting moral and social conflicts.  Also, because of the rage and intellect issues, _no one_ wanted to have one as a PC, in spite of their ability to go toe-to-toe with a squadron of any other race.
 
Typically, at least when I do barbarians, they are simply a race of tribal natives discovered by one (or more) of the dominant races, and are "barbarians" simply because they don't have fancy clothes (or... clothes....), wagon wheels, brick buildings, agriculture, and some form of financial system more complex than barter.  In this case, "barbarian" is applied the same way white settlers to North American called the natives "savages."
 
I have had a couple of games where the "barbarians" were simply extreme warlike or heavily militarized people-- in one, the society was every bit as "advanced" as everyone else, but all success was measured in terms of conquest, be they financial, military, raiding other lands, what-have-you.  Violence was typically embraced as the first-choice tool for getting what you wanted; shopkeepers existed, as did a class of wealthy people, but they were well-armed, with a well-armed entourage, and were always very vigilant, even against their own hirelings.  They may or may not have been based very vaguely on House Harkonen-- I say may or may not, because it wasn't done intentionally, and I never even realized it until it was pointed out to me after nearly a year of playing the setting.
 
My favorite "barbarians" of my devising-- and I _think_ I have spoken of them before-- were desert nomads who travelled the continent along well-organized routes, each family having established their own route hundreds of years prior, and all families meeting for a festival once a year in the middle of Sea of Sand.  Their social structure was Byzantine, as where there rules of conduct and interaction with each other.   They were "barbarians" because they went out of their way to eschew machine-made or slave-made goods, all warfare was conducted with swords and spears (though there were a few bow users, specifically for combat with "outsiders," as killing at a distance was a deep insult to the bloodline of whoever you were trying to kill).  Everything was handmade and food was hunted or foraged: agriculture was an affront to the "natural" nomadic lifestyle.  Wealth-- gold or what-have-you-- was a means to an end, and never to be hoarded, but used to the benefit of all-- family first, of course, but for all.  Fancy complex fabrics and beautiful artistry in wood-- for wagons, weapons, furnishings, or what-have-you-- glass, copper, and brass-- these were the trappings of opulence, as were furs and food stores. 
 
The pantheon of seven-hundred gods and goddesses was impenetrable to outsiders, but the religion guided almost the entirety of everyday life.  These people were "barbarians" simply because their idea of a society was so far out-of-sorts with everyone else's: most people travelled to support a fixed location.  The barbarians travelled because all free creatures are migratory by nature.  People wanted homes in which to pack their riches, but hoarding was as unthinkable to the "barbarians" as is giving away wealth to modern Christians.   Short version is that the simple difference of opinion about what was universally "valuable" made it impossible for a "civilized" person to make much sense of their behaviors, other than their violence. 
 
No; they weren't Conan-level violent, but they thought in the exact terms of "the People (being all the tribes of the nomads), the Clan, and the family."  If you made an enemy of any one of the nomads, you made an enemy of not just his family, but his entire clan, and to declare an outsider an enemy of the Clan was tantamount to taking out an irrevocable contract on his life.  Amongst Nomads.... it got complicated.     No one ever made an enemy of "the People," but likely because of all the stories of the three empires throughout history that had made that mistake....   Their ruins still stand, in some places, where the earth is hard and salted....
 
Strangely enough-- or perhaps sensibly enough-- they were extremely gregarious, generous, and polite people-- you know: so long as you were, too. 
 
 

Probably the easiest way to do this would be to impose a strict set of campaign limits per rank.  Apply that to skills, talents, powers and characteristics.  As the characters rank up those limits also go up.  
 
When a character gains a new rank they also gain additional points to purchase new powers and maybe even need to take additional complications.  It would be similar to character type guideline table in the beginning of the first book.  A rank 1 character could start off as something similar to a standard heroic level character.  When they gain rank 2 they gain points as if they were a powerful heroic character. The exact details may need some adjustment, but the idea would work.  
 

First thing to consider is, when is a character eligible for a rank improvement?  
Then, as you've been asking, what does the rank difference mean?
 
Wearing the Cape (the books) identified D, C, B, and A classes, then the rare Omega and Ultra.  No regularly appearing PCs will be Ultra;  they are simply untouchable, unstoppable, and irresistible.  Omegas are pretty insane as they are.  Flip side, D's aren't that much better than regular humans.
 
When you're talking DCs and defenses, this is fairly easy.  D to A, STR max (for chars based on STR) might be 25, 35, 45, 55.  DCs might be 8, 10, 13, 16.  Defenses would be commensurate.  You might give a free DC of Damage Negation, as Grail suggested, each rank, alternating between PD and ED.  (And start with rank 1 getting 1 of each, so at rank 9, everyone would have 5 PD/5 ED Negation.)  I say free because it's inefficient to purchase, at least not without some limitations.
 
When you're talking other stuff, well, that's when things get confusing.

I would set it up as background rules for the world.
 
Let PC's and NPC's alike have set powers relative to the difference in their tiers. Having +1 DC and 1 level of Damage Negation per tier difference will allow a weaker character a chance but will be pretty decisive at a 3 tier or more difference. 
 
This also has the advantage of keeping it simple. You don't have to change any other rules to implement this across the board. 
 
 

This might be achieved by “taxing” Experience Points.  Let the players know that a percentage of their points will be withheld until they achieve their next level.  This would give you the effect of slow progress until they reach that plateau and then a burst of new powers, skills and abilities. 
   I might think about 50 -75% being held back. This would still mean the players had a trickle of points coming in to keep them from being discouraged but since they’ll get them back on the back end they might not raise too much of a fuss.
         Whatever happens, Good Luck.

This gentleman has several videos for Hero Designer going over the basics of using Hero Designer. Fantasy characters, alien races, magic items, etc. All material is for 5th Edition Hero System.

Back in the old CU campaign I ran, Seeker quit the Champions and joined UNTIL as a special operative until he retired as a trainer. One of the last characters made for the campaign had been trained by him and would defend him whenever someone tried to bad mouth the former hero. It was great!

All that about Seeker may be true, but he WAS very useful.  The trope goes that you can always tell a good Champions product by the fact that Seeker is on the cover.....usually unconscious.

Champions : Return To Edge City : Beyond the Valley of the DoLs
Scooter, despite having a huge stack of unspent XP, also has fewer points in Disadvantages than the other PCs.

The Magus OoC: From a certain point of view, Scooter has his life more together than anybody else in the team.
GM: Despite being the bouncer at a titty bar.

Scooter HAS been practicing some useful stuff, such as accurate Leaping, and the Disguise Skill.

The Magus OoC: That’s not Hero Shrew, that’s Normal Shrew!

Hardlight OoC: I’ll call my Skill Level upgrade ‘Slightly Less Incompetent’

GM: Scooter can get a motorised scooter: And join the Vespa Vermin.
Flux: Now there’s a motorcycle gang the city is missing.

We head to the old cemetery, intending to arrest anybody who shows up, especially if they’re VIPER agents. We have a lot of questions about the situation, including ‘If a vampire joins the Daughters of Lilith do they still have to get the fangs implanted?’.

Unfortunately, The Magus (and Scooter to a lesser degree) botch our Stealth checks at the cemetery.

Hero Shrew: Too distracted by all the free supplies available?
The Magus: No. I keep getting flashbacks.

Hero Shrew OoC: I probably should have tunneled under the cemetery and dragged them into the graves from underground.
The Magus OoC: The problem there is all the human remains.
Flux OoC: You’ll bump into something, and burst out of the ground yelling ‘OMG, I just saw Michael Jackson’
Hero Shrew OoC: Ah, so that’s why we failed the Stealth check.

The Magus having a spectacular allergic reaction to holy ground is also a problem. But it’s the way the two Daughters on guard apparently smell Scooter coming that’s the biggest issue - a bit of a surprise when they’re supposed to be basically human. Scooter attempts to get behind them by tunneling underground - and when the Daughters find what looks like a freshly emptied grave, they panic and flee for the cemetery exits. Scooter had made a successful Presence attack, by accident. Unfortunately it looks like they made a call to their boss about the unexpected zombie situation, and the meeting we were there to crash is promptly cancelled.

Flux gets to work investigating the VIPER agent’s online presence - on top of everything else, she makes an annual trip to Wisconsin.

Hero Shrew: Undersconsin!
Flux: No. We don’t want to die.

We locate and stake-out their next meeting, in a children’s playground. Happily there aren’t any kids around at this hour - that could get messy.

Flux: Honestly if there were a bunch of kids hanging around the playground at midnight I’d be more freaked out than I am with all the vampires.

We also learn that the Spinnerette network the Daughters of Lilith answer to is a bit upset by the gang’s initiative, and they’ve sent some rollerskaters that go by the moniker of The Cherry Bombs to remonstrate. There’s also a news blimp perfectly positioned to film whatever happens next.

The Magus calls up an illusion of thick fog, and the other leap into action to protect the Daughters from likely assassination. And hopefully nab that VIPER rep. The Daughters DO go down suspiciously easy when the Magus follows up with a STUN attack to stop them running away under their own steam. And then the power-armoured SWAT team show up.

GM: It’s something you need to know when dealing with this kind of security - if they don’t recognise you and you seem to be involved in whatever is going on, you’re going down to the station in cuffs. It’s called Securing The Scene.

The Magus: Their deployment vehicle is currently stuck on one of the access paths because nobody gave him the key to this bollard.

Whatever happens, it looks like we’ll need to deal with the Spinnerette Network once and for all.

The Magus: They ARE getting a little too murdery.

Happily, hitting the keyboards turns up some interesting information - such as the suspicious way the Spinnerets seem to get out of police trouble a lot faster than anybody else. It seems to be a systemic issue too - if it’s a conspiracy the entire ECPD would have to be involved. Something appears to be moving electronic records around without leaving a trace.

The Magus: Cyberpathy - or Flux is moonlighting.

Since the only thing that can protect against a cyberpath is another cyberpath, it’s probably a problem that the ECPD doesn’t have any technomancers on the payroll.

The Magus: I did find traces of another technomancer working in Edge City.
Flux: .. what?
GM: That might be the first time you’ve actually told Flux that.
The Magus: I think I mentioned in passing as part of a larger infodump. Pretty sure I added a note to the blackboard back at our base.

It is interesting to note that the Spinnerets keep their prostituion income stream entirely separate from their infobrokering.

GM: You pay for discretion.
Fireflash: What happens in Edge City stays in Edge City.

Hardlight, investigating the actual information hardware, finds some peculiar residue on the nodes.

Hardlight: .. I have no idea what this is.
Hero Shrew: Special computer grease to make the electrons go faster?

Hardlight uses his sensory suite to look at the stuff at a microscopic level - weirdly, it seems to have the same texture all the way down. Flux pokes the stuff in the base lab, but it’s not until he tests its occult properties that he gets any results.

Flux: Son of a B****.

It’s ectoplasm.

Flux: Just a minute, I need to go grab a toaster.
Hardlight: And play some music?

Apparently it’s some kind of astral residue. But not magical. Our more mystically inclined members eventually determine that somebody is making small astral portals to run their connections through. And the connections are very… spidery. As is the guardian spirit they left on duty.

The Magus: Huh. So that’s a thing.

They REALLY shouldn’t be hanging out this close to the material plane. We really need to shut the Spinnerets and their subsidiary gangs down. While rounding up their street level members might be doable, actually finding laws to arrest the leaders under might be trickier, assuming we can even get through their layers of sacrificial mooks. Perhaps we should target their unlicensed drinking establishments, preferably when they have lots of customers to scare off. Time for a montage - with lots of press coverage and all due credit to the ECPD Anti-gang Unit (their Internal Affairs and Cybercrime units are busy enough trying to figure out what the Spinnerets have done to their computer system)

Flux: With any luck there’ll be underage drinking - then we can really nail them to the wall.

It probably helps that Scooter already knew where all the illegal dives were, although he had never done anything about them. Just as well he doesn’t work at the Collar Club anymore, or retaliation would seem likely.

Despite actually catching one of the Daughters of Lilith leaders at one of the raids, they somehow escaped without anybody seeing how. Still, each lesser arrest we make provides a point to magically track back to their leadership. So it’s rather unfortunate that when we do, Cassiana and her lieutenants are lying in a pool of blood, and are covered in spiders. And the cloud swirling around the room is more spiders.

Hardlight: Magus. Please teleport me out again, Right now.
The Magus: Oh please, there’s no way they can get through your shield.
Hardlight: I’m still turning the armour way up!

Fireflash blasts the room, to kill as many of the spiders as she can, and calls an ambulance for the Daughters of Lilith, and the Port Authority Biohazard team to deal with any remaining spiders.

Fireflash: We do NOT want Brazilian Wandering Spiders spreading into California!

It’s a bit odd that Cassiana had the accoutrements of a vampire hunter when we found her - was she expecting competition? And sniffing around (literally in Scooter's case) what at first appears to be a dosshouse is actually a bolthole. We’ll probably have to wait for Cassiana to wake up to find out what she was actually up to - unless her real name Theodosia Lathrum is relevant. There was certainly a lineage of vampire hunters going by that moniker.

Fireflash: The historical Theodosia was co-emperor of Byzantium with Justinian the First.
Hero Shrew: Wife and daughter of Aaron Burr, too.
Hardlight: What?
Hero Shrew: Hey, I listen to music, ok?
Hardlight: Aaron Burr’s wife was a vampire hunter?

But what’s with all the spiders?

The Magus: The only thing that can save us now is Bee-man’s edgier cousin, Tarantula Hawk Man.

GM: F*** me, I still haven’t come up with a name for these things. Because I’m not calling them Tarantuloids.
Hero Shrew’s player: Pseudotarantuloids.
GM: They’re native to the astral plane
Hero Shrew’s player: Tarantulpas.
GM: And they’re not earth spiders because they have ten limbs.
Flux’s player: Gegenees.
GM: But those mythical six-armed giants are already in Champions.
Flux’s player: They are? Ah well - it’s about 50-50 odds with anything mythological and Champions.
Hero Shrew player: Ungolians.

According to some incredibly pretentious Victorian era occult tomes, these things are apparently scavengers that usually reside in the lower astral levels. That might explain why they seem to be sealing up the breaches in the astral veil.

The Magus: Shall we follow these cables back to their origin point?
Hero Shrew: I’m willing - just shove me through one of these holes and we’ll see what happens.
The Magus: You’re too big.
Hardlight: And probably too physical.

GM: I question the wisdom of implanting an alien energy source in your neck.
Hardlight: I keep telling you, I didn’t do it to myself! I fell down a well and woke up with it inside me!
The Magus: I heard the same story in the Emergency Department last week.
GM: Jack was nimble, Jack was quick, The doctor at the emergency department said “Jack did WHAT with a candlestick?”

The Magus can teleport us all to the Astral, which is half-full of webbing, but if anything happens to him we’re screwed. And we’re probably doomed anyway thanks to Hardlight’s Weirdness Magnet, which apparently rates as ‘Greatly Impairing’

The Magus: So, is everybody ready to fight spider people?
Hero Shrew: I am! Does that book say whether they’re edible?
The Magus: They’re Camel-spider people.
Flux: THAT MAKES IT WORSE
The Magus: I did say that unless we can find Tarantula Hawk-man we have to handle this ourselves.
Hardlight: I’m half expecting Scooter to show up in a costume with a burning can of insecticide as a logo.
Hero Shrew: That’s a good idea actually - any aerosol cans and cigarette lighters handy?
GM: … OK, sure.
Hardlight: It IS a very Scooter Solution.

The Tarantuloids (apparently called Uttu) immediately draw weapons and advance when we transition over. And we haven’t even messed with their stuff yet.

Hardlight’s Player: I try to find some spider-themed assets for Tabletop Simulator and the first thing I find is a Femboy Spider Token.
GM: Welcome to the Internet where Everything Is Awful.

The Magus: Well, I’d better try and negotiate before anybody gets set on fire… Hail, fellow sentients! What are you doing so close to the material planes?
Uttu: We Guard! You Leave!
Flux: Is it OK if we leave that way? *pointing to the direction the cable is heading*
The Magus: And who are you guarding it for?
Uttu: She!
Hardlight: Well, at least we know their assumed gender. Uh, She who?
Uttu: SHE!
Fireflash: She Who Must Not Be Named?
Flux: We seem to be having some translation difficulties…
GM: With apologies to H. Rider Haggard.
Uttu: We follow SHE! SHE provides!
Flux: Can talk to her? Uh, She?
Uttu: SHE talks to who She wishes!

The Magus intimidates them enough to at least send a message.

Hero Shrew: Does She sell seashells?
Hardlight: I’m half-expecting She to be short for Shelob.
Uttu: *in slow English* She. Says. She Will Send. Emmi-sary. Asks. Who You?
The Magus: The Magus.
Uttu: She. Says. Crap.

At least we get an address - in the middle of Spinnerets territory.

Hardlight: I pull out my freeweb device. Wait, no signal.
GM: Actually you do have a signal. What???
Flux: Ok Mr Tech Genius, before we leave, find out what the hell that’s connecting to.

The Spinnerets emissary has a fancy sword and crucifix earrings

Hero Shrew: I wonder if the earrings are significant.
GM: Probably - the powered in the Champions universe are generally pretty careful with the symbols of Higher Powers.
Hardlight: Well, I’m going to shut up and not say anything - foot-in-mouth and all. So go on you two, get talking.

The Emissary is pretty confident that the holes in the astral veil aren’t a problem, because they have a way to stabilise them. The Magus points out that that does nothing about the way the Spinnerets are rewriting police records at will. The Emissary makes an offer on She’s behalf - if we let them withdraw the connections in question (they’re not much use to She now we know about them) the Spinnerets will extend us a line of credit.

Hardlight: This is one of those moral quandaries, isn’t it.

The Magus calls the rest of us over to join the conversation.

Hero Shrew: Cool sword.
The Emissary: Thankyou.
Flux: So, Magus, I see you’re not dead.
The Magus: Did you expect me to be?
Flux: *waggles hand* eh.

The Emissary: I speak for She. I listen and She hears.
The Magus: And She occasionally swears to the Uttu.

Hardlight: I’m guessing this line of credit isn’t monetary.
The Emissary: Of course not.
Flux: My apologies, he doesn’t understand metaphors.
Hardlight OoC: No I don't understand metaphors, that’s the whole POINT of my character!

So, if we choose to ignore the murder and attempted murder of the Daughters of Lilith, or at least put it down to internal gang politics, we can at least stop the Spinnerets from messing with the ECPD data systems, and can get some favours from She in future.

The Magus: Admittedly it’s a lot harder to pin the murders on them.

The Emissary: Do we have any other business?
Hero Shrew: Are there any giant edible bugs in the Astral Plane?
Hardlight: What????
The Emissary: I don’t know.

The Magus recognises the Emissary’s weapon too - the Sword of God’s Word, that Separates Truth From Lie.

GM: I need a word, not antediluvian, that’s specifically The Flood, but basically prehuman..
Hero Shrew: Pre-Adamite.
GM: The sword is Pre-Adamite.
Hardlight: Freaky.
GM: Says the person who’s bonded to a pre-Adamite artefact.

Hero Shrew: I’d like to know which supervillains they’ve been cleaning up records for.
The Emissary: That’s confidential.
Hero Shrew: What’s the deal with Undersconsin?
Hardlight: SCOOTER
The Emissary: ...She has no information on Undersconsin.

GM: This is all worth 7 XP and two favours from the Spinnerets.
The Magus: For not burning the house down.

GM: I hope you didn’t find that too frustrating?
Hardlight OoC: No, not fighting is just as good as fighting, most of the time.
Hero Shrew OoC: Hey! Fighting is the only thing I’m good at!
GM: No it isn’t! Half the time you’re the only person who figures out what’s actually happening, because you work at street level.
Hero Shrew OoC: Eh, tell me that, I’m having increasing questions about my self worth lately.
Flux: Don’t worry, we’ll get you a cave so you can spend a few weeks brooding with the bats and getting horribly damp and s*** on. I mean seriously, that’s a terrible place for a base. And he goes and fills it with computers.
Hardlight: The first thing he installed was good HVAC.

Call of Cthulhu : Poissy to Lausanne (via Other Places)   JANUARY 1923

In Which The Adventurers Complete the Second Leg Of Their Journey, and Acquire An Arm

Sub-Lt. Huxley, journalist Florence Braxton-Hicks, and dilettante Alexandra ‘Alex’ Braxton are currently guests of a French doctor and his wife, who would probably have reconsidered their offer if they knew the kind of excitement the party were bringing into their lives. Admittedly, the fact that their daughter apparently saw a boogeyman outside her upstairs window has no obvious connection to their visitors, but the repeated disturbances in the guestroom, and the discovery of what lies under Chez Lorien, certainly does.

But beginning at the beginning, there doesn’t appear to be a mitten-biter or any other kind of bogeyman outside Quitterie’s upstairs bedroom window when Huxley checks, nor any sign that anybody was in the yard. On the other hand, there doesn’t appear to be anybody else in the room when Florence finds herself flung across the room with considerable force in the middle of the night. Or perhaps there was, because Huxley suffers similar injuries the following night, in the same room, but unlike Flo he recalls a horribly withered figure holding him by the throat and hissing “Which god do you serve?” in Latin.

Of course that does raise the question of how this attacker got into the room in the first place, since only the Loriens have the other key.

Florence: I’m searching the walls for hidden doors - I’ve read enough mystery novels to know the score.

Both Florence and Huxley have bruises that strongly resemble a powerful grip around their throat.

GM: And as far as you know she’s not into autoasphyxiation.

Of course they wouldn’t have had to stay at Chez Lorien that long if they hadn’t botched locating the ruins of Fenalik’s mansion, twice.

Florence: I look at the map again and realise I was holding it upside down. Sacré bleu!

Although it’s Veronique Lorien pointing out that they’re doing all their measurements in metric, when the estate map they were given was pre-Revolution, that uncovers Fenalik’s cellar. Of course, it still takes another day of digging - by Huxley - to excavate the door.

Florence: Hard work never killed anyone.

What lies beyond is certainly hellish, so it appears Captain Malon’s report from 1793 was accurate in that regard. It’s probably just as well Huxley acquired holy water from the church in Poissy. The subterranean garden is bad enough, given the unfortunate parallels with the garden where Florence's stillborn siblings were buried. But hey, at least they find the Left Arm of the Sedefkar Simulacrum! Although Huxley does have a new concern.

Huxley: I think we have another pursuer.
Florence: Charming.

The Left Arm is certainly a curious artefact - apparently ceramic, and inscribed with an intricate pattern of hundreds of left arms. And whatever glaze the creator used darkens from pearly white to a deep blue in sunlight. It’s also flawless, with the exception of a vaccination scar exactly where Alex has one - but that they can’t find again when they doublecheck. Huxley can’t even confirm what it’s made of, since when he tries to scrape off a sample his shoulder starts to hurt.

GM: But then you did do a lot of digging yesterday - that’s no doubt why.

At least they can telegram Professor Smith the good news - he’s apparently recovering from his burns, and has started sending letters to his contacts across Europe to help how he can. And Remi assures his friend that he’ll find a copy of the Diary of an Unknown Soldier and post it to them no matter where they are in Europe. The message from Antonio is less promising - it turns out that de Gremanci is one of the most common surnames in Venice, so finding out if the reputed sorcerer Alvise de Gremanci ever got his hands on part of the Simulacrum is proving difficult.

GM: The telegram is already a bit terse, but Antonio is basically complaining that it’s like asking every Smith in London if their great-great grandfather was a sorcerer and did he leave them any body parts in his will?

On the other hand, now that they know what the Simulacrum actually looks like, they can find out which auction house in Paris sold one of the pieces after The War, and exactly which Milanese gentleman they sold it to. The couple of days are fruitless, until one of the auction houses takes pity on them (or perhaps are impressed enough by the obvious quality of Alex’s suit) to point out that it might have been a private auction - or not sold as statuary at all. THAT clue uncovers a pamphlet where something that sounds very much like the Torso, from the collection of one Dr Rigault (1746-1794), was put up for auction as a ‘Porcelain Anatomical Model, Maker Unknown’. Rigault was the Royal Physician prior to the Revolution, and a name already connected to the raid on Fenalik’s house.

But it appears it didn’t reach the reserve price, and a few years later it was auctioned off as part of a job lot, with a bunch of period costumes, dress weapons, costume jewelry, and dressmaker’s dummies. They were purchased by one P. Rischonti. At last the Investigators can head to Milan - with a brief stop-over in Switzerland to interrogate one Edgar Welligton about his knowledge of the Simulacrum.

Huxley is reluctant to let the Arm out of his sight.

Huxley: I’ll keep it close. At hand.
GM: That pun is a bit of a reach.
Huxley: Does this arm come with a manual?

At least the other guests on the Orient Express as it departs Paris after midnight are less obnoxious than that preteen on the train from London. Indeed, Signorina Caterina Cavallaro, star of Parisian and Milanese opera, is charming, witty, and very generous, complimenting Alex on her suit and promising to get Huxley and his friends rooms at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, as well as front row tickets for opening night of Aida at La Scala. She has quite a story about how she went to her first opera, fully intending to wish for a pony as she sung along to ‘Ritorna vincitor!’, but decided on the spot to wish to be an opera singer instead. Looks like it worked. She sings the aria for the other travellers, to rapturous applause.

Florence OoC: Sing Freebird!

The investigators stagger off to bed, and wake up on a cobbled street in somewhere apparently called Ulthar, which has a lot of cats. Florence is pleased about that - the nature of the trains here, less so. That Alex has switched genders is a bit of a surprise too, although perhaps less than some might expect.

Huxley: Between a woman I normally see in men’s clothing anyway and the fact we’re riding on giant elephant octopus things under a sky where I don’t recognise a single constellation, the fact that Alex is apparently male here barely registers.

Chatting with some of the other passengers on the Dreamlands Express, they learn the train was created to give a chance for any passengers of the one in the Waking World a chance to discard their worries, in the Gulf of Nodens beyond the cloudcity of Serranian. Although there is some philosophical debate in the Dreamlands about which world is the ‘real’ one. After all, as one of the other passengers, one ‘Mac’ Mackenzie from Scotland, points out, sometimes dreamers from Earth die there and live on here, which adds some weight to the question. Although Mackenzie does warn the dreamers away from one Karasov, apparently an arms dealer in the Waking World. Karasov is instantly unpopular with the investigators, and doesn’t help his case any by saying that if he didn’t sell weapons to the governments of the world, somebody else would. Karasov also won’t say why he’s on the train, although MacKenzie’s reason is that he wishes to be a poet in Sona-Nyl. Hopefully there’s some kind of training program there, because his poetry is awful.

The other out-of-place person here is one Madam Bruja, apparently an Elizabethan widow, who wants nothing to do with any of the male passengers on the train, but does warm to Florence when she explains that women have much more freedom in the waking World then they used to - she’s a journalist and travels widely of her own recognizance, for a start. Bruja does warn her to beware men.

Madam Bruja: Men are animals - worse than animals. They’ll take what they want from you, and I won’t let him.

The incredible luxury of the pavilions on the Dreamlands Express is certainly relaxing, and gives Huxley a chance to discuss his concerns with the others. Such as his suspicions about that ‘psychic assassin’ that attacked them in Poissy. He’s sure that at least three different groups know that they’re after the Simulacrum.

Huxley: The Midnight Strangler, Sedefkar of many corpses, and whoever likes skinning people.
GM: Well, Sedefkar probably died quite a few centuries ago.
Florence: PROBABLY
GM: Although Professor Smith DID say that possessing the Simulacrum was to possess immortality.
Huxley: I’m not sure what I believe anymore - my skepticism is eroding rapidly.

Pathfinder: In Hell's Bright Shadow : Calling All Girls
Ayva OoC: Poor Terzo, all these women and he has no chance with any of them.
Terzo OoC: Believe me, I do not actually consider that a problem.
Civilla OoC: I should hope so, you’re my tutor.
Terzo OoC: And that’s just ONE reason.

And Ayva does have a point - between the party, most of the NPCs that are important enough to name, and Thrune’s choice of trusted minions, it seems the script for any future movies about events in Kintargo will easily pass the Bechdel Test. Unless we’re talking about Thrune anyway, but nobody cares what he has between his legs unless it’s an opportunity to remove it with something rusty.

Negotiating the Red Jills is going to be dicey, since they basically count anybody from the Basic Character Races as The Enemy. And Rajira is the only one that is clearly outside their broad definition of ‘human’, and only if she doesn’t try to hide her reptilian heritage.

Civilla: The thing is, Thrune’s agents might actually follow the rules of hospitality and parley if we were having a meeting like this - they’re Evil, but Lawful Evil. But the Jills are probably Chaotic.

Rajira: I was going to say ‘let’s wing it’, but that might offend the Strix.
Civilla: So no triggering language.
Ayva: And nothing about ‘plans being hatched’.
Civilla: You have to be careful about ear jokes around elves too - although given that of the usual races it’s humans that have the weird round ears, that’s kinda strange.

Ayva: I was going to say ‘don’t get cocky’ but there’s the bird language again.

It’s actually Rajira’s suggestion that we don’t meet at the Red Jills’ hideout, in case of Property Damage Escalating To Arson, and the gang agrees.

Rajira: Good evening - I believe we have important matters to discuss.
Scarplume the Strix: Ah yes, the Ghosts of Kintargo.

Apparently our reputation is already spreading.

Scarplume: What makes you think you can change the way the Jills do business?
Rajira: I don’t believe I can - but I believe I can give you a reason to change yourselves.

Rajira: You are a person of power and influence
Scarplume: Power that was hard-won - and you are offering…?
Rajira: An opportunity.

Rajira is persuasive enough, with the eventual intention of making Kintargo a city that won’t look down on the Tieflings simply for being born the way they are.

Rajira: Thrune has drastically under-estimated the power of this city - and its power is the spirit of the people.

Scarplume’s demand is that if we do manage to take over the city, that the Tieflings be treated with full equality and respect.

Rajira: I already do.
Terzo: Liberty! Egality! Fraternity!
Scarplume: I will take you at your word then - but if I hear one whisper that your enterprise is failing, this will not be the last you hear from me.

At least they've agreed to direct their depredations against the occupation, instead of the citizens. Civilla and Rajira are privately skeptical, and after we leave, discuss the likelihood that we’re going to have to eliminate the Jills anyway.

Terzo: Well, that went well.
Civilla: How exactly do you think that went well?
Terzo: They agreed that Tieflings need to be treated with full equality, and that Thrune’s forces are the actual enemy here. I think we have a lot in common.
Civilla: Well, we’ll hold off for now and see how it plays out.
Ayva: At least we can say we tried.

Rexus has good news too - he’s finally finished his translation of the documents we found under the old Livery. A lot of it is tactical advice for defending the city. Some deals with the Secret Order of Archivists, that Rexus’ mother worked for before she died - or rather, before Rexus thought her dead, since he now thinks she may have made it to a previously unsuspected safehouse beneath Hocum’s Phantasmagorium, a tourist-trap museum that’s been closed for well over a decade. In fact there’s a key to the building among the stuff we found.

Terzo: I’m surprised the building hasn’t been repurposed.
Civilla: You’re right - that is suspicious.
Unfortunately, there’s a bunch of Asmodean priests and zombies doing something inside the building, when one of our rebellion cells does some reconnoitering on our behalf.

Terzo: It would appear they thought the building being empty this long was suspicious too.
Rajira: Or they just want to take advantage of it.
Terzo OoC: Maybe they want to open a Starbucks.
Ayva OoC: ‘Local Starbucks Burns Down - Meanwhile Local Cafe Owner Does Roaring Business’
GM: Hell’s Rebels : The True Story Of The Kintargo Coffee Wars

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/808767700515028992/909068946462900264/tumblr_inline_o8ico2kVcn1qao8br_1280.png

Ayva OoC: The People Magazine idea for our printing press has gone through the roof. ‘What do we print in our first issue?’ ‘Well, we didn’t get a second…’

We wait until some of the Asmodean priests swap with a shift change, and jump them. Unfortunately, Rajira botches the strike, and botches the follow-up as well. Fortunately Terzo casts Sleep on the one that didn’t turn invisible and run off.

Terzo: *expressively gestures* Well, what do we do now?
Civilla: We proceed at speed - you could stand to lose a few pounds.

The invisible one is probably going to lose a few pounds too, when Civilla’s Celestial Hyena catches up with her. At least she isn’t going to alert everybody else in the building. Unfortunately, the exhibits in the Fantasmagorium didn’t include animated skunk ape skeletons - the ones that attack us are new. Rexus, who insisted on coming with us, gets himself badly mauled.

Civilla: He shouldn’t be here anyway.
Ayva: He needs training - we can afford that now.
Terzo: What, some kind of spray bottle? ‘Don’t Go. Near. The Monsters’ *squirt*
Civilla OoC: Well, at least if he gets killed there’ll be no-one to contest the sale of the estate…
Ayva OoC: But he is basically Mr Exposition

Having dealt with the White Apes of STREWTH!, we press on to one of the marine themed halls. Unfortunately, none of us have Knowledge (Nature), and none of us see a ‘Do Not Tap The Glass’ sign, so we soon regret Terzo’s curiosity about the tanks.

Civilla: Terzo, how have you survived this long in Chelliax?
Terzo: Natural Charm?
Ayva: He’s well pickled, people think he’s a gherkin.

Ayva: I’m beginning to think this building is cursed.
Civilla: Undead in the last room, undead in this one - I think you’re right.
Ayva OoC: I meant the way that since we came in here, all we’re rolling are 1s and 20s.
GM: And not the way round you need.
Ayva: This didn’t happen to us on the stealth missions.
Civilla OoC: In the stealth missions, it was the other people that needed to make rolls, not us.

Ayva: Terzo? Come here.
Terzo: Yes?
Ayva: DON’T TOUCH STUFF IN THE CURSED MUSEUM.
Terzo: I’m beginning to get that impression, yes.

Terzo: I’m not sure what the problem is, I’ve spent decades poking things I probably shouldn’t and I’m hardly likely to stop now. Although they probably wouldn’t appreciate me calling them ‘things’.

Rajira: Since we don’t want a case of crabs, let’s move on.
Ayva: Hey, a case of crabs, covered in butter, what’s the problem?
Rajira: Depends how you get them.
Ayva: Usually by paying for them - how do you get them?
Terzo: …
Ayva: … we’re talking about two different things, aren’t we?

Civilla: Rexus, if you don’t stay at the end of the party, I will ensure you are the end of your line.

The next room was an insectarium - the last person in here clearly didn’t get the memo about not touching stuff in the cursed museum.

Civilla: This place used to be a tourist trap, now it’s a…
Terzo: Death Trap?

We also find out why the Asmodeans are actually here - they’ve been stripping the building of anything showing historical facts the government of Chelliax doesn’t like. F***ing Redactors. If they’re that easily upset, they must have hated the wax museum in the next room - it certainly upset us. Whatever genius decided to set up a waxwork display of Kintargo’s more infamous serial killers REALLY shouldn’t have used the kind of waxwork guaranteed to get up and continue the subject’s career. On the other hand we can certainly blame the Church of Asmodeus for the zombies - the next lot are Rexus’ family.

Happily, we find the Redactors immediately thereafter and can register our complaints in person.

GM: The redactors call out to their commander as you storm the room, but you murdered their commander in cold blood when you first entered the building.

Terzo’s player: annoying, battery in mouse has finally gone flat
Rajira’s player: Why I prefer wired mice - However, getting the drugs to keep them wired is expensive.

Ayva: Rexus is a bit wired at the moment.
Rajira’s player: How did he get my mouse drugs?

Discovering a hidden entrance to deeper parts of the Fantasmogorium is a problem, because somebody might show up to investigate all the screaming and fireworks at any moment, and we’re already battered and exhausted dealing with the stuff in the main building.

Civilla: F*********** - if we don’t look down there now we won’t get a second chance later
Ayva: This better be a treasure room or we’re going home.

It seems to be a whole complex down here - it looks like we’ll have to camp underground for a few hours to rest, and hope the dottari don’t know about the secret stairwell (and don’t have a shift change before then). This proves optimistic, since the Redactors were apparently here to censor the collected histories of the Sacred Order of Archivists, the group Rexus’ parents belonged to. The archivists were using the Fantasmagorium - or at least, the hidden monastery in the basement - as a base of operations.

Terzo: We’ll have to take Rexus’ family down too.
Civilla: So now we’ll have to sleep in the same room as a pile of corpses - greeeeeat.
Ayva: I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff on these bookshelves to distract you.

Ayva’s player: Before we wander into descriptive text can we get some XP?

Apparently there’s a creature composed entirely of books and paper down here.

Ayva: Ok, Civilla, don’t touch any books.
Book Creature: Halt intruders!
Ayva: Okay.
Book Creature: … I didn’t expect that to work.

Apparently whatever this thing is was summoned to guard the hidden library’s books from any intruders, for at least another 12 days. That doesn’t preclude us from having a good stickybeak around, though, as long as we don’t actually touch anything. And it doesn’t stop us finding out that he was summoned by the Asmodeans to protect the Redactors while they go about their business of rewriting recorded history. The Scrivenite isn’t very happy about that. Which is probably why he’s telling us all the rules of his binding.

Ayva: But the Redactors are all-
Civilla: Shushshushshush! Theoretical question for you, what would you do if the Redactors were all dead?
Scrivenite: The ones upstairs are not my purview - I’m bound to protect the ones in the monastery. I don’t suppose any of you can cast Dismissal?
Rajira: Bit high-level for us.
Scrivenite: Darn it. I really don’t want to fight you.

Scrivenite: As long as you don’t enter the room by THAT DOOR *point point, gesture significantly* and don’t touch any of the books in THIS ROOM, *more gesturing* I’m not obliged to attack you.
Civilla: Okay, okay, I can work with this.
Ayva: What if we dress up as Redactors?
Scrivenite: Well I’ll know it’s you, now - you shouldn’t have said anything.

Civilla: I think I can get us past your restrictions with a bit of pedantry. You won’t let anybody through the door, correct? So what if I open the door, but not go through it, cast Rope Trick, have my associates enter the extradimensional space, teleport into the other room myself, and have everybody climb down again?
Scrivenite: As far as I’m concerned that will work.
Civilla: That’s all we need. I believe you’re a creature of Law? Your summoners were insufficiently precise.


The first few rooms down here contain sleeping Redactors, who sleep infinitely deeper as Rajira goes to them one by one.

Terzo: So, those rooms were empty then?
Rajira: They are now.
Terzo: I choose to interpret that positively.

The next one was actually awake when Rajira stabbed him, and tries to make a run for it - and immediately regrets it, since the rest of the party are waiting in the corridor.

GM: The Redactor stops dead - and you recognise him, Civilla.
Redactor: C-cousin???
Civilla: Cousin? You call yourself family and you’ve taken the mark of the Redactors?
Ayva: I take it that we’re not taking him alive?
Civilla: NO.
Ayva: Well then.
Rajira OoC: For one thing he knows too much.

The Redactor IS an Alazario, and the son of the mayor of the Chellish capitol.

Terzo OoC: I’ll hold off on doing anything - Civilla might be annoyed if I set him on fire.

Civilla summons a monster octopus, and stomps forward to snarl for a bit.

GM: He tries to say something but it’s kind of muffled by tentacles.
Civilla: *sigh* Let him speak.

Apparently Civilla’s cousin, Nicolo, is no happier to be here than Civilla is to see him.

Civilla: Then WHY. ARE YOU. HERE.
Ayva: Daddy dearest?
Civilla: Probably. *sigh*
GM: I’ll be quick because he’s bleeding out a HP a round.
Rajira: Two.

Apparently the Mayor has found himself in deep political trouble, and Civilla’s cousin had to join the Redactors to save the family’s reputation, despite the fact that the Alazarios as a whole are very much against destroying written history. Civilla is now regretting that she’s so family focused - mostly because we can’t leave him here alive, because being the Only Survivor would be highly suspicious. And apparently he HAS been preserving what he can.

Ayva: What’s that saying about ‘better pissing out?’

Terzo tries to patch the cousin up before he bleeds out, then we stash him in the Rope Trick dimension for the time being.

Terzo: Stabbed him rather deeply, didn’t you?
Rajira: I WAS trying to kill him.
Terzo: You with the tentacles, hold this limb tighter.

Apparently the success one of Civilla’s more distant kin had in becoming a pirate king, a few years back, inspired another Alazario to become a pirate. Unfortunately she was also a captain in the Chellish Navy, and the Mayor’s sister, and she decided to target Chellish merchant ships. Well, at least we’ll have someone to mail the cousin to.

The next room has been set up to be the ideal kind of battleground for some quite unpleasant devils. It looks like Rajira and the Chthonic Octopus will be on point - they’re certainly sneakier than the rest of us. For one thing the mollusc can detect living people through walls. Unfortunately it can’t tell WHO is on the other side of the wall, so finding Barzillai Thrune’s bodyguard, Nox, down here, is a bit of a shock. Fortunately she’s not wearing her armour, because she’s asleep. Unfortunately, her hellhound is not.

Rajira attacks Nox first, and kills her instantly with poisoned blades.

GM: She failed ALL HER ROLLS. She was supposed to be the BBEG of this chapter! There’s a whole subchapter here about her as a recurring villain!
Civilla OoC: We could always have left her as the Only Survivor

Rajira: NEED A LITTLE HELP HERE.

Civilla teleports past all the highly suspicious chains, to try and disable what she suspects is something very close to the Lament Configuration - Chain Devils are the last thing we want showing up. The chains alone are nasty enough.

Civilla OoC: Bags not being the first Cenobite. *fails the check* F***.

The head injury she suffers from a chain lashing out of the cube into her face also knocks out her last hour of short-term memory, which is going to make for some interesting conversations later. But at least Ayva succeeds in making the chains vanish.

Terzo cast Grease before the rest of the Redactor Monks show up.

GM: Why don’t these monks - admittedly Lvl 1 monks - have any points in Acrobatics?
Terzo: Because books can’t fight back.
Redactor-who-isn't-Civilla's-Cousin: Magic-users! Retreat to the Garden!
Terzo: They have a garden down here?

Ayva uses Boneshaker on one of the Redactors, which proves fatal.

Civilla: You grabbed him by the skeleton and shook him like an underpaid nanny!
Ayva: I wasn’t expecting it to actually kill him!
Terzo: I thought that was the plan - unless any more of these are your cousins, Civilla?
Civilla: *still amnesiac* What????

Retreating to the garden and preparing spells does the surviving monks no good at all, because Civilla’s octopus attacks them straight out of the floor.

We pursue, leaving Rexus to kill any Redactors we leave merely unconscious behind us.

Rexus: THIS IS FOR MY MOTHER!
Ayva: It’s OK, we can fix it later.
GM: Am I going to have to get THAT post up?
Civilla: It’d have to be True Resurrection - and at the moment Time Is Money.

Civilla follows up her octopus with a Celestial Hyena, and Terzo uses Blistering Invective on the remaining Redactors, and sets them on fire - one survives long enough to dash for the underground river.

Terzo: Get out here and fight, you craven clay-brained canker-blossoms!
Unfortunate Redactor: *on fire on top of everything else, and feeling that the rebels are being a bit unfair* We’re Asmodeans, we’re meant to be evil, what the F***

Civilla’s hyena tears out his belly.

Civilla: Well, that’s all of them.
Ayva: ah….
Terzo: Come over here, dear, you’ll want to sit down for this bit. You know how one of your distant cousins became the Hurricane King?
Civilla: Yesss, but that was hundreds of miles away, what does that have to do with these guys?
Terzo: We’re getting there we’re getting there - anyway, his example encouraged one of your closer relatives to try the same career.
Civilla: OK?
Terzo: Unfortunately she was a captain in the Chellish Navy at the time.
Civilla: What? But her brother is the mayor of - oh.
Rajira: So guess who we have.
Civilla: Her?
Terzo: No - but her nephew had to join the Redactors to protect his family. So he was REALLY lucky you were the first person he saw when he was running away from Rajira.
Civilla: Maybe you should have led with ‘Don’t worry, he’s alive?’

Apparently this place was the Archivists storehouse for Worryingly Magical Stuff. Most of said worryingly magical stuff is missing, including a necklace or amulet, a pair of gloves or bracers, and a reasonably sized rock. Rexus, happily, has a key to the secret compartment behind the shelves, however.

Meanwhile, Rajira goes to check out the garden, presumably to figure out the best place to chop up the bodies and feed them to Civilla’s Chthonic Toads. It’s not like we can just dump them all in the underground stream - that might contaminate someone’s water supply. If we can make all the bodies vanish, we can hopefully make Thrune think his bodyguard and entire order of Redactors have fled the city. A few Convincing Lies spread by the underground press should help.

In a small nook on the other side of the garden, Rajira finds a series of books that magically contain the memories and experiences of some members of the Order of Archivists. Including Rexus’ parents.

Civilla OoC: There’s a reason that we play things the way that we do. We stack our advantages because the dice can **** you in an instant.