Drhoz

Fixing the cisterns is going to be a major engineering problem. Gonno: Possibly we should hire some dwarves. Shev: That's racist. Assuming Dwarves would be the best engineers available. Miya: Quite. I've met some very capable elves. Shev: Excuse me, we’re RIGHT HERE. Certainly, the ratboi Skave has some good ideas regarding the first cistern. And the Ysoki probably have a cousin they can get in to draw up the blueprints. Shev: I’ll make sure any blueprints Skave draws up are kept away from any open flames. GM: I don’t think he drew them on flashpaper. Shev: You’ll be amazed what a trace of sulphur infused in the paper will do. Kaegor, the head of the town militia, is elected the next mayor. He’s a retired fighter. A joyous occasion! Miya’s wedding day! To the most eligible bachelor in town, Falx Vandruber, miller and grinder. GM: So you take his surname? Miya: Since I didn’t have one, yes! Gonno makes sure to have a proper marriage bed carved in time for the wedding, so they can be carried into their house on it. He’s going to be busy - there’s four other marriages on the same day. Shev: But not me. I’m starting to get some funny looks from the colony. I’m 19! I thought I’d met someone but they kept turning into a human every month. All: …. Miya: I think I missed something. Skave has two ratlings now, though. Shev believes the reason that he isn’t married yet is because he’s an insufficiently good catch as a husband. Since he’s a follower of the god Erastil, he decides that the obvious solution is to hunt something suitably impressive - like a griffon. Gonno, who got his wife simply by being a nice guy, refrains from comment. Apparently, according to our friendly neighborhood dryad, there’s griffons nesting on some cliffs 5 days walk south of Selversgard that have been causing some problems. We’ll probably have to take silver, since we’re traveling during the full moon and werewolves are known from the area. Admittedly Gonno doesn’t have to worry about lycanthropy, since technically he isn’t a humanoid. It’s the same reason Enlarge Person didn’t work on him in the ant nest. Arram: Tieflings make good werewolf hunters. Not much good if you're fighting Smokey the Were-bear though. Shev: I don’t want to hear about bringing any of the eggs home to raise - they’re intelligent creatures and some of the gods consider that slavery. Arram: A bit ironic given you plan on killing them Shev: The gods can be funny that way. Shev: If you see any unusual trees on the trip, DON’T TOUCH THEM. They’re probably dryad homes. Miya: So don’t go around feeling up any dryads, Gonno, your wife will be annoyed. Shev: It’s just occurred to me that the neighborhood dryad might be slightly pissed with me that I’m trying to find a mate (that isn’t her) and she’s sending me down there to die. Arram also points out that griffons are sufficiently vengeful that any survivors will certainly follow us back to Selversgard. Arram: In fact I’m pretty sure all the leonine creatures are sapients - although some of them are d***ks. Miya: Nobody cares if you kill a Manticore. Arram: It’s also a bad idea to pick a fight with anything powerful enough to generate a sorcerer bloodline. So, it would seem the griffon idea is a bad one, although crossed wires are understandable when it comes to what a dryad considers ‘causing problems’. Perhaps they were using a dryad’s tree as a scratching post. She does suggest an alternate target - a minotaur. Those are certainly problematic. Shev: When a minotaur has a problem, they make it everybody’s problem. Just in case the minotaur has a briar maze rather than anything more traditional, Shev makes sure that Gonno brings his tree felling gear. Both of them already carry chalk. Shev’s player: And not Arram’s maze-clearing method - we’re saving that as a last resort. You know, I’ve got a mage character that can’t start forest fires? Arram: Then what even is the point? Unfortunately our chosen path will require a large detour around a completely overgrown valley. Skave: We can always make our own path. Arram: Your opinions regarding anything fire-related do not count. Miya: He only set the crops on fire once. Arram: And Me Twice. Gonno, bringing up the rear of the march, thinks he spots something running across the track behind us. Quadrupedal, he thinks, but not at all sure. Shev can’t find any tracks, which is odd, since his tracking skills are sufficient to find tracks on bare rock. Skave: Great, we’re being followed by a ghost. Shev: Worse, a ghost-pirate-ninja Skave: THAT’S WORSE. Unfortunately Gonno and Arram, on the middle watch, think it’s a perfectly fine idea to wander off after a mysterious voice calling Gonno’s name in the middle of the night. Luckily for the party, Vok, the riding rat, is unaffected by the Mass Suggestion spell, and his squealing wakes up everybody else. Skave: I throw my pillow at Vok. The rather horrendous badger-headed deer-thing waiting to devour Gonno and Arram attempts to do so. Gonno does not fare well, and if it wasn’t for Vok he would now be quite dead. As it is, he’s only mostly dead. Fortunately for him, the creature opts to retreat when everybody else comes after it. Unfortunately, it promptly turns around to attack everybody that doesn’t stop to help Gonno. Miya goes down. Gonno OoC: Well, look on the bright side, if we do manage to kill this thing we don’t have to go after the minotaur. The creature is rather shocked to learn what Shev’s blackpowder weapon can do - presumably it’s never seen one before. It retreats again. Unfortunately the musket misfires on the second shot AGAIN. Miya and Gonno get dragged back to the campsite before the monster returns. Arram recognises it as a Leucrotta. Leucrottas are reputed to be unholy hybrids of hyenas and a demon lord, can lure people away with mimicry, and can bite through steel. It only knew Gonno’s name because somebody asked Gonno if he saw anything, when it was stalking us earlier. Skave spends the rest of the day giving Gonno and Miya what medical aid he can provide. As far as we know, Leucrotta don’t have Regeneration, so it’s probably out there licking its wounds. Shev wants to track it down and finish it off as soon as Gonno and Miya are up to fighting again. Fortunately for us, our collective sneakery is better than its perception, and we have it cornered in a small cave. Gonno tries to punch it in the face - unwise with something that can bite through steel - but between Shev’s duckfoot pistol and Arram’s sorcerous pryomania the creature is not a problem for long. It has a well-chewed spellbook among the debris in its lair. The symbol on the cover is that of the evil god Norgorber, and unsurprisingly the cover is made from human leather. Gonno: No wonder the beast was chewing on it. The number of deranged and evil wizards in the woods around Selversgard DOES seem disproportionately high. You have to wonder why they keep wandering off and getting themselves killed. Shev: Dude, the Twilight Academy is JUST OVER THERE. GM: Is it any wonder you keep running into wizards like this? Arram: Lot of weirdos at that school. That said I can probably sneak in there if we ever need to - get my Illuminati robes. We also find an IOUN stone - an orange pyramidal form, which is promptly orbiting Shev’s head. Shev: What’s it do? Arram: I’m tempted to say it’s the cursed one. It’s cracked, so the only thing the stone can do is grant Prestidigitation. Skave: Otherwise known as Least Wish. Shev: AKA Spell Not On My List - gimme! Unfortunately the monster won’t make a suitable trophy for Shev. Shev: Leucrottas are Ugly As F*** Arram: But if you kill a Minotaur and hang its head on the wall it just looks like you killed a cow. Further on, we encounter a foul-smelling, oily pit, with a truly gigantic oak tree overhanging the hole. It smells like several million years of death. That’s because it’s petroleum. Skave: Shev, can you get me a sample? Tree: I have no objection…. …. but I doubt … it will be of use for you. All: …. Tree: *turning to look at Shev* Greetings … … little one. According to the treant, the stuff is poisoning the local vegetation. He’d quite like the stuff neutralized, but that requires Skave’s alchemical knowledge. The treant moves off as the Ysoki works. Shev thinks a treant would be very useful for turning over the soil, if they could be persuaded to stay near town. Miya: It might be worth keeping in mind what our village is known for. Asking a treant to hang around a lumber town might be in bad taste. GM: It’s a purely natural material. Shev: So’s Arsenic. Unfortunately, since it’s natural, there’s no magical solution to neutralize it. It might be valuable to certain alchemists, but that would attract more humanoids to the deep woods. Shev: Your best bet is to find an Earth Elemental to help you. Miya: That or find a wizard who knows Fireball. Shev: NO. We promise to get the druids involved, and he tells us where to find the minotaur. Treant: As far as I know… …. … there is only one. Shev: oh GOOD. Arram, how good are you at NOT using fire? Treant: *waves slowly goodbye* Watch out…. For the sprites…. The sprites are actually inclined to help us - the Minotaur kidnapped their chief’s daughter, in order to pressure their shaman to make magical items for them. The entire sprite community have to go collecting material components. The one talking to us has a list - but it’s almost too small for us to read. And it’s in Sylvan. Happily, Arram can read Sylvan and has glasses to magnify it with. The Minotaur has been stocking up on healing potions. Unfortunately, the Minotaur has built his labyrinth in a cave. It would appear the dryad's little bird friends aren’t a very reliable information source. Happily, Vok can track by scent, which makes navigating the maze much more easy. Upon coming up to a door, Skave unlocks it, then steps back. Unhappily, nobody detects the giant Solifugid hiding behind it. Miya: It looks like what spiders have nightmares about! Skave: This is why I let other people open the doors! Gonno OoC: No wonder the Minotaur needs all those healing potions, with these things wandering about. Miya OoC: It was behind a locked door, I think we can assume he knew it was there. At least if we die we’re all guaranteed a pretty good afterlife, should we die down here. Even followers of Asmodeus go to hell and get trained out of silly ideas like ‘free will’. In much the same way the Bessemer Process removes impurities from iron. Arram: A fear of death is highly suspicious. Miya: Spoken like a true inquisitor. While we’re patching ourselves up, the Minotaur is sneaking up on us in the dark, holding a very large crossbow. Arram: COW!!!!! Miya: Finally, something intelligent that isn’t a bug *feints* The Minotaur flees back into its maze, wounded. This could be very bad, if it’s heading off to kill the sprite hostage. Skave: Get back here and fight, you overgrown hamburger! Unfortunately it turns out the treant and the sprites were as badly misinformed as the dryad - there’s a second Minotaur. Skave: …. It’s right behind me, isn’t it. The little alchemist is violently gored. And that Minotaur goes violently berserk when it sees what we’ve done to the first. Gonno OoC: Look on the bright side, Shev, you won't have to get married because it looks like you’ll be adopting your brother’s kids. Vok nearly bites the thing’s head off. Arram: Which is pretty darn impressive - there’s a lot of neck on a minotaur. Well done that Vorpal Rat. Skave manages to scramble out of the way of the Minotaur’s battleaxe. Gonno gets swatted with the battleaxe instead, and Miya gets gored in the face. GM: Well, if you’re ever in the market for face jewelry, you won’t need to get your tongue pierced. The second minotaur goes down. Miya: Your future wife better be AMAZING - you have a matching set. Shev: At least Mrs Brisby. GM: Of course what you’re actually saying with that tongue injury is GMAHHUHMUHmuh At least the sprite chief is grateful that we rescued his daughter and shaman. Shev: I need a trophy from the minotaurs as a bride price. Sprite: Ah, you’re trying to bribe someone to be your mate - that’s fine. Shev: … Well he’s not wrong. Sprite: We cannot move Minotaurs. Arram: I’d be impressed if you could. They CAN expertly skin the two minotaurs, and sew up the holes we left in the hides - Shev is going to have two extremely creepy cowskull-topped cloaks for his wedding. At least we don’t have to go back into the maze - we triggered the first trap and attracted the minotaurs' attention.

Gonno OoC: You have to wonder why people become adventurers, when you can make 500gp a year with a real job, AND get to sleep in a proper bed every night Shev OoC: Because you can make that in an hour as an adventurer. All the money you need to set yourself up for life is a few miles away, and all you need is a shovel! Arram OoC: And a few friends with a propensity for violence. Shev OoC: And if you play your cards right you’ll have fewer friends when you come back! That morbid observation leads to a discussion of the rapidly approaching old age of the Ysoki, and the various ways the denizens of Golarion can avoid a final interview with the Goddess of Death. Recently Dead Druid: You know, I remember the last few times I was here. Psychopomp: What, really? RDD: Yeah. Isn’t that moon getting closer? Psychopomp: Wait, WHAT??? RDD: *runs off to get reincarnated while the psychopomp is looking the other way* Whoop-whoop-whoop-whoop If we do have to go into the ant nest, maybe we should go in through the midden - if we smell bad enough maybe the ants will just dump us in the midden again rather than try and kill us. We end up using the collapsed wall in the second cistern. The chamber we enter has large supporting hollow pillars, a gravel floor, and three very large and aggressive ants. The hollow pillars are part of the ant’s air conditioning system. What a pity none of us know Cloudkill. Arram: The first lesson at wizard school is that you have to be in the front line to use your area-effect spells. Miya: The drawback is that you go down if someone sneezes on you. Arram: You play a dangerous game before you get to the whole ‘phenomenal cosmic power’ thing. Miya: ’How did you get to be an old wizard? ‘By not adventuring, obviously’ The next chamber has four ants. Hopefully this isn’t a pattern forming. One of them is carrying a humanoid leg, wearing an elaborate boot. Unfortunately, once we finish off the ants and investigate, we’re attacked by the giant Assassin Bug disguised as the trash heap. We decide to retreat to Selversgard, recover, and re-equip with stuff more appropriate to the situation. Arram: Pity we’re too far from Alkenstar to get the best weapons. Shev: Which? Miya and Arram: Flamethrowers. Shev: OK, appropriate, but we’ve got a flamethrower right here *gestures at Arram* but he’s running out of juice. Miya: So do the ones from Alkenstar. Miya, as well as being poisoned by the ant frass, has also contracted a rather debilitating illness known to the locals as Red Ache. Gonno has some healing knowledge, and offers to have a stab at it. Miya: Please Do Not Stab Anything We really need to find a solution to the ant problem that won’t leave us with a poisoned cistern. Miya: I’m really tempted to send off for that flamethrower now. F***ing Ants!!! Nobody recognises the leg, or the sandal, and nobody has heard of any missing persons in the area. At least our discovery proves that while those lumberjacks last year may have been drunk, they weren’t imagining the giant ants. When we heal up we return to the ant nest, and proceed with caution, only attacking ants when we outnumber them - not a sentence that gets said often. We discover that the ant with the leg emerged from natural caverns, which raises some alarming possibilities about the owner of the leg, although the crazy cave-dwelling elves aren’t usually seen this close to the surface. The ants are also fungus farmers, cultivating Fly Agarics the size of people, among other things. Miya: Nobody set the place on fire. Gonno OoC: I also wonder where we’re going to get a reindeer big enough. Miya: ... what? Oh. OH. OH GOD NO. We’ll ask the druids. The big mushroom is also a Shrieker - something to avoid unless we want to be swarmed by giant ants. The chamber beyond has more ants than adventurers, but fortunately the connecting tunnel is so narrow we can pick them off one by one as they come through. But THESE giant ant soldiers can spray formic acid. Vok the giant riding rat ducks. Unfortunately Shev was riding him at the time. Skave: Hold back, Gonno, we’ve deployed the meat shield. Arram: Yes, giant rats are good for that. Skave: I was talking about Shev, Vok is more important. Miya: You can tell they’re brothers, can’t you? Shev: … at least I don’t blow myself up on a regular basis. This chamber is evidently the nursery - larvae and pupae. Arram: What’s the generation time of an ant? Miya: 14-15 minutes. Arram: What???? Skave scouts ahead, and returns at speed - he’s found the royal chamber and the remaining ants. Skave’s player: Boy, am I glad I’m the Utility character. Shev’s player: Yeah - now be of utility. Which might be considered a bit harsh, given Skave HAS been of more utility so far - Shev is not doing well with his attacks today. Arram Enlarges himself with one of Skave’s potions, leans forward over the melee, and toasts most of the ants. We’re also quite fortunate that the Queen focuses most of her attacks on Vok, but then the giant riding rat is the largest enemy close to her - at least until Arram gets in range. Miya: You keep punching women in the face today, Gonno, what will your wife say? Shev: That she was a b**** and deserved it? Skave finds the skeleton of a dwarf in the garbage heap - the actual garbage heap, not the giant Assassin Bug from earlier. Given how intact the remains are, they presumably fed him to their larvae. His armour is intact too - Adamantium chainmail. Skave: If we’re careful undoing the links, brother, maybe we can get two chain shirts out of it. Arram: Ha! Good luck undoing adamantine links! GM: You don’t have the tools to work Adamantium. Skave: We don’t have the tools HERE. He had a magical cube in his bag. It’s charged with Divination magic. Shev: At least it’s not Conjuration. No chance of summoning the weird skinny guy with all the nails in his head.

Jrska: I really don't think any attempt to reform her will go the way the spirits hope. She'd enjoy the highlight reel of her life too much, reject anything that might actually give her pause, and strengthen her resolve to Do It All More And Harder Vitus: That would get ugly fast. Vitus would not react well to the suggestion that his current angry misery is entirely the result of his own life choices. Hero Shrew wouldn't take Christmas Past well. He was born in a cage. Assuming that Spirit takes the hint and leaves before it gets its head punched off, he'd probably use the Present to come up with a nice shopping list for his friends and acquaintances, and the Future might actually give him a much-needed prod to be more thoughtful in future. Zero would probably be too paranoid that somebody knows his secret identity for any life lesson to actually sink in. Ripper K would demand a version with Muppets. Felix 'Bubbles' Bethke would be more interested in how this spirit summoning was actually done, although the archetypes its drawing on are obvious enough. After that he'd probably want to figure out why somebody sicced it on him. Doesn't seem a very effective way to remove a shadowrunner from play Terzo Porcinus: Would probably feel considerable regret that he hasn't acted for the good of Kintargo before now, and his rather closeted private life might be the source of some pain, but a glimpse of how the rebellion will go will be worth it. Hopefully it isn't his head on a pike somewhere as a traitor. Gonno hasn't lived long enough or had any effects beyond his village to interest any Yuletide spirits. The only thing that might concern him is how the life of his rival develops - if it continues on its current path things might get very bad. Possibly he'll need to steer them onto a healthier one rather than just ignore them. ROVER might accidentally shoot them a few times but the only lasting result i can see is the robot getting a few seasonal MIDI files and flashing Christmas lights installed during his next upgrade. Set on an annual timer, of course.

R.O.V.E.R would only enter it in pursuit of somebody on his target list, since his programming respects private property except in cases of pursuit, but things would rapidly get out of hand on the other side, without radio contact to SPOT to keep him out of program loops and edge cases. AmigaOS is probably not the best computer language to run a robot bounty hunter off. Vitus : If there access to more magic-friendly universes through the door, then you wouldn't see Vitus for dust. He might not even hang around long enough to tell his erstwhile teammates what he really thinks of them and their dimension. Hero Shrew: If they have an all-you-eat menu then it's not going to open into Edge City past tonight. https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/0d1db61f-eda1-4aab-9ae9-6481477613b5 Ripper K(and for that matter Felix Bethke) : NOPE. That's a magical working that’s WAY above their pay grade. Of course if somebody was willing to pay triple rate, with danger money and expenses, they'd consider investigating. Zero: Might stick his head in and telepathise everybody nearby just to confirm it isn't an interdimensional invasion gate

JRSKA would be livid - her OnlyFans is one of her more amusing pastimes. When she catches up with whoever is responsible, the results will only be pretty to other Slaanesh cultists. R.O.V.E.R isn't really equipped to understand social media, but it would certain affect the operations of his counterpart S.P.O.T - social media is one of the data sources that AI uses to select ROVER's next target. Vitus : "And you're wasting my precious time with this *why*?" Hero Shrew: "Oh, I thought our PR rep had locked me out of the team's social media accounts again. Huh." Ripper K(and for that matter Felix Bethke) : Who's loosing the most money and how much can they pay us to fix it? Zero: "Have you any idea what it's like to be a telepath in the same room as an addict going through withdrawal? Now multiply that by 10 million."

Selversgard - Events of the Year #4 It has been a harsh Winter, with a lot of snow, and life has been hard for many. But Spring has now arrived, and with it, planting and the beginnings of the working year. Floating ice damaged several of the piers, which the current floodwaters haven't helped with. Blake is still Mayor (until the Spring equinox) and has steered the council into putting some good timbers aside for the repair work. Arram’s discovery of those ancient cisterns near town has got the interest of the council - Blake would like Arram and the usual troubleshooters to go investigate, in the hope that there will be at least one noteworthy positive in his tenure as Mayor. Shev: I keep wondering why they send the school teacher out for this kind of thing, then I remember he’s probably one of the most powerful spellcasters in Selversgard. Gonno OoC: No doubt the cisterns were discovered decades ago, and put into the ‘To Do’ list. Arram OoC: And their wives are getting a bit too friendly with the schoolteacher, let’s get him out of town for a bit. Shev OoC: They want to find out what 18 Charisma looks like under the hood. Gonno’s daughter Ionia has very sharp teeth, to the point that Shev provides a teething aid used by Ysoki infants - thick leather on the end of a stick, dipped in honey. Shev: Let me know the first time she escapes her bassinet. Gonno: *alarmed expression* Arram: Anyway, thank you for letting us borrow your husband, we’re going to drop him in a cistern. Galiante: He’ll be fine, especially if you drop him on his head. Gonno: *amused snort* Arram: I love this woman. In a purely platonic manner. The site of the first cistern is overgrown with Redvine, a particularly vicious albeit natural plant with two-inch thorns. Further in there’s wild roses, even more refractory than the redvine, but in the middle is a marble statue of a naked elven girl. It looks like it was set up as a fountain, once. Skave: Stop staring, Gonno, you’re married! Skave, investigating the statue for whatever mechanism ran the pump, discovers that the whole thing rotates to reveal an inspection hatch for the cistern, which is over 100ft across. That’s enormous, considering none of us are aware of any ancient settlements anywhere near Selversgard that would have required that much water. Skave uses his recently booklearned knowledge of architecture to figure out this cistern is likely Thassalonian. Skave: Amazing! Selversgard must have been built upon the ruins of an ancient Thassalonian Civilization! Arram: Most of *Varisia* is built on the ruins of an ancient Thassalonian civilization. We descend into the tank. Gonno OoC: So on top of having real jobs we’re apparently also part-time plumbers. Skave OoC: If we go through a pipe and end up in a kingdom of mushrooms, I’m out of here. The only pipe we can actually see is the one leading up to the fountain, although there’s also a larger barred opening in the floor that probably leads to the other cisterns. The entire place is weirdly pristine - there’s nothing organic down here at all. Gonno: Hmm. (remind me, can Gelatinous Cubes squeeze through bars?) GM: Indeed they can. It’s just as well Arram lobs a glowing stone ahead of us as we inspect the connecting pipes - there is indeed a transparent ooze filling the pipe, and creeping in our direction. A certain amount of cursing ensues - so many of us have Darkvision that we didn’t bother bringing torches. Peanut Gallery: All villager mobs must carry torches and pitchforks! It’s mandatory! It doesn’t help that Shev’s musket keeps misfiring on the second shot. The Gelatinous Cube had also eaten a few coins and something that Skave confidently announces is a Gelatinous Cube egg, until he gets a closer look and realises it’s the thorax of a very very big ant. Maybe there was something to those rumours last year. We advance down the tunnel, carefully probing ahead with ten foot poles and glowing rocks. The next cistern is partly collapsed. Unfortunately the first three people that climb up from the connecting tunnel fail their perception checks and blunder into the snare lines of a giant black widow spider. There’s another dead giant ant here too. They might be coming through the hole in the wall. And the grate underneath the third cistern is covered with some kind of papery substance. Miya drills through it, and gets a faceful of some foul-smelling powder in her face in response. It’s ant frass. This is a problem - drowning out the nest will poison the cisterns, even if we could somehow set up a flume to refill the tanks without being swarmed.

Pathfinder : Hell's Rebels - Face It Alone We return to Kintargo, re-equip everything we burned through trying to burn through the Aboleth, and depart again to visit Vyre, on Vyre Island. GM: Think of it as Kintargo’s New Jersey. Terzo: So we could have returned to Kintargo via Vyre? Vyre is known as the City of Masks, because it’s traditional to go about in disguise, to better enjoy all the illicit activities that form the bulk of Vyre’s economy. Terzo OoC: Everything’s Legal In New Jersey. Rajira OoC: As long as you don’t get caught. A largely freewheeling and chaotic city, Vyre is not entirely without laws. Five rules known as ‘Promises’ govern all residents and visitors, compact enough to be carved on statues throughout the city - "I Shall Honor All Coin", meaning all transactions are assumed final and binding and all prices are negotiable. This rule also prohibits theft. "I Shall Speak Many Names", meaning all people should accept any name given by a person Vyre, regardless of its veracity, and without ever revealing a person's identity if they conceal it. "I May Wound Yet Shall Not Kill", which requires people to let their enemies in Vyre live in order to give them a chance to avenge themselves. "I Know None Are Below Me", which discourages all forms of prejudice and discrimination. "I Shall Let Closed Doors Remain Closed", meaning all private secrets and acts must remain private, and any broken promises are assumed to be intact unless sufficient evidence is provided. Terzo’s player: It’s honestly astonishing that the Chellaxians haven’t had the city magically nuked. Rajira’s player: It’s too useful - You don’t seal off your safety valve. Civilla’s player: It’s a good place to have agents. It’s their Casablanca. And it has rules, and doesn’t necessarily oppose Thrune. Civilla is going to take advantage of the fact that the prohibition on other gods isn’t complete across Chelliax, by wearing a full-face opera mask that references her own goddess of choice. It’ll also magically conceal her Alignment. Terzo: Well, going masked won’t be a hardship for me - I used to go about in disguise on a regular basis, back when I was younger and more handsome. We have a few objectives in the City of Masks - make certain arrangements regarding a number of warehouses in the city on behalf of one Molly Mayapple, and contact the ‘kings and queens’ of Vyre to try and garner support for the rebellion. Of course the ‘rulers’ don’t exactly advertise their whereabouts, even if the existing advertisements leave nothing to the imagination. Terzo: *stopping in front of one and turning his head sideways* Hmm. Haven’t seen THAT one in a while. Civilla: You know, Terzo, there might still be copies of your work here. Terzo: *cheers up* Civilla: After all they’re illicit now. Terzo: *cheers up even more* There’s a lot of aspirant Hellknights hanging around Vyre, rounding out their life experience before joining own of the Orders. They’re pretty obvious. The Mask of Blades are less obvious, but still too much of a semi-official militia to be the kind of people we want to meet. Rajira: I’m trying to spot the *private* spies. Rajira spots at least three other factions following us around. Most of them are probably from Vyre’s various interest groups, but she’s most interested in contacting one of the Masks of Blood, who oversee the legal affairs of the citizens of Vyre and assist them against foreign interests. She has Mahat drop a message where it can reach the appropriate personages. Molly Mayapple, on the other hand, is much easier to find - she’s running a hostel called The Seven Apples. Convenient, since we need a place to stay. And you can book the rooms for the entire night here, instead of by the hour. At least we’re more professional than most adventuring groups, so she doesn’t direct us into the queue for the corner booth. Civilla: You know who has it worse? The bar wench. Adventurers putting on AIRS. Trying to pay with platinum, or rubies. That’s why I always carry copper and silver - the COMMON coin. Rajira: And then the money changers take a cut anyway. Civilla: Right! So you’re not doing the innkeeper a big favour anyway - instead of saying ‘let me know when this runs out’, at say ‘Let me know when this runs out - and charge me double’ Molly agrees to talk in a back room - she’s not pleased when she sees we have all those deeds we found in the Grey Spider’s lair. Molly: So, what brings the Grey Spiders to my door? Civilla: Grey Spiders? No no, we recently came into possession of these deeds. Molly: And now you’re going to extort money from me, after stealing them? Rajira: We’re just going to give them to you. Molly: For FREE? Civilla: I think you’re suffering a misapprehension. We’re not the Grey Spiders. We’re The Rumour. The Whisper. Chance Incarnate. A group of prisoners just *happened* to walk out of a salt mine. Another walked out of the gaol before they were due to be executed. Molly: … you’re from Across The River. Civilla: Yes. Molly: And you’re just giving them to me? Civilla: As a display of good will and the benefits of future co-operation. Molly: *tears welling up* Excuse me a moment. Ayva: I think we’ve broken our hostess. In less that 5 minutes Rajira: Still not our best effort. Molly promises to get us an invite to one of the Masked Balls (of course all balls are Masques on Vyre) and 800 platinum in a Handy Haversack so we can enjoy ourselves in town - she’ll make that back easily now she has the warehouse deeds again. Of course Civilla came prepared for our trip, with everything she needs as letters of introduction - or the tools to forge them. Terzo: This isn’t why I taught you calligraphy, young lady. The current Queen is an atheist, apparently, so Civilla’s mask might be a problem at the ball. The other advice we get include ‘don’t mention the King, even though he’ll be there’, where to get the brand new outfits and masks expected for one of these functions, and suitable price ranges for the required gifts for the Queen. Spiders, onyx jewelry, fine mead, salacious works of art, lacy gloves, fancy potion vials, flowers with black petals, Ustalavic novels, or exquisite banquet utensils are preferred. Civilla: Unusual combination - Ustalavic literature is all ‘we’re cold and miserable and by the end of the book half of us will be dead’. Terzo OoC: So she’s a rich goth. Civilla OoC: A rich THIRSTY goth. Given the price of custom glassware made in three days, it’s just as well Molly gave us that bagful of cash. Terzo: Perhaps I can find her a collection of salacious poetry. Rajira: Possibly, have you written any? Terzo: I can always offer to customise it with one I make up on the spot. Well, claim I came up with it on the spot. Rajira commissions a pair of potion vials in the form of coiling snakes, Civilla brings an obsidian dagger in an ivory sheath with an onyx spider on the outward side and a concealed symbol of Noticula on the inward side. Shimza brings a corset with a spider motif (and another concealed symbol of Noticula). Ayva is bringing a painting of a naked woman with a strategically positioned variety of colorful spiders “Lady with Spider” (Not a Typo), but then she is the artist of the group. Civilla: I didn’t have time to do a sculpture, OK? Dressed to the nines and possibly elevens we arrive at Cobweb Manor, an apparently decrepit building guarded by flesh golems in suits, and infested by fist-sized spiders, where a small group is already gathered. Nine guests and their assorted attendants who don’t count. Molly is with our group. Ayva: Oh good, that makes 14 guests - otherwise one of us is bound to be murdered. Civilla: Does Shimza count as a guest or attendant? We decide that Shimza counts as Civilla’s plus-one, regardless of what that does to the likelihood of horrible murder. Molly helps us with the public names and backgrounds of the other guests, despite their masks, but Civilla already knows most of them anyway. Anca Verezzian: Female Varisian human; orphaned ex-circus acrobat; chief of security at the Final Throw; eager and curious. Asmerru: aristocrat from Hinji; interests in halfling slave trade; shameless gossip. Elitu Rosewinter: Female halfling; wanted for murder in Augustana; out-of-work assassin; sadistic and prone to using grisly metaphor in idle conversation. An unknown elderly Tian woman, her grey hair tied in a bun in traditional fashion. Notable feature is a mole on her chin. Kekza Zenk: Female gnome; ex-adventurer; dancer at the Nine-Tails pub; incorrigibly flirtatious Morvira Crispin: Female Chelish human; madam; owns the Night Tea Room, a local brothel; enjoys giving people embarrassing or salacious nicknames. Sefuri Dendru: Male Garundi human; businessman; owns the Coughing Carbuncle, a local tavern; heavy and proud of it. Terzo (OoC): I’m sure there’s a fascinating story why it’s called the Coughing Carbuncle and I’m equally sure I don’t want to know. Civilla (OoC): Do you know what a carbuncle is? Terzo (OoC): The gemstone or the cluster of connected boils? GM: There’s also a kind of lizard that plays dead - that was probably the inspiration for the name. Ayva (OoC): You’re welcome to ask. Civilla (OoC): I’m not. Strephian: Male half-elf; businessman; owns the Blue Monkey game hall; heavy drinker who never seems to get drunk. Xoshak Zabrinni: Elderly male Keles***e human; businessman; owns local curio shop Zabrinni’s Discoveries; refers to self in third person. All very plausible victims or suspects in a murder mystery, but we’ll see how things turn out. Rajira arrives in an emerald green dress, backless and ankle-length, with a subtle scale pattern, accessorized with an emerald choker of ridiculous expense. Her hair is tied back with an emerald silk ribbon, and she isn’t hiding her non-human heritage at all. Mahat on the other hand is posing as her attendant, and is dressed in a monotone grey suit. Civilla and Shimza’s outfits are even more expensive, being black with blue and off-white highlights, augmented by corsets of black silk, their silver brocade accented with azurite insets, and both brought griffon mane reversible cloaks. Civilla’s outfit includes the purple and orange of her house. Ayva is wearing a dress of many hues of blue that look like paint on silk canvas with ‘drips’ of sapphires from the sleeves and dress. Ayva’s offsider Portia is wearing a Pink Plush dress out of a princess fairy tale. Terzo’s less expensive outfit includes a Chellish doublet with slashed sleeves, in red and yellow. Civilla: Please tell me that’s noble standard. Or at the very least courtier. Perhaps predictably for a place called Cobweb Manor, lair of the Queen of Delights, the interior decorations lean towards spiderweb, magical chandeliers, and numerous paintings both varied and scandalous. The dining room already has a guest seated in the door nearest the entrance - a skeleton in a tophat. Presumably this is the King nobody is supposed to comment on. Portia is made to sit next to him. When Manticce Kaleeki the Queen of Delights - a stunningly beautiful tiefling woman with blood-red eyes, prominent horns, and a scaled tail, and the star of some of the more salacious paintings in the building - enters, she is greeted with a standing ovation. Terzo (OoC): Of course I stand and join the ovation, I taught Civilla half the etiquette she knows. Civilla (Ooc): Of course that was only half of what he tried to teach me. And I then had to figure out for myself which half actually applied. She welcomes us with a short speech, and promises a meal that we’ll remember for the rest of our lives. That’s not ominous at all. The Queen of Delights: Greetings, new friends and old, to my home. I see some familiar faces here, and some delightfully unfamiliar ones as well. It is always a pleasure to serve new tongues the delectable offerings of House Kaleekii, and I trust you shall remember the meal to come for the rest of your lives. Tonight’s banquet is brought to us by master chef Annatolintis Tasetas, all the way from Katapesh, and consists of four expertly prepared courses. I expect the conversation to be lively and thought-provoking, and as always, I shall accept your gifts during the serving of dessert. Without further ado, let us begin! Civilla and Shimza promptly down some antitoxin. The Queen of Delights snaps her fingers, and a small army of servants, all clad in diaphanous white robes and wearing wraps of gauzy veils over their faces, emerges. The servants quickly move with dishes to each of the dinner guests, and all at once they remove the covers to reveal the first course: In front of each guest is a tureen of heady, boiling-hot liquid sitting atop a nest of five short candles. The liquid has a hypnotically metallic appearance, like that of mercury. Also in front of the guests is a smaller bowl in which swim five live minnows. Finally are a set of utensils that include a two-tined fork; a sharp, slender knife; and a spoonlike sieve. This would seem rather more difficult than remembering which one is the snail fork. Careful glances at the other guests suggests we’re supposed to poach and fillet the fish, and blow out the candles to let the Quick Soup cool. Mahat performs flawlessly, but Civilla is slightly irritated that Terzo is more dexterous at catching the live fish. Portia, unfortunately, manages to lose all her fish onto the table, as do some of the other guests. One of them just dumps his fish into the soup. Civilla: This would seem to be the host’s chance to show that her guests are fools. Rajira: I’m seriously considering botching one of the fish on purpose. While we wait for the second course the Queen of Delights comments on the current political situation on the mainland. Queen: If such a small group of rebels can fight back so easily against the powers of Hell, then is House Thrune really able to say they are in charge? Civilla: Kintargo has never truly been Chelaxian - it’s always been its own creature Queen: Interesting - I was more referencing events in Westcrown. Civilla: Perhaps it is simply that Barzillai grips too tightly. Rajira: If you squeeze too tightly, most things slip between your fingers. The slave-trader is so offended by this that he spills his soup, denying that there’s any situation in Chelliax. Rajira murmurs an observation about how a slave-trader is hardly going to admit that an uprising is likely. Ayva: Ah, the slap you DON’T hear around the room. Civilla: I’m not claiming that it’s the Empress’s fault - merely that of those she has act in her stead. The second course appears to be a braised human head. Fortunately it’s a specially shaped boiled squash. The spices in the sauce are rather more of a problem, at least for those of us that didn’t grow up in areas where vindaloo is babyfood. Some of us are glad they brought vials of antitoxin AND antiflame. Rajira (in vishkanya, to Mahat): Varisians, thinking they can handle spicy foods… Civilla (In perfect Vishkanya): Who are you calling Varisian? Queen: You know, this very aptly reminds me of the nation of Galt. The nation’s Red Revolution has been going on for years now, and so many have been beheaded by the ‘final blades’. It makes one think, don’t you agree? All the pain and death that comes from their actions, sometimes to oppose the rightful rulers. Is it any wonder that some would label these rebels as domestic terrorists. How is it that these revolutionaries justify this? Terzo: I imagine they’ll say something like ‘the rose of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.’ Civilla: *hisses* Do not use language like that! Funnily enough two of the other guests do use language like that, and their argument becomes quite heated. Queen: It seems we have our own rebellion growing at this very table! She claps her hands in delight as the meat course is brought in - three large pies with golden, flaky crusts. The servants with the empty trays then line up behind the servant with the pies, who begin cutting large slices of the pies and giving those slices to the other servants. These servants then quickly go to each of the dinner guests and place a single piece of pie in front of each of them. The process of cutting and distributing the pies is insanely quick—the servants deftly deliver the pies to the guests within a minute of the first cut being made! Although, once the slices of pie are given, we discover the strangeness of this dish. The pies themselves appear to consist of crust and nothing else—yet while physics would dictate that the top of the crust would sag from lack of support, it doesn’t. It simply floats. Prodding between the crust reveals that there is indeed something of substance there, but it is simply invisible. Apparently it’s made from the flesh of an Invisible Stalker, and is supposed to be eaten before it reacts with the air. Rajira eats the entire slice whole, by dislocating her jaw. The Queen: Sin is very strange, don’t you think? What constitutes a ‘sin’ is very much a societal and cultural notion. For example, I’m sure many here would agree with the notion that cannibalism is a terrible and monstrous thing to do. But the gnolls of Garund have a very different idea—for they feast upon their own as a sign of reverence to the person’s life—almost like a funerary rite. They would hardly think twice of the moral implications of cannibalism, because to them there is no moral quandary. And yet, the ‘civilized folk’ label them as monsters who feast upon their own for the hell of it. We label one culture’s actions based on the cultural norms of another. Or, for a more close-to-home example, I personally believe that the worship of a deity is a sin, and yet here in Cheliax, worship of Asmodeus is all but required to avoid political backlash. It is fascinating, is it not? What one considers normal, another might consider terrible. So, let me ask you, my esteemed guests, as we let closed doors remain closed: what do you consider to be the greatest sin one can commit? The Queen extends her hand to invite her guests to speak. After an awkward silence, it is the well-dressed half-elf who speaks first. Strephian: Well, I would say wasting booze. This elicits a soft chuckle from a few of the guests—including the Queen. Sefuri Dendru: Well, why that specific? I would say wasting food in general is a terrible thing to do. *proudly smacking his rotund belly*. Kekza Zenk the flirtatious dancer: Well, I would have to say chastity. Just…no! Xoshak Zabrinni: Xoshak believes fraud to be a terrible sin! You would never catch Xoshak doing such a thing! Molly: *thoughtfully pauses* Racism. Asmerru the slaver: *glaring at Molly* It is a horrid thing to be disobedient to one’s superior. Elitu Rosewinter, the halfling assassin: Heh. Resurrection. Anca Verezzian: To give one’s trust is a great thing, but to abuse that trust…I have no pity for such a man. Morvira Crispin: *clutches at a necklace that she is wearing and whimpers* N-neglecting your children… The Queen of Delights turns her attention to the elderly Tian-Shu woman whom the PCs now realize has not spoken since the dinner began. She meets the Queen’s gaze, and the Tian woman’s words are spoken with pure venom and contempt: ”To invade another’s home.” Terzo: To act against one's true self. That, of course, goes down like a lead balloon in Vyre, and there are audible gasps around the table, but the Queen acknowledges it with interest, apparently realizing that Terzo is being perfectly sincere. Rajira: To enter into an action knowing failure is the only option. Ayva: To toil without purpose. Civilla: I would say Pride - pure and simple. To pretend that there is nothing left to achieve, that that there is nothing left to do. None of us are perfect and all of us have room for improvement. This is an oblique reference to her faith in the Redeemer Queen, and the Queen apparently recognises it as ‘maybe you just haven’t found the right god yet’ and narrows her eyes. The servants come back out with the desserts. The servants place the following in front of each of the dinner guests: A small plate covered by a silver lid, a strange device that looks like a little corkscrew, and a curious fist-sized object in the shape of a dodecahedron. The servants all simultaneously lift the lids, and a tumble of fat candied spiders pour out, their abdomens are much larger compared to their heads. The disproportional abdomens are about the size of a grape. Civilla OoC: ‘So, which PCs have Disable Device?’ Unfortunately most guests do quite badly figuring out how to eat the dessert (or even opening the polyhedral puzzle box) so it gets a bit messy. At least the transdimensional d20s weren‘t Lament Configurations, and the mess is merely the dipping honey rather than blood and assorted organs. Shimza expresses her displeasure by skewering the spiders on her claws. Rajira: *in Undercommon* Delicious. Civilla: *in Undercommon* I wouldn’t know. Then the Queen accepts the various gifts. She is generally quite pleased with them. Ayva: I present, my lady, a modest painting of an immodest woman. The guests mingle and eventually start to disperse, and Molly nudges us to indicate that it’s time to actually talk business with the host. Rajira: An excellent meal, O Queen - pleasing to the belly and stimulating to the mind. Queen: Thank you Rajira: But I’m sure you are aware we are here for another purpose. Queen: I am indeed, my darlings. And your performance tonight has already decided me. Now it is time for me to calculate your score. Civilla OoC: Was that last bit the queen or the GM? Terzo: In character for either. Ayva OoC: ‘I must now count your BANQUET POINTS!’ The Queen is ready to support our overthrow of Thrune. Queen: Of course Vyre will support your bid for freedom—this little banquet is nothing compared to the complex political machine at work. When the time comes to throw off Thrune’s shackles, Vyre will be there to aid you! Now, with all due respect, if you would please see yourselves out—my staff must clean the ballroom posthaste. Oh, but before you completely leave… Rajira, would you care to linger for a private conversation? Rajira: Of course, O Queen. The rest of us don’t bother to mill outside - it’s pretty obvious that Rajira won’t be home tonight. Terzo: How did Rajira manage to dislocate her jaw like that? Mahat: Like this *does the same* Civilla: … wait, are you truly that oblivious? Out of everybody here there are only two pure-blooded humans. Terzo: … wait, what… Even you?! Civilla OoC: ‘When a Hag and an unwilling male don’t love each other at all..’ Ayva OoC: ‘When a Hag successfully catfishes an adventurer…’

Pathfinder : Hell's Rebel's - Seaside Rendezvous It would appear the criminal underground in Kintargo has a better information network than Thrune does. We know this for two reasons - 1) We haven’t been arrested and gruesomely executed, and 2) The head of the nascent Thieves Guild approaches us to ask if we intend to do to them what we did to the Grey Spiders. We don’t - a new organized crime network isn’t really a concern at the moment. Some of us certainly have PLANS for Kintargo, and they probably aren’t as utopian as Terzo’s, but the woman in question accepts our neutrality and even offers a few magical items to seal our non-aggression pact. Speaking of pacts, there’s a few issues in the wider geopolitical situation we have to pay attention to - making alliances to strangle the Chellish government’s ability to respond to the rebellion, and ensuring that international trade keeps coming through Kintargo whether Barzillai the Dogf***er likes it or not. Although we hear that there’s a much larger and shockingly successful rebellion happening in other parts of the Chellish Empire ( or what’s left of it). They’re mobilizing their armies in response, but all far away from Kintargo. Now might be the perfect time for Kintargo to break free entirely. The noble families of Kintargo have been getting a bit stirred up too - Thrune’s arrogance must be rubbing them the wrong way. Either that or they miss going to the Opera - Thrune again. It’s remotely possible that the extermination of the Victocora family is also a factor, and not just an opportunity for them to snap up property at bargain prices (Fire Sale! Everything Must Go!). The families in question, and members of the so-called Court of Coin - Archbaroness Eldonna Aulamaxa - Lover of hunting and the Kintargan Opera. That combination certainly implies a build like Sybil Ramkin and opera tastes leaning towards the Germanic. Count Auxis Aulorian - Controls Salt and Silver in Kintargo, currently looking for his son who mysteriously vanished, knows a lot about the workings of the new Kintargan government, May possibly be bribed? Civilla: Never use the same lever on two people - his son is already our 'in' with Captain Sargaeta. Archbaroness Melodia Delronge - Interests in Horsemanship, Mercantilism and Hunting, Currently allied with the throne. Baroness Belcara Jarvis - The Jarvis Clan are builders and Architects. Fairly down to earth. Baron Canton Jhaltero - Long family feud with the Alazarios, Rival Intelligence network, trades in Stone and Silver, Combining both networks could be useful Civilla: It's already obvious that our clans see eye to eye and therefore don’t like each other. The Sarinis used to have a presence in Kintargo but recently the last few left in some haste. Probably related to that little incident with the gate to hell, and the local patriarch being eaten. House Sarini is one of the better-known noble families of Cheliax, for no good reason - they’re nicknamed the "Fools of Thrune" or the "Lapdogs of Hell". Members of the house are often sent to amuse crowds at public executions in the capitol entertaining the common folk with their dark and violent humor. It is currently unknown whether members of this house do this voluntarily, or if their debased profession is a result of an offense against House Thrune. Count Geoff Tanessen - Blacksmiths, Military tacticians and Suppliers, Armorers Baron Sendi Vashnarstill - House Vashnarstill are known to be more more loyal to the city of Kintargo itself than to the Chelish Crown or House Thrune. Their business interests are known to include fishing, trade with distant Arcadia, and shipbuilding. The Alazario’s aren’t members of the Court of Coin, for a couple of reasons. Being spread so thinly within and without the Empire doesn’t help, and repeatedly butting heads with the ruling family does them no favours at all. We do have one way to influence Archbaroness Aulamaxa - between Civilla’s tea circle, and Terzo and Rajira’s opera connections, we can meet her socially and introduce Rajira as a Diva-in-Training. Since we’ve been scrupulously careful to avoid notoriety, there’s all kinds of social events we can arrange without attracting suspicion from Thrune. We’re the Ghosts of Kintargo - the Inquisitor is probably certain that SOMETHING is going on, but we’ve left no clues about how many of us there are, or how organized. Civilla: Stuff keeps HAPPENING. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action. Ayva: There was that time we got the prisoners out of the jail… GM: That was supposed to be a jailbreak! You just walked in with clipboards! Rajira and Terzo put together a little piece for Rajira to perform, based on Aulamaxa family history, and hunting. It goes quite well. Rumourmongers: Heard from a merchant ship that sailed too close to the Dismal Niche that there were strange fires burning on the shore. Place is haunted, for sure. Who in their right mind would live there? Ayva: Let's put ‘possible undead’ down on the list, OK? Rumourmongers: Heard that Thrune’s going to throw a costume ball for the city at the opera house, and that invitations will be going out across all walks of life. If that’s true... maybe Barzillai isn’t all bad? Terzo: He’s never struck me as a very sociable person - what’s his real motivation? Rajira: This is a major costume ball - these things aren’t about being sociable. It’s all politics. GM: Maybe he’s trying to soften his public image. Civilla: We’ve been saying for some time now that he BADLY misjudged this city. Rajira: If it happens, I’m going, whether I got an invite or not. Civilla: But this is a diabolist we’re talking about. Ayva: It does smack of ‘gathering components’. Civilla: ‘Zone of Truth’. Rajira OoC: Why can’t it wait until I go up another level! Civilla: I know, I feel your pain… Rajira: I'll have protection against Truth magic then… Ayva: I’m going to have to do so many Tattoo Guardians… Rumourmongers: Menador Gap’s all but closed to traffic, with one of the lord-mayor’s distant relations overseeing the closure. Only Thrune loyalists are being allowed through the pass! There’s all sorts of factors that make organizing an uprising in a fantasy setting difficult, and some of those reasons are truth spells and telepathy. Ayva: “We’re going to mindread your kid, because kids hear EVERYTHING.” We decide to investigate the reports from the Dismal Niche - it might be a way to build an alliance with the nearest Sea Elf city, if we’re lucky, and Captain Sargeata can get us there much faster than trying to get there overland. Rajira: We really aren’t designed for operating in the wilderness. Civilla: I did just learn Secure Shelter. Rajira: And we’re probably going to be using that spell a lot, without ever leaving the city, unfortunately. There’s also been a development in that toll to cross the bridge between the north and southern parts of town - hardly anybody paid it, because any blackshirts that tried to enforce it ended up at the bottom of the river, but now the toll is being enforced by Hellknights of the Order of the Rack, and it’s been increased to a gold piece per trip, or ten for a day pass. This, of course, is calculated to infuriate the rich half of town, because they now can’t get their services and supplies, and the stevedores can’t get from their homes to the docks. Terzo: … wow. Civilla: He really wants to strangle the internal trade in Kintargo, doesn’t he? There’s been a sudden increase of unofficial ferry services across the river. Can’t imagine why. On the other hand, since the bounty on rats still stands, and Ayva has magical pigments, she can paint a fresh pile of dead rats every day and exchange them for a day pass, with the added bonus that she gets to dump thousands of dead rats at the feet of the Hellknights. Daily. It’s probably a good opportunity to recruit the Jarvis clan, and build a pontoon bridge. And start a strike by the night soil men. Civilla: And believe me, everybody takes a strike by the gongfarmers seriously. Ayva: How high is it going to get? Pretty damn high. Even if Lord-Mayor Thrune had to use forced labour to empty the chamber pots and latrines of Kintargo, it'd be a major drain on his resources. On the other hand, it would not go well for the strikers, so it’s probably just as well that the rich part of town actually has a working sewer system. Terzo’s player: What can we do without Civilla available? Not that we can rely on all the characters being available whenever rebellion business needs doing. Rebellions are even more difficult to organize than regular gaming sessions. Random encounter table! In the form of suddenly listing sharply in the middle of the night, in what should be suitably deep water. Terzo: Is this one of those roaming sandbanks we hear so much about? It’s actually a roaming gigantic crab, clambering up the side of the ship. Terzo: I presume Civilla hit her head below decks somewhere. Is the Poison Pen about? GM: The Captain doesn’t want his little Boopsy hurt. Avya: He’s a noble, and therefore useless. Rajira: Not entirely, they tend to have some skills. Avya: Well yes, but for the purposes of combat with a giant crab? Ayva: I’ll Cast Fireball! GM: On a Wooden Ship?! Rajira’s Player: With one of us grappled and in its square? Ayva: Maybe Scorching Ray, then. Terzo: Unfortunately most of my more potent spells require the crab to know Common. Can anybody Awaken it? Ayva: Sure, if we have an hour and some silver to spare. Captain Sageata proves why he’s the best captain in the fleet by Rolling a ridiculous Crit, severing both claws, eyestalks, and ramming his cutlass hilt deep into its ventral nerve cord. Rajira: Now the only question is ‘how much butter do we have on board’? Terzo: Technically speaking I suppose you could eat most of our enemies, but it tends to be socially frowned upon. Terzo’s player: You do have to wonder why Willy Wonka thought random golden tickets would be a good way to find someone who can run a confectionary factory - unless he was looking for someone to take the fall when the immigration department takes an interest in all those Oompa-Loompas. The sea-elf village out this way is a sorry affair, and the resident half-elves that gather as we approach look nervous, haggard, and sickly. Fullblooded Sea-Elf: Who are you interlopers! You are not welcome! Rajira: A bit rude to say that when you don’t even know why we’re here. Whatever illness currently plaguing the village is a serious one - quite a few of the villagers are near death. Fortunately our high skill with diplomacy and offer of healing goes a long way towards resolving matters. Although their Speaker, an elderly half-elf woman, tells us that the illness cannot be healed by normal means, and is the result of a foul miasma emanating from the Drowned Eye. The Eye is an underwater haunted pit, recently unsealed. She can help us with the breathing-underwater too, if we need it, although Civilla already has a Wand of Waterbreathing. There are plenty of advantages to living in a city, but unfortunately it does leave one at something of a disadvantage when it comes to operating out in the countryside, where the wildlife tends to be a bit more energetic, and sometimes eldritch. Pigeons are a bit less dangerous than sharks, and a lot less dangerous than underwater zombies. Terzo OoC: Of course Jaws 2 is also a great example of why it’s important to vote in local elections. The wildlife isn’t the only thing eldritch about the Dismal Nitch either - it turns out the Drowned Eye projects a powerful compulsion to passing sailors to jump overboard. Not that it makes much difference to us, we were all going to jump into the underwater sinkhole anyway. Because, as previously mentioned, we’re way out of depth when it comes to countryside adventuring. We’ve never heard of nitrogen narcosis, for example. Terzo OoC: Now why am I thinking of the anglerfish seen from Finding Nemo… Rajira OoC: I’m thinking of the Navy SEAL leader from The Abyss myself. Civilla: huh, shark. Wait, SHARK! NOT MY SHARK! Ayva: We’ve going to need a bigger shark. The gigantic undead selachian coming up the shaft is as long as ten men. Civilla OoC: Well we already knew Civilla was a Snack. Rajira: Sharko! Terzo’s player: Shako was a polar bear (and on a CIA death list) Rajira’s player: OK, Hookjaw. Terzo’s player: Better. Civilla’s player: Bruce. GM: Describe the kill! Terzo’s player: Healing energy ripple across the undead flesh, generating visually disturbing waves of regeneration that react catastrophically with the negative energy animating its flesh, and it blows apart into fish fingers. Ayva’s player: I’d have said it explodes like somebody stuffed a compressed gas canister into its mouth and shot it. Rajira’s player: That IS traditional with sharks. The cavern at the bottom of the shaft has more undead, one in a captain’s hat. Draugr Captain: YARRBBLRR! *knocks Mahat into a wall and deals negative levels* Black Tentacles prove most effective, which is surprising since tentacles are most common underwater so you’d think underwater zombies would be used to them. But as we turn to return to the surface (hopefully without dying of The Bends) the spirit of an aquatic elf woman appears - is it nothing but undead down here? No wonder the neighbours are complaining. Apparently she’s the ghost of an elven druid who died trying to rebuild the protections around the Drowned Eye, and she’s quite surprised no sea elves showed up to deal with the situation at any point in the last few hundred years. Civilla: I’m afraid the current sea elves are, ah, not available. They’ve all come down very ill. Menota the Druid Ghost: Ah. So that’s how the Evil has manifested. I don’t suppose any of you are druids? Civilla: *would choke on her drink if she wasn’t already underwater* Ayva: Armour, leather studded armour, so, no. Terzo has missed most of this conversation since he’s still struggling in midwater like a quail chick in zero gee. At least we can go fetch the living elf druid Athannah from the surface now we’ve cleared up all the more feisty undead, as well as any material components the ghost needs for the ritual. Civilla: Would a Bishop Agathion serve the purpose? I have friends. Terzo: *still oblivious to Civilla’s deals with extra-dimensional Powers* And four of them are right here. Civilla OoC: I had to cut myself off from saying ‘I have friends on the other side’, because that’s an entirely different arrangement. Apparently based on his ability to summon pigeons, Bert from Sesame Street is a Druid. And Ernie is a Warlock, because he can summon fish and Boogie-Woogie Sheep. The sickly sea elves are a bit surprised to see us return, without reliving their symptoms. Civilla: We’re working on it. Terzo: Assuming the ghost isn’t actually the Evil in disguise, and trying to lure the only living elf druid in the vicinity to her doom. Is there any way to check the moral alignment of a ghost? Civilla: … yes, but it’s a bit late to bring that up NOW. It’s certainly a bit suspicious that Athannah doesn’t recognise the name Menotha, but then it HAS been a few hundred years. The ranger Nerrenn who was so suspicious about us when we first arrived insists on coming with us, by way of apology. GM: So, who’s going back down? Civilla: All of us, I suppose. Something’s bound to go wrong. Terzo: And this way I get to say ‘I told you so’. Terzo: So, how exactly has it gone wrong? Civilla: Nerrenn is a bad guy and you were right about the ghost. Terzo: *sigh* I try to be optimistic but it’s always so depressing when this sort of thing happens. Menotha gestures towards group minion Mahat, the most obvious fighter in the party, who fails his paltry Will save. Menotha: You, come fight for me. Rajira OoC: Mahat only has a Wisdom of 6. Civilla OoC: Mahat has a “Won’t” Save. Menotha vanishes into thin water when Civilla Dimension Jumps into the other underwater chamber, which is a bit strange. Even so, we have a mind-controlled Nerrin and Mahat to deal with. Only for Civilla’s Cohort, the Phoenix Arcanist Shimza Tismanescu, to dispel the mental domination on Mahat. Terzo’s attempts to do the same on the presumably enthralled Nerrenn fail. Rajira OoC: I’m *hoping* someone can break him out of it before I have to kill him. In the other chamber we find out why the ghost vanished. Deep Telepathic Voice, Right Behind Civilla: You just HAD to get in the way, didn’t you. Civilla: Eep! The Aboleth drops its other illusions - Civilla’s teleport happened to put her in the way of the line-of-sight illusion it was casting. She’s also in the worst possible square in the entire cave system - right in the creature’s cloud of lethal mutagenic slime. It menaces her with tentacles. Rajira OoC: I’ve seen enough hentai to know where this is going. Aboleth: *Slimes Civilla* Rajira OoC: It even comes with its own lube. Portia casts Confess on Nerrenn - a spell that causes damage on targets that don’t answer truthfully. Portia: What’s my middle name? Civilla, already in very bad shape and looking somewhat… boneless… Dimension Jumps back into the main chamber and warns us about her discovery, with an understandable amount of excitement. Civilla: ABOLETH! KILL IT! She sics three Celestial Sharks on the alien abomination. The rest of us are still trying to subdue the ranger, rescue the living druid, and kill the non-celestial shark the Aboleth has mind-controlled. At least the Aboleth is now pretty preoccupied trying to keep the Celestial Sharks hypnotised, because every time its concentration wavers it gets bitten again. We are also questioning the wisdom of bringing fire-based magical attacks underwater. If it doesn’t have flame does it boil the water instead? Terzo: But what about the criminal penalties for poaching? Anya OoC: If there’s an underwater section in the mountain fortress part of the campaign I’m going to be monumentally p****d. The Aboleth eventually gives up the non-illusory ghost, and cautious poking around reveals that there are in fact some runes down here. They’re in Aklo, a very unpleasant language. Civilla, of course, can read Aklo. And, indeed, the Aboleth language Alghollthu, which is even worse. Terzo: As much as I appreciate the fact you can decipher this, Civilla, but exactly what books have you been reading lately? Civilla: Just the family library. Terzo: Hmm. I question some of their purchases. Civilla: Remind me, dear Terzo, what’s my family motto? The base runes radiate negative energy into the surrounding environment, although there’s supposed to be a warding layer preventing that. Terzo: Can we change it so it radiates positive energy? Civilla: The world is supposed to be in balance - that would cause entirely different problems. Although Terzo’s suggestion does suggest to Civilla that the Aboleth was actually messing with the runes itself, apparently intending to summon something huge, aquatic, and undead. We are able to unravel the entire rune array, after Rajira disables the traps. Anya: It’s like one of those sliding tile puzzles. The sea elves are suitably grateful, and promise to assist the Ghosts of Kintargo in future. That will be handy if the Chellish Navy gets involved in suppressing the rebellion. Terzo: Don’t blame Nerrenn - he was being mind-controlled by an Abomination.

The rural soap opera that is Tales of Selversgard continues. This year has been dry and hot, with plenty of grain production and solid hunting. Killane Shellsdotter has taken up the Mayorship, and has pushed fairly hard for the farming aspects of the community. As a result, several new ploughs and seeding wagons have been purchased for communal use. A couple of the woodcutters have sworn blind that they saw a couple of ants the size of horses during one cutting expedition. However, they admit they were quite drunk at the time, and the Druids have found nothing to confirm it. Skave OoC: Just slightly over 4 grand in the GP pool. Being the town's Jesse Pinkman has its perks, I guess. Gonno’s romantic partner, the runaway former sex-worker Galiante, retrains as a different kind of professional. That doesn't stop Gonno's rival from making various snide remarks. Hopefully this won’t escalate - ignoring a person who has made it their goal in life to bully you does not work, in his experience. They just escalate until you've finally reached an important threshold and decide it will solve a lot of problems if you just hold their head underwater until they drown. Skave OoC: Also, “something something the Oread's ability to become Rock Hard on Demand something something lewd joke” that promptly gets Skave bonked. Skave: Hey, Big Bro, should I spend most of my money on this nifty hat that's supposed to make me smarter, or save up a bit more? Arram: …. He’s spending enough money to retire on, on a new hat. Gonno OoC: Well, I can’t say that Skave has displayed much aptitude for sensible decisions since we’ve known him. Skave: Hey, it will make a nice heirloom for my descendants. It’s the Harvest Moon festival! The big orange moon on the horizon would be aptly described as pumpkin-like, if we had pumpkins on this continent. All the food that won’t last the winter gets set up on long tables, and the beer flows in jolly abundance. The cargo rafts are back from Magnimar, and bring with them Skave’s new hat and some documents that will help Arram translate that map he found. Apparently it’s grammatically terrible, in an obscure language, and deliberately obfuscatory. But now he knows where the map starts from. Gonno notes that the schoolteacher is more interested in the documents than the festival, taps him on the shoulder, and hands him a large beer. The festival kicks up a few notches after the kids go to bed. GM: No doubt in coming weeks there will be a small rash of people going to the shrine- Arram: To get their small rashes cured? GM: Well, that too, but more quick handfastings, before other things start to show. The village has accepted the Ratfolk (now numbering twelve) because they recognise them as very hardworking people, albeit furry. Skave is showing off his new hat when he hears harsh words coming from behind one of the buildings - certainly not in keeping with the mood of the party. It’s Gonno’s rival, saying some extremely nasty stuff about Galiante. And a bunch of other stuff, but at least Skave passes on the important information to Gonno. Gonno sighs, makes a small personal prayer for patience, and hands the Ysoki a plate of food. Arram OoC: It’s nice to see (Gonno’s player) on the receiving end of information coming through the Scooter Filter for once, because Skave left out a LOT of information there. Skave: Are you sure you don’t want to deal with this? I can brew you up some Black Lotus Extract. Gonno: *looks shocked and gives a firm headshake of NO, and hands the ratman a mug of beer to go with the food* Galiante is certainly enjoying the party - her first ever Harvest Moon Festival - and dances up a storm. The Mayor concludes the festivities with a short speech, everybody toasts him loudly with the remaining beer, the priestess calls down the blessings of the gods on Selversgard, and eventually everybody staggers off to bed. GM: The next morning dawns brightly - far too brightly for some of you. Skave: What’s on fire this time? GM: Your head. Arram is one of the few townsfolk who isn’t hungover, because he didn’t overindulge. Arram: I mostly refrain from being smug. We meet outside Marrisa’s shop, because she usually puts on a light, bland breakfast the morning after the festival. She knows her customers. Skave can certainly brew hangover cures, but they only last an hour. Arram tells us about his treasure map discovery (or TreZZooR MaP), and most of us won’t be busy for the next few days. At least we don’t have to desecrate any corpses, since we already have the map and don’t need to cast the Create Treasure Map spell. Admittedly, Shev won’t be coming along - he’s off tracking something strange in the woods and missed the festival. Skave: I feel the most independent I’ve ever felt in my life! Arram: You’ll note Shev didn’t go on this trip until he had a dozen other rats to act as minders. True, the path the map indicates is steep, and rather overgrown. As an added bonus, the blackberry bushes will all be ripe at this time of year, so detours will not be onerous. Arram: Good idea for a day trip - berrypicking and treasure. Progress is swift - well before nightfall we reach a valley absolutely filled with ripe blackberry bushes. Even if there’s no treasure at the end of this we’ve found something the village will appreciate. Admittedly, we’ll have to contest it with whatever is snuffling around. Arram: So either pigs… or bears. Gonno OoC: At least owlbears aren’t equipped to snuffle. We back off a bit and Gonno bangs some pots together. A ten-foot tall bear rears up. Miya: When we tell the village about this we’ll have to include a warning : May Contain Bear. GM: At least one bear. Still, there’s plenty of succulent berries to go around - the bear and the party move further apart, eat our fill, fill every container we can, and press on. Unfortunately, while there may have been a bridge previously, it’s collapsed. Gonno fells a tree across the chasm - his other professional skill is lumberjack after all, even if most of the year he's working with the end product. We do lose the trail towards evening, but at least we can look forward to a meal of berries, bread, and cheese - we feast like kings! Fortunately, the Oread is alert enough to perceive the wolf-sized thing crawling towards the sleeping Miya. Gonno lobs a rock at what turns out to be a Giant Tick. Unfortunately even small ticks are difficult to discourage. Fortunately Gonno has the Evasion skill now and immediately dives for cover when he sees Skave pull out a firebomb. Gonno OoC: It’s like I get these premonitions whenever Skave is about to throw an area-effect weapon. The next day we reach a large bare patch on top of one of the larger hills - the treasure should be around here somewhere. And if it isn’t, the surrounding forest looks like it will be good for mushrooms. Digging swiftly reveals a brick ceiling, which explains why no trees are growing up here - although whoever built a brick dome and then buried it is a good question. It’s soft clay brick, which doesn’t tell us much, other than whoever built it didn’t know the climate is too wet for that kind of brick to last long. We set Skave to work removing the bricks. He’s the lightest of us, and even if the dome collapses he’s got 15ft of rope tied around his waist. Unfortunately, the chamber is only 10ft deep, so he hits the ground quite hard and then the rest of the bricks fall on him. We fish him out and examine the domed chamber and spiral staircase within. Shave prepares a healing infusion, but intends to save it for later in case he gets hurt again. GM: I remind you of the good advice that hit points belong in people, not in jars. Whoever made these stairs was small, each step a third of the size that would suit a normal human. It might have been the same people that set the noose trap that grabs Gonno by the ankle and swings him out into open space. Or it might have been the distinctly spiderish humanoids that creep out of a mass of webbing and hiss at us. Ettercaps: LEEEEAVE! Our home, not yours! Arram: We can do that. But first we need to retrieve our friend - do you have a ladder by any chance? Ettercap: Meat! You leave, he stays. Arram: Fair enough. *casts Burning Hands* Miya: ‘We do not agree to your terms’ Perhaps predictably, Ettercaps have quite a venomous bite, and Gonno isn’t contributing much to the fight when he’s hanging by an ankle 20ft off the ground. True, the others deal with the creatures (fatally) but Arram is left barely alive and badly delirious. Gonno OoC: Perhaps if we’d offered them some berries… GM: Obligate carnivores. Gonno OoC: Yeah, I was afraid of that. The only other exit down here is behind the Ettercaps nest - there’s light back there too. We do find a magical spear stuck in the ettercaps latest meal, though. Being magical didn’t do the pig any good, but it didn’t stop the previous owner losing his spear either. Miya: ‘What happened to the several-thousand-GP-worth of magical weapon?’ ‘It got stuck in a pig’. We also find a symbol on the wall that matches one on the map - the wall seems to have a cavity behind it. It’s possible it’s a bricked up doorway. Miya drills a hole, and Gonno uses his Darkvision to discover a figure on the far side staring back at him. It’s a suit of armour. Gonno: *recoils in surprise* Someone back there…… Not moving…. Not moving AT ALL Skave: So safe to knock the wall down? Miya: May as well. Arram: Bear in mind that we got this information from Gonno. Miya: Sooo… a brusque report and not very informative? Gonno OoC: A series of exciting telegrams. The room on the other side seems to have been set up for a halfling, and the armour and weapons are masterworked quality. There’s also a chest, but this one doesn’t try and eat us. It might well be trapped, but that doesn't stop Gonno turning it upside down and prying out the nails. It has quite a lot of silver and gem-quality citrine inside. It looks like one Lorcus, a notorious bandit from some 300 years ago, had this set up as a lair before some of the early Hellknights hunted him down. The Hellknights were quite smug about it, apparently, since the Arodenites had sent a paladin after him too and he was never seen again. The armour belonged to the paladin. Since there’s no church of Aroden anymore, it’s going to be quite difficult to get the armour back to anybody it should go to. Nearly impossible to find out if the halfling paladin had any family, either, unless there’s some surviving records at the ruined monastery. Gonno OoC: I suppose you can always just put in your museum of local history. Miya: Sorry, not exhibit - a ‘reliquary’. Back to town with our treasure, and more importantly the location of Blackberry Valley. One of the female Ysoki expresses an interest in co-habiting with Skave. Skave: … … Gonno’s player: ‘Big Brother, what do I do???’ Skave’s player: Pretty much. I really should determine Skave’s sexuality at some point. Gonno’s player: Doesn’t matter - you still have your duty to the Warren. One of the town families has started complaining about Arram - they’re upset that his curriculum is mostly secular. So now he has an enemy too. Gonno player: No doubt whatever my rival was actually saying will come back to bite me later. Arram’s player: Probably not - he was badmouthing you to one of the town guards, and the guard said ‘Dude, we like him better than you, so f*** off.’

Setting up Tabletop Simulator for the game Me: What the HELL is standing behind you? Shev’s player: Wha- Oh, that’s Skave. Me: Ah - so you're using the custom asset you made in HeroForge, and he’s using an actual gasmasked Skaven asset. GM: Yep. Which explains why the villagers react to him the way they do. Me: At least he’s wearing appropriate safety equipment for the lab. Shev’s player: Yeah, but he doesn’t have appropriate safety PROCEDURES for the lab - that’s half the problem. Miya’s player: How adorable. Me: Look behind him. Miya’s player: …..ah. Arram's player: Honestly Shev is more alarming - THOSE EYES Skave’s player later creates a much cuter asset to use as the ratman. Skave’s player: the temptation to add tiny little horns is really powerful, but I shall resist GM: Hang on, my notes have vanished into the ether. Me: That’s why we switched to safer anesthetics. And besides, anything that can vanish into the ether is way too high a combat level for this party.. The aforementioned rodent is down at Selversgard’s docks buying some fish, when there is some commotion in the water. A small boat is being rowed by a young man, with a blood-covered young dwarf as a passenger. Skave: Ah, codfish, tastes like elf. Don’t ask me how I know that. What’s going on over there? Shev OoC: Alas poor dwarf, we barely knew you. Gonno OoC: I wonder if Skave has heard you can use gunpowder as a cauterizing agent yet. Shev OoC: … he just admitted to cannibalism in public. That which speaks is not food! Gonno OoC: For one thing you can get psittacosis from parrots. The adolescents were fishing when they were attacked by a giant pike. Gonno OoC: From context I’m guessing the fish and not an animated weapon. Unfortunately, there was a third member of the party - Mari, who got to shore OK, but south of the old monastery that everybody avoids. The whole area has a bad reputation, not least because the god in question, Aroden, died under mysterious circumstances a little over 100 years ago. GM: There’s rumors something nasty happened at the monastery at the same time. Gonno OoC: Well, all the monks were out of a job for a start. Shev is quite impressed that the kids rowed 15 miles upstream to get help. Shev: Damn, kid, you have some guns on you. On the other hand, the pike was merely 6 feet long, so merely a large pike rather than a Giant Pike. Arram: That said they ARE supremely aggressive and will have a go at anything, The kids just panicked. Shev commandeers the nearest boat, and intends to use his giant rat to tow it as necessary. Arram is currently childfree as all his students are at work in the fields, and Gonno comes along despite being very uncomfortable in water more than neck deep. He’s certainly happy to be back on dry land, although the banks are so thickly overgrown and tangled that the missing girl would have to head away from the river to make any progress. Also, that pike is still hanging around. Gonno OoC: At least it’s not a shark with freakin’ lasers. It certainly looks as though Mari’s taking a large detour around the ruins. And it’s such a lovely day that the miasma of evil coming from the ruins barely registers. Happy laughter coming from a stand of fruit trees on a nearby hilltop is much more distracting. The girl is sitting under a huge oak, next to a fire, while her clothes dry. Whoever rendered her assistance has their back to us, and a distinctly nonhuman head. There’s also a human? Woman with intensely red hair peeking out as us from behind the oak. Arram: Mari? Had a fun adventure this afternoon? Mari: Mr Arram! You came to find me! Arram: I hear you had a run-in with a rather large fish. Galiante the Tiefling: She certainly did. Shev: It’s getting late - may we share your fire for the night? Galiante: Best ask the actual owner. Kayla! Ah just a minute, she’s shy. Shev: Fear not fellow child of Erastil, we mean no harm. Kayla: Well, not exactly Erastil, but.. *literally steps out of solid wood* The dryad lets us stay in her grove as long as we are no threat to it, her, or her guests. Shev: *leans in close to Skave* Brother…. Arram: Literally do not move for the next 8 hours. Skave: Yes yes, I’m not going to set fire to the tree. Shev: You’re not going within 20ft of the tree. It’s not that I think you’ll set it on fire, I’m afraid you’ll want to investigate its alchemical properties. Shev: How come you to the woods? Galiante: Well, that’s a long story.. Shev: We have a fire, and I brought stew. Galiante: *brightens up* I do like stew. Galiante is from Cheliax, and tells us her life story suitably edited for her presumably innocent new friend Mari. Shev OoC: She’s a 14 year old country girl - she knows. Despite her Tiefling heritage, Galiante was the mistress of a Chelaxian higher-up who tried to move higher in the pecking order and ended up just as high as the top of a pike - weapon, this time, not the fish. Skave OoC: I didn’t know Barzillai Thrune had a girlfriend? *takes notes* She got out of town fast, but not before kicking in the head of an overly proactive government employee, so she now has a company of hellknights hunting her down. Despite that, she would probably be welcome enough in Selversgard. Galiante: Really? I’m a tiefling and a prostitute. Arram: Honestly I don’t think the first thing will matter. Shev: They put up with us. Arram: And that’s the second oldest profession, probably just after murder-hobo. Galiante: And that’d be you guys? Shev et al: Oh no, I’m a scout/carpenter/schoolteacher/parcel delivery man. Galiante: Huh, and he was me thinking you were adventurers. Shev: No, we have real jobs, and we are good at them. With a few notable exceptions. Well, if we’re competent maybe we can help the dryad with a problem - an unpleasantly pushy Twigjack that won’t leave her alone. He’s even made a copy of her grove, that’s wrong in every possible way. Gonno OoC: At least the tree in the middle isn’t a Gympie-Gympie. There’s no sign of the malign occupant. Gonno OoC: I bet that’ll change the moment I get my axe out. Arram OoC: ‘He’s a lumberjack and he’s ok’ In fact the furious fey doesn’t show up until Gonno actually swings at one of its trees, and the entire party is waiting with suitable weapons. Unfortunately the Twigjack can teleport and blast us with splinters. Fortunately our suitable weapons are Arram’s Fireball spell and Shev’s blunderbuss loaded with a Dragonsbreath round, and the creature is reduced to ash. Skave: Well, while you guys make sure there aren’t any more about, I’m going to sit over here. And start pulling out all these splinters. Ow. Ow. Ow. Hopefully not where all the poison ivy is growing. Mari’s parents are very pleased when we get back, although they are very not pleased that their daughter went so far downstream with her friends. Galiante can probably stay at Gonno’s place for a while - his new house has room for a second person now, at least, and he can make her a bed easily enough. Gonno OoC: At least I’m a quiet housemate. Arram OoC: Unless you’re working. Gonno OoC: Yeah good point - if she’s working nights…. Miya OoC: Let’s not make any assumptions about her future employment. Galiante does spend the rest of the season working in the fields, then gets a job at the Yellow House, Selversgard’s only brothel. GM: She’s doing what she knows. Arram finds an old map of the monastery, which he adds to his collection of local historical documents. Maybe he can start a small museum, one day. Skave hears from some relatives that want to move into the Warren, and Miya, sadly, hears that one of her adoptive parents has died. To their mutual surprise, Gonno and Galiante actually develop an attraction to each other, and she moves back in. Gonno: *basking in the daily pleased surprise, and planning the better furniture he’ll make for her, to go with the chest of drawers he’d made as a moving out present* Shev OoC: She was probably amazed that he offered her a bed with no ulterior motive. ‘You literally just wanted to put a roof over my head?’ Miya OoC: ‘I’m gonna keep you!’

The stirge-infested darkness beyond the door reveals one main corridor, and a number of collapsed side corridors. Hopefully we won’t have to do any major excavations, because if the ceilings are that unstable it would probably be a very bad idea. Not that the floors are much more stable, since we nearly miss the first pit trap. It’s just as well that Skave has Disable Traps, because none of the rest of us do. Shev: See how useful you can be when you’re not trying to blow something up? (says the guy carrying blackpowder). Gonno😘reluctant to point out that Skave just helped us by breaking something* The corridor opens into a large natural chamber, with a somewhat noxious lake, a natural skylight, and a building built into the wall opposite. Skave checks the lake’s depth and acidity, and doesn’t get eaten by a crocodile. Miya: And there was me expecting a Dead Gazelle moment. Shev wants to ride across on his rat, but Vokk is reluctant to even enter the water - HIGHLY suspicious. The rapidly approaching ripple in the water even more so. It would appear that giant leeches as well as stirges breed down here. Maybe we're about to get a Dead Gazelle moment anyway. Or possibly not - we dispatch the leech without difficulty. On the other hand, we do find a black-laquered grappling hook on the island from when the cave roof collapsed. If whoever fell off the presumably attached rope fell from a great height, there would surely be other remains, and if the grappling hook lost its grip when they’d just started climbing, why leave the hook? The building built into the wall has an intact door, despite its apparent age and the humidity down here. The bronze is heavily verdigrised, however. It’s also locked. Happily, the key we were given back in Selversgard fits it, so we don’t break down the door to be immediately killed by all the traps. What they didn’t tell us is that there’d be TWO chests. The first that Arram opens contains numerous documents and letters that we politely don’t read, and the second chest impolitely tries to eat us. Arram: That does happen sometimes. Unfortunately even small Mimics are a serious threat to amateur dungeon-crawlers like ourselves, even without Skave’s contributions to the fight. Arram: If you hit me with one of your grenades again, rat, I’m going to set you on fire. Skave: I hit the Mimic too this time! We’re not professionally-inclined to search the entire building, but Gonno does find a large pile of undigested gold coins under the mimic, and also spots furtive movement elsewhere in the cave that we studiously avoid. There’s no point actually looking for more trouble. Shev: What do you think we are, adventurers? At some point in the next 11 months, Arram finds a treasure map in one of his predecessor’s books. Shev OoC: Save to give to an passing adventurer as a quest reward. Gelvert, despite his melancholy, does survive the winter and in fact appears to be in better health than in recent days, though he continues to let his eldest son, Gelbert, proxy for him on the Council and run the mill. This is especially important as the mayorship passes to him this year. The summer is a cool and wet one, resulting in a surfeit of root vegetables and fat pigs and cows, but a relatively low harvest of grain. There’s also a minor conflict between some of the woodcutters and a faction of the Druids. The Druids claim the cutters felled several trees that were marked for retention, but the cutters deny they were marked. Both sides agree to closer communication in future. This seems to be a perennial argument. Maybe the druids would be more congenial if the villagers pay them to magically enhance the farmers’ fields. Several Ysoki arrive to join the warren. One is a low-level witch. Hopefully that means there will be some adorable baby ratties along soon - the ratfok are too short-lived to put off starting a family, and more important Gonno has a shelf-full of alphabet blocks and wooden ducks to gift the children. Gonno OoC: Although I’ll probably hold off giving them a working trebuchet if they’re related to Skave. Skave manages to blow up his lab. Shev: Brother. Brother. Miya: He can’t hear you, because of the explosion. Skave: NOT MY FAULT THIS TIME. Shev: SKAVE. THIS IS WHY I DO ALL MY EXPERIMENTS WITH BLACK POWDER OUT IN THE WOODS. Skave is actually ecstatic about the explosion - he can now infuse a small amount of his own magical power into his creations. Shev: An expensive discovery, Brother. I assume it gave you key insights into how *not* to create these infusions? Gonno makes an enemy of a woodcarver that accuses the Oread of stealing his designs. Clearly the man is just looking for a fight, and Gonno has no intention of responding in kind, but it bodes ill for the future. Gonno OoC: I don't want him coming in when I'm out and throwing my tools in the river or my ham in the latrine. That would be irritating. And if he knows I've been squirreling a small fortune away under the floor... (it's not like there's room to hide it inside the anvil with metal-shaping anymore). Miya, on the other hand, discovers that one of the other town founders also had a subterranean secret that bears investigation - an interest in the now flooded mine near Selversgard, and a still-standing offer of ownership of the mine to anyone that can recover the deeds to it. It probably bears more investigation as to why nobody has followed this up before now, but Miya is new in town, and like many small communities she’s going to be considered an outsider for a few more decades yet.

It was never beef, and Secretive Government Agency is destroying the evidence.

https://yourheartonfire.tumblr.com/post/700361128046395392/hello-if-you-are-receiving-this-medic-has this minific has promise as a campaign start too

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/05/us/nebraska-midwest-meat-heist-arrest-trnd/index.html If you can’t turn this into an adventure seed, then you're clearly not GMing hard enough. Just think of some of the reasons somebody would need multiple truckloads of stolen meat.

Also, it turns out that The Devil’s Simulare manuscript was uncatalogued, and if they hadn't asked the librarians at the Biblioteca Marciana to hunt it down for them, they probably could have smuggled it out of the library with no-one being any the wiser. On the other hand, our investigators see no reason to steal the document. Florence Braxton-Hicks: It’s not as though books can hurt anybody. GM: I'm sure the Russian royal family would say otherwise, at least as far as Das Kapital

When asking a friendly pharmacist for his recommendations regarding Venetian food- "Tourist food or real food?" The little out-of-the-way venue does indeed supply mouth-watering real food in generous quantities. Flo will of course spoil things by recommending it in her articles back home.

HORROR ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - Venice - Love (and Death) in a Gondola Pt.3 Feb 1923 In Which The Investigators Dig Themselves Deeper Into A Hole The Investigators are certainly seeing a lot of Venice while they’re in town, if by ‘a lot’ you mean the inside of the city’s libraries and archives, and the inside of the San Marco Basilica during a heist that nearly gets them arrested as Communist Arms Smugglers. Smugglers that they, in fact, invented. This probably requires some explanation. Having already assisted local communist Georgio Gasparetti’s attempts to get into the pants of Maria Stagliani (hopefully he’ll wait till they’re actually married), Huxley and company have finally returned their attention to the search for the pieces of the Sedefkar Simulacrum. Delving deeply into the archives turns up the official reports and diaries of the French officers during Napoleon’s occupation of the city, and The Devil’s Simulare, an illuminated manuscript about certain events in Constantinople during its looting by the Fourth Crusade. Hopefully it’s not entirely historical, because among other things it includes knights fighting a dragon. But they can read it all properly later, because the reports and diary reveal the hiding place of the Simulacrum’s Leg! Inside one of the richest and well-guarded churches in Christendom. This presents a few problems, and that’s not even counting the giant fish with human arms that have been seen in the canals. Huxley: Could be a surviving amphibian from the Devonian. GM: Given the increasingly noxious state of the canals, they probably won’t be surviving for long. The water is certainly getting pretty bad - black as the breast of a raven - and increasingly excited rumors claim that it’s certain death to touch it. The Left Leg was apparently buried under the floor of the Chapel of St Isidore - not the St Isidore of Seville who invented the comma, but the Isidore of Chios who got torn apart by horses. It's the latter who got interred at St Mark's, presumably not in one piece. And the investigators will be lucky if they remain in one piece if they get caught vandalizing the church. Maybe they should just tell the church authorities they had an evil artifact under the pavers and they should just be glad it’s being taken off their hands? GM: It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission. Antonio Masiero, the Italian airman who did most of the legwork for them in Venice, has a suggestion - i.e. get the fascists to do it, by telling them that communist arms smugglers were using the chapel as a letter drop, then intercept them and get the leg off them afterwards with the help of the local communists. It’s certainly a … bold… plan. Antonio: A shipment of arms Florence: Heheh Antonio: OK, or a shipment of legs So all they have to do is convince Gasparetti to use his contacts among the local unionists and left-leaning students to pass on information to the blackshirts. He’s a bit reluctant, at first. Among other other things the fascists will crack down even harder on the local communists if they dig up the chapel to find the letter drop or not, but he does get more enthusiastic about it when it’s framed as an excuse to string up the blackshirts for vandalizing the Basilica. Gasparetti: This could be the start of the OVERTHROW OF MUSSOLINI! *slaps his hand over his mouth when he realises he just said that aloud in a cafe* Florence: Geniuses, lower your voices -You keep out of trouble, and you double your choices. I'm with you, but the situation is fraught. You've got to be carefully taught: If you talk, you're gonna get shot! Fortunately, it was already a fairly left-wing cafe, although people are now paying a LOT of attention to the investigators. They decide to pass on the false information that the communist arms smugglers will be leaving instructions under the flagstone in the chapel after the last mass of the day, and Gasparetti and his friends will be waiting out in the plaza to raise hell the moment the Fascists start tearing up the flagstones. Huxley, Florence and Antonio will be lurking among the congregation to see how it plays out. Of course, it doesn’t go according to plan, because in hindsight it was never going to. The blackshirts naturally planted a few plainsclothed officers among the congregation, all watching closely for these imaginary arms smugglers. Which left Huxley and Antonio to try and hide in the Basilica as the crowd streamed out, and the officers explain to the priests why they’re there. Priest: Communists?! In MY Church! GM: It’s more likely than you think. And of course the blackshirts spot Huxley hiding - they were expecting somebody to linger in the church after mass, after all. He legs it, closely pursued by the fascists, to the consternation of Florence, Gasparetti and his friends. At least that gives Antonio a chance to pry up the flagstone with a votive candlestick, while everybody is busy. There’s no Leg. There is, instead, a letter in a sealed envelope. Antonio grabs it and talks his way out past the priests - after giving the address to his hotel, his actual name, a promise of numerous Hail Marys and a large donation. Huxley manages to lose himself in the crowd of churchgoers - he certainly seems to be becoming quite an accomplished sprinter, at least in the vicinity of Italian landmarks. The investigators meet up at the flat, where Gasparetti tries to wrap his head around the fact that there actually WAS a letter under the flagstone. At least he can identify the seal of the letter - the Gremancis, once Princes of Venice, now famous dollmakers and providers of prosthetic limbs to the veterans of the Great War. The name is not entirely a surprise - the investigators had been told by Professor Smith that reputed sorcerer Alvise de Gremanci was somehow involved with the Simulacrum, and one Alvise de Gremanci was recorded as one of the ringleaders of the riots that took place when the Leg was first brought to the city, and all quietly released after the French officer discovered they were absolutely right to be protesting. Antonio had been asking every branch of the family if they knew anything about an evil leg. Apparently none did - perhaps the letter will reveal the truth?

Shev: I finally find a Rat I’m not related to and she tells me to f*** off???? Gonno’s carpentry over the next 11 months goes poorly, Miya is lucky in business and Arram loses a family member. Romilda gets an unexpected boon and Skave suffers a blow to his reputation in town. Skave: ONE guy has a bad trip and runs through town naked screaming about being chased by invisible ghosts, and everyone hates you for months, honestly… Shev: Everytime I fire this thing it costs me 5GP. Gonno OoC: Maybe if we ask nicely the bad guys will hold still, so you don’t waste your money. Miya has been supplementing her income by dancing at one of Selversgard’s public houses. She’s not exactly spoiled for choice - it’s the only one with a stage. Afterwards, she’s handed an envelope. Miya: Thank you young dwarf. If it’s a proposition I’m not interested. It’s an invitation to a meeting with the dwarf Gelvert, one of the most well-off people in town, who has profited mightily from the sawmill since he and four friends founded the town a century back. He even has somebody to take Miya’s cloak and get it dried and cleaned. As he tells Miya, the other founders are dead, or almost certainly so. He’s been thinking a lot about Jael Jirin, one of the founders, a gnome of whom he was very fond. Gelvert: Soul like a bright lighthouse on a darkened sea… she founded the fisherman’s guild, you know. Apparently Jael hid a number of items for Gelvert to collect, if she never returned, but thinking about her likely death was so painful he’s been putting it off for decades. Gelvert: I find that as the days grow darker and the winter gathers in my bones, I fear it will not be long before I too make my way to Pharasma’s halls. He wants to pay us to retrieve them - he probably isn’t relying on our sense of civic duty to avoid paying professional adventurer rates, but rich old dwarfs don’t become rich old dwarfs by wasting money. He tells the group that the collapsed old ruin we explored last year is far from the only such in the forest - they’re all through it, and for that matter most of the continent. Jael kept one as a private lair, some 20 miles SE of Selversgard, and kept various important documents in a strongbox there - Gelvert has the key, and warns us about some of the pit traps we’ll have to avoid. We’ll have to bring a ladder, and probably some raincoats. Gelvert: I regret sending you out in this weather, but I doubt I’ll still be here come spring. Gonno wonders if any of his neighbors have a folding ladder he can borrow. Shev: Buy one you cheap bastard, they’re only 2GP. Portable bridges are probably also a good idea - getting a donkey across a ladder seems difficult - although Shev loudly complains that the thing must be made from Darkwood given the cost and weight. Not that Shev needs the bridge, although he’s still the only one with a giant riding rat, Vokk. Shev: I’ve only been here two years, it takes a while to breed the musclerats. Miya: I am going to have to do so much negotiation in a few years… ‘no, it didn’t bite your children, and it hasn’t eaten your dog’. Shev: To be fair, how big is the dog? Nobody’s figured out that Miya and her pet fox are the same entity yet. Townsfolk 1: That pet fox is weird. Townsfolk 2: It’s probably a f***ing familiar or something, don’t worry about it. Unfortunately, by the first afternoon the weather goes from wet to appalling - trying to navigate across trackless forest is hard enough in good weather, and it’s all too easy to miss the giant spider trapdoors when the rain is blowing up your nose. Gonno’s solution is practical - roll a big log over the trapdoor when the spider retreats. We make camp. Nothing disturbs us during the night. Gonno OoC: I suspect I’m mostly relying on the fact that only a lunatic would be wandering around in this weather. Shev: HELLO. Gonno OoC: But we’re not wandering around. Arram: But we’re still out here in this weather. The weather continues so awful that it’s hard to tell possible stone towers apart from big rocks. We go to approach one, when a voice pipes up from the undergrowth. Voice: I wouldn't go down there if I was you. It’s a tiny creature with a humanoid front half and shining silver hair, and the back half of a cricket. Shev: Why would you not go down there? The Grig: Because that is the domain of a wolfwere. The Grig: A terrible story - a wolf cursed to live as a man, under the full moon. Skave is suspicious - for one thing it’s not full moon - and thinks the Grig is trying to fool us. Skave: I’m pretty sure we can go on. Shev: Why’s that? Arram: Love of violence. Skave: I just don’t trust it. Shev: You barely trust anyone outside the warren - be more specific The Grig: Doesn’t trust me. Doesn’t trust me. *flies off in a huff* Shev: Now look what you’ve done, our supplies are going to get scattered all over the place the next time we camp. Gonno: *gives Skave a ‘I’m not angry, just disappointed’ look, sighs and packs up the rations he was going to thank the Grig with - even if it WAS trying to fool us, rewarding the the Fae for small pranks is still a good idea as long as the pranks remain harmless* Shev OoC: And it stops them from escalating. We go ahead into the suspiciously circular depression anyway - the tower is actually a huge monolith. Gonno: *examines the monolith from various angles, mentally calculating the size of the crater, closely examining the lichen on the stone, and giving the rock a cautious sniff* Thassilonian. Shev: Rune-cannon shot. Rune this, rune that. What happened to good old fashioned glyphs, I ask you? GM: Certainly runed this area. A bit later on we find a sign nailed to a tree, pointing to a strongbox. It contains a meat pie and a blueberry cupcake, as Skave’s alchemy confirms. This is OBVIOUSLY Fae food. Shev: DON’T EAT IT. Miya: I’m not going to - it was going to stay in the strongbox for now. Shev: You leave it right where you found it! The Grig: Oh, but then the pie will get cold! Shev and Gonno are far too knowledgeable about the rules for dealing with Fae - i.e. Don’t. - to fall for the Grig’s protestations of innocence, even if it was innocent. Miya: Hang on, you had it made up for us? Where??? The Grig: Oh, I’m not going to tell you THAT. The Grig doesn’t trash our camp overnight, but our paranoia leaves us unrested nonetheless. The next day brings us to an old stone building - with a newer steel portcullis. News in ‘probably added in the last century’. A bit of elbow grease gets it open, although Gonno does manhandle the block we were using as a fulcrum underneath the portcullis just in case. Perhaps Gonno should stick up the front of the party - he won’t distract our trailblazer Shev with any unnecessary chatter. Shev: That’s why I have Vokk. To avoid any unnecessary chatter. I dare you to name a more trustworthy companion. Miya: A rock. Shev: Nonono, They’re constantly stealing your elephants. Miya: … What? That’s a reference to something isn’t it… Oh. That went straight over my head, like the elephants, who are very distressed about it so don’t be there. It’s the giant riding rat Vokk that spots the first warning - a big, helpful PIT! sign with an arrow, with delimited paths and trap bounds. It doesn’t seem to be in the same handwriting as the Grig’s sign earlier. Further on there’s a room with all mod cons - glowing crystals in the walls, comfy bed, a cage, a skeleton, and a corpse slumped over the table. The skeleton is a person, holding a spear and standing straight upright. Gonno wants to look around for a keyhole. The key we were given was supposed to disable some of the defenses and he doesn’t like the look of that skeleton, but Shev is more interested in looting those crystals and Arram lobs a rock at the undead. The corpse is a human or maybe an elf, and was using the room to flay and prepare corpses. The wannabe necromancer apparently retired here to perfect his art and take over the world. Arram: The Twilight Academy is a week’s travel away, you nutter, you should have just gone there. The corpse-botherer even managed to animate a single skeleton, but then, at a loss about what to actually do with it, ordered it to guard the cage. Arram toasts the skeleton, which never even twitches from its assigned duty - a sad end for the late Necromancer’s ‘Great Work’. Shev: An appropriate end. The Necromancer has four puncture wounds in his chest, but not caused by anything in the room. The loon never explored past this room, according to his journal, since he didn’t like all the traps. If one of the traps is responsible for his injuries, we can hardly blame him. At least his spellbook didn’t get too icky. Unfortunately, we’re not so scared of traps, and thus discover what killed the necromancer - giant mosquitoes. Skave: *Missing yet another crossbow shot* I’m terrible with this thing! GM: Yes, you should be throwing bombs. Skave: I get yelled at when I throw bombs! Shev: For good reason!!!! GM: You have avoided catching the disease carried by these Stirges. Gonno OoC: That notwithstanding, I should probably avoid squeezing it like a piping bag to get my blood back.

Gonno OoC: It’s at this point that most villagers would put up an ad on Craigslist looking for murder-hoboes. Despite the increasingly difficult weather and terrain, we eventually find scattered yellow wax of the kind that poisoned the rats. There don’t appear to be any giant poisoned bee hives hanging from the trees overhead, but that doesn't preclude giant poisoned burrowing bees. Arram: And that would just be about our luck, wouldn’t it. And if there was a trail, it’s too old to follow, even for a rat as antisocial as Shev. Fortunately the plants have been there longer, and Miya can talk to plants. The shrubbery tells us that the were fuzzy things, less hairy than the ratfolk, smaller than any of the villagers, that came through about 10 brightnesses ago. Also, their noisy bits were bigger than ours. Honestly, as far as descriptive qualia go, that’s pretty good work for a vegetable. We press on looking for more clues - looking so intently that we don’t notice that the rushing torrent coming down from the hills has undercut the bank, and Arram ends up hanging from a tree branch. Fortunately the rest of us haul him back to safety without going over ourselves. And a bit further on from there, we hear words in an unpleasant barking language just over the next ridge. Unfortunately, none of us speak goblin. Fortunately Shev and his giant riding rat are both pretty stealthy, and easily identifies them as goblins, a goblin dog, and a hobgoblin. The hobgoblin is currently beating one of the mouthier gobbos about the head with a stick. Then hands out chunks of that yellow wax to each. Shev and his rat might well be stealthy, and it’s true that the goblinoids don’t notice them at once or as he and his mount are sneaking away again. On the other hand the rest of the party are not so lightfooted as we sneak into position to ambush the enemy. Shev is inclined to blame Gonno, who is certainly the physically densest of the party, but Gonno is too generous to point out that it was actually the riding rat sneezing. The goblinoids, however, are generous enough to share most of their arrows with Gonno. Arram is comprehensively ventilated as well. In fact, it’s a small miracle we survive at all - it would seem murder-hoboes exist for a reason. The conscious members of the party decide to lug the unconscious Gonno back to the hut, for safety and healing. The current clearing might be suitable for a campsite, but for two factors - the enemy know about it. Shev: And it’s a bit corpse-y. The goblinoids are not equipped well, which isn’t unusual, but the hobgoblins are unusually clean and are all branded with a V, which is. And none of them are carrying rations, which implies they have a camp somewhere nearby. In hindsight, we should have let Shev’s rat chew on all the goblinoids, so their compatriots will blame wild animals when they come looking. The next day, with considerable more caution, we locate the goblin camp, at a long-ruined tower deep in the forest. One unusual feature is a set of large wooden cages, one containing a large and very unhappy boar. There’s no sign of any goblins, but there is a large hole leading into the earth. No spoil heap, which implies a collapse rather than an excavation. Or maybe there really are giant poisoned burrowing bees. Unusually, the hobgoblin has a statue of Shelyn set up in his tent - with a note underneath it that none of us can read. Written in a very neat neat hand. That might be related to the cloven-hooved prints leading in and out of the hole. Distracted into a conversation about the ‘Where’s Wally’ mythos. Shev’s player: In the United States and Canada he’s known as “Waldo”, in Denmark he’s “Holger”, in France he’s “Charlie” and in German he’s “Walter”. Gonno’s player: And Interpol has taken a keen interest. There’s a deeper chasm at the bottom of the hole, with a swinging bridge, a sleeping goblin in a running cage, and a raging cascade. Unfortunately, bridge and goblin are both on the far side of the chasm, and our attempts to snipe them from our side are a spectacular failure. We end up relying on Shev and his giant riding rat again. Shev: They might not as fast as a horse but f*** they’re versatile. No! No! Get that of your mouth! Arram: You don’t know where it’s been. As suspected, the ruins had a dungeon underneath, and there’s a hooded figure doing something alchemical on a table near two caged hobgoblin females. Could be dangerous, especially if they're anything like our ratfolk alchemist. Shev: Because in our experience, alchemists are very good at hitting us. Happily, not everybody thinks to put tripwires on the walls. Even in the Underdark, where practically everybody can Spiderclimb or the equivalent. We even manage to get into position to ambush the alchemist - almost. She seems quite pleased to see us, which is not good. She’s a Forlarren - corrupted fey. Forlarren: Well gentlemen, ladies? What can I do for you? Miya: Ah… we wanted to know why goblins are poisoning the animals of the forest and causing sundry problems? Forlarren: Oh that’s easy - I told them to. Miya: … OK… any particular reason? Forlarren: I wanted to drive the rats towards Selversgard and make you all insane and dead. Miya: …. Why? Forlarren: Because I hate you. Obviously I won’t need these anymore *reaches for a lever next to the hobgoblin cage, and casts Heat Metal on us* Fortunately not all of us are wearing armour, and she doesn’t cast it very well, so her attempted Cook and Book doesn’t go as well as she’d like and we have her surrounded before she can escape. And then she’s on fire, and very soon after that, dead. It’s quite fortunate that we stopped her pulling the lever, since it wasn’t a cage release but a mechanism to kill her extraneous test subjects. We free them, and give them food and water. Shev: I can’t just abandon them because they’re not my species. Miya: And they’re female - you can’t just do that. Shev: I’m usually more egalitarian than that, but still. The hobgoblins seem very grateful, despite the language barrier. Extremely grateful, at least insofar as Miya is concerned. Arram: I would help, but I’m paralysed with laughter. Miya: Ah. No? Busy. Do you understand? Busy. Shev: Arram, can you please do something about this? We have things to do today. It’s not ideal, but we can’t really let the two hobgoblins fend for themselves, naked and alone. We might have to take them back to Selversgard, despite the fact that goblinoids are universally despised (and for good reason). The Forlarren also had a human skull with a few citrines shoved into the nasal cavity. Gorro: *thinking* Well I don’t think it would match the decor at my place, but perhaps one of the others would like it. Arram OoC: I hope not, because then I’ll have to write ‘nose gems’ on the treasure sheet. Skave: Hey, skull for the alchemy shop! There’s also a preserved nymph’s head, a skinned hobgoblin and the remains of a halfling bard with a masterworked lute in the other room - nobody we recognise as a visitor to Selversgard, but it’s possible someone will come looking for him. The Maker’s Mark from Magnimar will help narrow down his identity at least. Gonno prepares the bodies for rough burial - none of us are clerics. Arram: I’m pretty sure by the time the rest of us finish arguing about it Gonno’s already dug the graves. Gonno: I dig. The hobgoblins head off by themselves, to Shev’s relief. Miya: A quick smack on the bum and off they go. Shev: NO. We also get XP for releasing the boar. Miya OoC: Now we just have to rescue 10 ½ more boars and we’ll go up a level. Shev OoC: How do we rescue half a boar? Miya OoC: Piglet. Arram OoC: Yeah, Young template would do it. Piglet: Oh, bother. Shev OoC: Did that pig just talk? At least we've dealt with the crazed rat problem, and can return to Selversgard as Perfectly Adequate Substitute Adventurers. We’ll send a few letters to Magnimar with the next load of timber, and see if we can find an ID for the dead bard. And then Gonno can start carving a set of alphabet blocks for the ratfolk’s offspring - they’re not a species that put off parenting until middle age. Next Adventure : a year and a month from now!

Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the Word Bearers Space Marines, addresses the troops before battle - Lorgar: Altogether now, our warcry! Word Bearers: DADDY DOESN'T LOVE US! Lorgar: .... the other warcry Word Bearers: FOR CHAOS AND THE WARMASTER! Lorgar: Much better.

I'll second Bolland, McMahon and Ezquerra, and submit - Kevin O'Neill - design work for the early 2000AD, co-creator of Nemesis the Warlock, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Marshal Law, Metalzoic, and, of course, being declared completely unsuitable for the US market. "O'Neill had drawn several fill-in issues and short stories for titles such as The Omega Men, but his first major work for DC was a story written by Alan Moore for the Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual No. 2 in 1986. This proved to be instantly controversial as the Comics Code Authority objected to O'Neill's art. When DC asked what was wrong and if anything could be changed (the story featured scenes of a crucifixion) to get approval, the Authority replied that it was O'Neill's entire style they found objectionable.[4] DC pointed out that his art had been passed previously but the Authority stuck by their decision. DC decided to print the comic without the Comics Code Authority stamp."

Have been thinking about this one a bit more - if you're wondering what kind of plots you can have in a theme park, consider Niven and Barne's Dream Park novels, Spider Robinson's The Free Lunch, the SHOCC park in Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill's Marshal Law : Fear and Loathing, the current Adventure Zone campaign Steeple Chase, etc. Also every conspiracy about Disney, visiting collections of valuable superhero memorabilia, custody snatches, supervillians looking to collect low-level supers as unwilling minions, supervillians who are just in the park for a nice day out, Mob involvement in the contracting, every possible level of corporate incompetence and malfeasance, union-busting, ride disasters (look up the Luna Park fire here in Australia for a spectacularly awful one ), corporate espionage, Halloween special scares, and the rather odd fact that the rate of superpower manifestation among people that have visited the unnamed park is 80 times higher than in the rest of the population. And despite what you may have heard, the founder's frozen head is absolutely not under the fairytale castle.

Low-level supers hired by a theme park to use their abilities in the shows. Eventually learn exactly why the founder was so interested in metahumanity.

Horror on the Orient Express - Venice - Gondola 2 - Cruise Control February 1923 In Which The Investigators Experience Elaborate Funerals And Avoid Elaborate Murders Antonio Maseiro might well have been a celebrated airman during the Great War and afterwards, but that does not mean he’s a supporter of the increasingly militarized Italian government of 1923. Indeed, there’s a reason he spent most of the post-War period out of the country, and when he learned that his friends had been injured in a fracas in Milan his immediate assumption was that Blackshirts were responsible. Huxley and Flo quickly assured him it was some unrelated thugs, to the relief of the portineria at his hotel, but Masiero is much more a lover than a fighter. That might be why Georgio Gasperetti, one of the would-be swains of Maria Stagliani, has come to him for advice. He wants to know the best way to prove his love, especially since, with Prof. Stagliani dead, he can’t prove his worthiness through hard work. Florence: Well, what have you tried so far? Chocolates, flowers, promises you don’t intend to keep? Plighting his troth is certainly tricky, given that the Staglianis are an old family in Venice, and Georgio a mere factory worker, and the whole recent-death-of-her-father thing, and the formidable maid Bice running interference. Florence: How do you solve a problem like Maria? And of course, there’s the problem of Rossini, who is prominent in the local Fascist party, and part of the Venetian government too. Georgio is also certain that the vile Rossini and his Blackshirts are somehow responsible for Prof. Stagliani’s death. Masiero is not surprised. Masiero: The number of people falling into the canals has increased drastically, lately. Their advice to Georgio is to just tell her, and to make the best possible impression at the funeral the day after tomorrow. He thanks them profusely and hurries off, leaving the investigators to enjoy their evening meal and a good night's sleep, interrupted only by screams of “Murder! Murder!” in the alley outside their flat well after midnight. Huxley heads out to investigate, but then thinks better of it, because hanging around on narrow foggy streets late at night when there are killers about is probably unwise. If he waits until daylight he’ll at least see the Brothers of the Skin coming. Speaking of whom, he really should send a telegram to Professor Smith, apprising him of their progress, and notify him about all the various parties that have been making their interest in the Sedefkar Simulacrum known, with attendant mayhem. IN VENICE MAKING PROGRESS STOP SECURED THE MAIN BODY OF WISHLIST STOP OVERENTHUSIASTIC INTEREST FROM LOCAL AND VISITING COLLEAGUES There’s also a telegram that’s come the other way. BROTHERS SENT TO MILAN STOP TREAT CITY AS ALIGHERI TREATED FLORANCE Florence: Florence or Florance? GM: Definitely Florance with an ‘A’. Dante Aligheri famously never returned to Florance, no matter how badly the city has wanted him to since then. Huxley: Given the Keystone Kops performance at the Opera House I’m not sure the Brotherhood are that much of a threat. Did the Brothers of the Skin silence Arturo Faccia, after his failure to acquire the Torso? Faccia may well have been skinned alive before he was found on the roof of the cathedral - the newspaper doesn’t specify. Huxley: And after all that trouble improving his singing voice. Florence: It would be nice to know if his voicebox was removed and returned to its rightful owner, too. GM: That seems unlikely. Of course it’s also entirely possible the opera patrons skinned him alive for interrupting the performance. Another reason for the investigators to avoid Milan in future. Florence is feeling a bit chesty, possibly the result of the winter fogs coming off the lagoon, but fortunately she has a medical professional to hand in the form of Lt. Huxley. Florence: Time to break out the asthma cigarettes. GM: Or heroin in alcohol. Vicks Vaporub in a bowl of hot water is also an option, surprisingly - it’s certainly been around long enough, and Florence's family probably keep sending her more from Australia. Florence: The guy who invented Vaporub also invented junk mail. GM: This is why we can’t have nice things. Florence also writes up an article about opening night at Aida, carefully leaving out the excitement offstage, but including a photo of Huxley in costume. Florence: Make copies and send to our friends. And back to Mother. And to that lead tenor. The fire that burned down the Church of San Maria Celeste in 1569 supposedly started in the shipyards next door, but the investigators have their own suspicions why an Ottoman saboteur would burn down a library known to contain information on the Sedefkar Simulacrum. Although further investigation into the Simulacrum may have to be postponed - the investigators receive a formal invitation to the funeral of Prof. Stagliani, delivered by her maid Bice. Asked for advice, she sternly criticises the outfits the investigators have with them, so the entirety of the next day is spent getting suitable formalwear and accessories, arranging flowers for the service, and nearly choking on the stench coming off the canals. The smell is also one of the reasons that the dead of Venice are buried out on the smaller islands in the lagoon - Masiero might not be a native of Venice and doesn’t know how often the canals get this bad, but he is aware of Venice’s history with shipborne plague, quarantine, and supposedly haunted islands like Poveglia. While they’re out they find out what all the screaming last night was - somebody was brutally impaled on iron railings ten feet off the ground. According to one description, delivered with much gesticulation, the poor man was run through like a Turkish Kebab. Still, the police will surely catch whichever maniac or weirdo is responsible. Masiero: This is good news *turns to rest of party* This is bad news. There is no-one weirder in Venice than you lot. Masiero: Do you have any idea how hard it is to lift a man ten feet off the ground and give him the rogering with the metal spike? Masiero is now determined to go around armed - at least, as a native Italian, he doesn’t have the same issues regarding legal firearms that the rest of the party does. A few other weapons might also be in order, if there’s a superhuman killer about as well as von Wurtheim, and Rossini’s goons. Assuming those are actually three different factions. Florence: Would adding extra water to Huxley’s flask make it more or less holy? GM: Depends if you ask a homeopath. There’s a second murder the next night - a gondolier torn to pieces and wrung like a dishrag. The police have failed to keep the details of this one out of the public view. Indeed, there are apparently witnesses that saw the Devil himself poling a boat down the Grand Canal. Restaurant staff excitedly muttering about ‘tears of blood’ might be a coincidence - none of the investigators seem to be having any eye problems - although Huxley wonders if there’s a connection to that chameleon back in Milan. Huxley: Maybe we have a magic horned toad in Venice. Masiero has other suspicions - since they don't know exactly which part of the Sedefkar Simulacrum is in Venice, a statue that is bleeding from the eyes seems a good place to start. Apparently that’s what happened at the San Marco Basilica last night. But first, the funeral of the late Professor Stagliani. It does not go well - Georgio and Rossini glare daggers at each other over the casket (an elaborate affair resembling a three-tier dark chocolate cake), the stench from the canal is back, and much worse, and Georgio’s comforting of Maria at the funeral lunch only earns him attempted violence from Rossini’s minions later. Fortunately the investigators are on the same gondola, and between preventing any heroics from Georgio, brandishing Masiero’s handgun, and pushing the gondolier into the water and stealing his pole, the party escape without any immediate problems. Certainly, the Blackshirts are recipients of some choice insults from Masiero and Florence, only one of which I will repeat here. Florence: Your mother buys tinned tomatoes! At least there aren’t anymore murders that night, and the late professor had an impressive personal library that Huxley hopes to peruse as soon as etiquette allows. On the other hand two giant fish with human arms are spotted in the Grand Canal. It’s amazing how much stuff never gets mentioned in the guidebooks.

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