Within and Without

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This adventure takes place on the plane(s) of TBA.

Summary

GM: Martin
Night: Tues
Location Rotating
Level: Yes
Party:


Employer: Lady Justine D'Amberville

Mission:
To investigate and resolve a matter of urgency that endangers the good people of Newcourt

Pay:
Adequate, and guaranteed by Baron Newcourt. Negotiated with Lady J (snr) to be 10,000sp in cash or Amber

Briefing and Knowledge

(Letter to Guild from Lady Justine)

To the Council and Masters of the Seagate Guild of Adventurers does Lady Justine D'Amberville of Newcourt send salutations.

A matter of some urgency has arisen in Newcourt that if left unchecked threatens the very lives of the good people of this realm. The White Tower is involved; more I am unwilling to trust to this form of communication.

In respect to this matter I wish to employee a suitable group of your personnel.

Appropriate recompense will be arranged and has been guaranteed by the Lord Baron of Newcourt. One of your members, Broc von Hecklyn, serves my nephew the Baron and can attest to my bona fides in making this arrangement.

Because the nature of my request falls outside of his role as Baron Hugh's chaplain I felt unable to approach Father Broc about it directly and deemed it instead appropriate to make a formal application to your Guild. I would of course be delighted if the good Father were to be included in the group selected but understand that he does have many other duties.

Should my application to engage your services prove successful I shall provide such further information as I can upon the group's arrival at Newcastle.

Hoping for a favourable answer, I remain yours very truly,

Justine

Diary

1st of Meadow

Introductions are made and party organisation where Penni will be the leader as she has the likeability and people skills that we'll need (as well as a great right hook when needed), Aryan the LEGENDARY military leader and I (Father Broc) will be the Scribe. I cannot be leader due to a conflict of interest where Aunt J is concerned. Kilroy will come with us as a wolfhound named ace and he will be our ace in the hole so to speak with him being able to undertake subtle missions and get places the rest of us may not.

We depart the guild via portal to Kilroy's manor where we change our plane of origin to Kilroy's little plane - by way of utilising the plate embedded in his floor. We also use the enhancements available in Kilroy's barn to cast our standard magic defensive and enabling magic.

Around mid afternoon - we portal back to the guild and then down to my chapter house in old Seagate where we pass through my holly bush portal to the quarters outside my residence in Newcastle, home of the Baron of Newcourt and his 'aunt' Justine who is our employer. We drop off unnecessary gear with my daughter Casmira who is my assistant and then freshen up some while letting the baron and Aunt Justine know we are there and would like an audience.

Ie then take the party on a tour of the grounds and to get a view of the 'smoking' white tower which is a worry. We decide to leave it well alone before we meet with our 'employer' as we are informed that the Baron and Aunt J will see us at dinner. We freshen up with the women bathing and men chatting before dinner and then we have dinner in the great hall with many important residents;

  • a. Baron Hugh D'Amberville and Baroness Margaret D'Amberville
    • i. Barely acknowledge each other and the baron looks increasingly older
  • b. Agnes - lady in waiting to the Baroness
  • c. Jubert - Chancellor
  • d. Giles - Captain of the Barons personal Guard
  • e. Alys and Jean Rossignol who is the bard of the court.
    • i. Jean has become more accepted with Baron Hugh 'giving up' on objecting to the obvious union
  • f. Francoise
    • i. Francoise is here before he departs to Del Toro as Aryans man to take up his lands and titles there
  • g. Aunt Justine. She arrives just once everyone else is seated and is accompanied by 1 Lady in waiting, 2 guards - Fear and Loathing. DA's of the accompanying servant and guards give answers like GTN-Guard or Lady in Waiting. They have powerful enough magic to defeat simple magics and a DA on Lady J reveals she has no aura.

Dinner passes with small talk and family matters discussed and at the end everyone but Aunt J and us along with the usual 'hangers on' remain and we discuss the situation
I still feel quite uneasy at acting upon the direction of Lady J (snr) but she is the lessor of 2 evils and the larger issue of protecting of the lives of innocents must override a smaller issue of who Lady J (snr) actually is and what her plans are for the baronial family, local area and white tower etc.

Lady J (snr) informs us of what we saw in our brief walk around the grounds in that the tower is acting unusual with the fogs, mist and smoke around it, the elven seals 'guards' haven't been to visit or look into it for some reason which is suspicious in itself, other forces might be acting to open the tower/portal and Lady Lileth aka 'Lilian de la Isle' may be involved which means Lady J (snr) may be able to give us direction to have a chat with her, Gervais may be a source of 'intelligence' if we could get coherent thoughts or such the like from him.

We left with us still attending lady J and finishing some supper across clearly defined lines of interest.


Issues thus far

1. The elven seal guards haven't shown any concern over the state of the tower.

  • a. They usually came at the drop of a hat at other times and imposed their will, undertaking missions to ensure the tower remained how it is.
    • i. Why no action? - Perhaps the elven high command sees the WT as a possible weapon they could use if the Drow get to close. They could plan to set it off by withdrawing some sort of final lock on the tower in order to explode the tower thus destroying the local area out to about 50 miles and rupturing some planar boundary in the process, bit it would kill a lot of humans and drown nearby though.
    • ii. Perhaps the seal guards have been killed or bought off by unknown forces who seek to benefit from chaos in the area.
    • iii. Perhaps the seals have been interfered with and thus the guards known nothing of the issue.

2. It may be that the other side has found a way to force the tower open and that would be problematic due to the vast damage and planar issues that would cause

  • a. Perhaps talk with Gervais by way of Herr Doktor - see Dramus for use of his speaking tube. Gervais was the last person to pass through into the tower but he came back mad - rat biting mad!
  • b. They may have been able to use other portals and thus nearby portals need to be located and mapped so we know where they are, who uses them and possibly why.

3. Forces on this side may be helping to open it

  • a. Physically - check the tower out for this
  • b. Magically - the White Lodge members have an interest in maintaining the status quo and the integrity of the tower, however one of them has become a liability, namely Lady Lilith is causing or at least involved in the issue and Lady J shall provide us with the location to visit or means to find her.

4. The power room downstairs needs to be looked at to see if any of the local events have to do with power overflows and the like. Checked out 1st Meadow 812WK

  • a. The excess power has links to the Amber

Diary of a Wolfhound - The World According to Ace

  • Portal to Newcourt in company with Master Penni. Hmmm, dogs have masters, but is a female master a mistress? Sounds wrong.
  • Tour the grounds. Tower smells cold, rats smell yummy.
  • Clean up before dinner, make sure my balls are clean.
  • Francois likes me, good judge of a dog that, wants to put me to stud though! Littermate at home would be less than impressed by that idea.
  • Saved, sort of, by Master Penni suggesting I am "not that way inclined"! I shudder to think what way she thinks I am inclined, probably cats, yuck.
  • Curl up with the other dogs near the fire, toasty. Rather nice looking female deerhound there with legs, four of them, that go all the way up. Woof, Woof!
  • Jean, the bard type, comes over and serenades me with a doggy song. He is either A. Also a good judge of dogs, B. As batty as a fruit cake, or C. Somehow aware of what I really am. Paranoia says C. but I will settle for A.
  • Nothing too out of the ordinary to report on room survey, other than Alys looking distracted at times as if listening to something we cannot hear.
  • Lady in Waiting and Guards to Lady Justine all have false auras. Lady Justine herself has no aura. Will have to give them a good sniffing at some point.
  • Finally, some scraps. Does this place know nothing of scrap etiquette!?

1st of Meadow

We continue discussions with Lady J and her 'companions' over some fine brandy and cheese but get no further information except that she would remain accessible for further questions if we wished and she was given some notice.
We bid her good night and we all retire to our respective rooms. We go to my chambers and Tari locks the door with her chains to give us some privacy while we discuss Lady J's news and proposals. We need to ask her what local events have happened over the last month or season that may have precipitated the changes in the tower. Aryan has a master plan which involves someone (me) draining the tower of the energy in order to avert a crisis here by way of attaching a spigot in some fashion and then capturing and collecting it.

I get a niggling feeling and someone attempts name summoning on me that fails to take. I exit the room and take a walk but nothing happens.

I remember that I need to check on the power room in the area below my rooms and so I lead the party down there to check out the area. I find that the area has been mostly cleaned up and fixed and the number of spiders down there has increased substantially. The alarms are still going but at a much reduced rate and volume. We decide that the area is operating within norms and is therefore not an issue for us at this time.

However while down there I am contacted by my new son in law Turf who wanted to chat about his wedding to my daughter Ithilmor and who was paying etc. Turf agreed that it was his duty to pay as Ithilmor wanted a truly extravagant wedding costing 1000gp a head and way beyond the funds of a poor churchman who has already paid out for 3 other weddings. Turf's barony of Erewhon will be the source of his largesse and the wedding will occur in Castle_Black. I tell Turf I will get back to him.

We retire for the night to get some rest before what looks to be a busy day for us. I retire with a view of attempting contact with some of the elven seal knights that I have previously met, namely Green Hill and White Tree from Alfheim.

Night passes.

Question yet to ask of Lady J: When has happened recently, esp in relation to when the tower started acting strangely?

2nd of Meadow

The day dawns cool and crisp. Aryan leads some of us in meditations while other purify. We arise and get breakfast before heading off to physically inspect the tower for ourselves. The tower appears the same as yesterday as we get to the bridge between the castle proper and the tower itself. We leave Penni to do her Ancient Divination and once Aryan has done his temperature test where he touched the ice cold tower with his finger (losing only some of his skin on the finger) we ascend to check out the tower top proper.

The octagonal tower top is as expected with areas of cold and intense heat where the ancient seals are channeling power from far away to continue the containment of the tower zone. Penni divines the seals when she has time and we judge the power levels have increased, thus causing the strange effects and the distributor mechanism for power originates in Alfheim somewhere. We don't know why the intensity of power has changed but it is concerning to us and needs investigation.

DA information (Tari) - Q: Is there a deactivation sequence - A: Yes.

We decide that we must follow up the thought that something has happened to the Seal guardians or Seal knights that I have dealt with before and thus Alfheim is our next destination and we'll get the best results by using some high level contacts that we have - namely Tari's dear old dad - the Minister of War.

Mid morning sees us back at my rooms where we grab stuff (inc Dramus's speaking tube) and portal via my holly bush to my pre-prepared and planed Holly bush near the University in Alfheim. Exiting the portal we find numerous guards there who have been assigned to ensure unwanted visitors don't arrive in rear echelon areas of the elven empire unannounced or unnoticed. Once we explain who we are and our business one of the senior guards offers to escort us to the Ministry of War in Eidolon as he's pleased to do so for the daughter of the Minister of War, and he is accompanied by a number of other guards there for 'Our protection'.

We reach our destination the Ministry of War and things have certainly changed from recent times (when you couldn't see the doors for the bunting and passed out officers littering the area) and our escort announces us to the guards at the doors who them lead us through to see dear old dad. We have a spot of lunch with The Minister of War and watch Tari sqwirm a bit before he has us escorted to the people who can help.

We are shown to a set of room in the Ministry of Defence where we meet Tilarinir who is the Minister of the Closet and works under the auspices of Department I (External Magical Threats). Tilarinir is a LLS Elf of the E&E persuasion and his most effective magic is Scrying. The secretary who accompanies him is also a LLS Elf, Binder and Highest Rank Skill is bureaucracy.

Introductions are made and we state our case of why we are there, what we have discovered thus far and our concerns that none of the seal guardians have come to see whats happening. T raises eyebrows at the last issue and the secretary is sent away to review some details. T explains that the white tower issue came about some 800years ago when some mages experiments inadvertently caused a planar rift in a runaway state that could have become very serious had Department I not stepped in and stoppered the rift up with the White Tower which contains the rift inside the interior of the white tower. The area is a planar nexus attuned to the magic in the area.

Also The White Lodge doesn't officially exist anymore since the school of magic was closed down. A number of mages profess to be a member and some are members of old as Lady Justine D'Amberville (snr) is as she is one of the original students of the college who was there when things went awry.

The white tower was classed as a category B1 threat to the empire which means that it is monitored and controlled and not an A class threat which is much more horrifying for everyone.

The secretary comes back and gives some information to T.

It turns out that the 2 seal guardians we know of have disappeared and T is concerned about this development AND there is a lot of power being sent to the seals around the tower as the power area is running at 200% capacity which is concerning as certain fail-safes should have been activated and reports generated regarding the situation. The extra power use is a discrepancy that needs to be reviewed.

T announces the we are to be deputised as special agents within Department I, Section 7 which deals with Arcane places and items.

Some important information about the elven ministries here - There are two separate elven ministries of interest here.

  1. The Ministry of War (aka former-party-central) headed by Tari's father. As has been noted the elves haven't been at war for a very long time and this post was viewed in the halcyon days of last year as something of a sinecure.
  2. The Ministry of Defence (an altogether more serious group), the elven govt's version of MI5 (and perhaps some MI6 functions although given the byzantine politics involved there is almost certainly another ministry for that too). The MoD is concerned with threats posed to Alfheim by foreign and domestic groups, individuals, artifacts, etc... and nations that the elves are not actively at war with.
  3. The MoW and MoD have separate buildings, but with some interconnecting hallways etc as they do need to co-operate, and the MoD were happy to oblige the daughter of the Minister of War, etc.
  4. Department I of the MoD deals with specifically magical threats, and the Master of the Closet reports to the Minister of Defence.

We spend the next few hours signing the Elven Official Secrets Act and other paperwork as well as chatting about a wide number of subjects

  • To find out more on those who have no aura you could possibly use the psychic residue they leave behind for better results, obviously there is a special type of DA/empathy/investigative magic for use here and only specialists can do so
  • Lilian de La Isle - she was a lady in waiting to a student at the White Tower school named Lady Justine D'Amberville at the time of the 'catastrophe'
  • Udo Udet - he was an apprentice to one of the white tower mages, very experienced with puppets
  • Frau Holly/Hellar - known to some as the cute girl with half a face aka Waldgraf M von Schusburg. She was an apprentice of a White Lodge mage whom she deceased to step into the dead mans shoes so to speak and gain the place in the White Lodge.

The issue of who is inside the Ministry and providing aid to someone outside worries T and us greatly. T muses about who can he send to accompany us and who is least likely to be a possible double agent for other as yet unknown powers and he grows quiet until he thinks of someone with the technical bent we require and most likely uncorrupted.

A little while later a bookish looking older elf comes in answer to T's summons and introduces himself as Dai. We assess that he is a LLS Elf (est age 5000+ years), Planar Mage and who most keenly enjoys making magical systems more efficient. He is apparently not a field agent (well not in the last few hundred years anyway) and is a technical expert on the power systems who was last out and about in Pre-Penjari times (circa 1200+ years ago). We also discover his full name to be Soft Breeze on Daisies and this was ascribed to him by his 'hippy' (aka friggin hippy tree huggers) parents but he prefers to be called Dai. The situation is explained to Dai as is the importance of our task.

T advises its best if we don't leave from here (or at least aren't seen doing so)and so we are shown to a dank subbasement where the area defences are briefly lowered so that I can establish a portal to Seagate and thus remove ourselves from Alfheim forthwith.

6pm sees us in Seagate where we pick up Aryans flying vessel and then proceed towards Drakenburg.

Just before midnight we descend into the northern mountains of Drakenburg.

3rd of Meadow

Dai illuminates us in that he helped create this power mechanism some 500 years ago and that the area is hidden behind a permanent illusion effect that impairs finding it. It is called Central 37 with many other such generators in the other Northern, Southern, Western and Eastern areas.

Dai has a 'tool' that enables him to read what the power mechanism outputs are and recognises that they are running around 110% but that all of the extra power is going to the white tower rather than interspersed across all of the other network linkages which is very suspicious.

He does however identify some landmarks in terms of mountain peaks and formations that allow us to land within 5000 elven yards or just under 3 miles of uneven, treacherous, rocky and unforgiving terrain away from the power generator.

After a bit of trial and Aryan we get through the protective boundaries of the area by 4am and start walking through earth-worked land that culminates in a ridge above a flat area upon which is a large stone circle megalith (50 yards across) with a 150 yard long avenue extending to the NE.

Dai takes reading and determines that someone was here within the last lunar cycle but there's been no report of anyone in the records or alarm logs for the area. The alarms being 'side stepped' or not going off cause consternation to Dai who had thought the process robust and the fact that alert messages should automatically be noted at the Central Archives but obviously haven't - so suspicion of an inside job in Dept I continue to fester and grow anew.

At 30yards we can discern glows from the various stone which show the power being channelled down the avenue to the centre of the circle where there is a bright green ball (tower) that is the transmitter for the power to Alfheim.

Dai's reading at this distance astound him in that the area is passing large amounts of pure mana through here and its much higher than 110% and more likely to be around 200 - 250%.

Kilroy our scout has picked up traces/scent of oil and closer in connects it as being oil used to treat leather. Tari notes that we are being watched and from nearby but we decide to continue on but be wary of surprise assaults as we don't know enough about the area and the power involved here.

We near the end of the avenue and see via true seeing that the megaliths are actually crystal megalith hidden under a veneer of stone magic. We finally see a rent/rift (15ft across) in space at the very end of the avenue through which vast amounts of energy are pouring into this power generator. Its a stream of mana being channeled through Vekheron (A plane of pain and agony) from other such demonic planes as Falkovnia and the Shadowlands. Circling around the inside of the rift or demonic like figures in apparent agony. We note that the plane is linked to Vekheron through Penni's divination magic.

Before we can do more we are assaulted by a hail of knives from above but Kilroy's runes of Warding around our group lesson the effects so none are hurt badly, not even Dai upon whom I threw myself to provide him with protection since he has none in terms of armour etc.

We stand and things make their move and ..

We stand beside our angled wall and review the tactical situation

North of us and behind the portal nexus feeding power into the array we see 7 enemies (Type 1) deploy apparently from nowhere but we suspect a hidden or obscured location of some sort. They appear to simply be stepping out of a point in space and arraying themselves.

SE of us appears another group of 3 enemies protecting another enemy (Type 1) with the appearance and comportment of a leader rather than a fighter. Finally further north still appears a large 11ft tall heavily muscled, bare skinned and physically imposing entity, whose arms have been replaced with large weapons and looks very tough.

The Type 1 enemies are Humanoid figures dressed in head to toe leather outfits akin to gimp suits, with leather belts and armed with cleavers, axes and other such sharp implements. They have no skin exposed and so the DA result is off the Leather which shows Plane of Origin (POO) as Vekheron. We also note that the leather is rank with badly absorbed oils and other such fluids. The shoes appear to encase rounded toes/feet. The leader type is also clad in form fitting black leather but has a fashioned face mask, pale skin and has exposed arms between the shoulders and gloves hands in which he holds a wicked looking dagger. In the course of the fight he hurts himself by cutting into his skin and 'transferring' the damage onto us via magical means. A DA reveals him to be a demonic avatar of lieutenant grade who casts magic of a specific type/aspect which is pain rather than a college.

The fight ensues and we hold off the enemy, cutting down their numbers until only the leader remains and when Aryan goes to show him the error of his ways he departs after trying to take Aryan with him. The leaders most remarkable statement was "You are all fools, if we go, you go with us" as he screamed during the combat.

Post combat DA's and divination reveals that the entities come from a number of planes including the Shadowlands, Falkovnia and Vekheron but they seem to have been processed on Vekheron and made into these compliant obedient entities for use by whomever holds sway there. It appears that perverted healer arts have been used to make/process the entities so that they obey the will and commands of the masters.

Upon Dai's return we ask him about things.
He had an idea and went to check out the circle central monitoring unit. There he discovered that 3 other Mark 7 type power circles are also showing slightly elevated readings, but only just over the norm 100%. The Mark 7's were always temperamental he says and so it's possible that these three have also been tampered with but the enemy couldn't get the readings to work out quite right so as to avoid suspicion suspect readings. It's the local readings that have been tampered with to not show the excessive amounts of power flowing through here.

We find a folded room behind the portal aperture which enabled the enemy to hide in plain sight and perhaps afforded them (the assigned local area observer) the opportunity to open a portal and bring in reinforcements which is why they didn't attack us immediately upon our arrival but instead at least an hour afterwards.

We discuss some things and Kilroy posits that Gervais (the mad baron) is something that doesn't add up in all of this, as he came back from Vekheron for some reason we don't know of yet. He then posit that Gervais was a Trojan horse to get Garesh a presence here on Alusia with Garesh having his hooks into Gervais as a way to slowly gather and spread influence through contact. Various Elven field agents would no doub have visited Gervais historically and Garesh may have got his hooks into them as well.

I have fears now for Doctor Dominiani in whose care Gervais currently resides and so we plan to visit the sanatorium at MMHS urgently to assess damage and 'review' Gervais himself.

The issue of bad staff in Department I could be attributed to Garesh's influence from Field agents to desk agents as part of normal work cycles in the ministry. We have much to report to T.

The enemy are all physically scarred as if they had been operated on for unknown reasons and then 'healed' somewhat and they have all been mentally abused as their minds are simple and have been programmed to follow orders explicitly. They all show demonic taints.

Our prisoner is subjected to 'Cleansing Flame' by Bleyze who really appreciates that treatment and asks for more! The Prisoner reveals that the master with them during the attack on us was a true servant of Orotukar, the great master. Orotukar is the servant of the god Garesh who is in turn the servant of the god of gods.

Comments are made about Bleyze and his special friend having love/hate relationship akin to bondage, S & M, B & D and other sexually perverted relationships, which he simply shrugs off as maybe!

I survey the mana rip and assess that I'd need a large area of mechanical apparatus to start work on repairing the planar rip and that it would take a number of weeks to close. The area of apparatus would likely be around 20ft square. I note partial runes and sigils that may be of use in the future. The rip appears to have been here around a while and the folded room has been completed inside the last month.

Talking with Dai we assess that it would appear that the portals shows on the sensors as being 'registered' so that it wouldn't set off any alarms and this leads us to assume more interference at HQ level as someone had to have 'registered' it for the system to ignore it.

We decide to "follow the mana" and thus the collection point for here and part of the links to the White Tower is the next destination.

We discuss the barriers to finding this site and there are 3 layers of protection for the site, the first layer is the magical avoidance system that diverts you from here, the second layer is alarms and defender activations with the third layer being greater numbers and importance of defenders as well as alarms.

So around 2am we depart the zone and head for the nearest Collector some 200 miles north of us.

3am sees us landing high up inside a mountain cavern in the Dragonspine Mountains. Dai has cleared our landing ahead of us and we land at the edge of the large cavern which is 200ft high and 400ft deep and supported by several large floor to ceiling pillars.

Dai explains that this is Main Collector #3 and we see deep in the cavern is a central pillar of rock which is some 70ft tall and 50ft across that is rotating around 12 turns per second. Above and below the collection pillar are cup shaped discs there are anchored below and above the stone that no doubt helps channel the power into the collector.

We see around a dozen Elvandar warrior elves commanded by a Captain and a half dozen MoD security elves who stand protectively near 2 boffin types from MoD Dept V (Security) who appear much older than the nearby martial elves.

Introductions are made and Dai goes off to examine the collector and discuss things with the other boffins with me in tow. We come to quickly realise that the collectors usually does 2 revolutions per second and is currently operating at 6 times that which is a significant increase in power collection, so as much as possible is being bled off to the batteries buried in mountain. The boffins and Dai look worried but say the system is managing barely between it and the other 4 main collectors and bleeding off as much as they can but the levels of power going through leave little room for technical errors or issues with the system.

Dai explains that the power from other places such as the megalith we just came from comes here and is collected centrally before being sent on to distributors that send the power onto points such as the white tower and in fact this is the collection point that collects power for the end recipient White Tower which as we know is running hot with the power going there currently.

At 4am calamity strikes with Dai and the Boffins going very very pale as their 'pads' light up with red alarm signals that signals the fact that Main Collector #2 (250m west of here) has blown and failed over. We quickly go check the area using our vessels advanced crystal and unusually we can see where Dai directs, only to see a large water filling muddy crater area at which Dai gasps and states that this isn't a fail over, its completely destroyed.

We immediately note alarms going off here as a portion of the power routed to the now gone Main Collector #2 is rerouted to here and the other 3 Main collectors. The central pillar increases its rotations alarmingly with the added power and everyone fears the worst.

We enquire as to what we can do and Dai says we should break the node in the ceiling that is the conduit bringing in the overflow of Main Collector #2's power to here. The other boffins and guards look askance at this hasty suggestion and instead start to form a committee to explore options to look into alternative measures during this time of crisis and since it's a crisis they will expedite the committee process and organise one within a month they say.

Meanwhile we act as we are wont to do, Penni distracts by putting her best assets forward and leading the guard captain away using her well-honed skill of lureage. Aryan leaps into the air and attacks the node with his magical axe designed for playing with matter and dark spheres etc. He is moderating successful with the first blow. Meanwhile Tari and Kilroy create a spire of rock that reaches to the ceiling and finishes off penetrating the node causing the extra power to be added to the power going to the other 3 main collectors.

The central pillar slows down to its old but still dangerous 12 revolutions per second and Dai informs us that we have around 10 minutes before the system trips up the other fail safes from the other collectors and sends the power back here which will likely destroy the place and possibly the other main collectors as well the system that powers the seals on the white tower.

We plan to avoid that eventuality and so ask for the crystal spiders to spin some power cables down to me so that I can bleed the power off somewhere else. We decide on the elven ways under Eidolon and once the cable reaches me I rip a portal open into the ways and siphon off some of the excess power there. Kilroy meanwhile creates an actual portal that encompasses my rent and so I slowly release my rip until it's matched by Kilroy's portal there and established. Once completed Dai and the boffins up the power being bled off there to great levels that brings the Main Collector here back to normal 2 revolutions per second to everyone's relief.

I now start work on an inter-planar portal aimed at Mag Mell a megalith in the astral that I once visited and a place we could divert power to.

We now inquire as to who was at Main Collector # 2 when it blew and learn that there was 2 technicians there, one Nathaniel a boffin type and Talasan who we learn was recently a field agent and we suspect sabotage as the boffins point out that the explosion would have required direct physical input and interference with systems inside the collector itself. We mourn briefly before we are alerted that a storm appears to be heading our way from the direction of the destroyed collector and it look unnatural and ominous.

The enemy were approaching us via a localised storm front, riding and hiding inside the storm itself. We had around half an hour before it would hit us so we buffed ourselves up and laid our plans. We had walled up almost all of the exposed gate area using a large number of Walls of Stone and then created magically secured rune warded areas and lines of rune walls as additional layers.

The fight started badly with the enemy coming in via a portal in the rear of the room and attacking the archers we had positioned there for safety while at the same time around a dozen enemies in plate-mail (the gimp knights) zapped in via forks of lightning to land in amongst us and inside our defences.

The gimp knights while certainly not 'nice' or 'good' aren't demonically tainted enough to set off some of our magic but some of the larger command types are and they start to suffer due to their proximity to us as they agonisingly labor under a Torment of Righteous light.

We considered splitting the party and sending some back to help the rear echelon of hard pressed elven guards but decided to first deal with the immediate enemy through use of the party's magic, skill and pointed weaponry.

We enacted our contingency plan and laid into them. We didn't progress much in the first few pulses but after that our skill and tactics played out well as we took out the gimp knights one by one until the controlling master decided to return for tactical reasons back into the storm cloud.

We mopped up and then some of us redeployed to the rear echelon to help out there at the same time as a reinforcing squad of elven guards came through the other portal.

The rear fight ended quickly with a few enemy passing back through the portal they had come through to the distributor point they came from.

We quickly decide to follow them by undertaking to follow the mana - through the portal to the distributor.

The Distributor

The portal is Elven sized so we have to wait a minute until Aryan shrinks. Meanwhile Penni helps with triage of the wounded Elves, prisoners are organised and DA'd, Kilroy arranges several levels of trickery with Dai...

Aryan enters the portal followed by Kilroy who is nearly flattened as Aryan immediate exits the port. They have somehow twisted the portal back on itself. We try going to Elfheim via the other portal then to the distributor via the portal from there but it has been deactivated from the other end. Back to the collector, we apply DA, True Seeing and our portal experts to the tampered portal which reveals there is a spell perverting the portal, Aryan starts hacking at the portal with his sword and after half a minute claims to have broken the magic.

Aryan enters the portal again, followed by Rat-Kilroy, the rest of the party, a squad of Elves and Dai. Aryan has engaged the harlequin types and a couple of things with far too many tentacles; while the enemy are all focused on that, Kilroy sneaks over to the two controlled field agents who are doing something with the equipment and knocks them both out; Penni calls dibs on the 'dominatrix' opponent with white and black clubs who seems to be in charge, the Dom lays down a ecstasy/agony field which slows us and not them, Penni applies quickness to even it up again then they engage - Penni emerges as top cat.

The Dominatrix and tentacled horrors are some form of demonic avatars and melt into themselves after death, before being cut down the D claimed we were dooming us all by stopping them.

Dai and his team start repairing damage, we question prisoners. Removing the control from one of the field agents, we wake him up but he doesn't remember anything from the time he was controlled. Most of the minions don't know much more than the gimp we questioned but the Ogre-like demonic one is better informed, he's constantly babbling in a range of demonic languages but picking between the garbage we find out that their plane is being destroyed by a Devourer that will presumably devour our plane once it has finished with theirs. They're trying to destroy the 'spike' so their plane can float free and escape the devourer. The destruction of Newcourt and surrounds are inconsequential collateral damage compared to saving several planes.

Back in a secure room in Elfheim, we decide to try negotiating with [[]Garesh]] via the other controlled field Agent. As it's his plan and he claims he can resist any control attempt Aryan meets with the controlled Elf on his own. Aryan talks, Garesh responds, Aryan proposes that if Garesh stops his assaults, we'll deal with the issue our way, Garesh accepts and gives us 10 days. After activating the control on Broc and marching him into the meeting room - gathering info from Broc' mind or warning us of one of the consequences of failure?

Now we just need to deliver on our claim within 10 days...

Once things have died down and our negotiations with Garesh concluded we quickly go through our options for action. I give Dr Dominiani a call using my borrowed speaking tube and relay our problems. He says that he will get back to me by the next day and departs to no doubt undertake some investigations of his own. We decide to contact Lord Yo and by extension his brother Dumuzi for help on the portal issues and inter-planer 'scrunchy' issues and so we depart by portal to Borovia.

4th of Meadow

Dawn on the 4th - Sees us arrive at Borovia and we proceed down the long street onwards to Kinlu. Once through to Kinlu we quickly 'approach' a patrol and explain our need and intended destination. They more than happily provide a sizable escort for such esteemed personages as ourselves and we are quickly escorted through to a garden at Castle Tajin. Aryan along the way has been practising his local language interspersed with "Kon-ici wa dude" and other such 'elegant' uses of local language bastardised with other less civilised colloquialisms and part words.

In the Garden we find Lord Yo (Lord Yo is just less than 7ft tall and is richly clad in Jade green voluminous robes of a most elegant cut and style) and I make introductions for those us he has not yet met. He was expecting us or at least a group such as us as he thought someone would be along after the Elven Ways suddenly powered up unexpectedly very recently. He knew people like us would likely be responsible and thus has prepared a tea ceremony (using a tea service originating from Oz) for us to partake in and share news over.

Discussing the white tower we review that the rift anchored there is much larger than the tower area but that the planes intersecting there have been folded over many times in a fractal fashion. Once we have illuminated him with recent events we take our leave as he has to be off to contact his brother Dimuzi and they will come to see us at Newcastle at their first opportunity. Lord Yo provides me with a fish for future urgent communication needs.

We depart to western Alusia and portal back to Aryans ship which we take on another exhilarating flight across the sky.

Noon sees us land in the Northern Lunar Empire outside the Temple of the fates. We enter the temple and 3 of the statues animate revealing the old crone, woman and the maiden. We talk and share our issues. The old crone comes over and cuts the threads linking me to Garesh saying she doesn't like eavesdroppers.

We learn that the devourer has happened because of the entanglement in the white tower. Kilroy has an idea that the fates could possibly tweak the threads a little in order to increase our chances of success.

After the sharing of ideas and information we exit the temple to Aryans vessel and we take a break to rest ourselves and recover some of the tiredness we have incurred over the last 3 days.

Midnight sees us again take Aryans vessel up and away flying to Newcourt

5th of Meadow

Dawn on the 5th sees us land in Newcastle in the chapel courtyard where we alight and get some warming mulled wine.

Dr Dominiani calls back and he details some of the affected planes but mentions that some of them may take umbrage if we attempt to remove Falkovnia from in the Devourers path as they have little or no love for the plane and it's Lord and they may take active measures to encourage us not to do so. If we were to wander any of the shadow planes we would be able to locate the rift by asking or looking for 'The Shadow Rift'. I thank him and end the conversation.

I grab a page and send to Lady Justine that we'd like to see her for break-fast. I also advise the castle gate guards that I am expecting some visitors with some pleasant and some less so. I advise of those who can be escorted through to me and others held at the gates until I am notified of them and that some may be capable and unaccepting of their progress being impeded.

We attend the breakfast and use the true seeing to get a better view of who Lady J and her associates are.

The True seeing shows no difference regarding Lady J, her Lady in Waiting looks even more beautiful but Fear and Loathing exude a dark, brooding aura with a hint of Darkness. Aryan takes this as they are demons and starts a fight that is quickly shut down then Aryan and I have a chat about things while the party talks with Lady J.

Lady J seems more forthcoming and she reveals;

  1. The focus of the runaway portal effect was in the major summoning chamber that was at or just below ground level.
  2. The effect of the rift translated the interior of the tower from one of a school and living areas to an occupied space inimical to life and the lucky students who were late to attend the magic release were those who survived by leaping out available exits to safety.
  3. The tower had innate containment magic in it that held the rift for a few days during which time assistance from the elven court arrived to reinforce the containment magic and enable the seals that work to keep it closed to this day.
  4. The magic was supposed to open a door but accidentally opened many at once resulting in the uncontrolled rift across many planes.
  5. The masters were seeking immortality since they were human and only had a limited lifespan
  6. The tower itself is around 3000 years old while the rift is only close to a 1000 years old

After the break-fast ruckus has been sorted out some questions are asked about Fear and Loathing and Lady J reveals that they are 'naturalised' and the they are currently not minions of a demon, they are not devils and nor are they pacted.

While Aryan is occupied smithing his armour back together after various SG damage in the rain of knives we investigate the white tower and can see that the white tower once more has a doorway lintel at the end of the bridge between the great tower and the white tower, something not seen since Gervais the mad baron passed through in 397WK. Penni's divination reveals that it isn't a door so to speak merely a possible portal to another location.

Since we are waiting for Dimuzi and Lord Yo (Nephros) to visit sometime today I start work on a portal to Falkovnia which we intend to use as a location to test various assumptions and gain another perspective on the rift. I spend 8 hours on the ritual.

During the day Dumuzi arrives and is surprised with the location and all the various unique aspect of Newcastle and the White Tower area. He helpfully adds additional levels of containment runes around my portal in case of mishap.

Dimuzi appears to be a solidly built 7ft tall half elven appearing being of natural bearing and sure of his abilities. He notes that Newcastle and the area around the tower is a natural entrance to the spirit realms which is quite rare on Alusia. Here there are openings into the afterlife not just for humans but all races including elves and the fae.

We discuss recent events with him and ask him to be our backup and to hold the gate open once we pass through the portal to Falkovnia. He agrees and provides us with special bracelets to help keep us together rather than being split across planes.

We prepare to open the portal and pass across to Falkovnia.

Kilroy does a remove curse on Tari after discovering she has insomnia from a backfire.

Tari and Penni take the opportunity to DA our friend Dimuzi who has a GTN of Dragon, Ancient and his highest rank spell is 'Opener of the Ways', the magic most important to him is 'The road to anywhere' and if he was a stone what would he be - a road marker. We advise Dimuzi that some locals may be adverse to his activities here and may seek to thwart him in some way or steal some of his knowledge etc. He advises that he will ask a few friends to wait with him in case these things should come to pass.

Just before we pass through the portal to Falkovnia I remember that elves and foreigners are unwanted so we take some measures to disguise ourselves.

We bid Dimuzi farewell and good luck and then pass through the portal where we find ourselves in an abandoned farm with ruined buildings and no signs of recent use. It is late afternoon/early evening here as it is on Alusia and it's very gloomy with magical sight being affected markedly. It is a low mana area and we make to disguise the portal end while Aryan flies up and scouts around but is limited by the 30ft of ceiling he encounters. I take a sample of the earth for later.

Aryan returns once we have completed hiding this end of the portal and we head off eastwards to the nearest road. We find the road then walk parallel to it northwards towards some dim light in the gloom. In order to hide appearances Aryan is Horsey, Tari is Wolfy and Kilroy is Doggy while Penni, Bleyze and I have hoods up and have taken small measures to disguise our elvish-ness. After about 4 miles of walking we find ourselves outside the gates of a town with their gates closed for the night.

Penni hails the town (Stangengrad - ruled by Lord Bayloc???) and after some grumbling we are allowed in and then accosted by guards who think horsey might be the lord missing horse. After some challenges we are led by Tom the guard to an Inn where we sleep the night in the stables after setting watches. People here are branded with a jagged triangle symbol on their forehead.

The night passes and we quickly depart the town in the morning headed eastwards as per our information gleaned from Tom.

6th of Meadow

The morning mists see us moving through the fields and then into hills before we end at a gaping cut in the land that is represented by a large cut in earth with almost sheer walls heading down 200ft to a roiling area of dark mist.

We need to get down there and so we end up just above the mist trying to learn more from it.

The Shadow Rift area is a permanent effect chaotic ethereal interface which is both 10yrs old and 1000's of years old with the depth being 100's of feet deep but not unlimited. After the divinations we decide that we need to get inside or below it and so an earth elemental is summoned (its unhappy as it cannot return from here once summoned as this plane is an oubliette. and told to dig us a way down further. The task goes well and we are soon deeper and find a natural cavern that we follow in the direction we intend and then..

+3 days? - 9th of Meadow

We find ourselves 3 days later standing outside a cavern we assume to be the one we were in and we seem a bit worse for wear. Some of us show the signs of fighting and some battle damage from physical combat and magic use while I appear to have gained another holy symbol in the shape of a fish and this is magical (holy) and aligned to the deity 'Manon Maglea'.
The coins of the realm are of finely made high quality silver with one side having a profile face of a sun stylised female elf and the other side a profile face of a moon stylised male elf.
Ahead of us is a verdant landscape of vividly coloured grass and the plane DA's as Arak and it is a high mana area. I pull some grass and dirt out for identification later and to our surprise it shrieks when pulled and then stops speaking.

We note that the area has a distinct life aspect to it in fact we divest ourselves of any near dead vegetable matter as we notice an apple that we have is starting to grow into an apple tree by way of sprouting roots and leaves. We note that the dried rations we have are likely to be too old to regenerate/resurrect but we will keep an eye on them. The plant/grass DA's as living plant (grass), it is non-sentient and linked to something but not to a power. There seems to be a 60ft ceiling here but we can see the roiling of the rift high above.

We decide to head down into the grasslands that we can see and head for the road heading North- South.

We pass a deep copse and are taunted by a creature inside it -likely an Unseelie fairy.

We travel to a nearby riverbed and encounter a roiling mass of rocks and boulders acting as if they were a river.

We passed over the 'Rolling Rock River' and continue on to the road ahead. We stop by a small copse where we hear noises and Tari asks a gnarled old ent? Who tells us about beings nearby and suggest that we either talk with Maeve (who follows the old ways) to the north, or to Loht (who follows the new ways) to the south. He warns us that it gets worse the further south you go.

We finally get to the road which is well made and cobbled. Bleyze bring a carriage out of his backpack and expands it to be a 4 horse carriage which requires a driver but otherwise is big enough to carry the rest of us comfortably, albeit at only 3mph as we decide not to get the wildfires spell cast on the wagon which would add another 24mpth to the speed.

We send Aryan on up ahead to scout at his prodigious 100mph rate of travel while wind walked. He discovers a fork in the road to the south with a dead monument area to the SE and an evil castle (beautiful 'castle' straight out of fairy stories, thin towers, open-air walls, lots of convenient doors and ground floor windows) to the SW and we think we'll take the SE fork when we get there.

However en-route southwards we encounter a score of locals on patrol who have intercepted us on behalf of Prince Loth. After a brief and tense period of discussion (in a strange dialect of ancient Elven) we agree to accompany them to the Malachite Palace in the south east with Kilroy in Owl form and Aryan (apparently the only human) tied up.

DA details - mostly Shadow Elves and some smaller Fae.

We are led to the 'evil castle' which turns out to be the Malachite Palace.


We enter the Malachite Palace (which is rather a nobleman's folly) and meet Prince Loht (Male elf appearance, LLS - Shadow Elf, Strongest Magical Ability: Kingship, Favourite Magical Ability: Piercing Veils, and a bigot who refuses to talk with Penni) where I make our case to pass through his lands. Prince Loht sits upon a throne of dark wood which is side by side to another ornate and brightly decorated throne. The court feels evil and nasty as well as being a tortured group of beings. Most of them are wearing clothes designed to completely conceal parts of their faces and bodies, we're fairly sure they are hiding wounds or deformities - we suspect Frau Holly's variety of immortality came from here. I simply say that we are here to help heal the lands.

This is perhaps not believed so he says that he will test us to see the truth. We ask how and he looks to the flame pit that is positioned above him and looks like an eternal flame of oblivion to us and asks who will be tested. A heartbeat passes before Bleyze eagerly volunteers, the court takes a breath at this (we assume no one in their right mind would want to enter the flames of their own volition) before Loht nods his assent and Bleyze is led up there to leap into the bottomless pit of flame where he is instantly incinerated.

We ponder a few minutes and then Bleyze agilely leaps back out looking happy, cleansed and slightly more tanned - but basically the same old Bleyze.

While in the Eternal flame pit Bleyze learns that the Obsidian Tower is beyond the falling river and up top of the Drakenheights. We need to follow the river way southwards some 40 miles from the Malachite Palace.

Loht and his court seem a little taken aback but we ask if we could borrow a boat to speed our journey and we are dismissed from Loht's presence and we find ourselves shown to a graceful swan boat and we take to the water to continue our journey.

We flow over a major waterfall and fire arc away from the boat before our swan boat smashes to bits on the rocks below. Not trusting the prospect of land travel we decide to mould the wood into another smaller boat so that we can continue travelling along the relatively 'safe' river.

We reconstitute the boat and carry on travelling southwards towards our goal.

We come to another waterfall and we instead beach the boat on the eastern side where I detect a portal to the east. We take flight away from the river and pass across chasms and pits before we climb up the side of some vast heights to find ourselves in from of the Obsidian Tower.

The tower looms ahead of us and we can feel the power of the area ebbing and flowing all around us.

We land in a crystal shard field and cautiously move towards the tower. We fight off 2 creatures from beyond the veil that we can only call horrors with names like Gug (Poo - Dreamlands) and Shoggoth (Poo - Outside the veils, Known as the Servitor to the Old Ones) but we get to the tower to start our divinations.

Bleyze goes ahead and touches the tower without orders and he disappears for 30 seconds when he returns in 5 pieces that require us to piece him back together.

There are pools of bubbles (effect of touching the bubbles- disintegration) near the tower that give us pause and we keep a wary eye on. Part way through the divinated rituals the bubbles come to life and form into yet greater nameless horrors and we drop our ritualising.

We desperately try to get into the tower and I use my devices to slowly open the fractures in the tower to create a hole big enough for us to pass through while others valiantly hold off the horrors.

In the nick of time I create a hole big enough for us and we all move adroitly through the small hole and into the tower away from the horrors outside that are massing and plotting. I then work to close the hole while others protect me from the horrors.

Once done we move inside the space to the centre where we find 10 crystalised figures surrounding a mage figure stretched as if between the worlds at the centre of all the power. We also note that some other vastly powerful entity is also there with him but folded in space so we can but see small glimpses of it - and we know it to be a great evil seeking its way into our realms.

We know the figure would like to be released but that would free the other entity as well so we are loathe to do so. The figure is revealed as the Vicomp de Vallon who was the master of the white tower when the 'event' occurred. He says that he was betrayed by some elves who were advisors from the University (Mount Ever-white) named Rithaniel Taleson who gave him the magic to open the portals but failed to mention other things.

We decide to kill him to end his pain. Tari creates a wall of earth for us to stand on and have a semblance of normalcy in this space of nothingness and we enact our plan.

We destroy the Vicompt and the cast back the entity tied to him using powerful magic and the world / tower around us explodes as we are cast adrift into the planar void but I manage to get us back to Alensia which is one of the Alternate Alusia's.

There we quickly create another portal back to Alusia and thence to Newcastle where we let Dimuzi know we have returned and thank him for his assistance. We meet with Lady J who agrees we have done as she asked but she is miffed as we have also reduced her special power thus weakening her somewhat.

We then take our leave and depart back to Seagate for rest, recuperation and really deserved excessive libations.

Footnotes

  • Leads to review/follow up
    • Puppet master = prince of puppets? The Marshall of Vekheron akak the Prince of Puppets. Stick man???
      • Power room. Check this out to see if levels are within expected norms
    • Mag Mel. Check this out
  • Be aware of Blood worms and other types of malignant infestations
  • Be aware of smaller golem or mechanical devices in, around or on your body. Rooms must be sanitised as well as bags, clothes etc at times to avoid unwanted 'guests' upon your person

Previous missions involving Newcastle, White Tower, Newcourt beings etc


Other notes involving NPC's related here

Notes specific to Newcastle and White tower




Standard Buffs

Magic Rk Effects Dur A P K T Bl FB
Rune Shield (K) 20 +25% Def +5 Armour 21 hours Y Y Y Y Y Y
Strength of Stone (T) 20 +20 EN 21 hours Y Y Y Y Y Y
Fire Armour (B) 20 100 Ablative vs Magical Fire 21 hours Y Y Y Y Y Y
Heat Shield (B) 6 28 Ablative vs Magical Cold 7 hours Y
Fireproofing (B) 6 Prot Normal Fire 7 hours Y
Weapon of Flames (B) 12 +13% +7 Dam 17 mins
Rune Weapon (K) 20 (D-5)+8 dmg/pulse for D10 pulses on effective dmg 25 mins Y
Smite (K) 20 First Strike (or 4 for ritual), resist or D+21, stunned and prone 21 Hours 4 4
Greater Heart Rune (B) 9 Heal 9EN when next you take EN Damage 7 days Y
Willow Healing (B) 6 B. activate to Heal 3EN/pulse for 8 pulses 12 hours Y
Aryan Mil Sci
Melee Only: +12IV +12SC +12Def +1 Pass Action at End of Pulse
Raise Morale +5 WP
Aryan - Morning Callisf Drill
+1 AG until dawn.

Mil Sci

Skirmish Formations Watches
Default

Aryan Penni
Tari Bleyze
Broc Kilroy

Double File

Aryan Penni
Tari Bleyze
Broc Kilroy

Single File

Aryan
Penni
Bleyze
Tari
Broc
Kilroy

3-4 Hrs per Watch

Penni & Kilroy
Aryan & Broc
Bleyze & Tari

Creatures & People Encountered - in order of encounter

Aunt Justine D'Amberville aka Lady Justine (snr)

The Aunt or sister or adopted fosterling sister/aunt of Baron Hugh d'amberville, Baron of Newcourt. A renowned women previously encountered and killed twice by a guild party. A worthy adversary presumed dead, but reported alive as of the 7th of Fruit. She has a maidservant (succubus) who is either a mind mage or some variant. Lady J (snr) appear pale and hearty with her age judged to be around 27yrs or so. DA has no aura (but this is known to be an affect of a number of Bowcourt 'ladies'.

Lady Justine (snr)'s Lady in waiting

Appears to be an attractive young lady with long platinum (snowy) white hair and shapely figure. DA's as Short lived sentient human, Strongest non magical ability - Lady in Waiting. She has a compley northern look and is 'really pretty'.

Lady Justine (snr)'s Guards aka Fear and Loathing

Tall similar looking beings. DA as short lived sentient Human, DA as Guards, Plane of Origin Alusia

Hugh

Hugh D'Amberville, Baron Newcourt. He is a man from the old school of ruling and he has a number of skeletons in his closet. Fond of his children, a good father and fair ruler. Currently married to his 2nd wife Baroness Margaret De'Amberville.

Baroness Margaret De'Amberville

The Baroness and her family are related to the Marquessa of Bowcourt who is the Liege Lord of the Baron (following the exile of his previous liege: Count Richard of Foxcourt). She is reputed to be a witch of some skill, a skilled manipulator of people (all ranks) and good mother to her children. She is likely to be a mind mage

François

François D'Amberville, son of Baron Hugh, previously a squire to Gerard de Mauvoison (Circa 806-812) of Faircourt. Alys's younger brother. A young man with seemingly boundless energy and robust constitution. Aged 20. Recently appointed Baron of the capitol of Del Toro, moving there soon.

Jubert

Chancellor of Newcourt. A veteran bureaucrat of superior skill at manipulating the baron's court and supporting the baron in his decisions. An older gentleman possessing a plethora of knowledge, plots and intrigue.

Lady Alys

Younger sister to Lady Justine (jnr) and older sister to François. A woman of great intellect. Trained as a Mind Mage in Bowcourt. Aged 23. Romantically involved with Jean (against her father's preference).

Jean Rossignol

A Troubadour and Bardic Mage. An erudite man with a secret as well as a well skilled musical artist. Jean is romantically involved with Lady Alys and moved away with her when she went to Bowcourt in 806. Returned with Alys in late 812wk and Baron Hugh is resigned to their relationship.

Giles de la Hay

The captain of the baron's guards and a veteran ex-Michaeline Knight. A good hard man.

Vekheron Troops

Garesh

Big-bad, puppet master, god?, servant of the god of gods.

Has 'hooks' in most of the Elves who had visited Gervais - including Broc. Can control and act through those he has hooks in.

Orotukar

A 'great master', reports to Garesh.

Gimp-bosses are lieutenants of the masters who report to Orotukar.

Gimps

Leather outfits, screaming in constant pain, get better/faster/stronger as they get hurt. Originally people (and a giant) from various planes in or adjacent to the Shadowlands.

Their boss shared damage to himself with those of us who were near enough - unknown range. Follow Orotukar.

Shock Troops

Travelled via lightning storm.

Used a lightning equivalent of fire-arc.

Healed by lightning.

Ogre-like demons with them. When unengaged the 3 Ogres cast lighting over the area between them, damaging us and healing the shock troops. Constantly talking in demonic tongues. Claimed to be temporarily allied to Garesh's minions to save their plane.

Their boss fled back into his storm.

Harlequins

Faster, more agile than the others but not as strong.

Tentacled demonic horrors with them - their tentacles have a contact poison that numbs and causes unconsciousness.

Boss is Dominatrix-demon with pleasure/pain rods. Used them to create an ecstasy/agony field.

Creatures & People mentioned and of interest but yet to be encountered

Lillian or Lileth

'Lily' has been known by many names and her apparent age has not changed in at least 40 years.

Lillian de L'Isle - approx 790wk

   Wife of Robert d'Amberville, Baron Newcourt. Quietly disappeared after Robert died in a hunting accident. 

Liliane de la Lorge - approx 798wk

   Married the Lord del la Lorge to gain access to the Black Tower their manor house was built over. Captured a guild party. Was killed and dragged off by the revenant of her husband. 

Lileth of Circ de la Luna - Autumn 811wk

   Purchased the circus as a cover to move around fairs in Bowcourt as part of a dark ritual. Activities disrupted by a guild party, Lily escaped.


Others

NOTE: Lord Yo's specialities are the ways/portals onto and off Alusia whereas his brother Dimuzi specialises in Paths and Portals.

Loot

Calendar

Summer 813wk: Meadow
Moonday Duesday W'ansday Th'rsday Frysday Reapsday Sunday
Beltane

Full Moon

1 Guild Meeting - Newcourt 2 Newcourt - Alfheim - Drakenburg 3 Drakenburg 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 Full Moon 29 30 1 2 3 4
Summer 813wk: Heat
Moonday Duesday W'ansday Th'rsday Frysday Reapsday Sunday
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 Midsummer Eve (Faerie Day) 15 Solstice 16 17 18
19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26 Full Moon 27 28 29 30 1 2
Summer 813wk: Breeze
Moonday Duesday W'ansday Th'rsday Frysday Reapsday Sunday
3 Day of Death 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30