That was now, This is then
Summary
Adventure: That was now, This is then
GM: Michael Parkinson
Season: Winter 797 WK
- Party
- Blackthorn, Celestial (Party Leader) - Dan D
- Amaranth Vale, Enchantress (Scribe) - Chris R
- Eric the Orc, Namer (yeah, right!) (Military Scientist) - Mike H
- TDP Roberts, Enchanter (and part–time drow shipwright) - Phil J
- Isil Eth, Elven Mind Mage - Ian W
- Sowlean, Mind Mage
- Turf, Elf/M, Namer, (warrior, ranger, healer, goody-two-shoes) - Terry
- Employer
- “The Lawgiver”, an Elf with delusions of grandeur (probably no point dwelling on the obvious)
- Mission
- “The Lawgiver” believed that she had gone back in time and set in motion the development of drow civilisation upon her home plane of Purple. Our mission was to accompany her and ensure that these events came to pass (again, or is it already?). Specifically, we were supposed to unite the drow tribes, overthrow the dwarven gods and cause the dwarves to disappear
- Original Scribe Notes
- Media:Snwi9704.zip
Scribe Notes
We learnt drow and ancient dwarvish from the demon Foras. I set up a Mana Zone and Enhance Enchantment area and we cast preparatory spells: Shadow Form, Strength of Darkness, Armour of Earth, Strength of Stone, Witchsight and Starwings.
The employer explained where we were supposed to arrive on the plane of Purple (Newtown) and that we would be transported into the drow area when we were sent back 250,000 years. We were then shown a recorded illusion from one of our employer’s associates. It went something like this: “I am Richard of Columba, I will summon you every six hours, please minimise weight, but not so much as to compromise safety”. Eric performed an astrology reading on where we would first be attacked by the vampire assassins who were believed to have a contract on the Lawgiver - Alusia or Purple. The answer indicated that this could not be determined, but that it would be an ambush and would be governed by where we were most vulnerable.
We passed through a portal and flew off on Starwings towards our destination, with some jinks and jags to confuse any pursuers or interceptors. We landed and were met by some military flunkies. Upon being informed the last summoning was 1.5 hours ago we flew off to waste some time and came back 4 hours later. Sasha, a noble from Purple, met us. We prepared for our trip and were quickened when the planar shift occurred. One Tad Baker, “The Grand Horlogue”, met us on Purple.
After an exchange of greetings we waited for the King to arrive which he shortly did. He was preceded by a military type called Lord Mellon who was in mismatched armour and the Prince. The Prince was accompanied by a bodyguard type with a flamberge, McAthol by name. After greeting us the Prince left us to the care of Lord Mellon. We ordered some healing and a Fire Mage to cast some Weapon of Flames spells. We rapidly developed some paranoia upon discovering that one of the retainers was under a compel or control spell. We attempted to sleep him and failed. We then determined he had been “faithfully” serving the family for two years, and assumed that explained the magic.
We exited the chambers in two groups, being constrained by the air-lock type construction of the entrance. No problems, so far, so we headed up the road to the departure tower. To avoid potential problems, flew around the back rather than going in the front. There were a group of soldiers drilling in the courtyard, including a female officer. She was casting an eye over the party and, when questioned, Tad seemed a little cautious of her. We entered the tower and Tad decided we should wait till the Weapon of Flames spells wore off before entering the wooden tower. A representative of “The Commander” came in to inquire as to the basis of Turf’s high magic resistance. After dancing around the subject for some time, Turf informed him it was a “Blessing” from an unknown power. He was rather unsatisfied with the answer, but went off to report. We went down to the laboratory to prepare for departure. We decided to send the 4 party members requiring Enchantments off to be enchanted, to return in pairs. The others were to remain and be weighed (5th Frost, game date). We proceeded to get enchanted and weighed without incident.
Tad proceeded to unveil and set up his time transport mechanism. He activated the mechanism and the room lit up. We were seemingly transported back to the correct time. Turf related that he was feeling magic impact, till we told him not to resist.
We landed, some of us a little roughly. Several parts of Tad’s mechanism arrived with us, which was cause for some concern!
We were, as predicted, in an arid, hot wasteland. All duration based magics from spells had seemingly gone. The only magical effects still running were our Greater Enchantments. We moved off towards a relatively sheltered area to escape the heat. While resting, I recharged TDP's shaped quickness charges, while he made some Crystals of Vision. Unfortunately The Lawgiver was determined to be suffering from Total Amnesia. We waited for nightfall, cast some wings and flew off to find the forest in short hops. The night was, as expected, as cold as the day had been hot. We set up camp near a river and settled in for the night. Blackthorn hollowed out a cave for us using his Darksphere. Eric went hunting for dinner and found us a bear. Morning arrived with everything a little too quiet. We investigated and I found a large humanoid with my Wizard's Eye. From the style of armour we thought it might be a Titan. We addressed the Titan who seemed to be preparing but it didn't respond. Isil Eth picked up a subterranean presence, which soon turned out to be an Earth Elemental. Eric and Turf raced each other to get off a banish on the elemental and at least one of them worked. The Titan seemed very unhappy and continued to cast. We geared up ready to return fire. As we approached, Blackthorn issued the ultimatum "Surrender now!"
The Titan reacted as expected and drew an unfeasibly large axe. We milled vaguely toward the Titan and it took a twenty foot step forward and threw the axe at (and almost through) Blackthorn. His contingency spell went off and he was healed up almost the 44 points he took. I tried a sleep, which it resisted. The next pulse Isil Eth and Blackthorn both apologised but I cast another sleep (not realising we were apologising). The Titan took this rather badly and threw her axe almost through TDP. The next pulse, after a hurried time out, we apologised again with no offensive actions and she refrained from killing us. She walked over to Eric's position and told him to stop resisting. He windwalked away and Blackthorn and Isil Eth continued apologising.
After a few pulses of apology the Titan calmed down and chastised us for killing one of her creatures. Blackthorn turned out to be quite good at grovelling after he built up a head of speed. After she had calmed down still further, it became apparent that she wanted restitution for the bear that we killed. She seemed to assume that we would be able to come up with something better than a mere rank 10 artisan could manage. Blackthorn offered that we could give the bear skin back after we had a suitable period to prepare it for her. She seemed to accept this and informed us she would be back to collect in a year and a day.
We rested up and TDP performed a curse removal on The Lawgiver. She was rapidly informed of our circumstances and recent adventures. After resting overnight we set out again the next day using bound air. We came across a carved rock outcropping, but couldn't determine what it was supposed to represent. We thought it was most likely a face, maybe a tribute to a Titan. We flew on, for a total of about 400 miles. Then we made camp again. As we were looking for a landing spot we observed that the forest to the south was a rather strange dark colour. We decided not to investigate the forest at present.
In the morning we discovered some elves (about ten to thirty) had been past our camp during the night without being detected by our watches. We continued on the same way for another four days and found the coast, about two thousand miles. We came across a significant settlement, with cultivated fields near a river mouth. The settlement was about twenty miles from the sea. We landed about twenty miles from the settlement.
We observed that there was a large cultivated area, which with our normal Alusian cultivation techniques would support about a thousand people. This of course would indicate a larger settlement than we had been led to believe would exist.
After landing, Turf and Sowlean went out scouting and everyone else stayed back to look through the crystal at the town. The scouts found several plants that had been extensively foraged, probably by an experienced ranger judging by the precise amount left to allow regrowth. The plants were mostly plants for healing. As well as these traces, the rangers found tracks of a group of humans including women and children. They had been foraging fruit and eating it as they moved. Of course there weren't supposed to be any humans around the area at this time. Looking through the crystal at the city, it appeared to be vaguely oval in shape with a brown/ochre colour as if it was made from one piece.
We zoomed in and looked at some of the inhabitants. The guards seemed to be wearing leather type armour and carrying wooden spears with not many other artefacts. We observed a well dressed official whose clothing was a saffron colour and looked like raw silk. The Lawgiver was of the opinion that the clothing was of equal quality with the best available in our time. Further investigation revealed that the patch of colour on the far side of the town was an army of approximately 3000.
As the town looked to be about 1000 inhabitants the army couldn't just have come from the town. We went to have a closer look at the camp with a sound enabled Crystal of Vision. When we observed a scout enter the command tent we went in to listen but just got darkness, as if it was protected from scrying. The streets in the town were narrow, only big enough for one horse. There was an amphitheatre and a large cage among other buildings. Some extensive felling had also been going on in the local wooded area. The sort of trees taken suggested building town sized buildings, rather than siege engines or firewood.
It was getting on so we decided to find a campsite.
We went off south across the river and flew for a couple of hours just in case the city elves were far ranging from the settlement. When we went to land we found we were over a swamp so we headed back north-west to intersect the river. We then discovered that the swamp extended in from the coast some way so we flew back east to some hills that we could see.
Unfortunately we discovered that this turned out to be only about two miles away from the city across the river. Sowlean had precogged a fight starting near the army in about 15 minutes so we settled to see if it eventuated.
As we started to settle we spied a dragon flying up the river towards our general location. We hid as well as we could in the short time available. The dragon flew past and seemed to veer towards our position. As it passed we picked up some feral minds which turned out to be pixie type creatures gone bad. I slept one and TKed it back toward the party. A swarm of them leapt after it and Blackthorn blackfired the mass killing the slept captive but not affecting the swarm, which we theorised, was a mirror image type effect. As this occurred, Isil Eth was phantasming an opponent which disappeared in a puff. We then flew off except TDP who seemed disoriented. We went back for him and Turf swept down to pick him up. Turf was also affected by some sort of disorientation and ploughed into the ground. A bitter fight raged on for some time till we figured out we could give the grounded party members instructions on where to fly and if they followed those and ignored their senses then they could fly away. There were a number of intercepts between pixies and shadow-wings but eventually we made our escape.
In the background of our little fight the army camped outside the town attacked the town. After they started in, the dragon attacked the city from the far side. It appeared to be casting or triggering fire magics against the East wall of the city as it made its passes. We flew twenty five miles up river beyond the city and landed beyond our original scouted position. After we had settled and Blackthorn was performing his ritual to prepare our campsite the dragon turned up again. It approached us waggling its wings and although we were worried we couldn't really run anywhere, so when it became obvious he was going to land I walked out to greet him.
He charged us to look after his rider who had been badly injured in the battle. In return he said he would give us information.
We agreed (it was a big dragon!) and he gave us some information on the battle and local conditions. The black dragon informed Turf that the Titan's name was Agdisties.
The dragon then departed. When we revived his rider, who turned out to be the favoured son of the chief of one of the tribes that had been attacking the city, he claimed we were devils trying to seduce him to evil. We put him to sleep and thought about what to do with him. The rider had a potion and upon DAing his potion it turned out to be a Wizard's Eye potion. Observing the aftermath of the battle, it became obvious the attacking forces had been repulsed with heavy losses. We observed several stragglers as well as the main retreating force and we went out and acquired one who was conveniently running in our direction. After sleeping him we kept him bound and blindfolded. We treated him well and healed his wounds, along the way discovering he was called “Word From The Stone” and was an enchanter of the eagle tribe, the same tribe as our chief’s son.
We discussed which side to support for some time and decided we could make more of an impression on the tribes than on the city. The tribes also seemed more in keeping with the history as related to us by The Lawgiver. We discovered we could not locate the city leaders after observing them through Crystals of Vision. We observed a pursuit party preparing to harry the fleeing army and decided to try and intercept it and make a good impression on the tribes. I delivered a prepared speech to Word From The Stone as follows:
‘We noticed the plight of the tribes and we have come to assist them. We spoke to the dragon and he asked us to look after the chief’s son. The Lawgiver has given our diverse peoples “The Law” which allows us to live in harmony. She has come to bring this gift to the tribes.’
We then removed his blindfold and he took our strange appearance (not all drow) rather better than the chief’s son had. The charm spell may have helped.
We then set out after the raiding party. We arrived shortly after the raiding party had already attacked, but managed to attack them as they headed back towards the city. We killed about nine and captured four, out of the thirty five person raiding party.
Word From The Stone located the chief and we headed off towards the tribe armies. We caught up with them as they were crossing a river. We made our grand entrance and delivered the prisoners. Three were ritually executed and one was ritually allowed to rejoin the tribe. He gave some interesting information regarding the city before he was attacked by a rank 20 phantasm, and quickly died. He told us the city had three leaders: Croceus (translates as Saffron) who is mostly referred to as “The Renegade”; Rosaeus (translates as Rose), no known college and Badeus (translates as Bay) who is an enchanter.
After the attacks from the phantasms we decided to stay close so as to defeat any further attacks quickly. Blackthorn suggested that the local fire mages use Summon Salamander to attack the city. They did this, but the defenders responded quickly after the first couple of attacks and it was decided that its value was really only nuisance value. We also determined that the defenders had about 12 rune mages and therefore were probably using rune portal to get in and out of the area of the city quickly. Phantasms and nightmares attacked several groups from other tribes coming to join the group of tribes. The nightmare only has about 300 foot range so the attackers must have been very close. Having divinated some of the dead bodies we determined that the mind mage had 29 MA and 32 willpower. This suggested DEMONS! Occasionally the divinations showed up MA 39 and WP 42. MA of E&E was 35/45. We were advised that the city had high ranked astrologers, who were very accurate. After this revelation, the Lawgiver revealed that she had an item that protected against astrology readings. It was theorised that the problem locating people in the city could be caused by illusionary appearances.
We then asked the local astrologers to do some readings for us. Their readings suggested that there were 5 outside influences.
These were split into 2 and 3 in some sort of co-dependant relationship. When they looked for magic colleges they determined there was and E&E, a Mind, a 'shadow' of a Mind and an Earth. Comparing colleges to people we got Yellow as Mind, Bay as E&E and Rose was mind 'shadow'. From readings the 'two' seemed to be anaemic drow, that is to say Vampyres! We found some things we wanted to pass on that we didn't actually know details of. We found that we could read the Lawgiver’s books after a bit of study, and thought that we could pass on things like metal-working if we took the time to read up on them. We decided we needed to disrupt the city building somehow, especially after an astrology reading predicted a periodic doubling of the number of cities. We theorised that we could perform a surgical strike against the powers in the city or talk to the dwarves and/or titans. The predicted date for the building of the next city was a month away so we decided to find us some dwarves. We passed our plan on to the drow and they passed it on to the outlying tribes. We travelled east for a bit and met a fire mage whose people had captured a dwarf. We took the dwarf away to talk to him and charmed him before he woke up.
We travelled on to the home village of the dwarf whose name was Ta Hali (The Holy). We discovered the entrance was warded, and one of them was a resetting ward. It came back a few pulses after being dispelled. Accordingly we put an area counter spell down to increase our resistance to around 100 and walked on through. About four resistances later we were through. We found our way to the chief (sub-king) although the dwarvish "guide" wouldn't lead us (as we would of course know the way). I was voted spokesperson and managed to talk our way through to getting another, more official guide. This was achieved by keeping it vague and important sounding. From the chief’s thoughts, this was fairly typical of holy ones, so didn't cause any suspicion. It became obvious our attire wasn't quite normal, but being holy ones we were beyond being questioned. Isil Eth suggested that the temple possibly contained a "turnpike" which was the equivalent of a Rune Portal. We went inside the temple, which was decorated with statues of the Gods. We passed on through the temple and onto / through the turnpike. We found a group of dwarven 'adventurers' and a holy one. The dwarven lieutenant seemed a little surprised at something but when I looked askance at him he said 'Sacred Ash' as some sort of password. We approached the holy one and passed on the news about the drow settlement. She suggested we had better pass it on to "Jumbo" and off we set. She chattered away and we made appropriate expressions of surprise and agreement. We travelled by gondola to get to our destination. It was all underground and unlit, so we were very thankful for our witchsights. The ceiling disappeared out of sight, although we were walking through normalish streets with buildings between 2 and 4 stories. After about an hour we got to our destination, which was festooned with spikes. There were two buildings, a palace structure in Titan scale and a 200 foot tower about 20 foot through, surrounded by dwarven guards. Our guide left us and we continued on down the obvious path.
We met with “Jumbo” and, after some fast talking, made common cause against “The Evil Ones”. He revealed that a dwarven city had gone over to the side of evil and that they were very concerned. We decided that the new city was the best target for our attack. We spent some time preparing for our assault. The dwarves were going to transport us by taking us off plane via a planar gate spell and then planar gating us back to the site of the new city. The dwarves had several alchemists who were going to prepare self only potions of various spells. They were also going to provide Rank 9 herbalist potions to increase our physical statistics. The potions we were going to take were: Enhance Vision, Prot Magical Fire, Resist Pain 0, Mind Cloak 7, Self Immolate 10, Wizard's Eye, Blackthorn and Eric Mind Speech. Spells: Witchsight, Trollskin, Fireproofing, Protection from Magical Fire potion, Cold Resistance, Armour of Earth, Weapon of Flames D-5 * 320s, Runes of Truth. Two ShadowWalk potions and a Rk 18 TrollSkin potion. Before we set out several party members decided to touch the "Holy of Holies". Blackthorn's hair fell out and he developed characteristics of a Harpy - feathery thighs, clawed hands and feet and a rather unpleasant body odour. Sowlean developed a tendency to sleep longer during winter, fangs and some immunity to fire (3 points), part crocodile. Isil Eth's hair dropped out and she developed characteristics of a phoenix - partly red and partly gold plumage, mighty thews and the ability to tell three thoroughly convincing lies and cause a companion 10% bad luck once an evening. The dwarves also gave us “Robes of the Holy Ones” which gave us some regenerative abilities.
We made all our preparations and set off to the new city site. It seems we were expected, and we found ourselves up against the two vampire assassins, 8 vampire minions, 6 drow bodyguards and unbeknownst to us a demon. A darkness was quickly set up and we operated mostly out of this using Wizard Eye spells. The drow and vampires made incursions into the darkness to attack us, finding me particularly easy to track with my sword humming loudly at the presence of greater undead. Turf rushed out at the female vampire who couldn’t see him but had some talent that allowed her to detect his charge and jump out of the way. Turf soon succumbed to paralysant on darts used by the drow bodyguards. Eric was forced to flee by a fear spell effect but returned shortly on fireflight, only to be extinguished 30 feet up, he then attacked the male vampire and female vampire. While this occurred we whittled away the lesser vampires and drow bodyguards. Things came to a head when Isil Eth used a necrosis that brought down the female vampire and left only one drow bodyguard standing. One of the enemy she killed used a death curse to reflect the spell effect back on her and she died as well. The male vampire erected a wall around Isil Eth and Turf and sued to parley. While negotiations were under way, an earth elemental seized the bodies and dragged them off to an underground rune portal. Blackthorn took a quick show of hands and rather than lose the two party members we settled.
Terms of settlement: The Lawgiver to be unmolested unless she attacked the forces loyal to the vampire faction. Dwarves to be given the opportunity to go away and go forward in time. Party members resurrected and returned, transport back to the present. Blackthorn chose to go to Alusia in the current (past) time period and the two elves (Turf and Isil Eth) returned to the Dwarves and came forward in time with help from them. Oh, and we got piles of loot, which, when you come right down to it, was what we were going along for in the first place.
