The Eye of Norden

Summary

Adventure: The Eye of Norden
GM: Greg T
Season: Winter 797 WK
Level: Medium

Party

Employer: Lord Arondel
Mission: Get our employer Lord Arondel back to his tower and restore the Eye of Norden to its niche.
Original Scribe Notes: Media:Snwi9705.zip

Diary Fragments

1 Frost

Mission briefing: Get Lord Arondel, our employer, back to his tower, and get the Eye of Norden into the place of power in the tower.

Payment: 2,000sp for accompanying Arondel + 3,500sp for successful completion. Payment per guild member.

A ring of banishment was given to Hana. Stored stocks of salt & food in doorknob.

2 Frost

Arondel performs interplanar ritual mid afternoon. Arrive in 3rd level of Norden mid afternoon. Desolate. Wet. We walk until Dusk.

3 Frost

Dawn. Wet. We walk until Dusk.

4 Frost

Dawn. Wet. We walk until mid afternoon. See Tower #1 in distance. Camp short of tower.

5 Frost

Dawn. Hana banished herself. Approached by natives from Tower #1. Go to tower with them. Chat, hear all their problems. Descend to 6th (bottom) level of mine with them. See Giant Amoeba. Flee! Turn around, fight it a bit. Encase it in stone. Sleep in tower.

6 Frost

Pre-dawn. Wet. We walk until Noon. Find first dead Sudarian. Thaeuss gains death curse. Wet. We walk until after dark.

7 Frost

Mid-morning. Wet. We walk until after dark. Get to Tower #2.

8 Frost

Midnight - Death Curse Removal starts. Mid-morning. Runners from Tower #1 arrive. Dusk, runners leave for cliff. We follow just before midnight.

9 Frost

Midnight, base of 2,000’ high cliff. Wet. We negotiate a lift via note. Up basket & winch. Witching hour. Arrive at the edge of a forest, at the top of the cliff on the 2nd level. Weather improves to showers & mist. Meet natives of forest. Camp in forest with them. Post-Dawn. Mist. We walk until Dusk.

10 Frost

Witching hour. Ambushed in camp by two non-mage Sudarians. Minimal damage done. Both slept, stoned, buried in shallow grave. Dawn. We walk until Dusk.

11 Frost

Dawn. We walk until late morning. Kate & Thaeuss approach lakeside village for horses, trade for information and salt. The rest of us stay a mile back. We ride until Dusk.

12 Frost

Witching hour - attacked by wildlife. Dawn. We ride until Dusk. All up slope.

13 Frost

Dawn. We ride until mid afternoon. All up slope. Camp short of cliffs to 1st level.

14 Frost

Witching hour. Release horses. Sneak to cliffs. Spotted by flying lightning creatures. Hide in cliff labyrinth. Find Sarn. Rest. Noon.

Up to third level via portal to temple. Run invis through a deserted city. Undead hunt us - even skeletons see invis. Flying lightning creatures patrol overhead. Head for central tower to insert eye. Sun never moves in the sky. Burn tannery as distraction.

Run past sundial. What! Stop. Party runs on. Read sundial. Kick sundial until it breaks. Message hidden in base - mystic poetry on summoning light from eye. Note down. Run after party - fast.

Plan frontal assault on tower; charge; outer walls - flying lightning creatures, undead, goat-demons; lots of banishing, solar flares, blood; inner walls - more of same; up staircase past hordes of wights & wraiths. Decent Melee. Pause for breather. Up final flight of stairs. Evil Necro appears. Rest of party frozen. Showdown between Arondel and Necro. Figure out mystic waffle and summon Angel (oops!) using the eye.

Employer and Necro die real quick. Sarn becomes new Lord. Angel leaves. Insert eye in tower. Success.

15 Frost

Get paid by Sarn. New twist - not even employer got thanked for saving the plane. Go home.

The Plane of Norden

This is arranged in three layers, like a wedding cake. The levels are connected by sheer cliffs ½ mile high. An artificial world. Dusk and dawn are almost instantaneous. The entire plane is low mana. North is towards the center of the plane, where the sky curves down into the top of the central tower. Day & night revolve around this tower like giant vanes.

Magical flyers are Lightning Bolt’ed until they hit the ground. Birds fly without trouble.

Two hundred years ago, this plane was civilised and magically controlled. When the Eye of Norden was taken, the controls were removed, and the plane spiralled out of control, causing the current odd effects.

Trade

Common is Salt is rare here - we took 5 sacks of salt, and it was like gold. Rubies are treated as worthless - loose change. 3rd level trades metal for firewood from 2nd level. Trade of horses for food or wood within 2nd level. No sign of trade between 1st and 2nd levels.

3rd level

A continual rain falls onto bare rock. Permanently overcast, windy, cold. Near noon each day, a terrible storm hits for half an hour, sweeping all organic materials and soil into the air. To survive, we hid in the doorknob at noon. It may be high mana during the storm. A mining community lives in tunnels beneath towers. Their womenfolk run between towers carrying firewood and metalwork.

The towers are generally 100’ diameter, 500’ high, with teleport runes on the flat top of them. You can teleport from any tower to another, or from the central tower on 1st level to any tower (one-way). There are 16-18 Towers on the 3rd level. Many of the towers do not have internal passages, and are merely a pillar of stone.

Tower #1, 3rd Level

Leader is Timothy, Druidic Earth Mage - Bind Earth and mining are his specialities. He is the only mage. Cara is his wife. Ruda is the Smith, Clin, his apprentice. Bob is another chap. About 30 people in the tower, surviving on mining. The females run between towers, carrying trade goods. There are no children or old folk here. They mine gems and iron. They eat bugs and fungi. Bottom of exile chain.

They make a light source from glass flasks and phosphorescent mosses. This dies after a few weeks. They have some gems and iron, but won’t trade much. Not dangerous unless threatened.

Tower #2, 3rd Level

Deserted. Used as dump for firewood/iron for traders with next level. 3 miles south of cliff. Est. 50 miles north of Tower #1. Confirmed teleport rune on this tower. Cliff between 3rd & 2nd levels 2,000’ high. Winch & wicker basket powered by old man, magical assistance.

Trip takes 20 minutes each way. 3-4 in basket at a time. Winch only manned at certain times of month. Cliff not scaleable.

Edge of 2nd level

Retired tribespeople in forest, cutting wood and pottering. Includes Krada (Bardic College), Plas and Neve. They live in a series of tents about ½ a mile from the cliff-top winch. Numbers - 15- 20. Danger - nil. Forest runs in a 5 mile band around the edge of the 2nd level, buffering the plains from the 3rd level.

The forest has continual mist, showers, and thunder storms at noon. Also the “Old Ones” - arboreal hirsute Orcs “?gorilla?”. Potentially dangerous.

2nd level

Most of the 2nd level is rolling plains with occasional lakes. Semi-nomadic horse tribes and small agrarian villages. Herds of beeve (migratory bovines), some packs of dholes/wolves. Normal temperate plains weather, except thunderstorm, heavy rain at noon. The village we visited was on a lake, and was run by a Princess. Matriarchal horse breeders. Potentially dangerous.

1st level

Have only seen the city - apparantly is in lake, connected by causeway. City is a desgined city. Tower, centre of plane, sky, etc. at centre of city. Was deserted for 200 years at our visit. Now being repopulated.

General Notes

Doorknob

Traveller has an extra-dimensional room (30’x30’x10’) accessible via a brass doorknob. This doorknob must be inserted in something solid (rock/tree/shield, not dirt). Then a door is created into the space. The door may not be fully shut while there are entities in the room. Other people use this room when we are travelling, but we never see them as there can only be one door open at a time. The room is full of chests or drawers and junk. The users swap objects found in there for their own - generally valueless. Do not leave magic items in the room. The other plane known to have access is Lorgoss.

Eye of Norden

This eye is a glowing blue orb. No GTN. Nature of magic “magic”. Creates 5’ radius high mana area that increases backfire chance by 10%. It runs the plane of Norden, looking after weather, day & night, magic, etc. It needs to be placed in a manastream at the start of the sky on the third floor of the tower in the centre of the citadel in the capital city in middle of a lake in the middle of the 1st level. Touching the manastream is worse than fatal.

Arondel

Lord Arondel, the Chosen One of Norden during the mission- nom de guerre Traveller. Human male, apparently late 40’s. threadbare black clothing, battered black hat. Rune was tattooed onto his right hand. Owner of doorknob. Recently re-stole Eye of Norden from Garn. Party employer. Long-lived sentient. Powerful Namer + rune lore + plane travel. Healer Rank 9. Stripped of any other powers at end of mission. Currently admin for Sarn. Very vague, indecisive.

Lord Sarn

Lord Sarn, the Chosen One of Norden. Rune of Power is tattooed onto his right hand. Ruler of Norden. Was a heroic lad from the 2nd level, eloped & became Lord during course of adventure. Keen & with good intentions.

Garn

Lord Garn, the Chosen One of Sudar. Human Necromancer. Stole the Eye of Norden from Arondel 200 years ago. Can scry anywhere in Norden. For the mission, the enemy. May now be dead.

Sudarians

Minions of Lord Garn. Generally non- mages. Only one Celestial, one Necro, one Witch known. Many flew in and burnt up on entry into Norden. All effectively given their soul to Garn, to serve in an afterlife. All have death- curses on a chest tattoo. The killer will become a wraith serving Garn on the next midnight after dying. Standard kit - three invested rings: Bronze - Shadow Wings; Silver - Hand of Death; Gold - Wraith Cloak. All Rk 10, 4-6 charges