West where the Heartwood is

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Summary

GM: Dean
Season: Winter 822 WK
Night: Thursdays
Location: St Johns
Level: High

Party
  1. Cher Saurime(f), Binder
  2. Cronose Elf(m), Mind
  3. Mortimer Halfling(m), Wicca, Philosopher
  4. Rahne Human(f), E&E & Stars, Warrior, Astrologer Scribe Mil Sci PL
  5. Tari Elven(f), Earth
  6. Tsayoi Giant (m), Fire
Employer (original)
Maelstrom extending the invite on behalf of Lyria, funded by Syrianth
Lyria of The Heartwood. Ref. The Order
Payment
40,000sp ea in coin or services
Mission
  1. Deal with Drow/Necromancer nest east of the Hills of Aldri
  2. Journey to the south-west of Northern Terranova to find what happened to The Heartwood.

Scribe Notes

Introductions

Duesday 1st Frost

Maelstrom meets us at the guild to take us by enchanted carriage with undead horses to meet Lyria at The Ruby Waters (3-4 hours). Met there by Ruath The Warder who takes us in to meet Lyria (crippled and still healing) and Ehrendil (nurse/healer).

The Heartwood was several separate but connected groves, some near coast, others inland in a lush valley. Giant Sequoias. We get images of some of the sites and landmarks using Mind Speech/Telepathy - lakes, harbours, mountains. Settlements were tree dwellings, 'special' animal pets/familiars - giant bears etc.

Staff/block from Heartwood has GTN: Heartwood, Solar aspect.

Ruath loans us a 'wand' from his staff to help us track the Heartwood (his aspect is Pathfinder).

A few hours spent discussing, investigating and experimenting with various methods we might use to locate the Heartwood.

Ruath & Lyria are going to work on a Ruath Coin specific to tracking the Heartwood, it may take a few days.

We talk a bit about the Drow Necros troubling Valindra:

  • They haven't crossed the Wandle Rithe yet, nor engaged the Brastor Borderers but their raids are increasingly bold. Presumably trying not to attract too much attention until they have built enough strength.
  • They are hard to find and may be based below ground.

We agree to go thin their numbers a bit.

Summer & Autumn

Mortimer mentions that his mind library has an Elven wing from the Ancient Empire. I guide us to his library via dream so we can all help with the research. Mortimer balances between concern and curiosity as we romp through the dream of his mind library. We learn a little more of The Order, mostly just confirming what we've been told. We learn that the Temple of Xanadu in the area where the Drow/Undead are is very old by the standards of the the Old Empire, and there may be other temples in the area.

W'nsday 2nd Frost

We spend the morning on rituals and Astrology then fly for a couple of hours to the Greenwood to see Ninleyn. Mind Speech makes the conversation viable as he hasn't talked to people much in the last few millennia. He happily gives us Summer Mead and we chat for a while over honey cakes and tea. He asks us to ask Valindra to hurry with the apprentice, he's running out of time.

Summer Mead - lasts for a season
Anti-undead (blood is fatal to vampires, all undead will try to keep 10-30' feet away).
Protects from heat and cold (equivalent to rk 12 resist cold/heat, stacks).
Disease resistance.

We fly about 100 miles north-east to The Hills of Aldri, landing and declaring ourselves at the eastern end of the escarpment near the Wandle Rithe. The Elves reluctantly accept our credentials and warmly welcome Sir Mortimer. They guide us and we walk 25 miles in half an hour to their settlement.

We dine and talk with Valindra. The Drow/Necro group is getting bolder, the Elves no longer cross the river. Dominate and control the various goblinoid tribes that were scattered through the area. They may have corrupted some of the forest. At least one Drow. Some necromantic abilities, presumably they have a Necromancer.

  • They show us a spiky bone sphere, Formerly Living, made by the Bone Shaper, Ilixalim Druphimondrenm. Drops from trees to attack, feeds on blood from the living to maintain itself. Bone as strong as iron. Repelled by our Summer-enhanced blood, contact causes it damage.
  • Human head on a bone spike. Formerly living, made by the Flesh Crafter, Yeljeon Quundrohiant, studied with the masters of the Ssu (flensers). All of the skin of a human bundled inside the scalp. Tendrils (about 20' range) inflict Ghoul paralysis. Limited speech. Triggers on living presence.
  • 'Ilix' also makes the Bone Spikes of Necromantic Binding Will.
Valindra gives us Autumn Draughts (last for a season)
Provides immunity from physical or magical effects that cause rot, decay, disease or infection.
No undead will willingly approach closer than 30 feet to the wearer in most cases.
Subtract 2 off any drain damage caused
1 extra point of FT recovery is gained from any meal or broth

Scrying with Crystals of Vision:

  • Temple excavation is in south-east corner of high mana triangle.
  • Dead area about 1 mile across, near centre of high mana zone.
  • Buried or underground building. Kitchens, goblins and orcs cooking for and serving others and Ogre bosses in dining hall which has balconies.

Scry and Ambush

Th'rsday 3rd Frost - Duesday 8th Frost

We gather supplies and make 20 more Crystals of vision then use them to scry the complex thoroughly.

  • Kitchens and dining hall are in the central area of this complex, 4 wings spread from there.
  • Barricaded stairs that lead down to an lower level that appears flooded.
  • North: 70 ish Goblins
  • West: 20-30 Orcs. Empty rooms indicating their numbers are reduced, presumably from fight with Valindra last year.
  • East: A dozen Ogres, about 8 rooms, 3 of them used.
  • South: Bottleneck corridor, two pillars of bone, round door ringed by lateral rib bones, scrying is fuzzed beyond that for a few rooms.
    • Door opens in (southwards), bones hinge up to open door, dark brown (flesh?) tendrils in corridor beyond.
    • A couple of clear rooms, nicely furnished, spiked humans, bone lab, flesh lab, ...
    • A couple of fires we could potentially portal into.
    • The southern area seems slightly off, a little out of phase.
    • Spiked humans prepare food in the kitchens and carry south to serve the Drow.
    • Someone, probably one of the Drow have anti-scrying that goes with them and cuts out the crystals when they intersect. And someone not visible to the scrying.
    • 3 spiked Humans, 1 spiked Dwarf
    • Elf/Drow (not spiked) who issues orders to Ogres.

Two portable crystals made for each party member. We leave two 2' diameter and 6 portable ones rank 20 Crystals with Valindra's people. Cher and Mortimer sculpt appropriately grandiose stands for the big crystals.

A patrol heads out, 1 spiked human, a few ogres, orcs, several goblins. We track them east towards the Sea of Grass.

W'ansday 9th Frost

We ambush them on the plains. A one-sided fight results in all of them dead and us uninjured. Life seeking poisoned arrows from the goblin archers. The bone armour on the Orcs and Ogres pulls together to form a fortification and then potentially something bigger until we slay it.

Getting In

Looting the bodies:

  • Bone Shortbows (non-magical) - destroyed with bodies
  • Bone Heart Spike of controlling - destroyed with bodies
  • 50 x Life-Seeking Arrows - D+5, rank 4+ in bow required, ignore most defence, barbed.
  • 50 x Poison Arrows - Necrotic Poison, barbed, 1 poison damage, doubling each pulse.
  • 15 x Powder Vials - bone dust, snort for 'Strength of Bone'
  • 3 x Ogre Bone Weapons - Transforms into Bow, Shield, or Weapon. +10% SC
  • 4 x Healing Flesh Crawling Dead Slugs - Autonomously apply healing until they run out (about 20 pts).
  • Scroll (Human skin vellum): Flying rk 13
  • Scroll (Human skin vellum): Shadow Walk rk 13
  • Scroll (Human skin vellum): Summon Flesh Monster (like a flesh Elemental)
  • 6 x Ogre Arrows - Heart Seeker - Any potential Spec Grev becomes Heart. Archer controls victim, Necro Bind Will. Barbed, -20% MR to Control.
  • Pouches of Finger Bones - Invested: Bone Melt (like Hellfire), Enhanced Stream of Corruption, Slough Flesh (like Necrosis), Animate Dead, Fire spells...
  • Remnants of Bone Armour - Bound bone, shaped and crafted construct. Unholy. Multiple contingent actions.

Burn and bury bodies, fly back to the Elven escarpment, divine, rest.

Fly to Kilroy's and back to bind ourselves to his plate.

Th'rsday 10th Frost

Fly to a discrete landing west of the corrupted zone; Earth Elemental tunnel in from 3 miles out which takes about 6 hours. Mid-afternoon when the mostly nocturnal complex is quiet, we go Invisible then Brazier portal into their kitchen while it's quiet. Sneak into a store room, tunnel through to another store room adjacent to the Flesh & Bone labs. Transparency scrying into the rooms, Bone lab is empty, Flesh lab has 3 occupants: a spiked human and 2 Drow, one of whom we assume is the master crafter himself.

Their portion of the complex seems to be out of phase/time with us, we tunnel into a wall to partially intersect and experiment with it. Anyone or anything entering it seems to be significantly slowed, E&E special alleviates this a little, the trapped and protected door and tunnel they use to enter and exit seems to bypass the slowing effect.

Tunnelling under we find the flooded (& occupied) floor 15' below, something stirs to investigate our intrusion through their roof so we close it.

Plan to take out the Flesh crafter & co.: (Plan F) wall them into the room, indirect spells cast through the wall targeted via transparency. (Plan S) Careful tunnelling between the floors then drop them through the floor into smoking magma. If S works it gets them out into normal time and away from their lab of nasty stuff. Or Plan A just takes them out.

Assault on the Labs

Mental Attack is resisted. Sleep affects the spiked human. The Flesh Crafter 'dodges' the Petrifaction. Wall of Stone to block the exit starts forming from the centre. Tsayoi's Tunnel starts irising open under the Flesh Crafter. The contents of the cauldron leap out and engulf the Flesh Crafter in a blob of flesh then it grabs the edge of the pit gradually oozing the FC away from the pit. Hellfire is fairly effective on the flesh blob, spiked human (who dies after volley 2 or 3), other Drow, various animate skins. Hands of earth, many spells resisted, Drow flees into the Bone Lab where Cronose targets him through the transparency we prepared earlier and drops him with Mental Attack. Tsayoi finishes off the flesh blob with a fusillade of fire but it bought enough time for the Flesh Crafter to flee (he slithered over the wall then legged it through the door). Cronose sends a damage enhanced phantasm after him but it is blocked by an enchanted door where it lurks and waits.

After several pulses of grinding away while the Necromancer escapes, Tsayoi hits the flesh blob with his fusillade of fire inflicting over 200 damage and finishing it off
Cher: "You couldn't have opened with that?!"

Cher itemises the dead spiked human, Mortimer turns the Elf/Drow into a stylish hat (until it is worn by an Elf). Tari tunnels the wall into the Bone Lab, I open a portal into the out-of-phase zone, we step through without being slowed.

The sphincter/anuus guardians come in behind us, we close the tunnel on the two slower bone columns and take a lot of damage (bite, trample, enhanced stream of corruption breath weapon) fighting the door Eog & bone serpent until Mortimer dismantles it in the blink of an eye.

Mortimer sheepishly looking on his handiwork while cradling the extracted breath weapon device "You seemed to be having fun, I didn't want to spoil it"
Dripping blood and corruption, Cher glares while sculling healing potions

Clearing Rooms

We move through a couple of rooms, trying to keep the pressure on. Sealing other doors with Stone Walls. Their Major-Domo steps out in the role of Herald, formally asking to parlay. We decline but invite them to unconditionally surrender. He also implies they might resort to releasing the lurker below.

Some flying skins charge through and attach to us, extreme exfoliation until Cronose and I strip and burn them off. The bone pillars catch up to us, we engage and hold them while Cher encases one in a Bubble of Force, we leave the other behind a wall of stone as we move on. A room covered in rk20 darkness and several feet thick in death scarab beetles which burn in Tsayoi's immolation, then he burns the rest with smoking magma. Mortimer gradually works his way though overriding their Darkness with equivalent light.

A library, bedroom and study, the first two have been rapidly looted by the owners.

Cronose reports there is significant activity in the nearby room that leads down to the flooded level and the entity below 'Abby' has been talking to him, it's not happy about being bound below, it would like the sigils removed.

Another large room also in darkness, a dining hall.

We sense them lurking beyond waiting for us at choke points with flesh and bone constructs, then we use transparency to peer ahead.

Out the back door

Smoking Magma on a flesh thing and supervising sentient that were waiting in ambush; Mental Attack on a spiked human supervising the bone ballista, wall in the ballista; Teleport by various means through to bypass several rooms.

Suppress Wiccan ward, I fly down the exit tunnel, Tsayoi who is next steps on the trigger that collapses the tunnel. I fly faster, emerging in a could of dust; the rest of the party are forced back then they start tunnelling out their own exit.

Heads on spikes turn to look at me and start screaming, I fly up through the rotting canopy to get clear then lead off the Unseelie Spriggan like creatures that converge firing darts.

The rest of the party emerge chaotically as Cher (now a Gecko under the hat of Cronose who is riding his unseeable phantasm) and Tari (now carried in Tsayoi's arms) give into the despairing wails of the spike-heads.

Regrouping in mid-air, rallying, restorative royal kisses; brief pause to discuss how we could reacquire the Drow.

We ask Maelstrom to ask the winds who indicate something flew south very fast. We then ask him to head to the Ruby Waters to ask the Warder to come track the Drow.

While he's gone we head to the front door of the complex, most of the minion Orcs, Goblins and Ogres have fled, they still fleeing, the tail end is in a running fight with slimy grey things with black tentacles.

Slimy grey lesser-undead, 'Skum', inherently good an avoiding detection.
Ridden by Long Lived Sentient 'Dark Tentacles'.

Cronose makes contact with 'Abbie' the ancient power controlling the Skum/Tentacles, negotiates for us to finish clearing out the Drow lair before we leave them to it. Abbie says they will stay here. Abbie sends an agent to meet us, a well-dressed blonde humanoid woman (Long-lived-sentient, Noble Malenti), Lily. Deep Water magic, Banding magic, fire susceptibility.

Burn and Loot

Heading to the Anoose tunnel, we seal the door with a wall of stone, transparency a window, then start burning (Smoking Magma & Hellfire) the flesh construct within. It starts oozing out through the cracks around the wall, we burn, it hits some of us with flesh bombs that ickily worm their way in. Burn, burn, burn, cleansing flame!

Two bone guardian constructs; Bubble of Force, roll them outside, double tunnels to inter them 40' down.

Capture and 'hat' the last spiked human.

Carefully search, loot, divine, ...

Altar to an old Drow God, bound by two brothers, owned by Illix. Owner and consecration can both be changed.

We work out that the area of corrupted forest has been caused by one of the Drow repeatedly casting Corrupting Terrain (a variation of Scarring Terrain). It should slowly recover now they have stopped.

Frysday 11th Frost - Reapsday 12th Frost

... Divining ...

Sunday 13th Frost

The Warder arrives with Maelstrom. One of the escapees has an extreme level of Pass without Trace, it flew away - we presume the other, unseeable Drow. The others appear to have teleported away once they exited.

Moonday 14th Frost

Walking slowly with Earth Elementals carrying the Cauldron and Altar to leave them with the Elves for now.

Duesday 15th Frost

We take the spiked humans to the Ruby Waters, remove the spikes, resurrect them, then leave them to convalesce for a few years.

Head down to Camdindel's tower to see if Lorto will open a door to the 'Joining' university in northern Terra Nova.

Northern Terra Nova

W'ansday 16th Frost

Waiting at Camdindel's for Lorto. Cher pays Lorto's bill.

Th'rsday 17th Frost

Out in the vale we step through Lorto's door to the 'Joining' university in northern Terra Nova.

Fly west for about 700 miles, near sunset camp in a clearing on a forested hillside.

Frysday 18th Frost

Continue west about another 5 hours, agrarian civilisation near the coast, no obvious large towns or cities, fishing boats.

Turn south, flying about a quarter mile off the coast for nearly another 5 hours.

Occasional signs of old civilisation, scarring and magical trauma.

Camp on a steep ridge near the coast.

Reapsday 19th Frost

Fly south off the coast. Occasional towns near the coast.

After a few hours we come to a fog/cloud bank about 2000' tall that stretches about 75 miles east to a mountain range and 10-15 miles off the coast.

Roaring of the world's largest waterfall, a few hundred yards into the fog the world drops away into warm fog.

We head east inland, flying slowly, following the cliff for about 60 miles then it curves south.

South another hour, then head inland further up into the mountains south a bit further then camp on a rocky ridgeline above the fog.

Sunday 20th Frost

Fly south inland of the fog for about 2 hours, land again in the hills. Fail to detect a grove from there.

Fly over and down the cliff for nearly 4 minutes (about 2 miles), then we see water below which is very hot. The air above is about 50 degrees C.

We fly west over the water about 10 miles then come to an escarpment.

Sense danger and ESP pick up about a dozen flying things closing on us from the fog above us.

Sharks in the Mist

A pack of 15-20' long flying Mist Sharks. Bony head plates, rough skin, charging attacks, bite. With a diving attack, they charge through us, we evade and take a couple of heavy hits but avoid most of it. Then we counter-attack: Charm, Hellfire, Fusillade of Flame, Dragon flames, Petrifaction, Scarab Swarm.

Mil Sci: Cher, you are falling into boiling water with a 6,000lb shark statue clamped to your arm, do you need aid?
Cher: Not at all, but it may be a few moments before I can rejoin you.

I am swarmed and abraded by 4 of the charmed ones. Cronose drops one with Mental Attack. Mortimer kills one and damages 5 more, one flees. Tsayoi engages and kills the last 2. Cher sinks... As promised, Cher frees herself before she hits the bottom and flies out of the water pursued by giant squid tentacles. Cronose controls his shark, we ride them up the line of the cliff. They have a mist-transformation ability which they seemed to 'cast' on impact, one of those turned Cher's ear to mist. As they still float, we drag the two bodies with us to examine later.

There is an angled planar/middlemarch boundary extending up from the top of the cliff. We throw the body of a flying shark though, it falls on the other side but resumes floating when we drag it back.

Flying through is safe for us, plants on the other side are giant-sized. Skin and loot the Shark corpses (Skin, Teeth,...) Fly east, everything here seems about 10 times the size they'd be on the outside, even the land is bigger.

A few hours later we start seeing Orc villages, Goblins, Ogres.

We camp for the night in the crook of a large tree.

Moonday 21st Frost

A bit further on, the forest becomes dense and overgrown with thorns and vines.

We fly up above the canopy, there we can see the coast and see there is a large circular region of this thorny area, it seems the Heartwood is close to the centre of this.

Vine Speech

Cronose looks into the future where we fly into the centre and descend, and sees himself being torn up by plants and absorbed into being one with the green.

We decide to land at the edge and approach carefully. There is a boundary containing the vines which are constantly moving and pressed right up against it. The world laws on the other side are more 'primal' than on our side.

Tari steps in with our introductory piece of heartwood, the vines edge back then try to grab her but we snatch her back in time.

Enclosing her in a Bubble of Force, we try again. The edge of the bubble peels back where it crosses the boundary, Tari speaks through the small hole in the leading edge. The vines seem to listen, after quite a while the vines form a face, a green man, it asks if she has come to join it, she says no, it thinks... She reaches out to touch it, nothing happens then she gets sucked in and is gone. I try speak to enchanted but it seems E&E magic is too un-primal to work on the other side. Mortimer reach through and touches the vines, nothing happens then he gets sucked in and is gone.

Precog shows they come back to us within 22 hours, so we settle in to wait.

Ancient Divination shows the boundary is also a gateway, to a place of of primal life/earth/Fae-ness. Plane: Primal Alusia

This side of it, the giant-ised area is caused by leakage from the primal area.

Tari & Mortimer pop out about 5 hours later. Because they were not willing to join, they could not stay. Those who sent us would be welcome if they come to join. They asked to see the heartwood and were shown a vision of a mound in a glade. They ask for a seed, cutting or similar as proof of linkage and felt a momentary pain before being ejected.

Checking that, an inch of bone in their arms have been changed into wood.

We invisibly fly west out of the forest, over the sea and eventually out of the mist at sea.

W'ansday 23rd Frost

We scout around a bit, at the south end (about 400 miles south of the northern end), the water flows up out of the trench back into the sea.

The separated shape overall is long (north-south) but not too wide and thinner at either end.

We Banish back to Slippery Rock then head down to the Ruby Waters to report in.

Th'rsday 24th Frost - Reapsday 26th Frost

We take the Altar and Cauldron back to Seagate by river barge.

Buffs & Mil Sci

Long Term (assumed always on)

Magic (caster) Rk Effects Duration Ch Cr Mo Rn Ta Ts
Greater Ench. (Rn) 20 +21% to Res, Mag, Com, and S&S. 6 days P Y P Y P Y
Witchsight (Rn) 22 See Invis 12.5 hrs Y Y Y Y Y Y
Ench Armour (Rn) 19 +40% Def +1 AP 14 DR vs Phnt/Nmare. 10 hrs Y Y
Earth Armour (Ta) 20 +42% Def +1 DR 21 hrs Y Y
Str of Stone (Ta) 20 +20 EN 42 hrs Y Y Y Y Y
Fire Armour (Ts) 12 52 Ablative vs magical fire damage 13 hrs Y Y Y Y Y
Fire Proofing (Ts) 6 Protection from non-magical fire 7 hrs Y Y Y Y Y Y
Ice Traversal (Ch) 20 Travel over ice and/or snow without slipping or sinking in. (+7 TMR on flat ice) 7 hrs Y Y Y Y Y Y
Self Only  
Mind Shield +10+2/rk% vs M.Att. Tsayoi Disguised Mind 1+2/rk hrs 6 8 12 P
Sense Danger 49% 71%
Navigation Extra Navigator ranks as listed and safer travel 1+rk Hrs 4

Short Term

Magic (caster) Rk Effects Dur Ch Cr Mo Rn Ta Ts
Weapon of Flames (Ts) 16 +17 BC%, +8 Dam. +16 vs Undead/Cold 21 min 1
Enchant Weapon (Ra) 15 +16 BC%, +5 Dam. +7 vs Phn/Nm 20 min Y
Mind Speech (Cr) 10 Range 240ft 80 mins
Instil Flight (Ch) 20 60 mph, 1,000 lbs limit 10 hrs Y

Misc

Enhance Enchantment
(Ra) rank 12-13: 70-80 seconds
Herbalist Lunch/Broth
Tsayoi rk 7, Meal 4 FT or Broth 4 FT
Rahne Ranger ring
+6% Def, +6 IV in Melee and Ranged
Dance (Cher)
5 mins dancing every morning for Reroll 1 failed MR or ignore 1 stun
Snail Shell (Cher)
1 each, crush to undo one terrible consequence
Tsayoi's Fire Elemental Pasty Chef
Rk 7, 8 in pastries

Watch Order

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Cher Tari Cronose Mortimer
Tsayoi Rahne

Marching Order

Skirmish Formations (Front)
Default

Cher Rahne
Mortimer Cronose
Tari Tsayoi

Double File

Cher Rahne
Mortimer Cronose
Tari Tsayoi

Single File

Rahne
Cher
Mortimer
Cronose
Tari
Tsayoi

Astrology

Lucky Numbers (Rahne)
Cher Cronose Mortimer Rahne Tari Tsayoi
39 96 82 57 26 94

Calendar

Winter: Frost 822 (7)
Moonday Duesday W'ansday Th'rsday Frysday Reapsday Sunday
Samhain 1 Guild Meeting Seagate 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 10
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
28 29 30 1 2 3 4
Winter: Snow 822 (8)
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
12 13 14 15 Solstice 16 17 The Duke of Carzala's Winter Ball 18 Yuletide
19 Days of Chaos 20 DoC2 21 DoC3 22 DoC4 23 DoC5 24 DoC6 25 DoC7
26 DoC8 27 DoC9 28 DoC10 29 DoC11 30 Twelfth Night 1 2
Winter: Ice 822 (9)
3 4 5 6 First Plough 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30