Just Deserts

Summary

Scribe Notes

Adventure: Just Deserts
GM: Dean Ellis
Session: Winter 813wk
Night: Tuesday
Location Chez Ellis
Level: Low/Medium
Party:

• Definitely Tsayoi - Giant Fire Mage (Chris)
• Hypothetically Rahne - Human (f) Warrior E&E (Stephen) Scribe Mil Sci
• Surely Lyric - Dwarf E&E (Michelle) Party Leader
• Freshly Quentin Ulysses Ash Orc Warrior (Sean)
• Randomly Lila - Dark Celestial and Air Human (Kelsie)
• Barely Prue Human (f) Water Mage (Julia)
• Possibly Elgar Elven Mind Mage (Neil)

Employer: Rais Haytham of the Taghlib tribe

Summary: The guild has received a visitation from a powerful shaman of the Taghlib tribe named Irfan. He asks on behalf of his glorious leader that the guild send a party of luminous individuals to find that of the desert, that is not of the desert. There may be some translation issues. They offer echoes of the desert waste as payment. There may be some translation issues. They hope many powerful woman of the north come to be sacrificed on the green altar. There may be some translation issues.

As far as the guild can tell the tribe is based in the Five Sisters just south of the Gatar Depression

Scribe Notes

South by South East

In Winter the Desert calls
Sacrifice needed
By which hand is blood spilled?

Duesday 1st Frost 813wk

We are gathered by guild administrators as the offer of employment was delivered by a form of rune visitation. We introduce ourselves, organise roles and review the available information. In addition to the brief notes above (which they admit may have been mistranslated) they believe that the unknown thing in the desert has relevance to or will be a danger to us in 'the north' and will pay us 200sp per week to investigate (plus reasonable travel costs). We are concerned about the references to sacrificing northern women and ask the guild to commission astrology readings as to the meaning of the sacrifice and whether this tribe intend us harm. After some discussion we agree to fly via Brastor and the Gatar Depression, partly because we are already familiar with most of the route, and we hope the Taghlib tribe or someone who knows them will be near the old trade road. Also of concern is language, none of us and few in the guild speak Five Sisters Trader, we split up to try different solutions.

I head to the guild library to copy or borrow scrolls with the basics of the language. Most of the others head to town to find a native speaker among the merchants, sailors or diplomats in Seagate. Tsayoi finds a local factor who has a worker from the Five Sisters in his employ and negotiates for his services for the afternoon. Ferzil knows of the Taghlib tribe, they are usually near the southern edge of the Gatar Depression, midway between the coasts. He teaches us a few basic phrases and gives us some instruction in etiquette. Prue, Elgar, and Lyric gather the necessary components for Lyric to create language potions.

Guild Astrologer Visions A sea of broken glass High Towers A mage in a red turban on a high spire

Do our employers intend us harm? They seem tough but fair, something hungers for Prudence

What is the meaning of the sacrifice on the green altar? A pile of cushions within rounded silk walls

W'nsday 2nd Frost 813wk

Up before dawn to cast wings, we fly south east towards Brastor as the sun comes up. We reach the foothills west of Brastor around lunch and land to eat, Prue hurts her ankle on landing so we make our way to a nearby village to shelter for the afternoon and evening while the ankle is healed.

Th'rsday 3rd Frost 813wk

Up before dawn again and then flying on towards the Inn at Fort Gryphon in Gryphon Pass which we reach in the early afternoon where we are welcomed by Lyric's brother Henric. Also at the inn is Albrecht of Grymeron and a couple of his guards. We catch up on news since we last saw him. At my request he creates some of his language potions for us to speak Five Sisters for the season.

Frysday 4th Frost 813wk

Setting out early again we fly east to the barrier mountains, through a gap into the Gatar Depression then further east to the trade road and south following the road to Sumaldi. As we approach Sumaldi we bear west, land and walk to the western edge to set up a discrete camp.

Depression to Desert

Local monkeys come to check us out, we convince them we're not dinner.

Reapsday 5th Frost 813wk

Starting well before dawn we fly south maintaining at least 15 miles from Argon's watch and counting on the darkness to conceal us and our wings, after dawn when we're south of Argon's Watch head south-east to pick up the trail again and continue south.

Camping that afternoon and evening in a deep gully that conceals our rainstorm during the day and our small fire at night.

Sunday 6th Frost 813wk

Further south, near midday the ground starts gradually rising and at some point becomes the Five Sisters Desert. Rolling sand dunes, occasional rocky areas. Locating the feather indicates our employers is south so we fly on.

A solitary figure crests a dune to the east, stumbles and falls down the other side, we divert to investigate. Approaching cautiously and splitting to approach the figure from both sides, it turns out to be a trap by life/water draining heat hazes. Prue is nearly killed as her Life and Water aspects make her more vulnerable and attractive to the Hazes but we prevail. The stumbling figure is a Haze-possessed mummified corpse, beyond saving but we note identifying tattoos.

Camping for the rest of the afternoon and evening, we recover from our injuries.

Moonday 7th Frost 813wk

Flying on south at dawn, after a couple a couple of hours we approach a camp guarded by a 5' high ring of shattered glass.

The locals are not surprised to see us, nor are they troubled by our dark wings, once we identify ourselves they raise a solid sand bridge over the glass and invite us in.

Employment, celebration and first excursion

We are invited into Rais' tent to meet with him and Irfan. Curved silk walls billowing in the wind, mounds of green cushions.

Irfan can walk the desert in a spirit-vision/dream state, over the last 9 months he has become aware of things within the desert that are not of the desert, he can sense them in spirit form but they have no visible presence there. They sent scouts to one of the locations but they didn't come back. Irfan can sense that they have significance for the northerners so they sent for us to investigate. There are other tribes in this region and other seers, Irfan has not consulted with them.

The not-desert things occur seemingly randomly:

• Mostly 'nearby' (within 100 miles)
• Sometimes more than one location at once
• In all compass directions but less directly north than in other directions.
• Unknown duration and timing - he is not always searching for them and they are not always there. But no discernible pattern from what he has sensed.

We also discuss Hazes, which are of the Desert, there are others much bigger than the ones we encountered. Irfan identifies the functioning Haze crystals and explains how they work.

We come up with a plan to find a non-desert thing, Irfan will visit it in spirit and leave his feather physically there - as he did to contact us at the guild. We will then locate the feather and fly to the location.

The afternoon is spent preparing for tomorrow, the party tonight, and dealing with flirtatious tribesmen.

Duesday 8th Frost 813wk

We make use of the Haze crystals to help prepare ourselves and cast more spells in the morning. The additional casting leaves Tsayoi with black skin and a flaming fist, looking more like a Desert Djinn than a mountain warrior.

Flying NNE to the location just over 40 miles from the tribe is uneventful, we find the feather but nothing else. Flying out in a spiral search pattern we see nothing for some time until we spot something that is not sand about 20 miles north, probably too far from the feather but we investigate.

It is the ruins of an ancient city that was probably on the border of or within the Gatar Depression but is now mostly covered by encroaching desert sands. A small tent is concealed within the ruins, cautiously investigating we find three men excavating among the ruins beneath the sand. While they admit to little we are reasonably sure they are treasure hunters, they have seen strange things in the desert, a couple of weeks ago, people walking in the desert that were obviously not desert dwellers - they didn't move correctly.

Flying back to where the feather was left, we land and investigate the area, beginning another spiral search from the ground. It is getting hot on the ground, we decide to abandon the search when we are on the last hour of our wings so we can fly back to the tribe. Just as we are about to leave a swirl of sand vanishes as it passes within an invisible barrier, an effect we presume is similar to Illusionary Terrain.

Three Towers

After poking it a few times we step into the obscured area and see 3 tents on a packed circle of sand. The circle is high mana, the tents are magical and only appear to be tents.

Experimenting with one of the tents, Opening and a bit of brute effort gets one of the tent flaps open, looking inside we see a small stone tower no more than 30' across. Inside is also high mana.

Level 1 is storage.

Level 2 is living, cooking, and dining area.

Level 3 is sleeping and a humanoid sized empty crate.

Roof access through a trap door on level 3, not much on top apart from a flag pole and a pennant we don't recognise. A good view over the area from a concealed position.

We close the front door and settle in to wait for the occupants to return. Soon after noon one of the other 'tents' disappears, about half an hour later our tower relocates to the ruined city we visited this morning. One of the treasure hunters enter the tower and we grab him.

Lyric's charming ways get him talking, he's a dim young demonic minion/construct. He 'woke' in this tower, reports to his master (who we talked to this morning), he digs and practices his tower magic. They're on a 6-hour break and he is supposed to be sleeping now.

We let him sleep and rest ourselves, preparing to ambush the others this evening.

As the others emerge from their tent-towers we charge out and restrain them. Lyric's charm is applied to the boss, we find out he is a 'brother' of a mercenary cult, employed to supervise the tower-demonic as they train their tower magic. The location was his choice as somewhere remote and the excavations are a potentially profitable sideline. There are others who check up on him from time to time. The towers must be summoned to a new location which must be a high mana zone. He has an item that creates temporary high mana zones - we requisition that and his other interesting stuff.

We want to move the towers to a location of our choosing so we fly our prisoners to about 10 miles south of the Taghlib tribe, use a charge to create a high mana circle and have our cultist command the minions to summon their towers.

Ambushing the Dark

We take our prisoners back to Taghlib to consult with Irfan and Rais. They identify one of the symbols on the pennant that looks like the one used by The Red Mage in Saktekorum. They appreciate what we have discovered so far but want to know who is behind it and mostly why they are a danger to the tribe.

Irfan divines them and confirms the tower minions are some form of construct like flesh golems.

W'ansday 9th Frost

We ride the sand back to the towers with Irfan for him to examine and divine them.

After some discussion, Lyric decides we should go after Nerith's master before going to Saktekorum.

Coming up with a plan we fly back to Taghlib, part from Irfan, collect Nerith and two of the tower minions then fly on to the ruins.

That night, Lyric charms and Elgar hypnotises Nerith into believing he has found the plate his master is after, we then give him his invested Wind Speech and he follows the suggestion to report his success to his master and not mention us.

Then we leave Nerith manacled and slept in his dig tent and set up in ambush around it.

About three and a half hours after midnight we see wings occluding the stars and quickly cast our last minute spells. The master, two bodyguards and one tower minion land in the high mana circle about 60 feet from us, the master releases 3 hounds from his cloak and sends them coursing towards the camp. We wait while the master and his guards get 20 feet closer but then one of his hounds starts reacting to our scent so we need to act.

The hounds are dispatched or controlled fairly quickly, one of the body guards goes down fairly quickly and the other is controlled. The master swaps his tower minion with Nerith then pulls his sleep from him and throws it at Tsayoi, fortunately missing. Prue's fog and rainstorm are similarly gathered and thrown at us as magical grenadoes. Quentin's celestial counterpsell interferes with some of the masters abilities so he gathers it and switches places with his tower minion in the dig tent just we we had him surrounded.

Captured Priest

The fight continues, Prue smokes the priest out of the tent into Tsayoi's embrace, Elgar goes berserk with his axe, the priest teleports back to beside Elgar but can't shake Tsayoi so he conditionally surrenders to Tsayoi who is then rendered unconscious by Elgar. We subdue Elgar, save the priest from being crushed and revive Tsayoi - a win of sorts.

Liberating prisoners and corpses of potential escape items, discussing the ethics of what to do with the dead minions, working out how to fly with our prisoners, interrogating negotiating with the priest and discussing where to go next...

NB: the astrology reading also points to the Red Mage: "A mage in a red turban on a high spire"

An hour later the priest sends the agreed "everything is fine" message to his colleagues and we fly south to our captured towers. Lila and I detour via the village to update Irfan.

Th'rsday 10th Frost

We join the others a couple of hours later with Irfan and a couple of villagers to guard our prisoners.

After discussions and divinations we settle in to rest. A while later those on watch spot a cloud and an insect swarm approaching from the east. The priest identifies them as a couple of his more offensive colleagues, we head out to meet them. The priest talks to them just outside the illusionary terrain while we lurk just inside, they are reassured that he is ok and has matters in hand, he returns with a life-linked locust to ensure his continued health.

We go back to resting most of the day and night.

Frysday 11th Frost

Our usual pre-dawn start, casting in the high mana of the tower then flying east with sufficient diversion south to avoid the Dark Priesthood's main camp. We reach the Saktekorum river before our wings expire and Prue takes us downstream in a friendly current. Emerging outside the city we walk in on the main road from the desert as treasure hunters come in to resupply, the gate guards accept this with minimal questions.

Saktekorum

We find an Inn by the river near the docks, in the cheap but not too cheap part of town then split up.

Tsayoi and Elgar stay to guard our packs. Prue, Lila and Quentin go 'shopping and sightseeing' with a local guide to find out who the interesting people in town are and where they live. Lyric and I check out local armourers and smiths. Later Prue and Lila head out with Elgar to make contact with 'friends of friends'.

Reapsday 12th Frost

I head up to the library in the noble quarter and manage to find references to all 3 sigils on the pennant, camouflaging my interesting amongst many other queries throughout the day and establishing contact with several other scholars. Prue has lunch with her friend where the gossip about who's who, local work, and the social calendar.

We discretely compare notes that evening. The Sigils are for the Red Mage (confirming what we knew from both sources), Savnok, and The White Lady from the utmost west (presumably a Drow). The Red Mage is very important locally, a powerful mage, lives in his tower in the noble quarter, known to entertain ladies of the night, comes out to party at larger social events such as the full moon parties in the next few days, occasionally leaves town for something important enough, and hires treasure hunters to seek things for him.

Sunday 13th Frost

I head back to the library, Prue and Lila practice the local dance which involves minimal clothes and small bells.

That night we get worked into the crowd at a full moon party that the Red Mage is likely to attend. Lyric and I observe enough to locate him, Lila and Quentin read the auras of him and his bodyguards then Quentin uses Lyric's truth potion to pierce their powerful illusions.

Oz

Moonday 14th Frost

Changing tack, we decide to follow up on Lyric and Tsayoi's knowledge of magical towers with Dramus and Lord Curzon of Oz.

We leave town and fly north-east up the wild coast, camping in a small cove for the afternoon and evening.

Duesday 15th Frost

We fly east over the sea to the guild tower at Tycho and use the portal there to return to Seagate.

We report in to guild security, administrators, Namers, and then the pub, library or elsewhere till morning.

W'nsday 16th Frost

Dramus is not at the guild and has not responded to messages yet but we can use The House to travel to Oz.

Following instructions we enter the battered house on the outskirts of New Seagate, strap ourselves down and then ring the bell. One magical tornado and some second hand breakfast later we land in Oz.

We are met by Mombi, the Witch of the East who invites us in for tea and scones. Once she has satisfied herself as to our intentions she helps us attune to the local mana before we fly to Lord Cuzon's home.

Lord Curzon is not especially interested in our local problems but a little revenge on Savnok for messing with his invention does appeal. He would like us to bring him a tower to study and experiment with.

He provides a door for us through to Dramus' tower that exits into Potters Lane in Seagate. From there we head back to the guild to sleep, ready for an early start.

Th'rsday 17th Frost

Buffing up and taking our breakfast with us through the portal, we eat on the other side then fly back West heading for the cove we camped in a couple of days ago.

Chapter 9

Frysday 18th Frost

Reference

Buffs

Magic	Rk	Effects	Dur	Ts	Ra	Ly	Qu	Li	Pr	El
Shadowform (Li)	13	+28% Def	13.5 hours*	Y	Y			Y		Y
Enchant Weapon (Ra)	8	+9% +4 Dam	13 minutes
Shadow Wings (Li)	6	36 mph (234 miles)	6.5 hours*
Waterproofing (Pr)	6		39 hours*					Y
Water Breathing (Pr)	6		13 hours*					Y
Waters of Strength (Pr)	7	[D-2]+7 PS/MD	40 mins	MD	PS			MD		PS
Fire Armour (Fire Spirit)	10	44 ablative fire	21 hours*					Y
Fire Proofing (Tsayoi)	6	Prot from fire	13 hours*					Y

Enhance Enchant (Lyric)

Rk 10 (* indicates enhanced duration)

Greater Enchntment (Rahne)

Rk15 +16% on Magic & Combat

MilSci

Skirmish Formations			Watches
Default Rahne Tsayoi Lyric Lila Prue Quentin Elgar	Double File Rahne Tsayoi Lyric Lila Prue Quentin Elgar	Single File Rahne Tsayoi Lyric Lila Prue Quentin Elgar	3-4 Hrs per Watch A. Lyric & Elgar B. Lila & Quentin C. Tsayoi & Prue D. Rahne

Loot

• Echoes of the Desert - essence of magic/knowledge distilled from the Deseet.
• 1,000sp each for travel costs and advance on guild rates
• Scroll of 'Beginners phrases in Five Sisters Trader'
• 21 Haze Crystals - absorb fire damage storing it as mana (available as FT for casting).

Nerith and crew

• Wiccan amulets: Elder Flowers, Diamond, Luck, Demonic, Undead.
• Dark Priesthood amulet - Attunement/connection to priesthood. (Not taken as loot)
• 2 x Daggers
• Ring of invested Whispering Wind
• Ring of invested Shadow Walk
• Ring of invested Shadow Wings
• Wand of Mana Zones - creates high mana zones that last a day or so, can be recharged by appropriately powerful mages. Charges 4 3 2 1

Ashkar and Crew

• Dark Priesthood amulet - Attunement/connection to priesthood. (Not taken as loot)
• Cloak (from which dogs emerged)
• Armour - aids dark celestial magics
• Ring of invested Whispering Wind
• Ring of invested Shadow Walk
• Ring of invested Shadow Wings
• 1 surviving guard dog
• 50,000sp ransom

Treasure

People

Ferzil

Junior trader from Five Sisters, our language tutuor for an afternoon in Seagate. Blood donor.

Albrecht

Goblin Alchemist and Merchant from Grymeron. Met by chance in Gryphon Pass, provided language potions (rk 8 Five Sisters for 1 season).

Entropy Monkeys

Enchanted creatures, small animals (lemur sized). Known/suspected magical affect is that they stop movement and cause creatures who stare at them or stay near them (conjecture both) to freeze and suffer stasis effects - probably to their detriment.

Hazes

Greater Undead, light/heat based. Semi-substantial, near invisible whirling heat haze with tentacles. Drain life/water on contact. Increased damage to Water/Life aspected/aligned. Fire Armour protects against their touch, normal armour doesn't. They are more active during the day than at night. They vary in size and strength.

They sense and are attracted to life and water. Prue being a life-aspected water mage carrying an artefact of water is about 4 times as visible to them as an average person, a shroud of bound-fire reduces this to about twice as visible.

Treasure Hunters

Initially presenting themselves as treasure hunters of mixed backgrounds, and being fairly secretive. Later revealed as members of the dark brotherhood.

Taghlib Tribe

The shattered glass walls, moving silk, charms and dream catchers are primarily to protect and hide their camp from the Hazes. Loose or no marital bonds.

Chief - Rais Haytham

Big, strong, older.

Seer - Irfan

Blind, but able to see, blackness where his eyes and eyelids should be.

In-tune with the desert, senses disturbances/changes in it. Able to explore in his spirit form (a buzzard). Magic seems to be a mix of Rune, Wicca, Earth, Fire, Air, and Astrology. (GM Note - Irfan is a Shaman Desert mage. The Shaman side offers such things as spirit travel, prophecy, divinate, totem spirit. The Desert college is elemental in nature and concerned with sand and/or heat manipulation)

Dark Priesthood

Nerith - an acolyte

Dark Celestial-ish talents, spells and abilities. Unluck defensive aura makes him harder to target/attack.

Reports to a priest (Ashkar). Responsible for training 3 tower minions and looking for a plate in the ruins.

From the western kingdom, probably Aladar.

Gives us a contact at the Lonely Heart in Emitsburg if we want to contact (or join) the Priesthood.

Ashkar - priest - Celestial/Namer

Dark Celestial/Namer-ish. Castling style teleport swap with a minion. Grab spells of himself, volumes, others and use to cast or throw as a magical grenado. Carries guard dogs in his cloak. Warrior Minion bodyguards.

Has a few acolytes each of which is training a few tower minions.

Cowled Bug Priest

Flew as a swarm of locusts. Planted a life-linking bug. Dark Celestial/Wicca-ish.

Cowled Storm Priest

Came in on a storm cloud. Lightning bolt teleport to ground. Dark Celestial/Air-ish.

Lady Priest

Azurian Priest

Other cowled Priest

Tower Trio

Red Mage (Top Left Sigil)

Well known powerful mage of Saktekorum.

Bodyguards (under rank 20 disguises and auras) are a Djinn/Air Spirit, an Incubus, 2 high rank Warrior Minions, and probably some others who are able to blend into a crowd.

Savnok (Top Right Sigil)

Linked to Tower minions origins. Links to Dramus' Tower.

The White Lady (Bottom Sigil)

A power in the west, reference found in the oldest and most obscure tomes. Probably a Drow.

Tower Minions (estimated 30-50)

Mortals with souls, Alusians originally from Hell, flesh golem-ish, created full-grown for a specific task/talent - tower summoning ritual. Up to about rank 6 after 9 months. Each has their own 3-storey tower that they summon.

Warrior Minions

Similar origins to the Tower Minions except these are created to fight. Getting better with training time after creation.

Places

Brastor

border village,

Gryphon Pass

Fort Gryphon

Gatar Depression

Sumaldi, a jungle oasis, ruined city, on old trade route south, near Argon's watch. Known / Rumoured denizens - A couple of dozen Size 8 goblin shock troops, half a dozen hobgoblin weapon master NCOs, handful of very swarthy spell caster orcs (swarthy, even by orc standards), perhaps a hag, one or two minor deaths, more dates than you can shake a stick at. Also a large number of Entropy Monkeys.

Saktekorum

Eastern most of the five sisters.

Calendar

Winter: Frost 813 (7)
	Moonday		Duesday		W'ansday		Th'rsday		Frysday		Reapsday		Sunday
		Samhain	1	Guild Meeting Seagate	2	ABC Fly to Brastor	3	CAB Fly to Gryphon Pass	4	BCA Fly to Sumaldi	5	ABC	6	CAB
	7	BCA	8	ABC	9	CAB	10	BCA	11	ABC	12	CAB	13	BCA
	14	ABC	15	CAB	16	BCA	17	ABC	18	CAB	19	BCA	20
	21		22		23		24		25		26		27
	28		29		30		1		2		3		4
Winter: Snow 813 (8)
	5		6		7		8		9		10		11
	12		13		14		15	Solstice	16		17		18	Yuletide
	19	Days of Chaos	20		21		22		23		24		25
	26		27		28		29		30	Twelth Night	1		2
Winter: Ice 813 (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