Trash and Burn

Scribe Notes

Summary

Adventure: Trash and Burn
GM: Scott Whittaker
Season: Summer 793 WK

Party

• Aqualina, Water Male Orc (Scribe)
• Slasher, Non-mage Male Orc (Mil Sci)
• Shooter, Non-mage Male Orc
• Gorthag, Non-mage Male Orc
• The Reverend. Necromancer Male Orc (Leader)
• Tony Birdane, Namer Male Elf
• Flamis, Fire Female Human

Time on adventure

01/04/92 to 12/05/92 AP

Employer

None

Mission

Basic exploration. Rescuing a dragon

Plane

Glorantha

Heroplane

Brittania (and maybe a few others)

Places visited

New Pavis - City on Gloranthia

Old Pavis - Ruins next door

London - City on Britannia

Major NPCs encountered

Windwhistle - a wyrm

Dasnac - Hellhound

Sarah - disembodied voice on the HMS Eagle

King Richard the Eighth - King of Brittania

Original Scribe Notes

Media:Snsu9301.zip

Scribe Notes

31/03/92 Guild meeting time again. Thank goodness for that. I had already missed one opportunity for adventuring because I wanted to get some training in using weapons. Starflower had pointed out, since I was in a reasonably tough and strong orcish body, that I might as well take advantage of it. Fair enough but I'll be very glad to get out of it. It's like wearing an ill fitting set of clothes. They just don't feel right. On Starflower's recommendation I signed up on an adventure that had four other orcs in it. This adventure involved a trip to a recently discovered plane, called Glorantha, where we were going to investigate a ruined city and see what we could find. No party employer this time, just that these orcs had heard of the place and wanted to have a look. My fellow adventurers on this trip were: Slasher - a very big orc with several battle wounds. He had a reasonably high PB for an orc. He was 5'11 with long arms. When asked what weapon he had, he thumped a GIGANTIC two handed sword on the table. He was also wearing chain mail and carrying a crossbow. He told us he was a close combat specialist. Shooter - Slasher's twin. He favoured the crossbow. Apart from that they were virtually identical. Gorthag - An uglier orc than the other two. He was wearing chain mail and a large sword. He told us he liked drinking. The Reverend (Rev). He was a shorter orc than the others, only 5'8, and 18 stone. He was wearing leather armour and carrying a hand and a half sword as well as a crossbow. Also there were little bits of skin hanging off him. The others referred to him as a 'holy man' but I soon figured it out. He was a necromancer. Tony Birdane. This guy wasn't an orc. Instead he introduced himself as a humanoid. He was tall (6'2") and average looking. Most of him was hidden in a greyish hooded cloak. He said he was a Namer by hobby. I strongly suspect he's an elf and I hope the others don't find out. Apparently orcs think that elves are rather tasty. As for me, Aqualina, currently I'm inhabiting a male orc body (I originally was a human female) which was 5'7" and just over 14 stone. I was immediately christened 'Runt' by the others as they reckoned I needed a proper orcish name. I was wearing a nondescript aquamarine cloak (and not much else, apart from the loincloth, the red sash of defense, a scimitar and crossbow). I told them I was a water mage. Talking of new names, Tony was christened Tody by the others. Party leader etc was decided next. The Reverend, became the leader as he was the smartest of their group. Slasher was the military scientist, and I became scribe. I think it was because I already had my pen and paper out. All the other orcs pointed at me and said "Scribe!". We discussed where we were going. The ruins in question are called Old Pavis, with the city of New Pavis next door. Old Pavis was a favourite spot for treasure hunters but there was so much of it that there was a good chance that there was still something to be found. Also the New Pavis authorities kept a strict control on things. The access to Glorantha was through the local Trade Delegation, just fifteen minutes away. No need to take horses. Once the meeting broke up, Tony and I went to the Guild Library to find out more about Glorantha as at least two other parties had been there. The others decided to check out the Gloranthan Troll bar, called the Thunderbreath Gobbleguts, that had opened up recently in the docks. Curiously enough, since the place opened, the number of robberies, muggings, etc in the area had been cut at least in half. The story is that the trolls had been discouraging crimes in that area as getting mugged on the way to the pub was bad for business. I found quite a lot of interesting things about the place. For one thing, magic is divided into Cults, rather than Colleges. New Pavis had rules about weapons and armour. No armour was to be worn and weapons had to be peacebonded. The orcs weren't going to like that. To be allowed onto Old Pavis we were going to have to fill out some registration forms for adventuring licenses. There was a curfew in force, at least there was when the last adventuring party was there. I left Tony in the library while I wandered down to the bar to find the others and tell them what I had found out. As I suspected they weren't too impressed when I told them about the peacebonding and the curfew. When I arrived, Rev was talking to a rather scorched looking human at one of the tables. It was one of the Guild firemages, a chap called Spandex. He had been one of the first adventurers to enter Glorantha and was now part of the trade delegation. Rev was quizzing him for information and was basically learning the same stuff as I had. The others looked like they were settling down for a long drinking session. 01/04/92 I got down to the courtyard just in time to watch Slasher attempting to break the record for the amount of stuff to be loaded onto a mule. I was hoping he wasn't going to break the mule. However the mule soon made its feelings known by kicking him. Slasher tried to hit it back and missed. Finally we split the gear between two mules. We headed off for the trade delegation building. Once there we were magically scanned for iron. Seemed the stuff was rather valuable over there. Instead they use bronze, which is rather valuable here. Hence there were quite a few controls on trading the stuff. Once we entered the courtyard we were told to stand on a circular patch. Without warning, everything faded out and we found ourselves moving rapidly through some sort of multicoloured pyrotechnic display. I thought it was fun but Gorthag and Shooter were rather ill. Shortly after that we materialized on an identical area. It was dusk here (Glorantha is 12 hours out of phase with Seagate) which suited us fine as we planned to travel during the night and rest by day. So we set off. Dawn found us near a convenient cave so we decided to settle down. Slasher kept himself busy setting up traps - lots of them all around the place, including some very large bear traps. Ugh! I'll have to be careful where I step. He had also scattered caltrops about. One trap had been baited with some silver pieces. Meanwhile I went water hunting but all I could find was a small brackish pool. 02/04/92 (Seagate time) I drew the last watch with Slasher. Near the end of it, just as it started to get dark, there was a large CLANG. Investigations showed that one of the bear traps had caught a sabretooth tiger. Looks like its sabretooth for breakfast. The silver pennies were gone but the trap hadn't been triggered. Slasher reckoned it was pixies and started making plans to catch one. I told him he was wasting his time as those things move very fast. When the others arrived, Rev started skinning the tiger while the others had breakfast. They ate it raw. I decided to make a small fire and cook my bit. .2. While we were munching on breakfast, we suddenly heard the sound of a horse rapidly approaching. To my dismay, I realised the rider was one of the Guild Fire Mages. Slasher yelled at her to stop as the path ahead was littered with caltrops. She managed to stop the horse before it stepped on too many of them but ended up falling off and landing in an undignified heap on the ground. She sat up and started removing caltrops, while muttering something under her breath. I recognised her as Flamis. I had never met her personally but she was a firemage with a reputation of being a bit of a pyromaniac, but not as crazy as some. She was a reasonably short person, just slightly taller than I had been, with short blond hair and a freckled complexion. Most of her clothing was hues of red. She told us that the Guild Astrologer reckoned that we were going to need some extra firepower. While I was 'meditating' Shooter found me. He wanted to know if the newcomer was a Guild member or potential dinner. I was very tempted but decided to tell the truth. A few hours later the camp had been dismantled and we set off. I decided to scout on ahead. I did notice however that Shooter was eying up Flamis's horse, Flamefoot, rather hungrily. I could tell he was restraining himself and reminding himself that it was not a good idea to eat a fellow party member's horse, especially when said party member could fry you in retaliation. Nothing of interest happened that 'day'. When dawn started lighting the sky we settled down to camp. 03/04/92 Again it was Slasher and me on watch when one of the traps went off. This time it was a large snake, about 9 foot long. Slasher immediately grabbed one end and began munching on it. With a muttered 'Excuse me' I grabbed my scimitar and chopped off three quarters of it before Slasher had a chance to scoff the lot. It got divided up among the rest of us. Of course the other orcs had it raw, but Flamis had already lit a fire so Tony, her and I cooked our bits. Flamis was spreading a thin layer of some reddish sauce on hers before cooking it. When Gorthag noticed, he said 'Oooh yummy. Tomato sauce'. Before anyone could stop him he had scooped up a BIG dollop of the stuff and had spread it rather thickly on his portion. Shooter decided to have some too. What it really was, hit them about a few minutes later (it takes a while for an orc to realise that something is not quite right). Both of them made a rush to the ale barrel and began guzzling down the liquid with gusto. Flamis explained that the stuff was actually tandoori sauce and one of its principle components was chili. Slasher was rather intrigued by the effects of this stuff on his fellow orcs and wondered if it would make a good contact poison. So he coated some on his sword reckoning it should do extra damage. Flamis asked him whether he 'wreally' (she's got a really bad lisp) wanted his sword to do extra damage. When he said yes, she muttered something. Suddenly his sword burst into flame. Slasher was so surprised he dropped it, then stared at Flamis very suspiciously. She said that it wouldn't hurt the person using the sword as it was special magical fire and would go out in a few minutes. Sure enough it did, however Slasher still regarded the sword suspiciously before picking it up. On the way down the trail, at about midnight, we suddenly spotted a huge twoheaded snail in front of us. At that moment from behind us came some sort of scorpion man, and from the sides came four humanoid goats. Ambush! We were neatly encircled. It was time to draw swords and go for it. I went for one of the goat things on Slasher's instructions and nearly dropped my sword. (We later found out that the goat-like humanoids were called broo). Soon all the orcs were engaged in combat, forming a sort of defensive ring around Flamis and Tony. Just then, the scorpionman was enveloped in flame. He must be tough, as he survived it. Meanwhile I was having difficulty hitting my broo but Slasher was helping. Once that one was down we went to help the Rev. I noticed a burst of flame out the corner of one eye. Flamis had toasted the snail. I heard her boast later that it was a double-effect dragon-flames. Finally we had defeated them all. We were planning on capturing the last one but it decided to kill itself first. The corpse of the snail revealed two uncut gems, one small and one large. Neither of them were magical, but they looked valuable. We decided to follow their trail to see where they had come from. To our surprise the trail suddenly disappeared in an area that Tony said had a magical aura. I backed off from it as I was convinced it was some sort of ward. Tony reckoned it was some sort of teleportation area. Just as he examined it, the magic disappeared. The cooked snail was rather delicious especially after Flamis added something she called garlic butter to it. According to Tony it was a Dragonsnail. Meanwhile Rev had been doing a Speak with Dead and discovered that these things had been sent by a magic-using broo to ambush anyone who came down the road. This broo was based somewhere in the ruins of Old Pavis. These creatures had been affected by chaos. Slasher wanted to know what chaos was so I attempted to demonstrate. First I heaped up three piles of sand then use a colour cantrip each to turn them different colours. The heaps represented order. Then I mixed them all up. That represented chaos. Slasher finally got it when he realised that the creatures were mixed up bits from normal creatures. A short while later we decided to camp. I managed to find a small pool of clear water that was big enough for me to immerse myself in. So I cast a waterbreathing on myself and went to sleep. A little while later I was disturbed by Slasher laying traps all over the place. 04/04/92 When I woke up and clambered out of the pool I suddenly realised I couldn't remember where Slasher had put all those traps. I had to call him over to help me out. He wasn't sure either but I managed to find my way back to where the others were. I think that dip must have put me in a good mood as I even said 'Good morning' to Flamis. Nothing very interesting happened for the next four days.

08/04/92

We finally reached the river that lead down to New Pavis. Flamis had offered to fly us down but we finally vetoed that idea because of the mules. Someone got the idea of making a raft to sail down. While the orcs got busy and did that I wandered over to the nearest fishing village and asked them what sort of fish were in the river. I was told that there were all sorts, including some sentient species. Now that was very interesting. I'd have to keep an eye open for them. As construction progressed, the resulting raft became more and more elaborate, finally resembling some sort of war barge. I helped out with the construction under the water then, when it was finished, cast a Ship Strength on the whole thing. The trip down the river was much faster than it would have been if we had rode down, especially with a Mage Wind going. It was also much more relaxing. However, to my disappointment, I saw no signs of intelligent aquatic life. Once we arrived at New Pavis, two hours later, we beached the raft and wandered over to the guard house. There, we had to fill out some forms. Another requirement was to remove our armour. This meant that we were treated to the sight of the orcs having to peel their armour off. It turned out they hadn't removed it for months. Slasher reckoned we should all stick together so we ended up staying in Rowdy Djoh's Inn. This was a bit of a dive but the orcs liked it. While some of them went off to be healed (and then get drunk) Flamis and I decided we would go shopping the next day, so we went off to our rooms. We ended up having a long talk. She's really okay once you get to know her. .3. 09/04/92 The orcs were noisily settling down for the day, talking loudly about which bit of the ruins they wanted to attack first, when Flamis and I got up. She got the jewels from Rev, explaining that she had this magical thief-proof purse, so they would be safe, and that we ought to get them valued. We borrowed the city map, and headed for the wealthy part of town. Flamis seemed to think that we'd have a better chance of finding a good jeweller there. She was right. We found a shop run by a dwarf. He examined the gems, and declared that the smaller gem was a ruby worth 200 lunars (a lunar is equivalent to a silver penny), and the larger at least 5000 due to its rarity, although he couldn't tell us what it was. We could bring them back later and he'd get his father to identify it. When Flamis told him where we got them from, he dropped it as though he'd been stung, exclaiming that the gems must be contaminated by the chaos creature. We had to take them to the temple to get them cleansed (which cost a hundred lunars, even though as it turned the magical fire had done a pretty good clean-up job). The priests were shocked when we told them we'd eaten toasted dragon snail. I vowed never to eat chaos creature again. Flamis wanted to find out more about the chaos creatures and the gods these people keep on talking about, so we went to the Temple of Lhankor Mhy, the deity of knowledge, where they had lots of books and people who could answer our questions. It turned out that chaos creatures were made by the chaos gods. There are lots more kinds, including blobby things that stick to ceilings and drop on people and a thing that sounded a minotaur with a pumpkin head. Real strange beasties. They also told us that there was currently an information swap between them and Alusia. I went off to talk to the people at the local river temple, while Flamis went to the Yelmalio temple. We figured that this was the closest one to the Fire College even though it was the Sun God. I found out to my surprise and delight that there really are intelligent fish in this place. It was afternoon by the time we got back and rested a while before waking the orcs in time to get to our appointment with the dwarves. The dwarf's father told us that the larger jewel was a very rare purple diamond. He agreed to cut it for 5000 sp and half the offcuts. As a cut gem it would be worth 30000 lunars here, and who knows how much back in Seagate. He also agreed to set the ruby in a ring for Flamis, who seemed to fancy it. (Ruby = red = fire-mage = it figures...) The orcs had come up with a scheme for making broo-skin armour. They have the skin, but cleansing it will be risky and will cost 6000 lunars. I agreed to loan them the money, and the Rev signed for it. It will be ready in two weeks time. As twilight fell we crossed the bridge, heading for the Griffon Gate into Old Pavis. Flamis and Tony were riding the mules, since their horses were left at the Inn. The orcs are planning on lots of heavy treasure so we needed the mules. There were guards at the gate who checked our passes and let us in. The big rubble was a pretty good description of that place. Heaps of broken stone stretched for miles and miles in front of us. Not a single intact building in sight. Flamis wondered aloud as we clambered over the wreckage what kind of explosion could have flattened an entire city like this. Then one of the orcs called out and pointed. A dark hole against the darkness which could only be a stairway leading down. The orcs formed up with Flamis and Tony in the middle, and down we crept. A passage opened up to the side. Flamis, who can see further into the darkness than the rest of us, said that there were three entrances leading off to the south before the passage ended. In front of us we could all just make out a doorway. Shooter kicked the door open and Slasher slipped into the room. Not cautiously enough. Something fell from the ceiling and wrapped him up like a slimy blanket. Shooter fired, doing more damage to Slasher than to the thing. Flamis cast and the thing went up in a ball of flame, revealing a very angry but completely unsinged Slasher. In the remains of the blob there was yet another gem. Abruptly Flamis called for silence. Then we all heard it. A noise. From past the door on the east wall. Cautiously Rev pried the door open with a crowbar. Revealing blackness. Magical darkness which this see-in-the-dark infravision stuff can't penetrate. It advanced towards us. I backed away. thinking this could be very dangerous magic. Slasher fired into the darkness, followed by Shooter and Gorthag. Something unhuman screamed. Suddenly a evil leering creature with great leathery wings loomed out of the darkness. A gargoyle. Followed closely by a dark troll and two trollkin. The trollkin set about clobbering Rev, while the rest of us (except Flamis who was busy trying to cast spells, backfiring most of them as I discovered later) surrounded the gargoyle. It looked to be getting the better of the fight until I managed to get an especially good hit on it from the rear. Then Slasher finished it off. The troll took a lot of killing but eventually it was all over. Rev had got one of his trollkin, and Tony had managed to skewer the other with his rapier. Only one of Flamis' spells had gone off and that didn't do much. She was looking tired and distinctly fuming, muttering nasty words in dwarvish. The orcs looked hurt. Only Tony and I were undamaged. But there was treasure. The troll had a magical wand (which Tony said detected silver) and a magical crystal (which stored fatigue). Flamis' eyes lit up at that one. She explained later that she was tired of running out of fatigue from casting spells. Apart from that we found 98 copper 31 silver 6 gold, 2 cut gems, an earring, a gold circlet, and a scroll written in an arcane runic script that none of us recognised. We decided to rest for a while so we could get some fatigue back. Tony and I stayed on watch while the others rested. Twelve hours later we felt a bit more alert. 10/04/92 We decided to take the lot back to the city and discovered it was near midday. The orcs got themselves healed (cost 300 silver) while Flamis and I got the items divinated. The priests took the scroll in exchange for the divination. We found out that the crystal did indeed store fatigue points, up to eight of them, but there had to be at least one left in it at all times. It also had to be attuned to the owner. Flamis attempted to attune it but failed. When no one else objected to her claiming this object for herself, she paid 500sp for one of the priests to help her attune it. The wand did detect silver, any silver within 40 feet, but only had an 80 percent success rate. No one else wanted it so I hung onto it for now. I suppose it could be useful for locating sunken treasure ships. Once twilight came around, we headed back to the ruins and reached the spot where we had been and carried on down the corridor. In a side room, we found one of those pumpkin headed chaos creatures asleep. Instantly all the orcs aimed their crossbows at it. I protested at first, saying that this didn't seem to be an honourable act, but the others pointed out that chaos creatures weren't very honourable anyway. So my crossbow bolt joined the volley. Exit one pumpkinhead. There we found 55cp, 9sp and a gem in the bedding. The gem was picked up with the aid of a rag and securely wrapped in it, in case it was chaos contaminated. I tried the wand and discovered there was silver in the next room. So we went to check. In here were four figures standing around some sacks. They were troll sized and one was wearing what looked like silver armour. Tony then told us that it was a zombie. We all aimed our crossbows at it and fired. It fell over. Meanwhile the other dark troll zombies shuffled out. These were easily defeated owing to the fact that only one zombie could fit through the door at a time. So it was a case of queue up here to be really dead undead. In this room we found 142 copper, 20 silver, 7 gold, 5000 lead pieces (troll currency the orcs said) and a size 23 set of silver chain mail. Troll sized. Too big for even our largest orc. Since we had now cleaned out this area, it was decided to make it our base of operations. The corridor terminated in another blocked stairway. According to what we could figure out, topside, the entire building was blocking it. .4. 11/04/92 We rested here for the 'night'. In the "morning" we discussed what sort of treasure that we wanted to find. Of course the orcs wanted to find really BIG swords. After a while I got bored with all this talk of weapons and wandered off in the direction of the large, flooded, quarry. About quarter of an hour later Flamis caught up with me. I hadn't gone far. The others weren't very far behind her. Flamis decided she needed a very large fire so she could perform some sort of ritual. We managed to find enough wood for a reasonable sized bonfire but that was it. We lit the fire and Flamis sat in it. She also wanted if anyone wanted a Protection from Magical Fire. I took one. Then she started concentrating on what she called a Flame Sight ritual while the rest of us kept watch. While she was sat busy with the ritual we were visited by a wingless dragon, otherwise known as a 'wyrm'. His name was Windwhistler and he told us that he was a priest of the Sun Dragon. He had flown over to see what we were up to, and was soon satisfied we were nothing to do with Chaos. Just then Flamis fell unconscious in the fire. Frantically we attempted to put out enough of it so we could get to her. Windwhistler told us not to worry and that he would help. By some magical means Flamis was soon awake and the fire was out. She told us that she had seen a vision of a black clad human with horns and a belt of living heads. Windwhistler identified the creature as a worshipper of Thanata - a Chaos God. Flamis also mentioned she saw a large sword with a black hilt in the background. Of course the other orcs wanted it. Windwhistler warned them against it. Soon the wyrm left us as he had other places to go to. He did mention that Alusia seemed like a nice place and that he might pay a visit. Flamis warned him to be careful as there are a lot of dragon hunters in our plane. We had already determined that the Thanata dude lived somewhere below the rubble in this area so we started having a poke around. I was feeling rather nervous about this. An hour or so later, Shooter fell down a hole. He was unhurt and the rest of us followed. Flamis was one of the last down and she was caught by the other orcs. The corridor went west and was only wide enough to go single file. Gorthag volunteered to go to the front. Soon we found a small room with doors to the north and south. Gorthag opened the north door and got hit by a poison trap. Beyond that we were attacked by a dire wolf with some sort of cold gas attack. We all took damage from it while the three big orcs jumped on it and wrestled it. Meanwhile the rest of us backed into the room where I cast Resist Colds all round while Flamis let loose with a DragonFlames, killing the wolf. Tony read the wolf's aura and told us that its chaos mutation was caused by a priest of Thed, cast about a week ago. The mutations were extra toughness and the cold breath. The corridor lead into a room with three levers on the wall. We decided to check the other door in the first wall. Sure enough there was another dire wolf. We all shot at it and it died. At the end of that corridor was a room that was a mirror image of the other one - again with three levers. We went back to the first room. Some aura readings and we discovered that the switches were used to open secret doors. We had a hot meal and four hours rest before proceeding.