Land of the Mislaid

Land of the Lost Mislaid.

Scribe Notes: Session – Autumn 813

GM: Michael Parkinson
Night: Thursday NOT 28th Mar; resumimg 4th April (corrected date) at Michelle's.
Level: apparently innocuous, about 5 to 15 [max] previous missions; but it will be weird and risky for that level
Plane: mostly on Purple.
House Rules: Opposed rolling combat system play test.
also new E&E quickness, etc ...

WANTED: about six humans, passably ugly, that must NOT be too skilled or competent, but can still manage to discretely infiltrate a newly colonised southern continent.

The Party

• Tesla a one adventure character played by Jono Bean and Military Scientist
• Pretty Flower not your typical elf namer played by William.
• Felicity a one adventure Human Enchanter - Kate Murray
  
• A new character played by Kemys.
• Ruppurt a new Human Enchanter played by Ian Wood and Scribe
• Cassandra a low "pretty" human wicca played by Michelle Ellis and Party Leader

The Mission

Ange, from the Plane of Purple, is a Bard and Emissary extraordinary of your employer Lady Fell of the Great Wood. He says:
Millennia ago, La Grande Prophétesse advised the Elves of Great Wood of great future threats that would come to pass, including a Guild of magicians and mercenaries that would arise on the Plane of Alusia to assist us. You will be sent to a continent on Purple newly colonised by off-worlder's from many planes, but all paranoid about foreign invasion from other continents. Lady Fell wants for some not-overly competent ugly humans to find an overdue [air quotes] “close associate” spying on said ugly humans and tell him it’s time to come home or else return the equipment that he was given. You will be paid for the attempt; but paid more if you bring back the goods &/or useful information.

The Guild further advises that successful applicants MUST be human, enough of them adequately “ugly” (by the Purple Elves' standards) and all passably innocuous; preferably mostly non-mages; No powerful illusionists; No more necromancers. Apparently the colonials can detect hero-level persons, items, or magic effects ... probably pacted people too, although insignificant minions of the standard 4 (Mick, Gab, Raf, & Uri) can be tolerated; otherwise No 'Pacted' beings or items. It is very important to avoid undue suspicion, & due suspicion even more so. Do not expose the employer, her target, ... or the Guild.

Equipment & training: The employer’s emissary cannot transport anything iron. Substitute equipment will be provided. Spoken languages are not a problem; but training will be provided beforehand as required (e.g., to read the human language).

Key People

ANGE the Bard is the epitome of Elvish beauty, as expected for : sharp nose & cheek-bones, big mouth, receding chin; short (5’8”) despite freakishly long legs. Like a cross between a rat and a frog, except for the Long Golden curling hair and innate Elvish smugness. He has a special spell that will transport you between planes and get you to your destination continent without setting off any alarms.

MEGAERA FELL: a powerful noble elf of The Great-wood. Not to be crossed.

CHRYSUS of DOVES: (m. elf) an opportunistic adventurer, of poor but nominally respectable birth; a former associate of Lady Fell.

The Bard describes Ugly humans as [quote] ... vaguely person-like, too tall, yet legs still too short; most with black or brown fur on their heads (sinister black! yucky dark brown! — not Gold, Silver, Polished Copper or even ordinary Mossy Green). Also flatter womanly faces, although many of the he-humans, especially those with the grotesquely huge muscles have prominent lower jaws (not a beautiful, slim, discrete one) with excessively defined jawlines with Chins that stick out, often covered with even more fur! And as for the she-humans, most with their obviously swollen upper torsos ... [words fail him, for once].

Relevant Purple Background known to the Guild ...

... but NOT to the Employer or her spokes-elf. A previous Guild mission (Winter 797) went back in time. After they returned, the slow way, the people and countries had greatly changed but only individuals who were off-plane when the Mission left remain unchanged and remembered “how things used to be, but suddenly are no longer”. More robust, usually larger than the current Elves’ tame humans, the people of that Empire dominated three continents and had about a dozen off-plane colonies and a few naturalised residents from elsewhere. It is assumed that the Ugly humans are such former colonists.
Isil Eth also gave us valuable information, and high tea with style and grace and such youthfulness. It was very important. Oh yes, now i remember "dont say thank you to an elf, as that will suggest we owe them a huge favour". And if we have problems we should make our way to the dwarves or hobbits on the other southern continent. Dont go to the lizard-infested archepelago. Important safety tips apparently.

Scribe Notes

1st Fruit 813

We are off. No wait a minute the Annoying Employer remembered another thing to tell us.
Our voluble employer used Planar Magic, cunningly mistaken by us to be Bardic, to travel to the intermediary plane of Water, said with a foreign accent: "??". There we find Plaz'toro patrols, who are surprisingly concerned about people poaching Roc's, the large birds that prey on whales. Fortunately for us the seas around here are too shallow for whales, sharks and other large toothed aquatic creatures so we dont expect to see any Rocs or any of its prey. <note to seal this section so Aquilina doesn't try to do something heroic and because it is Aqualina, ultimately suicidal.> Off in the distance is a small island to which we travel on a self-made raft - told you it was shallow.

The convict colony This place gave me the willies, so i will write this quickly.
The buildings are all well made, and obviously built to stop the inhabitants from leaving, rather than keeping the fauna out. Most of the buildings are completely empty - either the inhabitants had time to pack everything before leaving or a guild party has preceded us.

Not all of the colony remains. An oval shape has been removed, much as if a colossus has scooped a large divet out the ground (buildings and all) and replaced it with a divet from a swamp. We assume this is the colonists way of 'taking our holidays home with us'. The swamp is mostly dry now, and only the smallest of creatures and hardiest of plants survive. Hmm, this is what Purple will look like.

This may be important - the colonists are humans from the plane of Purple who came here several decades ago, and on their recent return to Purple noticed some important changes, and as people were now living where they had before the change, they have taken their colonies to the southern continent.

Another apparently important thing is that they do planar travel by the (very large) bucket, taking everything with them.

Purple - the Great Wood We nonchalantly travel to the plane of Purple, arriving in a large wood, in sight of an ugly stone building, the Ministry of Retribution and Justice . In there we meet the Lady, get some weapons, some items, some knowledge, some skills and languages and stop eating. It would seem we are now even more hideous than before.
There is more to write, but my hand: it is cramping.

End of Gond We went to the southern end of Gond, arriving near one of two mines: Rainbow metal and some silvery metal. The mists dampen all smells and sounds - how can one be stealthy when everything is muted? She wants some armour made from rainbow metal, but somehow I think this may make stealthing difficult. Now some dull grey armour, or bark-brown armour, or dappled grey-brown-green armour that would be fun. or some thread that was really tough but could be woven into armour, that would be cool in summer, comfortable, quiet and washable. What is it with humans that don't wash but claim to be stealthy?
We left a third of our money and stored magic in End, and walked the turnpikes (permanent portals) to the seaside (dinner), to a quiet town (sleep), to the capital (gossipy news paper full of interesting information once we worked out the code system - apparently you cannot refer to someone by name. It is free to travel within a duchy, and a few silvers each to travel between duchies. At the seaside we see some flying ships bringing in fresh fish, some with under slung loads of ice.
Gond A large town, capital of the province/duchy of the same name. It smells of cinnamon and sweating humans.
Principality The dominant duchy, the Prince considers himself to be independent of the Governor of the continent. It has a smell of spices and with a hint of citrus. Do they wear cologne? It has many villages linked to it by turnpike, to provide cheap accommodation and food. most of these are walled, and the turnpikes are within small forts or stockades. We stayed at a nice place called Plover's Rest - honest smells: you can tell the locals from the commuters quite easily.
To our luck, we are each able to trace the path travelled by our quarry - Crisis - as he cross the continent. Small dots appear every 10 feet when he is walking, further apart when he is travelling by ship, so we loose his trail a few times. He has been to the town of Grond many times, so we chose to follow him to the north.

Mde Satsuma
Crisis is having a mid-life, having dressed in women's clothing and taken with a notorious rake (Captain Karl). As Mistress / Madam Satsuma, Crisis has masqueraded as soothsayer, of the guild of prostitutes, astrologers and soothsayers (I prophecy a surprise). Satsuma was last seen in the northern city of Z.
Z Heading north, we get to 'Z', pronounced "zed", a large military town on the edge of the desert. His trail heads into the desert, at walking pace. The desert is a dangerous place, full of dangerous creatures. We chose to find another way of finding him. Fortunately we brought Her, who is very skilled at putting men at repose, er their ease, and She had to spend only a little money getting people drunk enough to talk to Her rather than her Peaches. The airships are all military, commanded by military men, who did not see many peaches so uplifted that it like She wears aerium impregnated clothing. These military men need to get out more because they talk of the most trivial things, for example: Mde Satsuma's prophecies changed in character about 2 years 3 months ago; Satsuma was interested in Badlands; Satsuma on the brain.
Badlands We went to the University and learnt about Badlands: it was scooped here about 14 years ago (from the plane of Badlands to create the province of Badlands 20 miles square), then 3 years ago it was attacked by hideous (iron, mechanical, metal?) golems, thought to be from the lizards. The Governor sacrificed the province, or so he says as he was the only survivor, by setting the scoop mechanism to self (destruct) mode. This was just as a portal was being commissioned from Z to Badlands.

On the airship

The party boarded the Soarosaurus (90' private cargo airship) at Port'Abena. All the crew are human except Fred (and the ship's cat)

• Cap'n Kyle — lowborn roguish seducer (amateur, not professional courtier); good-looking, if sometimes a bit haggard ("It's not the age, it's the milage"); excellent gambler, but not always lucky. Magic items: rapier(?), leather goggles.
• Engineer Freedman ("Fred"), GTN Subhuman. Very hirsute (and orange hair at that), not overly tall, but strong, especially in the arms; taciturn but clearly intelligent, especially for an airmage, innovative mechanician. Secretive, especially concerning his large bag of tools Magic items: leather goggles.
• Brandy, the firemage — pilots the fire-ship hidden in the portside hull. High-spirited and dangerous ... almost always more dangerous to the enemy than to the ship.
• Doc — healer, short and stout (not all of it fat), a mainly functional drunk; cold and calculating, but well though of by all on board; once was gentry (you can tell from the way he ties his cravat even when intoxicated, the concealed jewellery, and the unspoken backstory). Magic items: blue glasses
• Roger, the cabin-boy — nimble, ex-thief (mostly); a very bad liar.
• Assorted Deck-hands (Garbutt, Hervé, Ivarr, Joslynn) — big, strong, suspicious, silent when sober.
• Two unknown guests (?), below: one alert but calm, the other ravenous.