What is the Big Bad Wolf afraid of?

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Summary

Adventure: What is the Big Bad Wolf afraid of?
GM: Dean Ellis
Session: Winter 815
Night: Thursdays
Location Chez Ellis
Level: Low

Mission

  • Investigation of a sacred and prohibited area near void wolf lands in Terranova. Employers: Void Wolves. Pay: 5,000sp
  • Record information about Void Wolves and related lands. Employers: The Guild. Pay: Guild rates
  • Collect samples of interest (not souls, we say). Employer: CamDinDel. Pay: transport to/from Terranova and possibly "other stuff" to be negotiated based on what is found.

The Party

Party Leader is a democracy but back up is Quentin

Scribe Notes

1st Frost

Guild meeting: Kale, envoy of Void Wolves hires us.

Maelstrom, colleague of Camdindel awaiting our recruitment of the Void Wolves to do some addtional investigations.

Head off to Camdindel's, unadventful trip, nice and smooth travel in a well appointed and well stocked carriage. Amira shows her inexperience in travelling and/or drinking quality liquors. Let's hope she matures over our travels, or learns to dump her drinks, otherwise we are going to be babysitting somewhat.

Arrive at Camdindel's, by flying across the lake in the horse and carriages, where we met the man himself and meet some colleagues, Lorto huge man of an assassin, and some freaky man Legion.

We talk about Terranova, the Void Wolves, alchemy, soul magic and all sorts of interesting things. We are advised (yet again) that travelling via the void is not a good idea as we will more than likely not make it however we can travel to Terranova by Portal which can be done by Camdindel's dear old dad who is a greater undead - holy crap!

Maelstrom is going to tag along with us which could be fun if we remember he is there! He can also help with weather protections.

2nd Frost

Head off to Argon's Watch where we met our Void Wolf, Sam, for the first time - wow the armour.

Dear old dad sets up a Portal from Argon's Watch after giving us a get home and arrive in Terranova on a plinth in a sea of ash.

Fly across sea of ash, which is full of shark like creatures. Kale and Sam travel across the void and meet as at the end.

We head into a forest travelling for hours though the forest to the lands of the Void Wolves. The temp drops the further we move away from the ash. We get to a clearing which Kale says has a house in it but they never go there, only go round and he doesn't know why. We may want to check on the way back.

We stay in Horton's pop up tent overnight which is pleasant.

3rd Frost

Next day we arrive at a village by a lake called Slave Lake. Its full of Kale like people. Very quiet.

We sit outside the village while Sam calls some other Void Wolves to speed up our travels. We find out that the wolves, and therefore the Half Elves don't like evil magic using elves, winter creatures from the north and we shouldn't use magic (which we obviously already knew but good to be reminded. Plus they sometimes have problems with an elemental area on the edge of the void wolves areas which causes them issues.

Void Portal arrives and 10 wolves arrive - 6 warrior wolves, and 4 shamans they all defer to Sam who is obviously bigger and therefore the leader at the moment. The shamans howl to create another portal - the howling is almost like they use magic! Another portal arrives with a 10 more Void Wolves - bigger, stronger and now Sam is no longer the leader! 5 warriors, 5 shamans plus Sam.

Their armour has standing spots which seems to be our riding spots, we have to ride by standing side saddle! This is not natural and takes a while to get used to it. Few accidents, nothing major but the wolves laugh at us. By the end we have very sore legs, Amira vomits at every spot we stop - what has she been eating? so much vomit!

We arrive at a large town near dark. The town has a hot spring.... I have never been so happy. Ahhhhh.

The half elves are fascinated/frightened etc all at once. They are shocked by us speaking. Quentin is horrible embarrassed by the speed in which I undress to jump into the hot spring. Horton fixes his problem!

4th-5th Frost

Next day, 4 hours in Amira starts throwing up and struggling. Ragnfríðr remembers she's a healer and heals us all up just before I collapse!

Continue traveling over two days, staying in two different towns with the locals continuing to freak out that we can talk.

Wolves allow Quentin to DA and divinate them. Find out different levels of magic impervious and the older they are the stronger their "cube" of aura is.

Aura - long live sentient Scout - two dimension - 25 years Warrior - complex square cube - 80 years

Sam 50% magic resistence, higher wolves 90% ish (starts to make Quentin to feel sick looking at them so long), lower around 30% imperviousness to magic.

Kale's story is sad but he doesn't realise it. He was taken as a baby and has been howled at for months and months at a time since a young age. It has made him magically imperviousness but he hasn't enjoyed the benefits of being a good looking young man.

Getting better at riding the wolves, legs aren't as sore and sleep is pleasant.

6th Frost

Head into the capital by cresting a ridge and see a big open valley. When we drop down in to the valley and travelled along all you see is this lovely valley but then you see the capital - a big illusionary terrain. Which couldn't see, hear or anything outside which is amazing!

Capital is built in an Elven ruin. It's lovely and warm considering it's freezing outside the safety zones. It has roads, lots of wolves, lots of half elves. Lots of shaping magic around - concealment and temperature control.

Again lots of people and wolves are interested in us but we don't get hassled too much. Lots going on in this city, lots of what looks like studies or lessons. We get near what must be a shaman area or a shaman school because it makes us all feel quite nausated and really don't want to go there.

When resting Quentin remembered we should check for worms, something from the scribe notes he had read. We have them in our brains and mites on our stuff. We got them from the wolves. Amira collapses when checking Maelstrom for worms. Should have done that.

7th-8th Frost

Stay in town, look around buildings especially libraries, tunnels, and hidden places. Aloud to look where wolves don't live. Find a hidden room within the basement of the library. We figure out the mechanism to get in.

Once inside and a ghost appears speaking Elvish. Barking orders for us to clean. Head towards we were to put away the books.

Living quarters, looks like the Elves left quickish. Dig out a cave in and find some human bones. Ragnfríðr talk to the bones, they don't know wolves.

We make way through and find old stores, old areas for books and just a couple of books all in Elvish. Find empty hidey holes. Find some letters. We take books and letters.

9th-10th Frost

Head north/north west, riding wolves again. Gets colder as we go north.

Arrive at edge, look for terrain features that show the borders of where the wolves don't go, what shows within the areas they don't go. Area unkeen to enter is about 100 miles across. Look for patches where we could land. Horton and Cass fly up through obscurement to test ability to find it back again.

Look ahead to where we are going. See unnatural spots of terrain ie regular shaped terrain, obscurement, low fog around places, ordered valleys etc. Looks unnatural. See signs of fires.

Plan to head off tomorrow.

11th Frost

Head off towards where we thought the people were., about 20 miles in by the regular valley structure near the fires. Crest a boundary ridge line area, and Horton turns fast in flight and lands. He doesn't like that area.

Land and walk in via the river bed which heads into a mountain which has a worked pathway next to the river. Divination on the pathway shows old and decrepit, leftovers of protections from weres or similar like the leftovers of the protection. Like the magic hasn't been updated. Signs of geomancy.

Head into path and Horton is not happy, nor is Maelstrom. All fur standing on end. Animal sense of danger kicked in. Problem with shapeshifters ? Path goes up into walkways. It's dark! Amira complains after walking for a while. She really needs to harden up.

Come out into a forested area which is warm. Lots of game trails, bits and pieces of broken old buildings but no real structures. Travel for a number of miles looking for signs of habitation. Find signs a number of miles in. Snares, herbs picked, smell wood burning. Sneak in unseen close enough to observe the habitat.

Find farming community of what appears to be half elves, talking and laughing so they have tongues! Speaking Elvish.

After them being frightened of us for a while, they settle down. We sit and tell stories. They have been here for a while but are guarded with information.

12th Frost

Head off the next day with a villager as a guide so we don't encounter problems with other villages. Our guide, Ben, is a very chatty teenager who has taken a liking to Amira.

Ben tells us about the monsters who live on the edge of the cold, these have multiple arms and sound scary but he hasn't seen them so we can't be sure these tales are true.we get told about a mad hermit on the edge of cold.

We get to the next village and with Ben with us it is much easier to get invited in. And they have hot pools. We hit them first.

Stories are a bit less guarded, tell us around villages near the cold area who have to defend themselves. It is alluded to that there might be better facilities up north. Mad hermit confirmed. Monster stories. Sleep uneventful.

13th Frost

Head off the next day and head up the next ripple of hillside. Part way up stairs, we find a tunnel. Being a good adventuring party we investigate for loot. We find a sleeping bear hibernating. We ignore and continue on. Head up some stairs and find a North/south tunnel but we continue to the top with the expectations of coming back. Up we go to the very top to see the roof of the ripple and see spectacular views. We see more spines of the ripples and some mist or fog in the distance. Ben tells us the fog is where the cold is.

Head back down to go north along the tunnel. It's a tunnel with what appears as dwelling type rooms. We can look across the forest East or west and we can see big towns with about 1000 people with the main town near the fog being defended with walls and stuff.

After walking all day we settle down to a dwelling along the tunnel for the night. Hear some roaring through the night and figure we need to wake everybody up.

A 3 headed monster. A bear head, a wolf like head and a weird humanoid head. It's like a bunch of creatures are mixed together. It's furry but bare spots, about 7 foot long and 5 feet at the shoulder. Big, ugly and hungry! Lucky Maelstrom put up a wall of ice across the door for protection.

Ben freaks out shooting arrows until he throws them. Control animal doesn't seem to work, aura mixed sentinent and non sentinent. Wolf seems stronger. Control on wolf works, whacking it with flaming sword also works. Let's hit it lots. Crap got angry with Quentin hitting it, it broke down the ice wall like it was nothing! Lucky it knocked it's wolf heads out.

We keep hitting it until it's unconscience and I think we should kill it. It smells and it isn't very pretty. Doesn't look loot filled so I'm not really interested but Quentin wants to divinate it so we can't kill it just yet!

Ancient div fails but healing shows that all 3 halves were born around the same time and that obviously these three halves don't make a whole. Obviously not really meant to be bred together.

14th Frost

After a reasonably sleepless night, we head of north again along the spoke tunnels. Walk for a couple of hours and we come to the edge of the fog which is the weather protection. Frozen on one side and warm on the other with a monster hole filling back in within the ice wall. Think the monster came through here and now these crazies want to go through! we go in but Amira and I stop not to far in. It's going to be freezing, how do we get out and even if we do they might attack us like we're monsters! Oh my goodness we are going further and going to go up the tower steps we assume is there from previous spots. And yes they are so we head up. Luckily no monsters on the way but lots of slippery ice. We get to the top and we can't see to the south because of a wall of ice. To the north there is a line of ice including in the air! There is a dome of weather control, ice on the edge of the warm and this incredibly cold and frozen area. In the dome is a city! The Frozen City! It is in a great state of condition compared to what we have seen like whoever cast the ancient weather conditions made it a frozen wonderland. There are some frozen people in the tower and in the city frozen. I'm wondering if a weapon was activated and froze some people.

We break the frozen people off so Ragnfríðr can chat to their bones.

A hand is boiled, some stuff is divinated and Horton and I walk around in circles in the cord area for an hour to see how long we can stay in the cold. After an hour of swearing with Horton we find it works out to be 6 to 8 hours. Horton finds his unease of the warm Rafa goes when in the cold area.

Divinate finds the elf (frozen person) was naturally frozen in an unnaturally fast time and an echo of a curse picked up.

Ancient div on wall shows weather control in place to create frozen area but along the walls timeline we can see an addition curse which makes it unearthly cold plus shows a curse to make shapeshifters dislike the area. Now we definetely don't want to turn the anti shapeshifter thing off as it will not only let the void wolves in but also the monsters locked in the frozen waste.

Hand boiling sees

  • the city in full life, no forest but a huge city in amongst the spokes
  • a ordered departure of the city of the masses
  • sadness around the fact the city is empty
  • shock and a wave of cold that froze them kind of like a shockwave

Ragnfríðr throws herself out the window expecting feather fall on which Maelstrom incredibly quickly applies before she realises she didn't have one. Wow Maelstrom looked concerned. A number of feather falls later and a screaming Ben, we arrive the the valley floor and track away from the wall towards the city for a couple of hours and set up the yurt for the night.

During the night we hear wild growls and we think to the east another spoke has a monster in it, let's not go there.

15th Frost

Head off to the city. A wooden city with gates and walls. It looks older than the other towns. There has been a recent battle possibly from the creature from last night.

There are people on the walls on high alert. We call out to the gate and hope they don't attack! They seem surprised that we were out in the forest and that makes us seem more interesting so they let us in.

We see the monsters breached the wall. A number of the townsfolk are dead and three monsters are dead. The healers in the party help stablise the hurt including really badly injured.

The dead monsters include a bad copy of a griffin, a werewolf like creature with another head, and another part rhino, part elephant and some other animals all mixed together.

We have baths after Ragnfríðr grabs a paw or claw to boil later.

Party does more healing. People are in awe of Ragnfríðr ability to heal when she sticks an arm on and it can start using it again.

16 - 23th Frost

We stay in the city.

Boil the bones of the monsters and Ragnfríðr see the visions across the creatures:

  • a sense of being a single, normal creature in a cage with lots of other animals around with humanoids around
  • transition occurs then you are part of something else ie a multi creature
  • very long pause like a hibernate
  • slight change and I'm awake
  • crash through ice wall and die in a fight
  • they are creatures of the cold

History of the town can be trace back a few hundred years and they have had infrequent monster attacks but recent times have been more regular.

We talk about going into the coldness or talk to the crazy hermit in the cave.

24th Frost

We choose the crazy man in the cave.

Crazy cave man is an elf that used to live in the city, flensing college so lots of smelly dissected animals well dissected. It works out he is quite chatty and lucid. He talks about why people left. They thought a war was coming and went to safer places. The cold was to protect their work.

University was broken into 4 colleges: Beastry ie non elves Healing and Philisology of beasts and elves Herbology Combination of the three above which made the monster

Loses his mental capacity, empathy shows he is really really old. He reverts to the crazy man in cave and starts dribbling.

Give him his tea (which he had tried to feed us) which is a sleep draft. Put him in his bed and check out the horrors of his cafe. A live squirrel that is skinned alive but not in pain. Find some wards - Fatal inversion is one ward, and another ward is complete fleslification. Ekk. Lucky necromancy counter turns them off.

Find a hidden room in his cave which heads towards the ice and find that he has been holding half elves for experiments and see that he has been trying to make monsters. Many of the captives are completely mad except of a young girl. Most have had experiments on them and are crazy mad.

Loot around and find a trunk with nice clothes, chains of office, tools, books on realms and vivisection and herbology. Very detailed levels of information to an obsessive level. Collection of furs which are skin changes 10 of them plus 3,000 silver pennies in old eleven coins.

15 Patches of skin sewn into him, have parts of the animals essence that will do stuff to us. Rag starts transferring the skin patches to Amira so we can divinate as loot once the locals decide to do deal with this evil man. Salamander patch transfers well for transferring skin to Amira but the bear patch turned into a bear. Damn bear skin traps.

Hit it a few times then Horton controls it then Maelstrom hides the bear so we don't need to kill it.

Control skin was controlling the bear in a skin patch. Now we know what to look for we see there is a human skin, a rat skin plus a basilisk ! 11 are ok to transfer. Wolf, Salamander, snake skin, mongoose, Ork, Troll, otter, rest to come. Rag transfers all the ok skins to Amira while we figure out the 3 pop out ones.

The human has been held in stasis for an encredibly long time. So we rip the human skin off into one of the cells in case he is dangerous. He is a brainwashed servant.

The other two can stay on him and die off with him, well die with him if the locals do that for kidnapping, experimenting on half elves, and obvious murders.

Get some village elders to confirm guilt of the evil mad man, and choose justice. They decide to execute him which we do successfully and burn the body while making sure soul has no way of getting to Kamdindel. We take the prisoners back to the village to get them help.

25th Frost

Head into the frozen world and find where the monsters had crashed through. The monster pack had all headed in together. We traverse towards town then air flight through town with all of us looking around us for safety while following the tracks.

Lots of tracks go to and around the university. The tracks go to two areas of the university which are the beast and combination colleges. We stop to set up a safety zone with some possible heat sources if needed.

We head into the university towards the combination campuses as this is where the recent tracks come from. Telepathy picks up lots of animal minds underground but it is like it is stuck. There are a number of spirit minds. The stuck minds are all in a row but are not "there". The spirit minds are the only things that are moving.

On the ground and first floor there are 3 minds that are asleep but awake and mad but weird. Horton struggles with the minds. Then he picks up 4 minds that are in a stuck state and are 200 meters underground.

We back up and check out the healing campuses. A number of Spirit minds and one stuck mind. Have a look around the campus for loot in case they left anything important before we poke dangerous things. A couple of books and stuff that Ash can store, etc.

We go and check out the stuck mind. And oh my goodness. There is an operating theatre with a human cut open with all its insides floating in the air, has been like this for a ver long time. Prod the bits and see if they move. The person has been in this state for a very long time.

Horton senses some minds coming , we hide and observe. We see some gollums and crystal spider like things swap out the person with a new specimen and this time it's an Elf! One of the spiders goes to the wall and we see behind the ice a crystal line in the wall which the spider sends a message or something. We then watch an elf being dissected. Horton says the spiders are triggered local housekeeping triggered things and the gollums take the human out of range.

Divinating the bench we find the ghost is attached to the shaped object bench which allows people to be dissected alive and not kill them. We find us being here it triggered the lessons. We can go to different classrooms and watch new lessons.

After a period of time we head back to the warmth and the town to rest for before returning back for more learning.

26th Frost- 1st Snow

Spend a week in total in the healing campus to learn ancient elven healing skills.

Find the "specimen" storage area that has a lot humans, about 200.

We find a fountain of a paralysis potion, which we grab some.

Divination of the crystal veins sees that it is the way all things are powered. Some things are having power hiccups which might be letting the monsters out.

2th-5th Snow

Spend some time in the Herbalism/Alclemey campus and learn about plants.

There is greenhouses and stasised plants, lots of seeds and things to see. See more examples of glitches.

Head down to the lower levels and find uncommon and rare plants. But the rare spot has a locked door and two gollums protecting.

All alchemical labs are pretty frozen.

Maelstrom noticed an Owl-Bear - 2 headed monster which heads East. Horton controls iit/them and Maelstom puts it in his pocket so we can possibly use it later against another monster later.

6th - 12th Snow

Spend time in beast master campus and there is a zoo

See animals being operated on similar to the healing campus. Training classes on how to train or look after any types of animals.

We find another rare or dangerous section downstairs guarded by gollums. The doors are also locked by the crystalline veins.

13th - 20th Snow

Start looking at the monster campus and we learn about how you can put the eyes of one creature in another creature and adding an extra heart from one creature to another. And adding different limbs and oh my goodness the creatures made and the concepts they have and what they thought they could or should do - they thought they were gods! Amira is not doing well on translating but she gets over it when she sees how you can add extra arms on stuff! Lucky we're getting good at Elvish.

One lecture theatre upstairs which is more advanced lessons and there is a lecture already active. This means somebody is there. We see an ice shell with a humanoid figure in it. Telepathy picks up he is swearing in his head and he appears to have been stuck in his bubble for 10,000 years. We start chatting and he asked us to let him out but we need to figure out his sanity. He asks what our "faction" is. He doesn't know the War of Tears and that we aren't their servants anymore. We are going to have to see how he reacts to some of the news before we let him out!

We ttalk via mind speech, he isn't going to hurt us but he doesn't know what has happened in 10,000 years and he might freak out.

He has survived by an anti death amulet. We say we will help him out. We chip away some ice to be able to some protection from cold and slide him out of the cold on a sledge. He is skin and bones and can't physically talk, let alone walk, move or cast. Take him back to the village to help him recover. Organise for healers to look after him during the day while we are out and about.

Talk to him about stuff:

  • People left because the war was coming. They could see the civil war coming as a place of learning, and therefore having all fractions in the same place learning could be problematic as the city would be a war zone. The two sides ended up being Droll on one side and Elves on the other. He was on what ended up being an Elf.
  • All the Dean's stayed behind with skeleton staff. Then a flash cold hit. Not sure why but might have been to keep stuff in.
  • The University is powered by the Elven Ways.
  • All the Dean's had the anti death amulets. (Horton remember seeing 3 "stuck" minds)

Head back to the monster (joining) campus. See some strange lectures on mixing body parts and different animals or creatures. Two hearts or other mix of bits. Some of the party are not feeling well after watching some of the lectures.

Go downstairs and find lots stasis things. First level was a lot of "what where you thinking" joined monsters. As we go down the joined monsters become more useful and more successful experimental joined monsters including humanoid mixtures. Go further down and come to the rare location that is normally locked and we find the door is open and only one gollum. It allows Horton in but not the rest. Rag can get us in.

The rare zone is bigger and has more quality fittings rather than just statis chambers. We see a void wolf and some humanoids. Some look bred for combat. There is a human who has wolf senses and a shapeshifter.

Start opening doors.

  • First one is an amazing lab with multiple operating tables.
  • Second room is another lab but is three glass 8 feet tall tubes with crystal wire between them. Two humans and one void wolf in the chamber. One of the humans has the same aura symbols as the void wolf and is long lived. The other is a shapeshifter
  • Third room is a storage room. It has multiple tubes of Elves which have a mixture of void wolf symbols

Head back before cold protection stops.

Talk to Sarthen (Beastery Dean). They created the void wolves. They had the symbols on their aura to signify their location on the ether. Did a whole lot of tests with shapeshifters as well. The most successful where the ones that you don't see the symbols. He doesn't know where the half elves. Basically they broke people's down to slush to compare what makes them different, better etc and grab the good bits.

Head back in the next day and look for the Dean's.

Go back to the door, control the gollum, into the corridor we finished at yesterday, go through a door into a cavern which holds a portal. Three figures frozen running towards the portal. In the portal is an Elf, not frozen and in good condition.

We start chipping away at the healing Dean and the Elf in the portal speaks up to tells us to leave her. She deserves to be there. He is what is holding the weather curse and it appears he is doing it because he was a test subject. He is isn't forthcoming with details other than he has people we find that the healer is brain dead, body alive but nobody is home. Rag sees what she can do to help her.

Go back to the portal. He is a bit chatty after leaving him alone for a couple of days of thinking time. He says his name is Scarlet, and his friends he wants us to collect is Atoning and Chrysanthemum. He talks about how he would be happy for this to be destroyed. He has lots of knowledge of the Elven Ways having been connected for 10,000 years reading books. He was born an Elf but had a lot added to him. They were playing God and needed to be stopped!

He offers to use the machines once each for us if we help him. We need his friends and they can either help him by allow him out or to bring the university down.

The monster - joining Dean is also brain dead and Alcelmist/Herbalist isn't - but both of them are aligned to what now is Drow with the Healer and Beastry Dean's are more aligned to the Elves.

We decide to help so let out the friends. We let them out and they turn int big wolves ready to attack but Scarlett screams to stop and they turn back into Elves and settle down. They are very confused but talk to Scarlett who gets one of them to sub him out and we get to meet Scarlett. He is very hungry and week after 10,000 years of sitting holding the weather control.

We hang around, take more lessons and help dismantle things. Grab a non sentient void wolf for Kamdendel to investigate. Get some skills and work with the villagers and then we head off back to the void wolves.

21st - 22nd Snow

Back with Void wolves - We tell the void wolves the reason why they don't go there is that it's really cold, evolved city locked down when war coming, Void Wolves created there. Found these elves who are really unwell.

Head back to the sea of ash.

23rd Snow

Call dear old dad comes and collects us back to Argons Watch and then he ghosts us back directly into Kamdendels tower. We hand over the void wolf and collected bits and bobs, etc and work out payment.


Reference

Prior Adventures:

Footer

Buffs

Quentin - 3 % to SC, 3 % to DF, 1 damage reduction and 6%fear and reaction rolls Ragnfríðr - 12% def

Watch/Marching Order

Loot

  • Magical Feather Duster
  • Magical Shaving set - shaver that won't cut flesh and a brush that lathers.
  • Set of earrings
  • mad elves trunk, clothes, money, medical tools, books
  • 10 skin patches
  • Paralysis potion
  • 5 keep alive amulets

Samples

  • Ash from area around arrival portal
  • brain worms
  • mana mites
  • mad elves herb stash

Adventure Training

1 pt fatigue at half Ep cost from travelling by wolf

Stuff for the Times

Quotes

Horton: "I won't be party leader if all you want to do is Stroke me!"

Amira: About Legion (colleague of Camdindel), "he's all kink"

What's Hot/Not

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