105b: The Slow Doom

Patarm 13th
In the false paradise of Cocytus...

Plot Developments

• The Dark Three chose the Chapel of Sloth as their next destination, finding it the lowest of the orders, and in shameful disrepair. Its one saving grace might have been the mud baths, but bathers seemed near-comatose. The vicar was nowhere to be found, and the temple's attendants were unusual and cryptic.
  
• After quite a time with the Crawl of Futility, the party eventually figured a way into the actual chapel... or so they thought. Renato had the foresight to stay awake, while the girls drifted off to sleep, as suggested in a persistent fresco. Within a dream-like realm, both were met with a much more conventional depiction of sloth, a classical paradise of bloodwine baths, nectar and ambrosia, songs and laughter, vast gardens interspersed with marble statuary, populated by a bedazzled variation of wandering races- including the more lively counterparts to the dead-eyed bathers, attended by scantily-clad creatures of pale, androgynous beauty.
• The girls were tempted with all manner of things, and Isabella quickly grew enthralled with how life should be. Diana was not so easily swayed, though her negativity echoed outward harshly, damaged and distressed the dream. They eventually found the vicar leaning against a Pan-like idol, an artist, whose magnificent paintings included a portrait of the Dark Three.
• In the real world, Astraea warned Renato something was not right. The place the girls had entered was not the true Dream, but a close facsimile, driven beneath by a malignant consciousness. After long, that consciousness sensed Diana and Isabella's presence, spurring Astralheart to panic. Renato, through her, spoke a whispered warning.
• Pressed for time, Isabella appealed to the vicar to shake off the apathy and join her in restoring the church in Hecate's name. She spoke of Asmodeus and Saspien, visible paining the vicar. Diana's added words served to cast the place in an ice age, though things quickly thawed as the vicar seemed to find new strength.
• Diana was tempted by all manner of material things, then with dark-haired infant girls that could very well have been her own daughter. She refused, and the ivory attendants, persistent to fault, dropped them on their heads with wet cracks and went to find something she desired even greater. Christopher's voice called softly behind her, thought it only served to remind her of her loss and fortify her resolve. He brushed her shoulders, nuzzled her hair, but still she did not yield.
  
• The vicar leaped up and embraced the Prophet, but in quiet murmurs warned her not to turn around, for the Archduke Beelzebub had arrived and now sought a prize of Diana, and Isabella's own power for himself. In a brash act, he threw the Prophet into Diana's arms and begged them to run, while he occupied the Archduke. He was not more than a trifle to the slippery, slug-and-fly-like being, too terrible to behold, but his sacrifice did allow the girls a head start.
• Renato slapped Diana hard in the face, waking her from the dream world, and together they watched through Astraea as Isabella tried saving as many of the jarred and waking Slothites as she could, terrified they might wait to long, but knowing she had a job to do.
• Yet the wrath and jealousy of the Unseen was that he slew many of the Slothites within reach out of spite, then pursued the Prophet with hungry, if playful, intensity. Only the speed of a grown Minka allowed Isabella to keep just out of his reach. She wept as she fled, willing the others to safety, and her bloody tears became ribbons on which the faithful clung desperately.
  
• Isabella did eventually wake, taking with her some 32 of 99 Slothites, cursing herself. Yet the survivors were nothing but grateful, and praised her for acting when she did.
• It is now the Dark Three's fear that the Archdukes have betrayed Hecate and aligned with Asmodeus, giving claim to his title Lord of the Nine (or at least the Seven). It could be there is a portal to Hell in each chapel, and that in closing it the fiends' influences are lessened in the temple proper.
  

Experience: 3000 (118,881 total)

Worldly Resources
Isabella has taken command of the destitute Chapel of Sloth, and what survives of its faithful disciples, a small, but extremely loyal, cadre of 32 Slothites, numbering priests, blackguards, wizards and monks. The Slothite coffers contain 10,000 gp, a pittance compared to other sects.

Personal Resources
treasure: Scissione, Pigrizia di Coppia

Scissione (Incisive Dagger, level 19 Uncommon), or 'Split' in Infernal: This narrow, steely Misericorde is about the sharpest dagger you've ever seen, fashioned simply, without luxury of gems, pommel or even a proper grip, simply a lethal and naked blade. So sharp, in fact, it can cut through the very fabric of space and time. Even when swinging it, faint, spectral threads, the stuff which holds our existence together, seems to snap and fray in the passing air.

It is said this dagger once belonged to the angelic lover of fallen Beelzebub, Baftis, looking to infiltrate the Slow Doom and redeem cursed Beelzebub against the will of the Choir. That... did not go well, yet the dagger has managed to survive the sinking oblivion of the mires, passing hands amidst Ivory Attendants and other Slothi fiends.

Pigrizia di Coppia (Moonlight Lavaliere, level 23 Uncommon), or 'Sloth's Torque' in Infernal: Taken from the tarnished marble elephant's neck in the main baths, this heavy collar of marble beads like yawning faces and highly-detailed gold plates like dreaming thoughts, studded with grape-sized diamonds, and bordered by pea-sized black jet, is a burdensome mantle, looking nearly like a dangling breastplate, but provides the mighty enchantment of apathy. No matter what neck item this enchantment is transferred to, it will become burdensome.

This was the mantle of a former Beast of the Seventh, the massive, marble elephant known as Tantrun, trapped between the world of mortals, the dreamy fumes of upper Cocytus, and swampy reality of lower Cocytus. For centuries he was the reigning guard dog of the Seventh, until an even fiercer creature took his place.

coin: 4,000 gp from the treacherous Ivory Attendants
loot: Vicar's portrait of the Dark Three (masterwork quality; worth 500gp)

New NPCs
Vicar of Sloth (dead): In the real world, a failed and frustrated artist, but in the dreamy fumes of Cocytus, an artistic genius and leader of the inspired revelers. He died protecting the Prophet, who woke him from his self-delusion.

Archduke Beelzebub: Lord of the Flies, Archduke of the Seventh, the Unseen; Beelzebub is a fiend so malodorous of person that to look upon him would wreak unimaginable damage upon a mortal psyche. He rules the Slow Doom, Cocytus, a bubbling, bleak morass of sin and depravity, whose fumes drift upward like dreams for revelers' souls to foolishly drift, many often thinking them Heaven. He is a clear traitor to Hecate, made quite apparent when he attempted to devour her prophet.

Next Session
106b: Having rescued who they could from the grip of the Unseen, the party regroups during their night-long retaking of the Church of Delights.

107a: Fortress of the Feycrusher

Biosh 13th - 15th
Ikkirul's domain...

Plot Developments

• The Saviors attempted passing through the Eighth Gate via a secret passage, but Fonnig and Goat were noticed. So began a hectic and harrowing race up narrow tower stairs, dodging drakes and dregoi and kobold hordes.
• Narra's powers seem to be fluctuating in and out of her control, and while attempting to dislodge the stone doorway blocking the party's escape instead ripped it, and half the east wall, clean off and half a hundred yards back. No doubt the Tesseract is to blame.
• Presented with a clear path upward and onward, Rogar chose to hold and meet with his brother, a decision the prince backed, and which drew some obvious doubt, even ire, from Sir Gliadim and Nalua. Their eventual arrest, without calling it such, only served to irritate further.
• Rogar tried explaining the true nature of their father to his brother, but Ikkirul was difficult to convince without any hard proof, especially after forty or fifty years of service. The warlord was filled more with gratitude than suspicion, citing their father's boundless generosity and faith in their leadership. While Rogar saw his current path an honorable and righteous one, Ikkirul thought it just the opposite, a failure in Barovia and a betrayal of his family during the crucial stages before Reedthagn's full retreat. Ikkirul offered Rogar a way back into their father's good graces, convinced the fey had glamoured him, but, when rebuffed, decided to settle things the old way: through a test of might. The victor's point of view would determine their reality.
  
• The gloom and fighting finally provoked Narra to break her vow and sing, coupled quickly with Arinew's strings, and channeled through Raina's outstanding artistic skills. The result was a minor rebirth of a pillared canopy from the old Seelie city, where once had been a dismal jail. The effects of this song seemed somehow magnified, perhaps from the Tesseract, or more likely from the stones of the old city themselves, the whole of the mountain suffused with faerie magic and primal power.
• On the high walls overlooking the bailey, the party caught sight of a lovely copper dregoi with stout head-fins and a multitude of beads wrapped around her torso, who Rogar named Kzas- Ikkirul's Heart, his mate and confidant, known for her unusually mammalian compassion. She seemed to take special interest in the Kiri's.
  

Experience: 2000 xp (109,200 total)

New NPCs
Dajin Ikkirul Thagnbrood: Rogar's older brother, a green, serpentine dregoi of fifty or so years, tested in battle many, many times over and a proven military genius. He is known to fey as the Feycrusher, having run brutal campaigns which eradicated all fey within a hundred mile radius of Reh'na'thagnatar. He could not bring himself to betray Reedthagn, but neither would he murder his little brother and most promising student, and fell upon the old ways to decide how to proceed: challenging Rogar and the Saviors.

Djira Kzas: Ikkirul's coppery dregoi mate, of markedly lithe frame, stout head-fins, in a multitude of earth-tone beads and brass adornments. She is known for her strangely mammalian compassion.

Lore

• Gliadim and Nalua had heard legends of Ikkirul, whispered amongst their people as the Feycrusher. He possesses a cold iron hammer of the same name, forged for the singular purpose of killing fey, and has spent the better part of thirty years waging war against native creatures of all courts, and even the free kingdoms, within a hundred mile radius of Reedthagn's mountain. It was a gruesome and merciless affair in those days, and Ikkirul proved a brilliant strategist and commander. Only in the last few months has he been bereft of a true army, relegated like the rest of his father's forces to defending their center of power, and with greatly reduced numbers.

Next Session
108a: The Saviors face off against the infamous Feycrusher for higher passage, and Rogar for command of his brother's respect (and his legions).

104b: In Hell

Patarm 11th - 12th
Abandon all hope ye who enter here...

Experience: 3400 xp (115,881 total)

Worldly Resources
Isabella has taken command of the Chapel of Wrath, the armies of Abaddon in Saspien, and purged the heretics from Hecate's hateful sect. Several outstanding leaders have risen from the horde, among them Drosteles, Yellow/Red, Regin and Shiv al'Zareef. And in the final purification of Asmodeus' temple in Hell, the wounded erinyes Megaera also joined the cause.

The Prophet has also garnered a respectable force completely loyal to her, including...

14 Order of the Wrathful Self (clerics and invokers)
20 Swords of Abaddon (blackguards)
6 Wrathite Pyromancers (mages of the pyromancy school)
18 Blood Reavers (avengers and barbarians)
36 Disciples of Wrath (nondescript fighters and barbarians)

The Wrathite coffers contain 100,000 gp, largely dedicated to daily life, upkeep and repairs, but also weapons and fresh slave stock (they certainly don't use sparring dummies when practicing).

Personal Resources
treasure: Magnificent Tsor's Punishing Retort (level 20 Uncommon boon; as is the nature of the deacons, the surviving creature can impart to one person this technique known to one of its damned souls, presumably Tsor); Deacons' Dagger (amidst the grizzly surgical tools is a magical dagger:

Non Perdona (Elemental Twist Dagger; level 20 Uncommon) or 'Unforgiving' in Infernal: This jambiya has a stout, golden handle enameled in marbled onyx and studded with sunset citrines. Its yellowish steel forms a hooked 'J', upon which is scrolled, "O creatures foolish, how great is that ignorance that harms you!" which ignites upon use.

coin: 8,000 gp among the heretics' penance
loot: one deacon (prisoner), Rimmon Damas' charred head, the memoirs of the deacons (the jumbled ravings of a hundred damned souls), elaborate pentagram symbol of Asmodeus (made of the infernal gold alloy, Avernium; worth 5000 gp)

Lore
Gleaned from the ravings...

• Deacons are patchwork vessels that contain a number of damned souls. It's what makes them seem so crazy. And they've suffered so much collectively that pain is a joke to them.
• They are hand-crafted to 'soak' in Hell and absorb damned souls, the various flesh kind of like a conduit, elf flesh for elf souls, human flesh for human souls, etc. They were once a singular individual, but once the mask goes on, that person is lost and the damned take over. All for the better, really, for once the mask is broken or removed, the individual goes mad from the pain and the voices.
• The souls these deacons catch are stolen from Hecate and upset the cosmic balance, but much more directly allow for their knowledge and potential to be ‘squeezed’ from them, destroying the souls but leaving the one who assimilates them all the stronger.
  
• The deacons are meant for direct assimilation by Asmodeus once they are full. There are dozens of them, maybe hundreds, scattered throughout Hell and its rings, protected in hidden temples below the surfaces.
• The three deacons encountered were of Othyrian descent, former arcanists of respectable skills, the human wizard Basco the Wise, the elven sorceress Limri Cadurness and the surviving half-elf warlock Strakken Talmun.
  

New NPCs
Shiv al'Zareef: al'Zareef pyromancer and follower of Wrath who joined the Prophet once he realized he was on the wrong side of the goddess. He helped the Dark Three enter Hell and sustained wards to protect them from the horrendous heat and poisons.

Returning NPCs
Drosteles: The reaver alpha, preferring the form of a volcanic giant, returned from his tour of a personal Hell a changed man, apologizing to the Prophet and pledging his loyalty in seeing her and Hecate's wills done. He plunged into Hell with the Dark Three, impervious to the heat and poison, but worn thin by the oppressive atmosphere.

Red: The duplicitous tiefling, still in her wrathful red form, insisted on returning to Hell, the place she was born, in efforts to help the Prophet. She, of all the party, seemed invigorated by Hell's aura, while the others felt strained.

Regin: The unsuspecting reaver was left in charge of the chapel while the Prophet and her party went to Hell. However it only amounted to about a minute Othyrian time, despite all the tentative exploring and battling beneath Ixion.

Rimmon Damas (dead): The Vicar of Wrath turned out to be none other than the royal fiend and former supplicant of Flamen Pontifica. He was bent on proving himself worthy to Asmodeus, and the false god saw fit to offer him some aid, but for all his begging and hatred, he could not mount any sort of proper threat, and the god abandoned him. He died cursing the party and questioning the purpose in allowing the Dark Three to live.

Megaera: Tortured by the Deacons at the behest of vengeful Rimmon, to be dissected amidst her slain sisters, the erinyes was rescued by Renato while the others occupied the Asmodeans. She's since accompanied the party back to the chapel.

Plot Developments

• The Dark Three pursued the vicar to Hell itself, the true Pit, and found it a place of merciless heat, screams of the most gut-wrenching kind, and worst of all an impossible oppression, a hope-crushing, soul-wearying weight that would have flattened Shiv, Drosteles, Renato and even Diana had they lingered long enough.
• Three deacons have been destroyed, but no telling just how many hide elsewhere, or who exactly made them. Their stitched nature is highly reminiscent of the exploding rats and walking bombs attributed to Tenebrous. Is there a connection between the false gods?
• High Priestess Widofa Lorein remains an unknown, having covered up Belesana's death by attributing it to Asmodean assassins. Is she saving face by denying how deep his followers have ingrained themselves into the established church, or is she actually one of them? Overturning the authority of the Vicar of Wrath will surely garner her notice, and the notice of the other vicars...
• The Dark Three have an impending dinner date with King Dante Il'spana. It's uncertain if the marquess will also be present, but it will give the Dark Three a good chance to 'catch up' on Saspish, and even world, events.
  

Next Session
105b: After a much-needed torpor, the Dark Three see about converting more of the Church of Delights back to Hecate, gaining another crucial foothold in the capital.

D is for Dothion

From the Ogham Analects of Sage Hjokenstalf...

"Before the fall of the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, great cities whose beauty and complexity is lost to modern fey stood like mountains of marble, stone, gem and wood. Not just fabulous monuments to the power and prestige of the Courts, these were living beings in their own right, providers, protectors, cultivators of art and culture. And they were many, risen in dense forests, atop high mountains, in the deeps of meres, and still deeper in the crystal-studded night of the Feydark, teeming with magic and life.

Counted among these great havens was the gnomish paradise of Bytopia. In those days, nearly all the jubilant and empathic race were gathered in its famed twin structure. Bytopia was really two cities, one situated on the interior of a grand, earthen bridge. It faced downward, impervious to gravity, so that its towers, manors and parks appeared dangling to distant observers. Below it, in the depths of a canyon rut, stood its second half, looking up from crystal-lit shadows and wide rivers at a civilized ceiling. This upper half was known as Dothion, and the lower half Shurrock.

Alas, the wars raged, and the Courts tore themselves apart, and Seelie Bytopia was cracked, then shattered entirely. Dothion rained upon Shurrock in massive, crushing fragments. Earth and water filled the dark gaps. All was chaos and screaming and the blinking out of lights. When the dust finally settled, little remained of Bytopia, and truly the name no longer applied. Only shards and ruins of Dothion had survived the fall, some turned right-side-up as they plummeted, others remaining inverted so as to have staked themselves firmly in the rubble.

Dothion became a confused and jumbled labyrinth upon uneven foundation, and the grand earthen bridge survived only as two, jagged horns on either side the devastation. Some districts managed to keep their heads above the surface and basked in the sun and stars, while others rolled down steep, crooked thoroughfares into smoky, oft flooded, shadow.

The stricken gnomish race, a fraction of their former strength, tried to rebuild, spurred on by two of their surviving kings, Garl Glittergold and Gelf Darkhearth, but the mighty Courts were no more and the Wyld had become feral, fractured and merciless. They simply lacked the means to excavate, and when they did manage prolonged operations they were raided by ravenous bands of violent, wild-eyed satyrs, banderhobbs, kelpie and kobolds. Cyclopses began stealing into the alleys at night to drag gnomes down into the enduring Formorian Kingdoms as slaves and delicacies. The shock of their great fall alone touched many with insurmountable depression and even madness.

With heavy hearts, the surviving patriarchs began to slip away a little at a time, while their two kings howled in despair.

The first was Baervan Wildwanderer, a fiercely optimistic elder, who took his families into the grass seas of the Savanna, where they became great hunters and beast-friends.

Then Baravar Cloakshadow, the young, brilliant magician, who led his people into the misty Moors to learn his ways with shadow and illusion.

Flandal Steelskin, an aged general of Bytopia who no longer believed in the judgments of his kings, took his people to the far Cliffs, where they perfected the arts of smithing and weaponcraft.

Nebelun the Meddler, who tried in vain to lure his kings away from the folly of Dothion, eventually moved south and built the city of Heffyd. Yet it was not meant to last, for his jealous brother, Cursed Urdlen, overran the city with his twisted gnomish hordes, who soaked their caps in the blood of the fallen and ate the flesh of giants and beasts to gain their awesome strength. Nebelun perished, but his daughter, Cathlain, did eventually lead their people to the peaceful Meadows of distant Annwn.

The fate of Dothion’s kings and their people was just as tragic an affair. Over the course of years, the Glittergolds and the Darkhearths failed and failed again to reestablish Bytopia, yet out of stubbornness, obsession and unimaginable pride refused to leave. Garl and Gelf began to resent one another, each coming to believe the other their cause for failure. A violent and bloody feud ignited as their families turned on one another to fight over meager scraps and wreckage. The feud lasted decades, until the last of their wealth and magic was used up, and they resorted to clubs and spears where once they’d possessed grand wands, magical contraptions and the finest steel. Eventually even the families were spent, every one murdered, save the two kings themselves, old, crooked, filthy, hunting one another as the last gnomes of Dothion.

And they do so to this day, Garl and Gelf, scratching, punching, kicking, biting whenever they meet, but neither quite able to deliver the killing blow, knowing deep down that without their hatred for one another would come a remorse and madness that would utterly destroy them..."

106a: On Zephyr's Wings

Biosh 12th
on to Reh'na'thagnatar...

-

Experience: 2000 (107,200 total)

Personal Resources
coin: -70gp (Arinew, Phantom Steed ritual)

New NPCs
Ikkirul (mentioned): Reedthagn's son, a serpentine, green dregoi known for his brilliant command. He is honorable to a fault, and proud. He lords the Eight Gate.

Varlasun (mentioned): Reedthagn's son, a coppery dregoi wizard and famed ritualist. He is greedy to a fault. He lords the Thirteenth Gate.

Anoximoia (mentioned): Reedthagn's daughter, a green dragoness and favored of Reedthagn, every bit as cruel as he, but lacking his many guises, preferring a single, perfected face of cruelty and tyranny. She rules the Sixteenth Gate.

Lore

• Some call this mountain Highmist, the fey once knew it as Emshambara (Sylvan for Crown of Life), but those of dragon blood know it for what it is: Reh'na'thagnatar (Draconic for Throne of the Green Sovereign)
• There once were fey in great abundance upon the summit, a city of the Seelie Court, though the name is lost to time. It was utterly erased, along with its culture and its people, thousands of years ago. The fortresses upon the mountain were erected with its ruined stone, known as the Sixteen Gates of Reh'na'thagnatar.
• The gates are fully manned castles, inhabited by kobolds, dregoi, dragons and drakes, as well as certain foreign allies like lizardmen and troglodytes, and sometimes even genies and demons.
  

Plot Developments

• The Saviors rode the backs of storms incarnate, Zephyrs, nearly dying in the process, but managing hundreds of miles in a mere twenty minutes!
• Narra sensed a tremendous psionic power contained within the Tesseract, and was tempted to engage it. Rogar warned of its complexities.
  
• Dewdrop attempted to ease Arinew's mind over the deaths and near-deaths involved with the reestablishment of the Summer Court. She advised focusing entirely on Solstice, and accepting that as his mission, trusting that his friends and allies know the dangers involved. He must harness his compassion for his friends into a strength, not a burden, and be prepared to lose any one of them.
  
• Upon the fertile back of Highmist, Rogar spent the remainder of the day leading the party through the dense, lush wilderness (with all its incidents) and around the first seven gates. Three gates are largely unavoidable, the eighth, thirteenth and sixteenth gates. The lords of the first two could perhaps be swayed, but the dragoness in the third must be dealt with by other means.
  
• Flower-picking Raina and Auro were nearly eaten by a ferocious manifestation of primal nature, which released lean, snarling dandelions, but Nalua managed to diffuse the situation through planting and prayer.
  

Next Session
107a: The Saviors decide how best to approach the Eighth Gate, stronghold of Ikkirul, on their way up Reh'na'thagnatar.

103b: Righteous Wrath

Patarm 11th
proving your wrath greater...

-

Experience: 2,733 xp (112,541 total)

Worldly Resources
The Prophet through words and dark miracles, with the help of Renato's devastating attacks and especially Diana's showy storm of Voidborn chaos, proved her wrath greater than her opponents' and flushed out the Vicar of Wrath as a traitor. She has inspired a small horde to retake the chapel for Hecate...

Red (Invoker of Wrath)
Regin (Blood Reaver)
6 Blood Reavers
9 Berserkers
14 Wrathites

New NPCs
Regin: The vampiric gladiator saved from death turned out to be a skilled warrior, though no real comparison to one such as Drosteles. Still, he's vowed his cleaver to Isabella's cause, rushing behind her down into the Murder Pit.

Red: Yellow's furious counterpart, risen to the surface as a more muscular frame, red skin, a twisted grimace, black ichor oozing from her eyes and mouth, and limp head-tails developing into hissing, snapping vipers! A fearsome-looking priestess, she responded most vehemently to the task of defending Hecate in her own church, honoring the prophet and rushing behind her into the Murder Pit.

Returning NPCs
Drosteles: The furious half-devil was a mighty opponent, but even he was cowed before the Dark Three, in the end send sprawling through his own Hell by the command of the Prophet. He's yet to return...

Vicar of Wrath (retconned from Precentor): The imposing vampire proved to be a traitor, and fled to the lower depths of the chapel to gather heretics and loyalists alike to combat the Dark Three in their pursuit. He is not without power, though, subjecting the assassin to blazing eye rays and powerful hexes.

Deloth DeWitt: Having observed the battle and the reactions, the keen half-devil subtly indicated the vicar as number one traitor. He was correct.

Plot Developments

• The Vicar of Wrath, leader of the chapel itself, is a traitor!
• Diana summoned forth a display of Kalindian and Voidborn power the likes of which even she has not seen of herself prior, no doubt the manifestation of her exarch position into a terrible and awe-inspiring wrath.
• As a result of Diana's fell radiations, Renato is stuck with two gruesome eyestalks until which time he can safely remove them.
  
• Isabella was able to utilize her position as Prophet to gather the faithful in the main chapel of Wrath into a righteous horde.
• As the Prophet and her allies rushed down after the Ruiz siblings, they suggested the High Priestess covered up the events in the Chapel of Lust, and in fact twisted them so that it seemed Asmodeans had killed Belesana. It could very well be the High Priestess Widofa Lorein is a traitor, a disturbing prospect given her alleged power...
  

Next Session
104b: The Dark Three rage against Asmodeans and unsuspecting Hecateans alike in the Murder Pit, their focus on the treacherous, red-eyed vicar.

The Wyld

C is for Cendriane

From the road journal of Legen Elmsworn...

Nola 5th
Today the Lady’s eldest son returned from the eastern theatre, a colonel on short reprieve from conflicts in the Soveros. He brought with him spoils, stolen and blood-flecked, presented as gifts much to everyone’s delight. They included several gruesome sets of points. The severed ears dangled about his neck on a braid of elven hair, worn as proud trophy, and the children clamored to pinch them for good luck.

Before mother was stoned, she often ruminated on the old empire and man’s slavery under the Highking’s decree. She thought it just punishment for a history of savagery and stupidity. She saw the current state of the Heartland as proof that Men should be firmly under heel. I am not so vindictive, and despite my foolish risk-taking putting these thoughts to paper, I do not wish the Lady or her people back into servitude. I wish them only death. Cowardice and periods of deep apathy have ever prevented my acting on such desire, but sometimes...

I’ve had decades to ponder mother’s stories and the hyperbole of human recounting and I’m convinced my people’s mastery over humans a thousand years ago wasn’t half as horrible as life under the Nors today. Elves endure hard labor, thankless service, switches and clubs and lashes, dreadful summons in the dead of night by lustful house guards and gentry alike, the heartless murdering of newborn eluvan, and the perpetual hell of inherited slavery, that with each brief human generation, we long-lived elves are condemned to serve the next, and the next, on and on, unable to ever adequately work away the wrongs of our eldest. What of the wrongs against us? What of the innocents born after the old empire?

Seventy-seven years ago I was sick over the whole business. As a boy I wept for such gross injustices. My mother fanned the flames, sometimes crying with me, sometimes singing stories of ruined Glorian and the battles against the God King. However despair and anger gave way over the years to fermenting hatred, and even that sinks and surfaces in the daze of numbing service. To my soul’s hardened shame, I no longer bat an eye at the wickedness about me. No one does. We accept it with grim resignation, another chilling wave in an ocean of sorrows.

Yet today something caused me to stir. The Lady’s son brought back amidst his spoils an elven charm, a long, flat piece of bark writ in the language of the trees, Ogham. Enticed by the fact these runes were lined in gold, the Lady demanded I go about deciphering its contents in hopes of uncovering the location of some unclaimed elven fortune or equally lucrative site. Yet I am no more versed in Ogham than I am in Dwarven. She is convinced my mother’s old stories somehow give me special insight. How badly I want her to be right.

I will utilize the manor library and resources available to me, if for nothing else than to honor mother, but more so to sustain this feeling of genuine curiosity, of life.

Nola 10th
After several days of puzzlement, old Hrava proved more valuable than all the rubbish provided me, books writ by clueless hurmas on subjects hardly pertaining to elvish language at all, much less ancient Ogham. The old elf remembers more than I thought possible. His mind, sound as ever a mind was, is comparable to a hidden vault of elvish lore. Had I but known sooner, I might have come to him as a boy, asked so much, asked everything. He was always so reserved, and mother often dismissed him as a fool. She must not have known his true wisdom.

Sadly the vault is locked and well guarded, and Hrava is hesitant to share any deep knowledge. Perhaps he’s become so used to burying his memories that he’s reluctant to unearth them for the pain or danger of it. Or maybe he does not wish to torture me with fancies of the golden era. I admit my time in quiet study has altered my perceptions some, made life here seem all the more unbearable.

Nola 14th
Hrava said he was only helping me so as to spare me the Lady’s punishment for failure. He shared several runes and the elementary mechanics of reading strands, though most of the charm is of a much more complex nature. I watch closely during the hours he examines the wood, runs his fingertips along the grain, murmuring to himself too low to hear, or at least hear well. I made out some of what was spoken, enough to piece together the charm contains a brief synopsis of the elder days, when the sacred mothers and fathers battled Desdemona and the Emperor of Death for the fate of Creation. The slab goes into great detail on the fall of the World Mother, who elves cherish as Marimonda.

Nola 15th
He stopped abruptly several hours into his reading today, and a peculiar look came over his face, a frightened one. He dropped the charm. I was terrified it would shatter and leaped to rescue it, missing by several arm lengths. We’d both be beaten awfully, maybe worse, for it’s careless destruction. However, it clattered like steel against the stone floor, unbecoming of such delicate wood. Could it be magical? The golden runes did catch the light in odd ways during Hrava’s quiet recital, seemed to hold it a fraction too long to be natural luster.

When asked, Hrava grew angry and dismissed the charm as nothing more than a poetic account of Creation. I did not believe him, and he stole out of the study with his fists balled and his jaw set. He hasn’t spoken or looked at me since.

What did he read? I must know. Something to do with the goddess, it must be, that was about where he stopped. I know she created the forests and the creatures that live within them, most dangerous of all the cursed humans, beasts with cunning enough to master the forests, to ruin them. Had she any inclination her most prized creations would be such spoiled and unruly children? Could she see all they would accomplish, how they’d pillage, murder and rape all the other gods’ works? Marimonda, perished sacrificing herself to preserve Creation, but she may have died in vain. Her own children continue to destroy the world one day at a time.

Night
I heard my mother singing softly while I slept just now. I often hear her voice faintly in dreams, but this time was different. She was so close, her words so vivid, and they came alive in wondrous visions, like watercolors struck with rain, one melting into the next in colorful cascade. Marimonda in all her glory fell upon a barren plane, and her blood made it green beyond all earthly green, more fecund than nature. The blood and the growth enveloped her still form, consumed her, and from the fertilized Wyld, birthed like toadstools and mould, emerged the fey- a parade of strange, beautiful and horrible creatures. Could that be what has old Hrava so nervous? Faeries?

I must know. And soon. The Lady is growing impatient.

Nola 17th
Raya above! I know the secret of the charm! There is a hidden message between the grains, written so minutely on the raised slivers only the most discerning elf could possibly sense them. I admit I am more than discerning, I am obsessed, and it has served me well, for the charm is truly a key to Faerie, key to my salvation, and a way to lost Cendriane.

Mother never sung of such a place, and I wouldn’t bother asking tight-lipped Hrava now, but from what I gather, Cendriane was a city of my mother’s people, Gloriandelines, unbowed, untouched high elves, who escaped the ruin of the old empire by phasing their city into the Wyld. Ingenious! Miraculous! The magic prowess necessary, never mind the foresight, astounds me.

There is no guarantee Cendriane still exists. It has been over a thousand years, but even the faintest chance of finding an independent Gloriandeline civilization spurs me into gathering the necessary components. I will steal the Lady’s diamond pendant from her vanity this afternoon, the herbs from the kitchen pantries before dinner, and carve the Ogham on the oldest tree in the yards come nightfall. At dawn’s first light, I will be gone from here, or find myself a hopeless fool. It does not matter. If this does not work, I welcome death. Gladly.

Nola 18th
The charm was real! Raya above, mother smile upon me, I have crossed! I mixed the herbs, sacrificed the diamond, and spoke the lengthy incantation writ upon the bark. As the first rays of pink dawn washed over me and lit the Ogham upon the ash, they seemed to catch fire, and the trunk became more like a gap, an alley, through which I squeezed into splendor the likes of which no song or account could ever have prepared me.

I’ve collected dozens of different flowers, leaves, bark and seeds. I’ve sketched vistas that redefine my understanding of beauty. Here is a green, rolling realm like nothing in the Heartland, where trees grow the size of towers, where fragments of moon hang low in the many-colored skies, where deer, hare, bird and fox more exotic and cunning than any Othyrian counterpart leap and bound. I may have seen a faerie, small, winged darling, dancing on a branch, but she fled when she noticed my wondering stare.

Despite the colors, the air, the vital aura risen all about me, there is no sign of Cendriane. Where could she be?

Nola 20th
Not all is idyllic in Faerie. I am being hunted. There is something tireless and hungry which breathes deeply and snaps branches in distances beyond my sight. I feel dangerously under-equipped. I did not think to bring much in the way of supplies, nor did I count on being stranded alone. I know almost nothing of the hunt. How I curse the notion I could fold a dinner napkin seven different ways if my life depended on it, yet cannot adequately track a meal.

At night, shadows larger than ship sails pass overhead, and the screams of beasts dying or in revel has me questioning my presence here. I’ve had little reprieve for writing, but I spare time now only as a means to calm my frayed nerves, in the light of glowing mushrooms taller and wider than me which serve as a hasty shelter. They’ve a pungent, rotten odor to them. I hope it discourages anything hungry from coming close.

Still no sign of Cendriane. I hug the charm to me even now, run my fingers along the grains, hoping to uncover a vital clue I may have missed upon my first several readings. So far no luck.

Nola 21st
I saw an elf in the woods, or at least I think I did. He was covered in blue-gray woad and cloaked in a forest fog, yet the glint of his eyes and commanding posture betrayed a humanoid form. I called to him and he did not answer. I approached and he disappeared. Was he Gloriandeline, or some disapproving fey? I’ve never felt more helpless than at this moment, not in all my years of service. I am lost. I’ve exhausted the supplies I brought with me. I’ve gotten little sleep.

Cendriane...

Afternoon
Horns. They shrill every several minutes, sometimes miles off, sometimes little more than an arrow’s flight from my hiding place. I’ve yet to see who blows them. More of those elves, I suspect.

Night (written sloppily)
Horns. Motion. Leaves kick outside. Voices murmur, a strange language, fluid but not song-like, more akin to the weaving of blades. They mean me harm. I know it. Frightened.

Nola 22nd
I should turn back. I could retrace my path back to my point of entry and see about performing the ritual. I have no great wealth to substitute for the diamond, but perhaps it will still work. I must do something. I am a slow and witless game and I fear the elves grow tired of playing with me.

No more horns call in the forests, no more eyes glower in the mist. I pray they have given up on me. I will forge ahead through this terrible wilderness, seek its end, seek Cendriane.

Night (written sloppily)
This accursed wood has no end. A day’s wandering has led me nowhere.

I have dug a hole with all my strength, buried myself in detritus and dirt at the base of a pine. I could find no other place. The horns call for me. The eyes search for me.

I have eaten a few mushrooms and a large worm. It’s been awhile and I have felt no deadly effects. This place. I am putrid. Maybe they won’t recognize me.

Nih (barely legible)
I am doomed. Mother save me. Hrava forgive me I am doom. I know why terrified the old Hrava. My fingers found in the grain. Curse charm like a puzzle. Hidden and hidden. Each story a darker one. Mother sing to me...

Nola 22nd
This may be my last entry. It is morning. I have survived the night through some miracle, a last lingering mercy of decomposed Marimonda in whom I hid. They came very close, so close I could smell them, could hear their small chuckles. They hunt me still, quietly in the daylight, in the mists. I can sense them all around me.

I will be dead before tomorrow if I do not do something. I have chosen a fragment of the static moon and will set course unerringly by it. It is my last chance.

Last night I was touched by true dread. Life under the Nors has been a hell, but those black hours ripped into my primal fears. I am a slow, scared, wondering thing and I know it. They recognize my realization, and take pleasure in it. These creatures are sinister, these Cendriani.

In my horrified hugging of the charm, my absent stroking of the grain in the dark, I discovered the tale which inspired Hrava to cast it aside. Cendrianne was a city of the old empire, long before the God King, when most elves and man still lived in harmony. But not all of them. The Cendrianni and their sorceress queen Ceridwen held little love for Man, and ill things befell those who stayed too long in her city. Small things at first, ruined property and cruel pranks, and then certain fatal accidents which discouraged much visitation beyond necessary mercantile and political dealings. And then people would go missing, until the unexplained murder of a human duchess inspired the Highking’s involvement.

What he uncovered was unspeakable, the torture and dismemberment of human beings, rituals of blood and screaming, and a celebrated practice called the Great Hunt. Gloriandel confronted Ceridwen and demanded explanation for this abominable situation, to which she replied with cool malice that which inspired her and her city’s banishment. “Humans are not but clever beasts, and beasts are meant for slaughter.”

These monsters cannot be equated to Gloriandelines or the old empire. The Highking imprisoned them here, in a land of predators, to compete with the primal hunters of the Wyld and the more vicious of the fey. It chills my bones they somehow endure. Freezes my heart so too endures their traditions.

The Great Hunt is on. They hunt the only elf in these woods.

B is for Blight

Transcribed from the Demonomicon of Iggwilv by Ferranifer Moross in the Bones Grimoire...

[scribbled at the top of the page] My search for a necrotic battery capable of powering the Alls Ends ritual continues, but I may have just had a breakthrough!

“... I speak now of a particularly fearsome demonhead, of which I have had the supreme misfortune of holding at one time. It was through no ignorance on my part, I assure you, that my bare flesh caressed the greasy black steel of the mace’s shaft, for I was fully possessed of the knowledge that grasping one of these artifacts would pit my naked will against the demon lord dormant within, test all my faculties in a spiritual tug-o-war with none other than Falogust the Witherer. And if I proved wanting, my mind, body and soul would become the fertile bed from which a new iteration of the demon lord would spring.

No, I was not so eager or so foolish as to purposefully try such a thing. Rather I was tricked, difficult though it is to admit, for I have since bested a long line of demon princes and dark viziers. Perhaps this incident served a lesson, that no matter how powerful a witch may perceive herself, no fortress is entirely impregnable. This bald, blackened bludgeoner, named Bashreel’shun by the elves and Grazim-Borgag by the lost Grimtandians, and which I dub in grim remembrance Blight, caught me unguarded, proving an insipidly intelligent thing.

My six companions and I had just penetrated the lower vaults of Lost Samaragd, the coiled halls of the inverted pyramids of Zedhir. Keoghtom was certain he’d disarmed the leering, iron cobras and the fanged pedestal, and Murlynd and Quaal finished up the last of the malison guard. Heward was already examining a stunning dagger of white gold and rubies, claiming he’d found some ancient dowry of a Glorian viscountess, but as usual Nolzur argued his appraisal bordered on delusion, and that it was in fact one of the Five Claws of Tasilid.

My mentor at the time, knee-deep in treasures that would sate any dragon’s greed, was frowning. He’d been searching for something very particular and extremely dangerous, which could not be handled directly. I’d already deduced what it might be, but I did not see it amongst the heaps. It was not the first time months of careful research had turned up nothing. We spent the next several hours cataloging our findings, and divvying them between the seven. As I was the newest in the party, charter deigned I would receive the last pickings, which perturbed me little in a chamber so flooded with ancient wonder. Little did any of us know just what would find its way into my pile, a black short staff of seemingly worthless make, old, crooked metal with a greasy look about it. I considered leaving it, save that curious glisten along its length, hoping to engineer some new alloy or discover it an unassuming wand. Unassuming indeed.

Upon first touch in the vaults, I felt nothing magical, but refused to abandon it until it could be more thoroughly examined. I know now Blight was lying in wait until I was alone and truly susceptible to its power. And that night I gave it the proper opportunity, as the companions returned to their respective keeps and I my Sanctum Maleficum (still in its early stages of construction after the fall of the lustful cretin Tsojcanth). That night, I scanned my collection with closer scrutiny, and set aside preliminary tomes with which to conduct more extensive research.

At last I came to the crooked short staff, unconvinced it was anything special, but when I lifted it, a gong-like concussion shook the foundations of my stronghold and I was thrust hard against the far wall. It proceeded to drag me up to the ceiling, despite the enchantments on my anklets, and grind me into the stone. The staff began to change, straightening and blossoming a dull, round head. I tried to release it, to cast it across the chamber, but it would not budge. My flesh bubbled and fingers fused about it. It hummed at subsonic pitches, rattling my bones, scrambling my thoughts. A jaundice light radiated outward, then, which illuminated my chambers in a sickly light and cast long, quilled shadows over everything. Where the light touched, stone crumbled, leather weathered and decomposed, bone fell away to dust, flame went out, and my poor familiars in their cages instantly mummified. Such necrotic power I’d never encountered before, and have seen matched few times since.

I could feel his malevolence taking root in my heart, his rasps in my ears, and the first ebon quills sprouted across my forearms. I defied him, and for my insolence he unhinged my joints and stretched my limbs in sudden agony. I’d barely time for screams, much less countermeasures, but I was not a complete novice. Even in those days, I’d dealt with enough Tanar’ri to erect hasty barriers. Falogust was not some Abyssal peasant, above the prestige of even princes, one of the firstborn Horrors spawned of the Queen of Chaos’ festering womb. He shattered my wards in moments, but moments enough for me to regain my composure. I willed my limbs back into place, forced the quills back down, and over the course of twelve hours, perhaps the hardest twelve hours of my long life, I managed to exorcise the Beast of Entropy back into Blight. I fell to the ruined marble, every ounce of my strength spent, and all fell away into the haze and dark of exhaustion.

When I awoke, my mentor stood over me. Blight was no where to be found. He looked upon me with new eyes, and I sensed, behind obvious awe and begrudging pride, a droplet of fear. To have one’s teacher recoil at your potential in such a way, so see in his eyes that undeniable confirmation... it sustained me through years of further study, until which time he refused me his final secrets and I absconded with what was rightfully owed me. In that vengeful night, I saw among his troves that most despicable black mace. And I left it there, despite a yellow flicker.”

A is for Atilan

From the acquired volumes of Seneschal Aan arul’Drammi, illustrious servant to his eternal highness, Master of the Salt Seas, Lord of the Scorpion Towers, Light to the People, his most excellent Prince of Thirst...

“We know something of oceans, even here in the Salt Seas. The very name evokes images of white waves and vast, sparkling stretches from horizon to horizon, of many-manned schooners braving reaches weeks, even months, from the nearest port, and leviathans seen in glimpsed backs and fins too alarmingly huge to imagine fully surfaced. These images are quite accurate, save that our Salt Sea is quite literally the mineral, sifta as the People call it, in unimaginable quantity, given to a peculiar tide and occasional storms thanks to the pull of the Shattered Moon hung in pieces above all the Wild.

However on the First World, but a blue speck in our northeastern skies during the seasons of the Spring and Summer Courts, oceans consist of that most precious element, wasush, water. To imagine! All that crystal blue, that shifting green, the wet foams and bubbles, cool to touch, snaking over the sands of moistened shores, feet sinking, toes wiggling in the fine mud. Life more varied than we could imagine lurks within the deeps, creatures which breath it, others which keep air in their lungs for hours on end, still others that do not breathe at all! Though its wonders are not so amazing to some, and the naiads would surely berate me for my wonder (if not devour my legs and see if I might enjoy a swim in one), for the People water is more cherished than gold, sustainer of life, cultivator of green, and that which restores those suffering the withered madness of the Scorch.

One particular ocean holds as many stories as all the volumes of the great Ninga’Shizara! They call it Atilan, a timorous deep buffering all of western Othyr, from the jagged shores of ice clattering against the Northland cliffs (I will surely write a separate treatise on ice in the future, my friends, but for now be appeased with the notion it is the frozen or ‘cold solidified’ form of water) all the way to the teeming aquamarine tropics clouded with fish like strewn gems and coral reefs on the southern Sarsarks. Not even the lush greenlands of Annwn or Tuath could boast such a mighty sea, and I doubt there is such a thing as a true ocean in the Wild, rather lakes and meres and rivers of enormous scope, and yet put to shame by the saltwater behemoths.

Yes, oceans on Othyr possess salt, enough to prevent its safe drinking and ruin all green that drinks it, which has sparked my lord’s interest in the subject. And I shall say no more of it.

I came upon a short rhyme in my studies, going something like, “Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink”. The native’s ignorance to proper distillation techniques is truly startling, is it not? A little glass, a lot of sun, and time could prove the whole of it drinkable, but, to their supreme leisure, they are possessed of just as many freshwater sources and favor casks and skins to the toil of honest separation.

To regale one with all the tales I’ve read of the Atilan would consume all the pages available to me, and no doubt bore my Prince, but I would say this...

The Atilan Ocean was not always so. In the time before the Wild, or any other world save the First sunned in the light of Gloraya, the land was whole, not unlike the connected realms of what this one understands as the Wild. They called it Pangeal. Its peoples, Men, Elves and Dwarves, and to lesser extents their children the Hobblings and Hav-Elves, lived in harmony, lifting great cities of gold and silver, and while it paled to the abundant majesty my Prince enjoys today, it was the stuff of legend. There was no lacking, no age or death.

Then came the ul’Shai, spawn of Shaitan, one a Black Mother whose infinite womb spawned horrors the worlds fear as demons today, and the other a Gray Father whose infinite fingers pulled on the limbs and hungers of the fallen, raising armies of the living dead, whose curse endures even now in the darker places of Creation. The Divni arg’Shai tore the very world asunder, destroying the unified realm into many fragmented continents.

Many civilizations were washed away in the chaos, among them the great dwarven empire of Grimtand, whose craftsmen forged weapons and armor for the gods themselves, and whose anvils felt the brilliance of glo’fiet, star-fire, and whose meteoric hammers produced enchantments which would leave even the cleverest hags wondering at their complexities. The mountains which served as walls to their immense citadels cracked, the very earth split, and the whole of the west tore away. Great tracts bearing Grimtandian cities and monuments turned skyward and sunk with much frothing and screaming into the swallowing Atilan, forever lost to the lightless bottom. Such impossible beauty, invaluable knowledge and ancient magic was lost.

Perhaps they were the lucky ones. Other fragments of Grimtand fell through the riven separations between worlds, aided, perhaps, by the last efforts by their Rune Kings to save their people. I have heard very little of the results, brief scribblings in tomes and texts, of how these peoples were stranded on shores dark and terrifying. I shall say no more of it.

The Atilan Ocean, much to Man’s shame, has never been fully explored. Were the People able, they would sail with singleminded purpose of reaching opposite shores, no matter the cost! And we would succeed, though many have tried, Liscari and Tolernans seeking new challenges to best, Gloriandelines seeking foreign freedom, Citadeleans seeking remnants of their former glory. The only real headway was achieved by Othyr’s most feared population, reflections of the Morroi Deargd, the vampires.

In the days of the Othyrian Night War, the spirit most unclean and first son of the Gray Father, Rathven the Hunger, commanded his armies to spread across the First World and convert all into living death. Many marched with him against the mortal races, causing untold horror and birthing creatures the worlds suffer still today. Yet even he was defeated, by the most beloved son of Gloraya, Highking Gloriandel, whom all elves revere, and even the People bow their heads in the memory. He summoned a great storm, aided by elder dragons, giant kings and sorcerers of old, which obliterated all in its wake and imprisoned that which endured in the dread Saspish Vale. But not all of Rathven’s forces moved by land, there were ships, evil ships, whose sails were stitched flesh and boards painted in blood, which sought a waterway to pierce the heart of Othyr. Before they could find such a river, Gloriandel’s storm threw them off course, in a hurricane that endured weeks, and which destroyed many of their armada. There were survivors, which landed on a fragment of Pangeal that had survived, a verdant jungle comparable, they say, to the primeval fecund of Juok.

Tirbukk they called it, ancient vampire for ‘second conquest’, though it wasn’t any difficult claim. They found a dead city waiting for them, breathtaking and empty, devoid of any remains, despite an impressive network of catacombs below. And in the jungles beyond them a tribe of Pig-Me’s, pig-headed phooka perhaps, which offered themselves up freely as a slave race. Apparently blood sacrifice utop pyramids to creatures of great power had long been a tradition to the Pig-Me’s, and worship suited the vampires just fine. My studies show they thrive on Tirbukk to this very day, in the dead city renamed Vadenja, and despite their scholars' best efforts, who or what lived in the jungles before them, former object of Pig-Me worship, eludes them still. Just another mystery, like another bauble pinned in the Atilan’s flowing hair, a point of pride and beauty.

Oh the mysteries of the ocean! Tirbukk’s discovery gives this one hope yet other shards of Pangeal endure, somewhere out on that blue immensity. So many more tales, of an island dominated by giant lizards of the ancient past, of sunken doors that rise when the stars are right, of whole civilizations beneath the waves, civilizations the naiads and the nixies do not speak of to the People. This and more above and below that rolling frontier, the Atilan Ocean."

105a: Touring the Realm

Biosh 12th
the road to the Tesseract...

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Experience: 2600 xp (105,200 total)

Personal Resources
treasure: The Daisies of Keith Keelan x 4 (level 18 uncommon; consumable; pluck the petals from this flower as a minor action and replicate the effects of any consumable item level 18 or lower)
coin: -70gp (Arinew, Phantom Steed)
loot: bottle of fine brandy (Arinew)

Worldly Resources
Arinew has earned the allegiance of Keith Keelan and its meadow gnomes. Though they've little in the way of monetary value, they can supply sizable amounts of milk, wool and various crops to a needy community or large military host. Meadow gnomes are chiefly known as herders of the gwartheg, faerie cattle, which double as mounts when the cavaliers are called to arms.
coin: 10,000 gp
troops: 200 militia, 200 cavaliers

New NPCs
Mayor Dublin Keith: The young gnome and acting mayor of Keith Keelan, a clear supporter of the new prince and loyal subject of the Summer Court. He pledged his village's resources and arms if ever there was need.

Pearshine Keith: Sister to Mayor Dublin, she is a mercurial, but gentle, creature put on edge by the Kiri twins. She seems a devote adherent to Saint Cathlain, whom she believes protects the meadows. She offered magical flowers to the party's women.

Farmers Criook, Flickbottom and Bumbin: The elders of Keith Keelan and the majority landowners, they seemed a loyal lot, intent on making good on the mayor's pledges.

Saint Cathlain (mentioned): A folk hero of the meadow gnomes from generations prior, who led the meadow gnomes on a decade-long sojourn from their conquered city of Heffyd to the lands of Keith Keelan. Many are convinced she endures as a spirit that protects the meadow gnomes and their lands. There may in fact be truth to it, given Keith Keelan is untouched by autumn's stain.

The Witch of the Ways (mentioned): An old enemy of Arinew's mother, a hag of considerable power last seen conversing with Saint Cathlain on the outskirts of Keith Keelan. Pearshine is convinced the saint convinced her to leave these lands in peace.

Returning NPCs
Sir Gliadim Starkenblum: After two days pursuit, the Summer Knight finally caught up with the rest of the party, determined to aid his cousin in the acquisition of Solstice and the ultimate defeat of his mother, the Queen of Fallen Leaves. He also proved a charmer, taking a shine to Narra.

Durward Fonnig Fignose: Gliadim's loyal gnome companion and a durward of Eglantine reinstated thanks to Arinew. He was given proper leave to protect the prince on his journey.

Plot Developments

• The spirit of a gnomish saint is apparently protecting the lands of Keith Keelan from autumn fey and their withering magics. Saint Cathlain may have even convinced a particularly vicious hag to depart the lands peacefully.
  
• A phalanx of centaurs is massed on the grasslands northwest of Keith Keelan, hundreds strong, in a subterranean base with easy access to the open plain. It may be the Chernobogians are planning an attack from the north. The recovered dryad Leyra has turned back to warn Eglantine (otherwise she would have joined the party along with Gliadim and Fonnig).
• Dewdrop and Nalua have a strong aversion to appealing to the naiads of Urruma, knowing their seductive and cannibalistic nature. However, Arinew has already sent word of a visit, and they would make strong allies if they could be swayed. It was ultimately decided the visit be avoided, forcing the party to circle around Wisher's Pool.
  

Next Session
106a: The party continues toward the Tesseract, avoiding the Chernobogians at every turn, and hoping Reedthagn hasn't planned any surprises. The consensus was to circle around Wisher's Pool and avoid the independent Kingdom of Urruma entirely, despite the messenger sent to inform them of the prince's imminent visit.

102b: Promises

Patarm 11th
bar fight, slave liberation, and a new deal with a devil...

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Experience: 1600 xp (109,808 total)

Personal Loot
coin (off the dead and unconscious patrons of the Grave Man): 8,000 gp

New NPCs
Redeemed Gladiator (unnamed): Isabella healed this dying vampire's wounds as fellow Wrathites watched him slowly dying. Though initially shamed for the intervention, something about the prophet convinced him it was Hecate's work.

Precentor of Wrath (unnamed): The hulking vampire with the deep crimson robes and spiked, bronze barding over his huge arms and legs. His eyes burn with a red fire, ignited upon seeing Diana and Renato.

Yellow (unnamed): The yellow tiefling with milky blotches over her scaly flesh, and two snake-like head tails instead of horns, who attended the fiery idol with the precentor.

Drosteles: An incredibly-built vampire capable of transmuting his flesh into volcanic stone. Known as a vicious champion and alpha male amongst the Wrathites.

Returning NPCs
Valenzo Vega: Now a silent ally, he warned the Ordo were always watching.

Deloth DeWitt: Encountered at the Grave Man, on the run from the Nors, he's seeking passage back to the Fourth Ring of Hell. He's willing to help Isabella in exchange for passage.

Crematia Golgora: Ever the loyal second-in-command, the devil in disguise remains with DeWitt, sharing in his fugitive status.

Plot Developments

• 18 humans were saved from the Grave Man, some of whom might consider joining the Cultu Solis if they haven't had their fill of the vampire city.
• Isabella formed a pact with Deloth DeWitt, aid in weeding out heretics for passage back to Malbolge.
• It doesn't look like Diana or Renato are well-liked in the Chapel of Wrath...
  

Next Session
103b: The Dark Three and company attempt to weed out the faithful from the heretics in the Church of Delights.

A - Z Blogging Challenge

So I've decided to add even more to my workload and participate in the A -Z blogging challenge, basically exploring some facet of the campaign every day (except Sundays) for a total of 26 informative entries.

I'm already a day behind, so I'll post two soon.