129: Spawn of Tsathoggua

Noon of Ulanra 25th
Experience: 10,509 xp each (188,709 total)

Following the combined trail of wholesomeness resonating from the hidden artifact and the awful tremor of the Yth presence, the party emerged from the catacombs before the ancient archdruids' table, piled with moldering filth and warded by blight barons. Despite the group's brutal ambush (which obliterated one of the barons and its rotwing resurrection), a second baron was far enough from the strike to remain unscathed. It called up from the blasphemous grounds a horrible legion of tortured elementals.

As the party spread across the battlefield, engaging the monsters with steel and spell, all could sense a growing menace. The Yth was near, though it wasn't until Thamior plunged his legendary blade into the fouled soils that it appeared. It was a titan of a toad, suffused with seeping tumors and extraneous flesh tags. It exuded a horrid stench, and its blubbery lips dribbled slimes of such vile potency they could make a ghoul retch. Shard recognized the monster as the spawn of Tsathoggua, one of the Ythlords that destroyed Erdu, and called it to task. The entity was not nearly as simple-minded as it appeared, and chided the party for braving his corruption, which already affected the majority of the party in a variety of unexpected psychosis and neurotic ticks. He tongue-lashed, pounced, and invoked twisted psionics, but the party weathered the initial attack well, particularly the feladrin, who managed to roll away from being crushed. Unfortunately, his luck would not last, as he was promptly swallowed whole.

Thamior's state inspired the Queen of Saspien into casting the aberrant into the deepest pits of Hell, not an all together easy task given the Yth's might. Her success freed Thamior, but the fel contracted a hideous disease in the gut of the star-toad, and quickly took on the likeness of a green-hued rotwing, which he managed to dispel only with great difficulty.

While the spawn was absent, the party focused on removing the surviving baron from the field, and thus avoided impending crops of tortured elementals immune to their attacks. When the Yth did return, dazed from the ordeal, Shard shouted for a clear path and unleashed the power of her mythic spear, Lazshil. Transmuting into a primal streak of white, the lightning bolt cut the battlefield in half and carried the Yth to its final resting place, impaled without any chance of escape. Slouched and wounded upon the electrical current, it called to its brethren in the racking discord of Deep Speech, a warning perhaps.

Wounded, the spawn wouldn't have perish had Narra not triggered an event through Shard's Crystal of Erdu that took even the aberrant by total surprise. Harnessing the forces of multiple worlds, focused into an irresistable power by the former goddess, not even the extradimensional putrescence of a Yth could endure. It seemed to scour all facets of existence clean of the monstrosity and furthermore reverse the very sands of time, restoring the estates to a stunning natural equilibrium. Unfortunately, the vampires of the fallen House did not return with the health of the land, but the stain upon the queendom was entirely undone in a force which inspired hope. Perhaps fighting the Yth was an option after all...

Encouraged, the party returned to their ships, castles, and agendas, promising to return soon and choose the first of many targets. Each night they were apart only underlined the urgency, every last star in the sky dead and gone, save nine red lights.

Gained Resources: Hood of the Far Seer (Tyvis), the health and security of Saspien
Expended Resources: House Calalas (wiped out)

New NPCs: Spawn of Tsathoggua (dead): An accomplished Yth of greater stock, part of an aberrant genus specializing in corruption and the decay of host worlds. It was responsible for the fall of the House of Calalas, and the ruinous seed that germinated into the Green God.

Plot Developments

• The combining of power sources through Shard has proven the bane of the Yth. There is the potential to oppose them by uniting, both Creations varied armies AND in the powers of the party. It seems to add another level of purpose for why the Ythlord work so adamantly on sewing strife and creating despots.
  

Next Session: The party attends to pressing matters before reconvening and coming to a consensus who or what will be their primary concern for the immediate future.

Tir'buk

K2: Footsteps of the Prophets

Morning of Ulanra 25th - Afternoon of Ulanra 27th, 20 AS
Experience: 178, 200

Diana and Kaylan sailed the spectral reaches for two days before reaching Radiant Bastion, headquarters of the Children of Light, a fortress of stained glass, steel, and pearly stone risen from a craggy isle. There Giers agreed to join them on their holy quest, and in the solitude of his private chambers explained that not all Kalindians were behind them, the chief opposition being his own mother. Kaylan and Diana could sympathize, mothers themselves, but the trio concluded there were no other options. Kaylan might have said it best, "Doing nothing would be the greater sin." There were no false pretenses, though, when considering the consequences. Friendships could, and likely would, be revecoably lost. The church, the entire faith, would change forever, and the worlds with them. Giers, Diana, and Kaylan might even lose their Chosen statuses, should they no longer exemplify the tenants of the new divinity.

Fortunately, they were not left in total darkness. The high priestess' second-in-command, the portly and learned Chaplain of Light, had agreed to meet and try to help them further. Together the Kalindians uncovered how to locate a sleeping deity, though the exact means of retrieving a divine spark remained elusive. The Chosen also uncovered the resting place of their goddess, but kept it to themselves.

Ultimately, the decision was made to follow the chaplain's lead and seek the Prophet of Tez in the woods outside Barovia. There a bear of a man, Mikhail, spoke on behalf of the diminishing goddess of nature. Decisions would have to be made before approaching him, but this would be the first trial in their task of saving the pantheon.

Gained Resources: means to find the gods, the location of the Goddess' resting place, location of the Prophet of Tez
Expended Resources: potentially friendships and alliances

New NPCs: Chaplain of Light (aging human clergyman and Finduilas' second in command; sympathetic to the Chosen's task and willing to help; trustworthy, if humanly flawed)

Returning NPCs: Giers Oranar, Children of Light (Giers' Kalindian fellowship)

Plot Developments

• The divine sparks are joined with the gods they empower. Unclaimed sparks might look like anything, from lightning in a bottle to an ever-burning flame.
• The chaplain's theory on locating the sleeping gods proved correct. It may prove difficult to find the other gods given this fact...
• Kalinda's location was discovered by the Chosen, which they kept to themselves.
• Diana proposed a somewhat radical idea, joining Kalinda with a Ythlord in order to gain influence or mastery over them. Giers was vehemently opposed.
• High Priestess Finduilas does not approve of the Chosen's actions. The chaplain met under her notice. She and her son are on rocky terms over the notion of fundamentally changing Kalinda, even to save her.

Next Session: The party seeks out the Prophet of Tez in the Svalich Woods outside of Barovia with a very important proposition.

128: The Tortured Earth

Morning of Ulanra 25th, 20AS
Experience: pending...

The battle in the crypts took a turn for the worst, despite the defeat of both blight barons. The tortured earth, quite mindless, paused without an immediate master, glanced into the distance for direction, then aimed their wrath at the moldy walls and supports. Their heavy fists may have missed the party, or glanced off shields and armor with relatively little consequence, but against ancient stone they proved devastating. Some other presence was urging them to bury the party alive.

When a large swath of ceiling buckled and nearly broke, the party was forced to brave the slimy curtains to avoid being crushed. Speed, it seemed, was a forte of the party, as was the ability to bend the laws of time and space, allowing for a steady progression through the crypt corridor. In the last stretch, they discovered a third and final blight baron, orchestrating all enduring foulness against the party.

They defeated a new crop of tortured earth, navigated the putrid roots and feelers, and dodged collapsing ceiling all the while, save poor Curck, who looked like a goner before the primal intervention of his truest friend. Tyvis's massive effect also allowed Shard the strength to resist an annihilating disease unleashed by the last rotwing as it perished.

In the end, the group was a slimy mess, but alive. They took refuge in the further catacombs, free of Yth corruption, and performed various rituals and maintenance. After a short breather and a few scattered conversations, they moved toward their final challenge.

Gained Resources: access to the archdruid's table
Expended Resources: a bunch of dailies

Plot Developments

• It appears the tortured earth must at all times be controlled by a blight baron, or wait dumbfounded.
• Rotwings can enter and exit reality, removing themselves from play and leaving a corpse behind. 
• According to Narra, the Yth entity controlling the estates knows of the party's presence. There is no stealth.
• Those dark, unwholesome feelings are not going away (Corruption effects do not end until a successful save during the next event, or an extended rest)

Next Session: The party approaches the archdruids' table, and attempts to wrest control of the hood and defeat the blasphemous Yth.

127: The Vile Crypt of the Blight Barons

Morning of Ulanra 25th, 20 AS
Experience: pending completion of the estates

Tyvis, Thamior, Shard, Isabella, Narra, and Renato gathered the next morning to remove the Yth corruption festering in the hills. Harnessing the absolute shadow of Cadavera, Darklord Renato masked the party, and like shades they slipped across the blighted fields, past hideous beasts and tumorous 'survivors', corpses animated by their own hungering cancers and oozing infections.

The archdruid led them to the mouth of the Calalas Crypts, a catacomb spanning the yards, as a means to circumvent the roving aberrations, and more so the entity which reigned over the estates. Unfortunately, beneath the earth proved as dangerous as wandering topside, and maybe more gruesome, when they stumbled upon Dabian Calalas, former sire and archdruid of the west...

"The crypt, to this point, is more a corridor with shelved corpses, though you can barely make out their resting places with all the sloughing putrescence. Nearing a particularly ugly root, like an inverted tree stuck in the ground, you make out the horrid likeness of a vampire hung by his toes ingrained and ingrown into the plant. Boughs explode from his ribcage, branching outward and piercing the walls and ceiling. His other limbs look to have split, and roots escaped them, dried over with blood and viscera. Nearly burst in half, his neck and head are particularly fouled, brain blossomed through his flared nostrils, screaming mouth, and widened eye sockets, and the top of his skull burst and festooned with a gray fungi that seems to have displaced the organ. Spiders, beetles, and many-legged crawlers violate his body, through orifices they themselves chewed and the natural ones, all of them widened, stretched, mottled with blight... Then his lips move... Just when you entertain the notion this poor soul might still be alive, a massive, glistening millipede coated in throaty saliva pushes through the slacked jaw. It must have brushed some sort of semi-active nerve on its way down his chin, around his throat, and into the mire at your feet."

Curtains of slimy filth and bloated cillia drooping from the low ceiling animated, and the putrid walls and floor vomited what could only be described as tortured earth, Yth-infested elementals. Relatively weak at first, as their numbers were blasted, frozen, cut down, or electrocuted, new earth emerged, immune to any attack which felled their predecessors. Despite the mowing down of no less than sixteen abominations, new ones replaced them, even stronger and more resilient. They were, despite their number, secondary threats compared to two hideous crosses between men, goats, and beetles; squat humanoid carapaces filled with sentient, green slime that commanded the elementals and the wider filth of the crypts. These blight barons attacked from afar, and after Thamior and Renato mercilessly put down one of their number, the emaciated husk of a winged zombie supported by a lower half of snaking entrails ripped its way out of the corpse and attacked. Tyvis dealt with a second baron, blasting through a whole legion of tortured earth, and with the aid of Narra, Isabella, and Shard managed to bring it down.

Still the tortured earth keeps coming, and the end of the crypts is beyond sight...


Plot Developments

• Dabian Calalas died a gruesome death, and the entire Calalas family seems to have perished. The old Saspish regime is no more, save what the queen consolidated, and House al'Zareef.

Next Session: The party fights their way out of the crypts and to the archdruids' table, or dies trying. The fabled Hood of the Farseer awaits, but so too the virulent Yth responsible for so much death (and presumably Sev's fall).

K1: The Choice Before Us

Ulanra 25th, 20 AS
Experience:

Kaylan and Diana woke in a dream-like plane hovering above the surface of the sun itself, with plasma oceans of fire and light, beaches of granular, gravitational anomalies, and wheeling phoenixes overhead. Miraculously protected from the sun's annihilating corona, the Kalindians had been summoned by the fire-bird Iontaness, one of the trusted protectors of the Goddess. Diana was brought to speed on the situation of the gods (they are in terminal comas, slipping closer and closer to oblivion the nearer Chrysaor gets; and that Tez and Hecate are the closest to death), before Iontaness informed them of a clandestine meeting on the Astral, and a lead on the divine spark of the old god Altan. Virtue, Justice, and Brotherhood could be made to join with the Goddess, simultaneously waking her and expanding Her influence.

Despite the suspicious nature of the meet, it was too important to ignore. On Diana's Slippery Sloop, the pair made their way to the meet, the Pillars of Acemos, four titanic beams large enough to support an entire world, rising up out of the shimmering, smoky depths of the Sea, and extending well into its energized firmament. They met a nameless rainbow serpent, one of the coatl, acting as a mediary for the unmentioned third party- one that could deliver the Virtuous Spark. Whoever they were, they'd power enough to steal out of Heaven's greatest city beneath the notice of the Empyrean, but could not safely depart the eternity. If the Kalindians were interested in obtaining the spark, they would have to steal into Heaven and claim it on the slopes of Mount Lunia, the lowest peaks of Celestia.

It was a difficult decision, but with the will of the Goddess unknown, a decision only Kaylan could make. Iontaness claimed the avatar was mercurial at best, only a facet of the greater goddess whose agenda was its own. Giers and Diana had been given very different missions under the Goddess and were not suited to such a faith-changing choice, and the high priestess Finduilas, while wise, was meant to guide the mortal flocks. No, it was up to Kaylan as prophet.

And so she decided, with the weight of many bearing down on her. Diana supported her implicitly, and the two sailed to find Giers, the third of the Chosen, to complete the path Kaylan had laid before them. Things would change.



New NPCs: Iontaness (phoenix protector of the goddess Kalinda), Coatl (nameless; messenger of a mysterious third party interested in giving the Kalindians the spark of virtue)

Returning NPCs: Slippery Sloop crew

Plot Developments

• Kalinda's avatar does not speak for the goddess, rather only a part of the goddess- which remains to be seen. She came to Giers as an angel with fiery wings, an avenging type with sword and shield. Perhaps she comes to people as they most need her to be, or she truly is a warrior side of Kalinda. Given the goddess's current state, it wouldn't be surprising.
• Altan's spark, known also as the Virtuous Spark, is held by the Empyrean in the heavenly city of Ecclesia. They have prevented it from reforming in the soul of a mortal for thousands of years, their reason unknown.
• There is a clear faction in Heaven opposed to the Choir. Thamior spoke of a group of angels, the Requiem, who may also have been offering the spark. Stealing a spark from the likes of the Empyrean and into the Mountains of Celestia would require nothing short of an archangel to accomplish. Perhaps there is a powerful ally in wait.

Next Session: Kaylan and Diana recruit Giers, and the Chosen of Kalinda embark on a mission to save the Goddess, whatever the cost.