PnP Organisation

Abdelhazaar ibn Abdelhazaams Weekly Roundup

Gather round, my friends, and listen to the story i have to tell. A tale of great valor, unlikely heroes, villainous villains, love and hate, a story of friendship and betrayal. It has everything a good story needs to have and more.



This tale begins, as all the good ones do, in a tavern. For whereelse would a hero choose to be when he is not out performing his deeds? And here we have the group we will be following, for now, entering the scene.

There is Brickadin Boarbasher, a dwarf if you have ever seen one. As broad as he is tall (which, considering he IS a dwarf, is actually not that tall, come to think of it. Though it is still an amazing feat.) A sight of a man, who is probably being chased by all of the dwarven ladies from here to Dschalasa.

There is Philipp, a thin guy, actually not unlike me myself, but with a lot less hair. He's a priest of some heathen religion from the far north, no idea what it's all about, he never got to tell me. Which is pretty weird considering the missionaric zeal most priests tend to have. Well, it does not matter anyways, i assume.

Where was I? Oh yes, the introduction. The next one entering the tavern of Curielsport that day was Ragosion, another thin man, and this one with even less hair on his head. One would think that people from the north would have more hair, it being pretty cold there and all, but apparently that is wrong. But despite his lack of hair, one should not underestimate this guy. For, i tell you, his command of the elements is truly masterful. He could set you, little Lucy, on fire with only a thought of his razor-sharp mind.

And last, but not least, we have Barin Bronzebottom. There is probably a really humorous backstory behind this surename, but for some reason he refused to answer any inquiries, no matter how persistant i was. Which probably means that the story is even more juicy than expected. I should really try to find out more. Anyways, he was another dwarf, where do they even get all of those? I assume it is a sign of the times when so many dwarves walk the surface. Yes, yes, i need to stop getting distracted and stay on topic, and no, little Lucy, noone will set you on fire, so you can stop covering over there and come back here to the hearthfire.

This unlikely group of fellows found themselves in a strange town, with barely any coin on their hands, and without even knowing where they were. Being an experienced traveller myself due to my profession, i can tell you that this kind of thing happens far more often than one would assume. And there is a whole range of people preying on those unfortunate "adventurers", employing them for their own gain in dangerous exploits, and paying only petty cash. (Which is why no smart man would ever choose this line of work, it is beyong me why anyone would when you can have all of the benefits, but none of the risks being a spice merchant, like myself. Though i assume that it takes a really keen mind to keep track of business avenues everywhere and turn in a profit, so if you are less gifted in that respect, a different choice might make sense)

But as i said, adventurers, unlike mercenaries, are barely ever unemployed for long. In this case, a man named Than walked up to them, and offered them a bit of coin if they would slay a foul necromancer. They of course instantly accepted this mission from a strange man they just met on the street without having any knowledge of their surroundings at all. Well, even the best of us have a lapse in judgement from time to time. Did i tell you about that time i bought Cyprus seeds in the Alhafran oasis? Yes, i did? 5 times already? Oh, well, nevermind then. I must be getting old. Well, back to the story at hand. You kids really need to stop distracting me, or we will never reach the point where they slay the feldragon. Or did they? You will never know unless you let me continue with my story without interrupting me all the time.

So they set spent the night at the inn, and immediately set out at dawn to slay the foul practitioner of the dark arts. Little did they know what would be set in motion by this small decision. When they reached the black wizards camp, they carefully surveyed the area before taking any action. There was a venerable army of stinking undead out there, keeping keen watch on anything that happened. The necromancer commanded at least 2 dozens of thalassian war ghouls, all armed and armored to the teeth (and armed with sharp teeth, too!), five flesh demons, and it is said that he himself was actually an elder vampire.

But of course, being foolish adventurers, our unlikely band of companions did not even blink once at the sight of that army of dead flesh, and charged the camp head on. It turned to be a battle of epic proportions on that small clearing in the forests west of Curielsport. I can't really get into too much detail here, because this battle in itself would fit a whole story on its own. Brickadin split the heads off of war ghouls to the left and to the right, barely stopping his pace towards the dark wizard. Barin himself was even further ahead of him, crushing flesh demons with his magic mace. Philipp prayed to his heathen gods, and a great pillar of blazing white light evaporated demons and ghouls alike. Ragosion the Mage threw bolts of lightning and fire all across the battlefield, smashing foe upon foe with deadly precision. The group finally managed to subdue the necromancer, but not before he himself had blasted and greatly hurt Barin with his demonic powers.

The dust settled, and our group of fellows found themselves on a clearing in the forest with a large amount of previously-un-dead, an unconscious necromancer and his all of his belongings. Following his dwarven instincts, Barin quickly found a large chest of gold, as well as some accessoires probably used for the wizards magic. We will never know for sure, because Barin somehow managed to completely dissolve them by accidentally throwing some of the wizards more aggressive potions onto them. Stuff like this is why most dwarves decide to stay in their mines, they are just incapable of dealing with new situations.

They decided to leave the rotting corpses behind, and set up camp a few miles to the east, about halfway back to Curielsport. It was here that their utter lack of preparation finally showed. Not only did they notice they had no idea where to find Than to get their payment, They also found a letter of empowerment declaring that the necromancer was, in fact, an official Envoy of the God-Empress Thalassa called Jarlan Trebis. And even they noticed that that was probably not a good person to annoy. So they struggled to find a plan that would solve this new problem, and finally decided that they needed more information. (If only they had done this before starting to punch peoples faces in. Always remember this tale, children) Brickadin Boarbasher and Philipp would stay at their camp and keep watch over their prisoner, while Barin and Ragosion would go back into town, try to find Than to get their payment, and generally find out more about what was going on.

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for. A new, important figure appears. It is I, Abdelhazaar ibn Abdelhazaam, just tending my spice stand on the market of Curielsport. But my obvious worldliness and general knowledge radiated out, obvious to everyone around. And so they decided to consult my extensive knowledge to learn more about the local politics, which i was glad to deliver. After listening to my extensive explanations, Barin and Ragosion decided that they really needed a rest, and went of towards the tavern. Very surprising to them, Than did actually NOT live in the tavern, and was nowhere to be seen. But only two hours later they saw their two comrades entering the tavern showing a distinct lack of Jarlan Trebis.

This was quickly explained. They had interrogated him when he awoke after the others had left to town. He did indeed claim that he was Jarlan Trebis, Emissary of the God-Empress Thalassa. He tried to threaten and after that had failed to bribe them to let him go. They did not comply, got tired of his complaints, tied him to a tree, and gagged him. They then waited for their friends to return with additional information, when an arrow from the dark forest sliced the necromancers throat, instantly killing him. They decided to make a run for it, managed to escape, and met their associates back in Curielsport.

Here, they decided to get rid of the evidence connecting them to Jarlan Trebis, leave town as fast as possible, and never look back.

Here's what went down today from Brickadin's perspective. Brace for huge post.

So Barin and I met up on the streets of Jarlesville, and Barin told me of the pains the party had gone through, ranging from prison sentences, the betrayal of John Strange, to hobo robbery and destitution. We then went to see Karlo the hat (who is an underling of the twins) and offered him a war between John Strange and The Collector. If we could pit them against each other he would pay us 150 gold, and the 300 if the collector was killed from earlier was also still on the table. So we asked him to arrange a meeting with one of John Strange's underlings so that we could try to convince them that the Collector killed both the Thalassan envoy and the archon. We figured this would make him vengeful against the collector since John Strange apparently might be Thalassan himself, or at least has connections with them. The proof we would offer would be the communication box that Barin had taken from the envoy. We would say that Zanros had stolen it from one of his Collector friends. Barin had also gotten a password and instructions on how to use the box from a wizard in town. Karlo eventually told us that John Strange had put a 50 gold bounty out to bring us to him alive.

But the meeting with John Strange’s people was the next day. Before that Barin and I had to spend the night at two different inns, since everyone of our group seems to have pissed off different inn keepers. Barin went to the inn where they hate heretics and I went to the inn where Barin had apparently bled all over the floor and a lot of guards had caused a commotion. Not only inn keepers were mad at us, because Barin had visitors that night. Two darkly clad fellows tried to break into his room, entered through the window and had a brief fight before Barin through magic ran on walls and roofs to get away. After that we smuggled Barin into my room, and one slept while the other kept watch.

Meanwhile, the consensus among a lot of the Jarlesville people was that war is coming, and a lot of them had begun abandoning the city. So with this in mind we arranged for an escort mission to take a spice merchant to the next town east, just in case things would go badly for us when talking to John Strange.

Somewhere around here we stumbled upon Zanros in the streets, and he came along to meet up with John Strange’s underling, who turned out to be that mean lass that had tried to shoot at us earlier in the week, and who had forbidden us from entering John Strange’s turf. The meeting was in a public place, and in the end harsh words and threats of torture was exchanged, and no deal was made. After leaving the establishment we were followed by four goons who we managed to shake off by causing a scene and accusing them of being thieves to the city guards, and then we traveled through little alleys and dark places to swiftly leave town, without looking back. No time for escort missions, and no time to get provisions for our two week journey.

We spent some time on the road trying to figure out if we should become brigands and rob other travelers (Zanros’ idea), if we should try to see if someone on the road would hire us as guards (Barin) or if we should buy some food from someone on the road (Brickadin). In the end we ended up buying a few morsels of food from someone before camping out in the woods, away from the road.

Unfortunately, when we woke up, the road was gone. The sun was seemingly gone too, and when Zanros climbed a tree, all we could see was more trees. We picked a direction as best we could and started walking, and after failing at hunting a monkey we eventually came across a fey feast in an opening in the forest. The two dwarves knew not to put their trust in any old forest dwelling creature, and remained highly suspicious, but eventually Zanros started partying. Despite no one giving us any straight answers to our questions, he was eating, drinking and dancing with the strange creatures. And eventually he was under their spell. I guess I should admit that when I saw that the plates were made out of pure gold and silver, I filled my bags with food and plates, for later, just in case it proved to be safe, but I was not about to eat anything from there in this forest!

After being promised a road out “in the morning” by their king, I went to sleep while Barin held watch and Zanros kept partying. But after Barin noticed that nothing was changing, that no one was getting tired, and suspected that “the morning” would never come since there was no sun, he woke me up, and together we forcibly dragged Zanros off, who now refused to leave on his own volition.

But we weren’t out of the woods yet, because when we had gotten away from the clearing a horn sounded behind us, and as the barking of dogs reached us we realized we had become prey, and that the creatures we had left behind were now hunting us.

So we climbed up in the trees, or rather, after bickering about who should stay in what tree, we climbed up in the trees, only to have Zanros jump down and run towards the hunters in an attempt to keep partying. So we all met up with the hunters and their many legged dog things.

The fey king Arinidena was disappointed at how easy of a catch we were and was considering doing to us what he had done to his last guests, and taking our skins, but would be willing to let us go if we could entertain him. So Barin offered him the Thalassan communication box, which the king then used to talk to whoever was on the other side, was amused enough and would let us go, if we also took a strange and magical hand mirror he gave us.

Then when we turned around, there was the road again. And there we are, presumably about a days travel east of Jarlesville.

TLDR: All bridges in Jarlesville are burnt and forests are dangerous places.

On the road to Calonia we found out that Arinidena was actually inside the mirror he had given to us, and that the Thalassans on the other side of the communication box whom he had addressed weren’t that happy to see him. I guess deals you make with this party of ours aren’t always as beneficial as they seem. He told us that the Thalassans had burned his forests, and if I understood his quizzical speech correctly he saved part of it, and his fey folk, by jumping into the hand mirror we now carry. He claimed that part of the deal with him to get out of his forest was now to bring the mirror to the west, and set him loose in one of Thalassa’s forests. “Because they burned my forest, they now owe me one of their forests.” Is what he said, and when we offered to plant him in a forest to the east, he wouldn’t have any of it. We managed to appease him for now by agreeing to do as he asked, but not right now. I believe a dwarven lifetime is the timeframe we have to work with, because if we do not carry out this task before we die, something terrible will probably happen to our souls.

On the road to Calonia we also travelled for a while with a scholar who collects childs tales and myths from around the lands. In his company was a bodyguard who was allegedly sleep walking, and not once did he open his eyes during our travel. Phillip was especially captivated by his unseeing gaze, and took great interest in pestering the poor, disabled man.

After arriving in Calonia, Zanros and I sold our fey gold, and ended up making quite the profit. I had one plate that was enchanted with fairy magic, which the gold merchant wouldn’t buy. Zanros had four(?) of these magical plates. Arinidena in the mirror told us these plates will cause something “amusing” to happen once you eat from the plates.

We then took a job from a miller, to get rid of whatever was causing his mill outside of town to get clogged with fishy eggs of some slimy description. After camping in the mill for the night, I almost got seduced by some sort of song in the night as I was keeping watch. It turned out to be an illusion cast by a giant Kraken fish monster of doom that was living in the pond. An intense fight ensued, where our spellcasters caused an obscene amount of damage in close combat, which Phillip in particular simply would not stop talking about afterwards. We slew the tentacled monster, and Ragosion got the final blow with his dagger. With our supreme knowledge of dam building and engineering we emptied the pond of water, cleared it from most eggs and tadpoles, and then got payed.

As our fame grew around town, we got another job offer. This time from the town guard captain, to venture out and bring a coven of witches to justice. He was convinced these witches had brought the Kraken to the miller’s pond. As per usual, we immediately embarked on the quest, but this time we were prepared. Zanros’ plan was to bring along hamburgers to feed to the witches from the golden plates, mostly just to see what would happen. Phillip brought the wine of course.

Passing by the mill, and spending the night there, Zanros fed the miller from one of his trickster plates, and not long after, a piglet jumped out of the man’s back. After arguing over whom the piglet should belong to with the miller, Zanros now had an exceedingly silly pet, which he immediately tried to strangle with a length of rope. Failing that, he settled for pulling it around in a leash, and then we carried on to the village Riverside where the witches live. The fifth of the trickster plates thus spawns piglets from the back of whoever eats from it.

Worried about how the witches and their folk would react to heavily armed dwarves, Barin and I stayed out of town, while Ragosion, Phillip and Zanros went inside to see what they could find out. But first, like the upstanding citizens they are, they unsuccessfully tried to feed a young boy from another of the trickster plates. They managed to weasel their way out of that one, and later ended up eating and drinking with an old man who would not stop insulting them, and nothing of value was found out, other than that these people are poor, hard working farmers. Zanros had a sneak about at night, but couldn’t find anything unusual.

Meanwhile, Barin and I were out in the night fighting monstrous creatures of nightly terror, also known as extremely lucky damn wolves. After heroically driving them off we went into Riverside and cunningly asked for healing of our wounds. This brought us through a very menacing looking forest to the witch hut of Emma. After speaking to her, it seemed to us that these witches were not actually gifted in any magic arts, although remnants of real magic lingered within at least one of them. Magda, had some influence over plants, and could shape them after her will. Possibly because of some fey blood in her veins which her husband and Emma told us about. Emma patched us up, served us tea, let us stay the night, and was generally a very nice person. They told us three women in town took turns being a witch, from what we could gather, mostly because it’s an important tradition to them. After talking it through with the rest of the party in the morning we decided to warn Emma of witch hunters, and to not actually bring their heads, or them, back to Calonia.

Suddenly, a bunch of cultists showed up, shouted something about us killing their baby god, the kraken, and immediately started assaulting us. In this fight, Ragosion and Phillip again showed their prowess in combat, while I at least couldn’t seem to hit the broad side of a barn. Probably because I didn’t have my old and trusty axe, which was still in Calonia being worked on by the enchanter. Can't trust the flimsy handywork of humans.

Barin took this opportunity to anger his God, who threw us and a few of the cultists into a deep hole which seemed to open up into some very interesting caves. Who knows what riches could be found in these probably ancient tunnels?

In the end, only the most dangerous of the cultists got away, a spell caster of some description, who also made sure to let us know he would come back for us at a later date. This fight left me crippled, and not many breaths away from death, but we at least got some gold and cultist paraphernalia to bring back to town.

After limping back to Calonia, the guard captain after some part genious, part confused and bewildering discussion, agreed to pay us some gold for dispatching the Marrakeshian death squad as he called it, and all is well. *spooky voice* For now.

My faithful companions decided to spend four days straight drinking their gold away in the tavern, and somewhere in that shuffle Zanros got lost. Luckily enough, I took this time time, as a sensible dwarf, to rest up and heal all of the wounds caused by wolves and kraken cultists. After I had also collected my now runic axe from the enchanter, we headed out toward the witch cave by Riverside.

As always, we passed by the miller, and this time we fed him from my golden plate, the first of the bunch. Shortly after, one of his middle fingers fell off. Intrigued, I bought it from him for one gold piece, thinking it might have some magical effect on it, which would keep it alive, or just, you know, the finger could be useful in situations where you need an extra. After Barin questioned Arinidena in the mirror, we saw no way of putting the finger back (at a higher price), and he also made it clear we won’t be able to use the mirror as a holding place for people or things larger than a sausage.

Either way, we made it to the cave, now with a finger which sadly enough slowly rotted away in my backpack. After camping outside the witches hut for the night, and making sure someone might come looking for us if we weren’t back within 2 days, we went into the caves. The first thing we came across was a bunch of hairless, blind, territorial and quite angry rat-dog-mole-creatures which we dispatched without too much trouble. Notable heroes in this fight were of course the dwarves, who cleaved rat creatures left and right, and also Ragosion, who dealt out substantial damage, this time with his magic. Phillip, who was quite hesitant about the whole caving experience in the first place, was also whacking some moles, but the warrior spirit seemed to have stayed back in the Horses Head to continue drinking.

After sneaking through the cave, with Barin burying corpses of fallen dwarves with fully rusted chainmail and pick axes, punching through a lot of rotten wooden doors, sifting through some rubble and dipping torches in cave ponds, we came to a hall full of chattering stone faces. One of them still had some of its wits about him, and turned out to be an ancient witchfinder named Merryweather. He told us he had been hunting witches around here about 500 years ago when he was captured and turned into his current form. He wanted us to alert High Witchfinder Mordekai, or whoever was now head of the academy of pure and true magic, about a weeks travel north of Calonia. The rest of the faces didn’t make much sense, although one had apparently been captured when he and his mates wanted to “have some fun” with a young girl. Presumably these faces were all former enemies of the ancient witches.

Another interesting thing we found was a large stone table with a carved map and some eroded markings on it. As with everything else, it was ancient, but could probably prove interesting to witch finders or people who want to fight mole-rat-dog-creatures.

Finally, we found a big stone statue of a three faced witch. Each face probably representing the crone, the maiden and the mother. Merryweather told us there is always three witches, taking on these aspects. We also found a shrine, and an altar with some animal bones and a rusted knife, which I think we might have left behind (?) when things started going sour. What happened was that the statue awoke, blocked our exit with stone, and shouted at us for being intruders. We found out it was what had been killing the dwarves, and not even Philips’ silver tongue could calm it down. Thus, a lot of fighting ensued.

It was hurling a lot of rocks, punching and kicking, and caused quite a few wounds to the party, but eventually a mighty blow from my axe brought it crumbling down, and with it crumbled the stone blocking our escape. Unfortunately it had one last trick up its sleeve, and with its dying breath it cursed us all. In the statue we also found an old silver amulet, which I eventually put on, even though Ragosian couldn't really tell if it was magic right away. The first thing we noticed after having been cursed, was that our shadows were missing. We told Magda, the current witch, not to go down into the caves because of dangerous mole rat dogs, and not to block the hole with anything more than wood right now because we were going to look for someone who could clear it out properly and make it all safe.

Then we made haste to Calonia, and as we rested, Ragosian and I got hit with a second stage of the curse. Our skin turned gray and our eyes pitch black. We then sought out the head priest of Justitia in Calonia, Patron Kareem. He was not able to help us lift the curse, but mentioned that all traces of the coven revolt which this stemmed from, was believed to have gone long ago. He also said that angels could probably help us lift the curse, but that none of them were in Calonia.

At this time we realized we need to get help as quickly as possible, so we went to buy horses from a horse dealer. This steaming pile of manure wouldn’t deal with dwarves, because his wife got swept away by the charms of one of our kind. Who can blame the lass though, she would probably have taken her chances with an orc to get away from this clanless barrel of bloody garbage drippings. Anyway, Philip managed to get us four horses at a reasonable price, and there we stand, with horses ready to leave for the magic academy, a weeks travel north of Calonia.

WILL WE MAKE IT THERE ON TIME, OR WILL WE ALL TURN TO STONE?

After Zanros bought a horse for himself we left Calonia for Our Lady's High Academy of Pure and True Magicks. As we were camping by the wayside a middle-aged human woman came and asked if she could share our fire. After making sure she was not another witch, Zanros fed her from his fourth golden plate. Nothing seemed to happen at first, which I guess depending on how you look at it could be considered both lucky, and unlucky, since Ragosion sure seemed to take a liking to the woman. When I was taking my watch I could hear them chatting away all night. I also saw Ragosion crawling around in the tent of Barin. I am not sure which way that man bends, but if he comes crawling into my tent at night I will make sure he loses an appendage much more valuable to him than a finger.

In the morning, Ragosion and the rest of the party seemed to have forgotten that we were in a bloody hurry and under an ancient death curse that will turn us all to stone. They all wanted to go visit the womans peasant relatives and I suppose live happily ever after, digging up dirt and turnips. I tried to reason with them, but since I didn’t want to ride on alone, I yielded, and begrudgingly came along to eat grits and spend valuable time going in the wrong direction. At least we got to spend the night with a roof over our head. In the night while I was half asleep I noticed someone, whom I assumed to be Zanros, coming back in through the door and lying down to sleep. I guess he was sneaking around the village to get himself and us into even more trouble.

The next morning, after Ragosion had finally come to realize that we had to leave, we continued our journey to the academy. On the road I noticed something sneaking around in the forest by the way side. I told the others, and a plan of action was formed. The glorious plan was foiled by the stupid animals we were riding, who bucked and threw us all of. I knew we couldn’t trust that horse dealer. These horses are probably all useless, and Philip probably got scammed. Nothing came of the shadowy figure I had spotted, so we just kept riding. The rest of the day passed uneventfully, and we took our watches at night as usual. This time I noticed someone who I took for Barin, sneaking around at night, talking to Zanros’ tent.

When I asked him about it in the morning, he denied having been out of bed other than when he was on his watch. Maybe I was just dreaming. Another rather uneventful day of travel, and then night came again. This time, still half asleep, I noticed someone come from out of the camp to talk to Zanros tent shortly before disappearing into the night. Does he still have some connections with his city-folk friends who come to him in the night? Or does he too have love affairs with the peasants in the area? I didn’t ask him about it, I just gave him a stern give-me-no-nonsense looks in the morning. That’ll sort him out. I suppose I should have suspected something was strange by this time, but it was only after speaking to the mages in the academy that I realized these happenings were probably attributed to our missing shadows. They must have been the ones sneaking around and following us on our journey.

The next day we ran into a group of white robed mages from the academy. As they had their weapons pointed in our direction, their leader Doctor Archibald Trelora told us he would not under any circumstances allow us to bring Arinidena in the mirror to the academy. Apparently these magic wielders had spotted him coming closer from miles away, and if any of us were to come, we’d have to leave Barin and the mirror behind. Zanros agreed to stay with our dwarven friend, and the rest of us should try to bring “the cure” for the curse back to them, if we find it.

The mages left Barin and Zanros with four cadets as guards. Oh how I hope they will get along until we get back. Maybe they will trade stories of their lives over a meal and became the best of friends. Imagine how stupid it would be to cause trouble with the people who could help lift the death curse we’ve been struck by.

Anyway, at the academy the three of us, Philip, Ragosion and myself, were left in the gardens to wait around until someone would see us, with nothing else to do than to poke and prod at the cadets. They seemed like a well behaved, slightly boring bunch, typical soldier types determined to finish the task they have taken on, despite Philip’s best attempts to undermine their morale. I understand that after serving for five years, they will be able to get a magic license, which I suppose is pretty valuable.

Then we spoke to Professor Omore who was the Head of the department of applied magics, and another decrepit old, slightly senile mage named Professor Siedelbrom, who in a nutshell told us one way of getting rid of the curse is to find a piece of the “soul” of whoever cursed us and use that in a ritual of some sort. Too bad they are dead. The essence, or soul of a descendant to the witch who cursed us could possibly help us, but we might not have time to get them here before we turn to stone. One thing they saw as unusual was that our shadows were missing, and I think it would be a good idea to ask them about the shadowy things I’ve seen in the night and in the forest as soon as I get an opportunity. Maybe the amulet I picked up from the statue is a key as well. Since no one else seems to have seen anything, maybe only the wearer of the amulet sees things. Maybe I’m just going mad.

Maybe Witchfinder Merryweather could provide some more help if he was alive. At some point we should escort one of these mages to the witch cave, but I don’t know if it’s the right move to do so right now. Maybe we should send Ragosion and Philip to do further research on witch curses among the old scrolls in the academy?

We spoke some more with Siedelbrom, investigated scrolls and books. I found one piece of scroll that was stuck under a heavy book. When I pulled it out to see what it was, it was too old and dry, so of course it ripped. Someone should have cleaned it away a long time ago, it was pretty much garbage already anyway. Apparently Philipp heard the ripping sound all across the library, and made sure to point out that I had ripped it to Professor Siedelbrom. I’m lucky I got out of there without having to pay for it.

At least Ragosion and Philipp found some clues. Philipp also pressured the cadets about a nearby tavern, where the cadets sneak out to drink. I wish I had looked for information about where the closest church of Veritas is. Then Philipp could finally go get some penance or whatever it is his god deals in. I’ve heard that in the good Lord Phex’ house, all you need to do is pay the right amount of gold.

In the morning Barin arrives, apparently having fooled the wizards about what happened to the cadets. Trelora and Omore were arguing something fierce about bringing the fey lord Arinidena to the Academy. Imagine if Arinidena somehow got out of the mirror, into a park or a forest around the Academy. Many reasons were listed why Trelora was probably right.

We went down and made sure Barin was safe and he went to get some rest.
While we were eating one of several meals, a bunch of white eyed old wizardy folk was in the room. Very spooky looking. As I stared at them, they started staring at me. I could feel a chill down my spine, and went back to my food. Philipp wouldn’t leave them alone though and started talking to them, eventually letting them into Barin’s room, where we chatted a bit, and then all stared at Barin until he woke up.

So apparently Barin is a stone cold killer. He took not long to tell us that he and Zanros had fed the guards from golden trickster plates, had been attacked, and killed one of the cadets. Zanros had ridden off, Barin had then taken the remaining cadets captive, and bound them all up. What happened later must have been quite a gruesome sight. While they were helpless, Barin killed them all. Three innocent young boys. He must have crushed their heads with his mace. Oh Phex, my Lord, what manner of companions have you sent me? I thought this fellow dwarf of mine was supposed to be the good example.

He also told us about how the third of the plates summoned forth some sort of love sick harlot, and that after the cadets had slain her, and he had slain them, he clad the dead harlot in a blue robe he had bought in Calonia and threw her on the fire. He then arranged the bodies in a pattern resembling a combat, and told the wizards that they had been attacked by Kraken cultists.

Professor Omore and later Professor Siedelborm helped us with some clues about how to catch shadows. A clay or stone element with some sort of runes on them. Our shadows should be attracted to us, but something is pushing them away. Shadows might be attracted to dreams, delusions, hallucinations. The amulet is a gateway, makes connections between things, opens the wearer up to influences. Not a trinket one should put on lightly.

Thus, we formed our plan. To go to the tavern and get drunk. One had to stay sober to try to catch the shadows in a stone pot crafted by Barin and Ragosion, while the others got as drunk as possible, to make sure the shadows were good and attracted. After losing some silly game where they probably all cheated, I had to be the one to stay sober. Damn it. Stupidly enough, we also started playing around with that damn witch amulet again. I could feel it giving me ideas, and after handing it to Barin, it almost got us in a couple of bar fights. Ragosion and Philipp played some cards with the cadets, and then we left. Too much ruckus and noise to notice anything, although Barin did say he saw something in the back room. Might have just been a plot to try to steal my gold though. Or perhaps not, that was when I was wearing the amulet. Damn thing. Barin almost punched Philipp over it too. Let’s hope no one gets their skull crushed.

So we got ourself a fire going outside of the warding stones of the Academy, Philipp went to sleep and Barin put the amulet in the pot, and then a huge shadow monster thing, we’ll call it the Shakadar, appeared. Barin woke Philipp up, who got sent back to sleep after a huge wave of blackness and shadow struck him down. Maybe his god hasn’t entirely pulled his hand from him, because he was lucky to survive. Maybe he should actually thank Barin’s god for that though… And me, hell I helped carry him back.

Ragosion got charmed by the Shakadar and started doing quite sinister things with those magic fingers of his. Apparently he was in the head of Barin for a short while. I tried to knock our wizard out, but we all know Ragosion will never lose a melee encounter, so I missed. I’m not even sure he had his dagger out.

Barin was about to crush the amulet, but threw it on the ground to help Philipp, so I grabbed a hold of it and crushed it against my shield with my axe. The shadow creature, or mass of shadows, started shrieking in the back of our heads, and Barin started scooping up shadow in his magic pot.

Ragosion snapped out of it and started dishing out firey death to the shadows, while I gestured angrily at them. Barin scooped up more shadow, and Philipp remained unconscious. By the end of it we had in the pot what we hoped would be enough for a ritual to get this damned rotten old curse off. We rushed Philipp home for some healing, went to bed, noticed that the curse had become worse for a few of us, participated in a magical ritual that removed the curse, thanked the wizards and set off on our horses, however many horses we have.

Where to? West to get rid of Arinidena? In that case, avoid or confront the three crime bosses in Jarlesville? We settle on going to Calonia first, perhaps to look around for more jobs, since we are collectively quite poor. Maybe a job that would pay well and take us west?

Here comes another huge post of what went down from Brickadin's perspective!

Before leaving the Academy of magic we actually let Siedelbrom know about Merryweather’s whereabouts. He told us he would investigate on his own in due time, probably in a month and a half or so, but didn’t want us to escort him. We then went to pick up Ragosion’s love Beatrice on the way to Calonia, who said she doesn’t have anything holding her down. She will accompany Ragosion and wash and cook for us. As long as she doesn’t get in the way I suppose that’s fine. Some of the others have become a bit stinky.

During our travel we established a watch rotation. I’m taking first watch, followed by Barin, Ragosion and lastly Beatrice. Philipp explained his absence by stating that there is not enough hours in a night for everyone to take a shift, and that Beatrice can cook us breakfast on her watch. I suppose he’s got a point.

When we were camped out by a small creak, Beatrice wasn’t satisfied just washing our clothes, but opened her mouth and encouraged Philipp to hold a sermon and preach the word of Veritas. I had water in my ears for most of it, but it was about some lying lion king who lost his kingdom because of his lies. At least he had gotten to the throne and enjoyed himself for a while I suppose, which is far better than most of us get to do in this world. I’m not sure if the story told whether he got there by lying or not.

When we arrived in Calonia we were let in without any fuss, and without having to part with any gold, which was rather strange. It got even stranger when no one in our regular inn the Horses Head noticed us either. No amount of shouting, stealing drinks, pouring drinks or drinking drinks seemed to make a difference to these people. My first thought was of Arinidena and that this was some sort of fey trickery. How strong is his influence outside the mirror? The wizards were very worried about it after all. Barin said he had gotten enough of Arinidena the last time he spoke with him, and handed the mirror to Philipp who showed Arinidena the strange behavior of the guests at the inn. Arinidena seemed confused about what that would have to do with him, and we left it at that... Then Ragosion cast some sort of spell, and told us something was indeed very wrong, magic was all around.

At this point I realized it was the perfect opportunity to take my revenge on the horse dealer in this city. For being an outright bastard of a man, and refusing to deal with dwarves, I took 44 gold off his person, killed his finest horse, and Barin got a good slap in as well. I’m not sure he’ll ever come back to his senses so that his punishment will actually be felt, but I can now at least cross his name from the book of grudges. Notable was that even the horse did not notice us, had to be dragged out, and didn’t even move as I chopped it up. We must be dealing with very strong magics.

As I cleaned myself up in the city bath house, we finally saw another man who wasn’t caught in the spell. He was some poor beggar who lives in a shack east of town, and was in the middle of taking full advantage of the fact that no one notices him. When he was finished bathing he was going to go to the church to dance naked at the altar, he said. Lucky for him the holy men of my group all worship other gods. From this we could establish further that the spell was indeed on the city, and not on us as we had feared in the beginning. We tried to investigate some more, checked on the wizards in town, checked in the church and came across the naked man again. Philipp arranged to meet with him in the inn later in the evening, but the beggar never showed up.

We decided to camp outside of the spell’s limit for the night, just to be safe. I can’t quite remember why, but I ended up challenging Barin in an arm wrestling match for five gold pieces, and he actually somehow managed to beat me, even in a best of three. I must have strained a muscle from all the horse chopping I had done earlier that day.

The next day Ragosion cast another spell from outside the city and explained to us that it was under a huge half sphere of some kind of magical influence. We went back into town to see if we could find anything else, and this time we went to Patron Kareem, the highest authority in town, and investigated his documents, while he was sitting at the desk.

Barin found a message from Jarlesville and the most venerable Arch-Angel Kaziel, if I remember correctly. It said that war is close, and then some business about getting the militia ready. That message was nine days old, and the most recent, proper document we could find was two days old, about as old as the spell probably.

Our last idea was to bring someone outside of town to see if they would snap out of it, and so Barin and I carried none other than Patron Kareem himself off, but to no avail. He was still seemingly carrying out his tasks, even though no tool or paper was in front of him. Out of ideas of what we ourselves could do to help, we settled for it having to be one of two options: going north to the Academy of Magic, or west to the angels of Jarlesville. With Patron Kareem already within grasp, we decided to bring him along and go west. Maybe this would also be a chance to improve our reputation over there. For this task we borrowed a wagon, and Philipp made sure to leave a note behind, which I then stamped with Kareem’s official seal of approval.

While camping out on the road to Jarlesville we all awoke on Barin’s watch to screaming and crossbow fire. When I managed to rush out of my tent we were already in full combat. Six brigands in bits and pieces of military wear, one carrying a crossbow and the others with short swords had apparently surprised Barin. In combat Ragosion unleashed a mighty smattering of fire bolts, killing two former privates presumably, and softening up the leader as well. He almost burned his tent and his mistress to the ground in the process, but dealt a substantial amount of damage. Barin held his own against three men for a while, before letting his mace do to one bandit what it did to those poor cadets back up north. I felled one of them in a single forceful blow, and then went to work on the leader of the pack, whom we later found out to be a former sergeant. Philipp was out of bed long enough to hit one of them on the head a couple of times, and with the way the battle was turning out for these bastards, that was enough to send him running. Finally, I clocked the sergeant over the head with the flat side of my axe to thoroughly knock him out.

An excellent opportunity to earn some extra gold was my thought. Deserters often turn to robbery to survive, and more often than not there is a price on their head. And here we were with 5 of them, all ready to be turned in once we got to Jarlesville, where we were arriving shortly anyway. The others were a bit hesitant at first, Beatrice and Philipp especially wanted to burn the bodies. I’m not going to give up earned gold that easily though, so we tied up the surviving man and then piled him and the bodies up in the carriage with Patron Kareem. With Philipp and Beatrice also riding in there, our cargo was now almost big enough to populate a small Thalassian city.

During our ride west, Philipp, Ragosion and Barin tried to interrogate the sergeant. They got a few words out of him, but most of it was curses and bile. Ragosion got him to reveal that there probably indeed was a bounty on his head at least.

The next night while the rest of us slept, Philipp and Beatrice got up and burned the bodies on a huge pyre. Hells bells and whistles in a bread box! Why would they go and do something stupid like that? A few more days out in the air wouldn’t do them any harm. After chewing them out about it, explaining to them that I will take that gold out of their share of any future loot, we went on our way again. They had even burned their armor, swords, and everything. What was left was deformed by the fire, and even if it hadn’t been, selling military issued equipment might bring more trouble than it’s worth. We’ll have to take a closer look at the broadsword we still have from the sergeant and then decide what to do with it.

When we got to Jarlesville we had to pass by more guards than usual before being allowed in to the inner city. The first guard I persuaded with a golden coin, the second one Philipp confused with philosophical arguments. Inspector Scarati recognized the deserter and gave us 25 gold for the sergeant, and said we’d get 10 gold for a private. Their heads apparently being all that is required.

Commander Narael listened to our story and had a look at Patron Kareem. He didn’t fully trust us, but went off to investigate the matter. Meanwhile we are to be some form of cross breed between guests and prisoners, and are advised to remain within the inner city.

As our throats were parched, and we didn’t have anything in particular to do while waiting for Narael to get back from Calonia, we asked around among the guards and military for somewhere to drink within the inner city. Albert’s shack was not a bad place, unless you take into account the rate at which Ragosion was losing money gambling. After a while, Harry came looking for us, and told us Narael was back.

The angel told us there were thousands of ghouls in Calonia, and he had apparently been shot at, as his wing was a bloody mess. We didn’t have any more information to give him, so the way in which the Thalassans managed to get those war ghouls over there remains a mystery. He did give us 100 gold for what we had managed to provide him though, gold which Ragosion quickly stashed away somewhere in his robes before anyone could stop him. I don’t know what’s worse, Ragosion’s gambling, Beatrice’s shopping, or Philipp’s bounty burning, but I’m going to have to be quicker to grab these rewards in the future I think. In the end we did get to split the money up before they had spent it all, but I didn’t get to take the coin Philipp owes me this time.

We were now free to leave the inner city, and as we bought ourselves some equipment around town, a suspicious looking fellow from the Collector told us he wanted to speak to us. His boss said he had some shady work for us, and wanted us to steal something for him. As he was very secretive about it and wouldn’t give us many clues of who we would be stealing it from, we were very hesitant to accept. Although the gold would have been very welcome, I think we’ve sullied our good name enough by dealing with these types already, that to accept something like that with so little information, it would have to be a very good offer indeed. The rest of the party seemed to agree, so instead we headed out to complete the quest of Arinidena, as we had meant to do for quite a while now. On our way out of town, the Nightinggale told us John Strange is no longer looking to torture and kill us. As a token of good will we told her what we knew about the Collector's plans.

What ensued was a lot of traveling. We met a few scouts from the J’var army, lead by Orsin. He wouldn’t give much detail, but warned us about going further, and said that Couriel’s port was not a good place to be right now. Later on Ragosion and I saw someone in the forest watching us, but they wouldn’t respond to simple shouting. As we camped out in another abandoned inn, we saw signs of him again, but did not manage to find anything other than tracks when we all went to look. Philipp revealed some unexpected tracking skills and Ragosion revealed some magic shadow summoning he had picked up. We found out the onlooker had a dead raven and a bow though, so we suspected that it was probably a Thalassian scout.

As we travelled on the next day, Barin managed to identify a road block manned by war ghouls and Thalassans from an incredible distance away. We had a vague idea to deal with this by masquerading as traders, but that was all abandoned, along with our carriage, at the first sign of actual danger. We backtracked a bit and then headed off road through the forest to the south west, still towards Thalassa. On our way I managed to spot a raven circling, and following us, and sadly enough, this one didn’t respond to shouting either.

As we were sleeping one night our camp was approached by a squad of Thalassans. Philipp tried to convince their leader with the truth while Barin and I approached from different sides, stealthier than a lone goblin in a dwarven hall. As they didn’t turn violent right away, we decided not to slay them all and stepped forward instead. The leader was not at all convinced by our story, even with the mirror in hand. With him being too good for gold, we were running out of options fast. Then Beatrice stepped forward to save our hides. Apparently she knew this man through her late husband, and pretty much left us with gaping mouths as the Thalassans rode off, and we were free to journey on.

We soon came upon the mighty river Siron, which marks the border between Thalassa and J’var, but is too wide to cross easily. Following along south, we eventually saw some civilian Thalassans in small fishing boats. They were too dumb to be of any real assistance, and about as rude as the people of Couriel’s port. Eventually we at least found one with a big enough boat where we could hire him to ferry us over. This one, named Rodissbell, was equally rude and wouldn’t stop talking about big ants and small dwarves.

On the other side of Siron, we spent a night in a small village, and talked to their priest Tovarius to learn some things about Thalassa and their people. Ants mine their metals, and dwarves are apparently unheard of, at least in these rural parts. The priests do all the preparing of the dead, and as you deliver them bodies, you get some of them back as servants. The souls go to live on in glory forever with their goddess, but apparently not to rest. A foreign concept to us northerners, and Barin and Philipp especially took offense to this. I might have enquired about it partly to ruffle their feathers a bit, but I could see the use of one of those things, even if they do still send shivers down my spine. We were actually served by one of them during our stay at the village, this being the altar boy of the chapel, and Barin, as his habit dictates, tried yet again to smash an innocent boy with his mace. At least this time the boy was dead already, and he also missed his shot.

Not far from this village, we found a forest where we could set Arinidena loose, and as our bargain had finally been met, we managed to get out of his new forest as well.

When we stepped outside of Arinidena’s new forest, which had grown to about three times the size it previously occupied, we came across a nobleman named Evan Darkeyes of Redhall, hailing from the north, just like the rest of us. He said he and his caravan had been robbed by some sort of bandits. As he did seem to have some gold, it wasn’t hard for him to convince us to help him in his search for these bandits, and to help him get back the gold they stole. He told us he was on a mission from his father to procure some loyal servants. We gathered rather quickly that what his father was after were some of the Thalassan undead, and apparently the bandits we were now hunting had been known among the villagers in the area to specifically target undead and priests in their attacks. The villagers referred to them as “pifs”, which we later found out stands for the Purification Front.

As the villagers couldn’t tell us much more than that, we headed to the site of the crime, and close to the wreckage of Evan’s caravan, I easily spotted every sort of track there was to be found. We managed to follow one set of tracks all the way to the cabin of Stanislav the woodsman, who was working his wood outside when we got there.

As several tracks had been muddled together at a point in the forest we delved into a huge whispered discussion on how to handle the situation, and how we should make sure this Stanislav was indeed one of the bandits. Evan suggested that we smear the blood of a deer I had decapitated on the way there all over him, have him play dead while the rest of us pretend to be bandits, and then gage Stanislav’s reaction from that. Not wanting anyone to ruin their clothes with all that blood, we settled on just walking up, with Evan arriving a few minutes later.

As we approached the man, Philipp and Barin abandoned all plans and started talking to Stanislav about a wood chopping competition, and wanted me to do all the chopping for our side. Fine, I took on the challenge, while Barin and Philipp placed bets. Stanislav must have purposefully given me all the hard wood logs, and thicker ones too, but I still managed to put up quite a fight. In the end the man who had worked at this menial task for his entire life won, as I suppose he should. Hmpf.

This didn’t help us bring any clarity to the situation, and Evan’s arrival didn’t seem to rattle the man either. So now we resorted to threats and scare tactics. Evan used his peculiar spectacles to frighten the man half to death, and sent him retreating to the insides of his cabin, with the door barred. Philipp pulled the suggestion that I practice my wood chopping skills on the door out of his smart ass, and after besting this challenge as well, we continued our questioning inside, but with no particular success.

Threats to Stanislav and his wife didn’t do us much good, and as we couldn’t get anything out of him we were getting ready to leave them and move on. But before we left, I searched the cabin, and luckily found a trap door to the cellar. In there we found one of the masks the bandits had been wearing, along with a bow and some leather armor. With this in hand, some more threats got us some more information, and Stanislav at least agreed to arrange a meeting with some other PiFs the next day, so that we could possibly get Evan’s gold back, and to see if their goals align with ours.

At the meeting it was made clear that Evan’s gold was not to be returned, and some more details were revealed. The pifs are lead by, or were inspired by “The Truthsayer” a secretive fellow, who has arranged the rebellion into cells, so that in case of capture by the inquisition or other enemies, each member can not reveal too much information. He also has them convinced that their goddess Thalassa is being held captive by her own priests, and therefore they slay both undead and priests anywhere they can. A suspicion of mine is that this truthsayer is associated with J’var and the angels, but we have no proof of this as of yet, and didn’t bring it up to them either, since Stanislav was still opposed to J’var when we questioned him earlier. Another tidbit we found was that the highest leader in the church of Thalassa is a man named Hezekiel. Evan let them know he was not impressed by their strategic choices of rampaging in the countryside, turning the population against them, and brought them some suggestions on how to improve. As they didn’t trust us, and we didn’t feel like they were our long lost brothers either, we left them, heading towards the capital Thala, despite all agreeing that actually causing any trouble there would be the riskiest and most dangerous thing we could do.

On the way there we came across a small town which was infested by some sort of curse or disease. The people had begun to turn yellow, with mushrooms growing out of their faces, and as one of them told us, eventually turned into lifeless husks. As we had some plans to slay priests if we came across them, we decided to investigate the church. Inside was a priest, already close to dead. As I want something proving our worth to bring back to the angels of J’var, I took the signature amulet of the six fingered hand from the priest’s neck, careful not to touch the man, or the amulet, with my bare hands. In hindsight, that might not have been the best decision, as my horse, which might have come into contact with the amulet before I had boiled it, turned yellow the next morning.

A swift decapitation later and we were on our way again, Barin and I now sharing his horse for the ride. To Barin’s delight we came across a pot merchant, whom he swiftly crafted a nice looking stone pot for, mostly for bragging sake, and then we camped for the night in a roadside inn. The innkeeper told us the roads ahead, across the mountains where metal is mined by ants, should be safe and that no brigands or bandits should cross our path.

At the inn, Ragosion and Beatrice joined us before we headed further west. When we started getting into the mountains we came across a goat herder who warned us of dangers ahead. There could be storms, snow, ice, drops and other dangerous things that would be easiest to avoid by hiring a guide from his village. He also recognized Barin and myself as dwarves, and told us that dwarves had lived in this area long ago. Now there were only ants underground. We hired a guide named Elvaril, who also outfitted most of us in appropriate clothing and equipment for the crossing. But before continuing on we went to explore an ant cave.

There was a lot of trudging through different kinds of caves. There were natural caves, dwarf tunnels marked with directions to the nearest dwarf city, small tunnels, big caverns, wet caves, stinky caves, hot caves and cold caves. In the end we finally found an ant, which I smashed in the head after it started squealing for the other ants to hear. But it was a bit too late for that. As we started leaving the cave, carrying the ant we had dispatched, we soon heard several more of them behind us. As the chase went on, most of the party was getting quite exhausted, and we had to employ a few magic tricks to get away, curtosy of Ragosion and Barin.

When we finally got out and continued on to Thala, a storm forced us to take cover in another cave. This was yet another sort of cave, a bear cave, which we had managed to avoid in our earlier adventure. Well, time to get to smashing again, and as we outnumbered the mother beast we soon had a large bear pelt to argue about, although not a pristine one, as it was missing a leg and had other marks in varying sizes from an axe, a mace, a few arrows, and also a big burnt hole in the chest area. Elvaril agreed to help us preserve the bear skin if he could keep half of it. As I had tired of the sight, smell and taste of bears by this time, I didn’t put much effort into arguing about it, but Bearin had not, and brought along one of the bear cubs in a leash as we left.

The rest of the journey was rather uneventful. We spent one night in the cabin of three lumberjacks and their single, shared wife, which took us a bit by surprise, but nothing other than that.

When we got to Thala we immediately recognized the architecture and structure of the city, as it was very similar to Calonia in the east of J’var. The same circular segmentation, and here each gate guarded tighter the closer we got to the center. We got rooms in the Golden Calv inn and then spent most of the day doing different things around the city. I got myself a new shield, since the bear had smashed my old one, and also a new horse, since I had smashed that myself. Barin went around trying to sell his bear to everyone within the city, we visited “the slutty whore”, a less than fancy tavern in the outer rings of the city, Ragosion won some money gambling, Philipp bought some wine, and Beatrice went shopping…

As we were heading back to the Golden Calv, we decided to see how close we could get to the center of the city. As the security detail of each gate we passed on our way in seemed to grow, we soon let Evan take the lead and do the talking. The first few gates were no problem, his noble blood and exterior helped us through, but as we were trying to get into the second inner most circle, things quickly turned sour. Evan stepped away from us and told the guards something in confidence, and after he talked to a higher official, this man suddenly called for our arrest, on the charge of impersonating members of the inquisition. As we were in the middle of the city, with war ghouls and necromancers all around, we saw no other choice but to surrender and claim innocence. We were then brought into the cellar of a mansion, and after sitting around for a couple of hours in our cells, Beatrice suddenly walked in…


The real cliff hanger is of course: What will happen to Barry the bear cub? ;_;

Beatrice revealed herself to be part of the Thalassan inquisition, her real name being Franzisca Vodenfahl. She questioned us, and we pretty much came clean and told the truth about everything she asked of us. She was curious about what had happened to the envoy from Thalassa, and had also spoken to the corpse of the envoy, which partly corroborated our story. They were curious about the Archon of Jarlesville and if we had anything to do with his death. She told us they had found a portal or something similar under the city of Thala, and after testing it, they used it to send their army of ghouls to Calonia. Unfortunately, the test subject they had used turned out to have become a madman, who murdered his family and dressed up in their skins. They have also lost all contact with the army they sent. She explained to us that the Thalassans never wanted this war, and that they would be very curious to find out more about Than, who gave us the mission to take care of their envoy in the first place. Franzisca then said she would get us off the hook, partly because our story rang true, and also because she would easily be able to convince her superior of our ineptitude. Fine.

On the way out of that mansion Philipp tried to hook Ragosion up with a kitchen wench of immense size, but then we made our way back to the golden calv inn, where Ragosion went to drown his sorrows and gamble some more, while we asked around for work. The innkeeper told us a man had been looking for people of our type for some sort of work, and that this man was now residing at Minequaft’s Timid Princess Inn. We headed over there, and came face to face with Than!

After pressuring him to pay us for our previous work, he spoke of a new mission for us. He wanted access to somewhere in the city, but wouldn’t tell us where until we accepted. We asked him what side he was on in the war, and he said he was on “his own” side. Regarding the mission, a fooled man won’t get fooled again, as some wise man once said, so instead we set out to bring him in to Franzisca. Unfortunately, Than turned out to be much more than he looked, and got away by displaying superhuman strength, healing and jumping abilities. As far as we could tell he had all the abilities of angels, and more, since he was also able to conceal his wings. A fallen angel of some sort?

After he had gotten away and we had managed to get out of the commotion that was caused, we looked around for a way to contact Franzisca again. One way was to speak to a man, Fitzgerald, who owns a dealership in ancient wares. He sent a runner for Franzisca who came and spoke to us directly. We told her everything we knew about Than, and she told us that she would be able to reward us if we somehow manage to find and kill him. She also explained more about how to hurt angels. Their skin is impenetrable by magic, but once it is pierced, magic damage does not heal as other wounds do. She told us there are magic weapons in safe keeping that could be used against angels, but that we would not be allowed any of these. Could be something to do with that ineptitude again, I suppose. Damn it.

After finishing with Franzisca we went to search through the inn room Than had been staying at, and in it we found several interesting tidbits. A magical ring with needles on the inside, used to pierce the skin of the wearer, five small black onyx statues, humanoid but with weird proportions and extra limbs and appendages. We had Fitzgerald examine them, and he said they were from before the ascension and that he had never seen anything like them. They reminded him of things from the coven rebellion, but that was not quite it. We also found bills and letters, some concerning the search and purchase of these onyx statues, bills for mining equipment and other things.

Barin tried on the ring, and after a few tries we came to the conclusion that it made him very, very small. There was also a poem and correspondence about translating this poem among Than’s things. The last interesting tidbit was proof of Than buying a house in Thala’s fifth circle. Would we found him there? As we were making our way over there we suddenly heard rumor about parts of Minequafts inn exploding. As Philipp tried to get an angry mob going, Minequaft himself got rather agitated with us, and accused us of magic, while we blamed the Pifs, Than, and anyone else we could think of. He had not seen Than in the area after we scared him off though. As we were walking around town again later, I saw a strange shadow in the corner of my eye, and after chasing after it, we saw yet another of those shadow things we had encountered before. This one was smaller, and slunk away before we could do anything about it. An ominous sign, and soon things got worse. Shadows were closing in on the city from all sides, the outer wall had gotten dark, and people who ventured out did not return. As we were still trying to investigate Than’s building, we carefully ventured out, but were soon forced to retreat. The only things that seemed to harm these shadow beings were Ragosion’s firebolts and our torches. By the skin of our teeth we made it back to the fourth wall before the shadows consumed us.

Ok, i am creating this mostly for organisation purposes, since it would be pretty stupid to try to do this via PM between 5 different people, but i also don't want to clog the general forum with stuff that is irrelevant for 99% of TL. If you have no idea what this is about, you are probably one of those people for whom it is completely irrelevant.

Basically, i have now gotten enough PMs so that we should be able to get a good group going. So now we need to deal with a few organisatory things before we can get to the fun stuff. I am aiming to have 3-5 players in the group, any less and there are problems with interaction and pressure on the few people to talk constantly, any more and it gets hard to handle. So far, 5 people have PMd me and told me they are interested, so if not too many of those disappear everything should be fine.

First and foremost, we need a time when we play. I assume that the weekend is the best choice for most people, so i would suggest Saturday 2nd of march, at 14:00 CET. Please state if this is ok for you, and/or which other times on that weekend you would prefer. For better scheduling you can expect the session to take about 3-4 hours.

Secondly, i have not designed the adventure yet, so this is your unique chance to give me additional input regarding what you would like. For example, what kind of setting do you want to play in? High/Low Fantasy, Space Opera, Cyberpunk, Steampunk, or something completely different, at this point everything is still open, so tell me what you guys prefer.

As i already told some of you, as a system i would like to play with the Savage Worlds ruleset. There are multiple reasons as to why i prefer this. Firstly, it is very easy to grasp and ideal for beginners, while not being too simplistic. It is very generic and can be easily be adapted for any possible setting we would want to play in.

DnD has not really been popular in the groups i have played in so far, so i lack a lot of material and confidence in my knowledge of the rules to host this. Though honestly speaking, the system should not be a major point of discussion since it is simply not that important anyways.

I have been looking at that roll20.net site someone linked in the Rollplay thread, and i think this looks like it can provide exactly what we need to play. However, i don't have any experience with it so far, so don't expect me to produce Baldur's Gate level campaign maps like they show in their videos. I will get myself a bit more acquainted with it.

Regarding character creation, i will try to find a working free character generator that you guys can play around with, and i would suggest that you talk to each other regarding what kinds of characters you want to play. Then, you can meet up with me and we create those characters, or if you are confident enough you can do it on your own. Though the first solution would have the advantage that i get to talk to you before we play, which greatly reduces the probability of half the group not showing up at the scheduled time.

Characters:

Brickadin Boarbasher of Dwinharack the Dwarven Warrior, Murgel
Philipp the Priest, Wedde
Ragosion the Mage, Xoronius
Barin Bronzebottom the Dwarven Paladin, era
Zanros Silverkin the Rogue, Bourneq