Bestiary: Auf

So there are a lot of things I should be writing.
I have a paper on the semiotic value of footnotes I need to work on.
I have the campaign logs that I'm supposed to be putting here.
I have a piece of fiction that I want to add more to, and someone will actually notice if I don't.

However, this is what my brain decided to focus on, and sometimes my brain withholds sleep from me if I don't write what it wants me to write.

Also, the images turned out a lot better than my artistic attempts usually do. That's a pretty low bar, though.

So, without further ado, here is one entry in what may become an ongoing series of monsters inspired by obscure words found in the OED:

Bestiary

By Zovik the Doomed (dictated posthumously)

Entry #1: the Auf

There is a story told in the city. They say that the small, shrivelled, man-like creatures who live in the mountains -- called the Aufs -- have a penchant for stealing human children. They say that, after taking the human child, they disguise the theft by leaving one of their own, an auf-child.

The auf-child is, inevitably, horribly deformed. Sometimes this is readily apparent. Sometimes it does not show up for years. Sometimes the deformations do not develop until the child is ten or more years of age. It always shows through in the end, though
.
They say that the only way to deal with an auf-child is to take it to the mountains -- the Aufs themselves will not interfere, as they are frightened of the men and women of the city -- and abandon it there, to be raised by its own kind. Then forget.

The original child will never return, for they have become an Auf themselves.

An Auf of the chroolepoid variety.

There is a story told in the mountains. They say that, in ancient days, people of the city abandoned deformed children in the mountains out of shame, claiming that this beast could never be of their blood -- for such would cause the other city-folk to perceive weakness, failure, even immorality on the part of the parents -- and blaming mythical “Aufs” for stealing their true child. They never searched for their “true” child, because they knew in their hearts that the one they had just left to die of exposure was indeed theirs.

They say that, over time, some of the older children who had been abandoned in this manner survived. That they watched for the occasional trips from the city to the mountains, rescued other abandoned children, and raised them in their own shadow-society. They say that these children, knowing that the people of the city thought them deformed, took to wearing wooden masks and shapeless brown robes to conceal themselves.

They say that these children grew up and had their own children, who inherited their parents’ deformities, often to a greater degree. That this shadow-society in the mountains grew, and became organized, and all of them knew of themselves that the people of the city had judged them to be Aufs, so they took this name as their own. And they knew what Aufs were supposed to do with human children.

Both of these stories are, by and large, true.

An  Auf of the Acanthophorous variety.
(I think it's kind of cute; is that wrong?)

One-Shot Campaign Log -- Chapter Two

In Which...

Identities are confirmed ⁂ Squirrels are captured and presumably eaten ⁂ Magical items are received ⁂ Plans are made ⁂ Arson is discussed ⁂ The difference between insurgencies and conquering hordes is clarified ⁂ The party determines the benefits and drawbacks of feeding people to ghouls ⁂ Pamphlets are considered

Warning: The following is a transcript of about half an hour of mostly-in-character dialogue. (Multilogue?) If that's not your thing, you're going to be bored.

Annotations provided by Sister Mangata of the Most Righteous Order of Sybarite Isle.

“Just to make sure you’re the people I’m waiting for,” says Brother Appleseed, “can you tell me who sent you here?”

Confusion ensues out of character, as not all of the players remember that there was even a name mentioned in the mission briefing, and those who do don’t remember what it was. They consult the PDF.

“Mother Malachite,” Lyra replies.

“Oh, good, it is you.”

“Then,” Lyra says with relief, “we can put aside pretense and awkwardness.”

“I have a small delivery for you,” says Brother Appleseed, “and I was instructed to let you stay here for as long as you need in order to formulate your plan of attack.”

Little Marco gets excited. “Ooh, ATTACK!”¹

“Not necessarily literally.”

Silence, feeling the pangs of his ghoulish hunger, interrupts to quietly-but-urgently ask if there might be any live animals about. Appleseed allows that there might be some squirrels out in the orchard. Gwyneth goes out to set up a snare and try to catch some.

While this is going on, Appleseed goes back to his “delivery” -- he says that certain items came to him via divine intervention, just appearing in his shrine one day, and he believes they are for the PCs. He hands them each a scrap of parchment about the size of an index card, each with the holy symbol of that PC’s god painted on it.

Marco rolls Sense Motive and gets a 5. Marco decides Appleseed might be a traitor, and the party might want to be wary.

Marco OOC: My eyes burn with passionate intensity and suspicion.

Lyra, refusing to trust Marco’s judgment, rolls their own Sense Motive and gets a 23. Lyra believes Appleseed to be exactly what he says he is. The players decide to settle this with opposed Diplomacy checks [sure, why not]. Lyra gets a 14. Marco gets a 21. In a brief whispered conversation, Lyra is impressed by how certain Marco is about this issue.

While Lyra and Marco squabble quietly, Brother Appleseed informs the others -- so, at this point, Harold, Ophie, and an increasingly-distracted-by-hunger Silence -- that these pieces of parchment are basically one-shot commune items; tearing one in half allows the holder to summon a minor servant of their god and ask them one yes-or-no question. ²
The party ask if Appleseed has any further information for them; he says that all he was told is that he should keep them safe and hidden here until they decide what to do next.

Silence: Are we going to kill people?
Marco: Gods, I hope so.
Harold: I think we need to kill the Worm that Walks³. That should be our goal.
Appleseed: That would be a lofty goal.

Out of character, confusion ensues as the players try to work out how to approach their fairly-open-ended quest.

Gwyneth returns from outside, having set up her snares.

Harold asks Brother Appleseed if he knows of any strongholds of New God worshippers in the country, people they might seek out for assistance. A quick die roll indicates that Appleseed has some limited knowledge on that subject.

Appleseed: Only rumors. I’ve heard that there is a certain so-called heretical⁴ order over to the east that worships the New Gods, somewhere in Lizard Bay.
Marco: Lizard Bay? Yes!
Harold: Sounds like a fun place.
Appleseed: I’ve also heard rumors that there’s at least one coven of Skøtta Blacktooth active in the region. But the only one I know for sure is that we here in this village are devotees of Jivmarana.

The PCs discuss.

Harold: Definitely go to Lizard Bay, because that sounds awesome.⁵
Marco: I think so too as well.
Silence: I want to recruit a bunch of lizards.
Harold: I want to ride a giant lizard.
Silence: I want to eat a lizard.
Lyra: We have one lizard already.
Harold: You’re going to ruin it for us, Silence.
Lyra: Gwyneth’s a lizard.
Gwyneth: I got you squirrels! Don’t forget that!
Lyra: Have you actually produced any squirrels?
Gwyneth: I don’t know yet.
Marco: I want to acid splash some squirrels.
Lyra, quietly, to Harold: What happens if Silence doesn’t get fed?
Harold, quietly, to Lyra: Well, I have turn undead.

There is some out-of-character discussion of skills and abilities at this point, which contains this gem:

Marco: I can detect poison. Because a lot of people have tried to poison me. They find my demeanor… un… satis… factory.⁶

Gwyneth checks her snares, and finds she has already caught a brace of squirrels. [Craft (trapmaking): 22]

Gwyneth OOC: TEN squirrels.
GM: TEN SQUIRRELS.
Gwyneth, to Appleseed: Fixed your squirrel problem.

The PCs resume planning.

Marco: How strong is the stronghold at Lizard Bay? Like, what’s the weakest point? What do you think is the place --
Appleseed: Okay, when we say “stronghold” --
Lyra: Intellectual / ideological stronghold.
Appleseed: Yes. We don’t mean they actually have an impenetrable fortress.⁷
Lyra: I think we need to start a radical arts and culture movement that favors the New Gods and proliferate it throughout all the major cities. [Sidenote from GM: I’m kind of disappointed this isn’t the plan they went with. That would have been interesting to run.]
Marco: I think we should destroy all the cities, and then we won’t have to worry about it.
Lyra: Well, that’s another perspective.
Marco: I think we should destroy those who oppose us.
[pause as they examine the map, which Ophie’s player has on an iPad]
Marco: Think like a terrorist.
Lyra: Yeah, we need an “insurgency” mentality rather than a “conquering horde” mentality, because we don’t have a horde.⁸
Marco: We need to find some influential people.
Lyra: By “influential”, do you mean people who can manufacture, like, weapons that can kill large numbers of people?
Marco: Either that, or we need to convince someone who can convince everyone else.
Ophie: We should try to get all the undead onto our side, because they were basically enslaved under the old regime.
Lyra: [Marketing jargon that I don’t understand no matter how many times I rewind the audio] … and I can chant. I can perform chants.
Harold: I’ve got chalk, so I can deface all the Old God temples we see with some chalk.
Ophie: Where are all the undead people again?
GM: There’s a high concentration of ghouls in Clarenfair, which isn’t far from here…
Marco: We could start there.
Lyra: We have a ghoul.
GM: … but they’re not exactly oppressed these days.
Ophie: Well, they WERE.
Harold: Hundreds of years ago.
Ophie: That stuff leaves scars.
Lyra: Are they satisfied with the status quo?
GM: Some of them, probably. It varies from person to person. But they’re not politically disenfranchised, and they manage to get away with eating a halfling here and there, so a lot of them are probably okay with the way things are.
Lyra: We need to find large groups of malcontents whom we can work with.
Silence: And then maybe we can bring the ghouls some people to snack on to persuade them.
Lyra: That is good reasoning.
Marco: We could find the influential people and feed them to the ghouls.
Lyra: I don’t think that’s the way we want to leverage our influence. But if we could form our own ideological stronghold, or find one, we could remove the opposing faction by feeding them to ghouls. Both thin out the ranks of people who disagree with us and bring in the ghoul contingent.
Marco, to Appleseed: How was this town converted to the New Gods?
Appleseed: Well, you may have noticed there aren’t a whole lot of humans in this country [human population is about 7%]. Villages like ours, who are still mostly human, were here before the Necrocracy took over the area, so there’s this sort of undercurrent of general discontent.
Marco: What about the lizards? Are they on our side?⁹
Appleseed: Depends on the lizard. The lizardfolk don’t have much of a civilization anymore -- they’re basically leftovers from an empire that collapsed before recorded history.
Lyra: That sounds ripe for discontent.
Appleseed: They live in small settlements in the swamp, and probably don’t care about any of this, unless you can think of a reason to get them involved.
Silence: We should manufacture a reason. Tell them that people are going to come and kill them.
Lyra: I have a suggestion that might appeal to everyone.
Marco: We should commit atrocities --
Lyra and Marco, in unison: -- in the name of the Old Gods!
Lyra: Exactly. We could start murdering people, pin it on our opponents, and start manufacturing, um --
Silence: Dissent?
Lyra: Yeah. [Comparisons to U.S. history ensue]
Gwyneth: I’m not comfortable with this idea.
Harold: Neither am I.¹⁰
Lyra: Well, it’s actually kind of a Lawful thing to do, using terrorism to create a consensus. That’s how the law typically works.

[Confused discussion follows regarding Gwyneth’s alignment, Byfona’s less-known aspect as Goddess of Arson, and whether kobolds can breathe fire. Gwyneth’s player, upon learning they can’t by default, swaps out one of her feats for Draconic Breath.]

Marco: We’ve got to find a temple or something. Or a political building. What’s the best place to blow up?
Lyra: I’m wondering if there’s a way -- and this will sate Harold’s desire to not do absolute chaos --
Harold: I just won’t help. I would stand there.
Lyra: I’m thinking if we find something where the target itself accomplishes an objective for us in hurting the Old Gods, so we’re not attacking our own elements, but we spin it in a way that makes them look bad… what if we fabricate fighting between different Old Gods? Letting us short-term destroy an enemy temple, but long-term make it look like both Wee Jas and Hextor… fabricating a dispute between the two of them? Thus not only hurting our enemies in the short term, but in the long term creating instability in their church that we can then move in and say, “this religion is unstable.”
Ophie: There’s a place -- the Brotherhood of Book and Bone -- a monastery dedicated to Wee Jas. It’s not too far from Lizard Bay.

Harold: Maybe we should start making our way there.
Lyra: So we could burn it down and impersonate followers of Hextor. We could preach a bit about how Hextor is going to basically overtake Wee Jas, and judgment is coming for the followers of Wee Jas because Hextor is a jealous god. Then, as ourselves, move in and preach about how the Old Gods are leading their followers to destruction.
Ophie: I like that. And leave a bunch of leaflets. And things that are from Hextor.
Lyra: Does anyone have the ability to make leaflets?
Silence: We should make pamphlets for both the sides we’re fabricating a dispute between and our own side.
Marco: Less about pamphlets, more about arson.
Lyra: No, we maximize the impact of the arson through planning and ideological control. If we just burn something down, it won’t necessarily further our goals and could even be spun against us.
Marco: I don’t see how.
Lyra: I feel the need to point out that, for those of us who aren’t survivors of frequent poisoning attempts from everyone around us, there are certain social skills that make people not want to poison you.
Marco: My experience is that everyone wanting to kill you doesn’t make so much of a difference.
Lyra: Well, you are still alive, which is true, but our goal is not just survival here.
Ophie: So should we head to this place, the Brotherhood of Book & Bone? It’s also on the way to Lizard Bay.

The party agrees that they should do this.

Silence inquires with Appleseed about whether they can acquire mounts in this town. They can. They also inquire about flammable oils, and pamphlet materials. They can get those as well. The party beds down for the night in one of Appleseed’s outbuildings.

---

1 Yes! Attack the unrighteous! Let the light of the moon scour them from the world!^↩


2 A most potent boon! I am certain these doughty heroes will put these items to good use and not forget them in the bottoms of their knapsacks!^↩


3 Yes! The foul Duke Thull should be slain at once! We have sent many of our heroes to confront him in his tower of unnatural sorceries, where they have proudly died in the greatest traditions of our order -- doing something noble and brave and true and utterly, utterly futile.^↩


4 If by "heretical" you mean burning with the righteous fury of Arraou!^↩


5 Indeed, we provoke awe in allies and foes alike!^↩


6 As do we. But poison is the craven weapon of cowardly swine!^↩


7 Unless you mean an impenetrable fortress of righteousness!^↩


8 It is the doctrine of our order than one should always act as if one is at the head of a great horde.^↩


9 The lizardfolk of Sybarite Isle certainly would be! Although this "Marco" is a morally repellant creature.^↩


10 Neither am I.^↩

One-Shot Campaign Log -- Chapter One

In Which...

Gwyneth falls in with a bad crowd ⁂ Ophie makes an awkward new friend ⁂ Silence eats an apple ⁂ The group is bad at covert operations ⁂ Little Marco perpetrates petty evils ⁂ We're on a mission from God ⁂ Cider is imbibed ⁂ A contact is contacted

The party is brought together rather abruptly. Not all of them have worked together before, but most of them are vaguely aware of the others as being operatives on their side. Each of them was instructed by Mother Malachite, their handler, to get passage on the merchant ship Pristine Lucre as it moved along the coast. When it reached Cinder Cove, they were to steal a lifeboat and row to the coastal village of Nether Mawsnall, to meet a contact by the name of Brother Appleseed.

GM: So, like the mission document said, you’ve been recruited as… um… I was trying to think of a way to sugarcoat this, but I guess you’re essentially a terrorist cell.
Lyra OOC: That so doesn’t bother me.

So the characters travel from wherever they are to nearby ports & board the ship. The last members of the party are picked up in Sepulndia. (All of this was accomplished through liberal use of handwavium, so that all the characters could start in the same place, since I didn’t have any backstories ahead of time.)

There is one exception to all of this: Gwyneth has absolutely no connection to anyone in the party, does not work for Mother Malachite, and isn’t even remotely involved in the war beyond having sympathies for the New Gods. She’s on the ship because she thought it seemed like an interesting experience, and met the other PCs on board. She is “hanging out with them because they seem cool.” Like I said, the game starts when she falls in with a bad crowd.

Anyway, that evening, the PCs are faced with their first decision: the ship is about half an hour away from Cinder Cove, and they need to get a rowboat without anyone noticing -- how?

Marco explains that Marco is “notoriously clumsy,” so should not be doing the sneaking around and stealing. Notorious among whom? What has Marco done to become notorious for this? These are things Marco does not wish to share with the other members of Marco’s group.

Marco has bluffed the crew into hiring Marco as the ship’s cook, allowing Marco to move around without drawing attention. Gwyneth is present legitimately. The rest of the party are stowaways, but they make a series of high Disguise checks so that they can pass as members of the crew when they go onto the deck to get the rowboat. Said Disguise checks were all above 15 before bonuses, establishing a trend of the party rolling absurdly well when sneaking around and doing social engineering, saving all their bad dice-karma for combat.

Lyra makes the first of many of what I think of as “Bavarian Fire Drill checks”, rolling Bluff to look like they are supposed to be where they are and are supposed to be doing what they’re doing. They roll an 18. Other members of the crew on deck -- nobody’s right next to them, but several are within line of sight -- apathetically shrug off the fact that several people who look like members of the crew are fiddling with a lifeboat. Gwyneth follows Silence and Ophie in, out of an apparent decision to go with the flow. Harold leaves five gold pieces behind to pay for the boat, which Little Marco picks up without anyone noticing. Lyra lowers the boat to the water, and climbs down the side of the ship to get in.

Discussion follows about whether leaving only five gold is too cheap for a supposedly-Lawful-Good character; Lyra is pretty sure a good rowboat costs ten times that much. It is eventually justified as being okay because “it’s a used boat.”

Lyra: We fully intend to bring it back, maybe.

Navigation at night is easy. Cinder Cove is so named because there is a castle on the coast, built by the elves in days long gone by, that is enchanted to constantly glow as if with firelight; the enchantment also makes the cove itself appear as if many small fires are burning deep below the water, so that the area is reasonably well lit even at this time of day. Ophie easily makes a Survival check to get them properly oriented, and they strike out for Nether Mawsnall.

Late that night, they reach the shore, and leave the boat on the beach as they head into town. Ophie suggests they look for a bar, and the rest of the group agrees -- after a pretty short time, they locate a tavern called the Starved Vulture.

Lyra: Sounds dismal; let’s do it.
Silence: Well, that means everyone’s alive.

The Starved Vulture is pretty run-down; there are visible stains on the floor and walls, and the furniture is old and battered. Nobody in the bar is looking at them or acknowledging their presence in any way. A quick scan of the room by Brother Harold indicates that there isn’t anyone in the bar openly displaying allegiance to the New Gods. Here, the group realizes another problem: they have no description of this guy, just a name. Can they just ask for “Brother Appleseed”? Will that tip people off that there’s something up? Just how much secrecy do they need to operate under?

Ophie orders a drink, and hands the bartender a gold piece instead of a silver. “What’s going on?” she asks. “What’s up with you today?”

“Tending bar. Doing bar-tending things. You know. What bartenders do.”

Harold walks up to Ophie’s “awkward new friend” and coughs, “Brother Appleseed.”

“Ah. You know, just recently, I happened to purchase some excellent apples in that orchard to the west of town,” says the bartender in a seeming non-sequitur.

Lyra, suspicious, rolls Sense Motive. 14. He seems legit.

Little Marco rolls a 17, and realizes that the bartender might have been expecting for someone to come ask him about Brother Appleseed.

“Can you be more specific about ‘the west of town’?” asks Ophie.

The bartender gives the gnome an odd look, and says that if the gnome were to walk westward on either of the town’s two streets, they would quickly come to the west side of town, and a hill from which the orchard is visible.

Little Marco drinks Ophie’s drink, and they leave.

Lyra, after leaving, disguises themself and heads back in. They approach a corner of the bar where a few people who look like farmers are quietly drinking. “Hey,” says Lyra, “what do you think about those people who were just here?”

The farmers look at him flatly and reply, almost in unison, “What people?” Lyra leaves.

They find the orchard easily. Passing through, they notice that the apples growing there are abnormally large, almost grotesquely swollen. Silence takes one and bites into it experimentally. Since he is a ghoul, however, he’s immune to disease and poison, and if there were something wrong with the apple, it wouldn’t affect him. In addition, since it’s fruit and not the flesh of the living, it does nothing to sate his unholy hunger. He doesn’t even have working taste buds, so no data is gained. Lyra sticks four apples in their backpack for later.

In the center of the orchard, they find a cluster of crude shacks, one of which has candlelight coming through the windows. They go up to the one that appears inhabited, and Harold knocks.

A small and cadaverously thin man opens the door. “Who are you and what do you want?”

“Brother Appleseed,” replies Harold.

There is a brief pause, during which some out-of-character discussion suggests the theories that (a) this might be the wrong guy and (b) they might have remembered the name wrong.

“I’m sorry,” the man says, “I don’t know anybody by that name.” (Later, it occurred to me that he could have interpreted that statement as answering the first question. “I knew Brother Appleseed. Brother Appleseed was a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Brother Appleseed!”)

Brother Harold rolls Sense Motive. He gets a total of 20, because he has maximum ranks in that skill, and realizes that his contact might be taken somewhat aback by this approach, especially since they haven’t identified themselves.

Little Marco chimes in. “We need some apples, STAT!” When this provokes only a confused stare -- who needs emergency apples in the middle of the night? -- Marco tries another tack. “We’re on a mission from God.”

Marco OOC: ...and we need help with our terrorist cell. [pause for laughter] I’m joking about that second part; I don’t say that.

The man asks which god, exactly.

Marco OOC: I got an 11.
GM: Which one?
Marco OOC: On Diplomacy.
GM: No, which god?

“Um, whichever one’s the right one,” replies Marco. “The new ones.”

Appleseed stares at the group for a few seconds, then gives up. “I’m just going to assume you guys are legitimate, because I feel like if you were spies, you’d be better at this.”

Lyra steps in. “I apologize for my assortment of friends who don’t know how to talk to strangers.” [Diplomacy: 25] “Can we come in? We’ve just been on a very long journey, and we’re just looking for a place to rest and something to eat.”

“Oh, yes. Come in, put your feet up, and have some cider.” The party enters. “And since it’s late, you can stay in one of the other shacks for tonight -- they’re usually for hired hands, but I’ve made on up in case I had guests tonight.”

While Brother Appleseed is fetching some cider, the group poke around the shack, trying to find anything that would indicate allegiance to either Old or New gods. Harold, with a high Search roll, notices that the apparent shrine to Wee Jas in the corner seems to have been set up very recently, judging by the fact that there’s no dust on any of the movable items, and some scuff marks on the wood suggest that maybe there was a different idol in the shrine just previously. Harold guesses that there was an idol to a New God there until he knocked on the door.

Silence: Does anyone have something we can use to show that we are for the New Gods?
Harold: I have a holy symbol.
Marco: I can display my love of destruction.

When Appleseed comes back with the cider, Ophie asks, “Hey, do you have any new dogs around here?” She elbows Appleseed conspiratorially. “You know what we’re saying. New DOGS, right?”

Lyra downs their cider in exasperation.

Gwyneth decides to make herself clear by bowing her head and audibly praying to Byfona.

“Since some of you seem legitimate,” says Appleseed, “I suppose I can forgive your eccentric behaviors.”

Little Marco punches the wall, to the exasperation of the rest of the group.

One-Shot Campaign Log -- Prologue

After the last campaign petered out and died -- and then I moved out of state, so it's very dead -- I'm going to take another shot at writing these things up.

This is the log from a one-shot game -- 3rd edition D&D with some Pathfinder elements -- run for a group of six people, whose experience with D&D covered the spectrum between “memorized the Monster Manual in elementary school” to “sorry, Dungeons and what?” It was set in the same world as my past couple campaigns; I designed it with the meta-objective of making a change in the campaign world that I’d been wanting to implement for a while -- moving away from the default D&D pantheon. The following is the mission briefing and map the players were given:

That map shows the Duchy of Lysinka, one of the many tiny nations that comprise the Necrotic Bloc. It is the country to which you and your team have been sent. That last sentence introduces a few questions. “What is this team?” and “who sent us?” and “why here?”, for instance. So let’s back up a bit.

A couple hundred years ago, an unusual thing happened: a mortal -- a man of great power and ambition by the name of Maghestros -- ascended to godhood for the first time in millennia. This apparently heralded some sort of metaphysical shift, because previously unknown deities continued to appear. These “new gods” represented a significant departure from how the “old gods” operated: while the Old Gods had been distant, vast beings who spread themselves over many worlds and planes of existence, the New Gods reside here on Aern and walk upon the soil.

The churches of the Old Gods weren’t pleased with the sudden influx of competition, and tensions have been gradually mounting ever since the New Gods first began accumulating followers. Three years ago, the first blood was spilt in the Great Holy War, and the fighting has only intensified. You are followers of the New Gods, fighting the good fight -- but not on the front lines. You are trained in unorthodox warfare, and missions in enemy territory. You report to a high-ranking member of the Cult of Saurivuntyr by the name of Mother Malachite, but are generally allowed wide latitude and autonomy.

That brings us to Lysinka. Duke Thull, who rules the Duchy, has been slow to act and reluctant to go to war -- but that is clearly changing, and Lysinka is preparing its forces. They are expected to join the war within months, and they will not enter on your side. Duke Thull is a devout worshipper of Wee Jas, goddess of death & magic and one of the Old Gods; it is certain that when he enters the conflict, he will do so in her name.

While Lysinka is small, its capital city, Sepulndia, is one of the largest port cities in the Necrotic Bloc. It would be a powerful asset in the war, and cannot be allowed to fall fully into the hands of your enemies. Your job is to find some way -- any way -- of preventing this.The methods you employ are entirely up to you.

The characters they created -- whom I would hesitate to call “our heroes” -- are as follows. Note that this is the information they gave when I asked them to introduce themselves to the group (with some comments from me), which is why some of these descriptions are much shorter than others.

Ophie OOC, reading from the top of her character sheet: ... my gender is “not applicable”...
Marco OOC: I put that too!
Lyra OOC, five minutes later: “... and my character is genderfluid.”
GM: Okay, all of you gender-non-conforming types, can you give us your characters’ pronouns?
Lyra OOC: “They” is fine.
Ophie OOC: “Gnome”.
Harold OOC: Like “the gnome” or “that gnome”?
Marco OOC: My preferred pronoun is “your Majesty”. 

 Little (or possibly “Lil”) Marco:
A Neutral Evil elven sorcerer who worships Grandfather Kraken in his aspect as a merciless force of destruction. Marco has spent much of Marco’s life hopping from town to town because Marco tends to be strongly disliked, citing “destruction” as “my main interest, hobby, and lifestyle,” and admitting to a history of “arson and assault and stuff.” “Little Marco” is a “street name”, given by someone who is now “mysteriously dead” -- Marco’s real name is not revealed. For some reason -- possibly because, out of character, Marco’s player is the one who memorized the core rulebooks when she was in elementary school -- Marco ends up making a lot of the decisions for the group despite the fact that all Marco’s party members recognize Marco as being dangerously amoral. Marco’s player also wrote down “Kalamata olive” on the “skin” line of the character sheet, which I had to Google.

Marco, starting character description: “My name’s Little Marco, and I’m a Gemini.”
[Marco’s player explains the above]
Marco, ending character description: “And I’m a space sorcerer. I’m not going to explain that, and I don’t have to tell you any more about me.”

Gwyneth the Moonbringer:
A kobold wizard -- one of a tribe of brass-scaled kobolds whose ancestors came to the region as refugees some three hundred years ago. She’s small even for a kobold, and always felt socially isolated among her tribe. When she became an adult, she moved to the big city of Sepulndia, where she was amazed by the varied cultures and ideas; at this time, she converted from her previous faith to the Cult of Byfona. Gwyneth is “always ready to meet new friends and chase new experiences”… which is probably why the campaign essentially starts with her falling in with a bad crowd. Her alignment is somewhat unclear, but she’s basically a good person.

Brother Harold the Hole-Digger and Heart-Breaker:
A Lawful Good dwarven cleric of Arraou from Grosmund, a dwarven city down the coast. He left home to fight for his chosen deity and “make a better Necrotic Bloc”. It becomes clear over the course of the game that he is of the “hear no evil, see no evil” school of Lawful Good, studiously ignoring everything his companions do that might offend his moral sensibilities.

Ophie:
A gnome ranger. The gnome’s character sheet specifies that the gnome has orange eyes, “bark brown” hair, and olive skin. The gnome is a worshipper of the Leper, and grew up in the insular fishing village of Crimpwood. Ophie, unlike that gnome’s fellow gnomes, is not content to ignore the goings-on outside the gnomish community, and has been adventuring around the region for some time.

Lyra:
Lyra has “no last name, because I have no need for one”, worships Byfona, and is a Chaotic Neutral half-elf bard and a genderfluid werewolf. (Just typing that sentence right there, I thought that if Lyra lived on Earth, they would probably spend a lot of time on Tumblr.) Their human mother worked on the docks in the port town of Cobsey when their elven father passed through, impregnated her, and left without bothering to warn her he was afflicted with lycanthropy.

Lyra’s mother tried to hide that Lyra was different, but they didn’t fit in very well anyway due to being half-elf and “having no visible gender characteristics.” (It’s later decided that Lyra’s elven blood makes them look like an androgynous teenager, since a thirty-year-old half-elf probably looks pretty young.) Lyra tried unsuccessfully to disguise themself, but ended up an outcast in the town who spent a lot of time “out by the river singing to the moon”. Eventually, they had an accidental werewolf moment and Lyra was driven out of Cobsey. They spent the next few years swindling their way through different towns and trying on different identities.

Lyra: I was the priest-queen of Shersl for two years, until the lizardfolk began to question whether I was actually divinely favored and I got chased out of town.

Lyra finally ended up in Sepulndia and realized they could just be a stranger to everyone and be whoever they wanted to be. They made a living through singing, and got together a band of musicians who stole and performed until they had enough money to open their own theater. Some years later, followers of Hextor torched the place because they thought Lyra and their companions were degenerates. At this point, Lyra’s primary motivation is to destroy the Hextorian religion. They also end up making a lot of the party’s decisions, which explains a lot about where the game ended up going, now that I think about it.

Silence:
Silence is a ghoul rogue who worships Qualme. His relationship with his god is somewhat fraught -- Qualme being a Lawful Neutral god who thinks the dead ought to stay dead, and Silence being both undead and Chaotic Good. If he has any crises of faith, though, he doesn’t say anything -- he doesn’t really talk about his religion. Despite his hunger for the flesh of the living, Silence wants to be good -- but he admits that he tends to “kinda fuck up sometimes.” For some inexplicable reason -- I’m going to guess either Frankensteinian sewing project or botched Polymorph spell -- Silence has some subtly feline features.

Marco OOC: It’s pronounced “          ”.

For anyone who's interested, you can find information about the setting here, information about the pantheon of New Gods here, and a bigger version of the map here.

Lysinka Map

The New Gods

The following is a run-down of the New Gods, the pantheon of deities that is referred to in this post. It is word-for-word what the players received when they were picking their deities -- except the domains, which I've swapped out for Pathfinder domains so I can use this document in the future.

Right, so this is important, since you’re probably playing a pretty devout worshipper of one of these. There are twelve major deities in the pantheon, along with a host of minor ones. I’m just going to list the major ones, because that’s all I’ve written up. You can feel free to just make up one of those minor ones if you don’t like the options before you.

It should also be noted that clerics and paladins in the service of the New Gods generally take on a new name after joining the church. These names traditionally take the form of Brother ___ or Sister ___, where the blank is something relevant to their faith; high-ranking members of the church are Mother ___ or Father ___ instead, while very recent members are Acolyte ___.

The Pantheon

Grandfather Kraken

As the top god in the pantheon, Grandfather Kraken gets first billing on this list. Rumor has it -- and by “rumor”, I mean the deep mysteries of the church and suchlike -- that Grandfather Kraken has been a god at least once before, but whatever civilization used to worship him vanished, and he was forgotten for many centuries before being rediscovered. He is the god of the sea, and of forgotten things. He is generally depicted as -- surprise -- a kraken.
Alignment: True Neutral
Domains: Catastrophe, Defense, Destruction, Ferocity, Flotsam, Knowledge, Memory, Oceans,  Protection, Defense, Solitude, Stars, Storms Strength, Void, Water, Weather.
Epithets: Eldest, Devourer of Leviathans, The Tentacles that Circle the World
Favored Animal: Squid
Favored Weapon: n/a

Arraou

In her mortal life, Arraou was a great heroine in some distant land. The details of that are very probably known to her priests, but I have not written them. Her church encourages the doing of great deeds and the accumulation of honor and dulce et decorum est pro patria mori -- generally all of the sorts of ideas that turn out paladins who smite evil first and ask questions later, then get themselves killed in tremendously stupid ways. She is the goddess of heroism and of the moon, and is generally depicted as a gnoll in shining armor.
Alignment: Lawful Good
Domains: Ash, Darkness, Law, Good, Fire, Loyalty, Moon, Night, Protection, Purity, Redemption, Smoke.
Epithets: Hero of Heroes, She Who Howls At The Moon
Favored Animal: Hyena
Favored Weapon: Flindbar

Skøtta Blacktooth

Skøtta Blacktooth is the odd one out in the pantheon of new gods, and something of an adversarial figure. She does not have any established churches -- in fact, if someone did establish a church in her name, it would probably just annoy her. When her worshippers meet, they do so in groups of exactly three -- no less, no more -- and generally in the accepted configuration of “maiden, mother, and crone”. She is the patron goddess of witches. This patronage makes a lot of the nicer witches pretty uncomfortable, because she is also the goddess of madness, hatred, unforgivable deeds, and the end of the world. She is not openly worshipped anywhere, for fairly obvious reasons, but you will find covens who worship her in secret almost everywhere. Who she was in mortal life is unclear, but you probably wouldn’t have wanted to meet her. She is generally depicted as a night hag.
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Domains: Cannibalism, Chaos, Corruption, Destruction, Entropy, Evil, Hatred, Madness, Magic, Nightmare, Rage, Torture.
Epithets: The Hag, The Crone, The Witch Queen, Granny Doomsday, The Adversary
Favored Animal: Black cat
Favored Weapon: Flint knife

Qualmë

Qualmë is the new god of death, and the old gods of death do not like him. This is because Qualmë is, specifically, a god of peaceful death: he mandates respectful treatment of the dead, and guides souls to the afterlife in a fair and businesslike fashion. Wee Jas, the Old Goddess who is still popular in the Necrotic Bloc, is especially opposed to him because Qualmë’s dogma only allows necromancy if you get explicit permission from the dead. In his mortal life, Qualmë was a sea elf, an aquatic species constantly on the verge of getting wiped out by the sahuagin. He wasn’t a particularly special sea elf, either -- until he sacrificed his life to delay a raiding party of sahuagin and let his tribe escape. The reverence other sea elves place on such sacrifice was apparently enough to propel his spirit into divinity. Because of this, he is also recognized as the god of nobility of spirit, and patron of martyrs. He is generally depicted as a small, slim elf poring over an enormous book -- the Book of the Dead, where he finds the information he needs in order to fairly judge the spirits of the deceased.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Domains: Ancestors, Darkness, Death, Fate, Law, Loss, Luck, Martyr, Nobility, Psychopomp, Repose, Souls.
Epithets: Death, The Bookkeeper, The Undertow
Favored Animal: Pufferfish
Favored Weapon: Trident

Jivmarana

Jivmarana, like Grandfather Kraken, was a god before. For him, however, it was much more recent -- sufficiently so that there are even surviving records. He was the cruel harvest-god of the fallen goblin nation of Vyutommourt; when Vyutommourt was destroyed, and his worshippers wiped out, he allowed himself to die and be reborn as a rakshasa -- a race of supernatural beings who practice reincarnation. For a millennium or two, he continued to be reborn over and over, moving up the ladder of incarnations, until he was blessed with a gift that only the greatest of rakshasa achieve -- the ability to remember all of his previous lives. He then gathered his followers, travelled thousands of miles to the north until he reached the spot in the Wastelands where Vyutommourt once stood, spent some time collecting ancient artifacts and building his strength, and finally reclaimed his divinity. The worship of Jivmarana requires the sacrifice of sapient beings; if they do so, his worshippers will be rewarded with a supernaturally bountiful harvest. Theologically, the justification has something to do with the circle of life, but let’s not get into that. Jivmarana is primarily a harvest god, but he also has aspects of death and healing. He is generally depicted as a goblin with backwards-facing hands and a vulture’s head.
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Domains: Day, Decay, Death, Evil, Growth, Healing, Murder, Plant, Resurrection, Seasons, Sun, Weather.
Epithets: Lord of Life and Death, The Maharajah
Favored Animal: Vulture
Favored Weapon: Sickle

The Leper

The Leper is from some other plane of existence, and how he arrived here exactly is unclear. He started out as far less than a god -- some strange entity who appeared to madmen in their dreams -- but a few years after his presence was first reported, the weapon of mass destruction that created the Tainted was unleashed, and the Leper soon found his people. The Leper is now the god of outcasts, madmen, malcontents, and other people who simply don’t fit into society. He has declared the Tainted to be his chosen people, and the vast majority of them have accepted him as their patron god. There is no fixed image of the Leper -- he is considered to change shape constantly. Icons of him show him as a bizarre collision of limbs of different species, and no two icons are made to look the same.
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Domains: Blood, Chaos, Dark Tapestry, Freedom, Insanity, Isolation, Liberation, Madness, Revolution, Stars, Void, War.
Epithets: n/a
Favored Animal: Silverfish
Favored Weapon: Garrote

Maghestros

Maghestros’s ascension to divinity was the event that opened the floodgates and let the pantheon of new gods come into being. In life, he was one of the great merchant-lords of Vireion, and had access to many obscure books and forgotten powers. Maghestros is the god of greed, of commerce, and of scavengers. Many ghouls and other intelligent undead are among his worshippers, as well as traders and the nobility. His symbol is a maggot on top of a gold coin, and he is usually depicted as a hooded not-quite-human figure.
Alignment: Neutral Evil
Domains: Aristocracy, Death, Deception, Evil, Greed, Innuendo, Leadership, Nobility, Travel, Trade, Trickery, Undead.
Epithets: The Scavenger King, The Plutocrat, The Golden One, The Ghoul Lord, The Maggot that Reigns
Favored Animal: Fly
Favored Weapon: Rapier

Weorlace

Weorlace was a legendary smith of the dwarves in centuries long gone by. For more than a thousand years, it has been dwarven custom to ask Weorlace for small favors when crafting something particularly difficult. It was only recently that she began to answer -- theologians suspect that the metaphysical disturbances caused by the other new gods’ apotheoses allowed her spirit to ascend from her home in the afterlife to a spot in the pantheon. Naturally, she is the god of smiths -- she also has dominion over the element of earth, and over runecraft.
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Domains: Artifice, Caves, Construct, Earth, Languages, Law, Magic, Metal, Rune, Toil, Trap, Wards.
Epithets: The Smith, The Civilized One, The Craftswoman, The Empire-Builder
Favored Animal: Mole
Favored Weapon: Warhammer

Vald

Vald is the incarnation of the fierce weathers of the Arctic -- and, by gradual extension, of storms pretty much everywhere. He encourages heroic behavior in his worshippers, but to him, heroism involves great feats of strength, the slaying of foul beasts, and the accumulation of honor. Vald would be a big fan of Conan or Beowulf or the Klingons, essentially. He is generally depicted as an enormous white wolf -- though some sects prefer to depict him as a hulking barbarian wearing the pelt of a wolf.
Alignment: Chaotic Good
Domains: Air, Animal, Catastrophe, Chaos, Destruction, Fur, Good, Ice, Storms, Water, Weather, Wind.
Epithets: The Blizzard, The Giver of Honor, The Beast of the Battlefield
Favored Animal: Wolf
Favored Weapon: Greataxe

Saurivuntyr

A long time ago -- okay, a few centuries ago -- there was an artifact called the Robe of the Panoptic. It had been crafted by a creature called Jak, a kobold lich who was favored by the old goddess Tiamat, and allowed him to unite the tribes of the kobolds. The power of the robe was that it allowed the wearer to see for hundreds of miles around, in a thousand places at once -- which had the unfortunate side effect of driving the wearer slightly mad. There was also, thousands of miles to the south, a dragon of immense age by the name of Saurivuntyr who obsessively collected secrets. Saurivuntyr and Jak never met, but the adventuring party who finally slew Jak permanently had the bright idea, several months later, to trade the Robe of the Panoptic to Saurivuntyr for a particularly valuable secret from his hoard. With the power of the robe added to his already considerable power and knowledge, it didn’t take long for Saurivuntyr to discover a few more shortcuts to power. He is now the god of tyranny and judgment, and patron of all the reptilian races. He is depicted as a green dragon, often with a kobold in tow -- for Jak’s soul is bound to him in the afterlife.
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Domains: Dragon, Evil, Fear, Judgment, Knowledge, Law, Saurian, Scalykind, Slavery, Thought, Tyranny, Venom.
Epithets: The All-Seeing, The All-Knowing, The Eye, The Judge
Favored Animal: Chameleon
Favored Weapon: Blowgun

Lewinna

Lewinna is the goddess of travel, exploration, and adventure, the lady of the river. Travellers everywhere call on her for protection. And she does protect, fiercely, as she is also the patron of brawlers, and grants strength in unarmed combat. Lewinna encourages her worshippers to, simply, travel and do good wherever they go. In contrast to the good-aligned gods previously mentioned, Lewinna does not care about flashy acts of heroism, as long as they do good -- which is why the truest and most noble heroes pray to her. She is usually depicted as a river giant.
Alignment: Neutral Good
Domains: Exploration, Fist, Flowing, Good, Glory, Heroism, Honor, Resolve, Rivers, Strength, Travel, Water.
Epithets: Lady of the River, The Wanderer
Favored Animal: Crocodile
Favored Weapon: Spear

Byfona

Byfona tries to define herself as an approachable, friendly sort of divinity. If she were a teacher, she’d be the kind who insisted on her students calling her by her first name, with no “Mrs.” She is also not the sort to perform flashy miracles -- but those in her favor will often find her to be free with her advice. It is fairly common for her, or one of her servants, to show up in the dreams of particularly devout worshippers for a friendly fireside chat about whatever is bothering them. She is the goddess of love, luck, celebration, and fire; she is consistently depicted as an elderly goblin woman with a mischievous smile.
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Domains: Arson, Charm, Chaos, Curse, Fire, Love, Luck, Luck, Revelry, Thievery, Trickery, Whimsy.
Epithets: The Fool, Auntie, Lady Luck
Favored Animal: Rabbit
Favored Weapon: Sap

Tealeaf

Tealeaf is not a deity of adventurers. She is the goddess of the shire, of home and hearth, of kind gestures and simple pleasures. Her worshippers stay at home in small villages, and live good, simple lives. She is usually depicted as a rosy-cheeked halfling woman.
Alignment: Neutral Good
Domains: Community, Cooperation, Family, Friendship, Good, Growth, Home, Imagination, Luck, Healing, Plant, Restoration.
Epithets: Just “Tealeaf” is fine, thanks all the same.
Favored Animal: Hedgehog
Favored Weapon: Sling

Katenakhte

The savage patron of hunters, from some distant and unmapped land, Katenakhte is god of the sky, the sun, and the hunt. His dogma stresses purifying oneself in the hunt, and his worshippers show their devotion by hunting the largest and most dangerous beasts they can find, using only equipment they have fashioned themselves. He is depicted as half-man, half-bird.
Alignment: True Neutral
Domains: Air, Ambush, Animal, Cloud, Day, Feather, Light, Revelation, Sun, Tactics, Trickery, War.
Epithets: The Hunter, Rukh-Slayer, The Taloned, Lord of Birds
Favored Animal: Falcon
Favored Weapon: Javelin

Duchy of Lysinka

The following is information regarding the region in which the one-shot game in this post is set. It is word-for-word what was provided to the players when making their characters.

The Duchy of Lysinka

The Duchy of Lysinka is one of many tiny “pocket fiefdoms” that formed out of the remnants of the People’s Necrocracy. Like most of these so-called countries, it is held together solely by the personal power of its ruler, and as a result, its borders are pretty much limited to the area that said ruler or agents of same can reach within a few days.

History

Buckle up, because we’re starting with three hundred years ago… but don’t worry, we’re not staying there long. Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version.

About three hundred years ago, a half-orc, half-human warrior by the name of Krod picked up some politically radical concepts about the rights of the working class and had a nifty idea. What if he animated a bunch of undead workers and made them do all the labor, then divided the profits among all of the citizenry, allowing everyone to retire to a life of leisure and creating an egalitarian paradise?

Of course, there were a number of obstacles he had to deal with, including the fact that he had neither the power to set policy nor the power to animate the dead. Krod was pretty good with problem-solving when he encountered any problems that could be solved with an orcish horde, however, so a few years later, the declining human empire of Capra found Krod on their western borders with a handful of freelance necromancers and a frightening number of well-armed orcs. Krod proceeded to carve off a rather large chunk of territory for himself, named it the People’s Necrocracy, and set to work.

Corruption, naturally, set in almost immediately. While Krod’s intentions were pure, nobody else’s were, and a sizable quantity of the resources that were supposed to be divided equally among the population ended up in the pockets of his political advisors and various underlings. After Krod died of old age, it got much, much worse. The animated skeletons that had previously done labor were shifted almost entirely into military and internal peacekeeping applications, and the peasantry ended up right back where they started, except with nasty necromantic whatsits plaguing the countryside.

This state of affairs could only go on for so long. Political infighting and occasional peasant revolts developed into a brief civil war, and the whole thing fell apart. That was 160 years ago -- it is now the year 275 by the Necrotic calendar, which counts from the Necrocracy’s founding. What used to be the Necrocracy is now a collection of short-lived and ever-shifting micro-states called the Necrotic Bloc, one of which is the Duchy of Lysinka.

Religion

Like most of the Necrotic Bloc, the primary religion in Lysinka is the Cult of Wee Jas, the Old Goddess of death and magic, patron of necromancers and the undead. Lysinka contains -- in addition to the small shrines and places of worship in every town -- two major temples and three monasteries devoted to her worship. Wee Jas is also revered as a steward of the dead, and as a god of laws. Notably, in regards to the latter, she is not said to take any moral stance whatsoever, and her dogma does not consider whether an act is ethical or not – only if it is legal. Her followers also call her The Ruby Sorceress, the Dark-Eyed Lady, the Witch Goddess, the Stern Lady, the Taker, the Lady of Book and Bone, and Death's Guardian

 In addition, many members of the ruling class and a sizable portion of the military pay their fealty to Hextor, Old God of… well, you can pretty much sum up his portfolio as “God of Fascism”, though that terminology is unknown here. Pelor, the Old God of the Sun, also has worshippers here, as he is known for providing protection against undead. For this reason, he is worshipped only in secret, generally by those who are unhappy with the status quo.

The New Gods are relatively unknown here -- people are of, course, aware they exist, but there is no evidence of any actual followers of the New Gods here in Lysinka -- only the occasional rumor.

Leadership

The Duchy of Lysinka is ruled over by a creature called Thull, who was originally born into a Capran noble family a short time before the Necrocracy came into being and so has a legitimate claim to the title of “duke”. In what -- in the parlance of the Necrotic Bloc -- one refers to as his “first life”, he was a powerful necromancer who supported Krod’s movement. Through what is considered a blessing of Wee Jas, his soul remained tied to this world after death, and he arose into his “second life” -- i.e., undeath -- as a “Worm that Walks”.

Intelligent undead like Duke Thull are not only tolerated in the Necrotic Bloc, they are accorded somewhat more respect than the living. Most entities with actual political power, therefore, are in their “second life”.