The Caves of Tÿğeštai, Chapter One

In Which

 "She ate my name" ⁂ Adventurers encounter a troglodyte hunting party with predictable results ⁂ Our heroes learn the value of teeth ⁂ Auto-haruspicy is practiced ⁂ Herbs are obtained

This is the first log of a campaign I'm running this summer. I haven't abandoned the one from December -- I fully intend to pick it back up in the very near future now that I have time to type stuff like this -- but as I didn't have a recording device going and took no notes, if I'm going to write this one down, I'll need to do it before I forget everything.

You can find the pitch, the setting document, and a crude map here.

Our Heroes

Umba the Wrong-Eyed (Level 5 Bard) is a nightmare kobold -- a combination of words that could probably use an explanation, as my campaign world handles kobolds ever-so-slightly differently: basically, just by emphasizing the connection they have with their draconic heritage. The kobolds were created by dragons to be their servants -- high-level homunculi, essentially -- many millennia ago. They weren't created all in one go, however: a dragon that wanted kobold servants would create their own, from drops of their own blood. The result is that there are as many subspecies of kobold as there are of dragon. To quote directly from the setting document:

Each tribe of kobold shares scale color and minor physical traits with the type of dragon that created their ancestors. Above ground, the various varieties of dragon, and therefore of kobold, are very simply labelled — said varieties of dragon are well-known in legend, and familiarity breeds a certain ease of naming. Above ground, you find red kobolds and gold kobolds, blue kobolds and brass kobolds. Below ground, the races of kobold are somewhat stranger, as they sprang from more esoteric species of dragon. In Tÿğeštai, you will find cave kobolds, shadow kobolds, underworld kobolds, nightmare kobolds, and howling kobolds.

Nightmare kobolds are especially strange-looking, resembling a very small and toned-way-down version of the image below. The nightmare kobolds here in the caverns, who call themselves Clan Malrukva, maintain their own brand of darkly surreal mysticism, can see the dreams of sleeping people, and have a tendency to haunt the human town situated on the surface above the caverns, stealing things that strike their fancy. As far as anyone knows, they are the only nightmare kobolds on this plane.

From the Pathfinder Bestiary 5. Art by Christina Yen.

This last bit is something that interests Umba. He is called the "Wrong-Eyed" because he was born with an extra eye in the center of his forehead, allowing him to see brief and vague glimpses of the future -- however, he is more interested in the past. His life's goal is to find out who the dragon that created his ancestors was, and what happened to it.

Notable among his stolen surface possessions are an awkwardly-sized hurdy-gurdy and a battered steel shield made for a halfling. The shield has a rather complex design painted on it, the significance of which is beyond Umba.

Argent gouttee-de-sang, on a chevron Sable five crocottas cabossed Or in chief a raven displayed a comble of the third charged with a crescent of the first.

Mechna-dza (Level 2 shaman) is a doppelganger and an outcast. It is customary among doppelgangers to spend plenty of time living among other humanoids, learning their culture so that they can blend in wherever necessary. Mechna-dza took this a little too far. She spent a lengthy period with a band of grimlocks, and even grew herself -- using her shapeshifting ability -- a head of luxurious hair in order to impress the blind humanoids with its texture. To cut a long and distressing story short, some years later, she was regretting her mistakes as she fled from her enraged half-grimlock son. She fell in with some troglodytes, and found salvation in the Cult of Anagana, troglodyte goddess of plants, eggs, and growing things. By now, her fellow doppelgangers would completely refuse to acknowledge her as one of them: she insists on continuing to grow hair, which is an insult to the doppelganger's ever-changing form; she follows an alien religion, demonstrating allegiance to species other than doppelganger; she has a gender identity, which, along with everything else, indicates that she has rejected the doppelganger ethos -- a doppelganger is not supposed to identify, in terms of gender, nationality, species, religion, or anything else, as something other than "doppelganger". Mechna-dza has joined up with Umba mostly on the grounds that finding a dragon sounds like fun. She carries a ridiculously large arsenal of weapons, for reasons obscure to everyone but herself.

 Sss----''ashKatha¹ (Level 0) is a chuul heretic. Their tribe lives in the deep reaches of the underground sea, and worships Katha², the demigoddess of a particular undersea volcano. Some time ago, there was a schism among the cult regarding whether a particular passage about "the energy that surrounds us" referred to water (as was the orthodox view) or to the fire of the volcano. AshKatha was on the latter side, and stubbornly clung to that position even as the orthodox view won out. Not only were they exiled for their blasphemy, but Katha herself cursed them by inflicting the Tainted template upon AshKatha. AshKatha's form is now horribly twisted, with four extra mouths and what seems to be a hole into space where their eyes should be. They also have a working set of beetle wings -- the intent here was to separate AshKatha from the element of water in order to show the goddess's displeasure. AshKatha, however, continued to misinterpret the signs, and believes that they have been blessed. Even now, they continue to do their work in Katha's name, to Katha's extreme irritation.

AshKatha also acts as the party's pack mule, since they are incredibly strong and has a Heward's Handy Haversack that they obtained through some underwater bartering with the Kuo-toa. Said haversack contains, in addition to some weird Kuo-toa alchemical devices, a massive amount of dried & salted fish. They (AshKatha, not the fish), unfortunately, do not speak anything but Aklo, obliging Mechna-dza to translate for them. (The translation will be glossed over in these logs unless it becomes relevant.)

Our story begins...

 ...with Umba, Sss----''ashKatha, and Mechna-dza searching the caverns for something to eat other than fish jerky, and discussing how they might find that dragon Umba so wants to know more about.  This excitement is interrupted by a clan-mate of Umba's emerging from a nearby tunnel with a strange troglodyte in tow. The latter looks rather dazed.

Umba recognizes the kobold as Ghent the Sure-Clawed, and asks what's going on. In a rush, Ghent explains that there is some sort of threat from the surface. A troglodyte hunting party in the area ran into a group of humans, and were slaughtered, except for the one who Ghent has with him -- who claims that one of the humans "ate his name".

Some confusion at this ensues, and the two clarify that what they mean is nobody can remember the troglodyte's name, and if they give him a new one, everyone forgets that too.

In case anyone is reading "troglodyte" as a generic term for "cave-dweller", here we are talking about these guys.
From the D&D 3rd Edition Monster Manual. Art by Sam Wood.

Flashback from the nameless troglodyte ("_____"):
The hunt went tolerably well; the troglodytes were heading back to their tribe with several neatly-javelined bats to augment the insect-and-fungus diet they usually had to settle for. Hÿšilia, walking at the front, suddenly stopped in confusion. "There's a light coming from ahead," she said. "From that tunnel there."
"It's probably just a cook-fire," said ____ dismissively.
"Who would be cooking something here? There aren't any other tribes in this area."
"I don't --"
And that's when four humans stepped out of the tunnel Hÿšilia had indicated. One of them carried a staff that glowed with a bright and eerie light. _____ had time to wonder, briefly, how he could have mistaken that for firelight, before the staff-carrying human pointed at the troglodytes' spears and shouted something. Then everything was horrible.
One of the humans -- the masked one -- chanted in a strange language, and right next to _____, Šapalulme swelled up and burst, light flowing from his wounds as he screamed. It was so bright that _____'s eyes stung and he could barely see -- then something tackled him. Enormous hands pinned his arms to his sides, and something stabbed right through the side of his face. There was a strange sucking sensation -- not a physical one, but a spiritual feeling -- and he felt himself black out.
When he came to, he was alone except for the dead and mutilated bodies of his comrades, and he couldn't remember his name. Nor, as he discovered when he returned to his tribe, could anyone else. As he and his tribe were trying to sort out exactly what happened, one of those weird little kobolds showed up and said that the spirits had moved him to visit...

Ghent has come to find Umba because, as a fifth-level character (not that Ghent is familiar with that phrase), he is the toughest in their tribe. Besides, he hangs around with that enormous crustacean killing machine, and that's got to be worth something. The Malrukva clan is very worried that the humans are going to come for them next, since they're near the passage to the surface, and make a habit of stealing from the town above, so they need someone bigger and stronger to protect their home from the humans. The PCs are ready to go kick some sun-lander butt, but Ghent stops them.

Ghent: Umba -- you can't possibly be thinking of going without consulting the spirits?
Umba: Oh. Uh, no. Of course not.
Ghent: Good. Come, we must speak to the Haruspex.

They travel through winding tunnels for a few hours before reaching the Malrukva mines, at which point Ghent stops them. The mines are, of course, built for kobolds, and the ceilings are rarely more than four feet high at any point. Mechna-dza can just compress herself into a smaller size, but AshKatha can barely fit a claw inside.

Ghent: Luckily, some years ago, the spirits moved our chief to craft something for such an eventuality. Wait here.

Several minutes pass, and then Ghent emerges from the mines with an amulet, which he presents to AshKatha.

Ghent: Put this on... um... do you have a neck?
AshKatha: I'm not sure.
Ghent: Find somewhere to hang this.

AshKatha manages to get the amulet of reduce person to hang behind their head, and shrinks down to roughly the same size as a human on its hands and knees. Ghent then leads the party into the mines, proudly pointing out their treasures to the newcomers.

Ghent: This is where we keep the stuff we steal from the humans. Weapons, armor, tools... lots of barrels... that one, we think, is full of beer. And on that shelf, there's a foot -- don't worry, it's stopped bleeding. Here is the Hall of Records, where we build mosaics of the more interesting human dreams -- note the exquisite use of lack-of-color. This here is where we store our collection of teeth, in urns constructed for that purpose.
AshKatha: Teeth? What teeth?
Mechna-dza: Human teeth?
AshKatha: What are they for?
Umba: Teeth are very useful. And the humans don't take care of theirs -- they're always rotting and falling out anyway.³
Mechna-dza: If they're rotten, can we grind them up and use them as poison?
Ghent: That would be a waste of perfectly good teeth.

Eventually, they reach the Haruspex's chamber, where incense is burning in a complete disregard for the issue of closed spaces -- don't worry, there's a chimney at the back. Bundles of some kind of strange herb hang from the ceiling, and in the middle of the floor sits an elderly kobold. Her head is ringed with small white eyes -- though nightmare kobolds often have extra eyes, more than three or four is extremely rare, and such a profusion of them identifies a powerful seer. The Haruspex urges them to sit, and pulls out a long, thin obsidian knife of obvious antiquity and surpassing sharpness. Strange patterns iridesce on the blade.⁴

Haruspex: I'll need a volunteer.
Silence.
Haruspex: I need to read the entrails; who's willing?
Mechna-dza extends her arm.
Haruspex: You can't fool me, dearie. I know you people don't have any entrails, and shapeshifted ones won't give me an accurate reading. Someone else.
AshKatha: I don't think any of us want to be disemboweled before we go fight.
Haruspex: That does not auger well -- fine, I'll do it myself.

The Haruspex expertly disembowels herself with a slight wince, and begins to examine her entrails. She explains to the party that, from what she can see, the humans do indeed intend to plunder the Malrukva mines, and that they will be successful if not stopped. She also warns the party that the true threat is not the one who eats names, but a masked woman who accompanies her. It is important, she says, that the PCs not let the masked woman touch them. After a slight pause, she also informs them that their lucky numbers for the week are 7, 5, and 3, and that they should avoid fish. They dutifully make note of this on their character sheets. She then carefully replaces her entrails, and drinks a healing potion. The wound closes.

The PCs have additional questions, but the Haruspex frustratedly explains that she "just put the entrails away" and doesn't want to get them back out just now. As an apology, she gives them some of the herbs hanging from her ceiling. They're a sort of thick, leafy vine, dried and wrapped into small bundles.

Mechna-dza: What are they?
Haruspex: I'm not sure. We get them from the surface.
AshKatha, examining the herbs speculatively: Are they... flammable?
Haruspex: Probably, but you're supposed to chew them.

The PCs each mark "Herbs?" on their equipment list, and depart the mine.

---

1 The dashes are pronounced as an extended bubbling noise, and the apostrophes represent a clacking sound made with the claws. This name is generally shortened to "AshKatha".^↩

2 The first syllable there is mostly swallowed. If I hadn't seen AshKatha's player write it down, I would have spelled it "Ctha".^↩

3 It should be noted that Umba's player seamlessly slipped into explaining the weirder behavior of his clan, and made sure Umba exhibited some of said behavior himself, despite the fact that said player hadn't been aware of the teeth & similar until I mentioned them at the table. ^↩

4 Blade of the Haruspex:

+1 keen dagger. Any creature injured with the Blade of the Haruspex immediately gains temporary hit points equal to the amount of damage dealt by the Blade. These temporary hit points persist until the damage begins to heal, at which point they vanish at the rate of 1 temporary hit point for each point of damage healed.^↩

The Caves of Tÿğeštai -- Background

This is the material for a short campaign I'm running this summer.

The Pitch, as Provided to the Players

In most D&D games, you are the agents of civilization, exploring the blank spaces of the map, eliminating threats, and bringing treasure back home to the city/town/ship/whatever. In this one, you’re playing the other side. Y’all are members of nonhuman tribes (or whatever sort of organization your people have, if any), living in what the humans would call “uncharted wilderness” but what your people have called “home” for tens of thousands of years. And now some assholes are trying to COLONIZE it.

Your job is to figure out how to keep “civilization” from ruining your home. This can be accomplished through multiple ways:

[a] Kill ‘em.

[b] Hoard their stuff*. (Not necessarily so you can use it, but so they can’t. Imagine a bunch of goblins stole Excalibur. The goblins might not be any better off, but it’s going to cause trouble for Camelot.)

[c] Literally anything else you can think of.

(This is all based loosely off of this blog post.  I’m not planning to take many rules ideas from this blog, but I really like the CONCEPT.)

The details of the setting are currently undefined. This is because my intention is to have y’all express your opinions about what you think would be interesting to play, then I’ll do some worldbuilding based on your thoughts.

The Setting, After Player Feedback

Only one of the prospective players actually took the short survey I wrote for this purpose, but the results made things quite clear. Chokers, Chuul, and Doppelgangers were all ranked highly as potential playable races -- and the only place I could see the three of those species coexisting was underground. So I wrote up the linked document: The Caves of Tÿğeštai

(Note that the images in the above document are from various RPG sourcebooks -- I'll come back to this post and credit the artists in a bit.)

The Map