Ring of the Imposter

In the most recent session of the “Prophecy of the Hungry Sky" campaign, Aster rolled a 30-something when casting identify on a certain ring, so she has all the details about how it works now. Since I now don't have to worry about information leaking to my players, I can share the item with y'all and cause no end of trouble for players in any game you GM.

Ring of the Imposter

This tarnished bronze ring has a series of crude faces embossed upon it. (The “faces" may be meant to represent masks.)

This ring allows you to cast a variant of the spell alter self once per day. The effect of the ring differs from the familiar version of the spell in the following ways:

• Range: Personal Range: Touch
• In order to use the ring, you must be in physical contact with a living individual of your creature type. You mimic the form of that specific individual.
• Duration: 1 min. / level Duration: Instantaneous
• After the ring’s effect has taken hold, you are your new shape, and will remain in that form as long as you wish.
• Detect magic will therefore not show anything amiss.
• Dispel magic has no effect, for the same reason.
• You may not dismiss the effect at will, for the same reason.
• The ring will allow you to resume your true form, but it counts as your 1/day use — so if you use the ring, you’re stuck like that for the rest of the day, and when you change back, you can’t use the ring again until the next day.
• The ring “remembers” the true form of the people who use it, so that you can change back. However, you can only return to your true form if you’re wearing the ring. 
• Another ring with the same enchantment doesn’t count.
• If the form you assume has any of the following abilities… 
• You do not gain any abilities of the form you mimic, and you receive no bonuses or penalties to your ability scores.
• You retain all abilities you had before changing; however, if you do anything that the form you are mimicking would not be able to do, there is a highly noticeable visual effect.
• For example, if you mimic the form of someone who is missing an arm, and then try to use the “missing” arm, witnesses might observe a new arm growing out of the stump, performing whatever task, and then retracting.

In addition to alterations of the text of the spell, users of the ring should be aware of the following rules: 

• It is surprisingly easy to lose the ring; it has a tendency to slip off your fingers when they change shape.
• When changing, you must roll under your Dexterity in order to keep the ring on.
• If you fail and the ring falls off, you must make a DC 10 Perception check to notice you’ve lost it.
• You can choose to mimic the target’s clothing as well, but doing so requires a certain amount of mental focus.
• Roll under your Wisdom to do so successfully.
• Fail by 5 or more: Your clothes do not change at all, and probably don’t fit the new form. This is also the result if you decide not to roll.
• Fail by less than 5: Your clothes change to fit the new form, but otherwise look the same.
• Succeed by less than 5: Your clothes change, but only superficially. Close scrutiny — DC 30 Perception — will allow people to notice there is something odd about them.
• Succeed by 5 or more: Your clothes look and feel exactly like the clothes your target is wearing.
• Just as you retain all your abilities when changed, your clothing retains all of its properties, magical or otherwise.
• If you are unarmored and mimic the form of someone wearing full plate, even if you succeed in the check to have your clothes change with you, your AC will not increase; attackers may be surprised by how easily their blade splits your armor.
• The reverse is also true; someone heavily armored copying the clothing of someone unarmored may end up with a silk robe that swords inexplicably glance off of.

Note:

• You do not receive any of the target's memories; you had best dispose of the target right away, because you're going to lose any “which Jethro is the real Jethro" conflict that might arise.
• To GMs: Yes, this is basically an item that lets a villain of your choice play “doppelganger".
• And, as written, would allow, e.g., a storm giant to pretend to be a halfling while retaining every bit of its dangerous abilities, up to and including its ludicrously high strength score and ability to call lightning... imagine the results if you can delay that reveal until the worst possible time.
• To fans of a certain young adult book series: Yes, it would be hilarious if one of your PCs essentially became a nothlit as a result of this ring. For people with that sense of humor, I would suggest removing the creature type restriction and making the roll to keep the ring on much harder when changing creature types.

The Hungry Sky, Chapter Five

In Which

A Journey Begins ⁂ The Snail Flails ⁂ Firing into Melee is a Bad Idea ⁂ Bariarti Meets the Critical Hit Table ⁂ Nocturnal Attackers Figure ⁂ Death by Shoulder-Tap ⁂ Evil is Smitten ⁂ Aster Makes Numismatic Deductions

Oculi 13th, 211 Ravensblood (Feast of Saurivuntyr)

The party, having been notified that Fritha wants to get on the road in the near future and this may be their last full day in Stagnant Lake for a while, consider whether they have anything they still need to take care of. They generally conclude that they do not, and, in the words of the GM (i.e., my own recorded voice), “the day is generally uneventful and not worth recording."

That evening over dinner, Fritha informs the party (and Fluryka) that they should leave at dawn the next day in order to follow her preferred traveling plan. Sticking to the main roads would take weeks, but if they're willing to make a slightly riskier overland journey, they can reach the port town of Hoturla in just a few days and buy passage on a ship to Verunn. If they leave town early enough tomorrow, they can reach the Tomb of St. Tris¹ before dark, and thus sleep safely with the knowledge that they are surrounded by paladins. From there, they'll have to find their way through the foothills to Ang vy Moir, which will involve at least one night of camping, but Ang vy Moir has walls and an inn, and then it's only a day on the road to Hoturla. 

The party also has to decide whether they want Brother Saros travelling with them, given that he's somewhat irritating and gives them a weird vibe. They do, however, eventually agree that the greater access to healing is worth it.

Aster: If he's with us, we can keep an eye on him.
Bork: If he's with us, we can kill him in his sleep.

It is a minor side note that this day was also the Feast of Saurivuntyr, and a small banquet was held at the Tower of Eyes, local headquarters of the Royal Intelligence Corps, a few miles further along the lake's coast. The PCs were not invited.

Oculi 14th, 211 Ravensblood

The next morning, the party sets out, their numbers effectively doubled by the trio of NPCs with them. The road to St. Tris is not traveled very frequently; pilgrims visit there, and they buy food or other supplies from Stagnant Lake, and the occasional person in search of a high-level healer might find their way to the monastery, but generally the traffic is barely enough to warrant the existence of the road. Aster tries to make the day's walk² more cheerful:

Aster: Fritha, do you know any good stories?
Fritha: That's an... interesting question. [pause] The answer to which is “no".
Aster: Well, I do. Would you like to hear one?
Fritha: If that helps pass the time.
Aster OOC: Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote / The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote...

The summer sun is hot, and the dust rises around their feet as they walk. On either side of the narrow, sporadically-maintained road, the tall yellowish grass that characterizes the area refuses to wave in the lack-of-breeze. The buzzing of insects and occasional rustling of snakes goes gradually silent, and the PCs make Perception checks. Bork gets a 25 ³, and is able to alert her companions to a strange scraping from underground, and the vibrations of movement in the soil. Thus there is no surprise round when the ankhegs burst from the soil...

From the 2e Monstrous Manual

Three ankhegs menace the PCs. Ankhegs, for the uninitiated, are ten-foot-long, carnivorous, burrowing insects with acidic saliva, so this is tremendously inconvenient⁴. Fluryka and Saros take the first opportunity to flee combat and leave the fight to others, being as they are unarmed. Bork manages to stab one, and it retaliates by gripping her firmly in its mandibles for significant damage. Another spits acid on Aster, Bariarti, and Saros -- who apparently didn't move far enough away. Bariarti slithers into battle with a flail; one assumes that Bariarti's player, as a long-time gamer, did this intentionally in order to invoke a “flail snail".

A flail snail, again for the uninitiated; a monster from the 1st-edition days generally considered to be absurd.⁵
I believe it was actually revived for 5e in the recent Volo's Guide to Monsters.

Some relatively unremarkable combat proceeds, in which Bork is crushed some more in the ankheg's mandibles, and Saros delivers some healing. One of the ankhegs then manages a critical, followed by a roll of 93 on the d100 critical table, and bites off one of Bariarti's hands. Aster manages to respond with her own critical, and does a whopping 6 damage with her halfling-sized crossbow; Bork finally kills the one grappling her. Fritha decides to fire into melee a few times, and manages to put more than one crossbow bolt into Bork over the course of the fight. Eventually the party kills two of them and drives off the last.

Once combat has ended, Fluryka returns from her hiding place in the grass and drops some wisdom: apparently you can use every part of the ankheg, or at least goblins do. She mentions to the party that not only are they edible, but you can make passable armor out of ankheg exoskeleton. Bork collects the biggest bits laying around for future armorsmithing, and Fluryka decides to cook some of the flesh up for lunch. It tastes not entirely unlike lobster.

That evening, they arrive at St. Tris and head straight to the monastery to see if someone can put Bariarti's hand back on. The monk they meet in the entrance hall is pretty skeptical, and even asks if Bariarti is some sort of demon they've brought into their monastery, on the grounds that he's never seen anything that looks like him and belongs on this plane of existence. He also asks whether they're sure his species normally has two hands; Bork produces the severed one from her pack. It turns out that the abbess is actually sufficiently powerful to do such a thing -- it's a real stroke of luck that this happened when the party was already on their way to a significant religious outpost.

The Tomb of St. Tris, in the foothills of the Afnung Mountains.

The monk is insistent on a sizable donation to the church for such a service, and is openly doubtful that this strange group of people has that kind of money on them⁶. Bork tries and fails to convince them to bill the monks who brought them back; the monk tries to convince Bariarti to agree to undertake a quest-to-be-decided-upon-later; eventually it turns out that Bariarti's player spent very little of his starting budget, and produces the requisite 1000 gold pieces. For this donation, the abbess takes time out of her busy schedule and ushers Bariarti to a consecrated altar, where she chants over him for nearly an hour until his hand reattaches itself.

The party then heads to the Civilian Quarter, on the monks' advice, where pilgrims can generally pay a local to let them sleep on someone's floor. (Fluryka, who is used to sleeping in real beds, insists on this.) Aster makes a low Gather Information roll, and finds an elderly man who used to be a cook at the military academy; he has enough room on his floor for two people, and that ends up being Fluryka and Saros. Bork, who doesn't mind sleeping outside but didn't buy camping gear, curls up on the ground outside like a dog.

Oculi 15th, 211 Ravensblood

Aster and Bariarti go to morning service at the temple, to hear about valiant adventure and the cleansing powers of fire. Bork idly considers “derail[ing] the entire campaign to plan an elaborate heist on the monastery and get our thousand gold back," but decides against it. Before the party leaves, they stop by the barracks to see if they're willing to part with some of the equipment they keep around for the paladins. They procure some traveling supplies so Bork has something to sleep under; Aster also takes a look around their armory and manages to buy a masterwork longsword with really nice scrollwork on the hilt. They then leave St. Tris on the grounds that there is no tavern and it is therefore a boring town.

As they leave town, Fritha warns them that this next leg of the journey is likely to be dangerous, as there is no established road. They should also plan to camp tonight, as they're definitely not going to reach Ang vy Moir before dark. The party moves through hills and valleys along a path that's not so much a road as a game trail; the day goes by fairly uneventfully, despite the ominous milieu. Before they make camp, Aster organizes a watch schedule. Fritha volunteers for first watch, and Aster for third. After some back-and-forth between Bariarti and Bork, Bork reluctantly agrees to take second watch on the grounds that she has a much better track record at spotting things than Bariarti.

This turns out to be beneficial, as not long into Bork's turn on watch, she spots a pair of shadowy figures moving silently towards the camp. Their use of stealth is actually very impressive, but gnolls have sensitive noses and the intruders smell terrible. Bork decides to use her rogue talent of “minor magic" and taps one of the approaching figures on the shoulder with mage hand.⁷ A successful Bluff check causes it to actually look around, and she shoots it while it's flat-footed, causing it to barely bite back a scream of pain. If they weren't hostile before, they are now. The two figures head out of the shadows -- allowing Bork to identify them as bugbears -- bothering much less with stealth. Some failed Perception checks on the part of the five sleeping members mean that literally nobody wakes up until Bork shouts.

Bugbear, from the 2e Monstrous Manual.⁸

The two that Bork spotted earlier proceed to clobber her with their morningstars, and two that had been successfully making their Stealth checks until now hurl javelins from the other side of the camp. Aster starts singing for her inspire courage effect, and the noise finally wakes Fritha, though the other two NPCs appear to be unusually heavy sleepers. Bork tries the “tap on the shoulder" trick again -- on the same bugbear -- and he fails his Sense Motive despite the penalty given for this trick already being done; she then gets a critical hit on her attack of opportunity, and kills him outright with a stab through the kidney. Bork's player makes it clear to all that her “laughing uproariously" should be considered as in-character.

Fritha's signature firing-into-melee move actually works out in this fight, and she does a small amount of damage to the bugbears. Aster shoots off one of the bugbears' thumbs on a critical that does all of two damage. Bork reduces the other one in melee with her to exactly zero hit points, so that it's unconscious but alive. Bariarti successfully smites evil for the first time, but rolls terribly low on damage. Aster takes down the one missing a thumb, and Fritha goes to poke the unconscious one to see if it's dead or not; the final bugbear flees, and manages to evade Bork's attack of opportunity by a hair.

There is some discussion about whether to interrogate the unconscious bugbear or kill it outright. Bork wonders out loud if they're actually sapient, and Aster points out that they're smart enough to use javelins; Bork is of the opinion that a sufficiently motivated dog could throw a javelin, so that doesn't prove anything.⁹ It is, however, fairly common knowledge that bugbears are just a variety of goblinoid, and are known to be sapient even if the fact that they're carrying weapons and wearing armor isn't enough to convince Bork. Bariarti wants to just kill it -- his smite evil worked on one, so as far as he's concerned, his god wants them dead. Aster convinces the party to bind it instead, then wake it up and ask it questions. The interrogation proceeds as follows:

Bork: Why did you attack us? (Intimidate: 23)
Bugbear: What? It's just -- I mean -- you know -- a good night's fun.
Bork: [glares]
Bugbear: Right, right, so it was a hit. But we were hired through an intermediary; we don't know who wanted it done.
Bork: Intermediary?
Bugbear: Just some guy, you know? He -- they -- just showed up with a message.
Bork: He or they?
Bugbear: Look, I don't know how to recognize human genders.
Bork: But just one person?
Bugbear: Yes. One guy. Could have been a chick. Dunno.
Aster: But human.
Bugbear: Yeah.
Bork: What did they say?
Bugbear: That if we saw a hyena and a snail traveling together, we should ambush them and try to kill the whole group.
Bork: I'm a gnoll, you racist fuck.
Bugbear: I don't have time for political correctness.
Bork: Yeah, you don't have time because I'm going to cut off your head if you don't give us the answers we want.
Bugbear: Hey, I'm cooperating. Cooperating. I'm answering, aren't I?
Bork: Are you sure it was a human who hired you and not, like, a frog?
Bugbear: I think I would have noticed.
Bork: I dunno, you're kind of dumb.
Bugbear: You're kind of dumb.
Bork: I killed your partner by tapping him on the shoulder in the middle of combat.
Bugbear: He was kind of dumb. Look, I gave you your answers. Are you going to let me go?
Bork: I'll let the paladin decide. Was the person who hired you wearing any religious symbols or weird jewelry?
Bugbear: Not that I saw. They were dressed like a human. Doing human things.
Bork: What did they pay you?
Bugbear: They gave us a bag of gold.
Bork: Where's the gold?
Bugbear: With the rest of the tribe.
Aster: [Sense Motive] Liar.
Bugbear: All right, it's on the dead guy over there.
Bork: Paladin, he's all yours.
Bugbear: Remember I cooperated! And I'm unarmed!

Bariarti clobbers him to death with his flail without apparent moral compunction as Bork loots the bodies. She does indeed find a bag with 21 gold pieces in it, as well as a necklace of scrimshawed human teeth and a small wooden tribal totem. Aster's bardic knowledge identifies the carvings on the totem as being characteristic of Tribe Drool-Dark, a nomadic tribe in the foothills that is known for ambushing travelers for fun and profit.

Bork: Want to go slaughter their families too?
GM: Whoa.
Bork: He's the one that killed an unarmed man!
Aster: Yeah, I kind of feel like that's un-paladin-like.
Bariarti: [shrug]
Aster: I guess it depends on the god.
GM: Grandfather Kraken is pretty hands-off.¹⁰ His paladin status is not in danger.

Aster also wants to examine the coins in the bag and see if they come from anywhere in particular. This actually reveals something interesting -- all of them are coins minted in the now-defunct Necrocracy. They are still the currency of choice in the dozens of tiny fiefdoms south of the Afnung Mountains where the Necrocracy used to be, now referred to as the Necrotic Bloc. Though they are not uncommon sights in general circulation, it is unusual that the entire bag is Necrotic currency.

Necrotic currency is easily identified because of the onyx incorporated into the design. Though the metal is copper, silver, and gold-colored in order to match the schema used by neighboring countries, it's actually just cheap alloys; the value of the currency is based on onyx. Copper “scythes" have almost-negligible amounts of onyx dust mixed into them; silver “chiefs" have a small shard through the center; and golden “dances" have a thin slice inlaid on the reverse. Another unique aspect of Necrotic currency is that the “platinum piece" has been eliminated in favor of the “eye", which is a thin ring of tarnished bronze around a flat disc of onyx, valued at 25 gold pieces; the onyx discs used are of sufficient size and quality to use in the creation of undead, thus giving them inherent value.

The party discusses how much they can deduce from that, and then splits the coins three ways. Bork informs Fritha that she earned a gold piece for actually shooting an enemy this time, but she owes Bork a gold piece for shooting her yesterday, so it's a wash. They then (mostly) return to sleep.

---

1. St. Tris, in life, was actually a PC in a previous campaign some years ago -- the first campaign in this particular world, in fact. She erred on the “good" side of “Lawful Good" and tended to solve her problems with fire and sword. After spending some of her afterlife as a saint of Pelor, she became a demigod in her own right after Pelor abandoned the world in the Great Holy War. Her worshipers are few, and her only temple is the one by her tomb. Her doctrine is mostly about being an active force for good in the world, with a strong undercurrent of “smite evil first, and ask questions later". Most of the permanent residents of the “town" of St. Tris are either monks or paladins-in-training -- her church maintains a highly-specialized military academy.
2. Not only were they unable to find any mounts for sale in Stagnant Lake, Bariarti is physically incapable of riding anything, so going on foot is really their only option.
3. Bork OOC: Not only do I hear what you're having me roll for, but I can hear the dreams of my compatriots.
4. It should be noted, however, that they do wonderful things for the quality of the soil. I'm not making this up.
5.  Though Zak S. said the following nice things about it here:

Ok so a flail snail is silly but, really have you ever looked at a snail? A snail is fucked. In a line drawing on a Hallmark card a snail is just a wiggle and a spiral, but in reality a snail is a gross fucking monster from hell. Imagine that slick, slightly pocked, stretching moist slugskin forming the spheres and spikes of a morning-star-shaped faceless-vegetable-like unface and then wanting to touch you with it. If you still don't get it, watch that scene in Microcosmos where the two banana slugs mate on a rope of their own slime while an aria plays in the backround--a thing like that pounding on you with its own eyeless faces would drive you insane. See? Ok.

 (In context, that counts as saying nice things.)
6. This is actually on me -- I thought spells of that level were more expensive than it turns out they are. We spent a solid fifteen minutes at the table conversing with the monk before I checked the cost and found out it was more affordable than I thought.
7. Or, you know, telekinetically prods their shoulder in such a way that it feels like a finger tap.
8. From the setting document: “Bugbears are yet another variety of goblinoid, and the same sort of questions about whether they’re a subspecies or… what, exactly, tend to float around. In general, however, they are a combination of the worst traits of their goblinoid cousins: the strength and organization of hobgoblins, but the bad attitude and destructive tendencies of goblins. Not only are they big enough to take pretty much anyone in a straight-up fight, but their personalities tend to range over the spectrum between ‘asshole' and ‘serial killer' — with the occasional spike into ‘war criminal'. They tend to stick to small, mobile groups — not so much because that’s their preference, but because larger groups tend to collapse into infighting and any more permanent settlements end up in conflict with their neighbors. Of course, since nobody is ‘always Chaotic Evil', there is in fact a decent-sized bugbear settlement to the far north — Putiurl — where those who don’t fit into traditional bugbear culture often settle."
9. Bork OOC: Some people do agility courses with their dogs; we do random sadistic javelin throwing.
Bariarti OOC: That's basically reverse fetch.
10. Tentacles-off.

The Hungry Sky, Chapter Four

In Which

Monks are Spoken Sharply To ⁂ Research is Performed ⁂ Some Acquaintances are Made ⁂ Prophecy is Trusted Blindly ⁂ Bork Acquires Eel Jerky ⁂ “Weird Fish"

(For the reference of people reading this, I'm putting a link here to some relevant maps.)

The party decides that they need to get some more information about that prophecy. Most of the stuff that needs looking up is the list of things that they should “beware".

For reference.

Aster is pretty certain that the “Turning Wheel" refers to the Church of the Eternal Cycle, as mentioned in the previous post, and she thinks she remembers a legendary place called the Land of Sharpened Beaks. Also, according to a successful Knowledge (nature) check, she is aware than an epilimnion is the uppermost layer on a lake. Additional research, they've decided, is in order.

The party proceed to the Order of the Stagnant Lake, where the door is answered by a skittish-looking young woman in a monk's habit. They ask to speak to Father Repose, but the woman at the door -- Acolyte Restful -- is unwilling to bring them to him. The party asks to be given all of the information that the monastery has on the prophecy; Restful insists that there is no information the monastery has that the party does not, as they believe, with complete faith, that fate will ensure everything works out the way their god said it would, and the don't want to interfere. Further badgering by the party gets Restful to admit that there was one additional note with the prophecy, but it only gave a date and time.

Bork asks who decided which people would be brought back to fulfill the prophecy; Restful explains that the monks just followed their intuition and trusted Qualmë to take care of it. They will not be deterred.

Bork: We still want to talk to Father Repose.
Restful: He's quite busy.
Bork: You told me he was deep in prayer. That doesn't sound busy.
Aster: Technically, that is an occupation.
Restful: It's kind of what we do here. That's what being busy in a monastery is.

Bork is exceptionally pushy and intentionally dense until Restful agrees to go fetch Father Repose.

Aster, to Bork: I do believe the word is “obstreperous." Is that a good word for you?

Eventually, Father Repose comes to the door, and is irritated because the party is “supposed to be out saving the world." Upon some questioning, he says he knows very little about the Church of the Eternal Cycle. They are surprised by this, since the prophecy he gave them warns them about the Turning Wheel, and they think the connection is pretty clear.

Father Repose: You know, I never thought of it that way, but I can see the argument. I knew y'all were the right people for the job -- you're really on top of things.

Bork is increasingly incredulous that the monks have not done any research about this prophecy at all; Bariarti thinks that trusting in fate and the gods makes perfect sense for a religious order, and he is the paladin here. Finally, Aster asks if the monastery has archives, so they can see if previous monks have put any thought into the meaning of the prophecy. Father Repose shows them into the archives; Bork, as someone uninterested in archive-diving, wanders out into town with the idea of finding other members of the Church of the Eternal Cycle to question.

Bariarti decides to also trust in fate, and read scrolls at random. He finds a scroll that lists the “temple names" of every monk who has been here¹. Aster, following actual research strategies and rolling for her attempts, also finds little of use -- however, she does find a scroll mentioning the arrival of a people called the Kech, who claim to be from the “Land of Sharpened Beaks" and are described as having long, tangled, sloth-like hair. The monks don't seem to approve of them, because they appear to be exclusively loyal to the god Jivmarana, who is a much less pleasant god of death and a rival of Qualmë. Aster, of course, recognizes the description of the Kech as matching the people who they fought in Fritha's room last night.

Bork heads to Market Field to see if she can convince anyone there to give her stuff and send the bill to the monks. She looks for the most expensive items she can find, but it's a really small town, so the best she can find in that respect is a stall selling miscellaneous leather goods. After some more poking around, she ends up deciding on buying some eel jerky to supplement her trail rations. However, she can't seem to convince the vendor (whose name, not that she asked, is Voktu Tribe Scum-Stone) to just bill the monks for the purchase.

Bork: Are you aware that I was dead? They brought us back from the dead in order to save your sorry ass.
Voktu: What, me specifically?
Bork: So if you don't help us out, I will ensure that the forces of darkness descend directly on you, and your tiny pathetic little skull.

It turns out Voktu is easier to persuade through threats, and he lets her take a big sack of jerky on the promise that the monks will reimburse him later.

Aster and Bariarti, meanwhile, head over to the town library, which is much more extensive than the monks' archives. Aster has a really cheerful conversation with the librarian, a fellow halfling named Wisteria Leagallow. Wisteria helps Aster find a dictionary, in which she discovers that the word “benthic" means “of, relating to, or occurring at the bottom of a body of water".

Bork OOC: So the bottom of the top of the lake? Fuck you.

Aster's next priority is to learn more about the homeland of the Kech. Wisteria informs her that they most recently came from the far south of this continent, an area that explorers have only rarely visited, but folkloric accounts indicate their original homeland was elsewhere. She helpfully directs Aster to the folklore section, where Aster finds the following in a thick encyclopedia of folklore from the Doldrum Marshes:

While this is going on, Bariarti decides to scan the shelves with detect good. He considers his ability to detect good as the Kraken calling his attention to things that are important and worthy of protection, so if any books light up, he'll assume they are worth reading. Sadly, a roll of the dice indicates that there are no inherently-good books in this library -- which, one assumes, would be something like the polar opposite of the Necronomicon.

Aster reads the list of things they are meant to beware to Wisteria, hoping that she can help.² She thinks she remembers “feathered scale" being used to describe a particular creature in poetic terms, but can't remember what that creature is. Wisteria, however, does know a local bard who is very interested in folklore, and suggests Aster stop by the Leering Lamprey to speak to a black-scaled kobold named Blik the Sirenical. At this point, Aster and Bariarti can't think of anything else they need to look up, but before they leave, they mention to Wisteria that they've heard there's a circus in town -- and promptly discover that they are the circus, at least according to rumor.

Aster: I was looking forward to the circus, too. Oh well -- I suppose you can't get everything you want.
Wisteria: But if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need!
Aster: You know, my da used to say that.
Wisteria: It's an old halfling saying, from, I believe, a man called Mossy Rollingstone.

At this point, Aster and Bariarti decide to head to the market themselves, having accomplished their research here. Aster augments her rations with some hard, long-lasting bread and some pickled vegetables. They then decide to just kill some time until they can catch Blik at the tavern; Aster practices her fletching back in her room at the inn. While she's there, she runs into Fritha, and discovers that her intention is to walk to a coastal city a few days away, then buy passage on a ship to Verunn.

They then head to the Leering Lamprey. Bork gets some more beer on credit -- the bartender having already been convinced that he can send her bill to the monks -- and also requests some food. The bartender -- whose name, incidentally, is Kobrun Tribe Scum-Stone -- offers some fish, as this is more or less the only food they have at their rundown dockside tavern.

Aster: What's the house specialty?
Kobrun: Whatever we have on hand -- we are right next to a lake. We serve whatever we caught recently.
Aster: What's freshest?
Kobrun: We found this weird fish crawling out of the lake a few hours ago. That happens sometimes; we get weird fish around here.

Aster gets some eel, and Bork gets a plate of sashimi. They request to see the “weird fish", which looks something like this:

Bork asks Kobrun to cook it for her, and he obliges. They then sit back to listen to Blik's singing, which is all traditional kobold ballads, mostly about dragons. When she next takes a break, Aster intercepts her and says that Wisteria has suggested she would be a good source for folkloric information. Bork diplomatically pours her some beer, and offers her “some weird fish and sashimi".

Blik: I love fish. Especially the weird ones.

Aster gets Blik talking about her studies. Blik, it seems, studies dragons, which have been apparently absent from this region for centuries -- and the reason she's performing in this random tavern is because she once asked a seer where a dragon might be seen in her lifetime, and he told her to go to the Stagnant Lake. He didn't say when, though, so she's “just kind of hanging out". Aster floats the phrase “feathered scale", and Blik suggests that it might be referring to a xocothian, a creature that lives on the border of the elemental planes of Air and Water³.

Blik eventually goes to start her next set, which is more traditional kobold ballads. She admits that they don't go over terribly well around here, but she's the only professional bard in town, so the audience kind of has to put up with it. The party spends the rest of the evening relaxing at the tavern, and then heads back to the inn for the night. Fritha, they know, wants to get moving within the next few days.

---

1. Bariarti's player asks if any of the names seem particularly ominous or have double meanings -- I inform him that, since part of this god's portfolio is death, a lot of them seem kind of ominous. Current monks of the order include “Brother Cenotaph", “Sister Scythe", “Acolyte Sepulchre", and “Acolyte Charnel". 

2. Bariarti does suggest, out of character I think, that “The Devil's Arms" would be a great name for a bar. (We have dibs on that name now, BTW.)
3. One might argue that the fact that information about such an obscure creature being so easily found by the PCs might indicate that fate is, actually, working on their side.

The Hungry Sky, Chapter Three

In Which

The Guard is Called ⁂ Dead Bodies are not Thrown out the Window ⁂ Statues are Examined and Remembered ⁂ “I identify as a zombie" ⁂ The Party Acquires Traveling Companions

Back in the Exarch's Arms, the party is continuing to offer their assistance to Threefingers, who eventually concedes that it would be convenient to have competent people travelling with her, so that she doesn't have to wait for a caravan. First, however, she wants to stick around for a few days and see if anything else unusual comes up. It also comes up that her actual name is Fritha Doonasdochtir -- “Threefingers" being, of course, a nickname. 

The conversation then turns to the dead bodies that Fritha would prefer not to have cluttering up her room. She suggests that Bork help her heave them out the window; Bork seems to think it would be a better idea to throw them into the town's well. At this point, Bariarti intervenes to remind them that the town guard are coming, and they'll probably want the bodies. The toad-creature, still frightened of Bork, nonetheless finds the courage to voice a suggestion that they be respectfully burned on a pyre.

NPC Interlude: Ralph Rudhall

Constable Rudhall of the Stagnant Lake Town Guard was not a particularly formidable-looking individual. He was a heavy man with hair that was distinctly thinning on top, and a set of florid jowls. His face was constantly red and sweaty, as if he had just run a mile, even if he hadn't exerted himself at all. However, beneath the jowls and the layer of fat, Constable Rudhall had an impressive amount of muscle hidden. He could knock a man out with one punch, and he was known in town for his strategy of ending brawls by simply lifting each combatant in one hand and carrying them to the holding cells -- easier to do when the offenders were usually goblins, but still nothing to sneeze at. Behind his piggy little eyes, however, lurked an intelligence best described as “exactly what you'd expect"; Rudhall was just as slow, dull, and unimaginative as he looked. 

This here picture of Sgt. Fred Colon just appeared in this space all unaccountable-like.
(Character from Terry Pratchett -- art by Paul Kidby)

This last is why, when Kozzory came rushing down the road looking for a guard, he wasn't alone; Rudhall was rarely trusted to patrol on his own in case something unexpected came up. This evening, his partner on the otherwise-quiet streets was Constable Betty Cosyngton; Cosyngton may have been reckless, and with a certain vicious streak, but unlike Rudhall, her mind rose all the way to the lofty heights of “roughly average". From the confused explanation proffered by Kozzory, who was apparently not even a proper witness to events, Cosyngton and Rudhall were at least able to gather that whatever was going on would be a break from their normal routine of smacking sense into a handful of rowdy drunks. Besides, they liked Kozzory; she didn't cause trouble, and treated the guard with the respect Rudhall was certain they were due.

Ten minutes later, Rudhall cheerfully kicked open the (unlocked) door on the second floor of the Exarch's Arms, taking a second to note the carefully-painted amphisbaena¹ below a number “2", indicating he had the right room. “What's going on here, eh?" He bellowed, to the apparent lack-of-fright of the motley collection of creatures in the room. The gnoll just calmly asks him to dispose of the dead bodies, and whether he can arrange a new room for the human. This is... not within his prior experience as an officer of the law.

As Rudhall tries to sort out what exactly he is supposed to do with all this, the gnoll speaks again, asking if she can go back to bed. Happy to get her out of here, Rudhall encourages this -- though the gnoll then does not actually leave -- and turns to the smallest person in the room to ask what had happened. The account he gets from Aster is pretty confused, but he gathers that the human -- “Fritha" -- is the victim, and that she was attacked by “frog people". There do seem to be frog people present, one of which is still alive, so he's willing to take that as truth for now. 

Rudhall: Right. What's with the snail?
Aster: What, Bariarti?
Rudhall: Yeah. Is he with the frogs? I mean, that kind of makes a certain sense.
Bork: That's racist.
Aster: No, he and Bork and I are all travelling together.
Rudhall: Some sort of circus?

At this point, the halfling (gnome?) and the gnoll start telling some complicated story about presumptuous priests bringing them back from the dead. Rudhall opts not to pay attention to any of that, and distractedly watches Cosyngton “examine the room". At this point, she seems to be focused on repeatedly poking the dead frog-person with her (sheathed) sword, with a moderately inappropriate grin on her face. The gnoll continues to be unpleasant.

Bork: Can you let the priests know we have a tab open at the bar?
Rudhall: Really not my job.
Bork: Well, if you're going to talk to them anyway --
Rudhall: I'm not.
Bork: They don't like talking to me.
Rudhall: Can't imagine why.

Rudhall decides that he's done with these people -- what did they say they were doing here? He remembered something about a circus? He rolls it around in his brain and can't think of anything else, so he opts to chase the circus out of the room. Politely, though, since they're large and armed.

Rudhall: Why don't the three of you go back to whatever you were doing, and I'll speak to Fritha and the frog and see if we can piece things together?
Bork: Why should we trust you?
Rudhall: I have a badge.
Bork:That is so idiotic that I do actually trust you. I'm going to bed.

The circus leaves, and a quick conversation with Fritha confirms the story that the little gnome gave him. This is Fritha's room, and she was attacked in her sleep. She insists she knows nothing else, and really just wants to go back to bed. After some time conversing, Rudhall lets her go hunt down Kozzory to ask about a less-bloodsoaked room. He's not at home with complicated issues; his bosses point him in the direction of the criminal element, and he beats on them until he can drag them back to the dungeons. Witnesses say the frog-man and the hairy guy are the criminals, so they go to the dungeon. No problem. He sends Fritha off to do whatever she's going to do, and turns to the task of properly arresting the offenders.

Cosyngton has the two criminals restrained, but once it's just the two guards and the two... whatevers, there is a long moment of tension wherein the hairy one bares its teeth and flexes its claws. Rudhall is abruptly aware that the ropes are really not holding it still very well, and that it could probably take him and Cosyngton apart in a handful of heartbeats -- a phrase which might not stay as figurative as he'd like. Just as he becomes certain that all Abyss is about to break loose, and that maybe sending all of the armed civilians away might have been a tremendously bad idea, the frog-thing gives the hairy one a look and speaks. “Good sir," it says, “I would like to make a suggestion. If you were to ensure that the bodies of my comrades were respectfully disposed of, Ur-Nungal here and I would be willing to ‘go quietly,' as you say."

“Sounds complicated," Cosyngton interjected. Rudhall could see the light in her eyes as she anticipated violence -- he could also see that violence would not go well for them no matter what Cosyngton thought.

“There happens to be, according to our intelligence, a priest staying in this inn who holds no allegiance to any particular god," said the frog. “I would consider the matter settled if you simply hand custody of the bodies over to him -- as a theologically neutral party, he can probably be trusted to do the right thing."

Twenty minutes later, Rudhall and Cosyngton were leading the two restrained criminals to the cells in Count Malacaster's dungeons.

An hour later, on a borrowed boat, Brother Saros said a quick prayer and tipped two weighted corpses into the lake, where the Eternal Cycle would ensure that the substance of their bodies went to feed the fish that they had -- presumably -- fed upon in turn when they were living.

⁂

Oculi 12th, 211 Ravensblood

In the morning, the party tries to decide what their next step should be. Aster does some asking around about the town of Verunn, which is Threefingers' destination. It seems that she's going up there to look into a ring of slavers who have been augmenting their inventory by grabbing the less-fortunate off the streets and docks; unusually, the highly-competent local authorities have been able to do nothing to stop them. Aster -- hamstrung by the fact that few people in the general vicinity have been to Verunn anyway -- gathers, essentially, the information in the setting document, which is as follows.

First, she is reminded that Verunn is one of the three towns that constitute the political entity known as the Iron Law, which is centered in the far northwest. The description of the Iron Law from the setting document was reproduced in a footnote in a previous entry, but here it is again, in case you skipped or don't remember it.

A figure known as the Iron Magos dwells in a tower by the coast, in the town of Aglaitiraup. He/she/it/they have no public life, interact with nobody, and in general live like a recluse. What is known, however, is that the Iron Magos offers protection to any tribe that performs a certain rite of allegiance and whose leader signs their name, in blood, on the surface of a great iron monolith that stands outside the Magos’s tower, and on which is engraved the legal code of the land. Those tribes and towns who have sworn themselves to the Iron Law find themselves defended from outside attack by arcane intervention, generally presumed to be the magic of the Iron Magos. The price, of course, is that the same power is turned against any who violate the law within those tribes. Within the Iron Law, the penalty for any crime is immediate capital punishment, and it is whispered that the Magos uses the life force of these criminals to power the magic of the land.

Verunn itself is originally an ogre town, and ogres still maintain a plurality there, with humans as a close second. It is mostly known for a strict town guard² and humorless citizenry, but it is also home to the Mantle of God, the largest temple to Grandfather Kraken on the western coast. It's actually fairly unusual to have a significant town guard within the Iron Law, since most law enforcement is carried out by the Iron Magos -- one of the other towns in the Iron Law doesn't have one at all. In Verunn, the official explanation is that the town guard enforces the local regulations that the Magos doesn't bother with.

Having gathered this information, Aster goes to take a look at the magic items Bork got Fluryka to show her last night, with the intent of casting identify. She finds the ambassador, and asks to see them in a friendly, nonthreatening sort of way [Diplomacy: 15].

Aster: So, I'm -- I've been travelling -- I'm with Bork.
Fluryka: Ah, yes, the hyena with the free beer.
Aster: The gnoll, yes.
Fluryka: Right. So hard to keep up with the politically-correct terms these days.³
Aster: Anyway, I hope it's not too indiscreet, but she did mention that you had some objects you might want identified, and I might be able to help you with that.

Fluryka turns out to have the cyclops statues on her person, as she's not comfortable leaving them lying around in her room. Aster convinces her to step into a private corner of the inn so that they don't air her business for everyone to see.

Bork OOC: Are you trying to lure her into an alley and murder her?

The cyclopes are produced, and Aster leans in to look at them. As a bard, her magic works in a somewhat undignified fashion -- she quietly sings to the statues as Fluryka holds them.

Aster OOC: ♫Who do you think you are♫ / ♫Runnin' 'round leaving scars♫

The ambassador looks slightly baffled. Aster's visual examination confirms the lack of a shadow, and something else. As she looks at the statues, she notes certain scuffs and spots that tug at her memory; she suddenly realizes that she's seen them before. She'd forgotten all about it, but when she was a child, her mother had these exact statues in her laboratory, doing duty as bookends. Not just statues like them, but these specific items: she recognizes a scratch on one's head, and a slight discoloration on the other's side that she knows for a fact was the result of an errant arcane experiment. How, she thought, did her mother's bookends end up buried outside of a goblin town, only to be coincidentally dug up by archaeologists a few years later?

As she thinks, she continues singing, and a soft glow appears deep within the statues -- at least, to Aster's sight, augmented by the spell. She stares at the light and tries to analyze it [Spellcraft: 22 (after the +10 bonus from identify)]. Watching the patterns in the statues' inner light, she sees that they are not only so much more complex than she was expecting, but that the patterns themselves are completely unfamiliar to her. These are items of significant power, the function of which is beyond her; all she can say is that the arcane techniques that power them are apparently unlike any practiced today.

Aster asks Fluryka where her village is, thinking that maybe it's near her mother's home. Apparently she's from Norfrici, which is technically closer to the gnomish settlements than Stagnant Lake is, but not significantly so.

This is from a map of the Waste Lands I included in the setting document. I forgot to include a scale, but suffice to say that it's several hundred miles from Norfrici to the gnomish settlements on the southern shore of Brightmoor Lake -- which is slightly off the bottom of the map there. (The dotted lines are rough approximations of common overland trade routes.)

Fluryka takes this opportunity to ask about some gossip she's heard -- that the party and Fritha are travelling up the coast in the near future. She's interested in going with them, as they're going more or less directly where she needs to go; not only is Verunn in the right direction, but travel from there to Fluryka's destination in Aglaitiraup is trivial to arrange. First, though, she confirms that the party is at least moderately skilled at self-defense; the reason most people wait for a caravan is for the protection of the guards, so she wants to be sure that the party can provide a reasonable substitute for that protection if she travels with them. Aster assures her that they're “all right" at that, and that she'll check with her traveling companions to make sure there are no objections to Fluryka going with them.

Bork, who has wandered into the dining room for breakfast and has excellent hearing, comes over to suggest to Fluryka that maybe showing those things to everyone that asks isn't the best idea, security-wise. (Bork has decided against just stealing them by this point.) Aster, upon receiving little guidance from Fluryka as to what people do for fun around here, starts considering the option of livening the place up with her own bardic performances, which sparks the following conversation:

Aster: I think I ought to volunteer myself to perform.
Bork: Something about that sounds lewd.
Aster: I just dress up and put on a show for strangers, for money.
Fluryka: Do all your performances involve singing to rocks?
Aster: No, sometimes I sing to other things. Or people. I can also do a bit of tumbling, but it's not my specialty.
Fluryka: Tumbling? You... fall off of things?
Aster: No, no, no -- have you ever heard of a circus?
Fluryka: I think I heard one was in town, actually.
Aster: ... we should check that out.

This segues, somehow, into an argument over whether the monks who brought them back are assholes for doing so. The argument arrives here:

Bork: Well, maybe you should have preconceived notions.
Aster: My preconceived notions are that caravans should treat their donkeys well  --
Bork: Hey, maybe this “Beware the Turning Wheel" thing means we should avoid caravans.
Aster: I'm pretty sure it means we should avoid more people like Saros.

Aster decides to make a Bardic Knowledge roll to see what she knows about Brother Saros's religion, the Church of the Eternal Cycle [Knowledge: 19]. She knows the basics well enough, then -- it's a fairly recent (i.e., only a few decades old) religion that worships the abstract concept of cycles and renewal rather than an actual god. She also knows that it is centered in the nearby gnoll-majority town of Airuuur (Gnoll for “blood" -- since Gnoll is hard to pronounce without a lot of practice, people just call the town “Blood"). In Blood⁴, ever since a long and dramatic period of strife and feuding between religious factions, the Church of the Eternal Cycle has taken and held onto control; it more or less runs the town. Aster knows the basic details about the town as well, since the town of Blood and the Church of the Eternal Cycle are overlapping entities in many ways. There are no other significant centers of this religion, but proselytizing is a big part of their belief system, so wandering evangelists like Brother Saros are scattered all over the continent. Aster hasn't met them before, but that's not a huge surprise -- the Waste Lands are a big place, and the Church of the Eternal Cycle has a very small congregation.

Bork wants to go talk to the monks, and see if they know any more about the prophecy than they've been told. Aster is pretty sure that the monks are just going to tell them to “please, please, please, please go away," since the whole business makes them uncomfortable. Bork declares that if the monks are that uncomfortable around them, the party can “hold them hostage by our very presence". There follows some discussion about the proper term for the party's resurrected status:

Aster: ... but we're not undead.
Bork: I identify as a zombie.

They go to give Fritha a heads-up about Fluryka wanting to travel with them -- or, as Bork says, “the ambassador from I-forget-where is going to I-forget-where, and she wants to come with us." Fritha is perfectly fine with this, on the grounds that if something attacks that they can't defend against, maybe it will eat the ambassador instead of Fritha.

Fritha, in turn, gives them a similar heads-up: Brother Saros wants to join them, on the grounds that he needs to move on to proselytize in other places. This is, Fritha makes clear, something of a mixed blessing: an extra cleric around means more healing available if they need it, but it also means that they have to put up with Saros's irritating personality. Aster and Bork decide to consider the matter -- Bariarti registers no opinion one way or the other.

Bork then declares, to Fritha's confusion, that they're off to visit the “zombie monks". An incoherent multi-person explanation follows, in which the general concept that the party was brought back from the dead to save the world from “the Hungry Sky" can be extracted. Aster asks if Fritha has ever heard of the Hungry Sky; when Fritha says she does not, Aster immediately rolls Sense Motive. (The GM does not have any ranks in Bluff.) Unfortunately for the party, Fritha crits her Bluff check, and Aster is perfectly satisfied that their new companion is hiding nothing.

---

1. Kozzory is fascinated by human culture in general, and heraldry in particular -- which is why, upon taking over her family's inn, she added some additional decoration. In the dining area, there's a Ravensblood coat of arms and the arms of the chief of Tribe Scum-Stone (who holds a hereditary knighthood), in addition to the pre-existing Malacaster arms. She has also assigned each room in the inn a heraldic beast “theme", but thus far the budget hasn't let her get past painting the doors.

2. This is pretty standard for ogres, at least in my campaign world. You'll notice from their creature type that they're not big humanoids, but small giants; the way I've described the relationship in past setting documents is that if a true giant is like a wolf -- with all of the danger, beauty, and wildness that that implies -- then an ogre is like a bad-tempered Boston terrier. Ogres thus tend toward a certain petty evil and bloody-mindedness, and a love of pushing around smaller species. This makes them very bad law enforcement in terms of morality -- but very good law enforcement in terms of effectiveness. In a previous campaign, a cop bar in an ogre-majority town was called B'zintwarri -- a Giantish term that roughly translates to “Suicide By Cop". It says something about a culture that has a single word for that.
3. She's not a very good ambassador.
4. From the setting document: “The ruins of some forgotten city surround this town, and there is consistently some form of archaeological research going on here. However, other than that, it’s a deeply unpleasant place to live. The founding tribe is xenophobic in the extreme, and there’s just something… wrong with the area. Until a few years ago, there was also constant infighting over religious differences, but such things were put to an end when the Church of the Eternal Cycle gained the upper hand and took complete control of the town."

Maps

Maps

I'm putting them here for reference.

My intention is that, while the PCs travel hither and yon, the town of Stagnant Lake is a sort of "home base" they might regularly return to. On those grounds, I actually mapped the place out.

I also have a map of the Waste Lands in general, as follows:

The dotted lines represent trading routes; major trade routes are thicker lines. Towns and routes are color-coded by what political entity controls them, as follows:

Black: Independent

Red: The Autarchy of Capra

Yellow: The Northern Trade Alliance

Green: New Vyoutommourt

Gray: The Iron Law

Blue: The Arctic Empire

Orange: Vassalage of Sut'Suaf

Purple: The Plutocracy of Vireion

Also, for convenience, here is the explanation from the setting document for what each of those places are. Now I can stop explaining it in the posts.

The Autarchy of Capra

Ruler: Autarch Adamantia I

Dominant Religion: Maghestros

Majority Species: Human

Majority Language: Southern Common

Capra is a cosmopolitan — though, to be honest, mostly human — nation with colonialist ambitions. For the past two centuries, give or take, the Autarch’s throne has been occupied by the half-dragon ruler Adamantia I. In keeping with her red-dragon heritage, Adamantia’s guiding principle is the acquisition of wealth and power: during her reign, Capra has nearly doubled in size as a result of swallowing up smaller neighboring nations, and established territories both in the Waste Lands and (more recently) overseas. It was Capra’s expansion into the previously-ignored Waste Lands that started the current territorial conflicts, and that nation continues to claim the most territory there.

The Northern Trade Alliance

Ruler: Lord Horst

Dominant Religion: Mephistopheles

Majority Species: Goblinoid

Majority Language: Giant

The Northern Trade Alliance is, essentially, a more formal way to describe a number of smaller settlements along the Eflis River that turn to the large and powerful town of Barlgilton for protection. It was formed as a reaction to Capra’s expansion into the Waste Lands, and is now their greatest rival. 

New Vyoutommourt

Ruler: Jivmarana

Dominant Religion: Jivmarana

Majority Species: Goblinoid

Majority Language: Goblin

Jivmarana, Lord of Life and Death, has claimed this location as the home of his avatar in the material world. For miles around his great palace, orchards of surpassing fecundity sprout from the otherwise dry and useless soil. He is served by those goblins who have been drawn in by his power, and by the kech that his previous incarnation brought from the far south of the continent. The secular governments of the region mostly try to pretend this place doesn’t exist, and to be as uninvolved with it as possible. This is easier than you might think, since outsiders are unwelcome in the outlying villages of Norvierm and Putrefir, and straight-up not permitted entry into the town that, before the arrival of Jivmarana, was known as Raum Keep.

The Iron Law

Ruler: The Iron Magos

Dominant Religion: Grandfather Kraken

Majority Species: Human

Majority Language: Northern Common

A figure known as the Iron Magos dwells in a tower by the coast, in the town of Aglaitiraup. He/she/it/they have no public life, interact with nobody, and in general live like a recluse. What is known, however, is that the Iron Magos offers protection to any tribe that performs a certain rite of allegiance and whose leader signs their name, in blood, on the surface of a great iron monolith that stands outside the Magos’s tower, and on which is engraved the legal code of the land. Those tribes and towns who have sworn themselves to the Iron Law find themselves defended from outside attack by arcane intervention, generally presumed to be the magic of the Iron Magos. The price, of course, is that the same power is turned against any who violate the law within those tribes. Within the Iron Law, the penalty for any crime is immediate capital punishment, and it is whispered that the Magos uses the life force of these criminals to power the magic of the land.

The Arctic Empire

Ruler: Emperor Konstantin XLIII

Dominant Religion: Vald

Majority Species: information not available

Majority Language: Northern Common

Since time out of mind, everything north of the Arctic Circle has been claimed by a grand empire. Rumor has it that the seat of the empire is a city on the far northern coast of the continent, warmed by long-forgotten magics, where some of the world’s greatest arcane secrets are guarded jealously. Most of the empire’s rule is pretty hands-off, however, so the vast majority of its inhabitants are barbarian tribes independent in all but name. However, two of the northernmost cities in the Waste Lands have chosen to align themselves with this power, and by all accounts, Emperor Konstantin XLIII has accepted their allegiance. There is even apparently the occasional visit of a diplomat or functionary from the far north.

Vassalage of Sut'Suaf

Ruler: ???

Dominant Religion: ???

Majority Species: ???

Majority Language: ???

The city of Sut’Suaf is known to exist on the other side of the D’had Forest. Two settlements within the Waste Lands have sworn their allegiance to it, and have some form of communication with its government. Nothing else is known about the entity to which these two towns pay their taxes. (Though it’s generally assumed that the town government is somewhat more informed about the matter than outsiders.)

The Plutocracy of Vireion

Ruler: The Merchants' Council

Dominant Religion: Maghestros

Majority Species: Human

Majority Language: Southern Common

Once one of the great powers of the world, Vireion was broken during the Trade Wars more than two centuries ago. Among other things, the peace treaty they signed absolutely forbade them from expanding outside their current territory, or from operating the network of trade caravans that had given them their former strength. At this point in time, nearly all of Vireion is contained within their original headquarters in the West Gash Formation, a canyon far to the southwest where rents in the fabric of reality make invasion from outside nigh-impossible. They do, however, have one foothold in the Waste Lands, and they make the most of it by supplying some of their strangest and rarest goods through a portal in the settlement’s center. Vireion’s access to literally otherworldly merchandise through the aforementioned tears in reality allows them to continue making a substantial profit off of this venture.

The Hungry Sky, Chapter Two

In Which

Bariarti Trusts to Fate ⁂ Bork Flirts with the Ambassador ⁂ Cyclopes go “Click" ⁂ A Toad is Forced to Improvise ⁂ Bork Terrifies Prisoners ⁂ Housekeepers Should be Tipped ⁂ Priorities are Unusual

Aster casually looks around the inn's dining room as she gathers her second helping of food. She notes that Elgin has apparently had too much beer, and is now drunkenly airing his woes to Hickory, who listens with apparently-genuine sympathy; from what she can gather, Elgin's brother Percival has lost his mind, and Elgin had to have him committed. (The Malacaster Home for the Mad, which is just a little ways outside town, provides the best care for such people money can buy.) A couple tables over, Fritha has apparently not had enough beer, as Brother Saros is enthusiastically trying to engage her in conversation about her travels, much to her annoyance. 

Bariarti decides to exercise his paladin abilities¹. He fires off a detect good, and white auras glow into being around Aster, Elgin, and Hickory. Bariarti, deciding to trust in fate, figures he should keep an eye on the good-aligned NPCs; if he follows them, and helps them if they get into trouble, odds are good he'll happen to be in the right place at the right time.² Bariarti declares that he will discreetly keep an eye on Elgin and Hickory. [Stealth check: 6]

Aster, looking at the slime trail Bariarti leaves on the floor behind him, notes that they had “better tip the staff". She also heads over to Hickory, who asks her why her companion is looming and leering in such a strange way. 

Bariarti: Just keeping you out of trouble.
Hickory: Why does he think I'm getting into trouble?
Aster: I don't know, I just met him.
Bariarti: Just making sure.
Hickory: Your friend is freaking me out a little bit.
Aster: Ah, well... [abruptly changing the subject] anyhow, how's business?
Hickory: It's... it's a living.
Aster: Understood. Not always easy, I know. By the way, are you happening to go toward Trisnedort³?

Hickory is indeed headed in that general direction in the near future, and Aster asks him to carry a note to her father to let him know she's okay. She tips Hickory a silver piece, and quickly scribbles down a note for him to carry.

Meanwhile, Bork and Fluryka have arrived at the Leering Lamprey. It's essentially what you'd expect from a dockside tavern; it's kind of a dive, but with strong beer and decent food. Most of the patrons are goblins, with the occasional humanoid mixed in. A kobold is strumming a lute in the corner, singing for tips. Bork, taking advantage of the fact that she's basically a giant compared to the other patrons, secures a table for herself and the ambassador, then heads over to talk to the bartender. Some fast talking, a trustworthy sharp-toothed smile, and a high Bluff check convinces him to send her bill to the Order of the Stagnant Lake; she returns to the table with two mugs of the tavern's finest beer.

Bork: So, tell me about yourself. Other than digging up random stuff, what does your town do?
Fluryka: Right now, everything's kind of on hold, what with the plague.
Bork: Plague? I don't think I've heard about that.
Fluryka: I did mention it to you in the inn shortly before we walked over here.
Bork: I'm sorry -- your beautiful eyes distracted me.
Fluryka: [flustered] I'm not sure what to do with that -- you're, like, four times my size, and I'm not sure I'm into that.
Bork: Just drink your beer.

Some conversation passes, in which Fluryka tells Bork about the plague in her hometown of Fricanoroi, which struck seemingly out of nowhere and is characterized by horrible black lesions on the skin. Bork offers her sympathies. Eventually, the conversation is redirected.

Bork: So, these magic items. I was wondering if I could take a look at them. I'm not a mage, but I know a thing or two about magic objects.

Fluryka reaches into a pouch at her belt and produces a pair of small statues. They are carved from black stone, and resemble cyclopes seated in crude thrones. Bork fiddles with them a bit, but without anything to go on, her Use Magic Device check isn't much use. She presses them together, and for a second, she is pleasantly surprised by a soft click noise -- then nothing happens, and she realizes that that was just the sound of two small pieces of stone colliding. The only thing she notices that would indicate that these items are anything other than completely mundane statues is that neither of them casts a shadow. Eventually, she hands them back, and the pair converse some more before returning to the inn.

Bork is half-heartedly considering making forgeries of the statues and stealing the genuine article, but the business with the shadows would be tough to fake. She, Aster, and Bariarti retire to their rooms, and try to get a good night's sleep. Maybe tomorrow it will be clearer what they're supposed to do.

NPC Interlude: Locusts-Speak-in-the-Ancient-Ear

In the dead of night, four figures quietly approach the Exarch's Arms. Some hours previous, word had reached them about the current patrons, and it was decided that they should intervene. It was not yet the time to act openly, but their organization had become quite skilled at operating in the shadows. The higher echelons were still discussing the best approach for some of the more outré information that had reached them, but it had taken only a few minutes to decide how to deal with a certain nosy human.

Two of the creeping figures are toad-like bipeds, of a species wholly unknown to the people of Stagnant Lake. One of them wears fine leather armor, and gazes around with an air of command: this is The-Laws-are-as-Gossamer, the expedition's leader. The other wears thick cloth robes covered in painted runes: this is Locusts-Speak-in-the-Ancient-Ear, providing spellcasting support. The other two figures, who move with an effortless silent grace and leave no footprints where they step, are kech -- a humanoid species covered in long, lank hair like a sloth's. Their names are Ur-Nungal and Ipqatum; they are the muscle.

A fine figure of a frog. (Image from Monsters of Faerun.)
I have no images of kech; not only are they fairly obscure creatures, but I slightly reskinned them in my world. They're supposed to be essentially bald, with leaf-like patterns on their skin; I thought covering them in sloth-like fur was a more evocative look. (An unexpected bonus is that Bork's player is more creeped out by that description⁴.) For whatever reason, none of D-and-D's numerous ape-man species share that appearance, and I have no talent at drawing, so there you go. 

Gossamer turns to Locusts and makes a hand sign that Locusts has come to recognize as indicating his boss's compulsive need to check their preparedness. Locusts pulls back a fold of his robe to show the scroll tubes at his side, then opens a pouch and holds up a ring. Taken with a brief flash of impish petulance, he flips the ring through the air towards Gossamer, who catches it and glares before slipping it on his finger. Gossamer makes another gesture -- get on with it -- and Locusts whispers the incantation of spider climb over Gossamer and then over himself. The kech don't need it; they can scale the sides of a building as quick as Locusts can walk across a flat plain. The only reason the toad-things need to even accompany them is to supervise; the same neurological quirks that make the kech unwaveringly loyal also impede their ability to improvise if something goes wrong. (And kech tend to be lousy spellcasters, possibly for the same reason.)

The four scale the side of the building in complete silence, until they reach a certain second-story window. Another whispered incantation -- knock -- causes the simple hook-and-eye lock on the inside of the shutters to unlatch itself, and Ur-Nungal carefully opens the shutters, watchful for the slightest squeak of the hinges. Ipqatum climbs through the window with preternatural grace, followed by Gossamer -- who moves like a giant bipedal frog, but still manages to be quiet. Ur-Nungal slips in, and Gossamer looks significantly at Locusts. 

Drat, Locusts thinks. He had hoped that they'd let him stay outside -- after all, they'd only need spellcasting support on the inside if something went terribly wrong -- but such was not to be. He climbs through the window with exaggerated care, as his training in stealth is not nearly so thorough as that of the others. As his feet reach the floor, Ipqatum creeps over to the bed, in which their target lies sleeping. He extends one finger -- the kech, with their sharp claws, have no need of knives for this sort of work -- and is surprised when the target, apparently only feigning sleep, grabs his wrist and pulls her own knife from under her pillow. What kind of human sleeps with a knife under her pillow? Locusts thinks to himself, his training momentarily deserting him in a second of baffled shock.

Ur-Nungal rushes to assist, the target swings her knife at the intruders with unexpected skill, Gossamer leaps towards her with his ring hand extended, and Locusts thinks something extremely rude. It looks like they're going to have to improvise after all.

⁂

Across the hall, Bork⁵ jerks awake at the sound of shouting. Screaming. Violence. She grabs her weapon and rushes across the hall, bursting into the room that is the source of the noise. For an instant, everyone freezes and stares at the intruder, and Bork finds herself looking at a strange tableau. Fritha Threefingers is standing on the bed, in disheveled nightclothes, brandishing a large hunting knife. Three humanoid creatures covered in long, filthy hair are beside the bed, facing her down. In the corner nearest them, a toad-like biped in leather armor is gasping out its last breaths, clutching at a slit throat. Several feet back from the melee, a second toad-man is staring at her in surprise.

Bork: What the fuck?
Toad: This, um, doesn't concern you.
Bork: Tell me what you're doing or I kill you.
Toad: Um, well, the thing is... it's part of my religion?

Bork is not open to this approach, and goes to stab the nearest kech. She misses horribly -- luckily, she doesn't confirm her critical fumble -- and yells loud enough to wake the others. The toad, apparently panicking, turns invisible.

The other members of the party arrive, but not in time to save Bork from getting flanked by kech and taking a critical hit. Bariarti and Aster arrive in the doorway, and Aster starts singing to inspire courage.

Locusts, seeing the gnoll arrive not only with backup, but with backup that consists of some sort of enormous snail monster, decides that it's time for him to be somewhere else. After casting his invisibility, he creeps carefully back to the window -- and stares in horror. It's one of those things, you know? One of those little motions that gets drilled into you when you're learning how to be part of society. Something that a civilized individual is meant to do without even thinking about it. Locusts had been the last through the window -- so he closed the shutters behind him.

Bariarti shoots at the general area where the invisible toad is located, and manages to beat the miss chance. There is a croaking cry of pain. One of the kech tries to escape, but Bork gets a critical hit on her attack of opportunity, and severs its hand at the wrist; it rapidly bleeds out. Aster manages to hit the surviving kech with her crossbow, and Bork decides to charge towards the window in the hopes of tackling the toad, but instead runs face-first into the wall. Clutching her bleeding snout, she yells, "This is your last chance to surrender," and for some reason that actually works [Intimidate: 23]. The kech puts his hands up in apparent surrender. The toad fumbles a Stealth check, and trips over a piece of furniture while trying to dive under the bed. He shimmers into visibility with his hands up, fully aware that he's otherwise screwed.

Bork decides to take the direct approach. The following is the excuse for an interrogation that follows Bork making some more Intimidate rolls, and everyone else being mildly distracted by trivia. The toad seems to have decided to cooperate politely, to a certain extent. The kech has little to say.

Bork: Tell us what you want, or I will murder you.
Toad: That seems extreme.
Bork: That's extreme, after I cut your friend's hand off?
Toad: Point.
Aster: [distracted by other priorities] Look at all the blood -- we really should tip the housekeeper.
Kech: You should, you know.
Bork: [glaring at the toad] I think you should tip the housekeeper.
Toad: Look, I don't carry any of your currency with me.
Bork: Got anything valuable?
Toad: No?
Aster: Where are you from?
Toad: You wouldn't have heard of it.
Aster: Try me.
Toad: All right, I'm from [prolonged, modulated croaking noise]. I don't believe it has a name in your tongue.

Aster rolls an 8 on Knowledge (geography). Fritha Threefingers continues watching with interest, cleaning her knife and adjusting her disheveled nightclothes, but not intervening. Bork decides to get things back on track.

Bork: Why are you here?
Toad: [pause to weigh the dangers of cooperation] I was supposed to replace her. [indicates Threefingers]Bork: Like kill her and wear her skin? That's fucked up.
Toad: No, that's barbaric. I was going to use this ring. 

The toad-creature picks up a ring from the floor nearby -- it does look like it would fit his strange, webbed fingers.

Bork: That's still fucked up.
Toad: At least I didn't come up with wearing her skin.
Bork: You can't take over people's lives! Why were you going to take over Threefingers's life?
Toad: I don't make the rules.
Bork: Why wouldn't you pick someone with five fingers?
Toad: That's an... interesting point. Look, I'm just following orders here.
Bork: From who?
Toad: From... my boss.
Aster: Who is...?
Toad: Also not a name you would recognize.
Bork: Why Threefingers?
Toad: Look, I'm not privy to the grand plan here.
Bariarti: What were you supposed to do after you replaced her?
Aster: Thank you. Good snail. Sorry, that sounded terribly condescending.
Toad: All I know is that she's investigating something that we would rather not have investigated. Can I go, or is the gnoll going to cut my limbs off?

The party decide to send someone to get the town guard, and let them handle this whole toad business. In the meantime, after a couple questions, Fritha volunteers that she is investigating a ring of slavers up the coast. Aster heads downstairs and runs into Kozzory, the innkeeper. Aster tries to impress upon her how important it is that she get the town guard. Kozzory wants to know why Aster was singing just now, being as it was the middle of the night. Upstairs, Bork and the toad-thing accuse each other of being racist, and Bork intimidates the toad into handing over the ring and a scroll of water breathing, after ascertaining that the two survivors aren't carrying anything else of value.

Upon Aster's return, she and Bork loot the bodies incompetently. [Perception: 5 -- and that was the high roll.] Bariarti abstains from the looting on the grounds of being a paladin. Fritha is then forced to try and discourage the party from following her -- she seems reluctant to have them tagging along, and isn't terribly worried about a recurrence as she “think[s] we showed them what-for."

It's about then that two members of the town guard can be heard coming up the stairs of the inn; to be continued.

---

1. One of the other common-sense changes I made in my campaign world is that paladins don't have to be Lawful Good -- after all, there's really no reason why only the LG gods should be able to have holy warriors. Rather, they follow the same alignment restrictions as clerics; their alignment has to be compatible with their god's. (And they fall if they break their god's code of conduct.) One of the consequences of this is that they don't all have detect evil and smite evil -- they detect and smite an alignment opposed to their god. Bariarti is a paladin of Grandfather Kraken, who is True Neutral, so he got to pick which alignment his powers targeted. Bariarti's player has a tradition of playing unusual characters, so he asked if his detect and smite necessarily had to match. As a result, Bariarti can smite evil, but detect good.
2. “I figure that if the prophecy's legit, it will take care of itself, and whatever I do will turn out to be what needed to be done, so I'm just going to follow anyone who detects as good and see if they need any paladin-ing." -- Bariarti OOC
3. Aster, being familiar with the trade routes and her caravan's habits, figures they're probably going to be in the town of Trisnedort next.
4. 

Bork OOC: Take a mop, dip it in oil, then leave it in a dark, damp corner for a while, and then you have a sloth.

GM: I don't think you'd literally have a sloth -- it would still be just a mop.
Bork OOC: How else do you think sloths are created?

5. Bork got above 20 on her Perception check to be woken by the noise. Aster got a 6, and Bariarti got a 3. The DC was 10.