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.

The Hungry Sky, Chapter One

I have no excuse for leaving this to languish for the past year. I've been busy, true, but I have had enough free time here and there that I could have been adding to this blog. Anyway, I'm going to give it another go, with another campaign log. (The previous campaign, “The Caves of Tyǧeštai”, sort of petered out from lack of direction, so you're not missing a whole heck of a lot by me not finishing it.) In an attempt to learn from that experience, I've recently started a campaign that's less “sandbox” and more story-driven. Let's see how long I can focus on actually writing stuff down this time. 

Also, if there is a particular demand that I return to the Necrocracy campaign... well, I think I still have the audio file around here somewhere.

Anyway, Chapter One... 

In Which

It is Written ⁂ A Lazarus Hat Trick is Performed ⁂ Priests are Extorted ⁂ Bork Has Learned Nothing from Dying ⁂ Brother Saros's Good News Fails to Impress ⁂ "They don't take care of their donkeys right." ⁂ Free Beer is Had

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