Listen to the Rain

lisekatevans said that she and afschifler were going to participate in a game run by ansel.burch as part of TTRRG Pickup Con and said that I should join them, so I did! I went onto DND Beyond, whipped up a quick character--Shalsanressar Manishtusu, the silver dragonborn paladin--and joined up with Mango the halfling rogue, Jhor-Khal the elven monk, Reesa the half-orc paladin, and Prose the tiefling bard to save a village from the depredations of the local dragon.

The Dungeon of the Dragon
In the late winter, the group arrived at a sleepy village at the temple of the Horned Owl, its tutelary deity, to speak to the priestess Mother Enizio. She said that their village had been blessed with good weather and fair harvests by a local dragon in exchange for sacrifices of cows and sheep, but this year the dragon had requested a different sacrifice--a person. Mother Enizio believed that the dragon may be controlling the weather using an artifact of the Horned Owl, and asked the party to steal the artifact and, if necessary, to kill the dragon. After a rousing performance from the bard, accompanied by dragonborn throat-singing, the party boarded a cart who took them to the dragon's cave and left them there. Briefly examining the amphitheater that had been built outside the cave and finding nothing, they entered. The path split inside, with the right path having a strange blue glow and the left path leading into darkness, so Mango and Jhor-Khal scouted ahead. In a room further in, they came on a white-scaled kobold working over bubbling pots in a room filled with detritus, and after a brief battle, continued on to another room filled with kobolds! Though the battle (and the dice...) seemed at first to go against the party, eventually they killed or subdued all of the kobolds, and some questioning revealed the truth--the "dragon" was actually a puppet, and that plus some impressive acoustics had allowed a now-dead wizard to extort wealth from the town. The kobolds had taken over the caves after the wizard died, but were unable to maintain the puppet and had requested a "sacrifice" because they were hoping for help maintaining the scheme. The party, led Reesa, offered a counter-suggestion to come live in the village, where they could be accepted and wouldn't need to skulk in the caves. As they took some of the dragon's wealth and the wooden statue relic of the Horned Owl and made their way down the mountain, Shalsanressar turned to the kobold he had terrified into submission and said, "Tell me, have you heard the teachings of Bahamut?"

It was a bunch of fun! I haven't played D&D in over twenty years, since the days of 2e, and have mostly been out of caring about it since I spent the whole time playing World of Darkness and Call of Cthulhu and running Exalted and WFRP and Delta Green and Cthulhutech, so I'm glad that D&D Beyond exists and I could press the "make character" button and then tweak things afterwards. There were fewer weird rules and exceptions than 2e, and a much smaller focus on a humanocentric world with everyone else being a deviation from the norm (the example characters included two half-orcs, a changeling, and a goliath). I didn't have as much to do in the beginning, but mostly because I couldn't see in the dark! I appreciated how when Mother Enizio suggested we kill the dragon, the rest of the party looked at Shalsanressar to see his reaction...and I was going to be against it until I learned that it was a white dragon, since white and silver dragons are ancient enemies! That freed up my conscience to go a-dragon-killing, right up until we learned that everything was just tricksy kobolds.

There's another online con next month and I'm definitely going to go.

Sunday morning, I went over to thosesocks's apartment to play in a Masks game that her friend was running. Going in, I knew that that Masks was a game of junior superheroes, that it was a Powered by the Apocalypse game, and that the game took place on Prom night, but that was all. But like I told thosesocks, since her friend wanted to playtest this game to run it at GenCon, I thought that having someone who knew very little about the system or the genre would be a worthwhile data point, and she agreed.

After some introductions and the GM's gaming history, we got into character creation. The GM had printed out the playbooks on card stock and passed them around, and after some debate we ended up with five characters:

• Chaim Levi / Aleph, the Legacy: One of the 36 tzaddikim, the righteous whose lives justify the continued existence of the world to G-d. And by "lives," I mean, "use of superpowers to save the world"! Reluctantly obeying halakhah under the supervision of his observant parents, Aleph is the inheritor of an ancient tradition, and all his relatives make sure he knows it.
  
• Jeong "Jenny" Park / Proceratosaurus, the Transformed: Abnormally tall, scaled, and green, Proceratosaurus always stands out no matter how much she doesn't want to. Unknowingly tranformed by experimental chemicals in the water supply, she's doing her best to come to terms with her powers and her appearance, but sometimes she just wishes all of this never happened.
  
• Omna / Normal Woman, the Outsider: A shapeshifting extra-dimensional being from a place where identity and individuality are fluid, Normal Woman does her best to fit into the world she's found herself in. She's very proud of her uncanny-valley-triggering disguise and brushes off any suggestion of her odd behavior or gaps in her knowledge by explaining that she's from New Jersey, where they do things differently.
  
• Pratik "P.B." Bhuta / Fletch, the Beacon: Fletch has no powers, but his skill with a bow means he doesn't need them. He's plucky and scrappy, determined to prove to the world that he's just as good as someone who can bend steel beams or shoot lasers from his eyes. A YouTube video of his exploits went viral and he's always talking up how great Fletch is. Did you see that shot? Wow!
  
• Ani / Catwoman, the Bull: Granted the ability to turn into predatory animals due to unethical experiments, Catwoman smashed her way out of a lab and tried to resume a normal life, but life is never quite normal in Halycon City. Her superhero name comes from a highly-publicized incident where she turned into a panther and has stuck despite how much it annoys her.

You can probably guess who I played.

We spent some time picking Moves, determining relations between our characters, decided how we formed a team (all on the Yearbook Club, which turned out to be a cult), picking a superhero team name ("The Committee," based on all of the heroes being on the Prom planning committee together), and then started playing, though by the time we did almost half of the four-hour time slot had elapsed. There were some brief opening scenes with a few characters--Jenny's mother telling her that her wig and makeup costume was unnecessary because she shouldn't have to hide who she was; P. B.'s older brother laughing at his Fletch "costume"; and Chaim's father wanting him home by 9 p.m. and, after agreeing to 11 p.m., reminding him that he was special, chosen by G-d, and that he should remember that worldly acclaim and the esteem of the goyim were not things he should concern himself with.

After arriving early to set up the Prom--in the interests of keeping game going, I neglected to point out that this would probably be happening on Shabbat and Chaim's father would have a much larger problem with that than mixed dancing or the presence of treif--the Prom began and things were going well until photographs started fluttering down from the ceiling and the villain appeared! Mother Memory, who wanted to steal the students' life essence to make herself young, trapping them in photographs so they would experience the night of prom forever. Fletch shot an arrow to get her attention and she froze him, and Catwoman turned into a panther and then Mother Memory froze her. Then the statues used from the Prom decor came to life, and while Proceratosaurus and Normal Woman battled them, Aleph used his super speed to get close to Mother Memory and engaged her in scriptural disputation. The team gathered themselves while Aleph's debate gave them time, and then Fletch sprung his plan.

He asked Mother Memory to dance with him, saying that his night wouldn't really be perfect without it.

The villain's heart was thawed by his offer, and she accepted, unfreezing the other students and teachers and walking to the center of the dance floor as the band struck up a tune once again. As the dance ended, she mused that perhaps going on living and holding good memories close was a better path than trying to make a perfect moment last forever, no matter the cost, and the lights went out for a moment and, when they came back, she was gone. The heroes had won!

It was fun! Though, the impression I got is that for this game especially, we played with too many of the dials. Every playbook had relationships with other characters that we were supposed to pick and those never once came up in play. The influence mechanic that let characters shift each others' stats (especially adults shifting the stats of our teenage characters) only came into play at the beginning, even though many members of the team had influence over each other. Even our powers barely came into play, though admittedly that's because we went for the 80s teen movie solution to the plot rather than trying to win through force of arms. I get the feeling that Masks would be the best for a short run game, like 6-8 sessions, and anything shorter means that a lot of the elements that make it interesting don't come into play. That said, it was still a lot of fun and I'm really glad at the direction we took the plot. The only thing that would have been better would be for it to have been a musical.

I still wouldn't want to run a PbtA game--the GM doesn't roll dice by definition, and I really like rolling dice--and I don't know if I'd want to play a longer one, but this does reignite the interest I've had in Monsterhearts ever since I listened to an Actual Play of it put on by the sadly-vanished Walking Eye podcast.

​Dramatis Personae

• Antonio Abella, Italian Legal Assistant
  
• Dr. Conrad Nemeth, American Climate Scientist
  
• Ivy Davison, American Construction Worker
  
• Jean-Yves Laurent, French Army Officer

Jean-Yves searched Walters' room, checking to see if there was a reason other than murder why the assailant would have entered. As he crouched down, he saw something under the bed, and, shining a flashlight on it, he saw a figure of an arm drawn in red chalk. After he pointed it out, Milton rushed in, staring around in shock and gasping about murder and how terrible everything is. After a moment, Dr. Weiss the plastic surgeon arrived and offered to examine the rooms--alone.

Antonio opined that the doctor was guilty, but the said through the extremely-thin walls that he was not. After examining the rooms, he took Milton and the stewards down the hall to discuss the incident. Antonio followed as though he was looking for someone, but Jean-Yves walked down and said that as a member of the French military, in a situation with no other authority than the train staff, he should be included. The doctor agreed, and Jean-Yves called over Dr. Conrad and Ivy. Dr. Weiss said that the arms were removed post-mortem, and Walters put up a struggle. He also said that the killer was right-handed, wielding a knife, and probably known to the victims.

The group debated their action, arguing briefly about why no one had called for help or moved the train, and then suddenly they heard Morisa Ocana calling for help and saying that there had been another murder! They rushed into the dining car and found Wanda Ziegler standing over a body, face-down, missing its left leg. Jean-Yves looked around the dining car and found nothing, but as Ivy bent down and looked up, she saw a group of four guests in 20s or 30s clothing being served a bottle of dark-colored wine. The wine was poured, the guests toasted, and the they faded away. Dr. Weiss stood up and said the body was Enzo Banuelos, stabbed perhaps a few hours previously. Milton again said how terrible things were and suggested going up the line to get help, after which Jean-Yves took him outside and showed him the figures watching from the distance within the mist.

On the train, Milton said that one of the stewards had offered to walk up the line, and Ivy offered to accompany him. After a moment, so did Dr. Conrad and Antonio Abella. After some consideration, knowing he was the only one who had a firearm, Jean-Yves agreed to go as well. They headed out into the mist, walking along the line, into the mist. They saw no strange figures, and after ten minutes of walking, they came to a tunnel. Taking out their flashlights, they entered the tunnel. As they entered, they noticed that the darkness seemed to press down on their light, reducing the radius of the light. It seemed like the light was oppressed, getting squeezed, and there were sounds from around them. Faint cries, screams, strange echoes in the distance. After a long time in the darkness, they suddenly came on a brick wall blocking up the entire tunnel. Ivy examined it and said that it had been there for a while, but Antonio pointed out that it couldn't have been built between when the rest of the train left them behind and now.

Ivy suddenly heard the sound of marching boots. After trying to find a hiding spot and realizing there was no place to hide, the investigators waited for whatever was coming. After some time, a group of soldiers in greatcoats and fur hats, with rifles shouldered but not at the ready...and no faces. They gestured with their rifles at the other direction, and with no real choice, the group went back the way they came followed by the faceless soldiers. As they exited the tunnel, the soldiers took up positions across the mouth of the tunnel, standing guard, and Jean-Yves thought of the figures he had seen in the mist.

When they arrived back at the train, the sought out Milton and found him in the salon car along with several other people. They told him about the brick wall and the soldiers, causing gasps and murmurs among the crowd. They looked for the people who were missing, and when Ivy noticed Chantelle was missing, she went after her and found her in her compartment. She had been crying, and there was a note sitting near her sink.

DEAREST CHANTEL

MEET ME TODAY AT 6 P.M. IN THE FOREST

COME ALONE

PLEASE FORGIVE

THE NEED FOR SECRECY

I PROMISE THAT

ALL WILL BE REVEALED

Chantelle said she was planning to go, and Ivy suggested that other people had to come as well. She suggested Jean-Yves, since he was armed, and said she had to go to prepare. Then she returned to the salon car and showed Dr. Conrad and Jean-Yves the note. They decided to go get Chantelle, and as they stood to go, they car suddenly changed. It transforms into a medieval hall, lit with flickering torches, with an ornate throne in the distance and a man whose skin is sewn-together patches sitting on it. The man asked if they had a deal, but he wasn't speaking specifically to the investigators. Several of the other passengers panicked, or stood staring in shock, but Jean-Yves left the car and the others quickly followed.

There were a few people in the salon car, but none of them had seen Oscar Griffin or BJ recently. They went to BJ's room and checked, but found nothing. Next was Oscar's compartment, and when Antonio opened the door, they saw him laying face-down with his leg missing. Ivy gasped, and Jean-Yves went to summon the doctor. Jean-Yves returned with the doctor, and he examined the body. Dr. Weiss said that it was the same knife as the previous deaths, and that he did not understand why the mouth seemed to be sealed over with skin...but that it was no stranger than the tunnel behind the train being sealed by a brick wall. Dr. Weiss left, and the investigators looked for Milton but couldn't find him after a quick search. Then they looked for one of the stewards and told him about the chalk limb drawings, and suggested they check the other rooms. As they argued, suddenly they noticed something small moving in the hall, scurrying toward the group, and as the shapes drew closer the investigators noticed that they were hands! Then they leapt.

A struggle ensued, where the hands leapt on people's faces but didn't manage to do much damage before simply vanishing. The investigators searched the salon car but found nothing, and Jean-Yves climbed up on top of the train and found a stone torso, like a statue piece. He said he couldn't move it, but when Ivy climbed up to help, it vanished. Antonio checked Enzo's room and found a chalk leg, and then checked BJ's room and found a red chalk circle, almost like a head, under his bed. When Jean-Yves went to check his room, he found two people in it, one murdering the other! He drew his gun and pointed it, at the men, but realized by their dress and style that they were ghosts, and indeed, when the murder was done, the murderer walked toward Jean-Yves and vanished.

Jean-Yves, Dr. Conrad, and Ivy went to Chantelle's room and they left into the woods. The three of them hid in the trees near the appropriate spot and waited, watching as Chantelle waited for the writer, and Mark Wilson came out from behind a tree smiling. Chantelle reacted poorly to being stalked, and when Mark Wilson's expression grew cloudy and he drew a knife, Chantelle drew a derringer from her purse and fired. Mark Wilson ran, and though Ivy chased after him, she quickly lost him in the woods.

Antonio had followed them out to spy on them, and just as he decided to return tot he train, he saw movement in the bushes. He called out to it but got no answer, and approaching, he found BJ curled up in the bushes. BJ would not answer his entreaties, and Antonio reached out to him and managed to pull him to his feet and lead him back to the train. As the others approached the train, Dr. Conrad noticed a mound of something white or blue lying on the ground and found his shirt, bloody, in a heap. He took it and put it away, and they re-entered the train.

Antonio took BJ to see Dr. Weiss, who examined him and then treated his leg wound. Or tried to--when he went to the tap and turned it on, blood came out instead of water! After a moment of shock, Antonio turned off the tap, and the doctor said that the wound was a gunshot wound. Just a graze, and the doctor could not tell what kind of gun it was. He left and took BJ to the salon car. The others were already there, including Dr. Conrad, who had taken a detour to stuff the shirt in the bottom of his luggage. After seeing who else was there, they decided to check the rooms of the missing people. The first was Faustino, whose room was closed and locked. Mark Wilson's room was also locked, as was Milton's. After a short discussion, the investigators went to get the stewards and ask them to help determine whether the three others were okay, or even alive.

At that moment, a troupe of faceless Italian blackshirts entered the car and demanded everyone's credentials. But they seemed happy with the ID provided, even Jean-Yves' EU passport, and went on their way. Antonio left the car to avoid them and, as he exited the train, he saw something on the ground. He checked it, and found a set of limbs and head, with the torso missing, of a person, with a small journal next to it. Once he recovered his composure, he recognized Faustino Gonzaga, and grabbed the journal just as Ivy went to check on him.

Once they entered Antonio pulled everyone into the dining car and showed them the journal. Inside the cover was a label that it was the property of the National Library of France, and it was listed as the diary of the Countess Valentina Durnovo, describing a fantastic and horrific journey on the Orient Express and their fight against the Brothers of the Skin. At the end were two chants, both labeled "Ritual of the Cleansing," and one labeled "inaccurate version."

When they returned from the dining car, Milton was there, but Antonio realized that if he came from his room he must have come from the outside since he didn't pass them on the way in. The investigators explained the murder of Faustino and the entire crew discussed what to do. Milton seemed to want to leave, but Antonio pointed out that there might be the same situation the other direction. Eventually, they decided to pull everyone into the salon car and stay together, sleeping in shifts to guard against the murderer. Strange things happened during the night, and on the third shift, Milton, Jean-Yves, and Dr. Conrad were all awake together. Milton struck up a conversation, and eventually said he wanted to head to the bathroom. Dr. Conrad went with him, and after they left, Jean-Yves woke Ivy and Antonio and followed after them.

Milton left the bathroom, looked Dr. Conrad right in the eyes, and said "Pretend I'm still in the bathroom." As Dr. Conrad stood there, Milton went out past him. After some time, Jean-Yves looked in the window from the connecting car and saw Dr. Conrad standing there. After some berating, Jean-Yves checked the bathroom and found nothing, and after telling the others and arming themselves with kitchen knives, they searched the train. Milton's cabin's door was open, and almost everything was missing from it. Milton wasn't on the train, but Antonio found a set of tracks heading down the line toward the tunnel. They followed the tracks to the tunnel, and then they entered. They found Milton by the brick wall, conducting some sort of ritual, with several faceless guards. Antonio charged him, but went down under the bullets of the guards. As Jean-Yves provided first aid, Milton yelled:

"Come and see! The new dawn awaits!"

and jumped through. After a moment, the others followed.

They were in a large, dark space, illuminated by a ring of torches, with thick carpets everywhere. In the center was an altar and on it were a series of body parts, two arms, two legs, a torso...and the head of Mark Wilson. Milton was in the middle of a circle of blood with a serious wound in his stomach, and as they entered, he yelled at them to take their revenge. The investigators did not act, and after a moment, he looked at Dr. Conrad and ordered him to kill him. Despite Ivy and Jean-Yves's attempt to stop him, Dr. Conrad grabbed the knife that Milton had used and stabbed him. As Milton collapsed, the body parts on the altar rose into the air and came together into a horrific monster with eyes like black pits!

The investigators ran.

They found themselves in Istanbul, and alerted the police that they had seen strange activity in the city, but they did not stay around to see what the police found or what they did. When they checked the area later, they found no portal and no way to get back, and so they never learned what happened to the other people on the train...


Apparently if we had had more time at the end, Fennelik would have attacked, since the ghosts on board the train were re-enacting the memories of the faithful trip the 1920s investigators took as part of the ritual that Milton was enacting. And succeeded at, despite my efforts to prevent it from happening. 70% Brawl and I failed at my attempt to grab Dr. Conrad...

The ending was a bit anti-climactic, though I think a lot of that is that we were at the end of playtime. If it had happened with a couple hours left, we could have explored what the police found in the Shunned Mosque (for so it was), or tried to fight the flesh golem, or had to talk our way out of Turkey, or any number of things. But we only had a few minutes left, and so it ended. Sometimes, there's just no time.

And that's that for the entire Horror on the Orient Express game, from late 2015 to early 2018! Final thoughts in another post.

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• Father James, human disciple of the pidgit-folk.
  • Hundred Wings, Father James' familiar spirit bound into the bodies of dozens of ravens.
• Willow, human treesinger raised in Taira.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

While Willow and Shining Star settled into their tutoring by the Fog Chirurgeons, Father James sent out Hundred Wings and used his own sorcery to look into the crime and vice occurring around the Roaring Lion. He found a lot of mugging and other petty crimes--there seemed to be a rousing industry in waiting until the adventurers who delved into Etemenanki were spending their earnings on debaucheries and then stealing their money--but none of the slavery or other intolerable deeds he was looking for. Amos wandered the town, asking around about strange pipes and their destinations and looking for people willing to go through one. He made a few contacts and also heard a story about a pipe north of tower town in the forest that led to one of the cloud kingdoms. The person who went through explored a bit but heard the hunting cry of a roc and scurried back into the pipe. Amos privately though the storyteller a bit of a coward--they didn't even know if the roc was nesting on the floating island or not--but filed the story away for later. Elaphe went to the markets and sold some of the loot they had hauled out of Etemenanki, getting a nice profit on the loot, and that night at the Roaring Lion, he distributed some of the other loot items to the rest of the party.

They discussed what they were going to do next and eventually decided to take on the gigases west of the city. Shining Star asked the starfolk Wara and Kimé if they wanted to come, mentioning that there would be a meteor shower in four days and they might be able to find a fallen star that could get them home. Kimé seemed all in favor of going, but Wara was reluctant, saying he was just a farmer. Kimé eventually convinced him, however, though that led Shining Star to worry that she was leading them to their deaths. Amos also spoke with Valeria, the human who had arrived in Agarica from the Roman Empire, and told her about their mission. She immediately agreed to come, and with their group thus enlarged the party went to sleep.

In the morning, full of delicious eggs and mushroom beer (and seed porridge for Elaphe), the party bought a pony for Wara and Kimé to ride on and then set out on the western road. As they showed the guards their tax receipts for the tower trip, they saw the Silent One airship cast off the lines, lift into the air, and perform a large circuit of the Tower before flying southward, and then they road outside the city. They passed through farmsteads and small villages, and when they paused to ask some villagers about marauding gigases they were told that they were further west, closer to the forest to the north of tower town. The road went northwest toward the Sarasan grasslands, so they stuck to the road, riding nearly all day and finding little except a few travelers who got off the road when they saw a party of heavily-armed adventurers approaching on horseback. Around dinner time, they stopped and slept in a copse of trees sheltered from the wind and the cold, ate a meal of travel jerky, bread, and dried fruit, and slept. The night was uneventful.

In the morning, Father James sent Hundred Wings to scout north of the road, and the spirit reported back that it had found a burned-out farm a few miles north, within sight of the wood, and gigas tracks nearby. When the party arrived at the farm, they found several slaughtered mooshrooms and a house with one wall caved in and parts still smoldering, though fortunately the thatch roof had not caught fire. There was a charred corpse of a chuzan in one corner of the house and no other bodies, and Shining Star and Kimé lay earth over the body and performed burial rites to appease their spirit. While the others looked over the farm. There was a well for water and tracks leading north to the forest, but no other valuables or loot taken. Eventually, they decided that rather than go hunting in the forest after the gigases, they would try to lure them out. Elaphe piled several mooshrooms north of the cottage and hid his bob-omb inside with instructions to go off if they were seriously disturbed and then they lit a bonfire and began roasting a mooshroom on it, wafting the smell to the woods.

As the fire was going, Shining Star traced a circle around it and began concentrating on it, feeling the heat of the fire and drawing it out. For hours she chanted as the mooshroom roasted, and eventually Willow, Amos, and Father James saw a fox-like creature with multiple tails dancing amidst the flames. Shining Star offered it a bigger fire if it would help them fight the gigases, but the rokon ignored her speech and looked at the cottage. It asked Shining Star what happened to the hearthfire inside, and when she explained about the gigases, it agreed to fight.

As Amos hid on the thatched roof and the others waited in the cottage, they heard the sound of something large moving through the forest and drawing nearer.


Next time, battle!

At the beginning, I had everyone talk about their short- and long-term plans for their characters, since a sandbox game needs to be player-driven to work well. They want to overthrow the Dragon Emperor, of course, but Shining Star wants to help Wara and Kimé get back home and cure Hemah of his curse, and Father James is looking for Predecessor artifacts and evidence of arremer manipulations. Elaphe wants to get extremely rich and leave a trail of mayhem behind him, which is a good motivation for any adventurer. Amos and Willow have slightly more nebulous motivations but I'm sure they'll figure something out.

Next time, battle against 2(?) gigases!

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• Father James, human disciple of the pidgit-folk.
  • Hundred Wings, Father James' familiar spirit bound into the bodies of dozens of ravens.
• Willow, human treesinger raised in Taira.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

The souldrinker battened on Father James, its claws wriggling, and he struggled in vain as he felt his life force being drawn away. Willow contemplated calling up a wall of vines between the party and their enemies, but eventually decided that having opened the door, they wanted to see what was in the room beyond, so she laid into the souldrinker, hurting it and also slashing Father James across the arm. The soulddrinker still healed the wounds, but more slowly now.

Elaphe lashed out at one of the spiders, and as he was bringing his dagger down, the spider's horns crackled with sparks and lashed out with a blast of lightning! Elaphe staggered, but his aim was true, and he brought the dagger down onto the spider's head, killing it. Amos fired at the souldrinker attacking Father James and the arrow passed through it, causing it to deflate slightly and start leaking a thin, oily fluid. Shining Star drew out her bow and knocked an arrow, then fired at the remaining spider, but it skittered sideways and advanced on Elaphe, who turned and hacked off one of its legs. Amos also drew on it, but the spider unleashed a blast of lightning that knocked Amos off his feet, sending him bouncing off a wall and into the floor in a heap.

As the souldrinker overwhelmed Father James, draining out his consciousness and lowering him to the floor, Willow moved to attack it while Elaphe and Shining Star hacked at the spider. Elaphe killed it with a savage blow, hacking off its head, and then leaped over to the souldrinker and carved it open. With a high keening wail its membrane broke open and its claws stopped twitching, freeing Father James. Shining Star immediately set to work binding everyone's wounds and examining Father James, but as near as she could tell, he was simply unconscious--anything else would have to wait. Once the bleeding had stopped and first aid had been applied, they carefully moved into the next room and looked around with Hundred Wings's help. Much of a corner of the room was taken up with a resinous nest, inside of which they found an egg, and there were several doors out of the room, but they found some money, a few loose crystals, a cord of blue threads bound in intricate knots, a pair of bracers forged of orichalcum with B'rabti writing and images of the Temple of Yarikh on it, and some potions. Hundred Wings dived down on the egg and began to feast, and Elaphe used his bob-omb to blow up the nest before they left. Then they began the long period of walking back out of the Tower.

On the bottom floor, they passed by the assessor's station, who explained the process. They would leave the artifacts and enchanted items they found in the Tower with them and receive claim tickets for them. The next day, they could return and they'd receive a tax assessment for 5% of their value, which they'd have two weeks or until they left Tower Town to pay, and how they got the money was none of the town's business. They handed over all their items, went back to the Roaring Lion tea house, and all collapsed into bed.

The next morning they woke up slightly refreshed, though most of them were still injured and Father James felt like he had been kicked by a mule. After a mug of mushroom beer, Elaphe went to check the markets to find places to sell their gear, while Shining Star and Willow sought out the Fog Chirurgeons, worshippers of an aspect of Phantom who married skill against the undead with healing prowess. The two asked around town and learned that there were two chirurgeons in town in a clinic, and going there they found an old silverback kong and his very young apprentice. They paid for healing--the room filled with fog and the old kong struck them each once directly over the heart--and then explained that they wanted to learn the ways of the Fog Chirurgeons. The elder one seemed to react especially to Shining Star's admission that she was a priestess of Nyahré, and he told them to return the next day. Then, they departed.

Amos went to the same sorcerer that Father James had gone to when they first arrived in Tower Town, the chuzan with white fur and eyes of burnished gold. His bedside manner was just as terrible as ever, but when Amos paid and the sorcerer worked his sorcery, he left feeling much better.

At noon, after reconvening in the Roaring Lion and eating lunch, and after Shining Star looked for the two starfolk and not seeing them, they went back to the Tower and collected their items. Elaphe paid the tax--at one koku, enough money to feed a peasant family for a year--and paid extra for the assessor's analysis of the items. Several items were simply decorative, but the white jade armor would allow the wearer to pass through walls, the blue cord had an air spirit bound into it that would be released by untying the knots, the jade ring had a kinokoko bound into it and the wearer could use the spirit's powers, the bracers would make the wearer's blows more deadly, and among the crystals was a powerful fire crystal that would allow its user to turn into a firebird. Their expedition had paid off.


All that time looting cursed artifacts from fighting warlocks, necromancers, and vampires, and now the party finally has some worthwhile enchanted items they can distribute! Elaphe wants to use the bracers, and I've heard multiple people who are interested in that ring. Though the way Exalted's system works, there's a cost to use enchanted items--attunement reduces a character's pool of motes of Essence, leaving fewer motes to use Charms or spells--so that may determine the user. Willow wants the ring since he's a treesinger, but already over a third of his Essence pool is tied up in his armor and sword, and wearing armor makes his spells more expensive. Wearing the ring and tying up more motes may not be the best idea.

This combat was probably the most dangerous one the party has been in yet. Father James came dangerously close to suffering permanent damage from the souldrinker, and if the first souldrinker hadn't been killed almost instantly, it could have healed up and latched on to someone else. That would have been catastrophic.

Next game is after the new year, and we'll see what the party decides to do then!

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• Father James, human disciple of the pidgit-folk.
  • Hundred Wings, Father James' familiar spirit bound into the bodies of dozens of ravens.
• Willow, human treesinger raised in Taira.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

Having taken the gloves, the party turned their attention back to the gooey masses underneath two of the benches. No one really wanted to touch them, but Father James used his wind arms to reach out and scoop up a double-handful of the sludge. It came free with a splortch, and they put it into Willow's storm lantern for safekeeping. Amos also fired an arrow into, and while it didn't catch fire, it began to emit an acrid smoke that stung their nostrils, so they quickly exited through the door in the northwest wall, with Willow leading the way. This almost turned into tragedy when Willow stepped on a floorplate that shifted and fell to the floor, but not before he was hit by darts that shot out of the wall. Shining Star examined the wounds and recognized the traces of bloodrot poison, and so Elaphe reluctantly reached into his alchemical store and pulled out a anti-venin, which Willow gulped down. As he stood up, Father James sent Hundred Wings down the hall to look for further traps, and the spirit found a portion of the floor that it was suspicious of. When Father James pushed on it, a portcullis crashed down ahead of them in the corridor. It was made of wood, so Amos fired several flaming arrows at it before the party returned to the room with the altar and took the other door to the southeast.

Father James checked the door and didn't find anything, and they opened it to find a short corridor leading to a large tapestry of a landscape, a view of the Great Bridge and the Narrow Sea from high in the air. Carefully checking behind it, they found a pipe entrance, and they considered going through it until Elaphe pointed out that the tapestry might be a map of the destination, a hundreds of yards in the air above the Narrow Sea. Father James carefully untied the wire that kept the tapestry tied to the ceiling and they folded it up and left it on the floor, to be taken with them when they left.

With Hundred Wings scouting ahead, they passed through several more corridors, past a trap that shot needles from the ceiling in repeating steams by having Father James use his wind arms to scoop up Shining Star and everyone else jumping. As they walked, the air began to feel heavier and more oppressive, almost like the air before a storm, and they rounded a corner and found a pile of bodies. Two mycon, an amanita, and a mandragora, strangely shrunken and drained in appearance, much more so than would have been done by a vampire. The party carefully approached the bodies, mindful of their experience with the walking dead, but they were just corpses. There was nothing unusual about the area where they were lying, either, and eventually the group continued onward until they stood in front of another door. The air was almost palpably heavy here, and Elaphe's fur stood on end, and they put their heads together to consult their various scraps of lore. Piecing together what they knew, Shining Star, Father James, and Willow recalled stories of "lightning spiders" that lived in Predecessor ruins and hunted for prey, and for a moment the party looked at the loot they had already gained and considered calling it good enough. But eventually greed won out, and Elaphe instructed his bob-omb to wait by the door and explode if anything dangerous moved, and then they all backed up and Father James pushed open the door with his wind arms. Then several things happened at once.

When the door opened, the party heard a clacking sound of something moving over a stone and a warbling screech. Then a blobby, floating jellyfish-like creature with several claws on its lower end flew out the door into the corridor. It immediately began moving toward the party, dodging an arrow Amos fired at it, and then the bob-omb went off, blowing it into the wall and sending it slumped to the floor trailing ooze. Amos put another arrow into it, its claws clacked, and then it stopped moving.

Then another one, along with two similar-looking creatures with spider legs, burst out of the door.

Father James was in front, and the flying souldrinker moved straight toward him, dodging the sling bullet he fired and latching onto him. Shining Star wove chains of light arund one of the spiders as Elaphe drew out a crystal and handed it to Willow, and Amos took aim at a spider and fired, but it skittered sideways and he missed. Elaphe stepped forward as the spiders attacked both him and Willow, but the pair managed to parry their clacking jaws. As Amos fired an arrow into the souldrinker on Father James and as it wounds began healing, Willow crushed the crystal and felt Essence flowing in his body, and...


...we stopped, because there was a lot of trap-searching and description in going down those corridors and looking for traps that took up much of the time. The curtain incident from the last session is still strong in their minds, so they're being extremely cautious. Not that I blame them, since I got the template for this from an OSR random dungeon generator.

Next time, they (probably) take the loot they have and escape!

​Dramatis Personae

• Elena Costanza, British Agent of the Crown
  
• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman
  
• Yan Nikolaev, Bulgarian police inspector

After finishing the story, the investigators bought their tickets at the last minute. The only available berths are single beds in double berths, and with no other option but horrible dissolution under the curse of the simulacrum, they accepted, knowing that the people rooming with them could be cultists. The train platform was crowded with hawkers and passengers, and the party couldn't help but look at them with suspicion, wondering who were allies of the Brothers of the Skin, or even brothers themselves. The attendant taking tickets seemed distracted, and Rosaline noticed that his manners were less than the impeccable standards usually upheld by the staff of the Orient Express.

The party were shown to their berths:

• Yan was berthed with Luigi Martinelli, an Italian opera singer.
  
• The countess was berthed with Jackie Gattling, an American gossip columnist.
  
• The professor was berthed with Sir Robert Harrow, a British artistocrat.
  
• Rosaline was berthed with Elena Costanza, who did not introduce herself.

A variety of other people were also berthed in their car, from Egyptian antiquarians to Eastern European businessmen to a French count and countess. After introductions to their berthmates, the train blew its whistle and pulled away from the station, heading back across Europe toward London, but no longer in safety.

After the train got moving, the investigators all met up in the salon car to discuss their plans. Rosaline brought up the ticket taker's strange actions, but said it wasn't conclusive. After a moment, they realized that the simulacrum had to be in the cars that were bound for Paris--three sleeping cars and two fourgon. The countess suggested that the simulacrum might be in the parcel fourgon, having been mailed to Paris, but the would be no way to get there except under cover of darkness. They decided to try to get to know their fellow passengers, and split up to meet the others in the salon car. The countess had a countess-to-countess talk, Rosaline spoke to the Egyptian antiquities dealer, and Yan talked to the Eastern European businessman. The professor noticed an article in the newspaper about a shopkeeper murdered in Islington, and remembered that Makryat's shop was also in Islington.

They spent a little time checking the salon car, but found that the only place anything could be hidden would be in the locked wine cabinets. Before dinner, Elena found them and revealed herself as a British agent sent by the ambassador in Constantinople, and said she would stay out of the party's way unless they needed her. She clearly didn't trust then, and after that she took her leave. At dinner, the investigators ignored the water they brought and all ordered wine, and spent the dinner listening to the conversations around them. They did not hear any useful information.

Near bedtime, the investigators retired to their rooms. Martinelli snored like a buzzsaw, Gattling questioned the countess about the other passengers, Sir Robert banged on the door to Rosaline and Elena's room seeking an assignation, and Elena slept through it all. At 11:25, the train arrived at the Turkish border. Yan noticed that one passenger disembarked and went to the telegraph station--he thought it was the conductor, but couldn't be sure. He left the train and followed, getting a peek at the telegram:

URGENT JOIN SOE 0320 STOP M

He hurried back to tell the professor as the Turkish police checked the passengers' credentials. The others woke up and joined them in the salon car, and consulting a timetable, they realized that the 3:20 stop was Svilengrad, Bulgaria.

They returned to their compartments and tried to sleep. As Yan entered the room, he noticed something draped over his luggage. He roused the professor, who brought a lantern and revealed a complete human skin, detached without a mark on it. Yan examined it, and found it was the skin of the conductor who had taken their tickets when they boarded. After discussing what to do, they decided that they didn't have enough information to act, and eventually went back to their room and went to bed.

In the night, the professor started sweating heavily. The countess's right arm broke out in sores, thinly oozing blood. Rosaline felt the skin on her scalp move slowly, creeping, without being under her control. At 3:20, the Bulgarian police came on to check credentials, and the party assembled. They couldn't help but notice that the Countess de Bruessy left Kurt Groening's compartment, but the party was too polite to comment on it. Rosaline disembarked to catch the night air, and noticed several Turkish people boarding the second-class car. Yan told the policemen about in, and the policemen thanked him and hurried off. When the train was pulling away, Yan noticed that the Turks were being detained. Then, the investigators snatched a bit of sleep.

As the train began to pull into Sofia, Yan--still awake due to his berthmate's snoring--noticed wolves pacing the train, following it as it slowed and pulled into the city. At breakfast, they discussed the skin in the room, the conductor, and what to do. They did not come up with any answers before the train stopped in Sofia, where Yan and the countess disembarked to take the air. In Sofia, Yan felt like the hair on his left arm began to grow thicker and more ropy, and the degradation of the others continued. Makryat's words were coming true.

As the professor and the countess walked out on the platform, they were ambushed by two Turkish men, obviously Brothers of the Skin! They seized the professor and the countess, and after they broke free, the cultists drew their knives. A scuffle broke out, and while the countess was stabbed, the investigators managed to get away and return to the train. On the train, Yan treated the countess's wounds and the professor took Elena aside and explained about the Brotherhood chasing them, though he left out any mystical associations, merely stating that it was the same group that had kidnapped the British ambassador's son. Elena thanked him, and said she'd keep an eye out.

In the salon car, Rosaline overheard Lord Margrave complaining that his paramour, Doña del Garda wasn't paying him the attention he was used to, and the investigators immediately assumed that she had been replaced by Makryat. The countess and Rosaline sought her out, and Rosaline noticed that her makeup was very amateurishly applied. They considered what to do, and eventually decided that they couldn't attack her without causing too much of a scene. And finally, lesions erupted from Yan and Rosaline's skin, the professor felt something moving inside his body, and the countess developed a horrible body odor.

At Crveni Krst, the investigators watched several people board the train. Unlike in Svilengrad, none of them were wearing fezzes.

The countess went to go speak to Doña del Garda in the salon car, making polite small talk while carefully observing her actions. She did not reveal the party's suspicions, and eventually went back to speak to the other investigators. Eventually, the professor spoke to Lord Margrave and Groening, introducing himself and trying to graciously steer the conversation toward the Doña. Lord Margrave eventually brought her up, but he didn't mention anything that the professor didn't know. Just that Doña del Garda had suddenly grown cold toward him, even though she usually had a "fiery Spanish" personality, and that it had started only that morning. The professor suggested that it might have simply been a bad dream, and the conversation moved on to other matters.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.
   
3. Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist, killed by a thrown grenade during a battle with the Butchers at Sofiiski Universet, February 15th, 1923.
   
4. Radovan Venclovic, Romani Ex-Soldier, driven to madness by the beast of flesh in the cemetery at Üsküdar, February 20th, 1923.

Paranoia! We figured out almost immediately the the conductor was Makryat, but didn't really have an opportunity to attack him. Now we know that Makryat is Doña del Garda, but again, we don't really have any opportunity to attack her. Even ignoring that Makryat probably has some kind of sorcerous protections on, how would we explain why we were attacking other passengers? We thought about trying to frame her for theft, but she'd just blame it on her maid. Eventually we might get to the point where we start trying to just off other passengers, but we're not there yet.

Might be soon, though. That clock on the simulacrum's corruption is ticking.

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• Father James, human disciple of the pidgit-folk.
  • Hundred Wings, Father James' familiar spirit bound into the bodies of dozens of ravens.
• Willow, human treesinger raised in Taira.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

Determined to enter Etemenanki and follow the map that Bonnie had long ago received from the caravan guard detailing a way to a less-dangerous, unplundered part of the tower, the party spent the rest of the day resting up and preparing. Shining Star went out with the starfolk and found private library of a hedge witch who claimed she specialized in fate, but realized it would take several days of research at least to find the information she was looking for. Willow use his sorcery to fashion a wooden mask to protect his head and, mostly importantly, his face. Father James tracked down a hedge wizard and learned how to conceal himself from site. Elaphe rested and healed the last of his injuries. And Amos walked the streets again, enjoying the masses of people going about their business.

The next morning, after a quick breakfast of mushrooms and meat in the tea house's common room, the party set out. They walked on the broad western road to the tower, which shone iridescently in the sun like an enormous seashell, bathing all of tower town in multicolored light. After a brief lesson in the rules from the guards at the hundred-foot-high tower doors--bring all goods out for inspection and taxation, no fee for entrance, smuggling out anything is harshly punished--they entered Etemenanki. The first room was unreasonably large, hundreds of feet long and a vaulted ceiling towering above them, though the entire room was well-lit due to glowing panels on the floor and chandeliers above that must have been dozens of feet in diameter.

Following their map, the party went to a side alcove with several empty shafts in them. Father James sent Hundred Wings into one, and the spirit reported other openings up and down the column, but there didn't seem a way up until Willow stepped out into empty space and blue light appeared under his feet. When everyone stepped in, the blue light stretched out into a platform and lifted them up, and they continued following their map. At one point they exited the tower and walked along a narrow walkway outside, with a spectacular view of the rolling plains west and south of the tower, a drifting cloud kingdom floating high above the earth, and something coming toward the tower from the south--possibly the airship they had seen leaving the Scarlet City.

When they reached the end of the path and climbed the narrow stairs, they consulted their map and went north. Around a bend was a spot on the map marked with a dagger. Elaphe tossed a small rock on it and was rewarded when parts of each wall slid down and several darts flew through the space between them. A rock tossed over did not trigger the trap, and the party individually jumped over, though Amos and Willow grabbed Shining Star and helped her clear the gap. Further down the corridor was a closed door, after checking it for traps and finding none, they entered the room. It was mostly empty except for a low table and oddly-shaped chair made of the same nacreous stone as the exterior of the tower, with a few doorways on the north and south walls. The other northern doorway was an empty arch, and after Elaphe tossed a rock through to make sure that there was no flame or acid that would appear, they passed through. The corridor split, left and right, and at each end was a tracing of blue stone in the wall leading to an alcove containing a crystal, one teardrop-shaped and deep blue and one like a glowing ember. Hundred Wings found a pressure plate under the ember, so Elaphe carefully tied a rope around it, waited until everyone exited back through the arch, and pulled. There was a crackling sound and the air smelt briefly of ozone, but the crystal came out of the alcove and Elaphe pocketed it.

Through the southern door--merely jammed shut, though when Willow tried to check for traps he accidentally stumbled through it--was a corridor leading west, with a gold and silver curtain coming down to about chest-high hanging from an archway. Elaphe threw a rock and then, when there was no reaction, asked Father James to have Hundred Wings look at it. They found its attachment point was recessed slightly into the archway, hung on dozens of small stone tiles that were individually attached to the ceiling. Elaphe hooked a grappling hook to the curtain and pulled, aided by Amos and Shining Star, and the bindings ripped before the curtain did, sending it fluttering to the floor. Elaphe picked it up, but quickly wrapped it up in a blanket when he felt something greasy on the curtain and his fingertips went numb.

Through the archway was a fountain on a dais, and after more testing of the water, Amos finally drank. It was delicious and refreshing, and they all filled their waterskins from it. After they were done drinking and resupplying, Elaphe washed off the curtain in the water. When it went in, the water around it turned cloudy, and he kept it in until the water ran clean and then stowed it back in his bag. Also, Elaphe noticed a skeleton in the corner of the room, with some decayed scraps of cloth and an axe-head with no handle. There was also a jade ring, and after another thrown rock evinced no response, he took it.

They debated going east off the boundaries of the map they had, but eventually decided to loop back around to the west and explore the one remaining room on their map they hadn't been to. They exited to the south and went west, finding a closed door at the end. Willow checked the door for traps but leaned against it a bit too hard, knocking it open and sprawling into the room on his face. As Amos leaned into the room and Willow looked up, they saw three creatures like living shadows, watching them with empty white eyes, who rushed in to attack.


And that's where we ended on a cliffhanger, because everyone was very sleepy and a combat at the end would have gone over time.

I love how cautious the party is being. I don't currently have any wandering monster rolls because I specifically mentioned that this part of the tower is safer than normal and doesn't have patrolling automata or something like that, so they can go slowly and get used to old-school dungeon delving. I even had a magic fountain! I especially liked how careful they were with the curtain and then just picked it up. Good thing Elaphe resisted the contact poison. And they finally found more treasure!

Next time, we start with the combat.

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• Father James, human disciple of the pidgit-folk.
  • Hundred Wings, Father James' familiar spirit bound into a bodies of dozens of ravens.
• Willow, human treesinger raised in Taira.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

The party rode down the ramp around the pipe and spoke to the tower town guard, who waved them through after making they bound their weapons in their sheaths. Elaphe tied an elaborate knot shaped like a rose, causing one guard to take a step back, but then they were allowed to enter. They were in a crowded square, with a tea house on one side under the sign of a roaring lion next to a large public notice board, which Amos immediately went to look at. In Floral, Muskalan, Sarasan, and other languages the party didn't speak among them, there were calls for companions to go into Etemenanki and find treasure, advertisements for businesses, and a call to find a missing child. There was a notice for mercenaries to come to Fontina, and a note half-pasted over it warning mercenaries away and saying that something suspicious was happening there. They took note of a bounty on some gigases that were lairing west of tower town as well as the standing bounty on putting the dead to rest in the ruined parts of the city, and then entered the tea house.

It was quickly obvious that they'd fit right in. The ceilings were high and there was a roaring fire in the center of the room. In the back was a blonde human woman, drinking by herself, and to the left of the entrance were two kremlings and a heavily-muscled frog person playing some sort of dice game. Two starfolk were drinking next to the fire, while a couple tables over a man dressed in a toga with feathered white wings and shockingly purple hair sat with his head in his hands. And behind the bar, wiping down the surface, was a lynel.

Willow ducked out to invoke a quick ritual and returned, his skin shining and flower petals falling from the air around him, and bargained for their stay. The lynel was unmoved by his beauty, however, and they handed over the money for a week's room and board as well as stabling for their mounts. After a quick dinner and ice-cold mushroom beer chilled by the lynel's touch, Elaphe went up to their room to rest, Father James went outside to earn some cash through palmistry, and Willow went over to talk to the winged man. He blearily looked up when Willow approached and gladly told his story: his name was Hemah, and he said he had been cursed by a "vegetable wizard" during in invasion of the "kingdom of the sky," and in response he had been exiled. He hadn't found anything that could break the curse and eagerly seized on Willow's suggestion that he could help, and he called Shining Star over. She quickly determined that the curse on him was not demonic in nature and couldn't easily be broken with her sorcery, but thought that it might be worth asking the starfolk.

As Hemah slumped back onto the table, Shining Star bought drinks for the starfolk and introduced herself as a priestess of Nyahré. One of them spoke Muskalan, and excitedly--and slightly drunkenly--greeted her. In response to her questions, he said he was just a farmer, but that Kimé, the other starfolk, was a guardian-in-training and may be able to help. They gathered around Hemah, but Kimé's efforts were also in vain, for now. Shining Star asked the lynel about libraries, and he said there were various private libraries in tower town and their best bet would be to ask a sorcerer, so Shining Star made a note to do that in the morning. She bought another round of drinks, and as thanks, Kimé cast a spell that cleansed her of all the dust and grime of travel.

As Hemah continued his melancholy and Shining Star talked with the starfolk, Amos slipped out to walk the streets. He saw mostly shops and residences, though he took note of the building with a blazing sun and sand as well as the faerie, the universal symbol for a healer, on the shingle. The neighborhood had the feel of a boom town, all excitement and hope, and it wasn't as run-down and fearful as Rockfort or Gyere had been. He nodded at Father James as he passed him, and eventually made his way back to the tea house.

While he was gone, Willow took a seat at the back of the bar with the woman. After he introduced himself, the woman questioned him, asking him something in Latin, and then asking if he was from Egypt or Libya, and who had been the tribunes when he left. After some back and forth, Willow established that he was from far in her future, from a land beyond "The Pillars of Hercules," and she said that she had been born to freed slaves and made a life for herself in Egypt until the conflict between Marcus Antonius and Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus forced her to flee. She lost her way in a sandstorm and wound up in Agarica. She said her name was Valeria, and Willow suggested that Amos had an interest in her. She took it in stride, and Willow took his leave. She also briefly talked to the lynel and learned that, while lynel do not give their names to those outside their tribe, people called him Old Lion and he thought it was fitting.

After meeting up at the tea house, the party went to sleep. The next morning, Father James's wounds burned with a dull ache and red lines were extending from under the bandage up his side, so he knew he needed immediate medical attention. Amos told him about the healer he had found, and after breakfast, the party left the tea house to attend to their missions. Shining Star and the two starfolk went to find a library; and Elaphe, Willow, and Amos went to a market to get appraisals on the Imperium coins from the ziggurat and the crystals they had found in the vampire's lair. Elaphe also bought some potions from an alchemist that promised to increase the senses.

Father James went to the healer after borrowing some money from Elaphe. He attempted to ingratiate himself, but the healer, a white-furred chuzan with shining golden eyes, was incredibly brusque, poking him in the wound, shutting down all his attempts at conversation, and demanding full payment up front. When Father James paid, the healer ordered him onto cot and began chanting. His hands glowed, stronger and stronger, until it filled the room and Father James could see the veins in his eyelids, and the the pain in his wound suddenly vanished. A few more incantations and flashes of light, and the wounds were almost entirely healed. Father James thanked him, but the healer hurried him out and, with a quick "Tell your friends!" closed the door behind him.


Next time, Etemenanki! Or maybe hunting gigases, since Elaphe's player is keen on that. Anything that's corporeal, without a lot of supernatural might, and will bleed when he stabs it.

I like the games that take place in larger cities because they let me show off more of the cosmopolitan nature of WotMK. I deliberately tried to avoid the D&D approach where everyone lives in their isolated kingdoms and there's no cultural exchange or immigration. Tower town especially is an adventurer's dream with a giant megadungeon right next door, so people from all over come there. Like fallen starfolk--Shining Star's player has made it a mission to get them back to the Star Road--or frog people.

I've got a map of part of the tower I've been waiting to use for over a year, so I expect the party will go hunt gigases. We'll see!

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• Father James, human disciple of the pidgit-folk.
  • Hundred Wings, Father James' familiar spirit bound into a bodies of dozens of ravens.
• Willow, human treesinger raised in Taira.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

Bonnie left soon after the snow fell, deciding after discussion with her father that she would return to Chai to continue her orator studies. She rode out with a caravan bound for Chai early in the Month of Frost after bidding farewell to the others, and then set her face to the east. The Green Knight also left a week later, his disciple Drifting Snow in tow, saying that it was the will of the forest spirits that called him elsewhere.

Some time later, Amos was walking through the new-fallen snow in the square outside the temple of the goddesses when he saw another human! A man dressed like a vagabond, playing a shell game for a trio of amanita who clearly did not understand the rapidly-spoken Muscalan that the human was giving his pitch in. Amos watched to see if the amanita would get swindled, but while one wandered away, the others actually won a small amount of money and the other human packed up his gear and left. Amos stood in the square for a while until he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was the human, who spoke in a British accent and introduced himself as Father James, a priest of Mark Twain, a god unfamiliar to Amos. They chatted for a short time until Shining Star stepped out of the temple and saw them, and she stopped to see who Amos was talking to. Moments later, another human stepped out of the tea house on the other side of the square and stopped in shock at the sight of two others from his own world of birth.

After an excited discussion in English between Willow, Father James, and Amos that Shining Star waited out politely, the four of them, along with a limping Elaphe, retreated into the tea house to drink rice wine and mushroom beer and swap stories. Over the next week and a half they got to know each other better and decided to go treasure-hunting. Shining Star and Amos were pushing for a strike against the Dragon Emperor, and while they knew they weren't powerful enough to do so now, they thought that finding more ancient artifacts and then performing a decapitation strike on the Dragon Empire and letting the Dragon Emperor's eight children fight a civil war in the ruins might be their best bet. With winter in effect and snow a yard high, they left on the 17th of the Month of Frost for the pipe that would take them through B'rabt to Rockfort and on to that pipe that led to the jungle.

On the way out of the city, they noticed people staring upward at the sky and turned to see that the Silent Ones were casting off the lines on the floating ship they were building over the Scarlet City. As the party watched, the propellers on one end began to turn and the ship began to move, accelerating forward and then turning in a wide arc toward the north, where it passed out of sight.

The trip to the jungle ziggurat ruins was uneventful. With Bonnie gone, there was no one who could speak B'rabti in the group, and while Shining Star could use the Royal Speech to make herself understood, they found no one who could or would speak back until they arrived at the tea house in the B'rabti town with the pipe to Rockfort. Willow attempted to use his charm and good looks to win them a better price on the room, but the mycon proprieter just glared at him and raised the price. They paid for a few extra days to stable their mounts and in the morning, went through the pipe and out of Rockfort into the wild. As they passed the farms that had been abandoned, they noticed that now they were inhabited, but the inhabitants ran inside and locked the doors at the sight of a group of heavily-armed individuals walking toward them.

The other side of the pipe was a steaming jungle, with a broken plaza leading to a ruined ziggurat mostly obscured by overgrowth, and after removing their heavy winter clothing, the group advanced across the square. While Elaphe and Father James could hear a loud buzzing audible even over the sounds of the jungle coming from somewhere in the canopy, but they didn't see anything and nothing came to attack them, so they climbed the ziggurat steps and entered the top. Amos summoned up a witchlight, revealing a small room maybe twenty-five feet square with a stone bowl in the center, anything in it long since gone, and four statues in the four cardinal directions. One was a turtle, one was some sort of bird, and the other two weren't identifiable. There were stairs leading up and down, and the party took the stairs up first. The room was empty, with a bit of light coming from windows in the crown of the dome, and an obsidian knife in the dust on the floor. Elaphe carefully picked it up and handed it over to Shining Star, who didn't sense anything actively malicious from it. She gave it to Amos, who wrapped it up and put it away. The party went down two levels to a room with four pillars, a pit in the center of the room below the basin in the room above, and no other exits, though they found a half-mask on the floor made of gold and severely tarnished silver. They considered descending through the pit until Elaphe decided to look for any secret doors, and he and Father James's ravens found separate hinged section of stone walls that opened, revealing stairways down.

They descended down a level and began to explore, finding only kong bones mixed with other bones they couldn't identify. The humans heard a low murmuring, like rock rubbing against rock, echoing through the ziggurat, and Elaphe heard a sound of something clicking on stone, but the buzzing they had heard earlier was gone. Then, as they went down a corridor toward another room, Father James heard a message from his raven spirit, Hundred Wings, asking him where he had gone. Turning, he found a rock wall behind them with a corridor curving around to the left. After a hurried discussion, they found the lower end of the pit that led from the room above, and some of the ravens flew door from above, and then flew a rope back up and secured it to a statue. Elaphe held onto one end of the rope and kept an eye on the pit while Amos, Willow, and Father James looked down the corridor. They found a room that might have been a guard room, with some rust on the walls and spearpoints carved like snakeheads on the floor, though the spear shafts had long since rotted away. Amos could see a door at the far end, made of metal and still intact, and with the others' help he forced it open. Inside was a small room with a figure seated on an ivory stool in front of a low table. It was a kong wearing elaborate robes and a headdress, somehow in good condition despite the jungle humidity and with its flesh withered as though mummified. Amos entered the room with his musket ready and saw several items of jewelry on the table just as Elaphe heard the sound of claws on stone behind him, turned, and found nothing there.

He called out to the others and they hurried back to the rope. Father James told Hundred Wings to fetch the treasure, and the ravens brought back two rings, a kong-sized half-mask made of silver and gold like the one they found above, and a gold pendant with a banana tree surrounded by kong glyphs. As the rumble came again, they began to climb the rope back toward the top. They had almost made it when Amos felt the rope shiver, and then it snapped.


This is two sessions together because session twenty-eight was mostly character creation and getting the new characters together.

Elaphe pushed for leaving because while if it bleeds, he can kill it, he's much less confident about spirits or ghosts. And that is a weak spot of this party. Shining Star can fight demonic spirits with her sorcery, but if the spirit is just annoyed that its home has been disturbed, there's not much she can do, and they don't have any other way to affect the immaterial. Shining Star and Amos are pretty keen to keep exploring, though, since they haven't looked around the entire complex and there are still the insects that were making that buzzing sound. Elaphe was pretty excited about the idea of poisoning his weapons.

Next time is in three weeks, when we'll see what happens as the party falls down and the deal with whatever is trying to keep them in the ziggurat!

​​Dramatis Personae

• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Radovan Venclovic, Romani ex-soldier
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman
  
• Yan Nikolaev, Bulgarian police inspector

The next day was their appointment with Beylab the perspires, but not until the evening. At breakfast, they discussed the man and bear they had seen. Radovan was convinced he was benign, saying that anyone who an animal trusted couldn't be all bad, but Rosaline wasn't so sure. When Feyar arrived, the party asked him about the proper etiquette for the meeting. Feyar explained that no gifts were required, putting their minds at ease, and they decided to go investigate the Red Mosque. After a long walk through the city, they arrived at a crumbling building that pedestrians walked by without even a glance at its grim-encrusted walls. Several young men, perhaps a street gang, lounged in the doorway and beckoned, calling out "Nice things! Nice things!" and gesturing to the investigators. The countess approached, asking about the trinkets, but then asked about the gang and the mosque, no whether they had seen anything unusual in the mosque at night. Feyar translated the answer--that they sometimes saw other gangs, but no one else. She asked about the Brotherhood, but the gang had only heard rumors. They took the countess's money without incident, and the investigators left.

For a change of pace, the party spent some time on tourism at the Hagia Sophia. The ancient cathedral was glorious, but had seen better days. The Basilica Cistern was across the street, so that was their next destination. That was better kept up but empty of water. After lunch, they visited the Hippodrome, and then the time had come to go to the baths and meet with Beylab. Knowing that Beylab was a stickler for punctuality, the investigators made an effort to arrive on time, and entered the bathhouse and left the bustle of the street behind. The professor checked the skin of the other bathers, but none of them seemed to have any identifiable tattoos or marring of the skin. The women went off into their own section, and the men prepared to meet the perspirer.

Beylab was lounging on a navel stone in the bath, grossly fat, and awaiting his visitors. The professor, Yan, and Radovan approached as Beylab raised a hand, and they took places next to Beylab on the stone. He greeted the party and asked them what they want to know, and the professor mentioned the disappearances of children. Beylab explained that it was an evil statue-worshipping cult, and that the children had not appeared in the slave markets. He said that the cult extended to the city bureaucracy, and that the statue's destruction was key to ending the cult. The ritual of destruction was in the cemetery, in Garaznet's grave, and suggested that the break into the grave in the night. As he reached for water and made to speak more, a shape surged up out of the water behind him and cut his throat!

Radovan and Yan heard the roaring of flames and pulled the professor off the stone as fire surged up and seared the body of Beylab. As the assassin fled, the three gave chase before they were blocked by two other bathers. Yan noticed that one of them had a mismatched ear and the other had an eye that was cloudy, and shouted, "They're here!" He tried to shove past the men but they stood firm, and Radovan's sucker punch flew wide. They made no hostile action, and in a moment it was obvious why--the flesh of Beylab flowed off his bones like a wave, surging across the water toward the men like a red tide. One of the cultists was caught by the monster, shrieking in pain as it reared up over him and began devouring him, and the party fled in terror leaving the screams behind.

There were already police outside, and when they saw the Europeans one approached and spoke in broken English, asked them to stay and and give their statements. Another policeman entered the bath and returned in moments, vomiting in the street. Another policeman later took the investigators statements, and the professor left out the parts about the cult or the monster, describing only a madman assassinating someone else in public. The police called a cab and they returned to their hotel, where the professor explained what Beylab had told them. They debated what to do, but quickly decided that they could not visit the graveyard tonight. Yan and the professor dressed and went down to dinner and had a long awkward conversation about their backgrounds, while the others had dinner sent up to their rooms.

The next morning, there was a message from the British Embassy requesting their immediate presence, so they bolted down their coffee and took the car provided. They were met by Sir Douglas Rutherford, in a clear agitation. He got right to the point, saying that his son was abducted in the last night, and asked for their help. The investigators agreed, and the ambassador said that his son James was last seen in the embassy garden and that he suspected the servants. He summoned the servants, and they stood in a line while the investigators examined them. One servant had mismatched eyes, and when he noticed the attention, he took a step back. The professor shouted to arrest him, and as guards appeared and seized him, the servant screamed that the Brotherhood had the boy and there was no hope. The Skin Beast would come and all of them were doomed. As he struggled, the tattoo suddenly revealed on his arm writhed and the skin of his face drew inward, flowing down his mouth and choking him to death.

Later, as they were drinking brandy with the ambassador, he said that he suspected the Red Mosque and while police searches had turned up nothing, he no longer trusted the police. The professor asked for excavating equipment, and while Sir Douglas was suspicious of his reasoning, he offered to provide it. He further suggested they speak to Lieutenant Douglas Hennessy about the British officer's death. The lieutenant met them in the lobby of their hotel, and the professor noticed that he was extremely nervous, constantly glancing around at the passersby. After asking what they knew, he said that the Drakes were part of a continent-wide smuggling and vice ring known for flaying people. He said that Evelyn was suspected in a murder, shortly before she disappeared, and that a local member named Phelps had recently turned up dead, but Yan realized that he was holding something back. The countess pushed further, mentioning the flayings that the investigators had encountered, and the lieutenant revealed that Mr. Phelps was deformed, half his face having been seemingly melted. The lieutenant said he was being transferred out, but asked that they tell Sir Douglas anything they discovered, and then he left.

After preparing, the investigators went down to the docks to hire a boat. Feyar suggested hiring a fishing boat, and they chartered the boat of a man named Haqim. And they were crossing the straight, Rosaline and Radovan noticed another fishing boat crossing on a similar course, but it remained at sea instead of docking, and it was too far away to make out any details. They landed and Haqim promised to wait, and the party made the short walk to the cemetery.

The countess's player: "Is this grave-robbing? Three of us are white. It's archeology."

After two hours of searching they found the tomb of Garaznet, its letters almost entirely faded away from the weathering of centuries. As Radovan and Yan began digging, Radovan noticed that the dirt wasn't as packed-down as it should be, but shrugged and kept digging. After some time, as the shovels clinking against a stone box, a man approached. He was babbling, in tattered robes, and Feyar explained that he was called the "Companion to the Dead." The professor listened, but most of what the beggar said was nonsense. He urged on their digging and said that "they" were numerous tonight as Yan and Radovan levered open the tomb of Garaznet, but when he heard the sound of stone on stone, he screamed "Don't let him out!" and leapt onto the countess and professor, flailing away. Eventually he backed away as an overwhelming foetor comes from the tomb. The lib slid back, and inside was a bubbling vat of flesh!

The flesh flowed out of the tomb and wrapped around one of the countess's legs as Rosaline began screaming in panic and Yan staggered around sightlessly. The professor threw a lantern onto the monster but it seemed to have no effect, and as he was looking for another weapon, dozens of shapes appeared out of the darkness and the Brothers of the Skin captured the party. The party was disarmed and tied to stone monuments with the weapons just out of reach and formed a circle, which parted to reveal six cultists carrying a squirming bundle. Four others brought in an older man, ancient and shriveled, on a chair born on their shoulders. He questioned them about the scrolls and the statue, but the party was silent. After a short moment, the old man looked at Radovan and began muttering. Radovan's skin twitched and seemed to rot, and Radovan shrieked for a moment and then slumped in his bonds. After further questioning, the old man again muttered and the same thing happened to Yan, though before he fell unconscious, Yan yelled that the simulacrum was in the bank vault.

( Content warning: Violence toward children )

On the Golden Horn, Aktar led them to his room, a small cluttered dwelling. In the light, he seemed vaguely familiar, but none of the investigators could place it. Aktar revealed that he was disguised as a Roma, but actually worked for Ataturk spying out threats to Turkey. His daughter had been kidnapped by the cult, and he had followed the cult to their headquarters and found what remained of his daughter. He suggested they join forces and fight the cult. The investigators agreed, and they decided that they needed to get to the Sedefkar Simulacrum before the cult did. They arrived, leaving Radovan and Yan behind in Aktar's room, and found the bank closed, so they immediately changed tack and went to the hotel. The front desk clerk asked them if they had gone and come back--the cult had obviously already been there. Their roomed had Ben searched, and the scroll was missing. Aktar suggested that they must go to the cultist's headquarters immediately and warn the British and French, and they traveled to the cistern where the secret entrance to the cult's headquarters was. The stairs led down into water, but there was a small boat, and Aktar rowed them through the water to a secret passage, and the investigators travel down a spiral staircase. At the bottom were ooze-covered walls and a small door, on the other side of which was a tomb lit by a greenish glow and covered with horrific carvings.

Across the chamber was an antechamber with a guard facing away from them. Rosaline whispered that he had to be subdued, and Aktar drew a knife, crept behind the cultist, and cut his throat. As lights entered the room, shelves of scrolls were revealed, but a quickly glance didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary and the group continued on through a surgical room separated from the main room of the mosque by a curtain. The professor peeked out and saw a large group of cultists, but they were all facing away from the curtain, so the investigators slipped out into the room next door, only to find that it was a meat locker filled with disembodied limbs. There was also the body of a skinned woman hanging on a meat hook, and when the countess saw it she gasped but steeled herself. Rosaline noticed a pearl necklace lying on the floor, and she discretely pocketed it.

There was nowhere else but he main chamber, so the investigators snuck into the mosque chamber and crept into the crowd. In the center, under the mosque dome, is a stone slab with five indentations carved into it. Five children, James Rutherford among them, were led into the chamber and waited nervously near the slab. Aktar suggested that he would create a distraction while the others rescued the children, and lacking options, they agreed. As they waited, red-robed figures brought out the Simulacrum and placed it into the indentations on the slab. The old man also came out and pulled a scroll out of his robes, and began chanting. The professor understood part of the ritual, asking for power through the suffering of the flesh. As he stepped forward to end the ritual, his mouth sealed itself shut. The investigators began to usher the children out of the mosque, Aktar shouted, "foreign traitors!" and stepped forward, seizing the scroll, and completes the ritual. The statue absorbed itself into his flesh, and Aktar laughed manically and revealed himself as Mehmet Makryat, son of Selim Makryat, the new master of the Brotherhood of the Skin, and ordered the cultists to kill their old master, which they did with enthusiasm.

The investigators tried to run, but they were overwhelmed and escorted away. They were led past other cells full of maimed and mutilated prisoners, begging and whining, and shut into a cell on the top of the minaret of the Shunned Mosque. The professor understood some of the guard's speech--they were discussing the "flapping man," who might come for them, and they were desperate to retreat. As they left, the light revealed a shape in the corner, limbless and eyeless, covered in a blanket. He shouted out at the party, and Rosaline recognized the voice of Professor Smith before he fell unconscious.

Hours later, the door opened to reveal Mehmet Makryat, who lit a cigarette and monologued about his plan. He had impersonated Professor Smith from the beginning, setting the investigators on their entire quest, and revealed that he had been following them along the way and helping them overcome their difficulties. He thanked them for helping him defeat his father, and asked them how they had defeated Le Comte. They did not answer, and Mehmet explained that the Simulacrum's power was corrupting them already and they had only one hundred hours remaining in their lives, and that he was off to London to retrieve the Ritual of Cleansing that would save him from the Simulacrum's effects. With a smile, he said that he would unchain them so that they could see their bodies fall into slime, and he left. When he did, Professor Smith confirms Mehmet's story, but he said that the brothers believed the Flapping Man was a spirit of rage, and they could use that to escape. After some time, a pair of guards arrived to unshackle the investigators. As the countess passed Professor Smith, she flapped the blanket and screamed, and the the guards ran back down the stairs. Rosaline looked at Professor Smith and, after a short internal struggle, she slit his throat to end his suffering. Then the investigators fled down the stairs past the cells, past flayed skins, and the countess grabbed one and put it on. She ran out and babbled in a mix of languages, and the Brothers ran screaming in fear. The countess heard something behind her, and turned to see the real Flapping Man charging the Brothers. With that as a distraction, the party ran. Outside was James Rutherford, who ran up to them as they fled, as the sunrise washed the walls of the Shunned Mosque with blood-red light.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.
   
3. Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist, killed by a thrown grenade during a battle with the Butchers at Sofiiski Universet, February 15th, 1923.
   
4. Radovan Venclovic, Romani Ex-Soldier, driven to madness by the beast of flesh in the cemetery at Üsküdar, February 20th, 1923.

Over three thousand words. This was action-packed from beginning to end.

This part is, frankly, one of the weakest parts of the entire campaign--not only is it a railroad from start to finish, it has the players betrayed and captured by someone they thought would be their ally multiple times in sequence and the revelation that the entire quest across Europe and everything they accomplished was all at the bidding of the villain, so it would have been better if the PCs had just ignored Professor Smith's plea entirely and went on with their lives. I knew this was coming, and I've known for the entire game, so it didn't bother me that much. And it is a cosmic horror game, so it does a good job of showing the investigators' actions coming to naught. But as a roleplaying game device, it's poor form.

mutantur said that the new version of the campaign has an option to end in a climactic battle at the Shunned Mosque where the PCs kill Mehmet Makryat and destroy the cult once and for all, which allows for immediate revenge. It's not how the scenario originally went, however, so we're going to do the original ending. That means there's two, maybe three more games and then we're done with the Horror on the Orient Express!

Dramatis Personae:

• Shining Star, mandragora sorcerer-priestess of Nyahré.
  
• The Green Knight, mandragora briarwitch.
  
  • Drifting Snow, chuzan former farmer.
• Bonnie, kong Auspicious Orator.
  
• Amos Burnham, a human from Earth.
  
• Elaphe, a chuzan junior member of the Black Rose.

Seriously injured but with their enemies dead, the party began cleaning up the loose ends. Elaphe searched the lab where the vampire had died, finding several seemingly-enchanted items--a suit of armor composed of tiny scales and fitting like a second skin, a cup as large as his forearm that had seemingly been filled with blood, and a set of chains made of soulsteel, as well as the cloak that the vampire had been wearing. He scooped them all up, as well as a pile of crystals, and the books on necromancy that were in a bookshelf against the wall. Shining Star offered her talents to the mercenaries, who had suffered several casualties and had severely injured members being carried out. They were also bringing out the corpses of the necromancers for burial, to prevent their angry ghosts from rising and attacking their killers. She spent some time on this while the Green Knight and Amos went down the remaining tunnel and found a living area with clothing, some money, but no food. They took the money and then left the cursed cave behind.

Outside, Crimson accepted the rest of the mercenaries' payment with grace, though obvious sadness. His company was in no condition to fight now and would need time to recover. They all made camp together away from the cave, and in the morning departed for Rockfort. This time, the mercenaries were not singing.

The trip back was uneventful under clear skies, though a chill wind was blowing from the north. Once in Rockfort, Bonnie told the wall guards about their success in fighting the necromancers and the undead, showing one of the necromancy books as proof after Elaphe would not give up the cloak to be used as a sign fearing that it would be taken from them. The guards were obviously skeptical, but they sent a runner off to the castle to consult with the king. The runner returned after about an hour with a message that the king's chancellor would speak with them after lunch the following day, and with no other option, the party accepted. They continued into Rockfort and through the pipe in the town square, passing into B'rabt, and taking a room at a hostel. They remained there that night, watching the B'rabti passing to and fro, the priests of the moon god, and the slow flow of the Kintai south to the Narrow Sea.

The following day, everyone except Elaphe went back to Rockfort to meet with the chancellor. Bonnie introduced herself as an Auspicious Orator of Chai and explained their deeds, and the chancellor eventually declared them knights of Fontina, subject to the rights and duties thereof. The Green Knight violently rejected the knighthood and almost earned a spear through the throat from the guards in the room, but stood down when Shining Star asked him too. The chancellor was very clear that the king was too busy to see the party, so they left and went back to Elaphe, who had been attempting to identify the items they had found. They rode north until the moons had risen in the sky and finally took a pipe through to the Scarlet City.

On the way in, Shining Star saw another one of the starfolk, who live in the Star Road and fight a ceaseless war against the demons to prevent them from descending in their swarms to the world below.

Bonnie's player: "Is there anywhere in this world which is just a nice place to live?"
Me: "Don't be ridiculous."

She nodded a greeting to them and received a nod in reply, and then they entered the temple. The Temple of the Goddesses in the Floral Quarter gave a warm welcome to Shining Star, especially when they heard that she had killed several necromancers and a vampire. The old priest of Tharu who had treated them last time gave them a room, though they would have to pay for their own food, and offered medical treatment of the injured. Elaphe' wounds were serious, and they would need at least six weeks to heal, so they settled in for a long convalescence.

Amos spent some time with a group of Muskalan mercenaries who followed the way of the Excellent Archer, eventually picking up their fighting style himself. Shining Star devoted herself to studying sorcery in the temple's library. The Green Knight spent time cultivating a patch of wilderness outside the city and training Drifting Snow to live off the land. Bonnie went to the Chaian consulate and spoke with a powerful orator stationed there about the books they had found. The orator was able to send a message back to Chai about the books--they were to be placed in the Orators' library--and realizing that she could convey a message, she asked if the orator would contact her father. She sent a message explaining what she had been doing, and her father sent her a reply about how proud he was of her and how he was glad she was accomplishing so much, since he had never left the borders of Chai. Bonnie left with a happy glow and spent time teaching Amos Muskalan and Shining Star Sarasan, using her supernatural understanding of languages to speed the learning process.

Elaphe, once he was cleared to walk again, took the artifacts they and found to a shady sorcerer for identification. The sorcerer told him that the cloak could be used to command the walking dead, the cup could be filled with blood that the owner could drink themselves or give to others to drink for healing, the chains had the ability to bind ghosts, and the scales were armor that would increase the wearer's mobility underwater. He later took them to be priced, but when he heard the princely sum offered for the armor--four and a half ryō, enough to retire on--he had second thoughts.

Two weeks before Elaphe's wounds healed, the first snow of the year fell.


Another logistics-based episode requiring convalescence extended by bad rolls on the part of the chirurgeon, much like session seventeen. Bonnie and the Green Knight's players are thinking of switching their characters out for new ones, but don't have their new characters finalized yet so that won't happen until next time. Elaphe's player also wants a set of silken armor, since he can't wear armor with Black Rose Style, but we saved that for the next game. The next game might be entirely more Scarlet City, actually, as new characters are introduced and the party figures out what they want to do. They thought about finally following the map to the treasure, but that requires winter travel into the wilderness. There's also exploring the safe route in Etemenanki they learned about, or the pipe through to the jungle ruins neither of which will be affected by the weather. We'll see!

​​Dramatis Personae

• Luc Durand, French Professor of Linguistics
  
• Radovan Venclovic, Romani ex-soldier
  
• Rosaline St. Clair, American Antiquities Dealer
  
• Valentina Durnovo, Russian Countess/Gentlewoman
  
• Yan Nikolaev, Bulgarian police inspector

After taking the weapons distributed by Major Kristova's associates, the inspectors sat and waited until dawn. The professor sat by himself, casting surreptitious glances at the major's associates and wondering if they could be trusted. The countess offered up a brief prayer in memory of Jazmina, thinking of all the people she had lost. Radovan cleaned the shotgun he had taken, checked his ammunition, and otherwise fell back into his soldier training. Rosaline stared off into space, almost in shock.

Near dawn, they all piled into a truck and drove southeast of Sofia, to a set of caves near a smaller village. The entrance had been concealed and behind was an obvious emplacement for an ambush, with barbed wire and sandbags set up in front of a machine gun emplacement. The actual machine gun was lying yards away, smashed to uselessness against a rock wall. There were several trucks parked nearby but all of them had ruptured fuel tanks and were undriveable. The major surveyed the carnage, hoisted his rifle, and shared a grim expression with his men. There would be no prisoners.

The cave was completely dark, with a slick floor and unsteady footing. Further in were cave paintings, a bison and hunters frozen in time. The passages looped in on themselves as the group descended further and further into the earth, and finally they heard the sound of boiling water and the faint stench of decay. Through a jagged arch of rocks was a giant chamber, full of echoes, and liberally strewn with bodies with a strange pyramid in the center. As the police fanned out and secured the room, the investigators moved in an examined the scene. The bodies had been torn apart, still clutching weapons that had proved useless against what they had faced. Radovan examined the bodies and found that there was much less blood than there should be. He looked closer and and realized that they were already starting to rot, and then realized that only parts were staring to rot. Parts which had been attached to living bodies by unnatural means.

As Radovan reeled back, the countess moved to see what was wrong and, as she crossed the room, she saw her own eye staring at her from a dead man's eye socket.

The major followed a trail of blood toward a crevice leading upward, with the sky visible through the other side. It was far too narrow for a human to make it through, and he abandoned any attempt to follow the trail. As the group approached the pyramid, they realized that it was made of skulls. Fifteen feet high, growing more and more fleshy as it rose. The top was flat, possibly intended to be used as a platform, and the countess mused that the head may be here. Radovan tried to climb and backed off in disgust when one of the skulls fell on him, and Rosaline suffered a similar fate. Yan asked what they were doing, and when the professor explained he asked for a boost and easily climbed the pyramid of skulls. It was strangely stable, and from the top he could a shrine on top with a pillow, bearing the indentation of a heavy object but otherwise empty. Yan called down that there was nothing there except the shrine, and then climbed down.

Following another trail of blood that led behind the pyramid, the group entered a narrow passage and found a dead cultist who had been torn to sheds. Behind him was a small opening, two feet in diameter, that descended down into the depths of the earth. Rosaline shined a light down but couldn't see anything, and Radovan dropped a rock. When the sound came back, Rosaline reached a hand in, twisting her arm around the passage's turns, and felt two garlic cloves and something smooth, with eye sockets. She lost her footing and her check against the rock, but reached further and further and pulled out the Head of the Sedefkar Simulacrum.

As they existed the small passage, they noticed that most of the bodies on the ground had gone missing.

Radovan stared, seemingly in shock, but the group noticed that the other policemen were still there and had seemingly missed the bodies. One of the police shouted something, and the group noticed movement in the darkness, something darting around in the shadows. Climbing the walls and crawling along the ceiling, and a Yan called out to the major that they needed to leave immediately. A hundred feet from the exit, things came charging out of the shadows. Long-clawed, red-eyed, sharp-toothed, muzzled gray-skinned monsters, and the group prepared for battle.

Shots range out as the investigators fired at the rushing group of monsters. The major made the first kill, blasting one with its shotgun and sending it falling apart in a spray of accelerated decay, but then the monsters were on them. One of them hit Yan, knocking him to the ground, but Yan brought his pistol up and blew it apart. Another clawed Radovan and tried to seize him, reaching around Radovan's attempt to push it off and sunk its fangs into Radovan's neck...and then it crumbled as the major shot it in the head. Rosaline crushed a clove of her garlic and the creature attacking her backed off, hissing. As one of the monsters approached the professor, he drew forth the Mims Sahis, slashed the vampire, and cut it in half.

As the countess backed away from the creature attacking her, the major shouted at them to run and ordered Yan to follow them. Rosaline threw another clove to the major and the investigators moved toward the cave entrance, avoiding the creatures who reached for them, and fled through the passage toward the surface and into the sunlight. The monsters' footsteps followed them through the tunnels, but as they left the tunnel their flesh seared in the sunlight and they fled howling into the caves. The major, having followed them, punched the wall in fury and stalked to his truck. He said he had lost good men and there would be vengeance, and pulled out dynamite and passed it out to the investigators. They laid it down, triggered it, and an explosion sealed the entrance to the horrible caves where the Butchers had their temple.

Rosaline applied first aid to Radovan's wounds as the professor carefully examined the wound's reaction to sunlight. It seemed benign, and Radovan claimed that no blood was drawn, but the professor watched him all the way back to Sofia. There, the major and Yan had a private discussion and then Yan said that he would travel with them to accompany them on their trip. Yan grabbed his equipment and they all returned to the investigators hotel, where they had an almost supernatural compulsion to reassemble the Sedefkar Simulacrum.


Each investigator saw something of themselves in it, and they spent some time gazing at it. Yan asked them their plan, and the investigators explained the Shunned Mosque, the Brotherhood of the Skin, and the need to destroy it. The professor explained about Le Comte and the expectation that he would be coming for them, soon, and the investigators split up to prepare. The countess bought garlic, Yan bought wood to be whittled into stakes and "acquired" some holy water from a local church, and the professor picked up the Arabic translation materials he had had forwarded to Sofia. The professor wrote letters to his sons and daughter, and the countess bought a fashionable eyepatch. Then, they boarded the train for their last night on the Orient Express.

The investigators were exhausted, but they knew they were in danger. The professor suggested they crush garlic and apply it to the seams of the outdoor windows. Yan suggested that they jam the doors in their rooms that led to other rooms, and the countess suggested that they set a watch. After an uneasy dinner, they returned to their rooms and fell asleep, and in the night, there was a knock on the countess's door. Her questions as to the identity of the person were answered only with more knocks. The noise alerted Yan and Radovan, and Yan peeks out into the hall and saw a conductor. The conductor seemed to be sleepwalking, but they raised a shotgun, slowly, and fired. The sound raised screams and and shouts, and as the conductor raised his shotgun, Yan charged. The conductor moved backward just in time to be hit by Rosaline and the countess opening the door to their room.

As conductors came running and shouted at Yan about whether to arrest the conductor, the conductor who had the gun protested his ignorance and eventually was led away. After some brief argument about what to do, the investigators drifted into uneasy sleep. After about an hour, the professor heard a whispered voice demanding that he return the "skin." The professor said nothing, retrieving some garlic, and knocked on the door to the women's room. As the voice ranted, Rosaline knocked and the professor opened the door, shushing her. Eventually Le Comte promised to kill one passenger per hour that the Simulacrum was not returned, and the voice fell silent.

Waking the others up, the professor explained the situation. The investigators decided that they would have to track down Le Comte and destroy him, and so they girded for battle and proceeded to the Fourgon, where they assumed that Le Comte must have some coffin that protects him from the sun. As they walked down the corridor, they heard a roaring sound, and coming around the corner they saw a tiger that sprang on Yan, biting him! As the tiger's fangs sank into his flesh, Yan drove his stake into the tiger, but it didn't seem to have any effect. Rosaline crushed some garlic and hurled it at the tiger, and it recoiled and its body rippled and twisted into the form of a man. A horrific mockery of the human form, long arms and covered in scars, with a muzzle-like face, rotted nose, and hideous fangs. The countess threw holy water to no effect, Le Comte stared at Radovan but Radovan fired his shotgun, blowing a hole into Le Comte. Then the professor pulled out the Lover's Heart. The red light of hatred seared the ancient monster's face, and its body fell apart into mist as it fled.

As they entered the salon car, they were questioned by a conductor, but Yan managed to bluster enough to ward him off. To assuage further suspicious, Rosaline, Yan, and Radovan briefly went back to their room, but the professor and the countess stayed for a drink. As they drank, they heard from another passenger than one of the passengers had died.

The others returned and the professor told the conductor that he needed to retrieve something from this luggage and the conductor, who seemed unsteady on his feet, shuffled aside. They entered the Fourgon and began to search, frantically looking for a coffin or something large enough for one. They found an unregistered crate, clearly large enough to contain a body. Radovan and Yan pried it open and found a coffin, padlocked shut, and the investigators forced it open. The coffin cracked open, revealing a layer of blood-soaked earth and...Le Comte, who opened his eyes and attacked.

Yan hurled garlic and Rosaline tried to stake the vampire, who clawed her across they face, dropping her with hideous wounds. The vampire leaped up and stared at Yan to no effect, and Radovan grabbed Yan's carbine and fired, blasting a hole in the vampire. The countess quickly bandaged Rosaline as the professor pulled out the Lover's Heart and, in Latin, intoned, "Tullius Corvus, go now to thy reward!" The red beam illuminated the vampire, spreading like a bloodstain across his body, and the shock of hearing his name was the last thing he knew as his body exploded into dust and the ancient monster was finally laid to rest.

In the chaos of the passenger death, the investigators were able to scatter the blood-soaked earth and destroy the coffin. They told the conductors that there had been an anarchist bomb in the unregistered coffin, and surprisingly their story was accepted. They finally went to sleep, knowing that one threat had been dealt with, but they were traveling straight into the maw of danger.

Annals of the Fallen

1. Gianni Abbadelli, Italian Vatican Parapsychologist, arm torn off by čudovište in Vinkovci, February 8th, 1923.
   
2. Demir Sadik, Turkish Revolutionary/Field Medic, devoured by the living lair of the Baba Yaga in the forests outside Orašac, February 13th, 1923.
   
3. Jazmina Moric, Croat Linguist, killed by a thrown grenade during a battle with the Butchers at Sofiiski Universet, February 15th, 1923.

Crawl 'til dawn
On my hands and knees
God damn these vampires
For what they've done to me

I definitely thought we were going to lose Rosaline this session, but the countess pulled a clutch first aid roll at the last moment! And it's a good thing that none of us approached the windows. There's a lot of terrible things the vampire can do from the safety of outside the train.

Le Comte is finally dead (through the professor doesn't entirely think so, and he's followed us across Europe this far so I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to be suspicious). Now we just have the Brotherhood left to deal with. Just.