Listen to the Rain

I've been thinking of writing this post for days but, well, my appendix tried to kill me so it took a bit. I should also say this is mostly about dungeon-crawling-style RPGs and other games don't always have this problem.

( On reward structures affecting player behavior )

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.

As the shapes rushed toward the sprawled form of Willow, Amos leapt into the room and fired an arrow at the one on the ceiling, but it skittered out of the way and continued advancing. Shining Star called down chains of searing light on one of the shapes moving along the floor, but it too dodged. Father James sent Hundred Wings to scout out the room, and it reported a pipe along the southern wall flanked by two bird-like statues. It also recognized the shapes as shadowcrawlers, creatures that can see in darkness and hate the light. The spirit suggested that they may have come through the pipe into Etemenanki.

Willow rolled away as the shadowcrawlers leapt down on him, taking a superficial wound, and Elaphe ran past the enemies into the room. The party tried to use the light panels on the walls and floating light-seeds from Willow's sword to drive away the shadowcrawlers, but they seemed berserk, ignoring each of the wounds they took and continuing to attack. Even when Amos shot one in the eye, seriously injuring it, it didn't run. It wasn't until Shining Star bound two shadowcrawlers in chains that the third one backed off. Willow couldn't bring himself to kill the helpless shadowcrawler, writhing in the sorcerous chains of light, but Amos didn't have that problem. He shot it, and shot the third one as it ran. The party treated their wounds and spread out to search the room.

There was a large amount of debris scattered by the entrance to the pipe, and Elaphe picked up two small gems, a scattering of coins, and a heavily-gilded sword that didn't seem like it could stand up to actual battle, but would fetch a nice sum if they could sell it. Then, the party debated what to do. They briefly thought about entering the pipe, but eventually decided against it and instead thought to look through the portcullises on the western end of the room. They were all of one piece, seemingly carved of solid wood, and mindful of the possibility of them closing behind them after entering, Amos touched one and chanted a brief bit of hedge magic to set it on fire. Then, they sat down to wait, sitting quietly or resting for an over an hour while the door burned. Father James sent Hundred Wings to scout out the small hallway, and the spirit reported a body wearing armor at the end of a short corridor. Fearing a trap, Father James tossed Elaphe's grappling hook down the corridor and began pulling, and his cautious was proved justified when whips of flame emerged from the walls and seared the body and the rope. Father James retrieved the body using his sorcery, and Elaphe took the jade chain shirt off of it and put it away.

They had explored all the parts visible on their map but they knew there were still other areas, so they went back to the room with the fountain and took the door to the southeast. The corridor went on for about fifty feet and then ended, with a door to the left. Father James tapped it using his arms of wind and eventually pushed, forcing it open. No one responded to the noise, and so they filed in. The room was filled with benches, made from the same pearlescent stone as the exterior of the tower, with a rough-hewn granite altar in the center and something on top of it. After throwing a few stones in and not triggering any traps, the party entered the room and looked around.

Most of the room was empty, but Elaphe found something under one of the benches. A hardened, gelatinous mass, with several lumps of fossilized goo inside, punctured and deflated, that he refused to touch. On the altar was a pair of gloves, white fabric with lines of iridescent thread running through them, but before anyone touched them Shining Star asked them to wait and invoked Nyahré's blessing on the altar. She closed her eyes, glowed with a soft silvery light, and saw-

A series of indistinct figures, standing amidst the benches, chanting in a language she didn't understand.

A figure raising a bowl over the altar and pouring it over itself.

Several figured gathered around the altar, seemingly engaged in a discussion.

A figure looking into a bowl on the altar, and then picking it up and hurling it across the room.

The vision faded and she told the others what she saw. Father James mentioned that this might be valuable knowledge to a sage or scholar of some kind, and since she hadn't seen anything immediately dangerous, Elaphe took the gloves. After a brief discussion and a look at their packs--most of the treasure they found was small and none of them were tired or seriously injured--they elected to keep going.


And we would have kept going except that battle against the shadowcrawlers took much longer than I expected. They kept dodging and, in contrast to nearly every other battle fought over the course of this game, the PCs kept rolling low. It's fortunate that Willow was wearing armor, because the shadowcrawlers clawed him several times while he was on the ground but every single attack after the first one just bounced off.

The PCs actually have a pretty nice selection of loot already, including some stuff that they might use in the future, and they elected to keep going further in. We'll see what else they find, and if their cautious approach will keep them out of danger!

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:

• 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:

• 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.

Just before dawn, Amos decided that he should scout out the necromancers' camp and see what it was that they had to face. Without waking any of the others--the Green Knight was already awake--he crept out of the camp to the north to within sight of the enemy camp. There were three figures sleeping near the fire, one large, one medium-sized, and one small, but that was all he noticed before he realized that the sapling next to him was a pole, on top of which was a skull, which turned and glared balefully at him before opening its mouth and letting out a sustained, ear-piercing wail.

Amos leveled his musket and fired at the shapes and then ran. He wasn't even sure he hit anything in the darkness, but he did see that the walking dead were coming for him. He arrived back at camp and explained, and after trying to start a prairie fire and failing due to the sodden grass from all the rain, the party mounted up and rode south for a mile in the lightening sky until they were sure that they weren't being pursued. They debated going back to try again, but eventually decided that now that knew where the necromancers were headed, they would go back to Gyere and see if they could raise a mob.

The ride back to town was uneventful and they were let in with only minimal hassling from the militia. They rounded up the militia captain and went to the tea house Three Wheat Sheaves, where they found the Band of the Red Dove drinking and dicing within. So they decided to call the mercenaries over as well, and with Captain Crimson of the Band of the Red Dove, they sketched out a map of the local area and asked the militia captain if there was anything that the necromancer could be heading for, a graveyard or a place of power or something. The militia captain recalled, in broken Floral and then in Muskalan with Bonnie translating, that he had heard stories of a cursed cave to the west of Rockfort during his childhood and maybe that was their destination. Then the party drew up a contract with the Band of the Red Dove and rode out at the head of a company of mercenaries.

There was some side discussion of getting mounts for the mercenaries to try to beat the necromancers to the cave, but it was eventually dismissed as unfeasible due to the cost of horses, the likelihood of actually finding thirty riding horses in a farming community, and the fact that oxen aren't suitable for riding.

The mercenaries force-marched, and Shining Star called up the witch-sight as she traveled, and by mid-afternoon she saw a grove in the distance with a shadow hanging over it like a cloud. Bonnie immediately drank spirit-flower tea when Shining Star mentioned the miasma, and she saw pairs of eyes watching them as they approached. The mercenaries sent out scouts, and when they reported back, the party drew up a plan.

The grove surrounded a cave mouth that reared out out of the ground in a tiny hill, with two skulls on posts in front of it. There were no walking dead or necromancers visible, and the party decided to move closer and take up positions in the surrounding woods and try to lure the necromancers out by activating the skull guardians. Elaphe would send his bob-omb familiar above the cave mouth and, when the necromancers appeared, it would drop on them and then they all would attack. The Green Knight gave a brief sermon to Drifting Snow and then summoned the power of the forest to armor him in bark. The bark split through his skin...but it was gnarled in strange ways, with odd purple moss growing on it. Drifting Snow stared, unsure if this was what was supposed to happen, as the mercenaries began their plan.

Two mercenaries charged forward into the sight of the skulls and, as they started to shriek, they tossed off small bombs that made loud noises and then ran back into the trees. As zombies started filtering up from the cave mouth, mercenary archers began firing at them...as did Amos and the Green Knight. The other members of the party waited as more of the walking dead appeared from the cave, as well as one ghul, which Amos and the Green Knight focused on until it ran forward and the mercenaries fell on it with swords.

Then, another figure walked up from the depths of the cave. Skeletal, with green balefire burning in its eyesockets and wearing black robes, it looked around the clearing, taking in the walking dead full of arrows and the shapes it could see in the trees, and shouted something back down the cave mouth.

Elaphe's player: "Are there any signs that this is a necromancer?"
Me: "Other than the obvious necromancy?"

At his signal, Elaphe's bob-omb ran over the edge of the cave mouth and exploded as it hit the ground, sending the walking dead flying in all directions. The necromancer was barely visible in the smoke, fleeing back down the cave mouth, as the mercenary heavy foot charged forward, tossing a few bob-ombs as they did, and began dismembering the remaining zombies to prevent them from acting. Then, the party configured. The cave didn't seem harmed at all by the explosion and the opening had jagged edges that were uncomfortably reminiscent of teeth, so collapsing the entrance didn't seem like it would work. The Green Knight opined that it might be the corpse of some unholy beast that the necromancers were attempting to raise and they would have to go in after them, and that is ultimately the course they chose. One of the mercenaries pulled a crystal out of a pouch and squeezed it, producing a flickering orange-red light as bright as a bonfire, as the mercenaries and party together moved into the cave mouth.


I expected the party to ambush the necromancers, but I suppose that is what they tried! Maybe if Amos had done better on his Stealth roll.

The players were originally thinking of bringing along a bunch of the town militia, but once they realized the mercenaries were still there they immediately thought about hiring them. Trained warriors beats farmers with spears, especially when fighting the walking dead and necromancers. And thanks to some good tactical planning by Amos and outnumbering the walking dead (so far), they've done very well. Going into an evil cave? Well.

We stopped a little early because there wasn't time to run the final battle in the last twenty minutes we had, so exploring the cave will be next game.

Dramatis Personae:

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

Since Elaphe was seriously injured, the rest of the party left him to rest in the abandoned village while they decided to scout out the battlefield that Spring Breeze had mentioned. They rode the entire day through the rain, seeing no one except a few animals that fled at their passage, and as the sun was setting their search bore fruit as the Green Knight found a rusted sword hilt poking out of the ground.

All of them spread out to search for any clues. Amos muttered one of the incantations he had learned and asked the birds in a nearby copse of trees if they had seen anything, and after some prodding he learned that there were a large number of the walking dead that had passed through the field and gone away to the northeast, a fact confirmed by the Green Knight's questioning of the local flora. That also revealed there had been three figures that had performed a ritual to call up the dead from the earth, but they had left as well. Shining Star sensed the remnants of dark magic pooling in low places in the earth, but it was faint. Whatever had been done there was fading and not a continual source of problems. Finding nothing else, the four spent the night in an abandoned farmer's house after burying the partially-eaten bodies of the amanita farmer and their family. The night was uneventful, and they left in the morning, again seeing no one as they traveled back to the village they had left Elaphe in.

They found Elaphe peacefully relaxing in the house, looking slightly better but still injured, and spent the night in the village. Near dawn, the Green Knight heard voices outside speaking in Muskalan, and he woke Elaphe who took a look through a shutter. He saw an amanita, a mycon, and a chuzan sitting around a fire, talking in low tones about the walking dead, how one of their number had been killed, and the lack of easy pickings in Fontina. Elaphe woke Amos, who readied his bow and snuck out of the house to get a clear shot, but after observing the group for a few minutes he snuck back into the house and shook his head. They weren't worth the trouble, and indeed, in the morning when the party woke up the bandits had moved on and left only the ashes of a fire.

The group saddled up and rode north toward the town of Gyere, which they had left a few days before after fighting a vampire in the streets. The roads were mostly empty, but just after midday they heard the sound of marching feet and overtook a company of three dozen chuzan mercenaries under the banner of a red dove holding a sword.

Bonnie's player: "Is he cute?"
Me: "He's grizzled."

The group slowed their riding and questioned the captain, who said that he had planned to winter in the Scarlet City but they had heard there was money to be made in Fontina fighting the walking dead. He was less than amused when Bonnie and Shining Star told him about the vampires they had fought, but seemed confident in his soldiers' ability to hold their own. He thanked the group for the information and they kept riding. A mile later, they spotted a speck in the sky slowly descending, and the Green Knight readied his bow, but it turned out to be a pigeon that landed on the head of Elaphe's claw strider. There was a message tube attached to its leg with a note inside that said:

"Vampire in the city. Come quickly."

They reached Gyere just before nightfall, where they found a cold reception. The militia kept the gate closed and demanded they identify themselves, leading to some disbelief until Amos fired off his musket and they quickly opened the door. Elaphe rode straight to meet with Black Salted Earth while the others questioned the militia captain. They learned that six people had been attacked and four were dead, but all of them had been in their homes. They knew the jiang they had seen before couldn't enter structures built by mortal hands without an invitation, so something else must be afoot...

Elaphe met Black Salted Earth, who after asking Elaphe to prove his identity and accepting the Black Rose code phrases he offered, explained that there must be a shedo in town, a vampire capable of disguising itself to look like others. The town was in a frenzy of paranoia because of it and Black Salted Earth didn't have any means of distinguishing a vampire from the person it was impersonating and asked if Elaphe's associates did. He conceded they might, and led the amanita back to the Three Wheat Sheaves, the tea house they had stayed in last time they were in Gyere, and we ended there.


The session this time was a bit shorter, since Elaphe's player has just returned from a two-week trip to Paris and hasn't entirely recovered. We're going to play again next Monday, though, and that's when everything becomes a paranoid search of the town. How do they find a creature that can disguise itself as other people and stop it? Good question. I'm looking forward to what they come up, though I do think they'll heavily consider "burn down the whole town" based on their past performance.

Gyere is, of course, based on "Gruyere," since in classic Mario tradition everything has a cutesy name.

Dramatis Personae:

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

With Shining Star as a translator through the Royal Speech, the party questioned the lurker about his business. He gave his name as Sigeferth, son of Osric, a Veiled One from Sarasa. Unfortunately, he did not know much. He told them that the Dragonbone Speakers had sent him to investigate the "darkness in the south" and that he had only recently been sent south, as well as that he had seen witchhunters from the Temple of the Holy Flame traveling in Fontina. He disavowed the accusations that he and his "brothers and sisters" were the ones causing the disappearances and was surprised to hear that ghul were working with the walking dead, but seemed very interested when the Green Knight revealed that he had seen a strange, bat-winged figure fly in front of the moons. There was little moonlight as both Tharu and Diang were crescents and Nyarhé, while full, was dark and gave off little light, but there were few clouds and so the group took to scanning the sky. It was Amos who spotted it, just as he turned his head, a figure diving from the sky and falling into another part of the town.

Elaphe immediately slipped off the roof and moved toward the shape as the others raced over the rooftops. Elaphe found it first, tall and bulky, towering head and shoulders taller than him in an alleyway and shrouded in a large cloak. He could barely see it in the gloom, but it seemed to be waiting for something, so he stepped out into the courtyard to invoke a hedge ritual to enhance his resilience. When Shining Star arrived, she spotted him and told him of their arrival in the Royal Speech, and Elaphe gestured at the alleyway and put up a hand. Sigeferth made a gesture and shadows enveloped him as he slipped off the roof. Unfortunately for Elaphe's plan, the rest of the group grew tired of waiting, and while moving into position across the rooftops they made enough noise that the figure heard them and dashed out of the alleyway.

The Green Knight and Bonnie immediately gave chase, keeping pace with it as it dashed across the town's dirt roads, now sprinting, now running on all fours. Shining Star tried to bind it with sorcerous chains, but it scuttled sideways as they closed on it and escaped their grasp. It was less lucky when Amos stopped running, took a moment to aim, and shot it with a flaming arrow from his bow, which sunk into the creature's flesh. To the party members on the roof it seemed to disappear, but the Green Knight and Bonnie saw that it just moved so quickly they could barely see it, down the street and around a corner behind a house. And then it took wing and flew above the rooftops. Shining Star hurled a blast of searing flame at it, but it corkscrewed through the air and dodged before flying away to the north.

During all this, Elaphe had attempted to give chase, but timed a jump badly and hit a wall face-first.

(Don't botch, kids! Or, as summed up by Bonnie's player...)

The group reconvened afterward and Bonnie shared what she knew. From the wings, the appearance, the speed, and the apparent desire to hunt, she guessed it was a jiang, a type of vampire almost more beast and mortal. They could not enter structures built by living hands, but she was less clear on their other vulnerabilities--silver or garlic or running water, she could not say. The party decided they needed to tell the militia, and so they walked over to the militia staging area where they were waiting for the upcoming attack by the walking dead. On the way, Bonnie got Sigeferth to talk to her in Sarasan, so she could study it using her sorcery, and he sang a lay of the Sarasan's coming to their grasslands that Bonnie didn't understand a word of, but after which her sorcery granted her knowledge of his language. He seemed surprised at her sudden mastery of Sarasan, but mostly took it in stride.

Shining Star and Bonnie told the militia captain, a grizzled amanita who had probably been a farmer until a month ago, that there was more to worry about than the walking dead--that they had a vampire loose and needed to set up a curfew since the jiang couldn't enter their houses. The captain reacted with disbelief, pointing out that a curfew was impossible since the people of the village needed to be ready to defend against the walking dead who always attacked at night. The group did not really have a response to that, and after making sure they weren't needed against the night's attack--there were only a handful of walking dead, so they weren't--they returned to their lodgings to sleep. In the morning, after buying food and questioning some of the refugees, who worried about the food supplies in Fontina with winter coming on and so many crops abandoned, they left the town of Gyere and traveled south.

The weather was misty but not raining, and the whole first day they saw no one. There were some bodies on the side of the road, not badly decomposed, and after a debate over time vs propriety Shining Star settled for making a small blessing over each of them as they passed. It wasn't until they found a merchant caravan all dead that they stopped and build a pyre for them from the ruins of the wagon, piling the raptok's body, the bodies of the amanita guards, and the empty red robes and mask of a Silent One onto it. They spent that night in an empty farming village, in a house with a broken-in door but shutters that still worked. They wedged the door shut and piled furniture in front of it and lit a fire, but nothing troubled them in the night.

The next day, they were a few hours on the road when they heard singing from the distance in Muskalan heavily mixed with Floral. They thought about hiding, but on seeing that the figure was alone they waited until they saw it was an amanita traveling alone. Bonnie questioned the amanita, asking them why they were traveling alone in the wild. The amanita introduced themselves as Spring Breeze and said that they were a traveling minstrel from town of Tannin to the south and were hoping to make it up to Etemenanki before the winter hit to make money in Tower Town, and when the group expressed incredulity, they asked if there was something wrong. Bonnie explained the zombie plague, and the amanita was shocked--they said they hadn't heard anything about this Tannin, though they had noticed fewer travelers from the north.

At this point Bonnie, overwhelmed with suspicion, scribbled a note and ensorcelled it with a message to Shining Star, asking her to fake a sickness so she could call up a Knowing Whisper, which might be able to determine whether the amanita was lying. Bonnie dragged the "swooning" Shining Star away from the confused amanita into a ruined farmhouse, and we ended there.


Vampires! Oh no!

The party seems to have found that the walking dead plague is confined to the kingdom of Fontina specifically, but what will they do about it. Keep going, or turn back to defend the kingdom? They don't seem to have very strong goals at this point other than following the map, though previously they went far afield thanks to finding a ghost by a roadside. Is this wandering minstrel another divergent point, or will they turn out to be another victim of Elaphe while the rest of the group isn't looking?

It's been a long while since I did one of these posts, but I've written a lot more about spirits since last year, so here's a few more bestiary entries!

Darkrai


The spirits of the new moon, the dark, and the rare triple conjunction when all the moons are shadowed and the inhabitants of Agarica lock their doors and windows and light candles against the night, darkrai are harbingers of fear and bringers of nightmares. There are no ceremonies in their honor and no praises chanted to them, only propitiatory offerings in the hopes that they will keep away. They are occasionally called on by vengeance-minded summoners who seek to bring madness and despair to their enemies, but darkrai are exceedingly difficult to control, and more than one would-be avenger has died screaming under an assault of nightmares.

Hitokage


Hitokage are the bright spirits of sunlight and the heat of the day. They contain both the pleasant warmth of a sunbeam and the life-giving energy that causes flowers to bloom and crops to grow. They are often seen playing in the sunbeams on warm summer days, and are occasionally beseeched to provide extra light to help crops grow.

Bakeccha


Bakeccha are the spirits of ripened crops, trees laden with fruit, and plants ready for the harvest. They sleep dormant for most of the year, emerging in late summer and remain awake until the first hard frost falls, which sends them back into their slumber. This cycle varies based on location—in B'rabt, for example, the bakeccha are merely drowsy for parts of the year, awakening each time the B'rabti bring in another crop of rice.

Because of their association with grain, bakeccha are also spirits of alcohol, and it is this patronage that makes them one of the most popular spirits in Agarica.

Nyoromo


Nyoromo are the spirits of the tides, the coastal waters, and the river-mouths, all within view of the shore. They are used to mortals in their domains and usually do not hinder them during the course of their normal activities, but they can easily be roused to wrath by too much change. Fishing boats or children playing on the beach, for example, almost never provoke a nyoromo, but attempting to dam a river or building a pier can cause them to attack.

Pippi


Pippi are the spirits of full moons, of the light that illuminates the countryside and turns night into almost-day. They are found on clear nights, dancing in the moonlight in rings on top of hills. They are usually placid, but do not like their dances to be observed and have been known to curse those who try to watch them.

In B’rabt, pippi are regarded with holy reverence as messengers of Yarikh the Lunar Serpent, and they are frequently summoned to dance at important festivals.

Camome


Camome are spirits of rainclouds, dancing in the raindrops and flying amidst grey clouds heavy with coming storms. They are most common near the sea, but will ride rainstorms inland and can be found far from the shores as long as the rain is heavy enough. Camome are not particularly intelligent and are easily distracted by shiny objects, and some farmers without the power to command them will place crystals or bits of glass near their fields in the hopes of attracting them.

Dramatis Personae:

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

The first half of the session or so was taken up with more logistics from last session in the Scarlet City. Buying a few more hedge magic spells and equipment, getting various alchemical concoctions to deal with future injuries likely while fighting the walking dead, and so on. After all that way accomplished, we picked up back in the Kingdom of Fontina.

B'rabht had been hot and sunny, but in the city of Rockfort it was pouring down rain and much colder. The party clutched their cloaks tighter around themselves and made their way through the crush of refugees to the closest tea house they could see, the Gateside, on one side of the square. They negotiated for a place in the stable and bedded down for the night, sleeping comfortably on the straw, though they were unpleasantly woken up early, shivering in a sudden cold snap.

Shining Star went to offer her services in the temple of the Blue Lady, the Fontinan goddess of love and the family, healing the refugees. Most of those she treated were wounded by exposure and malnutrition, not the claws and teeth of the walking dead, though there were some who had been injured in fights with other refugees. Amos prepared his armor and weapons and then went down into the tea house and spoke to the patrons, asking them what they had heard. They mentioned the walking dead coming from the south, and that some villages had to post guards around their graveyards because while the bites of the dead were not infectious except in the normal sense, their very presence seemed to raise other bodies nearby into unlife.

Elaphe pretended to sleep by the fire and listened to the chatter, and he heard people talk about shapes on rooftops and mysterious attacks by shrouded figures. The chatter wasn't clear on their appearance or exactly what they were wearing, but Elaphe remembered the rumors they had heard three weeks ago, about Sarasan Veiled Ones being seen in Fontina, and wondered. He also heard that the mercenaries from Etemenanki had arrived, but they were being used to guard Rockfort.

Bonnie went to visit Onyx to ask her to teach a spell to keep off the rain and bask in the wisdom of the sorceress. Onyx seemed pleased that the party had found what they were looking for, but she and Bonnie did not speak long. Onyx mentioned that killing the walking dead would probably be a good idea, and Bonnie made her excuses and left.

After lunch, the party took their gear and rode out the south gate, heading toward the place where the walking dead were coming from. They didn't meet any zombies on the road, though they occasionally saw corpses, both fresh and rotted, by the roadside. They didn't take the time to bury them, and Elaphe thought better of looting them to avoid trouble from wraiths, but Shining Star offered a brief benediction over every corpse they found. At sundown, they rode into a town surrounded by a palisade and took space in the common room at the sign of the Three Wheat Sheaves, and we ended there.


It took a while for people to figure out what else they wanted. Having not been in civilization for well over half the period of this game and finally being in a major city for a longer period--they were in tower town, but only for half a day--they went on a shopping and XP-spending spree.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the party does to deal with the zombies. Are they going to try to just kill all of them? Find the source? Blame the Sarasans? Bring in the witchhunters? We'll see!

Amos's player asked for a preparation montage, so I played the Shatterhand stage select theme. I also played the Super Mario 2 Underworld theme for B'rabt and then cut to the Link to the Past Opening Theme for rainy Fontina. I have so much music to draw on for this game. It's fantastic.

Dramatis Personae:

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

Shining Star attempted to diagnose the strange illness affecting Bonnie and the Green Knight that was turning their skins a greyish color and making their veins stand out black against their skin, but after a close examination she simply had no idea. Elaphe searched through the burning building to find the pieces to reassemble his bob-omb, while Meohan the hedge wizard sat despondently and Ringo and Dim Ember tended to their wounds. Amos got the idea to ask the nearby birds if they have seen Kurome, so he cimbed to the top of the tea house with Bonnie's help and began chanting the words of the Discourse with Birds spell.

The first set of starlings Amos asked flew away without an answer, but then he took some of his travel rations and scattered them around the roof. A pair of crows took the bait, and Amos asked them if they had seen anything of the warlock. They answered that they had, tripping over their own words and interrupting each other, and indicated the overgrown orchard to the northeast of the town center:



Elaphe sent his claw strider familiar to the east to search out that area, and the party asked Meohan about his scrying spell. He said that he could cast it, but he would need a reflective surface, and Elaphe went off to find one while Shining Star searched to the west, walking around the town and looking for any spot where she could smell lingering taint. The whole town smelled faintly like rancid meat to her sorcerously-enhanced senses, but she found a few houses where the smell seemed stronger. One house was empty, with a table set as for a meal but abandoned mid-feast, but another had a barred door and shuttered windows, though Shining Star could hear the sound of movement within.

The Green Knight walked around the town hall to the trees in the south and summoned up his connection with the forest, asking the plants nearby if they had seen Kurome. The grass did not remember, but the tree said that two rains ago, Kurome came from the rising sun. The Green Knight moved northeast and asked the trees the same question, and they told him that they had seen Kurome enter the orchard several times.

Elaphe brought out a bottle of wine, after taking a long drink for himself, and poured it into a bowl in front of Meohan. The hedge wizard stared at it for a moment, then shook their head and began moving his fingers over the liquid and chanting. Shining Star returned to the town center, as did Elaphe's familiar, and the group moved into the orchard, following the crows. Elaphe remained behind, some distance from Dim Ember, Ringo, Cheerless Sword, and the chanting Meohan, eyeing his bob-omb and considering.

The party searched the forest and, where Shining Star smelled the strongest odor of rancid meat, dug into the ground. They found several chunks of obsidian, shallowly buried in the dirt, and Shining Star recognized them as a ritual tool for summoning demons. She wrapped them in cloth and took them with her. The party then returned to the town square to find a distinct lack of explosions.

Meohan finished his scrying ritual and began searching the places that Shining Star pointed out. In the barred house there was a family of mycon who had pushed a table against the door and were cowering behind the bed, and another house was empty. But at the final house, to the northwest, Meohan frowned and said that something was interfering with the spell.

The party, accompanied by Dim Ember and Ringo, immediately traveled to that part of town. Elaphe climbed up to the roof and dropped his bob-omb through the smoke hole, and after the explosion, the door and windows were blown open. The house was empty of mortal inhabitants, but in the middle was an ever-moving, vaguely humanoid shape of greenish liquid. The ground hissed where it stood, and curls of smoke arose from the dirt. Shining Star and Bonnie recognized it as a metody, a demon formed of liquid corruption!

Amos fired an arrow, which went straight through the demon, but the arrow's fire singed it. The Green Knight charged forward to engage, swiping with his wooden claws, but the metody flowed out of the way and then dissolved into a green foam, washing over the floor--and the Green Knight's feet, eating away at his boots and flesh. Shining Star thought of using the last of her Essence to cast a spell, but chose to fire her bow. The arrow sunk with a splash into the metody and began dissolving to no other effect.

Bonnie pulled out some of her alchemical glue and began to craft a crude bomb as the Green Knight leaped out of the acidic foam. Ringo danced forward and swiped a claw through the metody, and its color changed to a slightly darker shade as it began moving slower. Bonnie gave the bomb to Elaphe, who tossed it into the foam. The bottle began dissolving, leaving flaming liquid in the demon. Amos shot another arrow at the house, setting part of it on fire, and Elaphe and his mount leapt into the wall, knocking a piece of flaming debris onto the demon.

The Green Knight, seeking more flammable material, crossed the street to another house and opened the door...and came face to face with Kurome! He made to shout a warning, but the sound died in his throat as he stared into Kurome's good eye and felt like he was falling into it. Kurome swung his black sword at the Green Knight's head, but the briarwitch retained enough presence of mind to turn it aside with his claws.

Galvanized, the Green Knight yelled "Kurome!" and charged, swinging his claws, but the warlock blocked with the flat of his blade and escaped injury. Bonnie and Shining Star spun around, and while Bonnie tried to silence the warlock's voice, Shining Star saw her chance. She called up the power of Nyarhé and hurled a bolt of white fire at Kurome. The warlock raised his sword again, and the fire split on the blade...but not far enough. It hit Kurome on both sides of his body, and as his arms and shoulders kindled in white fire, he threw back his head and soundlessly screamed. Then, smoking, he crashed to the ground. The demon pulled itself back together from its foam and, to everyone's eyes but Amos, vanished. Dim Ember stepped forward and fired an arrow at Kurome's head, and in a rain of floral blossoms, the warlock's breathing stopped.

Shining Star and Dim Ember both made the sign of the goddesses over the dead warlock, and in the most formal way, Dim Ember thanked Shining Star for her help. Shining Star also expressed her thanks, and she leaned down and stripped Kurome's eyepatch from his body, handing it to Dim Ember. Then they bowed to each other. Meanwhile, Elaphe searched the warlock's body, taking the warlock's sword--an unattuned enchanted item, so it was incredibly heavy--and a black crystal that is freezing cold to the touch. Then the party withdrew to the tea house to regroup.

At the tea house, they drank mushroom beer and wine, and Bonnie told Dim Ember about the ghost of Summer Rain. Dim Ember explained that Summer Rain's father was a merchant who sold arms to the Dragon Emperor during the way and used that money to fund a dowry for his daughter, ending with, "But what good will that money do him now, I wonder?" and taking a drink of her wine. After more drinks, everyone went to sleep. The villagers did not come to the tea house that night, and they slept undisturbed.


Kurome is dead! I made the map and chose a location for Kurome beforehand to give the party a chance. He picked a ruined house to hide and stuck a demon nearby, figuring that the taint would be enough to metaphysically disguise him and that the party wouldn't be able to search every house without bothering the residents. And he was right! It was pure chance that the Green Knight went off looking for flammable material and opened the right door.

The party got lucky in other ways too. If Kurome had hit with his first attack, he could well have incapacitated the Green Knight, dragged him into the house, and then made his escape. If the search had taken longer and the Green Knight's disease had been further progressed, Kurome could have commanded him to fight his friends. There was a real chance that Kurome could have won and driven them away to lick their wounds.

And that's good! The best way for an RPG to go is for the PCs to win...barely.

Next session, the PCs are thinking of going through the pipe at the center of town to the Scarlet City, stronghold of the Silent Ones, to sell their loot and figure out what to do next. It'll be nice to be in civilization again after a half-dozen sessions in the wilderness.

I made the map in Cityographer and projected it onto our TV during the game, so the players could always see it while they were planning. Maybe I should do that with the world map, if I expand it from its current contained-sandbox boundaries.

Also, I have to post this great quote:

Me: "I've got rules for dysentery, too."
Bonnie's player: "Great!"
Me: "Don't fail those Survival rolls, is all I'm saying."

Dramatis Personae:

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

The next morning, the members of the party separately and slowly came down to the tea house's main room to eat a breakfast of bread and gruel, Elaphe making sure to keep apart from the others to dispel any notions that he was particularly friendly with them. Ringo, the raptok member of the other group in town, was also eating, and Bonnie sidled over and sat down at her table. Bonnie didn't speak Raptok and raptok's mouths aren't suitable for speaking most other languages, but through pantomime Bonnie managed to convey that she wanted to hear Ringo speak, and after an hour she had enough practice to cast the Language-Learning Ritual, granting her perfect knowledge of the Raptok tongue.

Near the end of this period, Shining Star slipped upstairs to summon a Knowing Whisper, a minor servant of Nyahré in her aspect as goddess of secrets. She borrowed the senses of the Knowing Whisper to see the world of spirits and immediately noticed a purplish-black haze all over the room. Shining Star came downstairs and exited the tea house, followed by the others, and immediately noticed a haze in the town square as well, strongest around the town hall on the other end of the square. As the party was standing around wondering what to do, Elaphe slipped out and made his way around the edges of the square, sticking to the shadows and trying to move closer and Bonnie drank a dose of Spirit-Flower Tea so she would know if there were demons about. And then, she saw one. Shining Star and Amos saw it too, the same gigantic spider-thing that Amos saw when they first entered the town, crouched on the roof of a building near the town hall.

Bonnie ran inside to put on the armor she had bought while the rest of the other party, Meohan the hedge wizard, Cheerless Sword the yojimbo, and Dim Ember the Knight of the Rose, filtered outside. As Elaphe reached his position on a small road near the town hall, watching the square, Shining Star walked forward to the base of the building. She was tired of hiding and tired of waiting, so she reached out, called up her Essence, and dropped a Cloak of Night on top of the building. A moment later, she was rewarded as the demon leaped down on her from above, but Shining Star backflipped out of the way (something like 11 successes on 8 dice to dodge!) and then several things happened at once.

Dim Ember shook her walking staff and grabbed it with her other hand, and suddenly it changed, bending and turning green, deep grooves appeared on it and crawling over its surface, forming vines all over its length, until she was holding a bow. As Cheerless Sword and Ringo started running toward Shining Star, Dim Ember raised the bow and an arrow of twisting green Essence appeared as she drew back the string, trailing red and gold rose petals as it flew. It hit the demon, but didn't seem to injure it much.

The demon lunged at Shining Star again, biting her but not seriously, and she felt a tingling sensation at the wound which fortunately soon faded. The Green Knight looked around the square, noticing a few villagers who weren't running and were instead slowly walking toward the group with dull expressions on their faces. He knelt and touched the group, summoning up the Bramble-Commanding Aura around the largest group of villagers, and vines and weeds sprouted up from the ground and lashed around their legs. They didn't seem to notice, but it definitely slowed them down.

Amos shot at the demon with his bow, but missed and the flaming arrow hit the building behind it, which began sizzling. Ringo bit at the spider, tearing off one of its legs, as the spider attacked Shining Star again, but she stepped back and called up the Chains of Searing Light. Unfortunately, the pain distracted her and the demon easily slipped between them.

Elaphe did nothing, watching the old chuzan that was slowly and purposefully walking down the road near him.

Suddenly, the chuzen opened his mouth impossibly wide and a green pillar of flesh forced its way out and rocketed through the air, hitting Ringo and carving a chunk from her flesh, before continuing across the square and entering the grotesquely-open mouth of a mycon on the other side of the square. Dim Ember drew back her bow again and launched a flurry of arrows at the demon, two of them hitting and sinking into its flesh. It began to bleed black smoke as Cheerless Sword shouted to wait and attack on his signal.

Amos fired another arrow, this time hitting the spider, as Bonnie ran out of the tea house clad in her armor and Elaphe stepped forward and brutally half-decapitated the old chuzan from behind. The Green Knight moved up toward the demon spider as the door to the town hall was hurled open, nealry off its hinges, revealing the hulking form of a blood-ape--a monster a foot taller than a kong, with black fur, spikes on its joints and shoulders, and glowing patches as though its blood was burning and shining through its skin. As it began to move forward, Shining Star, Cheerless Sword and Ringo all struck at once, carving the demonic spider to ribbons and dissolving its physical form. Though, as Amos and Bonnie saw, not destroying it--immaterial, it began to run back toward the town hall.

The mycon's mouth opened wide and the green mode hurled itself across the square in front of the town hall, hitting Dim Ember a glancing blow, and disappearing down the mouth of an amanita across the square. As Amos fired at the blood ape, hitting it as it charged forward and the Green Knight moved to intercept it, Shining Star raised her hands and they began glowing with an eye-searing white light and she called up Star Fires and hurled them at the possessed amanita. The white light washed over them, and they began to cough black smoke and smoke drifted out of their eyes and ears. Dim Ember followed it up with an arrow which vanished in the air, but to Bonnie's tea-enhanced vision it turned into a cloud of rose petals which enveloped the possessed amanita.

Then a horrific shriek filled the square, emanating from the town hall. For those at the far end of the square it was merely blood-curdling, but those closer felt the sound crawling over their skin, seeking and entrance and trying to settle inside them...

...and we ended there for time.


Combat! It actually only took up the last half of the session, it's just that the first half was a lot of minor conversations and wondering what the group should do? The answer turned out to be "frontal assault," I think partially because Shining Star's player wanted something to happen and partially because she thought that Shining Star was tired of waiting. And for a combat with twelve participants--thirteen if you count Kurome--I thought it went pretty well.

The demons are showing no fear in combat because their bodies aren't them--as spirits, they can materialize and just dematerialize if sufficiently beaten up. Now, should any of the party show themselves capable of hurting dematerialized spirits, as Shining Star and Dim Ember can, then they'll be more cautious. Shining Star being a priestess of Nyahré is the reason why the demon spider was attacking her with suicidal fury, hoping for its poison to take effect. No such luck.

That shriek at the end obviously supernatural, but I realized after the game that I was wrong about who was close enough to the town hall to be affected by it, so I'll deal with that at the beginning of the next game. I also have to rewrite the spell that causes it, because right now it's boring.