Session Ten Part I (in which the heroes investigate the mysterious silos)

The Bostonian forces regroup and return to Fort Talon as victors. With their leader dead, the goblin coalition unravels; the forces representing the various tribes begin squabbling and the cobrat return home. A couple of weeks later, a goblin messenger carries a note to the gates of Fort Talon. This message bears the news that Great Wolfslayer has united the tribes under his banner and to thank the humans for their part in his ascendance, he guarantees the safety of Fort Talon and its residence for the period of one year. Baron James arrives in the city with an additional 500 troops and the PCs are treated to a heroes’ reception and given free room and board.

The PCs are glad to learn that Cpt. Brizzen survived the battle. Leopold goes to visit the Captain and they discuss the Baron’s arrival. It seems that the Baron intends to not only bolster the city’s defenses, but to expand southward to reclaim settlements lost to the cobrat in years past. The Captain offers Leopold and the rest of the PCs a chance to aid with the expansion and become members of the Baron’s military. Leo declines the offer.

The PCs hang around for a while, resting and catching up on some business. They check on the grunj miners and finds that the Lowery’s seem to have moved on to other prey. Thane indulges his gambling habit and loses a good portion of the money he has acquired on his adventures. Trevor works with Doctor Mortenson in healing the overflow of injured soldiers and as he does so he meets Xavier who recruits him into the adventuring fellowship.

The group spends some time discussing where to head next and some more time dickering over who should pay the cost of alchemical reagents (alchemy is a useful, but expensive science in Bostonia). Leo makes it known that he would like to try and get the spider rune rumored to be in Melethos’ Tomb (from session five), but would require Nathan’s help to do so (since Nathan has the skill of rune knowledge and thus knows how to bind the rune). Nathan agrees as does the rest of the party and so the group prepares to head back into the goblin badlands to seek out the Spider Queen and her rune.

On the way, Nathan tells Leo that to bind the rune, Leo will have to enter the Queen’s chamber and collect a portion of the special web she weaves. Easier said than done of course, since the Queen is a ten meter tall spider that guards her web jealously. Once he has a good handful of web, he will have to sew the fibers into his abdomen in the shape of an hourglass. This act will bind Leo to spider-kind and grant him the power of the Queen.

Before they reach the tomb, they come upon two silos (from session four) partially sunken in the ground. Being curious, and having no poisoned borakki smith to worry about, they decide to investigate. Nathan scouts with his Third Eye.

The first building has three stories above ground. There is a metal stairway winding around the outside of the silo which had it been intact, it would lead to a vault-style door on the third floor. However, it had long since collapsed and eroded away. The roof had also collapsed, leaving the third floor exposed to the sky. Inside, Nathan saw broken barrels and crates of supplies made into a messy nest by four sleeping gaunt.

The group decides to try the second silo. This one has two floors above ground and the stairway and roof are intact. Xavier and Leo try the stairway and it is so corroded it almost gives way under their combined weight. Leo does make it alone, but cannot budge the rusted vault door. He does manage to tie off a rope which Ssrog climbs. The low cobrat is so powerful that the door poses little challenge for him, but it does make a horrible noise, waking the angry gaunt.

A short battle follows. One of the gaunt swoops down and grabs Ssrog, but he is still tied to the vault door and so the creature lets go and he slams into the ground. When the cobrat stands and turns, the gaunt is flying at him for a second pass and he impales it on his spear. The other gaunts are just as unlucky in their search for an easy meal. Nathan uses his Ice Spike on one. Leo, Xavier and Trevor battle another gaunt and it falls. Xavier manages to Bedazzle and blind a third which flies away. The fourth gaunt flees.

The group is then free to investigate the two silos. From Xavier’s notes, they find the following:

“Three Story Silo -
Attic room - Nest of the Gaunts. Broken supplies, Gaunt poop.  Ladder down.
Second Floor -
Firtst Floor - Empty except for two bookcase sized vault doors with complex combination lock mechanisms.  
Basement - 24 metal and glass vertical tubes around the walls, each broken.  There are the bones of many children.  They look to have been gnawed on by the Gaunts.  
Sub-basement  - 24 metal and glass vertical tubes around the walls, each broken.  There are the bones of many children.  They look to have been gnawed on by the Gaunts.  

Two Story Silo-
Second Floor - Circular door entrance.  Ladder down.  Supply room.  Crates and barrels, some broken.  Pooling, moldy liquid on floor.  Smells of stale sweaty vinegar.  
Firtst Floor - Empty except for two bookcase sized vault doors with complex combination lock mechanisms.  
Basement - 24 metal and glass vertical tubes around the walls, each holding one human in a liquid solution.  The humans are adult, naked and of both sexes.  They look to be in some sort of stasis.  The fluid is a brownish, flat liquid.  
Sub-basement - Same as the basement.”

Trevor uses his ancient knowledge skill and deduces that this place might have been an ancient site of the Cult of Immortality and that the adults in the one silo might be members of that cult who were trying to prolong their lives by feeding off the life force of the children in the other.

Nathan pulls his Third Eye out of its socket and enchants it and directs it through the broken silos that once held the children. He finds that the tubes are connected to the vaults on the upper floor and are also connected to the tubes in the other silo containing the intact bodies of the adults. Nathan squeezes his eye through the maze of tubes into one of the vaults which seems to contain controls for the strange equipment.

The group decides to stay here for a time and allow Xavier to attempt to open the complex vaults. He studies the mechanism with the help of Trevor. He thinks he can open the doors, but that it will take some time and much trial and error. The group waits and discusses the possibility that the adults are still alive and if they can be revived.

That night, the group rests in the silo and they begin to rumble and shake. The buildings are sinking back into the earth! The group gathers its things, climbs to the attic of the silo and jumps clear just in time. The structure sinks into the ground and is covered so completely that it is impossible to tell that anything was ever here.

The next morning the spires rise again… the Ancients were strange… and Xavier continues his study, but ultimately fails and the group decides to move on before the gaunts return.

Session Ten Part II (in which the heroes return to Melenthos' Tomb)

A couple days more and the group enters Melenthos' Tomb. Before heading to the Spider Queen, they check on Melethos and his skeletons and see that, though they are still trapped by the undead repelling dust, they are trying to dig their way out of the tomb. The group decides they have to deal with the skeleton king once and for all and so they clear the pile of rubble from the hallway and allow the metal wrecking-ball wagon to trundle in.

The skeletons spend a few seconds trying to damage the wagon, but their attempt is futile and the machine quickly smashes the king's bony servants. Melenthos backs into a corner and casts a spell, causing the floor underneath the wagon to become a pool of lava. The wagon falls into the lava pool, but is strangely not damaged by the molten rock. However, when the spell ends and the pool becomes solid again, the wagon is trapped and though it can still swing its powerful arm, it cannot reach the skeleton king and he manages to skirt around it. Melenthos hides in another corner of his room and the PCs leave him for now.

The group then heads down the final hallway in the hexagonal dungeon and come to a shaft with a ladder leading down. Upon descending the ladder, the PCs find themselves at the entrance to a monstrous cavern filled with large, thick webs, cool mist and the sound of rushing water. The webs form a tight, sticky maze that wends through the cave. The group considers burning the webs, but finds that they are moist from the mist. They enter, being careful to disturb the webs as little as possible.

Spiders are everywhere in the tunnels, crawling overhead and through the walls of webbing. A party of dead goblins are found as is another living goblin nearby. The goblin shakes and tries to reach out to the PCs, but Ssrog stabs him to keep him from moving and disturbing the webbing. Too late! Hungry spiders descend upon the corpse and the party quickly moves on in disgust.

Another strange encounter came when the group stopped to watch a tangled mass of webs moving of its own accord. The strands writhed and twitched and then wove themselves into the form of a spider which then pulled itself from the sticky strands and leapt to the ground, only to be smashed by Ssrog. It seems the spiders here are formed from the magical webs.

Finally, after over a half hour of wandering, the group comes upon a wall of webs embedded with the bones of a dozen or so cobrat skeletons. The group can see light on the other side of the webs, as well as a huge shadowy figure. Leo moves closer to the webs and puts his eye to a small hole to get a better view.

Suddenly the dangling skeletons come to life and one of them grabs Leo's head and presses it to the web, pinning him. The others grab at Leo or brandish weapons to form an animated wall of web and bone. Ssrog leaps forward, grabs the hapless duelist, pulls him free, says flatly, "We're going now" and runs all the way out of the spider cavern, carrying Leo the entire way.

Everyone at the table burst out in raucous laughter.

Session Eleven (in which the Queen claims a victim)

Ssrog and Nathan (whose players are absent) decide that they will stay behind instead of risking another encounter with the Spider Queen. Urzeph, Trevor, Xavier and Leo will try again, but they first return to the goblin pit to collect any Wolfsblood that remains because it is a powerful antidote that works on many poisons. The group lowers Trevor down into the pit and he notes that he is standing on the tiles of a roof. A building of some sort must have sunken into the ground here.

Trevor pulls up some of the tiles and opens a hole in the roof large enough to crawl through. He descends into the ruin and finds an old cobrat temple. After a quick search, he finds a half-buried turtle altar, a silver censure, shards of colored glass, a crystal knife and turtle shell bowls. Trevor then comes out of the temple, collects what Wolfsblood he can and then returns to the group.

Our heroes then return to the Queen's lair. Trevor uses a Flaming Bottle potion to burn a hole in the web from a safe distance. Xavier and Leopold then charge through the hole, dodging the skeletal guards. Of course, this disturbs the web and alerts the Queen and all of her spiders. Just as she turns to face the intruders, both Leo and Xavier cast spells in an attempt to blind her. Leo's spell fizzles, but Xavier's does not and the Queen is blinded! Xavier continues casting, trying to keep her blind and disoriented while Leo moves deeper into her chamber.

The chamber is tall and open. Along the far wall is a pool with two jets of water shooting into the air and filling the place with spray. Magical lights line the pool's edge. Above the pool some 7-8 meters is a huge web. The droplets of water reflect the light and reveal the runic script woven into the threads. This is what Leo is after.

Unfortunately, he has no way up to the strands and so he is forced to throw his rope and grapple in hopes of catching enough of the web. Not easy, since he needs to collect at least an entire runic symbol's worth of webbing. He throws his grapple... nothing. Second attempt... damn. Xavier luckily blinds the giant spider again and keeps her from hitting them with her webs.

In the meantime, Trevor and Urzeph are set upon by waves of spiders ranging from the size of a small dog, to man-sized. Trevor is bitten (and nearly succumbs to the poison) and webbed, but manages to escape using another Flaming Bottle to burn through the strands. Urzeph is hacking through spiders with his mighty axe and as he does so, the spiders dissolve into sticky strands and he must pull his axe free. Just as one wave is destroyed, another follows.

Third try with the grapple... nothing. Fourth... "Leo, what the Hell are you doing in there?!"

Finally, Leopold throws the grapple and pulls down a set of runed strands. Unfortunately, Xavier fails to bedazzle the Spider Queen and she regains her sight, charges the wily thief and steps on him. Xavier is wounded and even worse, stunned. Luckily, he recovers just in time to dodge a second attack from the mighty Queen and realizes that she is blocking the hole in the webs.

"Run for it, Leo!" Xavier draws his sword, stabs at the spider, then falls back (a Give Ground maneuver), hoping she will press her attack and step clear of the exit. The Queen pursues Xavier, clearing the way out. However, her attack is relentless and she knocks Xavier down and then bites him in the head, killing him.

Just as the monstrous spider turns to kill Leopold, he leaps toward the hole and tumbles through. Urzeph and Trevor have just managed to finish off the last of the wave of arachnids facing them and they run for their lives.

It is a somber two days back to Fort Talon.

GM Notes on Runebearer Magic

Runic magic is the main form of magic in our game. In general, a rune is a tattoo, or disfigurement of the body that gives the bearer magic powers. Runes represent elemental, divine, philosophic or cosmic forces in the universe and by binding the runic symbol to his body, the mage aligns himself with that force and taps into it. Runic magic does require use of the hands and invocation of a word of power, but not material components, study or memorization.

So to gain magic power, a mage will travel to a rune site which is usually a hidden, remote and dangerous location and bind the rune. Binding a rune usually requires some sort of trial or test. Practitioners of the Hand of Lightning lie flat on a mountaintop, hold what amounts to a lightning rod to their bare chests and wait to be struck. If they live, they receive a lightning shaped scar on their chest and can now cast lightning spells. Priestesses of Aestra show their faith by drowning themselves and then rising from the water with the sea goddess' rune on their backs. Mages who want to bind The Blizzard have to trick, bargain with, or coerce the elemental spirit who holds the rune to give it to them.

In this case, Leopold has collected some of the Spider Queen's silk. To bind the rune, he has to sew the silk into an hourglass pattern on his abdomen. To succeed in this task, he needs to make a willpower test as well as a dexterity test. If he fails at either of these tests, he does not get the rune and in fact, can never do so.

Mechanically, runes are spell lists with 12-20 spells in them (the system does include rules for modifying spells and some improvisational spellcasting). Certain runes have bonuses and penalties that are always applied to their practitioners. Leo's spider rune will cause him to take 1 hit point of damage whenever any spider is killed in his presence.

I have to catch up on this log... but for now it is back to work.

Session Twelve (in which the party travels to Ismoth and runs into Nathan's past)

The group rejected an offer of land and commission in the army of Fort Talon and instead have chosen to head north so that Nathan can revisit the ice spirit from which he bound The Blizzard and hopefully make that rune more powerful. They talk to Doc Mortenson before they go and agree to help settle Angus' estate by taking a shipment to Ismoth and some personal effects to the Borakki lands (far north of Bostonia, but largely on the way to Nathan's rune site). Everyone takes care of some administrative business and then the party acquires a couple of mules and a cart and heads north along the road to the city of Ismoth.

Ismoth is a port town of ~35,000 people. It is the capital of Baron Terzani's lands and is a seat of learning and scholarship with a university and two libraries. It is the home of numerous mages and alchemists as well as sages and scholars of theology and ancient times.

The PCs arrive in the early evening and Nathan leads them to a nice inn/gambling establishment on the far end of the port district. On the way, Ssrog hails a group of low cobrat sailors who are busy repairing their vessel after damaging it on a reef. The sailors chat with Ssrog and since the captain has forbid them to leave until repairs are complete, they bid the pit fighter to buy them some rum.

Then the PCs head onto the Trade Road to find the weapon shop at which to deliver the shipment. They find the store just as the owner, Dawson, is locking his doors for the night. The group delivers the goods and talks to Dawson briefly about Angus' death. It seems that Dawson is primarily a maker of tools and nautical supplies and had a deal with Angus to sell his weapons and armor. The group gets directions to a bar in the Slums called Jenny's to get Ssrog's rum.

Jenny's is a crowded, smelly bar in the basement of an otherwise condemned building in the slums of Ismoth. About two hundred people are there shouting, drinking and gambling. The group finds the proprietor, Jenny, and negotiates a price for several barrels of rum. They pull the cart around the back of the place, get loaded with the rum casks and Ssrog returns to his cobrat brethren while the rest of the group retires to their casino for the night.

During the night, Nathan wakes up, but is paralyzed – unable to move or speak. By the candlelight in his room, he can see the shadowy figure of a woman. This is Natasha Blackwell, the daughter of the man who enslaved Nathan in his background story. Nathan killed her father and Natasha has vowed revenge. Yet, even though she now has Nathan helpless, she says she won't kill him. See, Natasha has greatly profited from the death of her father, and now finds herself in a situation where she needs Nathan's help. She is willing to give Nathan an artifact in return and forget her vendetta against him. She places an envelope on the bed table and leaves. Nathan sleeps. The next morning, he finds directions to a tea house in Ismoth and a suggestion to meet Natasha there in the afternoon.

Thief's Candle

The material component of this spell is a candle made from the severed hand of a thief. To cast the spell, the mage whispers a magic phrase while lighting the candle. The candle burns for 30 minutes. While it is burning, it affects any sleeping person upon whom its light falls. Affected will sleep as normal, but if they awaken, they will be paralyzed with fear and unable to move or see anything more than shadowy, blurry forms.

There is no saving throw unless the victim sees the shadowy form move close to him and perform a threatening act. In that case, the victim is permitted to make a WIL or SPI save vs. DL 15 to break the spell and move to defend himself.

Nathan goes to the Tea House to talk to Natasha and the group follows to make sure he is safe. Nathan and his hunter meet and she explains her situation. Natasha, like Nathan and her late father wears the Rune of the Beast – the rune site for which is on a mist-shrouded island relatively close to Ismoth. This site is the object of constant battle between the two factions of the rune's practitioners, the demon hunters and the demon worshippers.

Natasha needs a way to turn this battle in her favor and she thinks she found an artifact that will allow her to do so. Somewhere nearby lies a demon, buried and immobilized by a magical sword thrust into its gut. Before his death, Natasha's father was researching the sword because he felt it had power over demon-kind and by association, the mages with the Rune of the Beast. Natasha wants to obtain this sword.

Unfortunately, her father is dead and took with him the location of the sword. Natasha tried to summon her father's spirit, but the ritual failed. She wants to try the spell again, but with a single change. Whereas previously, she used a miniscule trace of her father's blood, she has since determined that "blood" is a metaphor in this case referring to the "blood on the hands of my killer". She needs Nathan's hands to complete the spell.

Which you would think might be a deal breaker...

Natasha ensures Nathan that she can regrow his hands with the use of a potion and that once she takes the sword, and awakens the demon, that she can use magic to rebury the beast before it can kill everyone involved. For his help, Natasha will split her father's spirit, trap it into two spirit iron necklaces and give one to Nathan. The necklace will boost his magical abilities (give a +2 to all magic skill rolls).

Nathan talks to the group about the deal, but is evasive and unclear as to the nature of the risks and rewards. The group decides to do a little research before deciding either way. Nathan and Trevor head to the library and university and start their search. They learn the following:

•   Years ago, a rich merchant named Edmund Berg lived in a huge house on a cliff east of Ismoth.
•   He was married to a notorious pirate named Aldora (a.k.a The Butcher). She consorted with demons and was given a gift from each of The Five. (In Bostonia, there are only five true demons. Their minions and children are called spawn by scholars, but are known as demons to laypeople.)
•   The Bergs were supposedly conducting demonic rituals from their house and cursing the nearby village in the process.
•   At some point, the Berg House was assaulted by a demon hunter named Zahn and a host of templars of the Bostonian Church. The result of the battle was the house falling into the sea and all of the combatants vanishing mysteriously.
•   Zahn was the last known holder of First Blood, a powerful sword forged during the War of Unification. The known powers of First Blood are the fact that in any battle in which it is drawn,  is moves to parry the first attack that would have otherwise hit its wielder and if it is used to impale a creature of demonic origin, it will immobilize it for as long as it is left.

What follows is an entertaining discussion of whether the party should go along with Natasha to get the sword, only to betray her, whether they should flee, whether they should tell the Church, whether it is possible to deal with the demon held immobilized by the sword... and the night ends with that.

1. Though Leo has gotten his spider silk, he still has to sew it into his abdomen to bind the Widow Weave rune. To do this, he has to make a willpower test and then a dexterity test. His willpower is not very high, but Nathan has a spell with which he can boost Leo's score. Also, there are herbs that can help. Leo has decided to wait until he can get his best possible chance to successfully bind the rune.

2. Though I hate to butt into PC discussions, I did feel the need to jump in with a reminder that the group did not HAVE to take this particular plot hook. As they were talking, it seemed to me that the tone of the discussion was, "Well here is this thing most of us are not comfortable doing, but the GM has laid it out there, so he must intend for us to do it."

Though I am by no means cool enough to be a true "sandbox" GM, I do my best to have 3 or 4 things going on that could turn into adventure opportunities. Not every rumor, or proposition that is uttered at the table is meant to be pursued.

Heck, I was sort of hoping they would take the "land and commission" at Fort Talon.

Session Thirteen (where the party decides to flee Ismoth)

The evening starts with the decision to leave Ismoth and not deal with Natasha. Trevor and Urzeph head to the docks to book passage on a ship. As luck would have it, a borakki ship named the Star of Bor is leaving for points north the next morning. The PCs negotiate a fee of 300p for passage to Jherod. As the two leave the boat, Trevor realizes they are being followed.

Nathan casts his Detect Scrying spell and determines that someone is watching him. He spends the day with Ssrog for protection.

Once he is alone, Leopold heads to the main Church and manages to gain an audience with Bishop Agon. Leo tells Agon some of the story – mainly that he thinks that First Blood is holding a demon is stasis somewhere nearby and that Natasha Blackwell is looking for the legendary sword. He leaves out Nathan's involvement and the part about the Rune of the Beast. The bishop is unconvinced, but promises to look into the matter and intimates that he might assign some Templars the task of seeking First Blood.

The group prepares to leave town, but is wary of being attacked by Natasha and her crew. Ssrog insists that before they leave, they revisit his cobrat sailor friends who are still in port. The group reluctantly agrees and heads to Jenny's to buy some rum.

While at Jenny's the group is set upon by a group of thugs led by a net-wielding alchemist. During the battle, Urzeph engages the alchemist. The alchemist tries to trap the borakki in his net to no avail. The alchemist then tosses a gas potion, but the borakki is unaffected due to the fact that he is from a warrior order that holds his breath while fighting (of course, the alchemist could not know this).

The rest of the thugs charge the bar in an attempt to get to Nathan. Leo and Ssrog manage to stop most of the thugs, but two of them manage to dive over the bar and grapple the mage (whose spells are ruined). A brief struggle ensues in which one of the thugs cracks a cask of ale over Nathan's head and carries him away.

Ssorg chases the thug out of the back and into the alleys of Ismoth's slum. The cobrat manages to catch the thug just as he dumps Nathan into a basement door. Ssrog leaps into the basement and chases off the two thugs there, one of them armed with a meat cleaver presumably to take Nathan's hands.

After the fight, the group collects their rum and heads to the cobrat ship. Ssrog gives a keg to the crew, and the rest he shares with the bosun and the captain, Hisseth. The group remains on the cobrat ship for the rest of the night and at dawn, they head to the Star of Bor and set sail for Boston.

Boston is a large port town of about 60,000 people. It is a maze of streets and old buildings packed into a tiny area. The group arrives two days later and Leo immediately heads for a local tavern. The barmaid taps him on the shoulder to ask him what he would like. When he turns to answer her, she drops her tray of food and drink and exclaims, "By the Father!"

And we ended there...