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kingtycoonSevvel – the last town before the sea. Long ago, the heroes of the Ware of White Flame passed through on their way to apotheosis. When the left, they took with them Bahb, the ocean-captain who stuck to them through the travails along the way. Now, a few years past the centenary of their final fateful encounter, the town of Sevvel is all that remains of what was once a burgeoning culture based upon the floating city of angels & the newly arrived contingent of moon-elves as well as the jungle-cities of Malbogia. With all of these advanced civilizations utterly destroyed in the blink of an eye the larger world descended into a sustained period of decline, a period that hasn’t yet reached its nadir. Some yet living recall the heady days of elven space-fleets & angelic cities that floated in the sky, and yet, in Sevvel, these are recalled not so much as true & distant facts but as a dream, discarded in the face of want & danger.
Sevvel itself has seen better days – the canals that feed its sheltered docks are in bad need of dredging – one of the hand-hewn lagoons has even dried up completely, choked with sand. Meanwhile boats are falling out of use as the peoples of the ocean have begun to build a wall in the sea to blockade all intercontinental traffic- no-one knows why. The town’s walls are broken & old & outside them stand many houses, abandoned by the people who have abandoned the town. Outside one of these stands Non(1), a young man with orc features. He’s having a tough time of it, getting into the house which was where he chose to settle in the town. He’s a follower of Sharog, the Mother of Wars, goddess of Hearths & Battles – and the idol of a good portion of Sevvel’s populace. Being intensely hospitable, Non has invited along a few wanderers, met while in town, fetching a pail of water, to join along and enjoy his gumbo, still cooking over the fire. Other passers-by have been attracted to the scene of the young man’s conflict with the door & one among them steps forth, ready to aid. Elwin(2) is a strange elf with strange tools, searching through his pack he finds his frozen quicksilver implements – chilled in their freezing-box. The implements serve well to disengage the bar on the door which comes free, but then clatters across the floor with a terrific racket. The door swings open and everyone steps inside.
Mishka(3), fascinated by furniture, begins settling into the old armchairs while Warill(4) & Gentlee(5) get ready to enjoy some food. At this moment though the cause of the barred door reveals itself, an ugly gray baby dances upon the mantle of the fireplace howling insults. Gideon (6) has been searching around and under the carpet finds a mysterious, otherdimensional hole – from which a baby-fist socks him in the eye. There’s two of these things & they can pull apart reality like curtains, generating portals across space. The one that’s punching through holes has done so from atop the couch that Mishka is sitting on. It’s a quick & nasty melee with these creatures, which sweat great buckets of slick oil upon the floor & when they’re pierced & killed at last by the efforts of Gentlee & Pike(7), ganging up on them in the corner of the house, they burst like balloons & reveal that they’re merely the containers for about a dozen severed hands – which leap up and grapple the poor adventurers – giving serious pinches & merciless cow-bites. The second wave of battle is quickly brought to a close by Gideon’s power-chords and Elwin’s sharpshooting.
Having released the house of this pestilence – which Mishka insists is caused by bad-spirits – Snipes & Humbugs – Non sets about performing the ritualistic cleaning of the house & then solemnizes the soup’s wholesomeness through prayer.
Now the group gets about the amusing business of making one another’s acquaintance – while Warill busies himself shooting rays of fire & ice from his head all to amuse the gathered pack of indigents outside the house. The group banters into the night talking of matters, great & small in the significance of the world & rise in the morning with a few ideas about how they’ll spend their time – possibly pursuing the significance of the fabulously expensive ring they’ve found on one of the disembodied corpse hands, possibly to investigate the lonesome bar of old Bahb – which yet stands, decrepit & failing, open only ocassioanlly, when Rooster, the kenku priest of Franks feels like opening it.
Gideon finds his way into the neighborhood of the 13 mansions of the 13 families of the Malbogian Wzetct family. There he tries to bargain futilely with Kwetch & Kwettle – the scion & patriarch of the richest of the Wzetct respectively. They sit out in the café sipping coffee at all hours & have precious little interest in the sea or it’s goings on – “there are tribes of monsters & men like monsters in the desert who deserve an amount of domination, who need to be controlled.”
Meantime Non, who hates the Malbogians, travels to the Many Hearths of the town’s western end – where the Mothers have their neighborhood, replete with strictly whipped children & aggressive martial training as well as an abundant quantity of gardening & tooth-sucking disapproval. They’re building a fence against the tribal people who live upon the beach, in a manner that the Mothers deem inappropriate & dirty. In particular they detest dirt. The tribalists are happy fisher-folk, some of whom have abandoned crumbling civilization in favor of the easy pleasure of coastal living – while others are the descendants of those who’ve lived in this fashion for time immemorial. They’re having a pretty good time, playing music & jumping over the bonfire. The newly formed group of adventurers join the good times & are pretty pleased by the course of events – until, that is, the party is broken up by a pack of devious, hateful shark-people and their bloodhound cube of evil water. Pursuing the low-key Pike, these beings of hate & teeth are warriors in a secret war being waged under the sea. The Shark-men, vicious & hateful, go down in a hail of arrows & bullets from the combined forces of the group, while poor Warill, trying to bring control over the scene by psychically icing over the water- proves to be too tempting a target for the horrid block of animate water – which consumes him whole & begins to dissolve him, as it has some of the villagers – into a human-shaped cloud of blood & gore. Fortunately Pike has seen this type of thing before & manifests a whip of thorns, a magical jellyfish tentacle, which the Triton uses to yank Warill free from otherwise certain death. In short order Elwin’s shots & the merciless touch of Mishka lay the gelatinous cube low (this was the first time I’ve been able to use the Gelatinous Cube in a game & I was stoked, I even got to use the miniature that you can tuck other minis into).
Pike keeps quiet about the provenance of these vicious hunters and the group convenes at the bar of Gideon’s human father. There, Rooster offers healing but also lamentations. “I really fear that the good times are finally over.” He’s worried that there’ll never be parties in the town again, that they’ll never party as they once did- happy & together. And especially given the state of the boatwright’s works – which are virtually abandoned. He mentions that the leader of the group working out of there hasn’t come back – Renner – an old acquaintance of Non who left home when he got tired of the strict bedtimes of the Hearth-Mothers. Interested in this line of thought, the party decides to follow another lead first- going to Termus Rock where the “Sea Man” is said to shelter.
The group isn’t courageous enough to swim the mile to Termus Rock, but they are clever enough to borrow a dugout canoe from the tribalists – Warill & Pike- who both have swim-speeds help the canoe along & they meet the rock. Gentlee is the best at climbing and finds a nice place to plant his feet on the rock & lower a rope for the others – meanwhile – the Sea Man gecko crawls across the rock, licking his eyes as he goes – and bites Gentlee and continues biting while he holds the rope for the others to climb up. Gideon is first, luckily & he uses his enchanting effervescence to make friends with the Sea Man, who despite being a grotesque mockery of a human draped in starfishes & barnacles – proves to be overly affectionate & weirdly social – probably just lonely. He proves to be both unpleasant & dangerous but doesn’t have much to offer beyond some inexplicable knowledge of the ring they’d found earlier & the nature of the Wzetct family – of which he is apparently a cast off member. They depart abruptly and make for the shore where they circle around an idea of what they should do – resolving in the end to go & find Renner.
The group decides to follow the logging trail into the pine-barrens instantly & doing so, they find Renner. The poor man’s operation has been wrecked by a combination of giant trapdoor spiders & vicious wild boars. The latter of which have treed him & ruined his logging operation by killing the lone ox in the town. Proving their strength & valor, Gentlee & Non drag the cart of fallen logs back to the town & are deemed heroic by Rooster for at least saving Renner & keeping the town alive – just a bit longer by doing so.
On their way home from the bar, by the light of the 2 waxing gibbous moons – they see in the dried out remnant of the sand-filled canal, the Sand-Pit-Man. Non describes this as a local bogeyman legend – and they determine that investigating is of the utmost importance- only to discover that merely meeting his invisible gaze is sufficient to cause their hearts to run with ice, their souls to seek departure – they sand pit man is a terrible monster & they run home, rather than face it.
At home they resolve to set a watch for the Sand-Pit-Man but he seems too cagey & familiar with their house to be deterred by mere watch-keeping. In the night he enters the house, and fiddles with the possessions of the group – pilfering one of Warill’s scrolls from his puzzle-pack.
On the morrow Gideon decides to try his luck again with the Wzetcts and meets with them to try and press them for information & to offer a bit of his own. He gets the distinct impression that they’re winning at a game that he doesn’t even know he’s playing with them, they suggest that if he wants to find a new ox for poor Renner that he’ll have to do a favor for them – something up in the desert. He resolves to do so & decides he’ll find a milk cow for the Hearth Mothers besides.
All the while the rest of the group is at old Bahb’s bar – where they witness an attack on the boats by a terrible weed-covered beast from deep under the waves. Elwin makes short work of it with his Lightning Cannon & after tepidly pondering what the thing could be Warill jumps into the water to investigate – discovering that it’s a robotic dinosaur of some kind – ancient & covered in corals & seaweed (Warill’s player had previously played a character who had a mechanical dinosaur that sank to the bottom of the ocean – so this was a fun callback).
Having defeated the horrible creature and having saved the boats from further harm the party is slapped high-fives all around by Rooster who declares that he can just see the good times, off at the edge of perception, just getting ready to return.
I modified the starting equipment that D&D gives the PCs using the inimitable Book of Ten Trillion Things — here's what they all got.
(1) Non the half orc priest - Played by Julie:Regimental Bone-Enhanced Chainmail (of the orc tribes – it indicates rank by the number of skulls)
Dolorous Mace – A heavy hunk of iron with the cursed names of many foes scribed upon it in acid
Ghastly osseous bow – a short-bow fashioned from the bones of the enemies of the mothers & laminated in their viscera, it is hollow & functions as a bassoon as well.
Glorious Toy Pony – you have this toy horse that was your childhood toy & which you are gifted by your family & which functions as your holy symbol
Long Tooth Sash – a bag containing the teeth of those who’ve been killed by your family members which you carry.
Great Jeweled Boots – a set of heavy hobnail boots with rough obsidian shards worked into the tread
Resolute Granite Truncheon – A heavy club made of polished granite, carved into the shape of a fist
Colorful Mithril Kit – Your priest’s pack was bestowed as a gift by Thibodoau & it shines like an oil rainbow under sunlight, a light metal box with heavy straps for wearing as a pack.
Igneous Shield – Your shield is metal fitted to a dense substrate of carved basalt, it’s heavy & intensely durable.
Trinket: Silent Gunmetal Carapace – this is a heavy metal beetle shell that is quiet, now, but you’ve heard it whispering from time to time.
Bonus Item - Terrible Ash Cloak – Woven of the ash & smoke of the genocides committed against your people in ancient times, this cloak billows in the wind & its shapes sometimes resolve into the anguished faces of the prematurely dead. It’s a heavy gray color & useful for hiding in smoke & fog.
(2) Elwin the High Elf Artificer Played by Kenny
Wonderful Porcelain Hatchet – What a discovery! You wish you could take credit but it was a colleague of yours whose proprietary glaze allows ceramics to become as hard & sharp as steel. This hatchet is blue & white & depicts scenes of frolicking people in an ancient age.
A Timeworn Titanium Hammer – this light hammer is a luminous white color & the crystalline structure of the titanium it’s comprised of is vaguely transparent in strong lighting. It’s seen heavy, steady use for generations now & is a bona-fide relic of your people’s time upon the moon & the earlier period that preceded that even.
Technological Silicon Searching Bow – The TSSB is the top of the line in contemporary crossbow technology – with a quartz crystal body & extendable short-range vision magnification scope, it makes sure that you’ll get the drop on those who need to be stuck with an arrow or two.
Blue Knights Cadmium Breakaway Brigandine – A long leather coat fitted with numerous blue-tinted metal tiles for extra protection. This coat functions as either scale mail – or you can remove the sleeves & end up with studded leather armor per your preference, the whole ensemble has glazed depictions of different knights of olde jousting & so on enameled into the cadmium steel plates.
A devious operator’s quicksilver ice – The famous locksmith XXXXX never revealed his name, but when you found his toolkit you immediately grasped his method. The box has a preternatural chill on its interior which holds the quicksilver instruments within to form – when operating outside the deep cold, they deform & flow like liquid so that they take the shape of a lock’s interior – a handy kit, for thieves.
Petrified National Suede Bag – issued by the military authority to soldiers of underground campaigns – this bit of old war surplus was found crystalized on the body of a fallen soldier deep underground. The contents are intact & it’s got a snappy look about it – official & rimmed in crystal, it still contains all that you’d need to adventure underground.
Bonus Item – Knit Jellies – created by your rival, an alchemist of great distinction, this is a glass jar which contains four flavors of preserves all woven together in a brilliant & regular spiral pattern. How the confections were placed so that they, liquid as they are, still retain the shape of a braid is an infuriating personal mystery.
(3)Mishka — the Shifter Cleric of Elements Played by Brittany
An Argyle Mace – It’s made of a variety of woods woven into a pattern & cured by fire & smoke to iron-hardness. The mace can be used as a torch, at need, and it floats in water.
Spider Dance Geometries Armor – Through careful observation of spiders & their movements & webs a suit of clothing has been fashioned that resists damage & provides protection, it’s comprised of spider-silk, splints of metal & iron nails as well as geometrically arranged lengths of chain. The suit functions as Scale or chain or leather armor, per your preference.
Veteran’s Crossbow – a light crossbow that was used extensively in war & peace, it’s got a series of hash marks carved into its stock & whomever you got it from, or whomever used it previously was evidently a stone-killer because it’s got a lock of notches & it’s been slightly modified with emblems from various battle campaigns.
Iguana-Skin Shield – Your shield is made of stretched iguana hides on a wooden frame, the dorsal spines all point outward & the shield is fringed with iguana tails – it’s tough & intimidating.
Hideous Lens – This is a bit of naturally occurring glass that lenses the light so that when you look through it, you see dramatically altered, funhouse versions of things, you’ve decided that this is a true-vision of the things & people you see, and you use it as a holy symbol.
Magnetic Claw - it's a large animal claw, big enough to be worn as a backpack. For some reason it's magnetic & you can use it to carry metallic items, and it's 7 claws can be used as hooks to hold non-metallic things- those items comprising your priest's or explorer's pack.
Bonus Item – Bag of obsidian arrowheads – from a very ancient culture, you’ve got a woven grass bag full of these arrowheads, they’re long & slender – for hunting.
(4) Warril — the Elf Mystic - Played by Mike
Exacting Mace of Measure – The mace is a tapered rod of particularly dense wood that has had its surface etched with a variety of measures & calculations of measure, it’s exactly 1-meter long.
Spiny Silk Wrap – A four-meter length of silk that’s been woven with briars on one side, by wrapping it carefully around you in a meditative pattern it provides protection – qualifying as studded leather armor. It’s unadorned besides the prickers & is as of now, a dirty white.
Cultured Light Crossbow – by careful manipulation over the years you managed to grow a tree into the proper shape to function as a crossbow, it’s one continuous piece of wood with no mechanical parts & it took a lot of effort to make.
The Infinite Box of Infinitesimal Parts – a great & enduring puzzle, the infinite box is a backpack sized wedge of seemingly solid material, almost like an insect’s chitin. When you perform the operations of the puzzle while meditating the box’s pieces & components can be assembled into a variety of useful objects (it functions as an explorer’s pack)
The Hideous Kabbalistic Coat – You’ve got a coat which is a map of the soul, it is lines of force & consciousness linked to sources of emotion & of mind, it’s mightily clashing & its cut is too slim & it is dotted with glass jewels, partly this coat is the reason your magical practices are so disliked back home. It gives you a deep understanding of your own spiritual state, however.
(5) Gentlee the Half Orc Paladin — Played by EJKiller’s Chromed Chopper - This is a weapon, not a bunch of nonsense. It’s a steel, chromed axe/sword – a heavy blade on a big handle that’s useful for killing things. It’s got a high shine to it & flashing it at someone lets them know you are not messing around. It’s purely an offensive weapon that can be statted as a greatsword or greataxe
Antediluvian Axe – this is a hatchet older than the stone age, it’s made of an irreproducible alloy that holds an edge unlike any other axe you’ve found. It’s a useful tool & a handy weapon besides.
Assymetrical Aluminum Coat – This coat of chain links has only one sleeve & falls short on one thigh – it’s fashioned in a way to make swinging a weapon easier & it has a dashing look about it. It’s made of a tremendously rare material, both light & tough – much like your hatchet. You found it in the long abandoned tomb of the king of some tribe of unknown creatures deep in the desert.
Sharktooth Ivory Necklace – a necklace made of shark’s teeth, triangular bits of narwhal ivory. It’s a potent symbol of your religious convictions (whatever they are).
Irreplaceable Hexagonal Pack – your explorer’s pack was harvested from the tomb of the unknown creatures, it’s a hexagonal box with several compartments, like a tacklebox. Sometimes you open up compartment you never noticed before and find something new.
Bonus item – Satisfactory Metal Strapped Boots – From the tomb of unknown creatures you found these boots – you took two from a set of four – and when you wear them you stand an inch or two taller, the metal straps that hold them tight to your calves & feet are pleasantly tight & the boots themselves are tough, light & impossibly durable.
(6)Gideon — the Half Elf Bard — Played by Nikk
Tasteful Narrow Academic Sword – A pearl handled longsword from the academic school of fencing (as opposed to the different warrior cults of swordsmanship in the elf homelands. It’s a cut & thrust weapon of high fashion.
Hide Suit of the Governor Deer – Some of the talking deer of the forests are especially unpleasant, one among these was Governor Deer – who your father slew in a gardening dispute. They made a suit of leather from its hide.
Bird-Whistle-Dagger – You knew you weren’t cut out for smithing or crafts when you made this thing – it’s a bird-shaped dagger that whistles when thrown, but it’s pretty unfortunate in its shape & so on, ugly, if you like, but hey – it’s a memento of your happy childhood where you were allowed to try new things.
The Immortal – your lute, it’s got polished nickel fittings & is made of a finely polished & stained black wood painted over with an airbrush effect that resembles, what you assume, the universe looks like to a god. Also the arms are subtly carved to resemble naked ladies.
An old man’s knapsack – you have the old entertainer’s backpack, he has embroidered the names of people and places he saw on his journey before that fateful evening at the crossroads where he gave you his magnificent lute & taught you the secret of how to play it. Somewhere in the night, the Entertainer had his last performance, and when you woke you found his body & took his pack for your own, to carry on his legacy.
The Impossible Gilded Hat – It’s a cool cloth-of-gold top hat with a long bandana of red silk tied to it. When you draw from the hat you can usually find some memento of a past show or performance tucked up inside, usually this is something simple – like a cigar & once a harmonica, but often, it’s got lady’s underpants in it too.
(7) Pike - the Triton Priest of Soot — Played by Agatha
Electrum Elemental Stick – This rod of electrum is elementally charged & attracts metals & stones to it, they hold fast, fusing to the rod. It’s got an interesting chaotic appearance. You use it as a mace.
Dunkleosteus Armor – a suit armor made of the terrible fish’s scales, it has an imposing helmet made of the skull of the monster.
Majestic Horn Cestus – This is a guard that covers your whole arm – it’s fashioned from flowing metal infused with the horns of some aquatic monsters. It can be used as a weapon.
Clamshell Sack – This is a messenger bag made of a large clamshell fitted with flowing liquid iron. This serves as your priest’s pack & contains all of your religious materials.
Endless Bright Disc – This is a petrified skeleton of a sand dollar, it’s been infused with the liquified metals that your people use so that it’s quite hard & protective and works as a shield. The metal infusion has made the thing somehow, alive, so that it grows back from damage & shows no marks, it shines brightly, reflecting all light.
Carving of a Rascal – A coral carving of a nondescript, generic animal, a kind of proto-mammal, it serves as your holy symbol.
Bonus Item – Manganese Heart – your heart itself has been infused with the liquid metals that your people have mastered the use of, it is durable & firm & beats with a ferocious intensity.
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Date: 2018-02-01 09:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-02-01 09:24 am (UTC)