Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is LIVE! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
The Mask of Mask (updated 01/21/2023)
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Salmakia" data-source="post: 8838122" data-attributes="member: 7038731"><p><strong><u>2. Omens and Dreams</u></strong></p><p>Callista led them along the riverbank to their camp, a small collection of tents two hours north of Ekrido, masked from the road by an overgrown ridge. Burny attempted to interrogate her along the way, but she hushed him quite forcefully and said they all needed to be on their guard until they were safely away from the city.</p><p> </p><p>Once they were seated around a warm fire in one of the tents, however, she proved to be very amenable to answering their questions. They had, after all, proven willing to abandon their honorable life in Ekrido for the thought of “doing the right thing” and helping to feed hundreds of starving people. Or, at least, most of them had. Burny was still dubious as to whether he’d made the right decision, and once Callista opened the floor for questions he leapt right into action.</p><p> </p><p>Callista answered everything patiently, explaining how, while Ekrido luxuriated in the bubble provided by the Baron’s farm, much of the rest of the world was suffering from crippling famine and drought. Although there were those in Ekrido who knew of this truth, the ruling nobles were quick to silence anyone who spoke out too loudly which led to most of the public living in blissful ignorance of their neighbors’ strife.</p><p></p><p>None of the party were too happy about this revelation, and Veu, in particular, was furious about the fact that information had been kept from her. Growing up in an enormous library, she was raised to believe that information should be freely available to any who look for it, and the fact that something so huge was happening just beyond the corners of her awareness pissed her off to no end.</p><p> </p><p>Callista also expressed concern that the Baron was up to something nefarious. From a political standpoint it would make more sense for him to distribute the food, thus gaining political allies. By hoarding the food he was turning Ekrido from a cultural capital into a tyrant city.</p><p></p><p>Burny asked how she and her ragtag band intended on unseating the Baron – one of the most influential nobles in the city, and she responded that, for the moment, they had to focus on simply stealing enough to feed the people of Onoln (their home, one town to the north of Ekrido). However, if the party should be inclined to assist them then perhaps they did have a chance of discovering his treachery... and if they publicly discredited the Baron then he wouldn’t be able to follow through on his threat of barring them from good society in Ekrido for abandoning their post...</p><p> </p><p>The players put a pin in that and continued with their questions, curious as to how Callista had been able to so successfully sneak into the Baron’s storehouses to begin with. That’s when Callista explained what would perhaps turn into the biggest mystery of the session: when first they came to Ekrido intent upon getting some food for the people of Onoln, an elvish druid named Hymnara Ebi met them on the road and offered to aid them. Naturally they were suspicious, but she proved trustworthy and it was she who cast <em>Pass Without Trace </em>upon them, allowing them to sneak past the guards. Now, every time they are near the city, Hymnara somehow knows they are coming, meets them, and hides their passage. They have come to view it simply as a gift from the gods.</p><p> </p><p>Metis, as a druid herself, had some passing knowledge of Hymnara, and was able to share that the woman operated a small pineapple farm in the south of the city (although the Baron had a monopoly on basic necessities such as meat, grain, and dairy, a number of small specialty farmers were still necessary to fill in the gaps). She related that the woman seemed to have no interest in anything but her farm, and that it was uncharacteristic of her to involve herself in a political situation like this.</p><p> </p><p>At this point the group decided to take a long rest, and Callista offered them one of the tents to sleep in. Ewan, however, hung back to speak with his mother privately. He related to her that, several weeks prior, his father Tavish had died, a fact which she had not known. He also informed her that there were signs of necromancy around their homestead in the woods and asked for her help in rooting out this evil.</p><p></p><p>Callista was quite subdued at the news of her husband’s death, and it suddenly registered for Ewan that she had called Tavish her “husband.” (the backstory Ewan’s player provided me was that Tavish and Callista had had a simple fling, and that Callista had left Tavish to care for their child in his isolated homestead while she went back out into the world. I decided to complicate matters somewhat...)</p><p> </p><p>Ewan told Callista what Tavish had told him of his upbringing (namely, the backstory the player had given me), and then Callista related her version of the tale:</p><p> </p><p><em>My father was a merchant named Nidaar Rowland, who was one of the chief suppliers to the frontier town of Onoln. Growing up travelling with him felt like an adventure – we were always on the move – and he may have been a little lax at encouraging my restless spirit. Tavish was one of my father’s customers. Oil and salt, that’s all he ever bought. I thought he was a man of mystery, and more than once tried to engage him in conversation – perhaps slightly flirtatiously – but he always evaded my inquiries. After years of this, seeing him not more than once every several months, I decided to follow him home. I bought a charm from a local druid that hid my steps from his eyes, and I trailed him. Imagine my surprise when he left the town and began hiking up into the mountains! Anyone should have known that to wander into the mountains alone is suicide, and yet he walked on fearlessly. Well, long story short, the charm hid me from human eyes, but not from the eyes of the wild. And whatever mysterious force protected Tavish from the dangers of the forest certainly didn’t shield me. He saved my life and took me back to his house, the same house where you were born. I decided to stay, and he didn’t object. My father was saddened to see me leave, but he was a devout follower of Waukeen, and the way of Waukeen has always been to take what comes. At any rate, I was twenty six at the time and he had probably known for some time that this day was coming.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>In spite of the dangers surrounding us in the wild mountains, Tavish seemed to live in a bubble. When I asked him why the beasts of the forest never encroached upon us, he always deflected, saying that his family always had a way with wild things. A year later, I discovered I was pregnant, and in due course you were born.</em></p><p> </p><p><em>That’s when the strangeness began. Tavish, who had always been withdrawn, retreated entirely from me. For weeks on end he would lock himself in his room or go out wandering in the forest. Once I heard him through the door, almost begging. “Please,” he said, “don’t let it start again. I was meant to be the last. Not my child. Please, not my child.” I got scared. Scared for myself and scared for you. Finally I had enough, and tried to secret you away in the dead of night. He caught us just on the border of our property. I had never seen Tavish angry before. He took you and threw me out, and I was thrust suddenly back into the tumult of the world.</em></p><p> </p><p>Naturally, this account left both Ewan and the player with a lot to think about, and Ewan joined the rest of the party for a long rest.</p><p></p><p>When they awoke in the morning they decided that the best course of action was to go see the druid Hymnara, as her piece of the story was the only thing that seemed wildly out of place. How could she, a relatively low-level druid, possibly know when and where the bandits would show up? They ventured back into Ekrido, doing their best to remain inconspicuous lest the Baron already be spreading slander about them, and located Hymanra’s farm with no trouble.</p><p> </p><p>Upon knocking at the door they were greeted by an elderly human woman – Hymnara’s housekeeper of sorts – who informed them that Hymnara was out back tending to the pineapples. Rounding the cottage they saw the elf druid, walking with the poise and grace peculiar to elves, and watering her pineapples. (I’ll also note that Burny had cast <em>Detect Magic</em>, and didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary, either around her cottage or on Hymnara herself)</p><p> </p><p>Without even turning around, she hailed them and welcomed them to her farm. The party didn’t waste time beating around the bush, asking immediately how she knew when Callista’s group was coming. Hymnara, who came across as entirely guileless even in the face of the many Insight checks rolled against her, told them that everything came to her in visions. When the famines started several months back, even though news about them was kept hushed, she saw images of a masked figure rampaging through fields and slaughtering livestock. Then, one day, she left Ekrido and began walking north on a hunch, and that is when she came upon Callista’s group. Now, each time they are near, a similar hunch guides her to them.</p><p> </p><p>She is convinced that the visions are from Chauntea, the goddess of agriculture, farms, and the earth, who herself has been grievously injured by these famines, being the very embodiment of the crops that are dying. </p><p></p><p>Althea notes that these visions align well with what they’ve been told by the elders and shamans in the various outlying tribes they’ve visited about a shadow that is coming to the world. The rest of the party is less convinced, as direct visions and compulsions from the gods are, in this world, nearly unheard of. They even question whether it could be some sort of high-level magical compulsion, although that runs contrary to the moral fiber of their society.</p><p> </p><p>(in this world there are some Moral Codes of Magic, and compulsion is strictly against those codes. “Immoral Magic” still exists and it is possible to cast spells such as <em>Geas</em>, but there is such a strong social taboo against it that most people would feel queasy even thinking about doing such a thing. Also against the Moral Codes are reviving the deceased, magical creation of mundane items that craftspeople toil hard to build [i.e. using <em>Fabricate </em>to make a bridge instead of letting a bridge-builder make it], and the casting of <em>Counterspell</em>. That last is a special provision by Azuth, the goddess of wizards, so that none may tamper with the experiments of her devotees).</p><p> </p><p>Burny in particular is doing logical contortions to try and decipher what precisely is going on with Hymnara, and ends up in a rather philosophical debate that went something like this:</p><p> </p><p>Burny: I’m going to figure out what is going on here.</p><p>Hymnara: You move so fast, searching for answers everywhere, when really, if you stopped and looked around for long enough, you’d realize that the answers have always been right in front of you.</p><p>Burny: I know the answers are in front of me, I just have to find them.</p><p>Hymnara: No, they will come to you.</p><p>Burny: What, you think the secrets of the cosmos are just going to be presented to me as a gift?</p><p><em>(Hymnara reaches down to dig up a pineapple from the dirt, dusts it off, and hands it to Burny as a gift.)</em></p><p>Hymnara: Indeed.</p><p> </p><p>The party left soon after that, although I will also note that Hymnara took a special interest in Metis and offered to teach her some of the history and rituals of the druids that she would be unable to learn without the aid of an elder. Metis said she'd consider it.</p><p> </p><p>Burny, still intent on discovering answers, decides to do some additional research on the nature and history of visions from the gods. The best place to research would be The Labyrinth, Veu’s home and the largest library on the plane, but it’s a 10-day journey from Ekrido and they don’t have enough time to get there and back before the Baron publicly rips them to shreds for abandoning their post and letting thieves get away with his stores.</p><p> </p><p>So they decide on the second best option, Laboratory X, Burny’s own home which is essentially a mage academy/research institution/temple to Azuth in Ekrido. It has quite a substantial library, and they hope that there will be something useful to them. They arrive at Laboratory X, and one of the scribes at the door informs Burny that his mother is searching for him, and advises him to avoid the north wing if he doesn’t want to face her. Burny audibly groans at this news.</p><p> </p><p>The party moves stealthily on to the library, where Burny, who knows the stacks quite well, finds a number of books that look like they might be useful. He brings them to the librarian, an old gnome named Randolph, who glares at Burny, makes him promise that he won’t incinerate these as he did with the last rare book he checked out, and reminds him that he still owes 150gp as payment for that mishap.</p><p></p><p>Metis, meanwhile, has gone off on her own looking for something in the stacks, but, unable to find it, returns to ask Burny if he can find her a volume on code-breaking. The party is quite curious at this, as Metis’ player hadn’t shared her backstory with any of the others, but Burny eventually agrees to find her the book she seeks.</p><p> </p><p>No sooner does he find it, however, then he hears a voice calling “Mortimer! Mortimer, I thought I heard your voice!” He curses abundantly but quietly and mutters about how he cannot deal with his mother at the moment. He makes his way back to Randolph and attempts to check out the book on codes, only to have Randolph shout that Burny is at the checkout counter. Cursing all the more, Burny leaves the book and dashes down the hall, the rest of the party following and laughing that they now know his given name to be “Mortimer.” As they dash out the entrance, they see one of the scribes at the door sigh and surreptitiously slip a gold piece to the other, who smiles smugly at having won his wager.</p><p> </p><p>If they weren’t already puzzled enough, upon leaving the city gates they find that they have all come under the effects of the <em>Pass Without Trace </em>spell, although Hymnara is nowhere in sight.</p><p> </p><p>To wrap up the session, they arrived back at Callista’s camp, searched through the books, and learned that the last recorded time that people had received such overt visions and compulsions from the gods was when Azuth was trying to make <em>Counterspell </em>an immoral magical act. Then the gods had acted through their proxies on the Material Plane in addition to their conflicts across the Outer Realms, sending visions and omens to priests in an attempt to sway popular support to their cause.</p><p> </p><p>At this point they know that something big is going on, whether it’s the gods themselves or some sort of high-level taboo compulsion magic, and they agree to help Callista infiltrate the Baron’s house to see if they can unravel at least a part of the puzzle: why is he hoarding all that food, and how is it that his farm is untouched while all the nearby cities are struck with famine?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Salmakia, post: 8838122, member: 7038731"] [B][U]2. Omens and Dreams[/U][/B] Callista led them along the riverbank to their camp, a small collection of tents two hours north of Ekrido, masked from the road by an overgrown ridge. Burny attempted to interrogate her along the way, but she hushed him quite forcefully and said they all needed to be on their guard until they were safely away from the city. Once they were seated around a warm fire in one of the tents, however, she proved to be very amenable to answering their questions. They had, after all, proven willing to abandon their honorable life in Ekrido for the thought of “doing the right thing” and helping to feed hundreds of starving people. Or, at least, most of them had. Burny was still dubious as to whether he’d made the right decision, and once Callista opened the floor for questions he leapt right into action. Callista answered everything patiently, explaining how, while Ekrido luxuriated in the bubble provided by the Baron’s farm, much of the rest of the world was suffering from crippling famine and drought. Although there were those in Ekrido who knew of this truth, the ruling nobles were quick to silence anyone who spoke out too loudly which led to most of the public living in blissful ignorance of their neighbors’ strife. None of the party were too happy about this revelation, and Veu, in particular, was furious about the fact that information had been kept from her. Growing up in an enormous library, she was raised to believe that information should be freely available to any who look for it, and the fact that something so huge was happening just beyond the corners of her awareness pissed her off to no end. Callista also expressed concern that the Baron was up to something nefarious. From a political standpoint it would make more sense for him to distribute the food, thus gaining political allies. By hoarding the food he was turning Ekrido from a cultural capital into a tyrant city. Burny asked how she and her ragtag band intended on unseating the Baron – one of the most influential nobles in the city, and she responded that, for the moment, they had to focus on simply stealing enough to feed the people of Onoln (their home, one town to the north of Ekrido). However, if the party should be inclined to assist them then perhaps they did have a chance of discovering his treachery... and if they publicly discredited the Baron then he wouldn’t be able to follow through on his threat of barring them from good society in Ekrido for abandoning their post... The players put a pin in that and continued with their questions, curious as to how Callista had been able to so successfully sneak into the Baron’s storehouses to begin with. That’s when Callista explained what would perhaps turn into the biggest mystery of the session: when first they came to Ekrido intent upon getting some food for the people of Onoln, an elvish druid named Hymnara Ebi met them on the road and offered to aid them. Naturally they were suspicious, but she proved trustworthy and it was she who cast [I]Pass Without Trace [/I]upon them, allowing them to sneak past the guards. Now, every time they are near the city, Hymnara somehow knows they are coming, meets them, and hides their passage. They have come to view it simply as a gift from the gods. Metis, as a druid herself, had some passing knowledge of Hymnara, and was able to share that the woman operated a small pineapple farm in the south of the city (although the Baron had a monopoly on basic necessities such as meat, grain, and dairy, a number of small specialty farmers were still necessary to fill in the gaps). She related that the woman seemed to have no interest in anything but her farm, and that it was uncharacteristic of her to involve herself in a political situation like this. At this point the group decided to take a long rest, and Callista offered them one of the tents to sleep in. Ewan, however, hung back to speak with his mother privately. He related to her that, several weeks prior, his father Tavish had died, a fact which she had not known. He also informed her that there were signs of necromancy around their homestead in the woods and asked for her help in rooting out this evil. Callista was quite subdued at the news of her husband’s death, and it suddenly registered for Ewan that she had called Tavish her “husband.” (the backstory Ewan’s player provided me was that Tavish and Callista had had a simple fling, and that Callista had left Tavish to care for their child in his isolated homestead while she went back out into the world. I decided to complicate matters somewhat...) Ewan told Callista what Tavish had told him of his upbringing (namely, the backstory the player had given me), and then Callista related her version of the tale: [I]My father was a merchant named Nidaar Rowland, who was one of the chief suppliers to the frontier town of Onoln. Growing up travelling with him felt like an adventure – we were always on the move – and he may have been a little lax at encouraging my restless spirit. Tavish was one of my father’s customers. Oil and salt, that’s all he ever bought. I thought he was a man of mystery, and more than once tried to engage him in conversation – perhaps slightly flirtatiously – but he always evaded my inquiries. After years of this, seeing him not more than once every several months, I decided to follow him home. I bought a charm from a local druid that hid my steps from his eyes, and I trailed him. Imagine my surprise when he left the town and began hiking up into the mountains! Anyone should have known that to wander into the mountains alone is suicide, and yet he walked on fearlessly. Well, long story short, the charm hid me from human eyes, but not from the eyes of the wild. And whatever mysterious force protected Tavish from the dangers of the forest certainly didn’t shield me. He saved my life and took me back to his house, the same house where you were born. I decided to stay, and he didn’t object. My father was saddened to see me leave, but he was a devout follower of Waukeen, and the way of Waukeen has always been to take what comes. At any rate, I was twenty six at the time and he had probably known for some time that this day was coming.[/I] [I]In spite of the dangers surrounding us in the wild mountains, Tavish seemed to live in a bubble. When I asked him why the beasts of the forest never encroached upon us, he always deflected, saying that his family always had a way with wild things. A year later, I discovered I was pregnant, and in due course you were born.[/I] [I]That’s when the strangeness began. Tavish, who had always been withdrawn, retreated entirely from me. For weeks on end he would lock himself in his room or go out wandering in the forest. Once I heard him through the door, almost begging. “Please,” he said, “don’t let it start again. I was meant to be the last. Not my child. Please, not my child.” I got scared. Scared for myself and scared for you. Finally I had enough, and tried to secret you away in the dead of night. He caught us just on the border of our property. I had never seen Tavish angry before. He took you and threw me out, and I was thrust suddenly back into the tumult of the world.[/I] Naturally, this account left both Ewan and the player with a lot to think about, and Ewan joined the rest of the party for a long rest. When they awoke in the morning they decided that the best course of action was to go see the druid Hymnara, as her piece of the story was the only thing that seemed wildly out of place. How could she, a relatively low-level druid, possibly know when and where the bandits would show up? They ventured back into Ekrido, doing their best to remain inconspicuous lest the Baron already be spreading slander about them, and located Hymanra’s farm with no trouble. Upon knocking at the door they were greeted by an elderly human woman – Hymnara’s housekeeper of sorts – who informed them that Hymnara was out back tending to the pineapples. Rounding the cottage they saw the elf druid, walking with the poise and grace peculiar to elves, and watering her pineapples. (I’ll also note that Burny had cast [I]Detect Magic[/I], and didn’t detect anything out of the ordinary, either around her cottage or on Hymnara herself) Without even turning around, she hailed them and welcomed them to her farm. The party didn’t waste time beating around the bush, asking immediately how she knew when Callista’s group was coming. Hymnara, who came across as entirely guileless even in the face of the many Insight checks rolled against her, told them that everything came to her in visions. When the famines started several months back, even though news about them was kept hushed, she saw images of a masked figure rampaging through fields and slaughtering livestock. Then, one day, she left Ekrido and began walking north on a hunch, and that is when she came upon Callista’s group. Now, each time they are near, a similar hunch guides her to them. She is convinced that the visions are from Chauntea, the goddess of agriculture, farms, and the earth, who herself has been grievously injured by these famines, being the very embodiment of the crops that are dying. Althea notes that these visions align well with what they’ve been told by the elders and shamans in the various outlying tribes they’ve visited about a shadow that is coming to the world. The rest of the party is less convinced, as direct visions and compulsions from the gods are, in this world, nearly unheard of. They even question whether it could be some sort of high-level magical compulsion, although that runs contrary to the moral fiber of their society. (in this world there are some Moral Codes of Magic, and compulsion is strictly against those codes. “Immoral Magic” still exists and it is possible to cast spells such as [I]Geas[/I], but there is such a strong social taboo against it that most people would feel queasy even thinking about doing such a thing. Also against the Moral Codes are reviving the deceased, magical creation of mundane items that craftspeople toil hard to build [i.e. using [I]Fabricate [/I]to make a bridge instead of letting a bridge-builder make it], and the casting of [I]Counterspell[/I]. That last is a special provision by Azuth, the goddess of wizards, so that none may tamper with the experiments of her devotees). Burny in particular is doing logical contortions to try and decipher what precisely is going on with Hymnara, and ends up in a rather philosophical debate that went something like this: Burny: I’m going to figure out what is going on here. Hymnara: You move so fast, searching for answers everywhere, when really, if you stopped and looked around for long enough, you’d realize that the answers have always been right in front of you. Burny: I know the answers are in front of me, I just have to find them. Hymnara: No, they will come to you. Burny: What, you think the secrets of the cosmos are just going to be presented to me as a gift? [I](Hymnara reaches down to dig up a pineapple from the dirt, dusts it off, and hands it to Burny as a gift.)[/I] Hymnara: Indeed. The party left soon after that, although I will also note that Hymnara took a special interest in Metis and offered to teach her some of the history and rituals of the druids that she would be unable to learn without the aid of an elder. Metis said she'd consider it. Burny, still intent on discovering answers, decides to do some additional research on the nature and history of visions from the gods. The best place to research would be The Labyrinth, Veu’s home and the largest library on the plane, but it’s a 10-day journey from Ekrido and they don’t have enough time to get there and back before the Baron publicly rips them to shreds for abandoning their post and letting thieves get away with his stores. So they decide on the second best option, Laboratory X, Burny’s own home which is essentially a mage academy/research institution/temple to Azuth in Ekrido. It has quite a substantial library, and they hope that there will be something useful to them. They arrive at Laboratory X, and one of the scribes at the door informs Burny that his mother is searching for him, and advises him to avoid the north wing if he doesn’t want to face her. Burny audibly groans at this news. The party moves stealthily on to the library, where Burny, who knows the stacks quite well, finds a number of books that look like they might be useful. He brings them to the librarian, an old gnome named Randolph, who glares at Burny, makes him promise that he won’t incinerate these as he did with the last rare book he checked out, and reminds him that he still owes 150gp as payment for that mishap. Metis, meanwhile, has gone off on her own looking for something in the stacks, but, unable to find it, returns to ask Burny if he can find her a volume on code-breaking. The party is quite curious at this, as Metis’ player hadn’t shared her backstory with any of the others, but Burny eventually agrees to find her the book she seeks. No sooner does he find it, however, then he hears a voice calling “Mortimer! Mortimer, I thought I heard your voice!” He curses abundantly but quietly and mutters about how he cannot deal with his mother at the moment. He makes his way back to Randolph and attempts to check out the book on codes, only to have Randolph shout that Burny is at the checkout counter. Cursing all the more, Burny leaves the book and dashes down the hall, the rest of the party following and laughing that they now know his given name to be “Mortimer.” As they dash out the entrance, they see one of the scribes at the door sigh and surreptitiously slip a gold piece to the other, who smiles smugly at having won his wager. If they weren’t already puzzled enough, upon leaving the city gates they find that they have all come under the effects of the [I]Pass Without Trace [/I]spell, although Hymnara is nowhere in sight. To wrap up the session, they arrived back at Callista’s camp, searched through the books, and learned that the last recorded time that people had received such overt visions and compulsions from the gods was when Azuth was trying to make [I]Counterspell [/I]an immoral magical act. Then the gods had acted through their proxies on the Material Plane in addition to their conflicts across the Outer Realms, sending visions and omens to priests in an attempt to sway popular support to their cause. At this point they know that something big is going on, whether it’s the gods themselves or some sort of high-level taboo compulsion magic, and they agree to help Callista infiltrate the Baron’s house to see if they can unravel at least a part of the puzzle: why is he hoarding all that food, and how is it that his farm is untouched while all the nearby cities are struck with famine? [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
The Mask of Mask (updated 01/21/2023)
Top