For a change, we all show up close enough to on time that it makes no difference. As usual, Dan is in charge, and the group consists of Nick (Ooth), Chris (Elias Sangaree), Tim (Tz'kri), Paul (once Cassidy, now Thornspinner the Windling) and Bruce (Belwin Linnet).
Thornspinner hails from a windling community that unsealed itself from the world long enough ago that Thorrnspinner no longer remembers it (that is, sometime longer than two days ago). He does remember that when his people opened the shell, some of them died and some of them didn't. After he was converted into a refugee, he decided to go explore the world and see other races. He follows the Wizard Discipline, and is of the Third Circle.
Before the day begins, Dan hands out the Legend Awards for the 12/19/1999 session. Everyone is Third Circle, so each Legend Award is worth 140 Legend Points. The specific awards are listed below. Each character gets four awards, for a total of 560 Legend Points.
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Goals Completed |
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Opponents Defeated |
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Roleplaying |
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The first question the characters are faced with is whether or not to bring Ooth along. He remains Horror-Marked, and has previously expressed a quick desire to simply become evil, but at the same time he is a magician and might be really handy to have around. The other characters finally decide that he can come along, but that he can't have any weapons. One of the other characters will bring his weapons and spell fetishes, and issue them out to him when trouble appears immanent. Ooth doesn't like this plan much, but he eventually agrees to go along with it, especially after the other characters point out that he may be hard-put to find refuge with the folk of Trosk.
The characters finish accumulating the equipment they expect to bring on the trip. It all comes out to quite a pile, and is constrained principally by the fact that the characters do not expect to find potable water along the way, and must bring all of their own water.
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Belwin |
Elias |
Ooth |
Tz'kri |
Thorn Spinner |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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STRENGTH |
13 |
18 |
15 |
13 |
7 |
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Carrying Capacity |
105 lb |
230 lb |
145 lb |
105 lb |
40 lb |
| Armor | 0 lb | 67 lb(crystal) | 2 lb (cloth armor) | 0 lb | 3 lb(padded leather) |
| Long cloak (5 lb) | 5 lb | 5 lb | 5 lb | 5 lb | 5 lb |
| Two Pairs shoes (@2 lb) | 4 lb | 4 lb | 4 lb | 4 lb | 4 lb |
| Warm Blanket (2 lb) | 2 lb | 2 lb | 2 lb | 2 lb | 2 lb |
| 20 feet of Rope (8 lb) | 8 lb | 8 lb | 8 lb | 8 lb | 8 lb |
| Dry Food for 7 days(7 lb; 11.5 lb for a troll) | 7 lb | 11.5 lb | 11.5 lb | 7 lb | 1 lb |
| Water for 8 to 9 days(8 lb/day for a human, 12 lb/day for a troll; 1 lb/day for a windling) | 8 days (64 lb) | 9 days (108 lb) | 8 days (96lb) | 8 days (64 lb) | 15 days (15 lb) |
| Shielded lantern (2 lb) | 2 lb | 2 lb | |||
| Lantern oil (1 lb) | 1 lb | 1 lb | |||
| Weapons | 9 lb(sword, x-bow) | 12 lb(axe, spear, dagger, s-sword) | 5 lb(axe) | 11 lb (sword, x-bow, tail blade) | 2 lb(s-sword) |
| Shield | 12 lb | 12 lb | |||
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Total Encumbrance |
102 lb |
229 lb |
146 lb |
104 lb |
40 lb |
Prior to departure, most of the group spend Legend Points to improve various of their talents:
|
Belwin Linnet |
Maneuver to Rank 5 (800 points) Avoid Blow to Rank 4 (500 points) |
|---|---|
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Ooth |
Thread Weaving to Rank 4 (500 points) |
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Tz'kri |
Melee Weapons to Rank 4 (500 points) |
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Thorn Spinner |
Spellcasting to Rank 4 (500 points) |
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Elias Sangaree |
Melee Weapons to Rank 4 (500 points) |
As a final task, Belwin arranges to exchange 6 silver coins for a suit of cloth armor for Ooth. This is a truly heroic instance, as it represents the first successful use of money thus far in the campaign. Sadly, the toothless armorer with whom Belwin made the exchange plans on using the coins for adornment, and doesn't really acknowledge that they have value as currency.
The characters head out into the Badlands early in the morning, having earlier decided that the best plan is to travel during the day so they might best avoid the creatures of the night. The wind is howling, the footing is bad, and the cold is biting and horrible. The chill is made even worse by the fact that everyone knows that in a couple of hours the heat will be savage. Mindful of the winds, the characters tie themselves together in a line to ensure that nobody (particularly Thorn Spinner) gets blown away. Thorn Spinner is given a place in the middle of the line, while Tz'kri is out front, acting as Scout.
The characters quickly learn how difficult the journey will be when they find their first cliff within 100 meters of Trosk. They find a chasm moments thereafter, and then are forced to walk through an array of hills and spires. The day gets no easier from there.
After the first day's travel, the characters are suffering from blisters, windburn, sunburn, and various chafes and bruises. Nobody wants to keep watch, but Ooth volunteers anyway, knowing that nobody will let him. Tz'kri finally agrees to keep watch first, with Belwin second, Elias third and Thorn Spinner fourth. Midway through his watch, Elias takes a whizz into the cooking pot, though why he does this isn't clear because there isn't any food in it.
As Elias thinks about eating the other characters, he notices a humanoid figure sneaking around in the darkness. He quickly wakes up everyone else and issues Ooth his weapons and spell fetishes. Tz'kri, appraised of the situation, sneaks out to flank the figure with sufficient stealth that the other characters are convinced that he just evaporated into the darkness. Given that Tz'kri's Silent Walk Talent really is magical, this isn't far from wrong.
The other characters engage in a variety of preparations like lighting lanterns, loading crossbows, and casting defensive spells. By the time they are done, the figure approaches into the light.
The stranger turns out to be a haggard-looking elf, who claims to be looking out for the future of Barsaive. He speaks in a slow, dreary monotone that leaves little doubt that he might have a shred of happiness or hope left within him. As the group looks on and fingers their weapons, he explains that Barsaive is doomed, that the Badlands will slowly consume everything. Belwin is struck with suspicion and asks him to perform a short, cheerful, jiggy dance. The elf finally introduces himself as Morthaven, and explains that he prefers to create interesting patterns with colored rocks, which he proceeds to do. In response, one of the characters performs an artistic act, causing Morthaven to comment, "All but one of you have succumbed, then. That's okay. I haven't succumbed yet, but soon enough." He seems like the life of the party.
Belwin asks him if he can tell the characters where they can find a sand crab. Morthaven refuses, on the basis that the folk in Trosk think that they can stop the Badlands from spreading if they get pieces from one. While he doubts that they're right, it makes little sense to take the risk that the life of the world might be extended.
Elias questions Morthaven closely upon his goals. Morthaven is perfectly willing to explain this at length. He doesn't want Barsaive's suffering to continue any longer than needed, considering that it's dead anyway. He feels that the Name-givers shouldn't have meddled with the Scourge in the first place. The Horrors should have left a long time ago, but they can't leave because their job isn't finished. He explains that his job, and his people's job, is to help deliver the mercy stroke to Barsaive, much as Elias might deliver a mercy stroke to a dying friend in pain. Morthaven expects that when everything is destroyed and everyone is dead, everything grow anew. The existing Name-giver races shouldn't expect to continue on, as the world no longer belongs to them. The Scourge is just a part of the great cycle, and as it happened before so it must happen again.
Eventually Morthaven tires of speaking to the characters and walks back out into the darkness. Tz'kri suggests that Morthaven sounds like a rather depressed version of a Jehovah's Witness. He thinks about tracking him, then decides to just let him go.
The days crawl by. Every night, either Elias or Belwin has some sort of horrible nightmare, but neither of them is ever able to remember what the nightmare was about. After three days, Tz'kri hasn't been able to find any sand crab tracks, much to his chagrin. Ooth, on the other hand, is easily able to find tracks. He comments, "How could you miss these? This thing is as big as a house!"
When Ooth looks more closely, he realizes that he has found two sets of tracks: one clearly belongs to a sand crab, while the other appears to have been made by someone wearing boots. From the looks of it, the man in boots wasn't running, so either he was traveling with the sand crab, or tracking it.
A short distance after the characters set upon the sand crab tracks they find a cave midway up a cliff face set against a small forest of stone spires. The tracks (both sets of them) go straight up into the cave. The characters approach cautiously.
Tz'kri sneaks into the cave very carefully. The entire place is rank, the smells of animal waste and rotting flesh almost too strong to bear. Tz'kri is able to see that the walls are scrawled with spidery writing, apparently written with blood. The words are at all angles, and do not appear to fit together into one coherent piece. They cover all the wall surface that Tz'kri can see, and extent deep into the depths of the cave. Tz'kri attempts to use his newly-learned Read/Write Language talent to learn the language, but isn't able to make it out. He emerges from the cave to get a light source, and to tell the characters that if something goes wrong he will come running out screaming like a little girl. Everyone else agrees that Tz'kri's screams sound most like those of a little girl than those of anyone else in the group.
While Tz'kri enters the cave again, the other characters find a good overwatch position and point weapons at the center of the cave. Tz'kri tries another Read/Write Language roll and succeeds, finding that the language is Orkish. Unfortunately, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Selected individual words are repeated many times, with no apparent pattern: "loathing /slander /spite / gore." Among them are several phrases that also appear multiple times, at different angles: "The one who weaves will rend what he has woven."; "The templars of the void."; "guardians of chaos." Tz'kri concludes that the author was a madman.
The characters outside the cave spot a flying lizard, very possibly a small dragon, heading towards the cave from the southeast. Noting that their current position, while offering good cover against foes emerging from the cave, is completely open from the air, they decide to move into the cave for cover, meeting up with Tz'kri rather quickly. The lizard flies up and lands at the cave mouth with a loud thump. Moments later, the characters hear maniacal cackling from the depths of the cave, apparently in response to the lizard's arrival.
Fearing that the characters will be caught between two foes, Tz'kri uses his incredible magical Silent Walk talent to extend the shadows around the rest of the group, earning their gratitude and buying their safety. Moments later, the characters (at least, those who are able to see in the darkness) see a disheveled ork in hide armor walk past, heading towards the mouth of the cave. Those who are able to see his pattern conclude that it is strangely twisted. The lizard (whose scales glitter in a tell-tale blue color that causes Thorn Spinner to conclude that it is an espagra) is carrying the carcass of something recently-dead. It drops the carcass at the ork's feet. In response, the ork falls to eating with the vigor of the truly crazed. Once the ork has finished its frenzied repast, it falls to sleep upon the cave floor. Considering that the espagra simply watches this performance, the characters guess that the ork might be a Beastmaster. Once the ork has gone to sleep, the espagra lumbers deeper into the cave.
Elias tries sneaking out of the cave, past the sleeping ork. Most of the other characters do their best to follow him, but Ooth finds himself strangely comforted by the cave, and refuses to leave. Belwin tries to get Ooth to leave, with not so much success.
At this point, Tz'kri is possessed with this normal murderous fury, and decides to slay the ork in it's sleep. Unfortunately, his blow is off-target, and merely wounds the creature. The ork rolls to its feet and roars in anger, and is answered by an equally ferocious roar from the espagra deep in the cave. A quick battle ensues, with Tz'kri and Thorn Spinner facing off against the ork. Thorn Spinner leads off by casting a Mind Dagger. The ork sucks up the damage, then proves that he really is a Beastmaster by making a Claw Shape and attacking Tz'kri, who deftly avoids the blow with his Maneuver talent. Elias rushes into the fight to see Tz'kri and Thorn Spinner heavily engaged with the Beastmaster. He charges the ork, delivering a solid blow and knocking him down. The ork clings to consciousness by a thread. Thorn Spinner ends the fight with one final Mind Dagger, causing the ork to wilt away like a lily.
Meanwhile, Belwin sets with his crossbow and awaits the arrival of the espagra. Soon enough, it thunders out of the depths of the cavern. Belwin's patience is rewarded with an incredible, armor-defeating hit for 31 points of damage. The crossbow bolt sinks clean into the creature's eye, wounding it badly. It flails about in rage and agony, breaking bones against the cave walls.
At this moment, the characters spot the massive shell of a sand crab advancing from behind the flailing body of the espagra. All of the characters withdraw out of the cave in the face of the sand crab's charge, except for Ooth (who can't bear to leave the beautiful cave). He compensates by taking what cover he can find. The sand crab advances with no consideration for the hapless espagra, which gets crushed to near to death.
The Sand crab thunders out of the cave, and the characters (who had been setting up an ambush) scatter like leaves. Both Belwin and Tz'kri try to out-Maneuver it, with varying degrees of success. Belwin feels the icy grip of death just barely miss him as the crab decides that he is the most tasty thing available and only barely fails to snip him in half. The next round, Belwin remains on the defensive (making a defensive attack), while Tz'kri rushes in with an aggressive attack boosted with his Desperate Blow charm, hoping to strike a killing blow (with the charm, he is able to deal out step 24 damage!). Unfortunately, Tz'kri's blow is less than perfect in it's execution, inflicting but 9 points of damage upon the thing. At this point, Elias rushes into the combat, swinging his axe with vigor but to little actual effect.
Ooth sneaks further back into the cave, pausing to Astral Strike the wounded espagra to death. He finds the ork Beastmaster dragging himself deep into the cave, moaning something in Orkish that probably translates as "ouch". Ooth musters up his bravery enough to finish off the wounded espagra and the Beastmaster with Aura Strikes.
Tz'kri and Belwin continue to try to Maneuver against the sand crab, while Elias decides to try and Great Leap his way onto the top of the sand crab's shell. The fight continues with no real damage done to the sand crab, until the sand crab takes a direct strike and fails to use Avoid Blow to evade it. He is knocked down and suffers a staggering amount of damage between the creature's pincers and jaws. Elias takes a hit from the sand crab's claws, but his crystal armor save him from any more than a trivial scratch. A moment later, he finally manages to Great Leap up onto the sand crab's back, where he breaks a hole in it's shell after only a couple of attempts.
Ooth, who has long since dispatched the Beastmaster and the espagra, approaches from behind and casts a series of Astral Strikes on the sand crab, progressively weakening it. Thorn Spinner adds in his own attack, hurling Mind Daggers from the flank.
The fight takes another turn for the worst when Tz'kri steps wrongly, leaving himself with no defense against the sand crab. Despite it's substantial injuries, it hits at him with both claws, first chopping his tail off and then biting him into two pieces. Enraged, Elias strikes the thing a mighty blow from the top, while Ooth hurls another Astral Strike and Thorn Spinner casts a Mind Dagger. Among the three of them, they finally inflict enough damage that the sand crab keels over dead.
Ooth looks around the cave for valuable items. He quickly determines that the cave is not that much deeper than the characters had already seen, and that it contains little of real interest. The ork Beastmaster pretty much lived in his own filth, eating slaughtered food that the espagra brought him. Ooth finally realizes that espagra skin can be used to make very fashionable armor and spends a substantial amount of time skinning the creature. Thorn Spinner takes a flight around the area to look for any source of water that the Beastmaster may have been using, but finds nothing more than a few drops of condensation falling from the cave ceiling. Elias takes the Beastmaster's head to bring back. Belwin shucks the meat out of one of the sand crab's claws so he can carry it back to civilization as a trophy (it weighs 20 lb). For good measure, he also cuts several leg spines from the creature.
The characters decide that they must bring Tz'kri's body back to civilization for a proper burial. Fortunately, his body has already been cut into three pieces to make portage easier. Ooth and Elias each carry half of his body, while Belwin carries his tail.
As soon as Ooth finishes skinning the espagra, the characters head out. They quickly become aware that they're in deep trouble, as they are now lost in the wilderness and their scout is in three pieces.
The characters manage to make it back to their most recent camp without too much trouble, and actually make very good time thanks to Thorn Spinner's Quickened Pace magic. Their second day they make good progress using Ooth's Tracking talent to retrace their steps. Unfortunately, he loses the trail towards the end of the second day, leaving the characters aware that they're probably two days from the edge of the Badlands, but not exactly where.
Thorn Spinner takes over as aerial scout at this point, flying out ahead to try and trace a reasonable path out. The characters go onto half rations, aware that they will run out of water well before they run out of food.
The characters soon find themselves faced with a chasm about 200 feet deep and almost 100 feet wide, directly in their way. This is not a familiar terrain feature from their trip out, which doesn't improve group morale too much. With no good way to scale the thing, the group decides to trace around, losing about a day and a quarter from their journey in the process. Everyone becomes worried about water at this point, as they have two days worth of food, but only one day's water supply (except for Thorn Spinner, who has plenty of water). Elias announces that the next day, everyone will be drinking their own urine. Belwin, recognizing that this is distasteful but probably necessary, drinks only a half-ration of water for the day, hoping to extend his water supply a little bit.
Both Elias and Ooth use their Alchemical and Chemical skills to try and purify their urine a bit by boiling it. It isn't clear how much this process actually improves the situation, especially considering that troll urine is normally so strong it can be cut with a knife.
The next day, Thorn Spinner's incredible scouting skills run the group into a mountain. The characters decide to save time by climbing it. The journey is miserable, as the best path is covered in broken stones and uneven ground. Halfway through the day, Ooth and Elias fall some distance and are wounded upon the jagged rocks below. They take particular care to announce that they'd better not catch anybody licking the blood flowing from their various wounds. By the end of the day, both Ooth and Elias are out of water and Belwin is down to but a half-day's water supply. Belwin is suffering from partial dehydration and is at -2 Steps on all rolls.
Early the next day Thorn Spinner finally comes through for the characters by finding a good path back to the settlement. The group staggers into Trosk looking like souls returned from Gehenna. Belwin is terribly dehydrated, while Elias and Ooth reek of urine.
The characters just barely crawl back into the settlement at Trosk. The first thing Belwin does upon his return is plunge his head into the nearest horse trough. The alchemist Thraac watches them stagger up the street towards his tent and cackles, "Well, I didn't expect to be seein' you again." He goes on to claim that it will take him a couple of days to work up the Last Chance and Healing potions he owes the characters (one of the former and two of the latter).
Ooth takes the espagra skin to an armorer and tries to barter it for something. The armorer is a toothless elder with a mouth fouler than the back of the Sand Crab Cave. He tries to trade false teeth to the characters in exchange for it, even after Ooth tries to explain that all of the characters still have all their teeth. The armorer then tries to offer Ooth a fork in exchange for it.
Ooth's counteroffer is to give him the entire skin in exchange for one troll-sized espagra-skin cloak and one windling-sized espagra-skin cloak, leaving the armorer with the remaining material. The armorer points out that the entire skin would barely suffice for a troll-sized cloak, and that he would have little left but scraps after fulfilling Ooth's bargain. Even worse, there is nobody in Trosk with any particular interest in such fancy cloaks (espagra-scale cloaks provide +1 Mystic Armor, in addition to looking very impressive). The conversation goes downhill rapidly, even when Belwin tries to mediate, as it doesn't appear that the characters have anything the armorer wants and the armorer has nothing the characters want. Elias finally threatens to throw rocks at the armorer until the other characters haul him off.
Several of the townsfolk ask the characters to check a strange elf who has been hanging around the outskirts of the settlement. They claim that the fellow is smeared in filth and only barely clothed, and is accompanied by a really terrifying flying lizard. Belwin and Elias manage to get the townsfolk to give them two weeks' food and housing in exchange for checking him out. They head towards the edge of town after pausing to drop Tz'kri's decaying corpse in their tent. Along the way, Elias finds an anthill to drop the ork Beastmaster's skull on. He marks the place, intending to come back for it when the ants have cleaned it off.
It takes the characters about a day's worth of hashing around the swamps to the East of Trosk looking for the elf Beastmaster whom the locals had been complaining about. They find his personal pet espagra first, and only barely avoid filling it full of crossbow bolts before the elf shows up in person. He is quite a sight, as he wears nothing but a loincloth and a set of Blood Pebble armor.
Elias greets him and explains that the locals are threatened by him because he doesn't wear any pants. This implies, of course, that if he were to wear pants he could walk among them freely. Belwin gives him a pair of pants, which he manages to put on after a couple of false attempts.
The elf introduces himself as Bangalsheriad "Bango" Telphinas, an elf Beastmaster from the Liaj Jungle. He explains that he is on a Life Quest to hunt Horror-Spawn and learn how to defeat the Horrors. Elias asks, "You don't plan on hunting Horrors themselves?" Bango draws himself back and says, "Everyone knows that's suicide!"
At this point, Elias explains that the group is about to ritually kill one of their number and bring him back to life in the next couple of days, then offers to let Bango join them. Bango, for no readily obvious reason, agrees. He explains that he has cured meats and animal pelts to trade.
Elias picks up his fleshless ork skull on the way back to camp. He compliments the ants upon the quality of their work.
The characters pick up their potions from the alchemist Thraac, then set up to ritually kill and resurrect Ooth. Bango asks if this is happening because Ooth is a new member of the group. Elias promises that the characters will never do the same to him if he sticks with them.
As Elias steps up with knife in hand, Ooth suddenly has second thoughts and attacks the rest of the group. Belwin tries Taunting him, and as usual he has no effect. Bango really gets into the bloodlust thing, does a Claw Shape, and goes crashing into Ooth, inflicting a wound. Elias chops at Ooth with his axe, to little actual effect. Thorn Spinner entangles Ooth with his Vines spell.
In response to this many-sided onslaught, Ooth utters vile curses then shocks and surprises everyone by resorting to raw magic. He hurls a Pain spell against Elias, incapacitating him, but suffering 8 points of backlash damage. At this point, Bango's espagra plunges down from the sky and savages Ooth into unconsciousness, whereupon the other characters bleed Ooth to death then feed him the Last Chance potion to bring him back to life.
The potion effects are really quite dramatic. Ooth regains 25 wounds and springs back to life, sans Horror Mark. Ooth is once again able to demonstrate his tattooing art to prove that he is no longer Horror Marked, much to the other characters' relief.
With the characters' most unpleasant task out of the way, the group rests for a week in Trosk. They debate what to do, eventually settling on returning to Belhanna on the next available T'skrang riverboat so they may give Tz'kri a good burial among his kinfolk.
The session ends with the characters resting in Trosk, waiting for a T'skrang riverboat to come by and take them away. Each character gains six Legend Awards, each of which is worth 140 Legend Points, for a total of 840 Legend points.
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Goals Completed |
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Opponents Defeated |
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Treasures |
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Roleplaying |
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Heroics |
Given the opportunity, the characters spend most of their newly-gained Legend Points upon talents:
| Belwin Linnet | Taunt to Rank 4 (500 points) |
|---|---|
| Ooth | Spell Fetish to Rank 4 (500 points) Create Spell Fetish to Rank 4 (500 points) |
| Bango | Tracking to Rank 4 (1000 points) Durability to Rank 4 (1000 points) |
| Elias Sangaree | Swift Kick to Rank 3 (300 points) Battle Shout to Rank 4 (500 points) |