Fruits of the Tide, Tastes of 2022

Edi Udo

A busy year around the dungeon, there's been a great deal of good and bad that's come our way and come the end of the season it's time to reflect on the good and interesting that the tides have brought to us. Through the haze of memory and sitting here with no notes, what have I watched, read, listened to, etc that stands out this year?

Paradise Killer 

 

Kaizen Gameworks released Paradise Killer all the way back in September of 2020 and I nearly immediately bought it after one glimpse at the trailer. A neon soaked detective story around an occult island drenched in sunset. First playing it back then it blew me out of the water and I had a fantastic time interacting with all the characters and exploring the bits and pieces scattered around the beautiful island itself. Kaizen received some criticism at the time for building out a city with nothing in it, but the little flecks of detail and care that are all over the place gush with intrigue and detail. One of the most impressive parts is the soundtrack and the in game sound design, with localized cues guiding players to collectables scattered around and meshing well with the ambient noises and soundtrack to create a dreamy walking/jump-gliding experience. 

An enormous free content update came out in March of this year, adding new quests, interactables, a whole B-side album, as well as a plethora of performance improvements and Steam achievements. With a fine bottle of Fuji Sanroku and had a truly delightful time- and even made it my first Steam game with 100% of achievements unlocked. 

Paradise Killer does a masterful work with dripfeeding tidbits of lore and setting, scattered throughout the island, and combined with the overall story and character design it creates an engaging environment to explore and wander at your leisure. Speaking of character design, the names of the characters are ridiculously good. Lady Love Dies, Sam and Lydia Daybreak, Eyes Kiwami, Doctor Doom Jazz, Crimson Acid, they vibe tremendously with the overall aesthetic. If you haven't played it since the new update, I highly recommend revisiting Island Sequence 24. 

Elden Ring

 

What more can be said that hasn't already been said about Elden Ring? It's a beauty down to its core. My encounter with it happened to come on its release day, just after catching COVID and so I tramped through the Lands Between filled with cold medicine, super condensing the experience into three days of nonstop Elden Ring. Before then, I had never beaten or even gotten terribly far in a From Software game, but since then I've gone back and had a blast with Sekiro and the original Dark Souls. 

QNTM

 

Towards the end of last year, I read the first of Sam Hughes (QNTM) books and found myself hooked on the worlds he portrays. From There is no Antimemetics Division to my personal favorite, Ra, his science fiction feels fresh and hits just the right chords for me. There is no Antimemetics Division is about the famed SCP Foundation Antimemetics Division, and more, but the book I was most interested in was Ra, which portrayed a world wherein magic was discovered in the early 1970s and the world is adapting and changing to the introduction of systematized, scientific method-informed magical practice. But it goes so, so much further with the idea. Not everything is a hit, and there are some parts I had to jump back and verify what just happened, but all in all QNTM's works are a breath of fresh air to what's so often as of late a stagnant sphere. 

Goodbye, Eri 

Tatsuki Fujimoto, fresh from Chainsaw Man, published this oneshot this year and it is a stutter-stopping, excruciating burn that begins with a middle schooler's mother asking him to film her slow, painful decline and eventual death due to an unnamed disease. The film doesn't go over very well when he shows it, but he does encounter one fan: the mysterious Eri. She pushes him to make another film and the story spirals out form there. It's a romance story of sorts, but I'll leave the genre definition up to you. When all is said and done, Fujimoto executes a heart-wrenching tale all in a hundred pages or so that is well worth the read.

Quest Master

I've been on a real bandcamp kick this year. Generally I try and fling a wide net and see what I catch, but Quest Master came up in a Spotify playlist for dungeon music and introduced me to the whole dungeon synth genre. Generally when running games I'll throw on something in the background, and I didn't realize how often I was using Quest Master until a player remarked they wanted something new as they had heard the same song four times already. 

Twelve Temples is my favorite of the available albums. It's not flashy, but listening to it casts me back into the deep recesses of primordial fantasy development, conjuring up memories of Shining Force and Earthbound played in the dark.

For non-dungeon synth music on bandcamp, I also discovered Macroblank this year and would recommend a listen. 

Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities

Guillermo's latest foray into film, the Cabinet of Curiosities has some real winners in it. Each episode has its own director and Guilldermo acts as the executive producer. Understand though that there are some real misses, Guillermo's self-directed episode (and unfortunately the first episode), Lot 46, comes to mind but the most flamboyantly narratively void would be episode 6, Dreams in the Witch House, directed by Catherine Hardwick. To misquote Mitchell and Webb, it sucks that you have to write the misses and can't just write hits. 

My personal favorite was episode 4, The Outside, directed by Ana Lily Amirpour and starring Kate Micucci and Martin Starr. I'd rather not spoil the episode itself, but suffice to say their performances were compelling and the overall direction produced an increasing feeling of unease, even past the climax. Other favorites would be episode 7, the Viewing, episode 3, the Autopsy, episode 5, Pickman's Model, and episode 8, the Murmuring (in that order).

Negative Space

 

 

After reading The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron I was giving a rave review of it to a friend and described it as, in the best possible way, reading a headache that draws you down into it. It's a fantastic book, highly recommend just about anything by Laird Barron, but more to the point: late last year I was on a routine "Scour the internet for any book that's interesting" kick and, after reading Stonefish and being very conflicted about it I saw a recommendation for Negative Space by B.R. Yeager. Negative Space tastes like a migraine. There's a specific keening sound that accompanies each of its passages that a cinematographer would use to intentionally produce unease. Negative Space is the feeling of returning to an old hometown and exploring the depths of its decay and the effects this has wrought on people you used to love. An exercise in misery. A symphony of rot. The book left deep tendrils in my head that are still there.

 夢の砂漠/dream desert

There are many other small finds and mixes I enjoyed that I could bring up. For Those Who by Saturn Genesis, Kudasai/that dreamy track by Ikigai that all lo-fi playlists have, The Hidden Temple of Wuhu Island by Lazuli_Yellow, PURE LIFE's The Magi System, but I wanted to start with the album that I think started it all this year, and that's dream desert by the aptly named desert sand feels warm at night.

I don't know what the genre is, or even anything about this group of people who don't want to get paid for making music (I think their songs are all mixes/use bits of licensed music?), but this dreampunk/vaporwave album is a four hour journey through that black sand dream desert soundscape. Really like that album cover as well. 

13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim

 

A science fiction visual novel spanning multiple characters, time travel, and giant robot action scenes? Sign me up. This gem from 2020 is a wonderful plot-driven visual novel interspersed with bits of hands-on giant robot action fighting. It's told through bits and pieces of each of the character's narratives, picking up and dropping off where they interact with each other and the player slowly unravels the full scope of this epic. Really, it's very impressive that it can keep the narrative cohesive over 13-16 hours of gameplay and 13* characters, especially with the weaving nature of its narrative. 

Rifters: Starfish

Peter Watts, where to begin? Last year I read my first Watts, Blindsight, and was immediately dropped into a hyper active and deeply researched hard science fiction story complete with aliens, genetics, AI, what can only be classified as Science Vampires, and so many more fresh and bold science fiction ideas. The follow up, Echopraxia, is equally as intriguing and Watts has this habit of throwing out wild futuristic technology and then following it up with an extensive appendix at the end where he cites the research papers that inspired the ideas. 

This year I started in on the Rifters trilogy, his earliest novels, and Starfish in particular is tasty. It starts with a prolonged and repeated punch to the face, drags the reader through hatred and trauma, and ultimately builds to a stellar crescendo that sets up for the follow on book. I'm still working on the trilogy, but Starfish is a perfect intro to the Watts canon. That or The Freeze-Frame Revolution, a shorter novella about a million years long revolution on a generation ship. Watts has the prize here for the most unique and thought provoking science fiction that I've read in years. Greg Egan is also in here, but I'll talk about him once I've read more of his works. 

时光代理人/Link Click

Normally, Chinese animation does not produce much that I'm interested in, but Link Click was surprisingly compelling. The main characters, Lu and Cheng, run a Time Photo shop where they sell Cheng's innate ability to jump back in time into a picture and take over the body of someone for a brief time. This usually means either stealing some corporate information, making someone's day better, finding a missing person, etc, but each story is refreshingly warm and heartfelt- even if they consistently fail to address the underlying causes of the pain- but you won't catch a Chinese anime being openly critical of capitalism. Animation quality itself is a bit lacking, but the story makes up for it. Very catchy opening.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

 

In stark contrast with my other book favorites of the year, Beck Chambers's works have breathed a fresh, bright life into me and captured my attention and imagination in a way nothing has since The Secret History several years ago. Her Wayfarer series has a soft and warm feeling to so much of it and presents a future brightly hopeful and yet tethered to tangible humanity. 

The characters explore a future in heartfelt ways and the stories are generally around the ideas of family, community, and finding one's place in the world. Science fiction is a favorite of mine, but lately I have been feeling the crushing weight (by my own reading choices, probably) of the depressing nature of most science fiction. Taking a brief look through the last twenty-thirty years of works it seems that everything is presenting a miserable dystopia, and we lost the golden age of science fiction notions that technology and human progress will improve the human condition (and not succumb to the machine of capitalism and/or fascism that strangles most dystopic science fiction). Becky Chambers explodes onto the scene with vibrant worlds of hopeful science fiction and a future for humanity and they have easily become favorites. I only wish that there were more hopeful science fiction media to enjoy. 

Haunted PS1 Demo Disc

This community over on itch publishes free collections of demos from indie developers that fall in the "ps-1 like graphics" category into these yearly Haunted PS1 Demo Discs. The last two have been wrapped in a framing narrative (again, I'm a sucker for a good framing narrative) where you explore an environment and play the demos inside. This year had you wandering a frosty abandoned mall, last year was an exhibition hall. This year's was easily the finest collection, with some fantastic demos for games (Future Reality, Gob, Mothered, They Speak From The Abyss) and last year had some real winners too. It's a neat collection of games, I only wish they all had full releases out to compliment, but the yearly disc is at least able to produce some noise and show off these indie devs.

Tales of the Echowood

Podcasts. I listen to many, many podcasts. This is mostly because I've developed the habit of falling into the sweet embrace of sleep while listening to horror podcasts, and as a result I have developed very particular tastes and a great deal of sensitivity to audio levels and podcasts that interject screaming commercials into the middle of their soft-spoken tales. Tales of the Echowood is a fairy tale podcast, revolving around 10 stories told by an innkeeper to a mysterious traveler. This is out of my usual preferences and more in the fairy tale range, but the production quality is high and the stories are engaging and well-written, all feeding into the central mystery of the continent/multiverse spanning magical Echowood.

I had thought that there would be more movies or shows to talk about, but all the best things I've seen this year I've seen before, and as for new anime by and large much of what came out this year (that I've seen) isn't to my taste (except Chainsaw Man and Edgerunners, but those are already well acclaimed).

These, then, are all that shine out the most from my memory of the last year, however there are some others not mentioned here that I'd like to write about in greater detail. It's a bit all over the place, but what year isn't? Here's to another year in the dungeon. 

Paul Echegoyen

Oh yeah, SNAKE POOL is pretty fun too.

Knave Report 9, 10, 11, 12, 13: Catching Up With the Knaves

More Knavery to catch up on! This will be brief and mostly focusing in on the highlights of the most recent adventuring shenanigans, loosely dubbed the Runic Arc.

Session 9

Dramatis Personae:

Alma Tumbler (level 5) Aspirant Ranger, purple feather mutation, Wielder of Eventide, Hierophant, and the Lightning Bow, Chronicler and Sole Survivor of the first session

Olga Derippe (level 4) Body builder, Hammer Enthusiast, Haunted by a Revenant, Death Defier, Hoardmaster, Aspiring Gym Owner

Stratford Slee (level 4) Member of the Hunter's Pact, Arguably Australian, no longer stuck at 6 HP, ex-pirate

Piety Portendorfer (level 3) Gourmand, Survivor of a Death Curse, Notoriously not Pious, Aspiring Author

Hirelings: Penollyn the Archer, Lil' Ten Piece the Lantern Boy

The gang makes a loose appointment to speak with Cormac in the morning before finding where Piety ran off to (drunk, swallowing frogs in a competition with a muddy drunkard in the streets) and then crashed for the night with the rest of the town in the longhouse. 

In the morning, Piety discovers she has a flyer for the town's local Crab Shack Combinator (entirely forgotten shortly later) and the everyone else decides to split up and do some shopping before meeting with Cormac. Alma and Piety get some armor made for Yellow Beedums the horse and Belle, the Pegasus. Piety then spends the rest of the morning working with a local pegasus rider and getting the hang of riding Belle. 

Stratford, Olga, and Alma wander around in the meantime exploring the leatherworking industry and trying to find a boat to get back down the river to Yonwell. They find a merchant who offers them passage for a fee, and also offers a treasure map for a hefty 200 gold. The party, desperately strapped for cash as always begins bickering over who pays what percentages and whether or not Piety- being not present- should pay a fee. Ultimately, the three of them foot the bill and purchase the map, which points to the giant glowing moa head in the mountains far to the south, as well as outlines the solution to a puzzle to enter the head itself. 

Midjourney

 

Gathering back together once more, the party meets with Cormac to begin the lore dump that Alma has been desperately craving for the last year. To summarize: 

    - The Rangers Guild, of which Cormac was once grandmaster, supported Duke Konrad of  Honorwatch, and in their time Honorwatch was a just and noble domain that protected the lands to the south from the various monsters and beasts that roamed out from Starmoore and the surrounding mountains. 

    - Cormac doesn't know what caused the undead uprising, and on the day of the first battle for Honorwatch he and his rangers were caught between the tide of undeath and the oncoming forces of Duke Conrad of Yonwell.

    - Konrad and Conrad didn't get along at all, Cormac was helping Konrad and his spies had uncovered that the Duke of Yonwell was secretly meeting with the Witch Queen of Felltine, north of the Karst. 

    - The two swords of Honorwatch are familiar to Cormac, and he and Konrad had been searching for the third to unlock the vault beneath the castle but had not come upon any leads.    

    -  After barely escaping the first battle of Honorwatch, the Rangers were broken and Cormac fled to the Beastwarren, wandering aimlessly for some time before encountering the Fairy Queen. She offered him her boon and he swore fealty to her, taking on his centaur form and becoming bound to protecting the Beastwarren- unable to leave it.

    - The Fairy Queen's demesne is known as the Fairy Woods, sometimes the Mirrorwood. It lies south across the split in the Greenspine. She makes the ever-distant white pillar her home.

    - The elves in the Beastwarren are descendants of the Ancients, loyal to the Fairy Queen, and possess extreme magical powers. Their enclaves are hidden and they keep to themselves and maintain their homes, especially abhorring anything they determine to be distasteful or ugly. Their human servants all wear masks to hide their imperfections. 

     - Hunters in the Hunter's Pact who attain rank are given the chance to accept the boon of the Fairy Queen as well, and become centaurs like Cormac. 

    - The Bellringers are welcome to taking over the remains of the Ranger's Guild, as Cormac cannot make his way there. 

    - The northern edge of the Beastwarren runs up against the Shield Wall, the sky-scraping mountain range encircles the last city of the Ancients, protecting it since their fall. Along the southern edge of the ring, the dragon Azamax the Cursed lairs in his shrine, bound to forever prevent any incursions into the lands inside the Shield Wall. Reports of late indicate Azamax has been more and more active in recent months.

Having only more questions, the party bids Cormac farewell and retires to an inn for the night. 

In the morning, the group holds a lengthy debate about whether or not to brave the day-long journey south into the Beastwarren to make for the giant stone head and plumb its depths for treasure, or to save that for a later day and return to Yonwell. Ultimately, their lack of tangible funds from this expedition drives them to the call of adventure and they ready the party and head south. 

 

Midjourney

 

Through the enormous old-growth of the Beastwarren, the party makes camp just a short journey from the ominously glowing stone head up in the Greenspine. During the night, Stratford Slee catches sight of a towering silver Elk- and his Hunter's Pact compulsion to hunt any creature he's never seen before sends him off after it, with only a shout behind to rouse his companions. 

What follows is a desperate night-cloaked chase through the snowy undergrowth. Stratford catches the elk by surprise, but to his dismay its call rouses the nearby trees to its defense- and its teeth are sharp and vampiric, taking a savage chunk out of Stratford. Piety rides Belle in, furious at Stratford going off on his own, helps strike the killing blow after Stratford's attempt at casting body swap on the elk fails. A new hide and some fresh meat now in their posession, the party sleeps the night away.

Session 10

Dramatis Personae:

Alma Tumbler (level 5) Aspirant Ranger, purple feather mutation, Wielder of Eventide, Hierophant, and the Lightning Bow, Chronicler and Sole Survivor of the first session

Olga Derippe (level 4) Body builder, Hammer Enthusiast, Haunted by a Revenant, Death Defier, Hoardmaster, Aspiring Gym Owner

Stratford Slee (level 4) Member of the Hunter's Pact, Arguably Australian, no longer stuck at 6 HP, ex-pirate

Piety Portendorfer (level 3) Gourmand, Survivor of a Death Curse, Notoriously not Pious, Aspiring Author

Hirelings: Penollyn the Archer, Lil' Ten Piece the Lantern Boy

The gang heads up the mountains in the morning and into the giant stone head's secret entrance, revealed by solving the puzzle (hand waved as it's on the treasure map). They descend down a long staircase and into the deeps beneath the stone head. Into... The Rune Dungeon (modified).

An aside: I read the Rune Dungeon posts years ago and have always wanted to throw them into a game. Knave as a system being pretty magic light, when I first mapped out the Dellen Plains around Yonwell I added this dungeon into the Greenspine. I'm pretty sure the party first caught a glance of the stone head somewhere back in the Unrecorded Sessions, so it has been on the map for awhile.

Midjourney

 

 

The first few rune puzzles lead to the players figuring out how to make lights, and they begin to get a general idea of the rune abilities. They have a nasty time fighting the wave elementals in room 10, as they entirely avoid fighting normally and instead try to force themselves down the adventurers throats and drown them. 

Moving in further, the party is ecstatic at finding the kitchen and the heating and cooling runes, with Piety scooping all that she can carry up and declaring she'll make the best bar in the world back in Yonwell. 

The gang makes a brief excursion across the chasm in 13 and has an anxiety riddled time retrieving a great ruby from 14 as well as exploring the pits in 15. 

We end up cutting the session after explaining the set up for room 16, as much of the time for this session was taken up with experimenting with runes and their effects.

Session 11

Dramatis Personae:

Alma Tumbler (level 5) Aspirant Ranger, purple feather mutation, Wielder of Eventide, Hierophant, and the Lightning Bow, Chronicler and Sole Survivor of the first session

Stratford Slee (level 4) Member of the Hunter's Pact, Arguably Australian, no longer stuck at 6 HP, ex-pirate

Piety Portendorfer (level 3) Gourmand, Survivor of a Death Curse, Notoriously not Pious, Aspiring Author

Hirelings: Penollyn the Archer, Lil' Ten Piece the Lantern Boy 

Room 16 is defeated with some dramatic encounters with the skeletons. Lil' Ten Piece is put on Belle and flown around the room to keep the obelisks alight while Olga scrambles to slap a light rune in the middle of the room. Lil' Ten Piece is nearly killed when the skeletons launch each other into the air after the lantern boy, but the obelisks are covered in light in just enough time to prevent his death. 

Creeping forward again, the party gets a brief look into 18, seeing the dozen or more clay men in worship of a great Clay Statue God and decide to book it back out of the room after a brief encounter leaves them heavily wounded. After making their way back across the chasm (again, only thanks to Belle), they rest and heal their wounds in the kitchen. They make a quick journey to explore the dorms back in 11 and learn to use mass runes to float over the deadly yellow mold and retrieve a very expensive looking crystalline statuette.

The next day is spent exploring the east half of the dungeon. Fighting the half-lich and its skeletons in 6 nearly wipes the party out with some cones of cold, but they scrape out a victory and head outside to try and retrieve Olga's hammer (once again crit failed and hurled out of reach, into the murky waters). A lightning arrow from Alma convinces the Watcher in the Lake to return the hammer and the group loots the room to find some shimmering silk, various coins, and a magical warhammer that causes gusts of cutting wind- which Olga takes handily. The half-lich and its companions are noted as having symbols bearing the Skull-Over-Ziggurat of the Lich King of the East. 

Midjourney

Murals are examined all along the journey- of Wizards triumphing over terrible Rune Wizards that were abusing poor peasantry, but little explanation is found. Scattered around though, the party finds more clues at how to work the runes, usually in the form of silver tablets with associations of effects hidden in caches.

After solving the weight puzzle in 25, the party finds the magical fountain of 26 to be similar to a previous one they encountered in the teleporting cairn. It bears the marks of the now-familiar long haired woman wreathed in oak leaves, and the water bears magical healing properties- at risk. Alma is mutated into more of a bird, now nearly covered in feathers and with talon-like claws. Olga also rolls up a bird mutation and sprouts white feathers, and Piety feels her guts expand with heat- becoming a living bomb (on death deal HD*d10 damage to everything in HD*10 feet). Some of the magic water is bottled for later. 

Crossing to the other side of the bridge-chasm in 24, the party begins using runes to just absolutely wreck the clay men of the dungeon, clearing the pillar room with ease but deciding not to press into 18 in fear of the greater numbers of the clay men. They instead enter into 28 where Lil' Ten Piece and Belle (and the rest of the party) are nearly instantly obliterated by the rune-amplified fireball spell. The combat is near, but the party overcomes thanks to their earth-taking amplified rune weapons and they ascend up to the hub in 29. 

The three layers of shielded lights protect the floating platform in the middle, with a azure blue statue of a wizard with hands outstretched. They peek into each of the puzzle rooms and discover they need to solve each puzzle to reduce the light shields and get down below- where clearly something terrible or valuable waits, as they can see a massive crystalline sphere through thick glass beneath their feet. 

Solving the water room puzzle, the party gains the full-metal amethysts which are letting them now draw three runes in a glyph instantly and power it on the same turn as well, a massive boon for combat. They open the door to 34 and find inside a small library (not running the mirror puzzle room, didn't feel like it'd be fun to run or play with a theater of mind game) with several books on how runes work as well as the history of the runic wars clearly visible. To their dismay though, just in the middle of the room is a large golden statue of Gorebold the Devourer, waiting patiently for them.

Session 12

Dramatis Personae:

Alma Tumbler (level 5) Aspirant Ranger, purple feather mutation, Wielder of Eventide, Hierophant, and the Lightning Bow, Chronicler and Sole Survivor of the first session

Stratford Slee (level 4) Member of the Hunter's Pact, Arguably Australian, no longer stuck at 6 HP, ex-pirate

Piety Portendorfer (level 3) Gourmand, Survivor of a Death Curse, Notoriously not Pious, Aspiring Author

Hirelings: Penollyn the Archer, Lil' Ten Piece the Lantern Boy

Resting up first, the party easily (except for the crystal golems which only fail to murder all of them due to sheer luck, leaving heavy, heavy wounds) solves the rest of the puzzles around the hub and debate entering the library or not. Finally, they decide they desperately want to know how runes work and enter, finding the rooms surrounded with white chalk drawn in intricate diagrams. 

Midjourney

Piety enters first and feels her intelligence draining rapidly as she gets closer to the statue, and leaves quickly. Some quick math is done and the party determines they cannot reach the books in front of the statue and survive, so Piety pops a potion sold to her by Parsley back in Yonwell which would allow her to name a deity and ask a question. She opts for a deity she had learned about from Alia before setting out, and asks Athena how to cross the barrier. A spiritual encounter with a divine entity and a geas to build a (1500gp) shrine to Athena later, Piety crosses the barrier under divine protection and retrieves the books. 

Spending their morning doing some reading, Piety uncovers the secrets of runes (I gave them the blog articles) and Alma reads about the history of the Rune Wars. It turns out that the Ancients had learned runes from the Orbital Gods and used them in conjunction with more advanced magics to run their empire, until one of their own (the name squirms and will not be read) taught the lower castes how to use the free and easy powers of rune magic, leading to a bloody war that brought down the empire and resulted in rune magic being sealed away under the protection of a guardian. Now knowing what probably awaits them below, the party is unsure of whether or not they should release rune magic back into the world (or if they can even defeat the guardian). 

Opting to explore the rest of the dungeon, they find some charred phoenix strips (instant full heal) and more gold and trinkets, as well as a great guilded scroll bearing ornate calligraphy of the name Azamax. Twisting some curious draconic tapestry reveals a hidden vault and a hint leading them to another hidden room earlier in the dungeon. This one being clearly of different make and added later to the dungeon contains a clear glass box filled with warped purple sloshing liquid. A small note explains that this is a magical bomb (9d10 damage) and explains how to use it, bearing a signature that clearly points to this having been left by someone in the employ of Azamax. Bomb in hand, they decide to take on the guardian. 

Midjourney

Descending the floating platform back in the hub, the azure statue issues a dire warning (ignored) and the party finds themselves atop a giant glassy black platform beneath the crystal dome, a giant crystalline chandelier filled with writhing liquid hangs in the center. The liquid pours from the chandelier and forms into a 15 foot tall writhing ball of flesh and limbs- which Piety flies by on Belle and uses the magical bomb for a third of its health and a horrific violet implosion in its wake. 

The battle with the guardian is dire, and its summoned clay minions keep Alma and Stratford on the run and eventually bring down Piety and Belle who come crashing to the ground- 3 HP between the two of them. Brought near the brink of a total party kill, Stratford reveals that he had spent the previous reading/lore dump time preparing his summoning ritual, and takes the gamble to see if it can summon into the room Azamax the Cursed. 

Reality tears (along with most of Stratford's intelligence stat) and the head and front claws of the cursed dragon roars into the room, spouting golden flames in fury that nearly finished the party off. Then, spying the guardian, Azamax roars triumphantly and rips its open before filling it with golden flames- destroying it as Azamax pulls back into the tear in reality leaving laughter and flicks of golden light in its wake. 

The crystalline chandelier shatters and the room vibrates before quieting. The party picks themselves up and heads back to the hub to sleep off the consequences of what they just did. 

In the morning, they clear the Clay God room and find the books for making clay men, making three to carry their overburdened loot and help (with rune magic) to clear the stairs and escape the dungeon and exit into the light and make their way back to Taubey. 

Just outside of Taubey, however, the party's camp is attacked. Late in the night, something is heard gliding amongst the tree tops, and a colossal feathered serpent swallows Stratford whole. 

Midjourney

The party rouses in terror at the titanic snake coiled amongst the trees and begins a desperate combat. Stratford tries (and fails) a body swap and resorts to blind slashing in a desperate attempt to survive as the party tries whatever they can think of to get him out. Ultimately (lucky dice) the serpent vomits Stratford up into the air- where he is barely saved from certain death by Piety and Belle who catch him and set him down safely with Penolly and Ten Piece. As a last attack, the serpent strikes at the gathered pack animals and swallows up Yellow Beedums before fleeing amongst the trees at frightening pace. 

Terrified and glad it left, Piety returns to the ground and checks on Alma and Stratford, wherein Alma reveals they must go after the snake- as it now carries the dark sword Hierophant that was being carried amongst her horse's pack. 

Another desperate night flight with Alma casting bird person to keep up, she and Piety find a poisonous fog in a nearby valley and use their rune magic to clear the air- revealing the snake that struck once more. A quick combat ensues and the snake (failing badly again) vomits up most of Yellow Beedums and decides this not to be worth the trouble and leaves the party behind. 

Sword recovered and now horseless (and losing a collection of valuable silks and cloths recovered from the dungeon), Alma rides with Piety and Belle back to the camp and sulk for the night. In the morning, they return to Taubey and get a proper meal and night's sleep.

Session 13

Dramatis Personae:

Alma Tumbler (level 5) Aspirant Ranger, purple feather mutation, Wielder of Eventide, Hierophant, and the Lightning Bow, Chronicler and Sole Survivor of the first session

Piety Portendorfer (level 3) Gourmand, Survivor of a Death Curse, Notoriously not Pious, Aspiring Author

Hirelings: Penollyn the Archer, Lil' Ten Piece the Lantern Boy, Salamander the Man at Arms

Short on players, the remaining gang decides to make for Yonwell and finally get their experience (xp only gets added in Yonwell). They hire along Salamander, a man at arms, and make the trek through the beastwarren and out to Magda. 

Following the river out of Taubey, the party finds the riverboat presumably belonging to the merchant they'd bought their treasure map from is aflame in the icy river, a large treant battering the flames out and sending wood and embers flying. 

Piety flies in on Belle and runes away the flames, causing the treant to trudge away back up river. The boat itself sinks shortly later, no survivors remained to be found- but it was notably covered with arrows from the north end of the river. 

Getting creative with make air runes and make heat runes, Piety comfortably plumbs the icy river and recovers a healthy haul of coins from the ship before returning to the waiting party to make camp. Throughout the night, Alma watches vague figures across the river, until the sun rises and the distant figures melt back into the treeline. 

The journey to Magda is relatively uneventful, and the party sets out in the morning eager to avoid the gaze of Honorwatch and make their way back to Yonwell. Another night spent camped out on the road, the party makes it to just two hexes out of Yonwell when they spy a (very, very unlucky) encounter up ahead near the blood-clay pond. A group of eight riders, clad in black, making their way in a line slowly along the north-road.

Midjourney

 Piety mounts Belle and takes to the air as the rest of the party prepares to engage or flee. Getting closer, Piety can make out very little detail amongst the snowy glare of a clear winter's day, and gets close enough to hail the lead rider. A word of magic is spoken and Belle falls asleep- crashing to the ground with Piety as the riders charge forward into a throng around her. The stench of death is now clear, as is the blackened emblem of Honorwatch. Piety tries to surrender- and susprisingly (a mistake that I'm keeping) the dark knights accept, taking her and Belle into custody as the rest of the party flees into the nearby Shellwood. 

In the Shellwood, Alma and the hirelings make for the teleporter cairn and have a brief moment to be distraught at the recent events, before the line of riders charge in from the treeline into the clearing surrounding the obelisk above the yawning opening of the cairn. The riders charge the beleaguered party with lancers at the front as a greater glaiver carrying knight circles around for a pincer attack- leaving the magic caster and the one that had captured Piety (in tow with Belle) at the treeline. The three lancers make a devastating attack against Alma who nearly falls as Ten Piece and Penollyn take Dunketello the pack donkey and his cart below into the cairn. Salamander charges the glaive-knight and prevents his charge. Alma flees below as well while Salamander, in the best performance from any hireling and with the most astounding rolls, keeps the remaining lancers and glaive-knight at bay for three rounds of combat. 

During this combat, Piety manages to escape with the help of some clever glyph making, and, in a truly impressive display, succeeds in slaying her captor and the lancer that came to assist. She frees Belle and the two rescue Salamander, barely escaping the glaive-knight and company. 

Piety and Salamander make the panicked flight to Alia the Bell Priestess's shrine outside of Yonwell and beg sanctuary as well as help rescuing their comrades. Alia agrees but asks to wait until morning and let the two rest while she gathers help. Unhappily, Piety assents and the party gathers again at dawn to break out for the cairn and rescue Alma and company with the help of four mounted Bell Priests as well as Alia. 

Inside the cairn, Dunketello and his cart are abandoned in the entry way as Alma, Ten Piece, and Penollyn race for the teleportation platform and punch in their only know working codes, finding sanctuary at the corresponding teleporter inside the floating island above the bay of Wyv. They rest and find no one chasing them, then Alma makes the calculated choice to try and return back to the cairn the earliest she would think Piety could return with help. Alma and hirelings carefully head up and to the cairn's opening- only to be ambushed by four heavily armored dark knights of Honorwatch- as the sounds of battle crash in from outside. 

In the meantime, Piety and the Bell Priests reach the Cairn and find the area untouched, no bodies or blood to be seen. She presses forward and finds this all to have been an illusion hiding twelve of Honorwatch's knights, including the magic-casting noble and the glaive-knight. The priests use their turn undead abilities to cause half the number to flee before the trap is sprung, and a horrendous melee ensues. Salamander is slain in the mess and Piety charges into the Cairn to find Alma and the rest. In this time Alma had used her stunning shield to blind the attackers and slay two of them, and with Piety's help they corral the rest as the sounds of battle suddenly fade above. 

Returning above ground they find the bell priests slain and Alia to be the only remaining one- trapped in a self-casted bubble of Time Slow along with the magic-casting dark knight, the glaive-knight, and a lancer. The party prepares for the spell to end and manage to avert Alia's imminent death and drive off the remaining Honorwatch forces. With haste, the remaining group find the cart back in the Cairn smashed to pieces- but Dunketello to still be alive (luck roll). They gather what they can and quick march back to Alia's Shrine, depositing her to the care of her people as the party finally returns back to Yonwell.

Knave Report 6, 7, 8

We're back, with three sessions combined into one post! 

Session 6

Dramatis Personae:

Alma Tumbler (level 5) Aspirant Ranger, purple feather mutation, Wielder of the Unknown Blade and the Lightning Bow, Chronicler and Sole Survivor of the first session

Olga Derippe (level 3) Body builder, Hammer Enthusiast, Haunted by a Revenant, Death Defier, Hoardmaster

Stratford Slee (level 3) Member of the Hunter's Pact, Arguably Australian, no longer stuck at 6 HP, ex-pirate

My notes for session 6 got considerably jumbled and lost, so this is all mostly from memory. 

After leaving the black iron door behind, the party wanders into rows of shelves that are occasionally interrupted by brains floating in jars. They wake some of them up but find most don't respond or speak in tongues they cannot understand. One jar does prove fruitful, however, and it turns out to be the brain of Torovax the Yellow. 

Torovax was a wizard of the Ranger's Guild, according to the records that the party had found on their last expedition, and the party eagerly asks after what Torovax knows of the curse on Honorwatch and what caused its fall. The news of the undead curse on the keep shocks Torovax, who entered the Stygian Library shortly before the fall to try and locate a spellbook lost in Starmoore. He has no ideas about who could have caused it, but he does offer to help the party in exchange for them removing him from the library. They agree and Torovax tells them of some hidden books that would help them deeper in the library. 

The next room is a simple tea room and contains the hidden books, a considerably large spellbook and a book that causes Olga to level up instantly. Time works strangely in the room and after fruitlessly trying to sleep the party slowly realizes time only moves forward when they move. Taking the knowledge they have in hand they realize the Greatest Joke in the world is nearby and decide to forego resting and press onwards. 

They find their quarry in another mess of pipes and clockwork, a computation engine greater than the last. A singular librarian is present when they enter and on seeing the party they scurry out of the room. Quickly, the party decides the librarian is going to call for help and finally they'll be attacked for all the damage they've done to the library so far. Fearing their souls being captured and catalogued by the white robed librarians, they quickly use the computation engine and print out the Greatest Joke. Stratford grabs it and carefully avoids reading the book, noting the way the letters swim on the cover and fearing it will sap his intelligence. 

Just then, the librarians enter the room in force and unleash a flurry of magic missiles at the party, who turn tail and run. They keep ahead of their pursuers and even manage to grab Torovax as they flee. Stratford downs his potion of Giant Size and tries to create some obstacles while the party crawls single-file through the tunnel out of the room with a black iron door- now also chased by a hungry and cackling neurovore they encounter in the tea room. 

Back upstairs, the chase continues until they reach the room with the cone that contains vials of what now are clearly recognized as souls. Alma starts grabbing the vials and smashing them, unleashing a vortex of agonized dead that swarm both the party and the librarians in pursuit, but causes enough of a distraction to allow the party to escape. The Scooby Doo chase continues all the way until the party escapes the library and returns to the sand dunes, where their running to the exit mirror attracts an enormous sand shark- which they barely avoid before closing the mirror portal and returning to the wizard's tower once more. 

Back in the wizard's tower, the party makes their way to the tavern at the base level and promptly fall asleep after checking to ensure their horse and donkey were well cared for by their man-at-arms. The next day they make the trek down the mountains and back to Yonwell, avoiding the attention of a drake that loitered in the skies. In Yonwell, they finally meet with the possessed Destrian once more and deliver him the Greatest Joke. Destrian Rumboldt reads the book, chuckles, and then promptly explodes with a wet pop as the entire dream-like apparatus around him collapses and the party finds themselves suddenly in the attic of the house across from the guild hall, Scrying Orb and cursed black sword in hand. This adventure ends as they confirm the town has returned to normal and people don't seem to recall anything amiss, but they ensure to safely lock up their questionably cursed objects and deliver the Scrying Orb into the hands of the Bell Priests (as well as pay a bribe to some town guards who were questioning why the guildhall was covered in bloody hand prints). 

Session 7

Dramatis Personae:

Alma Tumbler (level 5) Aspirant Ranger, purple feather mutation, Wielder of the Unknown Blade and the Lightning Bow, Chronicler and Sole Survivor of the first session

Olga Derippe (level 3) Body builder, Hammer Enthusiast, Haunted by a Revenant, Death Defier, Hoardmaster

Stratford Slee (level 3) Member of the Hunter's Pact, Arguably Australian, no longer stuck at 6 HP, ex-pirate

The events of the Destrian Arc now settled, the party takes stock of their priorities and status. Stratford and Alma want to visit Taubey in the Beastwarren- partly to meet with Cormac the Green and inquire about his story with the Ranger's Guild and Honorwatch and partly to allow Stratford to deliver his various trophies to the Hunter's Pact. Stratford, now, finds himself free of his curse of undeath but is still afflicted by a mysterious golden statue that he cannot seem to get rid of and that grows larger every day. Olga brings up the rumors of a dwarven smith set up in the hills near Honorwatch and Alma mentions that she'd like to visit them and get her two swords examined. 

Ultimately, the group decides to first go to find the dwarf, then return to Yonwell and make for Taubey, hoping to catch a ferry in Magda. Winter is encroaching and the party prepares accordingly in the market, taking the time to hire a new lantern boy and discover a new alchemy shop has opened up (run by a previous random encounter, a young witch named Parsley) and readily empties the party's coffers by selling healing potions as well as identifying their many mysterious potions. 

The journey north to the hills goes well enough for the first day, but on the second day the party stops to rest just south of the black-smeared walls of Honorwatch. Everyone recalls the many times they have been warned since their first adventuring days in these lands: "Do not sleep within sight of Honorwatch." Upon finishing their recollection the party notices a lone rider further along the road to the north, cloaked in black and unmoving. Weighing their options, everyone does what fortifying of their small camp that they can on these open plains and settle in for the night. 

Not long after darkness shrouds the lands, a red glare blooms out of the tallest tower of Honorwatch. Stratford Slee, on watch, wakes the others as he sees the gates of Honorwatch open, a stream of shadow pouring out and only dimly visible under the glare. Everyone wakes and prepares as the shadow streams down the road and meets the rider, still waiting. Once the shadow meets the rider, four other riders are revealed amongst the roiling mass and the cavalry charge sets forward to the party. 

Darkness shrouds the party and extinguishes their flames as the riders mercilessly charge again and again to devastating effect. Potions are chugged, "We should have listened"'s are said, but finally Stratford's wolfhead lantern is able to dispel a circle of the darkness and provides just enough room to allow the party to take out a handful of riders before the shadow dissipates. They rest for the night and quickly pack in the morning, heading off the road and into the misty plains to the northwest. 

The mist becomes thick quickly, the ground turns to a sludge of mud and unnaturally tall flax, the air carries a smell of rust and blood. Navigation becomes quickly impossible, but Stratford notices the wolfshead lantern's eyes moving. Deciding to follow the direction, the party discovers a low, muddy hill ringed by twelve stone pillars jutting from the mud. As they approach, a wretched howling begins and the party sees the muddied and bloodied wolf-men chained in agony to the center of the pillars. Their howls rise to a crescendo and an enormous hand wolf, seven feet tall and cruel, emerges from a divet in the muddy hill. 

Mud-zombies burst from the marsh and and trip the party up, trying to drag them into the marsh. Stratford beelines for the giant hand wolf and in short turn discovers himself alone and well over his head, nearly dying in two rounds. Olga and Alma are trapped below, slowly destroying the zombies and trying to keep the lantern boy alive, so Stratford spies the hole the wolf came from and jumps, sliding down a dark muddy hole and launching into the air atop an almost identical hill in a strange willowy swamp. Deciding to return, he slides back down into the mound and emerges from the other side, using the mud to slide down the hill and help Alma gut the giant hand wolf. Zombies and hand wolf slain, the party executes each of the chained monstrosities, causing the mound to rapidly inhale the surrounding mist and collapse into itself. Confused, beaten, muddy, the party makes their way north and manages to find the camp of Corin the Smith. 

Corin has hired a group of laborers and hunters, her goal to dig into the legendary forge beneath Honorwatch and set up shop. The party agrees to help clear out Honorwatch's surface in exchange for some smithing work. The smith examines the two blades Alma brought and relates what she knows of them. 

Eventide, the shortsword recovered from a cursed pond, said to have been wielded by Sir Dorcas, a knight of Honorwatch. 

Hierophant, the cruel longsword that formerly held a shade of Honorwatch and was wielded by Duke Konrad of Honorwatch's son. 

A legend goes of a sealed gate beneath Honorwatch, older than the hills and the rivers around it, and that three blades were tied to unlocking it- but as for the third blade Corin didn't know anything. 

Goal met, curiosities satisfied, and with many new questions the party returns to Yonwell uneventfully and prepares for their journey to Taubey.

Session 8

Dramatis Personae:

Alma Tumbler (level 5) Aspirant Ranger, purple feather mutation, Wielder of Eventide, Hierophant, and the Lightning Bow, Chronicler and Sole Survivor of the first session

Olga Derippe (level 4) Body builder, Hammer Enthusiast, Haunted by a Revenant, Death Defier, Hoardmaster, Aspiring Gym Owner

Stratford Slee (level 3) Member of the Hunter's Pact, Arguably Australian, no longer stuck at 6 HP, ex-pirate

Piety Portendorfer (level 3) Gourmand, Survivor of a Death Curse, Notoriously not Pious, Aspiring Author

An old adventurer returns and joins the group once more. Piety had spent the last few months in Gnarledshore, looking for any records the Circle of Fire kept that could identify the strange crystal shards recovered from the mysterious cathedral the party had lucked into when investigating a cairn near Yonwell which functioned as a teleporter of sorts. Each of the statues in the cathedral gave a vision of a location and a similar cairn awaiting activation- and hinted that all of them activated at the same time would open the Cathedral's gates to the magnificent yet empty city visible from its warded windows. 

Piety discovered records of a monk at an old monastery in the Karst, north of Magda, who had come across similar crystals and had made a device that could, allegedly, locate these cairns. Knowledge in hand, she returned to the guild and joined with the rest of the party for their trip to Taubey, this time purchasing a cart for the donkey, Dunketello, as well as hiring an archer and their usual lantern boy.  

Winter has begun and snow has recently fallen, but the day looks clear as the party sets out. They stop in and chat with Alia at her shrine before they proceed north, once more examining the bloody clay pond where the old blood altar had been. This time, they spot tracks in the bloody clay, as of several large, clawed creatures emerging from it. Not wishing to make the same mistakes as previous guild members, the party studiously avoids interacting with the pond whatsoever and continue on. 

The second day finds the party traveling further north and again underneath the gaze of Honorwatch as night falls. They lighten their packs and force march through much of the night until reaching a copse of oaks outside the glare of Honorwatch. Approaching the trees and looking to shelter for the night, the party finds a dozen corpses swinging from ropes, freshly dead and bearing no marks of resistance. They spot a pit nearby and consider toughing it out despite the decorations, but despair once more when they discover the pit is deeper and darker than they had hoped. Lightening their loads and taking more exhaustion, they proceed north one more hex to shelter in the ruins of some old buildings along the road to Magda. 

Late in the night, four shuffling corpses follow along the road and attack the party. They recognize the corpses as ones that had hung from the trees earlier, nooses dragging in the snow behind them. Alma and the archer plug the first with arrows and watch it fall as an ominous buzzing emits from the corpses, and Stratford, Piety, and Olga charge forward with Piety protecting the others as Olga and Stratford pour and light lantern oil over the first corpse. Meanwhile, the other three corpses stop shambling and the buzzing gets louder and they open their mouths wide- the heads of giant locusts visible as they burst out and attack the party. Having fought locusts like these long before, the party makes quick work and cuts them all down and finally get some rest- just after Piety roasts one of the locusts and notes its strange pork flavor. Before settling in for the night Olga digs through the pockets of the now empty and dead shamblers, finding a heavy gold coin with a symbol of a man's gaping mouth on it. To her dismay, she finds that it bears the same properties as Stratford's statue and not only eats her gold but also finds that she cannot part with it.

Exhausted from the previous night's flight along the north road, the group finally reaches Magda in the early morning and get an inn and a hot bath while restocking their supplies. The town of Magda is not terribly large and notably surrounds a large hill near a river delta. The top of the hill has a chalk surrounding wall, the only access to the summit being a winding staircase from the central temple downhill. Mermaid motifs are engraved all over the town, and the party is on high alert after their initial investigations into the mermaid cult many months ago resulted in them being run out of town. With a mostly new cast, however, they once more decide to meet with the temple and see if they can learn anything new. Piety spends her time not shopping but instead fishing, and fishes a strange bass with several sets of eyes and small nodule legs. A nearby farmer warns her not to eat it as a beast in a cave upriver has been poisoning the rivers here and causing the strange mutations. After some brief discussions, the farmer gives Piety a small hand mirror and suggests she gifts it to the temple's priestesses. Excited, Piety goes and joins the rest of the group as they head into the temple. 

The priestesses outside don't speak but do bow and usher the party through the doors. In the main hall, lush pillows and a lavish table of exotic foods draw attention, but immediately on entering a thick and sweet incense begins to dull some of the party's wits. The priestesses add more of the incense to the large braziers flanking an extravagant oak throne at the end of the hall- each handful causing a small puff of green flame. An older priestess in heavy robes sits on the throne and gestures to the party to approach. 

Introducing herself as Sanesta and the leader of the Mermaid Cult, she invites the adventurers to share any tales they have and offers her own in exchange, specifically expressing an interest in any live creatures or samples that she could offer to the mermaids that dwell atop the hill in the Holy Pond. Stratford bargains as the rest of the party watches on, deciding to trade the fang he wrested from a giant snake beneath the Ranger's Guild in exchange for knowledge on how to remove the cursed statue and the cursed coin. He and Olga ascend the stairs to the pond and observe its strange milky waters and the chalk dome in the center as Sanesta calls forth a mermaid. Mist rolls into the pond and the top of an almost albino woman's face emerges from the water, reaching an arm out and examining the coin and statue before returning them and disappearing under the waters.   

Returning to the hall, Sanesta tells Stratford that the coin and statue were created by an artificer in Starmoore, specifically to sell to others who wished to curse their enemies and then ransom his curse breaking skills in exchange. Unfortunately, the means to break the curses exist only in his shop in the ruins of Starmoore- which is inaccessible still due to the Castle Demon that lairs within. Trading yet more knowledge of the region, Sanesta tells the party that they can likely find a way to avoid the Castle Demon's ire by consulting with the dogmen that roam the dunes around Starmoore and finding their secret that allows them to walk freely within. 

Piety rouses from devouring a lavish cheese board and gets her wits back, asking Sanesta if she knew anything about the strange teleporter cairn. Sanesta offers that she knows of three of them and Piety determines to return here and trade something for the knowledge of their locations later. Sanesta offers a variety of healing and even resurrection services as well in exchange for wealth or knowledge, hinting that if the party brings her whatever is tainting the river she'll gladly offer up more knowledge. The party notes down the location of the cave where the taint is said to be originating and then rests for the night and clears their exhaustion. 

In the morning, a light snowfall greets the party as they decide to set out for Taubey. Originally they had planned to wait for a river boat, but with the river icing over there won't be one for some time. Instead, they decide to follow the river east on foot and use it to guide them through the Beastwarren until they reach Taubey. Their first day of travel sees them entering the Beastwarren for the first time- its enormous trees stirring as much dread as the strange sky-scraping peaks with a hazy light behind them just visible to the far northeast. As night falls on the first day, the party sets to cooking their meal and immediately draw the attention of a colossal 40 foot tall walking tree, two hippogriffs roosting on its head. The tree stomps into the clearing and ruins their cookware and extinguishes to fire as the party scrambles to hide. With a great settling, the tree unroots again and crashes out of the camp, hippogriffs eyeing the party as they exit. Chastised, the party settles in for the night with cold rations. 

Late in the night, a shattering crack like a gunshot is heard to the north, followed by a bone chilling rattle. The sentry wakes the rest of the party just as a similar crack and rattle is heard to the south, followed by a third in response to the west. In the dark of the woods as snow falls, the party whirls to try and ready for whatever may come. After a quick argument of who will light a torch, Stratford hides himself and Olga lights a torch while the cracks continue to get closer. The light reveals the source of the sound to the north as it crosses the river to reach the party. A seven foot tall fiendish creature in the shape of a man wrapped in bone white carapace studded with spurs and spikes with a mishapen head that cocks to the side with a crack and settles with a rattle. Combat begins and Alma and Olga are immediately brought to 1HP by two of the creatures as their first of two attacks appears to horribly impair when struck. The battle continues poorly but the party manages to avoid any fatalities. Stratford leaps from the shadows and casts Body Swap on one of the creatures, prompting Piety to restrain his body for the rest of the combat. The hirelings fail their morale checks and panic, hiding in the tent for most of the fight before the archer steels her nerves and manages a lucky shot on one of the needle men. Alma's sword Eventide glows brightly and she skewers two of the needle men, leaving Stratford- in the body of the third needle man- to climb a tree and jump from a height before swapping back as the needle man cracks open on a large rock. From a previous encounter with smaller versions of these beasts, the party knows the value of the needles contained in their heads. When properly prepared, they can be sold for a high price, or used and inserted into a creature to charm them. The ethics of permanently force-charming people are briefly discussed as they set about removing the beasts heads and adding them to their packs before everyone settles to sleep again. 

In the morning, snow continues to fall and the party opts to leave the cart behind as it is nearly unusable in the wild and rough terrain of the Beastwarren. They continue following the river east and come upon a large leaning stone tower near midday. A white flash at the top of the tower draws their interest and the party decides to investigate. They climb to the entrance and find the inside to be gutted and open to the elements, a frozen layer of water at the bottom and a singular trap door at the top. Olga spots something beneath the ice and sets to cracking it open while Stratford and Piety cast spider climb and pop open the trap door. Piety enters carefully and finds the room to be covered in branches and large white feathers, smelling of horse. An opening to the outside reveals a small landing at the top of the tower but its previous occupant is nowhere to be found. Piety finds a chest hidden beneath the branches and hauls it down the tower where Olga and Stratford are still breaking the ice. 

Inside the chest, Piety finds an ornate flute with pegasi symbols. Making the obvious choice, she plays the flute and a pegasus lands outside the tower. After some careful approach, she mounts the pegasus and quickly realizes she doesn't know how to ride a pegasus and it has no saddle. The pegasus rockets into the air and by grace of Piety's spider climb spell being still active she keeps on its back long enough to get it to land again before it sets off once more. 

Beneath the ice, Olga finds a pristine shimmering silk cloak, untouched by the environment, wrapped around a fine mace with striata of a pearlescent metal running through it. After some experimentation, the party finds the silk cloak can change its color if you concentrate and Olga dons it eagerly. The mace remains a mystery but is determined to at least be a +1 weapon. 

Setting forth again the party quickly reaches their goal: Taubey. Near the river is a stadium sized two-tiered marble structure, the top sporting an enormous tree and pristine marble homes with griffons and wooden masked elves (the party has previously encountered them in the Greenspine) while the bottom looks to have been open air but is now fortified with heavy palisades. Devon, the Hunter's Pact member who first recruited Stratford, comes out with a scouting party and greets the group, ushering them inside and showing them around town. 

Taubey's central feature is an enormous longhouse where a feast is actively underway. It also sports a robust leatherworking, tanning, and smithing industry- but as most of the town appears to be feasting the party opts to join them. Inside the longhouse, the walls are covered in trophies of exotic beasts, many of which the party fails to identify. Hanging from the rafters is a forty foot long winged giant snake skeleton, shining with gold. The many tables are laden with drink and food and the party sets to feasting and mingling. 

Stratford begins his proper initiation to the Hunter's Pact by offering his trophies and telling tales of his exploits. A giant hand he carved from the giant handwolf wins a spot on the wall as well as one of the large needle man heads. The tales of the party are well received and not long into the night a ship captain picks up on a tale the party had been telling of when they had used the cairn to teleport to a strange floating stone island above a great bayside city plagued with wyverns. The ship captain shares that his crew were well familiar with it, being the western continent of Wyv, said to be filled with riches but extremely difficult to enter thanks to the winged terrors. He offers his ship's services if the party wishes to sail there and the party sets to discussing what possible treasures may resided within the floating island, now known to be rumored as the throne room of the last king of Wyv. 

The feast continues late into the night until the door bursts open and Cormac the Green and several hunter companions enter dramatically, hauling inside a freshly slain drake. To the surprise of the party, Cormac looks to be the same as his statue in the ranger's guild- from the top up. He and his companions, however, have the equine lower halves of what was thought to be mythological centaurs. Cormac cheers and the longhouse echoes as the feast continues with a fervor and the session closes out.

Tower, the Ghoul Titan

Jannis Mayr

The Nine Cities of the Tributary Houses of the Starklands are built on the graves of more glorious republics. Each sits upon a convergence of the Tireless Highway, whose immutable tiles were first laid in the forgotten past by the Empyreans who created the mega-constructs that still walk the world. All along icy coasts, boreal forests, and sulphur pits of the Starklands travelers can follow the Tireless Highway and unfailingly find their way to one of the Nine Cities. 

Before the Heritor came with their shining fleet and subjugated the Nine Cities, the Starklanders were known for their unique funerary customs. Young or old, man or woman, the dead were garbed in fine armor and equipped with blades and other weapons before being placed along the Tireless Highway for the coming of the Tower. 

As certain as the phases of the moons, with the coming of the first thaws of spring the Tower will descend along the ring road of the Tireless Highway and make his circuit, trudging past each of the cities before ascending once more to the Battle Peaks as Winter's grip sets in. With him comes his army of the dead, and his approach causes the dead to rise once more and join their ranks. Like a natural disaster for those not prepared, the undead swarms that attend the Tower flood over the lands as he passes by. At the core of the army, in rank and file at the feet of the Tower, dead kings and generals preside over the assemblage and shepherd the slavering ranks forward. 

Jonah Lobe

The Tower is a 300 foot tall Titan. His endless journey is heralded first by the approaching swarms of feral dead, and then by the stench and march of the army proper. When he begins the trek in Spring, his skin is pale and tinged blue, his figure gaunt and eyes black. As the year progresses, he steadily rots and chunks of skin and meat fall to the ground along the highway, attracting clouds of flies as well as adventurous adherents to the Tower or Exiled Sorcerers.

For the people of the Starklands, his legend is well known. The Tower was a great hero of the Empyreans and won many a battle against the enemies of civilization when the world was young and in its spring. When Winter first cursed the seasons, the Tower set forth with his armies into the Battle Peaks to break Winter and its curse. His battle was mighty and shook the foundations of the world, but in the end he broke Winter. However Winter's curse was laid, and as the seasons turn it grows in strength and inevitably overtakes Autumn. The Tower swore to defeat Winter, twining their fates and setting the Tower on his eternal path along the Tireless Highway to gather his armies once more and break Winter each year. Starklanders remember this legend and their heritage, and thus they set their honored dead along the roadside to join the Tower in eternal struggle to break Winter and rescue the land from its frozen grip each year. 

When the Heritor came and subjugated the Starklanders, his governors set the Tributary Houses to expunge this funerary tradition as an abomination and replace it with their standard of cremation, as the Heritor would not tolerate any encouragement of what were seen as necromantic practices. Some of the old folk still tell the tales, however, of how the Heritor's First Failure was when his legions tried to break the Tower. In the end, the Tower's path continued and the Heritor left the Starklands for his next conquests. 

Mika Koskensalmi

The seasons have turned and the curse of Winter has been broken dozens of times since the Heritor enforced cremation amongst the Nine Cities. Each year since then, the Tower has begun to slowly rot more quickly, and his disciplined army of the dead has grown thinner, their weapons broken and armor torn, replacing their numbers only with the slavering corpses of feral dead. Each year, the Tributary Houses hire Ghoulhunters to clean the lands of those that are left behind by this wild horde in the wake of the Tower, and each year the dead that wander the forests grow more numerous. 

Winter comes more quickly now, they say, and its icy tendrils remain longer and longer as the years go by. Cults of the Old Ways have sprung up throughout the Starklands, fueling a secretive worship of the Tower, whose countenance grows darker and more foul each year. The beer-halls grow more rowdy with disquiet and dread, as the elders whisper that the end times are coming. Brushfires of rebels have sprung up and have even blown the sole rail that connects the Starklands to the Heritor States. 

As the Tower finally breaks Winter once more and Spring is returned, the fires of rebellion are stoked around the Starklands.