Geekender's Realm

[Ray, 07/14/11]

The party begins by retreating from the last encounter in Humbawa’s forest, and is unharassed as they leave the forest.

Before leaving the area, we check around the nearest human town (Derth) to see if there are any local cults that might have some form of worship for Humbawa. We meet up with some clueless townies that can show up the petrified statues of creatures that they call “Humbawa’s Children”, which emerge from the forest every 150 years or so on a path of destruction. The creature is large, and looks like three toads, bound together with a single, huge mouth at the top of its body, pointing up. It has six arms, and is stuck full of weapons. Inside the mouth cavity, there are some tiny crystal shard silvers that detect magic. Lakshmi crawls into the mouth, gets weirded out by the sensation that she’s being swallowed (failed immortal level save?). We pull tiny shards out and Lore them: Sky Green Emeralds. Al casts Lore on the petrified creature and we learn that it’s proper name is “Petrified Vssgon Worker”. We are directed to the location of another petrified worker that has been smashed, and Al takes a couple of random samples. With those nuggets of knowledge, we zoom back to the library on Shinn Isle to explore our new leads.

Each PC prepares a line of research, which looks like it relates to each person’s area of interest or expertise.

Research

Lakshmi: Looking for information about the size/scale of the Shard of Sakkrad, or hints about its powers (L. has double proficiencies in Artifact Lore)

• It has a luck power — basically can control die rolls
• Planar Travel, unclear if gate or travel
• Something that makes immortals scared to encounter the owner — possible energy drain or life trapping
• Since Utnapishtim was revered everywhere, that might indicate some kind of Rod of Rulership effect.
• Made of material from the mountain where humans were first created and tested out. The mountain was made of sky green emerald. Size is unclear; seems to have been carried by Utnapishtim, but he could’ve been big (giant or dragon).
• Some artifacts are made from materials that gods can’t just create. The material has to be found. Artifacts made of such materials are usually extremely dangerous, even to immortals. This might include immortal power drains, or artifacts used as punishment (we found one example of an item that the gods use to punish other gods, but I can’t remember what it was called). [The mirror in the volcano must be such an item as well].

 

Efrim: Research the cities, buildings, engineering, etc. Get more details about key places on the plane like the Capitol, the palace, the dykes, the city of Krisnoi, and possible underwater cities.

Notes about this plane – there are no sea elves here, but there are ruins at the bottom of the poisoned sea.

Efrim looks for names of the godlings while doing his research….

 

Carrock: Connections/interactions between the Mother, Lord of the Waves, Humbawa, and Utnapishtim. He wants to round out the stories and see if we can draw some more conclusions or get clues about the relationships of these immortals.

Time has its own home plane, so if the Triumvirate plane was ruled by Time, it is likely to be a ‘pet project’ of one of the ancient Time gods. If the Triumvirate Monarchy has indeed been in power here the whole time, it is likely the same god involved. Time gods that have been around since Age of Giants include: Manwara, or Proteus. Also known as the “Old Man of the Sea”. (or….. Lord of the Waves?)

Al: What the heck is a Vssgon and/or Vssgon Worker?

a Vssgon is like a Drydon: immortals fear them, they wreck havoc wherever they go, their actions make it look like they are on some kind of mission.

Party Theory: Humbawa is the vssgon that Utnapishtim fought and defeated. The workers can be summoned from another plane when the vssgon has enough power, and sent out into the Triumvirate plane on a mission. When the workers wander too far they run out of power and petrify.

^We now know this theory to be untrue, the Vssgon workers are spawn of the Vssgon-Horror. They wonder around eating up ‘minerals’ and digesting it into Sky Green Emerald (stuff of the Gods!). Apparently they can get through the Gate on the Lantern-Side of the plane back to Humbawas Forest and he doesnt always destroy them and they wonder out, and wreak much havok upon the land. Perhaps Humbawa does this on purpose to remind the Triumverate of his presence or some old Covenant?

Utnapishtim:

Utnapishtim – we have a guess that he might be a giant, storm or cloud, since those serve Air, and his story takes place during the age of giants.

There are memorials to Utnapishtim on Anarchy, the plane of the Diaboli, but these are just for admiration – not worship. He is admired for having discovered immortality. He is known for having spell powers, but admired for being a strong fighter.

Neighboring Planes Information:

• Plane O is a “Museum of Rulers”. It was destroyed ~100 years ago.
• Plane E is the plane of “100,000 Skeletons.” Home plane of Mesthota and meeting place of the Mesthotic elect. We find out quite a bit about this plane from the autobiography of prince Fosteth on the Triumvirate. With help from Koritiku (Hierarch of Thought), he infiltrated the plane over the course of 10s of years. Eventually was able to have time alone on the plane and stole some books while Mestotha was away. These books are ridiculously cool: “Discourse on the Cricket” (something related to the Faenarae), a catalog of undead, and a book written in the immortal tongue containing transcriptions of letters between Old Nix and Mestotha. He was given the Cloak of Retinau by Koritiku (?); this was sold on the Diaboli plane by his hapless druggy dopey son.
• Pocket Plane is the plane of the Azure Sky (which sounded familiar but no one ever heard of this. We don’t find much information except that the node to this plane is in Humbawa’s forest and is marked by a Yoichig marker, and that Yoichig thinks its a good place for us to go. Much more on this below.

We do some more research – we find the “adult” section of the library, and Al becomes an expert at the sexual mores of the Taint.

On the way to meet the merchant princess, Carrock heals an injured bird, and finds he can see through its eyes. Through experimentation, he finds that when he is helping a bird, he can see through its eyes. So far this happens when he is using helpful/healing magic on the bird.

Efrim impresses her with his supermanly bushwacking, and signs lots of machetes for the local humans, thus propagating his own legend.

They no longer have the cloak, but they do still have the books. We befriend her, wheel and deal her, trade her some crappy magic items (dagger +4/+9 v. Giants, net +3, and some gems) and we are allowed to make copies. One of the books is written in the immortal tongue. Efrim, Al, and carrock transcribe the book in the immortal tongue, and Lackshmi uses her Spectacles to verify that the text is correctly translated.

Carrock seduces the merchant princess’s daughter, and spoils her for all other lovers that won’t be able to live up to his prowess.

The cloak was lost by the brother of the merchant princess. He is a gambler, and an addict, and had to sell the cloak on Anarchy to pay some gambling debts. Al takes him out for a night of carousing, where he pumped the bro for information while all drugged up. Al also ESPs the brother to make sure he got all the information. Al gets a description of the people he sold the cloak to, and created a mental picture based on the description. The buyer was a diabolus, and carried a scimitar. Al enjoys several hallucinogenic eyeballs.

Re-Entering Humbawa’s Forest

Through the gate, we go left this time. We come upon a stone table with a single stone chair. Efrim sits, and makes a save at -4 (made). He sees words appear on the surface of the table, it is a poem:

My lord…I serve him.. He’s so far away…

How I miss his kindness

[Ray: so we didn’t stop to think much about that poem. Did we make any guesses? My guess is that those are the words of Humbawa, written about Utnapishtim. Humbawa guards the node because it swore to Utnapishtim that it would. What do you think about that?]

[Clay: I was writing this up in my notes last night and considered it. Humbawa seems extremely powerful, could a Titan or powerful giant bind a creature that strong? Or are they supposed to be buddies? It’d be like if we befriended a Leveller! My summation was that Humbawa is not talking about Utna, but the Patron Immortal helping Utna. A guess would be The Maker, who first created Azure Sky and is doing his bit to protect the Gate from being opened and abused like it once was (the flood). Perhaps a good question for the Owl or The Archons? What is and from where did Humbawa come?

Efrim gets up and begins hallucinating horrible things. Al sits down and experiences the same effects.

Several turns into the forest, a giant (1 mile wide) anti-magic shell from the sky, and we are beset by 5 giant dragonflies (apprx. 30 HD each). We run, the dragonflies attack. They crawl into the forest path, and can’t turn around. They almost kill us, but we win. Al takes some fly body parts, we run for the edge of the dome (Efrim and Al can see the dome, none of the others can).

We reach a clearing, filled with hundreds of skull caps (bodies buried with the top of the head exposed). We cast Speak with Dead and ask questions of the dead. We get a couple answers, and are attacked by a wave of water, but we are in a tree, in a Force field. We drop the force field and are attacked by 5 purple worms. We win, and Efrim kills one solo with a dagger. We get some loot from the worms, and start running. (Normal Sword +1, Normal Sword +1/+2 v. Planar Monsters, potion of polymorph self, Lamp of Long Burning, coins, gems, tiara worth 20K gold)

We keep going, see a large hill that Ashgar directs us to. We stay on the path until we reach the bald hill. Upon leaving the forest path, we are strategically attacked with Call Lightening. Efrim casts Create Monster and creates an earth elemental, and men in armor. The earth elemental brings up the Yoichig marker, which is a stone tablet. We cast Force field, and the attacks cease.

The tablet contains instructions:

Bait Humbawa, and wait until it attacks with Comets. Survive the comet attack, and in the mist that forms, a weakness between the planes will form. Cast Gate, and pass through into the Plane of the Azure Sky. We decide to do this, and try and wait around to rememorize spells. Efrim uses his talking dagger to detect metal, gems. He finds coins, a holy symbol to Diamond (the Lawful dragon immortal), some minor magic items and some bronze tarot cards.

We light a bonfire and the created men chant “Hum-ba-wa! Hum-ba-wa!” in a real obnoxious way.

Lakshmi sees a giant wormy thing (invisible) retreating from the hill back to the forest, and is immediately hit with some kind of immortal level (no save) sensory confusion attack. Party members either cannot move (lead feet), cannot move in the direction they want to move in, or cannot form words or communicate.

A new snakey arm thing rushes up the hill, moving at approximately 720. We simultaneously retreat and attack. Those who can attack, attack. Al and Lakshmi unload meteors from wands, Utnapishtim attacks with his sword. The players lament that Al did not share his Girdle of Giant Strength with Utnapishtim before the encounter began saying “no, I want to wear it”. Al does share his truesight Goggles though, hoping that Utnapishtim will be able to have multiple attacks. After much smashing damage, the party manages to drive off Humbawa’s appendage. Simultaneous with the retreat, icy things begin to form in the sky. 6 more dragonflies, and several comets. Al dodges his two comets using an artifact. Others doge, or take damage, no one dies. In the next round, Iustal opens the Gate, all party members make it through. Efrim commands his earth elemental to carry him toward the gate, and efrim casts Wish to create a force field over the gate, keeping the dragon flies from attacking, or following us through the gate. We may or may not have pressed ham against the force field before closing the gate. On the other side, we find ourselves in a new plane, filled with plants that are very similar to plants that we have seen around the Jade Towers on the prime plane. We are in a giant basin, water at the bottom, and dragonnes popping up to take a look at us, and roar. They are several miles away. The party rests.

 

[Ray’s notes continued]

As the party rests near the gate node on the plane called “The Plane of the Azure Sky”, more and more dragonnes take notice. Al uses a newly permananced Phantasmal Force to create his own dragonne in the vicinity of the party which acts friendly with them. The dragonnes in the distance lose interest, for the moment. There is another Yoichig marker tablet on this side of the node with some advice for travellers. [Who wrote down what it said?] Efrim used the Medusa Dagger on this side of the Node and found some more random loot, including a +3 Pick of carving, a +1 dagger with personalized grip hilt, Collection of monster Tongues and a +2 Black Jack (sap) of Silencing. [Clay Note; try Finding the Path to the Daggers owner?]

 

With the cleric Ashgar’s new planar map, the party is able to scope out the options and get some bearings. We start moving away from the node, toward the nearest domed city. Much of the wildlife appears to be gargantuan in size. We find a rack of elk antlers, 30 feet from tip to tip. We shrink it and put it in the bag of holding. we come across a giant metal bucket attached to a giant rope that goes up a hill for … miles? Efrim uses his scroll of questioning to ask the bucket what it holds. It answers: water.

 

The party takes a Rainbow the rest of the way to the domed city, and lands a little way away from the walls. We hear a big ruckus and come upon a small camp of storm giants, they are harnessing 2 hydras to a wagon. We walk up to the city, which as we get closer see that it is proportioned for giants. There are some warning signs at the gate, which mostly warn about having the proper wagon size, and tell of the restrictions against hydras in the city. Al drinks a potion of Speech as the party approaches the gate. The two storm giant guards are very disturbed and somewhat alarmed as we approach. Al states simply that the party would like to enter the city. One guard is looking around anxiously, while the other answers “what are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be here!” We ask where we are supposed to be, and the guard answers, “well you’re from the mountains right? you gotta get out of here!” We back off, and leave back down the road we walked up. For shelter during the night, we use Efrim’s scroll of shelter. Night time encounter, giant iguana. Al suggest we retreat to the sroll of shelter and let it wander off. It does.

 

The party goes invisible and gets a better look at the city from the air. Lots of smithies, temples to: Ascan – the god of storm giant, but no others. No libraries. There is a large castle on a hill that looks like the center of some government type activity. We leave the giant domed city and head to a spot marked on the map as ruins.

 

The ruins are huge, an entire ruined city (named Bergen), about the size of Glantri City by our estimates. It was a human town. We use Wizard Eye from high above to find a mass grave where the bodies from a looted cemetary have been dumped. We find a skull, do speak with dead, and get some answers from an old woman about ancient life (worshipped three gods we’ve never heard of…). We move to the walls and find the skull of someone who looks like they died in battle. The ghost of the young soldier gives us the name of the king: Vlon. After a brief discussion, we ask Carrock to cast Find the Path to the bones of Vlon. He promptly flies west out of town. We are heading to the giant domed city. This time we fly invisible straight through the gates. One giantess we see us and she tries to sound the alarm so that the other guards attack us. Al puts up a quick illusion to draw their fire. It works, the party flees into the city in search of some bones. The Find the Path spell leads us to a large house, and into the cellar. We find a very old trapped chest filled with giant treasure, including a giant necklace with finger bones for the beads. These are the bones of the king. Al finds a secret door into another room, an abandoned pool room. There are a lot of mundane items in these two rooms. Efrim does his best to get all of the good treasure. We leave behind a magical giant sized sword. We get some treasure and leave the city behind, heading to the enormous lamps marked on the map.

 

The lamps are in the area of the “god trees”, labeled as such because they are so friggin’ big. There are distinct habitats at the different levels of the trees. At the canopy, large birds and predator reptiles. Then dragons below them. Below that, in the lowest level before the forest floor/swamp (50-100 feet up), are humanoids settlements. The very bottom is full of danger and gargantuan crocodiles. etc.

 

We find a dead hutaakan and raise him, gain his trust and he shows us where we can view the lamps “without being seen.” The beastman was not the nicest of characters, he was murdered by people he was extorting protection money from. We, mostly Carrock, try to convince him that this second chance at life should really be taken use of and change his ways. Will he? We can only hope. We return him to town and he points the way.

 

We view the lamps from a tall tree within the edge of the forest. We ponder what would be powering the lamps. Are they Yance artifacts? We experiment with a couple of spells, and find that a couple of them work really well. As we are pondering, Efrim makes a Wisdom check with a -20 penalty by rolling a 1. “Hey guys, I think there’s an immortal standing behind me.” I think was the classic line.

 

He turns around and two solluxes become visible. Shortly after, 2 archons become visible. Iustal is the first to drop to a deep bow, and the rest of the group follows. We talk briefly with the archons, and they suggest that we should get together with them for drinks. They line us up and shoot everyone with Purity Bolts. We feel lawful and perfectly good, which is kind of weird.

 

The archons transport us to their lair, where they can see the lamps, and all other corners of the plane perfectly well through their magical viewing window.

 

We ask them lots of questions, they give us lots of answers. They ask us lots of questions, we do our best to be truthful without revealing too much. We tell them we are after the shard, they warn us to stay away from the vssgon. We ask too many questions about immortal life, we catch them asking each other in the immortal tongue if we might be children of the gods. They catch Al understanding some of their words, and this seems to confirm their suspicions. They ask us if we would sign a contract with them, where they can summon us and call upon us for help if the vssgon should attack. Utnapishtim, Efrim, and Al immediately agree. Everyone else looks at them like they are insane. The archons indicate that they would outfit the fighters with artifacts and/or powerful weapons, should we be called to fulfill the contract.

 

They tell us about the vssgon workers, warn us to stay away, but tell us how to fight them. We talk about archons, about the immortals involved in these planes. About the Triumvirate, about the original Utnapishtim. We ask them about the woman trapped in the mirror and they acknowledge there is one but wont go into particulars. We suspect its a form of punishment, I can’t recall if they confirmed that but they won’t answer if the person deserves to be trapped in there, or say who it is. Perhaps they would say what race it is, human, giant, other. Maybe Justin can fill this in.

 

[Missing tons of information here. Did anyone else write it down?]

 

 

Iustal offers some kind of poetry artifact, the Crown of Someone?, to the female, and as thanks they bring out the “special wine”. The ambrosia raises everyone’s charisma permanently. Efrim finally sees an opportunity to use the worthless artifact, The Head of Shanara, to great effect! He approaches the ‘male’ Archon and says “I feel bad that you were left out of the gift giving. Perhaps you would like a little head?” and wiggles the Artifact hanging from his belt. The Archon seems reluctant at first but the graciously accepts and orders another round of Ambrosia. Once we realize that, Lackshmi raises Al’s charisma to 18 with a wish and the ambrosia raises it to 19, which is now his new max. [There was some debate among players about whether or not we would have finished wishing everyone’s stats up to max during the 12 months that Efrim, Lackshmi, and Alestria were using the Disk of Bone Hardening. This seems plausible, and we may be asking for a DM ruling]

 

The party stays in an abandoned dragon cave, and then later Rainbows to the Great Canyon, the locale of some human life on the plane. We quickly encounter tribes of humans living in the canyon walls. They seem to have extensive tunnels. We are somewhat unexpectedly warmly welcomed. Humans wave to us and point us down to a landing deck. There we are greated by guards and shown to a waiting room. We use communication magic to speak with different people and eventually the 3rd (?) wife of the Chief of the tribe. We find out about life in the canyon, where there are more humans, and so on. We offer to help them excavate more room and tunnels while we wait. They agree and we get to work we trade some spells, 1st level Drill, 300ft long 1 inch wide hole for ventilation and 4th level Super Floating Disk, like FD x4 in weight.

Efrim suggests going all out and building a solarium out the canyon wall. The party adds on really great ideas like water fundementals for hydroponics, and Hallucinatory Terrain to disguise it from the outside. We all pitch in and get done to present to the 3rd wife before we leave. We plant juicy fruit bearing trees polymorphed from seeds(?). The reciprocate with jewelry made from Sky Green Emerald.

 

We go to a larger human city called Symer. The city is rich in weaponry and defense. There is a council of 7 who rule the city. They have a ton of catapults and trebuchets, many that are too big to sit on the walls (i.e. they are for hitting giants). The city looks much smaller than it was at one time – there are abandoned parts outside of the walls.

 

We find a mages guild, and copy/trade spells, but it is hard to find people willing to trade, and will do so only under extreme security.

 

We meet a 20th level female mage who agrees to talk with us about the area, in exchange for Vie’s communication spell.

 

She doesn’t know much ancient history, but is smart enough to see that life used to be better here for humans, and that they are in a great decline. She can’t imagine that they were unified under an emporer, but can’t see humans being successful to a large degree without having such unity. She thinks there was a period when human cities were all over the plane. Then there was a second period after some cataclysm, and that’s when cities were rebuilt closer to the canyon (where the humans could find refuge).

 

The is aware of the Triumvirate. [Ray’s notes say ‘it’s known that the gods come from the gods’ but that doesn’t make sense].

 

There are things she doesn’t understand, and thus fears.

1. The Vssgon – why doesn’t the vssgon just come out and kill them all? In the Vssgon area, there is a huge pile of emerald chunks 50 feet high, and 2 blocks long. This is the Vssgon “puke” pile.

2. Giants. If they unify the humans wouldn’t stand a chance. She tells us about the interspecies outpost where we can go and meet and trade with giants if we want to.

3. Lamps. She is terrified of that area and does not go there.

 

She tells us that she has fought vssgon workers before, and killed it.

-They are immune to normal weapons

-She thinks they are very intelligent.

-They have six arms, and throw things, so they get six attacks.

-They can spew lava at targets at 140′, but they seem reluctant to do this because it means losing their stomach contents (the crystals)

-They have an anti-magic shield

-They can cast any 1-3 level spell at will, and especially hast and fly.

-For hit dice, she guesses it is comparable to a mature storm giant.

 

*Al has a theory that this plane and the Triumvirate were once a single plane that was split into two. The broken pillar in the Triv. was another one of these lamps. When the gods repaired the lamps, they put that one in the sky instead of standing it back up, and sealed off the “water side” of the plane, although there is still a weakness between the planes where Humbawa is.

 

The mage sells us a co-y of a book by a man she regards at the best ancient historian on the plane. The historian mentions:

-There is a holy symbol inscribed on the Northwest face of the great mountains to a god called “Our Maker”. There are currently no known followers of this god, but it is probably a god of elemental fire.

-There was a flood that cooled the plane

-There was a long period of giant rule, then many more species came to be.

-There were ongoing giant/human struggles…

-The vssgon came, and then shortly after the archons came.

-There used to be many lamps here, and the spider king broke them. The gods fixed some, and put one in the sky.

-Before the Vssgon came, humans lived on the mountain and were prosperous.

 

After reading the historians book, the party unanimously decided it was time to seek out a Vssgon Worker and destroy it. We over-prepared and killed it in… one round?

 

(Anil) Skipping to the current events and future happenings;

To Learn during the Archons’ second meeting:

– Alternative way out of the plane. There was some hint that there may be more than one node to the Triumverate and it sure as hell would be nice not to have to fight Humbawa again (especially without Utnapishtim).

– Ask them if they know anything about the Vssgon hording artifacts?

-Question for the party members: Couldn’t the goddess in the mirror be the nameless goddess? We need to see her face and determine if she looks like one of the 27. We should be familiar enough with their likenesses.

Clay Chiming in: This is the bait for PCs, go help someone in need, a damsel in distress. The Archons, were strange when pressed for info on her, its seems to be a punishment, having to look upon the Vssgon for eternity. If the Mirror is Right at the Vssgon, or is most of the time, it will be very dangerous to look for, even thru Scry/Crystal Balling. I assume whatever Gaze attack the Vssgon has will go thru to affect any scryers. Having said that, it may be to great advantage to us. If the person within the Mirror is an Immortal, anyway. Freeing them may be a condition of their imprisonment. Stuck there till someone lets them out, no small feat. I REALLY like the one of the 27 tie-in, probably not the Faenare goddess, but maybe. I’m guessing some uber vain goddess, like an Aphrodite or something, making it an ironic prisoner/torture. Or some Entropy godess, there were a few that have disappeared, we have notes on one of them. Efrim is trying to create a legend for himself, as an Epic Hero, this would fit in nicely to it. He is Uber ready to try and free the woman in the Mirror!

-Question from Al: could this ruined city originally been not underwater? Perhaps it was the first victim in the Great Flood that we learn about on the other plane?

– Supposition: The Lamps are not true Yence, those may still be elsewhere but may be the lamps as well. The Lamps light gives the ability to more easily change oneself, or others. Would that not be the point on a plane meant to help Evolve races? Some one can come and modify at will and much easier than normal I assume. Like the beastman/gnoll we found dead, he was far more evolved than those on our plane. Evolution! How grand it is. This is the Finishing School Plane.