Geekender's Realm

37 Pages of Lead-up to Ebbensalma, and Discoveries and Actions while in Ebbensalma, rather poorly edited. Apologies…(rp):

 

Ray’s Adventure Summary (with Justin’s response)

Most of these notes concern the party’s trip to Yaneh, but it should not be minimized that the party successfully destroyed one of the most devastating chaotic artifacts on the prime material plane before leaving: the Arch of the Spirit. It should also not be minimized that this was Al’s goal J

 

Yaneh

 

Accompanying the party is Iustal, that cheeky rival of Efrim’s from Catalon. Iustal announces that he has business with a resident of Koyarekis by the name of Diomedes. Al surprisingly is able to identify him as the owner of Diomedes’ Mail, a celebrated artifact known on the prime. The party accompanies Iustal to Diomedes’ house and is invited to stay. The party is delighted by his nearly god-like attractiveness, and that of his girlfriend Julia Hala. It turns out that Julia Hala is the child of gods, although not a goddess herself. Julia hala is from Myanan, but is actually from the plane of Unonen, which is a plane reserved for the gods and their children. (people aren’t supposed to know about it).

Right. The children of the gods (even of two gods) are mere mortals. One doesn’t get born an immortal, normally. So children are just ordinary Joes and Marys, although they presumably getting a little more doting from their parents than other children.

 

We talk about the prime, and if Diomedes is interested in returning at some point to help us kick some ass. He notes with some envy that the prime is dripping with artifacts, and notes also that the party is also dripping with artifacts (except for Efrim, who is carrying around the biggest puss artifact and won’t shut up about it). He expresses some interest, particularly about ridding the world of Eyenmar.

Yes, the Prime has always dripped with artifacts, but it’s now in the unusual position of having only a modest number of superpowers there, which gives those superpowers (e.g., Catalon) unprecedented access. Yet in spite of it all, Efrim still has a puss artifact, as everyone now knows too well.

 

The party asks about Dueling with mages. He’s no mage, but he does make some recommendations about local mages that are known for dueling. He says the local mages guild is really a business ran by a person called “Nottum” and sets up duels for mages.

 

Diomedes and Julia are curious about Carrock, and Carrock rushes into an opportunity to regale them with songs about faneare. He is trying to woo them and gain their trust, but he must have been trying too hard because he fails. Julia is especially impressed anyway, and remarks that the Traldarins also use song to preserve their stories. They seem to be interested in Carrock even though he failed to gain their trust. Or maybe it just seems that way because of their god-like charisma.

Yeah, Julia and her Traldarans. Perhaps there’s room for me to elaborate a bit here, just to make the connection clear. The Traldarans are an ethnic group that had a relatively peaceful society back in the days of the beastman wars. Halav is perhaps their greatest hero, who made his fame holding off large armies of beastmen, and (accordingly to legend) even had a great two-day show-down with their chieftain, whom he vanquished.

 

There is a connection to Pilgrim here. Pilgrim is the young upstart and god-aspirant who helped the beastmen to proliferate and then stage a big invasion of the Prime Plane, where by all accounts they raped and pillaged with the best of them (and it’s said that some of the humanoids of the Broken Lands are descendants of the beastmen). If one has any sympathy for the Traldaran people at all, one would probably admit that Halav has a legitimate gripe. His people really suffered greatly. Yet for all of that the party seems to have found in Pilgrim an unlikely ally, so in the presence of Halav’s daughter they stayed very quiet about their connections to him.

 

 

More talking about artifacts. We talk about the ones that weren’t meant for mortal hands. Efrim asks about the Shard. Diomedes states that he thinks it’s on the prime. That gets our interest. Diomedes asks if we have heard of the Key of Pandius (which opens a door into Pandius, the city of the gods). Efrim tries to bluff and claim that he hasn’t heard of it. He fails, but Diomedes is not one to point out one’s failings. Julia Hala asks Carrock if we’ve heard of the song “Monkey Wrecks Havoc in Heaven”. We again claim to have no knowledge at all of what this could possibly be about. Julia Hala agrees to teach the song to Carrock. Apparently they have the love of singer/songwriting in common and are going to open a coffee shop together.

 

Diomedes also has two artifacts on him. One: a sword hilt. Two, a silver golem thing that is following him around. Early on, Julia Hala also dons an artifact helm which apparently protects her from ESP. She removes it later when it is decided that we are all going to trust each other not to ESP each other (at which point Al activates his amulet of Open Mind. BWAAAHHAAAHAAA! Ahh, I can see her thoughts. She totally digs me. Yes, I will meet you in the garden shed after dinner.) Someone comments that Carrock also has a sword that is just a hilt (the Light Sword), and suggests that he shows it to Diomedes. As Carrock reaches to draw his sword, Diomedes (who is a legendary warrior) also reaches for his artifact sword hilt, catches Carrock’s eye and says, “Are you fast?” Carrock only hesitates for a second and his and snaps to the hilt. The air in the room stirs from the feathers in motion as both men race to draw their swords. In a flurry of motion, and a blaze of light, within two seconds there are two swords drawn in the room. But it is clear to all watching that Carrock has won the contest. (editorial: Before he can get too full of himself, x4 begins silently but loudly berating Carrock, insulted that he should draw such a pussy sword instead of him in the face of a powerful warrior, taking some of the wind out of his sail. What were you thinking!!?)

 

The discussion turns to Iustal’s business. He is interested in building a sort of pocket plane thing where you can stash things so that they are easier to summon. Golems, high hd elementals, that sort of thing. Diomedes says the thing you have to look out for are Proteans, giant exhaulted creatures that eat matter on the Astral plane. The trick is to enter the astral, and make several teleport jumps until you are in a secluded secret location. You should also recreate the home environment for whatever creature you are going to stash in your pocket plane thing.

 

Diomedes also serves some wine that is totally awesome, gets you drunk, but not drunk? Funny. Delicious.

I thought I would add memorable but not necessarily important bit about the visit dinner with Diomedes: Efrim got the conversational “ball” rolling with a number of rather direct, perhaps even overly blunt, questions about Diomedes’ artifacts, Julia’s youth, etc. This seems to have made everyone present a bit uncomfortable, especially as Diomedes hemmed and hawed and tried his best to change the subject. Yet for all of that Diomedes was taking pleasure in Efrim by the end of the night, referring to him as “Friend Efrim” and doing a little ribbing of his own.

 

 

In spite of the hospitality of the hosts, the party decides not to stay the night at Diomedes’ place.

 

Temple of Yoichig

We buy lots of planer maps in the temple of Yoichig. Al sells his copy of the map of the Yellow Flight, mainly to help hinder the work of the necromancers that work there. Alestria trades her mapping spell for two scrolls containing the spell Furtive Gate, which allows the user to open a gate that will go unnoticed. It is a 7^th level priest spell.

 

Market

Books – bought several books including a book of Heroes of Yennon. Contains a list of artifact known to be on that plane. Is going to be added to the library of Catalon.

 

Alestria bought a Wizard Duelers Book, which chronicles the life, triumphs and failings of a wizard named Crexis.

 

Al buys a bag of holding, two rods of cancellation, a bastard sword +5/+8 v. humanoids for Charles. Efrim buys 3 Rods of Victory!

 

We find a wheel of fortune for sale for 1.5 million. Al risks his life to try to gain a stat, Efrim tries to use a wish to control it. Al gets 1000 gold. We don’t buy it.

 

The party brought two statues of people that were turned to gemstone by the Talking Dagger. Eventually they were sold to a 21 hd priest from the temple of Thanatos for a total of 2.275 million gold. I’d like my share in hookers please. He invites us to come visit them in the temple anytime we like.

 

Charles stays at the temple of Jammadaru when the party leaves the city. Al gives him 20k gold and a bunch of “cure disease” potions. Tells him to keep out of trouble.

 

THE WALL

The main reason the party has come is because we have been instructed to pass the giant wall that splits this plane, and go find a city on the other side there and stay there for a while.

 

Iustal asks a contact of his from the Temple of Yoichig and we get some information about the wall.

• It’s “always” been there
• On the other side is the Sun-moo empire, which is long gone

The *Semu* Empire, but no matter…

• Immortal Servitors guard it
• People that approach it are greeted by the servitors and are told that it is off limits
• Lakemen from a town called Macchus live near it and know most about it.

Macchus = Makkist

• There are no immediate penalties from getting too close to the wall, but disturbing it almost always brings the attention of a Servitor

The towns people say that disturbing the wall will usually (but not always) incite a servitor to come out and investigate. How often this happens seems to be a matter of some controversy. Some say it happens about half the time. Others say the ratio is as little as 1:5.

• Some people have tried to pass through the hole where the sun comes through, but the hole is filled with servitors
• It is also guarded by mile-long worms that are attached to the wall (huh. On the “plane of worms”? Go figure)
• There are lots of doors where the servitors come out, but many of them have been filled and are no longer used.
• Moolaw is a 10’ tall dark skinned servitor with spikes on his skin that is friendly to the lakemen. Some of them worship him like a god.

 

The party eventually passwalls into the base of the wall at one of the closed up doors, and uses runes to get to the center. Inside there is a ton of garbage from the Age of the Giants and the inner corridor has been stuffed full of this stuff. The party keeps pages of ancient books that turned to dust when we got near them. Most of the party Travels around it, and Al uses the elasticity power from his anklet to squeeze by giant slabs of stone. *First time he has used that artifact power under duress J

Carrock uses find the path to get to the other side. Efrim uses the Move Silently* artifact power of his shrunken head and we find a giant robot arm holding a hammer that is still moving. The robot arm glows with immortal magic, and we leave a cactus next to it. You know, for good measure.

*First time Efrim uses this lame artifact power under duress?

 

On the other side of the wall we find the telescope holes and make a rough map of the plane. To escape to the other side everyone uses Dimension Door and we fall down to the forest floor.

 

The party finds that they cannot teleport on the other side of the wall. After much discussion we summon animals (which turn out to be super smart lions) and turn them into colt pixies for us to ride. We start traveling to the other side of the empire.

 

We run into rope nooses strung from the trees. We find and kill a Cyclops. We find several archeological remains. We unearth a black “glass” pyramid with the words:

“Midpoint Perimeter Western Frontier Marker” that includes a map of the west. Most notably missing from the map is the WALL.

 

Near a town close to the big tower, we find the city being excavated and crawling with yellow orcs. Staying hidden, the party eventually finds a mapping crew and charms the head mapmaker. We discover that he is brilliant and go about trying to get him to join our party. We drop the charm, and he comes back the next day ready to travel. His name is Orien. Al gives him a ring of Invisibility. He tells us that in the south there is an ocean, hobgoblins, trolls, and a palace in the ocean. Sofar Mist is down there too.

Wow, you managed to note quite a few of the details. Just to be clear, the palace in the ocean and Sofar Mist are intimately related–the palace is Sofar’s home (according to Orien).

 

We go to the big tower, and dimension door in from the back. Inside it looks like the big kiln for all the super tough black glass material that we see everywhere. We gather up as much as we can carry. Inside there is also a magical jade tablet that stays magically clean. It bears the words “DO NOT BLASPHEME”

Maybe a few more details here, just to motivate some of Ray’s comments. Why, you might wonder, did the party take the trouble to dimension door from the back? My impression is that the party was worried about being watched. Back when they were high in the great wall peering out over what was once the Semu Empire, they noticed that the wall had been equipped with magical telescopes of sorts (see above). This got them thinking that the wall guardians–servitors of the immortals–were using similar devices to scan the Semu empire for intruders or things of interest. Now this tower’s front door faced toward the wall, and it thus made them a bit nervous to go through the front. Instead they took cover in the back and d-doored from there.

 

This nervousness about being watched by telescope also helps to explain some of their other decisions. For example, the party has been doing its traveling on horseback, rather than by flight. This too is because they worry that they would be noticed if they flew above the tree tops (even if invisible, perhaps).

 

 

Orien says the place we need to go is Ebben Salma, the place where everyone, even the animals, go to get smart and gain understanding. We go there. On the way we find some temples where the gods may be dead but their statues still give blessings. We find a home of the twin gods that has immortal magic on it. It looks like a programmed illusion with a prismatic sphere inside. I say we go in!!

 

The problem with Ebben Salma is that it is patrolled by a servitor called … de Whabba?

Heh heh. Her name is Dihua, pronounced “Dee Hwah.”

De Whabba and the gang will come and kill you dead if they find out that you are hanging out in the city, so we must be cautious. In the middle of this town, we find two graves in the middle of the street. Speak with dead reveals the deceased to be Alphatian, killed by the guardian, just over 1000 years ago.

 

 

 

On a side note, Al notes that we are on the plane that is home to many “hybrid” species, and that the species here are becoming smarter and more advanced. As unlikely as it is, Al can’t help but link this back to the appearance of advanced minotaurs in Tae Ullari. Could there possibly be a connection? It seems so far fetched, but it seems too much to be a coincidence. Hybrid creatures, new signs of intelligence…. It goes a long way to explain the behavior of hybrid creatures that we’ve always thought were unintelligent brutes. Could there possibly be a gate, a nexus, or a node that goes back directly from this city to the prime material plane? Could there possibly be a site that has similar affects on the locals right in our own backyard!!!!!!!!?????? This is one of the things that Al will contemplate while spending time behind the wall.

Cool. I really appreciate being freed of the time-consuming task of recapitulating the entire adventure, Ray. It’s nice to share the burden a bit.

 

Just a couple more quick observations about the adventure so far.

 

– One such hybrid creature that seems to make its home on this plane is the chimera, although the chimeras here are a bit different–having an eagle’s head in addition to the goat, lion, and dragon heads.

 

– For whatever reason, most of the party seems to have a soft spot for the genius yellow orc (Orien)–everyone, that is, except Efrim, who thinks genius and orcdom are an unholy combination, even if Orien himself is of use to the party.

 

There were some other events that happened along the way to Ebbensalma.

 

– The party passed through a vast, vast cemetery that consisted entirely of mausoleums (no mere gravestones). The mausoleums seem to be designed to resemble miniature versions of homes, blacksmithies, temples, and other buildings you’d expect to find in your average town.

 

– Some of the mausoleums have the rune “traitor” inscribed on them, and yet for all that the mausoleums are respectable and more or less in the same condition as the others.

 

– The party comes across temples of many shapes and sizes. So far as they can tell most (all?) of them are devoted to worship of the “Twenty-Seven.” Orien says that they are the twenty-seven gods and goddesses that the people of Semu worshipped, and who supposedly lived in the walled interior of Ebbensalma.

 

– I can’t resist noting that the party has seen only the tiniest sliver of the old Empire. Their goal has been to get to Ebbensalma as quickly as possible, with only one side-trip to see the diamond-shaped tower where they found that strange glass. In summary, they are playing it pretty safe.

 

 

 

First Day in Ebbensalma Email (July 27)

 

No one knows what sort of city Ebbensalma once was. Even Orien has found little indication of how the original citizens lived so very long ago. What’s left of the city are stone and steel structures, buried beneath what appears to be an average of 20 feet of earth. Much of the area is now nothing more than wetlands or plains. Indeed you would have no clue that you were walking on the ruins of an ancient city if it weren’t for the occasional pointed roofs sticking just above the surface. Other parts of the city are more identifiable. Entire floors and sometimes even two stories of buildings rise above the earth. Often they are draped in vines and moss (bear in mind that we are now in a foggier place on the continent, with dimmer light even in the daytime). For the most part what remains of these buildings are just husks. The beams and walls of select buildings seem to have been built to last, but whatever was inside them is gone and forgotten.

 

But the scenery changes as one approaches the heart of the city–the district that Orien calls the “walled interior.” As one nears it, more buildings protrude above the earth, making for little “neighborhoods” of ruins here and there. Some of the old buildings appear even to have been used recently–most often as temporary shelters or campgrounds. Some have been cleared of their moss, and the muddier spots in their interiors have been covered over with wood. For the most part these areas of the city are empty. The party encounters one wild boar but otherwise finds no larger denizens than birds and snakes. There are also more discernable trails here. You can recognize them by the absence of grass and the occasional log placed across rivulets and pools of water. There are even a few parts of wooden structures leaning against some of the old buildings, perhaps designed for the leveraging heavy objects or supporting structures of some sort. All of this gives the impression that people (or something) pass through from time to time, and perhaps even linger on occasion. If the party asks Orien what they might be, he answers, “It’s hard to say. Small parties of orcs sometimes sneak into the city, as I once did. But it could just as well be the bears. Strange that the bears aren’t here right now. We seem to have come during the right season.”

 

The walled interior of the city is noticeably different from the rest. A great deal of this section protrudes above the ground. The exterior walls rise up about thirty feet and the guard towers attached to them rise up about thirty-five feet. Beyond the walls are the overgrown ruins of spires, towers, and very large conventional buildings capped with steep roofs. Unofficial trails crisscross between the windows of some of the larger, more habitable buildings. Many of the towers seem to have been designed to conduct large quantities of water, as though they somehow (improbably) had small rivers spouting from their roofs. In one corner of the walled interior there is a stony, giant-sized arm sticking out from the ground at about a 40 degree angle, a bracelet carved around its wrist and its palm flat. What the party can see of this arm is probably 12 feet long. Orien warns the party that the arm (and the buried statue to which it is attached) is still enchanted, and that it defends itself with lightening if someone tries to damage it. Nearer to the middle of the town there is a roofless square structure that has some great, moss-and-vine-covered sphere that sits just high enough to peak out over the top. Orien says this is harmless. Of the more conventional buildings there are five that are particular large. The summit of their roofs reach some twenty feet above the eaves, and each story of these buildings looks to be about 8-10 thousand square feet. Most of these buildings contain mazes of chambers and corridors. One of them, however, is nothing more than a giant room with a roof over it.

 

Another structure of note is a peculiar tower designed to look like a slender hill with sheer drop-offs on all sides, with little shelves of semi-flat surface strewn about the top or protruding from the side of a cliff (think of one of those Chinese landscape paintings, or look up a painting of a tower karst). The thing looks so authentic that the party is at first convinced that it’s a genuine piece of the natural scenery. Orien disabuses them of this notion. “If you get close and clear off the moss you’ll see that it’s man-made,” Orien says. “If you climb it you’ll even find some pipes running through its veins. I wouldn’t recommend climbing it, though. You’d make a spectacle of yourself.” He then invokes an elven maxim to underline the point that one shouldn’t make a spectacle of one’s self, thereby employing a language that he’s studied for little more than a week.

 

When the party first walks through the gates of the city, Orien recommends that they climb the stairs of a nearby guard tower to get a better lay of the land. “We’ll want to get a look and then decide where to hide our belongings. Dihua’s ‘patrol’ visits every few days, so we should attend to this first and explore later.”

 

Orien leads the party up a circular staircase that runs along the perimeter of the tower. As they start climbing Orien rubs some of the soil off one of the stone bricks of which the tower is constructed. He then points to the partially exposed brick (this one is roughly three by four feet) and instructs the rest of the party–who are strewn out along the stairs–to take a look as they climb past it. As each party member does so, he/she finds that the brick is made not of stone but rather of some sort of dark, murky glass molded into the shape of roughly hewn stone. “That’s what *all* of these structures are made of,” Orien says over his shoulder.

 

From the top of the tower the party would have a reasonably good view of the city both inside and outside the wall–if only the afternoon fog weren’t settling in. What they see instead are the trunks of various buildings that disappear into the mists above. That craggy, life-like hill that Orien spoke of is already half obscured. Even so, it is hard to take one’s eyes off of the surrounding panorama. Orien indulges the party and lets them gawk for a few minutes before drawing their attention to the floor. There, carved directly into the surface, is an elaborate map organized into a grid. Running along the sides of the grid are various symbols that readers of ancient runes recognize as numbers and directions of the compass (North, South-southeast, etc.). Two identical charts flank the grid, one of them designed for those who face South and the other designed for those who face North.

 

Having gotten everyone’s attention, Orien then uses the map to describe some of the key features of the area. He then talks about the more immediate need to find a place to set up camp–preferably a well-hidden place. Here is the gist of the conversation:

 

– This is it. You have arrived at your intended destination, at which the first human aspirations to godhood were conceived. If you choose to stay within the walled interior you should expect to experience a mental-emotional rebirth akin to the first few months in the life of a newborn. Orien warns that it can be a little strange and may take some time to get used to, but assures you that you will reap great benefits from it in the long run, so long as everything goes smoothly.

 

– As you know, immortal servitors patrol here occasionally–usually once every two or three days. They generally prefer high noon, when both suns are high in the sky and the fog is thinnest (on really good days the fog might even burn off for an hour or two). Occasionally the servitors visit in the evening or at night, but not often. When they visit they usually have an appointed lookout, who perches on the artificial hill that overlooks the city while Dihua’s assistants scour the area. Sometimes the assistants just fly over. Other times they tromp around looking into buildings and poking their heads into tunnels (many, many tunnels have been dug here over the centuries). Sometimes they leave magical, crystalline “flowers” (for lack of a better word) which disintegrate when one gets too close to them. When that happens, the patrol might show up to investigate an hour or two after the incident. Or they might not. You never can tell.

 

– Orien thinks Dihua’s patrol can see invisible and see in the dark, but they can’t see through the walls of which these buildings are made. He suspects their vision is somewhat hampered by the fog as well, but that’s just an informed guess.

 

– Although the walled district may look empty, there are in fact some communities here, some of them permissibly and others illicitly. Most animals, for example, are free to come and go as they please, so the party is sure to find packs of animals that roam freely. Panthers are here almost year round, but they are smart enough not to attack humanish creatures unless they feel threatened or believe they can get away with it. About six months out of the year a large group of bears move in and do their best to take over, although they are apparently out of town right now.

 

– The party needs to pick a place to stash it’s belongings. Someone should guard the belongings at all times, as the panthers are reasonably good thieves. They also need to be very sure that the belongings are not in a place that the patrol might find.

 

– How should the party go about hiding itself? Orien has a couple of ideas.

 

– First, you might dig yourself some new tunnels to live in and then find creative ways of camouflaging their entrances. It’s a safe bet that the patrol already knows where most of the pre-existing tunnels are, as they have had centuries to discover them. New tunnels are therefore preferable.

 

– Second, there might be a community of other humanish creatures here–most likely orcs or hobgoblins. If they’ve been here for a month or more there’s a chance that they will have already developed some excellent hiding places of their own, and it is likely that they would be willing to cooperate in ways that will benefit all parties involved (this is what Orien’s group did with some hobgoblins when Orien visited this place as a lad). You might think that the various groups would be too distrustful to collaborate, but you’d be wrong. In this place all humanish creatures who stay here do so illicitly and at their own risk. If one group reports another to the patrol, they will be wiped out as surely as those they report on. So for all intents and purposes every humanish creature here is “in the same boat.” It’s a high-stakes game that all sides can win, so long as they don’t lose their cool.

 

– Other advice from Orien:

 

– Get to know the city intimately. Find out where the good hiding spots are, so that you can find a place to take shelter wherever you happen to be when the patrol arrives. You’ll want to have a really great network of hiding places that are unknown to the servitors. But even if one isn’t handy at any given moment of the day, just take shelter in a nearby room or tunnel. Only occasionally do the servitors conduct a careful search, so even predictable hiding spots (e.g., a broom closet) will do just fine.

 

– Kill a wild boar and carry its legs and hooves with you at all times. If you accidentally touch and disintegrate a crystal flower as you are walking around, use the legs to generate a bunch of wild boar tracks in the vicinity. Whatever you do, don’t leave signs of intelligent life in the vicinity of the crystal flower.

 

– (In Orien’s words:) “This may sound impossible, but you have to try your best to live a normal life here. If you spend all of your time holed up in a hiding place or looking over your shoulder, your development will not take the desired course. Those who live constantly in fear here end up with damaged psyches. Those who truly flourish find ways of living as though they were children living safely in the village of their birth–playing games, having long conversations, and indulging their curiosity whenever they can.”

 

– In the interest of putting everyone at ease, Orien then adds, “Please bear in mind that our chances of survival are good. One or two groups of humanish creatures visit this place every year, and they almost always survive. If any one humanish creature is discovered then it’s likely that all of us will be rooted out and killed. But that rarely happens–perhaps no more than once a decade. For whatever reason, Dihua and her patrol are not as vigilant as you might think.”

 

From: jtiwald@yahoo.com

Subject: [spoo] Days 1-3

Date: August 8, 2008 12:41:22 PM EDT

 

My apologies, guys. This took a bit longer than I expected. In fact I’m writing you now just a couple of hours before Melanie and I leave for L.A., to visit her brother. Yes, I’m that spooey. I didn’t have a chance to proofread this so there might be a few infelicities. But the essential facts are there.

 

Ah, yes…

 

We pass now through the first three days in the wondrous city of Ebbensalma. After the party spends a couple of hours in the high guard tower hashing out their strategy, the party then descends the stairs and walks or glides out into the middle of the ancient street. Orien gazes to the East, where now only the second, slower of the two suns remains visible. The fog is thick and the sky is rapidly getting darker. The air seems charged with energy but not a creature can be heard. Some of you might feel a bit like adolescents playing in abandoned cemetery.

 

The party gets to work. Orien leads them to a nearby “home”–really just the uppermost five feet of a house. He parts a curtain of vines hanging a window and invites the party in a large room. Once everyone is inside he lets the curtain fall back into place, so that only a bit of the dim, evening light shows through. Those without infravision can see very little. Orien says, “Okay, it’s safe to put on some lights.”

 

When the party gets out their continual light objects they discover a few things of interest. In one area there are some old, dusty clothes ripped apart and caked with dried blood. In a nearby corner there is a smattering of bones. In the middle of the large room are two boulders–one short and fat and the other tall and almost rectangular. Orien goes over to pat the tall, rectangular boulder and says, “We need to find a place to stash our belongings and sleep. This is as good a place to start. Now if someone could help me push this thing.”

 

Orien’s plan is to find a reasonably secure hiding spot for the first night in Ebbensalma. The boulder, it seems, blocks the entryway to a rather elaborate set of tunnels that have existed for quite some time. These tunnels are known to Di-hua’s patrol, he says, but they rarely check them. He gives the party a 99.5% chance of passing the night undiscovered by the patrol.

 

Little does Orien know that the party has ways of making tunnels within tunnels, and chambers within chambers. I will assume that the party follows Orien all the way to a room that he deems safe, and there, with use of those magical powers that so impress him, make an entirely new room unconnected to this one. Perhaps Efrim can use a rune to make a little room beneath this one, and then Lackshmi can cast passwall to bring the party in. I leave these details to you. In any case, the party spends the night in a room without an entrance or exit. If anyone has to relieve themselves, they get an audience.

 

The party sleeps uneasily. Efrim finds himself wide awake at what must surely be the middle of the night. Laying still, he can hear Al muttering something about ghouls or mushrooms–hard to tell. An hour later and still awake, Efrim could swear he hears Orien reciting some sort of list of two-syllable words, quietly and to himself.

 

[Day Two]

 

The next morning the party decides to stash its belongings in the room-without-an-exit and explore the city unencumbered for awhile. Once they find a safe and secure place to call home they’ll then come back and fetch their belongings. The party that for the time being they should explore together. However they also agree in principle that someday they will exploring on their own, or at least in smaller groups. After all, at some point they simply must set aside their anxieties and treat this place like a hometown.

 

The first item of business is posting a lookout. Orien suggests that the party do as follows: someone should hide him/herself in one of the taller structure. He suggests that this person *hide* in the good-old-fashioned sense, and not just turn invisible. Di-hua’s patrol can see invisible things. They cannot so easily someone hidden behind a curtain of vegetation, or peering through a hole in a wall. (“Do we have any thieves among us?” Orien asks.) The patrol almost always comes from the West, so the lookout should be posted somewhere in that vicinity, and she should have some inconspicuous way of alerting the other party members when the patrol comes into view. When Orien was here they had a variety of ways of sounding the alarm, and they tried to mix them up on a regular basis. Sometimes the lookout would watch to the West and then flash a light to the East. Sometimes, if the group was just sitting around a campfire, they would make some arrangement

where the lookout could simply pull a strong and thereby alert the others to take cover.

 

Orien suspects that the party can think of more reliable and less conspicuous way of sounding an alarm. That’s probably true, but I’m not exactly sure what your character would have in mind. Could you fill me in on the details?

 

Let us assume for now that the party has made some such arrangement, and that they regularly swap lookout duties. With that arrangement made, they party beings to explore.

 

The material with which these structures are built are intriguing. The murky class substance apparently changes colors as each of the suns passes overhead (yellow first and then red second). The walls that looked like moss-covered stones to the party when they arrived yesterday afternoon now look a bit more like moss-covered glass this morning. The fog lifts a good thirty feet off the ground, effectively making the city look as though it were built beneath a low ceiling. By noon the clouds have lifted a full hundred feet or more. The city is sparkling.

 

Let me note some of the highlights from this first day of true exploration:

 

– Alestria tries casting the dimension door spell. It does not seem to work in this area.

 

– The party discovers that a group of panthers have claimed a small neighborhood of alleyways and overgrown weeds. Much like the lions that the party met to the north, these panthers have some sort of primitive bad-and-strap arrangement that enables them to carry their belongings with them.

 

– Carrock discovers buildings that seem to have “stairways to nowhere.” He’ll find a stairway that passes one of the ground-floor windows (remember these stairs begin somewhere deeper in the earth). He’ll follow that stairway to the very top, where for whatever reason there will be no room or platform. The stairway ends at a drop-off. Within the first day of exploration he finds six such structures. When he asks Orien about them, Orien simply says, “Who knows? Some parts of these structures remain while the rest rotted away. Whatever was at the top of these buildings must have been made of material that rots.”

 

– You might recall that in the middle of the town there is a roofless square structure that has some great, moss-and-vine-covered sphere that sits just high enough to peak out over the top. As it happens, much of the below-ground structure of this building has been excavated. About twenty feet down is a room full of figurines like the ones you occasional found in temples to the North. In this room, however, the figures are about two feet tall, and arranged in more casual, life-like poses. The posture and stance these figurines would keep in other temples is gone. Some are sitting with their legs crossed. Some are standing and talking. One is examining something in his hand. All of the figurines look more or less prestine, and all detect magic.

 

– In the early evening, after the fog has descended and the second sun is just about to set, Alestria spots what looks like a flicker of light in the stop story of a building about four blocks away. It appears for only a split second and then disappears. Not sure whether she imagined it, she asks everyone else to look to. For awhile they see nothing. The building has few windows on its top floor, and what windows it has are half-obscured by vegetation. Nothing seems to happen. Just when the party is about to give up, the party all sees the flicker again.

 

– Everyone flies directly to the source. Someone carries Orien. Peering through the window, they see a three-way intersection of corridors. The party enters the corridors and starts poking around. There is little sign of life in these rooms. Almost all of them are empty except for whatever debris might have been tracked in the past century or so. Then Carrock spots something: a rope made of some non-traditional material (neither hemp nor silk–something greener) and a strange metal clasp at one end. It looks to be in good condition. Al takes a look. With his infravision he notices that the clasp seems a bit warmer than the rest of the room. He sniffs the rope. He could swear he smells sweat of some kind.

 

– The party searches the building inside and out. They find nothing more of interest.

 

Late into the night the party is still exploring buildings. Finally Lackshmi suggests that everyone return to the-room-without-an-exit and try to get some sleep, although neither she nor anyone else really feels sleepy. Reluctantly, everyone makes there way back to the tunnel entrance, pushes aside the boulder, descends through the tunnels, and enters the room via passwall.

 

That night, Al feels restless. His mind races with plans for the next day. He takes mental notes of things that he wants to collect for his alchemy kit. Alestria reminisces about hunting expeditions she undertook in her younger days. Efrim falls fast asleep at first. In the middle of the night, when the room is almost completely silent, Efrim wakes with it start, with the vague feeling that something significant happened. After a few minutes lying still he realizes what it is: he’s figured out why his fire protection enchantment went wrong the first time he tried adding it to Al’s Armor. Indeed, he’s just figured out what’s gone wrong every time he’s tried enchanting things with fire-based spells. He’s not sure when he figured this out, exactly, but he did.

 

[Day Three]

 

For many there is a giddiness in the air when the party emerges from their tunnel the next morning. Stepping out from the vine-covered window, the party spots a wild boar, which also spots them and runs around the nearest corner. Alestria feels a powerful temptation to chase it and hunt it down, but (unless she gives in to the temptation) the party should post watch before racing through the streets in the daylight.

 

Or perhaps this is wrong. Perhaps Alestria should throw caution to the wind and chase it. Perhaps everyone should. Who is to say?

 

At this point I would like to pause for reactions. More importantly, it would be useful to know what sort of lookout system the party has arranged. I eagerly await your plans.

 

Spooeystin

 

 

From: jtiwald@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: [spoo] ebbensalma activities

Date: November 19, 2008 12:46:05 PM EST

 

Wow, what a spooey, spooey message. I’m jealous that you’re back in a regular campaign. And both of them sound like fun. If you’re a spoo, you’ve got to have a little of your epic, life-long stuff, but you’ve also go to have some of your good old dungeon-delving stuff. A fine balance.

 

Thanks for the detail on your goings-on in Ebbensalma, Anil. I could probably use an update from everyone else, unless you want your old orders to stand (as I recall the old orders were given before you knew much about the town, and before the first bit of exploration).

 

My suspicion is that the list of activities will be quite long, and it’s always possible that you commit to doing more than you could reasonably accomplish in 3-8 months. So here’s an organizing principle. It seems to me that you could put all of the items on your “to do” list into two categories.

 

1. Activities requiring a small investment of time

2. Activities requiring a big investment of time

3. Attitude, thoughts, dreams, hopes

 

The things that fall under #1 are all of those quick “check off the list” sorts of tasks, like checking out a certain building or mapping the town. You can probably assume that you’ll get most or all of these things done, unless you decide to revise your list mid-stream (as is likely).

 

The things that fall under #2 are the big research projects. Perhaps, as Lackshmi seems to suppose, you can accomplish these in less time than it would normally take in another location. Perhaps not. But in any case, the items on this list can’t be infinite. It might help if you ranked your priorities alphabetically: from (a) to (z), perhaps using (a1) and (a2) (etc.) to rank ties. Anal, I know. But it helps. I’d hate to assume that you meant to prioritize one thing when in fact you meant to prioritize another.

 

The things that fall under #3 are those that have more to do with your psychological-motivational approach to your stay in Ebbensalma. If you spend a lot of your time fantasizing about immortality (Lackshmi) or fantasizing about Julia Hala (Al) or ogresses (Al), this is the place to mention it. The constraints on this list are a little bit time-oriented (you only have so much time in a day for fantasizing), but also psychological–can you really divide your time between fantasizing about Julia Hala and thinking noble, pure thoughts? It’s hard to imagine how one wouldn’t bleed into another.

 

Sorry to impose so much structure. So anyway, here’s my attempt to organize Anil’s list according to the above principles.

 

1. Small time-investment

 

3) As part of the map-making, survey the central region with

spectacle-based X-ray vision and other detect spells up. This will

add to the 3-D map that we’re creating with below ground portions.

Hopefully this will turn up some cool stuff too and I’ll be able to

do mini, fully concealed excavations.

 

2. Big time-investment

 

1) Study the material that the structures are made out of and try

(with Efrim’s help?) to learn the rune to manipulate it. I’d like to

take some samples home with me – it seems like it’d be pretty cool to

make magical items (weapons?) from this stuff. I’ll discuss the

alchemical dimensions of this stuff with Al.

 

2) I’d like to try befriending and training a falcon from here.

Thats something that Lakshmi was very into when she was

younger and hasn’t had time for in a long time — it’ll be the

equivalent of spooing for her.

 

3. Attitude

 

4) I’ll dream and talk about the possibility of all of us together

becoming immortal following some non-traditional path. Its

hard not to think about this possibility knowing that the 27

existed. Were they friends and adventurers like us?

 

Indeed. These are the questions of the distant past, whose very unknowability gives you free rein to answer as best suits your fancy. Or perhaps they aren’t as unknowable as they seem.

 

From: davidwdot@hotmail.com

Subject: [spoo] Re: Ebbensalma days…

Date: November 19, 2008 5:56:53 PM EST

 

Damn… its been almost 3 months since I last sent this message, but

here were my actions when I sent this on Aug. 24th. Good to be back

in the “real world” of D&D again!

~Spave

 

I guess that I’m not liking the idea of just running after this boar

in the daylight without any patrols or lookouts in place. Something

doesn’t seem good about that idea. However, through the different

emails I was getting the idea that it would be a great idea to

memorize spells like “Speak with animal”, “Speak with underground

animal”, “hold animal”, “hold underground animal”, “growth of plants

(for food)”, and “charm plant” so that we can get a better

understanding of our surroundings and get possible insight from the

animals and plant life (especially if they do have some sort of

higher intelligence). So, I think when I see that boar I will

cast “speak with animal” and ask it over to chat. If he decides to

than I’d like to gauge his intelligence and see if he knows of any

patterns of when “patrolling guards” or the sort may come around.

I’d also like to know what kinds of animals are in this area as maybe

there is a way that they can alert us to danger. If he doesn’t stop,

then I might do a “hold animal” on him and then try to “speak with

animal” again.

 

I like the idea of using Luxshmi’s communication spell and working

with the birds to pull patrolling guard duty for us. So, here’s a

question for all of you. Do we really need to worry about

leaving “magical traces”? Does that really happen? Or are we just

being paranoid? I also like the idea that someone had about being

invisible and checking out this room where we found the green rope

with the buckle on the end. If it looked like someone was there

recently its worth checking out to see if there are other creatures

around that we could possibly team up with. Or, if they’re dangerous

jerkoffs that try to kill us it might be nice to have the upper hand

on them.

 

Alestria would be willing to take whatever shifts needed for lookouts

as well. So, it looks like we are fucked when it comes to any type

of teleport, dimension door spells. If we get caught my guess is

the best way to get out of trouble fast is to polymorph into a colt

pixie and get the fuck out of dodge… right?

 

I hope I’ve covered everything. Please tell me if I haven’t. Spoo

on!

 

From: wussking@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: Fwd: [spoo] Ebbensalma days…

Date: November 22, 2008 8:40:35 PM EST

 

Ebbensalma Days,

 

I peaked back to some old emails and dug this up from 8/08:

 

Efrim’s childhood was spent as a throw away aristocrats child, his family were all power mad mages, one was even a lich!

Efrim

is sure everything will go well here because unlike then, unlike all of

our childhoods, we didnt choose our family, they were simply there.

In

this place, we have brought with us our chosen family, this has so much

more power and significant.

 

 

As for dreams? I’m sure he’ll have dreams of piloting a flying chariot leading an army of Man and Elf against the Deadites. He will dream of Druida and Tien Shi. Dreams of Archons and Helions and taking up amongst them as if one of them! these will bring him much delight.

 

AS for activities.

 

I sent a top secret email to Justin a long time ago and I hope he still has it. It detailed all about how i was going to kill and eat the rest of the party. HA just kidding. But it did have some top secret actions in there.

 

Shelter – I’ll make creating secure shelters, a main hideout and then maybe four room sized ones around the city in case of emergency.

Using the known tunnels as a base floorplan, we can use Passwall to cut straight down into the earth 30 ft and then use Distinitgrate to make a room, hopefully not encountering any structures or chambers as we go along.

I can use StoneShape and Runes of Stone to reinforce and shape the rooms once they are created. Our Main hideout chamber could be much larger. The Emrgencey Room could have little tubes connecting them with the surface and we could use Travel/Gaseous Form to juant down them to the chamber then just wait till the Guards go away. Can Carrock speak with insects or anything? we could disguise the tube openings by having Ants build little anthills on top of them. or Create Normal Monster for ants? Is that too much? I have Sculpture and Engineering as Profs.

 

Mapping – is on just about everyones list, lets get this city sectioned off so we can do it quick and thouroughly! Huzzah for coordination! I have Cartography Prof.

 

Exploration – Exploring the Statues, Mt Fountain and the buried Golem. I think the Golem should be something we do as a larger group. Using Passwalls to expose SMALL bits of it. or Earth Elementals. Same with the Mt Fountain.

 

Magic Research – I suggest we gather for a time everyday and cast spells to examine their effects and practice techniques that Ylloc and Pilgrim may have shown us. Then we can get maximum learning and none of us has to cast all their spells for the day.

 

Rune for Buildings – We have a pack full of those knick-knack things made out of the stuff, so I can wait till later to research it or leave it to Lukshami.

 

I will also give some time for exploring Ignacious Calhouns persona. Im sure he would run naked after a boar and wrestle to the ground with his bare hands, just for fun. In this setting he would be more adventerous and livily. He would try and bring the humanity and energy of life back into this ghost town. And maybe try and make a gin still or something.

 

anyhows, thats a lot I guess.

 

Im off to See either the new James Bond flick whch is suppsoed to be awesome or Role Models whihc is supposed to be pretty fun.

 

WORD!

 

From: ensergeant@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: [spoo] ebbensalma – Carrock

Date: November 24, 2008 8:19:14 PM EST

 

OK, here’s a bit of a breakdown for what Carrock is going to be up to in Ebbensalma. Since I wasn’t at the live-spoo session, I might be a bit out of the loop on some of this. So adjust accordingly I the Eric/Carrock interface is wonky.

I’ll stick with Justin’s categories:

 

1. Activities requiring a small investment of time

 

I don’t really give a damn about mapping the place, but I’ll help out (as a lookout or extra set of eyes) just for the excuse to spend time with my friends. I’ll shoot the shit with Lakshmi while she x-rays or hold extra map cases and chat with Efrim or whatever.

 

For my own small-investment time activity, I’ll be getting to know the local avian population. See how they act and think…are they in some ways ‘alien’ life? What ways do they seem familiar and what ways do they differ from ‘normal’ birds?

 

Chat up the orc guide (who’s name I forget). Not only does he have direct information of Ebbensalma, but he’s probably full of a good deal of…for lack of a better word…subliminal or intuitive information about the place. Do there seem to be ways the place is changing him that he isn’t consciously aware of? I’d like to try to pick up on any of that. It’s a tough call, I know, but sometimes outside observers can see more about a person than self-reflection reveals.

 

2. Activities requiring a big investment of time

Self-reflection, self-debate, and psalm writing.

 

Self-reflection would include my daily mediation, but also allowing some time and space for wandering around. Think along the lines of Baudelaire’s flaneur, except at home in an empty city. (Fa-le-haw, how positively decadent !)

 

Self-debate will be a tripartite, free-flowing activity for Carrock (and the other two personalities, whose names escape me at the moment…they start with “T” and “H” but that’s all i can recall). It’ll be both internal and out-loud debate, depending on how safe it seems. The first topic will be internal and is entitled “The Key of Pandias: Why would the city of the gods be locked?”

 

Psalm writing is pretty self-explanatory. Do what I’ve been doing. And try to stay focused on happy accidents and intuition, rather than strict rationalism. Artistic discovery, and all that. I’ll also play around a bit with that sound my Yenah ‘girlfriend’ taught me: “Monkey Wrecks Havoc in Heaven.” If she taught it in more than one harmony, i’ll even try that…keeping this one on the down-low, for sure.

 

3. Attitude, thoughts, dreams, hopes

Was there a way we were supposed to handle this, or are we going only on what our orc guide offered?

 

Other than the thoughts/attitudes outlined above, I’ll do some musing on how creative and intuitive knowledge functions. Are they aspects of ‘fate’ or is ‘fate’ really the name given to the collection of creative and intuitive choices we make throughout our lives? I am also very interested in following what Pilgrim has laid out for me/us. How might what Pilgrim has taught me overlap with information I’ve gleaned from the psalms and faenare teaching? or, put another way, what is the ‘relationship’ between the goddess and Pilgrim?

 

Sure do hope I can get to the next stage and fulfill the faenare promise.

 

I will also dream up some ways to earn tons of xp.

 

Hopefully this all makes some kind of sense to you Justin.

 

 

p.s. I’m kinda getting hard with geeky spooiness.

 

 

From: jtiwald@yahoo.com

Subject: [spoo] Ebbensalma update II

Date: November 24, 2008 9:31:00 PM EST

 

Here it is. Let me apologize in advance for any sloppiness. I didn’t have the time I would have liked for a careful proofread.

 

——–

 

We pass now through the next eleven days in Ebbensalma (days 4-14).

 

This is a period of rapid transition, so much so that I fear I cannot do it justice. On Day 4 the party emerges cautiously, posting it’s guard and making arrangements with the neighborhood birds. The group sort of “tip toes” around the place. The interactions between party members have the same feel and character that they usually do when the party is in a strange and foreign place: people are guarded. When they talk, it’s primarily about the tasks at hand. But by Day 14 your early, more tentative exploration seems like a distant memory. In some respects you feel like ten days have passed, perhaps; but in other respects it feels like years. The party’s talk is less about logistics and planning and more about life, problems, quandaries, etc. Also, the social dynamics begin to shift in ways that they never have before. Those who were once “take charge” types might have become more mellow and defer to others. Those who were impulsive might have become more

deliberate. Those who were free spirited might become more paranoid. And vice versa for all of the above.

 

In short, there are dramatic shifts in the mental-emotional lives of every character present. What sorts of shifts these are depend in part on how things proceed, and in party on your own discretion. If you want to become more mellow or pensive, let me know, for to a certain extent you can determine this for yourself.

 

Here are the events.

 

1. Building secret rooms.

 

In the interest of having quick hideaways when Dihua’s patrols pass through, the mages begin to work on secret, underground rooms which they scatter throughout the district. We can assume that Efrim is able to finish two of these per day, unless he wants to sacrifice opportunities to explore and play. Each room is at least 30 feet below ground, and each is linked by “pipes” to the surface, so that shape-changed and/or gaseous party members can slip in easily.

 

2. Hunting in Ebbensalma

 

For better or worse, hunting is damn hard in Ebbensalma. You might recall that the panthers have taken over a street. If the party wants to wander into the street and face down a few packs of preternaturally smart panthers, please let me know. You guys are powerful enough that you could probably take them out. But on the other hand you might risk raising the suspicions of Dihua’s patrols. Assuming you’d rather leave the panthers be, then, you can assume that you’ll have some rivals for local game.

 

Another difficulty is that the prey is more devious than usual. One day Al decides to chase a rabbit and finds himself trying to squeeze between extremely narrow gaps between buildings. Alestria chases two wild boars into an alleyway where–assuming she’s on foot–she trips on a well-camouflaged vine. With all of your advantages as magicians and stellar warriors, you will have no problem killing game. But if you want to “make it interesting” for yourselves and rely on nothing more than your feet, a sword, and a bow-and-arrow…well, in that case you’ll find hunting a bit harder than you might expect.

 

I don’t want to exaggerate this. On most days Alestria is so fast on the draw that the wild boars never see it coming.

 

3. Other visitors

 

The party continues to come across signs that they are not alone. Alestria talks to a wild board (using Speak with Animal) who informs her of this, although the boar isn’t sufficiently astute or articulate to clarify what sorts of creatures are living there. The best he can say is that they are bipedal and they cook meet before dawn.

 

One morning as Lackshmi emerges from her sleeping room with Orien, both hear two, barrel-chested laughs bouncing off the walls about a mile away. Given the distance and the vagaries of sound, it’s hard to tell exactly where it came from, but Lackshmi, Orien, and Carrock (whom they recruit) try to find them. On that day they do not succeed.

 

But no matter. One day after the incident, both the Prime Plane party and the other, heretofore unknown party, discover each other simultaneously. For more on this, see the next event on our list.

 

4. Dihua’s patrol reconnoiters (for the first time since the party arrived)

 

Allow me to set the scene: Efrim, Lackshmi, and Orien are all together finishing up their seventh underground hideaway room. Alestria is across town and in the midst of clearing away moss to read some inscriptions underneath. And Carrock is in the lookout tower on the Western side of the district, watching out for visitors from afar. It is one of the sunnier moments of the day.

 

Two things happen in rapid succession. First, an implausibly loud, bear-like roar comes peeling from a place roughly seven towers south of Carrock, interrupting a psalm just as Carrock is composing it. Carrock looks to the source of the sound, and he sees a hairy, ugly, humanoid wearing plate mail lean out the window of the tower and throw some sort of dust or powder with his hands. As the dust falls toward the earth, he drops some bit of flame on it. The cloud quickly, quietly flashes orange and then disappears.

 

Carrock doesn’t know exactly what to make of it, until he takes a look behind him and sees a small bird chirping away. The bird has knocked from the wall a purple pebble that smells of dung, which is the agreed-upon signal that a patrol is coming. All at once, Carrock’s heart starts beating loudly and he activates Lackshmi’s communication device. After contacting Lackshmi and Alestria to sound the alarm, Carrock then emerges from the window and heads for the nearest secret room. As he does so, he catches a quick glimpse of the humanoid man seven towers down, who is looking right back at Carrock. There is, of course, no time to talk.

 

Of all of the party members in the area at that moment, only one of them–Alestria–is too far from one of your super-secret chambers to hide in one. Instead she just turns into a fly and heads for the nearest broom closet (my name for the tiny rooms that are ubiquitous in just about every structure in town).

 

The party’s agreed-upon procedure is to have one person carrying a crystal ball at all times. (Remember that the wizard eye spell creates an eye that can potentially be seen with a detect invisibility effect.) That person watches the patrol until the coast appears to be clear, and then alerts the rest of the party when the coast is clear. The lucky crystal ball carrier this time is Efrim. This what he sees.

 

At first the patrol just looks like some dots on the horizon–spots brown against the gray background of clouds and mist. As they get closer, Efrim is able to make out different forms. The patrol flies in formation. The point person on this patrol is not Dihua herself, but rather a peculiar, 11-foot tall humanish person wearing ornate platemail armor and an oversized helmet, giving the impression that it’s head is twice the size that it should be (proportionally speaking). The shape of its armor suggests a sensuous, female form. As this creature flies, a thin plume of smoke is left in its trail. As it gets closer, Efrim realizes that the smoke is coming from the creature’s helmet. Behind it are four cyclopses, who fly in a position that forms a “V” with the leader. Behind all of them is a strange, strange conical creature with tentacles. With this creature bring up the rear. It adds a second point to the “V” formation, turning it into a diamond shape.

 

When the patrol arrives, the point-person takes up a position on the artificial hill (the one which I likened to a tower karst, which as pipes that presumably once conducted artificial waterfalls). Upon landing there, she reaches under her robe for some reason and then removes the hand from the robe and detaches the oversized helmet. Efrim is taken aback by what happens next.

 

In place of a head, this creature has a spitting, roaring flame. The intensity of the flame is similar to that of a blowtorch, but multiplied by ten. Even Alestria–hiding more than a mile away from the tower karst, can hear the roar of the flame in the distance. The sound bounces off the walls of buildings, and where the murky glass of these buildings is exposed they turn reddish brown. An unbroken thread of smoke rises from this woman’s shoulders into the sky, until it disappears among the clouds.

 

You might think this is tolerable thing to look at. There is, of course, nothing ugly or disgusting about the woman’s head in itself. It’s not like her face is covered with pus-filled blisters or she has a mouth full of pointed teeth. Rather, there’s just intense flame in place of the head, which is to say that there’s no head at all in a sense. But somehow there is something deep disturbing about the juxtaposition of the sensuous body of a woman and the quasi-headlessness atop the body’s shoulders. It’s as if you were lusting after a warm and inviting figure only to find out that he/she was empty and soul-less. You just expect to understand a creature but looking into its eyes and examining the shape of its mouth. With no eyes or mouth there, there’s simply no way to comprehend this creature. Efrim is taken complete off guard by this and struggles to suppress his revulsion–not the kind of revulsion that makes you want to vomit, but the kind that makes

you want to cover your head and cry. Efrim begins to lose his balance. Orien uses two arms to steady him.

IS LIKE THE REVULSION WE HAVE FROM MOST UNDEAD CREATURE,

THE LOSS OF A BEINGS SOUL, THE CORRUPTION OF LIFE IS JUST SO

OFF PUTTING? JUST ON A EXALTED AND THUS MORE DISTURBING

LEVEL?

 

This is a very good analogy. If you think about what’s revolting about zombies, half of it is the gore, but the other half (perhaps more than half?) is the very idea of being one. The thought of “living” as a zombie is an uneasy one.

 

But the sense of revulsion has other textures as well: without a head it’s just hard to place her (it?) in one’s conceptual scheme. Where in your taxonomy of things would she fit, exactly? And without a face it’s hard to know what sort of emotional life she must have. Without any facial indicators, you can’t help but think that the roaring, angry flame somehow reflects the feelings she must be experiencing–that her soul is burning with anger as strong and unrelenting as the flame itself, which is a frightening, unbearable thought. This, normally, would be cause of sympathy. But it’s hard to feel sympathy for someone whose status as a living, face-having creature is uncertain. So you’re left not knowing what to think or feel about her, except to think that it’s just wrong.

 

That’s my best attempt to capture Efrim’s reaction to seeing the torch-woman, which is only amplified when he zooms in closer to her.

 

While this creature stands on lookout, the rest of the patrol flies in winding circles around different parts of the district. The cyclopses maintain a steady altitude throughout the entire flight–about thirty feet above most buildings but just skimming the surface of the taller ones. So far as Efrim can tell, they never pause or slow their pace to examine anything of interest. Watching them, one gets the sense that this is just a routine event for them. You might wonder if they’re even trying.

 

Not so for the strange, conical creature. It flies above the rooftops as well, but at one point it takes a dive into a nearby street–one the streets that the party explored on its first full day in Ebbensalma. Efrim zooms in as it lands on the ground and hustles, crab-like, down the dirt path. This creature also has no head, although there seem to be several dozen shapes resembling eyeballs moving around the surface of its skin. It has hundreds of smaller tentacles but seven particularly large ones, which rapidly pull aside curtains of vines and pick up objects as the creature proceeds down the street. It’s legs don’t seem like a good fit with it’s body: they are three large, extremely muscular, humanish legs pointing in opposite directions from one another.

 

The creature moves very quickly. In the course of just one round (ten seconds) it runs about 100 feet, its tentacles pulling aside and overturning everything within range. It examines about four blocks and then takes to the air again.

 

After just eight minutes of this, the look out puts her helmet back on. The clenching feeling deep in Efrim’s belly more or less subsides. She lifts into the air and the other patrollers fall into formation behind her. They then fly off to the West. So far as Efrim can tell, no one of them bothers to look back.

 

Efrim tells Lackshmi and Orien that it’s over. She contacts Alestria and Carrock. Shortly thereafter, everyone emerges from their respective hiding places, looking for ways to shake the fear and reclaim a happier a relaxed state of mind. It’s not easy.

 

5. Hobgoblins make contact

 

Shortly after the event, a group of three hobgoblins approaches Carrock’s tower with their swords, axes, and picks clenched in their armpits. One of the three is the hairy, ugly creature that Carrock glimpsed shortly before he flew for cover. Upon reaching the base of the tower, the hobgoblins open their arms and let their weapons drop with a clang. Then they back away and look up to the open window in the tower, as though waiting for something.

 

Eventually the party is able to put together that this is a gesture of peace (Orien explains this to everyone). The party holds a quick meeting and decides to send Alestria, Al, and Orien to talk with the hobgoblins–all three speak their language, after all.

 

The hobgoblins come from the mountains to the Northeast, an area that’s defined by a high-altitude basin in which one party member once spotted a four-headed chimera in the distance. They are here with two chieftains, who have visited Ebbensalma before, and five precocious youths, who were chosen by their tribes to be brought here for enlightenment and intellectual enhancement. They want to team up with the party. They say they have access to a number of recently excavated passages unknown to Dihua’s patrol. They’ve also got a device that enables them to see things coming from far away. (Orien quietly confirms in Elvish that they could indeed have such a device–some of the wealthier tribes have them.) Although they are primarily interested in sharing strategies for evading the patrols, they are also willing to sweeten the deal by offering some maps of the underground passageways, and sharing any other information that the party might have.

 

Naturally, they are curious to know where you are from. They have never in their lives seen creatures that so closely resemble the extinct peoples of old. As far as they are concerned, you are living, breathing decedents of creatures they have seen depicted only in the statuary they find in the ancient temples of this land.

 

What do you think? Are you willing to cooperate? When you have a chance to talk to Orien alone, he’ll suggest that you really have no choice. If these hobgoblins are discovered by Dihua’s patrol, she will bring in a legion and scour the entire district in short order, pulling out no stops. If these hobgoblins are discovered, you’re dead.

 

Of course, you could always kill them and free yourselves of this worry. I’m sure that occurs to every party member at some point. How much you want to indulge this thought is up to you.

 

6. Exploration

 

There’s so much to tell, although there aren’t any discoveries on the scale of ancient artifacts or the like. Loose items from ancient times are nowhere to be found. Surely if there were, they would have snagged long, long ago. But there are some highlights worth mentioning.

 

Once when the party was adventuring in the north of the Semu empire, they came across a well-preserved temple dedicated to the 27. One of you (was it Efrim? Alestria?) walked into a room in which a wall would magically turn into a window, allowing the occupant to look into some open-air, mossy room somewhere else. The window was activated by kneeling. None of you figured out what this was for. Do you remember this?

 

Well, Lackshmi finds that room. It’s on the top floor of one of the old buildings here. When she steps onto a circular stone, the window opens up, and she can peer right back into that room in the temple, which she had visited not more than three weeks past.

 

As I mentioned in passing earlier, Alestria discovers a building whose walls are covered with engravings and inscriptions. The runes resemble a language that on the Prime is called “the ancient tongue,” but they are hard to decipher nonetheless. If you cast read languages you’ll get a sense of what’s there. I assume many members of the party will spend at least a couple of days doing this. If so, they will learn much about the sort of inventory that occupants of this district once kept. The inventory of 13 families is kept here. Each family is not referenced by a family name, but rather by the name of its head of household. For example, “Miramal’s family” or “Thanos’ family.” These families seem to have been rich indeed.

 

Efrim explores the pipes of the artificial hill (“karst tower”) in gaseous form. They are thick and run from some sort of chamber deep into the earth straight to the surface at the top. The pipes are punctuated by peculiar, cracked circular devices every twenty feet. A few smaller pipes branch off to lower points on the hill. Efrim finds another pipe that lacks the devices, and runs all of the way through an artificial tree at the top of the hill. The top fifty feet of this pipe is clogged.

 

I assuming mapping of the district will begin as soon as the secret rooms are completed.

 

7. Two more visits by Dihua’s patrol

 

Dihua’s patrol visits twice more during this period–once at high noon and once in the foggy morning. The first time the patrol is led by the strange, conical-shaped creature. It comes with only the honor guard of four cyclopses. The second time the patrol is led, at long last, by Dihua herself. This, at least, is the titan about whom you have heard so much–the one who is personally charged with the task of preventing people from entering or leaving the Semu empire.

 

She fits the description that Orien once gave of her. She’s larger than the others–probably about 15 feet tall. Her skin is bronze. Her shape is puzzling, and seems like a hybrid of human form with ape arms and ape posture. She has huge, muscular arms that hang down to her knees. The most peculiar feature of all, however, are her eyes: they are the size of dinner plates, and well out of proportion with the rest of her head. The top of the eyes reach well into her forehead and the bottow sink deep into her cheekbones. Seeing her blink, or seeing her examine something with great focus and concentration, is a strange thing to behold.

 

Dihua is accompanied by the four cyclopses. She takes the lookout point while the cyclopses cruise perfunctorily over the rooftops of the district. After twenty minutes they depart.

 

8. Affective and cognitive development

 

Insofar as the party members are able to achieve some peace and mind, their days are filled with wonder and exhaustion. Conversation between party members that once focused on strategy and research now takes a turn toward the speculative. Individual party members pick up and then drop new intellectual passions by the day. One morning Efrim and Al wake up talking about the mysteries of elven procreation. They talk about it over breakfast and lunch incessantly, driving everyone else mad. By evening they’ve arrived at solid hypotheses about elven procreation, gotten bored with the topic, and moved on to something else of interest to them.

 

At nights, holed up in the party’s super-secret hideaway, people sit around learning languages, trying to re-write spells (without the benefit of a library–you just can’t bear to wait), and waxing philosophical. The room becomes littered with books, half-finished sketches, and frantically written notes that seem indecipherable when re-read a couple of days later. (“What the hell was I thinking when I wrote this?” is a typical response when these notes are re-discovered by their author.)

 

When the party members sleep, they sleep soundly. Efrim, who is usually restless, becomes unconscious almost as soon as his eyes are closed. Every day is exhilarating. Every day is exhausting.

 

Dreams become less predictable. Efrim is occasionally visited by the image of the flaming, headless woman. This frightens him for awhile, but the thought of the flames sometimes steers him away to thoughts of his research. He dreams that he’s conducting a great, spewing volcano from his radiance sphere. He dreams that he’s able to burn red flame with blue. He wakes up with new hypotheses about spell research–possible solutions to the research problems that had plagued him when he went to sleep.

 

Everyone has sleep experiences similar to Efrim’s. They wake up with solutions. Problems that seemed impossible the night before seem conquerable the next day. Al wakes up with powerful urges to learn new things. He longs to learn five languages, or to concoct a potion that enables you to drink molten metals and turns his skin into natural, flexible armor.

 

Alestria dreams about building an airship with the leaves of the Tree of Life. She wakes up with the urge to explore the forests of the Nine Kingdoms, to find the fae-nymphs that are born when three follu plants entwine into one. Sometimes she dreams that she is herself one of those fae-nymphs, or that she’s a follu plant.

 

Carrock dreams of exploring the outer planes, and of climbing into the mouth of a great dryden. He dreams that he’s an archon, with his three heads turned toward one another in dispute. Sometimes the Handsome Monkey King is there, debating with them. He puts forth four likely genealogical theories to explain the relationship between the birds with black-tipped wings and the black hawks of the Prime Plane. When he wakes up he outlines the four theories on the nearest piece of parchment. Two days later he looks at it again, and has no idea what he was thinking at the time he wrote it. He shows it to Alestria, who puzzles over the words for awhile and then proposes that they were written under the influence of some mind-altering mushroom.

 

Every morning, without fail, Lackshmi wakes up in wonder. It’s hard to say what about, exactly. But she wakes up with a deep appreciation of her own insignificance and her infinite possibilities, simultaneously.

 

And personalities are transformed. As a result, the party that once was becomes less and less recognizable. The relationships, informal customs, taboos, and senses of right and wrong all rapidly evolve. Even in the course of these first two, short weeks, your characters have changed enough to become a little bit less recognizable to your friends at home. Not much; just a little. I leave it to you give me some direction as to what direction they evolve in.

 

9. Impromptu wish club.

 

About two weeks have passed by the end of this period. Assuming that the wish club will showering its largess upon Al (so that he can benefit from this opportunity to move his stats above his species-maximum), this will give Al the opportunity to increase a stat by two points. And there are wishes left over for odds and ends.

 

 

 

That’s it for now. I can fill in other details by request.

 

Spooeystin

 

 

 

I’m also very interested to see this item that allows

far off sight. a ‘Spy Glass” or something more?

I’d be happy to use a day or two looking it over and

trying to duplicate it or even enhance it.

Between stoneshape, polymorph any object and Runes I would

think I could get pretty close, if its mundane engineering.

If it magical even better, discovering new magic items is

always a plus!

It’s non-magical, but the lens is a different material than you’ve ever seen. Or at least it *seems* like different material, as it alters the spectrum somewhat. Things that are dark appear in the spy glass as deep blue. Things that are light appear as whitish-green. When you peer through the spy glass you can see things about 1/2 mile away as though they were just in front of you.

 

The hobgoblins can tell you this much: the technology for the spy glasses has been around for a long time. It is said that in the days of old, the hobgoblins’ ancestors could manufacture lens ten times the size of this one. (Orien has his doubts about this legend, however.) Today they can barely pull off a 2-inch lens, and that only after a dozen or more attempts. They find it very difficult to produce a lens of just the right symmetry.

 

 

From: jtiwald@yahoo.com

Subject: [spoo] Archeological research

Date: January 26, 2009 7:14:03 PM EST

 

Hey spoo,

 

Well, it’s been decided. Tonight Clay, Anil and I are partaking of the sweet nectar of spoo. Anil is currently visiting Clay in Arizona, and the two are Skyping with me in the evening–just a little mini-spoo session to address some of the outstanding questions about the party’s defenses and strategy, and perhaps (if we’re lucky) a little investigation. All spoo are welcome to join, although I know we put this all together at the last minute. If you can’t join us, fear not: we won’t make any major decisions.

 

In preparation for the mini-spoo session, I though I would finally provide some of the result of that archeological research that the party undertook. First, let me provide a little context, in the form of an exchange between me and Clay.

 

As I mentioned in passing earlier, Alestria discovers a

building whose walls are covered with engravings and

inscriptions. The runes resemble a language that on the

Prime is called “the ancient tongue,” but they are

hard to decipher nonetheless. If you cast read languages

you’ll get a sense of what’s there. I assume many

members of the party will spend at least a couple of days

doing this. If so, they will learn much about the sort of

inventory that occupants of this district once kept. The

inventory of 13 families is kept here. Each family is not

referenced by a family name, but rather by the name of its

head of household. For example, “Miramal’s

family” or “Thanos’ family.” These

families seem to have been rich indeed.

THESE ARE SOME OF THE PLACES WE SHOULD NOTE ON THE MAPS.

PERHAPS EXCAVATING AT THESE SITES WOULD BE SOMETHING TO PUT

ON THE LIST OF THINGS TO DO. PERHAPS WE CAN TRY AND

CROSS-REFERENCE THESE NAEMS WITH THE GODLING STATUETTES. SEE

IF ANY MATCH UP? WOULDN’T THAT MAKE SENSE? “OH MY

UNCLE JSUT BECAME A GOD AND MADE A WAGON FULL OF GOLD AND

NOW WE ARE ALL RICH” OR SOME SUCH THING? PERHAPS WE CAN

FIND ALL THEIR FAMILIES HOUSES? AND THANOS SURE SOUNDS LIKE

THANATOS YEAH? WASNT HE SUPPOSED TO BE ONE OF THESE GOLDING

BITCHES?

 

*Justin:

Sure, we can say that you did some of this during the period of time covered by the last update–maybe the last six days. Remind me to give you the results of this cross-referencing.

*

 

Okay, here are the promised results…

 

Cross-referencing names of statues:

 

Let me remind you of what this chamber looks like. It is about 20 feet underground, technically in the building which houses the giant sphere. The room has scattered about it a total of 27 figurines about two feet in stature. Unlike the many other depictions of “the 27” that your party encountered before coming to Ebbensalma, these figures are shown in most natural postures. Almost half (11) are sitting cross-legged in circles. Many others are standing and talking. One appears to be scrutinizing something in his hand, although the hand is empty.

 

All of the figurines are clean and more or less undamaged. All detect magic.

 

The party knows the names of the 27 from other depictions of the statuettes found in temples. With Orien’s help, they are able to cross-reference those names with the statues found in this large chamber.

 

Sitting cross-legged in a circle of six:

 

Sulata (male), looks to be in late 20’s

Mira (female), older, but facial features resemble Sulata’s

Prisnatano (m), skinny with a wide smile

Vir (f), broad-shouldered and strong

Epens (m), looks to be in his late 50’s

Natane (m), rotund with glorious smile

 

Sitting cross-legged in a circle of five:

 

Elstir (m), youngish with calm demeanor

Frush (f), youngish with smirk

Rethim (m), youngish with hunter’s bow

Dryinu (f), youngish with short hair

Chronomos (m), youngish with smirk

 

Standing and talking animatedly:

 

Crysma (f), short and thin with a look of exasperation

Thanos (m), short, young face, using his hands to describe something

 

Standing and talking with pensive looks on their faces:

 

Lyterrono (m), looks to be in his early 60’s

Tuaren (f), looks to be in her early 60’s, largish

Crobyem (f), stern expression, maybe even mean-looking

 

Examining a missing object in his hand:

 

Yveny (m), middle-aged with shoulder-length hair

 

Standing in a row smiling/smirking at something in front of them:

 

Koritim (m), slightly bug-eyed

Chethem (f), late-twenties and sensual

Shydemn (f), mid-twenties and beautiful

Chitherki (f), covering her mouth

Crem (m), extremely subtle smile, somewhat unkempt clothing

 

Heads turned up to look at something above:

 

Ensu (f), in awe

Fynnis (m), watching calmly

Tuon (m), watching calmly

Yterat (f), watching calmly

 

Looking down and thinking, with one finger on her lip:

 

Ensem (f)

 

Clay also asked that the party examine more carefully the wall that recorded inventory for 13 of the families.

 

Each family is identified by it’s head, who in each case is one of the 27. Here is one example:

 

This one comes from “Yveny’s family,” a.k.a. “The House of Yveny.”

 

– 3421 glass bottles

– 248 crystal plates

– 14 chustra plates

– 254 crystal glasses

– 14 chustra glasses

– 83 “embroidered” (?!) doors

– 17 historical paintings

– 24 fictional paintings

– 18 portraits

 

And so on and so forth. Pretty uninteresting stuff, except perhaps for a the following items of note:

 

– 1302 glass pins

– 6 crusts

– 11 instruction bowls

– 8 reams of orange parchment

– 384 instruction books

– 16 foundations books

– 17 chests of animal parts

 

And there also appears to be a list of people in the household’s employ:

 

– 21 chanters

– 16 day-servants

– 8 night-servants

– 12 day guards

– 12 night guards

– 2 window-keepers

– 2 flutists

– 2 two-string players

– 2 vocalists

– 2 pipers

– 11 cooks

– 31 glass-blowers

– 3 woodcarvers

– 3 tailors

 

From: wussking@yahoo.com

Subject: [spoo] Notes from the Chat!

Date: January 26, 2009 11:06:04 PM EST

 

Hello Gents!

 

here are some notes from our chat.

 

 

Hobgolblins Have their Own Excavation site, more on that below!

We decided to outfit them with Permanace Fly, Contingent PolymorphSelf: Mosquito and Contingent: Brainkill, in case they are captured they get brainkilled back to before they met us.

Also the locations of at least SOME of our special rooms are made to them.

 

Grave Site:

Two Alphatians buried

talked with spirits, from Spoocation, they said they were there to visit their ancestor of the Semu Empire.

gravestone has the ‘cleaning” cantrip on it.

Buried 15 20 ft down.

Coffins are mode of stone and none-magical.

cast Speak With Dead: with one of the dead, the warrior (we spoke with the ‘mage’ last time)

The warrior apperas in Plate Mail, which isnt present in his coffin. there are some tatters of magic clothing and a staff but nothing that detects strong magic.

Here to find out more about their ancestors: Tuarenete = “Daughter of Tauren” “A force of good” Killed by Thanatos (Thanos)

Taurenete Considered the founder of their Clan, traveled to Cluster and established family their.

Death: In town for about a week, just as now intelligent animals around them, Bears, then out searching and DiHua found them.

She was with Elephant headed humans, They ran, DiHua gave chase. Elephant guy paralyzed them, DiHua captured and Killed them.

DiHua,

spoke to them in Alphatian, and said she was sorry she killed them but

that secrets were buried there. The people of Semu always buried their

dead.

And so promised to bury them and did. Semu people fearful of revenge of the dead. (Historical/Cultural fear of Thanatos, Why betray his Culture?)

 

Towers with Chains: Chains on the ground,

staircases within the towers, platforms in the middle, an elevator, which the used, couldn’t figure out the function of the towers.

Birds with rid tipped wings.

 

He tells us of the Temples that teleport from one to the other, Highlands where Chimera were and city we didnt go to.

 

The

wall was more open when they came through, they distracted the guards

and snuck through. They planned on perhaps hiding within a sun to get

back through.

 

Diamond tower, where we the party went and discovered the ceramic kiln room, with the plaque Do Not Blaspheme! The deads party used KNOCK to gain entry and this set off a Fog horn and bulch of green smoke from the tip of the tower. They fled quickly with but a shard of the ceramic glass. An hour later Exalted creatures arrived and searched the area but didnt detect them as they were far and watched hidden. The mage siad the glass material is very strong and has many unique magical properties.

 

****************************************************

TEMPLE

Xraying – two bottom floors filled with earth!

Turned to ethereal and walking through the earth while Xraying.

Built in bookcases

Small pillars waist high, 3 rooms

Room with mirrors stacked up; 9 mirrors (will excavate to a corner then LORE one)

Using

passwalls to travel down a staircase and to a blind spot (not visible with xray or other detection), Disintegrate an open space, create a bulkhead wall behind us (to avoid earth collapse or sinking) and start excavating.

Justin will fill this in on a SPOO-Mail

 

Hobgoblins Excavation:

Bowl

of Instruction: Fill with water, say command Word, get four

instructions: Creates moving image in water. Bare chested men, brown

haired, or red haired, see their arms as they do various tasks.

People

extracting oil from Yellow Barked tree, mix it with mineral, spit into

it, then rubbed on body. Weird. Tree not recognizable, Hobgoblins know

it though.

Mud they create absorbs into skin. Efrim Lakshamii and AL BINO make some guesses as to what the Mineral is.

Next

Instruction: Low to the ground stubby creature, like a rhinoceros, with

one horn. Two people holding down chains attached to its legs, two

others Yoke the beast to a wagon. Pauses for close ups.

3rd Instructions: complicated weave that comprises a few knots that make up a skirt.

 

Globe structure: The globe is held together with some very strinig metal, its engeineered to hold the bricks that comprise the globe together.

There is a central ‘box’ with gutter like structure protruding from it, it seems rusted? or busted up some how. Nothing detects magic

 

The Hobgoblins Note that removing MOSS is a bad idea, animals wouldnt disturb MOSS and doing so is a straighforward sign of bipedal humanoid presence.

We should not disturb moss anymore or replace it as soon as we fuck with it.

 

Notes from January 26 SKYPE CHAT!

 

– Contingency brainkill

– Mossy wall—rubbing

– Integrate watchout systems

– Hobgoblins’ protection:

o Permanent fly

o Contingency polymorph: mosquito

 

Justin – Know names of the dead Alphatians

[7:08:05 PM] Justin : Tuarenete = “Daughter of Tuaren”

[7:37:53

PM] Justin – Carrock had a chance to talk to one of the dead

Alphatians, who had some ancestral stories about Thanatos.

[7:46:23 PM] Justin – 9 mirrors that detect magic

[7:49:14

PM] Justin – Access: use multiple passwalls to reach area obscured

from above, then begin using disintegration spells to excavate.

[8:07:03 PM] Justin – Instruction bowl: skin balm, yoking an ugly horse, complicated stitching

[8:12:26 PM] Justin – Globe: inner structure

 

 

Other notes from Clayster taken from the emails Archeology, these make WILD assumptions!

 

+This List of Godlings makes me think of the New Gods, the tip off in my mind is the last CHRONOMOS, which would be TIME, the others make me think of the elements, but would correspond to Matter, Energy, Thought and Entropy . Of Course this is wild conjecture. In the end, these young gods overthrow the established Earth, Air, Fire, Water regimes and then Thanatos kills them all. Maybe as a trade for the old gods to go the new way?

Elstir (m), youngish with calm demeanor = my guess? Matter

Frush (f), youngish with smirk = my guess? Thought

Rethim (m), youngish with hunter’s bow = my guess? Energy

Dryinu (f), youngish with short hair = my guess? Entropy

Chronomos (m), youngish with smirk = Time

 

+ Here we have what I believe are the godlinig Thanatos and the fanaere goddess. Crysma? almost charisma (seems fitting for the race dependant on that stat for their salvation), if the two are locked in debate that would make sense.

Crysma (f), short and thin with a look of exasperation

Thanos (m), short, young face, using his hands to describe something

 

+ This name made me think of the Yence artifacts, although I beleive they predated human gods, perhaps not? Any religion experts out there wanna back me up?

Examining a missing object in his hand:

Yveny (m), middle-aged with shoulder-length hair

 

+ Perhaps just because she is last, I thought this could also be the Faneare Goddess, why? because she is understated but thoughful, not obvious, has something to say but is choosing her time to say it.

Looking down and thinking, with one finger on her lip:

Ensem (f)

 

From: jtiwald@yahoo.com

Subject: Re: [spoo] Notes from the Chat!

Date: January 27, 2009 11:31:34 AM EST

 

Wow, thanks for taking all of those notes, Clay! How did you end up with four times the quantity of notes that I took?

 

I have a few elaborations and answers below.

 

Hobgoblins Excavation: Bowl

of Instruction: Fill with water, say command Word, get four

instructions: Creates moving image in water. Bare chested

men, brown haired, or red haired, see their arms as they

do various tasks.

 

Yes, a first glimpse at the ancients as they truly appeared. I should add that the people depicted doing these tasks don’t look particularly refined or well-dressed. It *might* be that they’re ordinary citizens, not elites.

 

People

extracting oil from Yellow Barked tree, mix it with

mineral, spit into

it, then rubbed on body. Weird. Tree not recognizable,

Hobgoblins know

it though.

Mud they create absorbs into skin. Efrim Lakshamii and AL

BINO make some guesses as to what the Mineral is.

 

Yes, it’s ground-up limestone, probably mixed with something else.

 

Next

Instruction: Low to the ground stubby creature, like a

rhinoceros, with

one horn. Two people holding down chains attached to its

legs, two

others Yoke the beast to a wagon. Pauses for close ups.

3rd Instructions: complicated weave that comprises a few

knots that make up a skirt.

 

That’s right. It’s a kind of floor-length skirt that many of the people depicted seem to be wearing.

 

The Hobgoblins Note that removing MOSS is a bad idea,

animals wouldnt disturb MOSS and doing so is a

straighforward sign of bipedal humanoid presence.

We should not disturb moss anymore or replace it as soon as

we fuck with it.

 

See, those hobgoblins are good for something after all! I think you and the hobgoblins decided to do a quick rubbing of the wall and then regrow or replace the moss.

 

+This List of Godlings makes me think of the New Gods, the

tip off in my mind is the last CHRONOMOS, which would be

TIME, the others make me think of the elements, but would

correspond to Matter, Energy, Thought and Entropy . Of

Course this is wild conjecture. In the end, these young gods

overthrow the established Earth, Air, Fire, Water regimes

and then Thanatos kills them all. Maybe as a trade for the

old gods to go the new way?

 

Carrock knows (and Eric probably still remembers) that Thanatos and the fanaere goddess came along at the end of the Age of Giants, and thus ushered in the Age of Humanity, construed broadly to include demi-humans. Carrock also knows that the Sphere they established is sometimes called “the Rebel Sphere,” because it stood outside the traditional four-sphere system that had existed through the Age of Giants (and the four-sphere system was based on the four elements). Somehow it has since taken on the name of “Entropy,” or perhaps it was always called “Entropy” (these things can have multiple names, after all). No doubt it was originally seen as a threat to the traditional order, which would make “entropy” an appropriate name for its critics. Or did original founders embrace it?

 

Yveny (m), middle-aged with shoulder-length hair

+ This name made me think of the Yence artifacts, although

I believe they predated human gods, perhaps not?

Well, Efrim’s unconfirmed bit of history is that the first Yanse artifact was created in the Age of Dragons, when one god wanted to leave the inner planes for awhile, thus making him unavailable to his clerics for spells. The god supposedly left a Yanse artifact in his stead.

Spoostin