Geekender's Realm

PLANNING OUTER PLANES VISIT

Back on Catalon, we visit the local planemaster and fish for information about the plane we want to visit to try to find the Nameless Goddess. (Serram did not give us the exact plane, out of risk that we might inadvertently give away the knowledge. But Serram did give us a planar neighborhood.)

275-3 “Colossi and Volcanoes”. He gives what details he has, which doesn’t spark anything for us. But on the planemaster’s map, he had written the name “Agave” on the plane 275-3. Al remembers a story from his childhood among Callarii Elves…

It’s called “the story of Agave and the elven goddess”. About an unhappy undead warrior that was chivalrous and held a door open for the goddess. She became curious about him, found out that he loved gardening, decided she would make it her mission to free him. She traveled to other worlds, to a far outer plan controlled by Thanatos to plead his case, and found that his immortal master wouldn’t let him go. Gave him mercy by killing him at his request. Efrim remembers hearing about this story as “Agave and Thorn”.

“But what happened to the goddess?” Al asked the napga.

The nagpa’s story is not that she felt romantic love for him, but she fell for his story and wanted to free him. She’s long gone….

More about this plane: it’s covered in ash, but we could dig and find remnants of the great empires that were there. There were giants. They still live as living colossi. The floating disks are still there. There are still some people born with the powers to access these disks.

Far seeing humans? It means they can literally see great distances. The nagpa would love to know more about these people. There are a lot of unknowns.

275-3 does not have its own ethereal, so magic will work normally.

271-9 is more intact, but it’s hard to get to. You have to go around a vortex, among other obstacles. Collossi are there too, and some humans.

“What other places might we find human clerics in that planar region?”

“autkopf preserve.” The Autkopf preserve has no yance artifacts. It also has these ancient disks instead. Vain magics would not work. Carrock’s spells would still work. Magic items would work, as long as the objects were imbued with the magic.

We put aside the plan for outer planar exploration and turn our attention back to the Semu Empire.

TO THE SEMU EMPIRE!

We decide to bring Iustal, Druida, Tian-Shi, Orien, his lady, and their two kids over to Ebbensalma to smarten them up.

We call Iustal in for a meeting…

We reveal all and invite him in to get smart. “I knew it! You came back different! … but why is it so protected? The gods don’t want people to go there and get smart, is that it?” –Iustal.

No. We explain that it’s more about the gods trying to keep people out of the place that started a revolution of humans against the gods, without permission, and they don’t want history to repeat, against them this time. Iustal thinks that makes sense.

We give him the survival tips and go through how he’s going to survive and go undetected.

Just to remind everyone… all of Semu is off limits to humans (etc), but they don’t go hunting for people. If you stay out of sight, and stay out of Ebbensalma you should be ok.

We debate enslaving some colt pixies to take with us for riding around real fast. First time around we just polymorphed some birds or something. Real colt pixies, charmed, will be more efficient.

(handwave)

LEAVING THE PRIME

Goblin park, Gate, Koryeskist. Carrock hooks up with his girlfriend Julia Hala. They go to one of those “old god” plays. She seems surprised by all the recent interest in really old gods. Carrock asks her a lot of questions about where she grew up. She says she is from Yennon, again. Nice privileged life.

The play is … ok. Elstir is the protagonist. It’s full of drama with him dying at the end. Everyone seems to be curious about the demise of Natane. Why did he die? Everyone wants to know. Even the scene of Natane’s chair with his statue in it makes it into the play. We need add more detail. More Chrysma! Needs more plot twists and obscure details.

Chessum… she was the one standing in a row smiling at something (late 20’s and sensual). There is a sub-plot with her and Nar. She deigns to strike up a passionate relationship with him, a mere mortal. She plays the sexy ingénue.

—Trying to recall information provided by Serram about which of the 27 are which gods.

Still alive:

Now – Then

Mirna – Mira

Retsugo – rethim

Khoronos – Chronomos

Thorn – Chrysma

Thanatos, Thernes – thato – Thanos

Serram- Saangyn Yenni

Hel – Chetherkti

Waylen – Toun

Ensem – Feria

Not alive:

Crobyem – was member or rebel sphere, killed by Thanatos.

Crem – heddimal . Standing and smiling with the beautiful woman. Became god of tactics and patience, is also a faded god. Frequent ally of Chrysma. Followers were completely wiped out.

Tuaren – lady depicted with bullhorns, depicted with daughters.

Korin – Koritim – became god of adventure and luck. “Died” in the dark tower. He had a follower who eventually became Koriktiku. Preceded Yoichig as the god of adventure.

THE SEMU EMPIRE

Last time we stayed in Macchist, the town that butts up against the wall.

(Efrim remembers that we left a cactus in the middle of the wall, near the immortal automaton arm hammering. Probably dead now, years later.)

We approach the wall with the plan to go through the same way that we did before. Several entrances had been filled in with stone, at least part way, and we Passwalled through those until we got to open space. We find the same or a similar one.

We make a plan to cast 24 Passwall spells in a row, leave a dead bat at the wall where we entered, and Dispel the first one to seal us in. We don’t know if our dead bat ruse worked because we are now inside the wall………

We continue to Passwall through the blocked tunnel. We step out of the 5’ tall tube into a large hallway, 60-70 feet wide with an arched ceiling. Rubble and junk everywhere. As we near the entrance we hear a clanking sound that becomes very loud.

Last time, we went North then east, passed a collapsed staircase, a room with a stove, then went north. Found a passageway that was blocked by rubble that we had to Travel through (Al used elastic on the anklet). And eventually we ended up in the area with the viewing arrow slits that looks like it has a lot more foot traffic.

Efrim uses the dagger to look for gems, and detects some. Goes 50 feet and finds some in some rubble. Finds glassy blue gem shards imbued with some soft blue light. There is a faint blue light coming from the south down the hallway.

Al and Efrim fight each other to see who can get to the glowing room to the south first.

Large room, 300 feet one way, 120 feet the other. 3 giant sized tables made of stone kinda built into the wall. Rubble all over the floor is this same glowing gem. The ceiling is very uneven, like there were once things on the ceiling that has fallen to the floor.

Efrim attempts to use the Tome of Elish to Repair Normal Item on the broken gemstones.

*New DM Ruling* In order to use the Repair Object power, you must have 51% of the original item. This is to prevent multiple new items from being created from one original item. No “one to many” outcomes possible.

We decide to gather up the broken gemstones and try the repair later from the safety of our camp outside the wall.

We get up to the floor with the arrowslits and look out. It’s night, and foggy.

We can see Ebbensalma off in the distance. We can see Sofar Mist’s palace in the south. (We know he was a disciple of one of the 27, but not why he has this weird form of immortality, or what motivates him. We tried to talk to him in the past when he was boating down the river on the outside of the wall, but he ignored us.)

We can see the two tall towers with four rings facing each other, which we visited before. There was wear and tear in the rings, like there had been something connecting the rings maybe.

We remember the mausoleum city, where Nar’s tomb is. Many of the mausoleums were graffiti’d with “Traitor” on them, we should maybe There are entire orc and hobgoblin towns that we didn’t explore. Natane’s house, wrapped in a prismatic wall. The canals of the Semu empire are everywhere, and we didn’t explore those.

We Transport via Plant to Ebbensalma, and set about unstoning the other visitors, and refamiliarize ourselves with the city.

Things have changed. When we were there before, Orien warned us about crystal “flowers” that if touched would trigger the guardians to come, so we were supposed to carry boar hooves with us to make fake animal tracks in the area before we run and hide. But we didn’t see any. This time we see many of them. So our friends will need to be careful.

AL suggests that the wards are reinforced because they discovered our excavations and work from years before, more than just the usual visits from orcs and hobgoblins. We should be careful.

We clairvoye the tunnels that are used by people hiding, and one of them that we used to get to the chamber that we cleared, and it has a crystal in the entrance of it. The chamber itself appears to be undisturbed.

Anil suggests that we put our own sign in the chamber, a rune that dispels a continual light if anyone comes into the area, so when we return next time we will have a signal that someone else has been in our secret area.

The artificial hill where the blowtorch head sits to watch has been completely torched by fire.

We had 5 hide outs. 3 of them have the crystals in them, 2 of them that have to be passwalled into don’t seem to be trapped.

We decide to stay for two weeks with them to make sure that they get the lay of the land and there are no surprises. (Incidentally, during this two weeks we pass the anniversary of our return from Orinocco).

During these two weeks we find tons of the crystal flowers and map them. We look for fresh graves but don’t find any.

Explore the artificial hill, looks like a short intense flash of heat, not just a brush fire.

There are FOUR visits from Dihua’s patrol. Two with Dihua two without. Same characters. Some new. Tall square golem. Tentacle tripod guy. Torch head lady shows up. Dihua goes to a warren entrance, stands and stares… tripod will search 2 streets very thoroughly, and then they leave.

We decide to make illusions of the guardians to show the kids to help them understand what they need to hide from.

Iustal wants to go see the godling statue room. We help him out, and give him our map to the city, without the godling names attached.

We team up with a group of yellow orcs this time. Orien doesn’t know these guys, but we are all allies here. More people to do look outs. But the other creatures getting discovered could be bad for us.

During the two weeks, we re-visit Chrysma’s house. Weird details… we find a comb where every third tooth is shorter than the rest. We find an old style mirror… The mirror and the comb appear to be too “young” from her era. Plus, since the house has been thoroughly sacked, it appears that someone has left these here at some point. Al suggests that Efrim uses his Scroll of Questioning to find out who made each item, and who placed them here. “Meyer of Stoyerle made this.” “Kestra of Stoyerle brought me here.”

Who was the last person in this room before us? “Some smelly hairy creatures that look like bears and humans.”

What race is your maker? “Human”.

Why are your comb barbs this way? What is your special purpose of the teeth? “It’s a stylistic alteration for followers of Thorn.”

Questions for mirror:

Who brought you here? “Kestra of Stoyerle”.

We ask Orien about Stoyerle. He says it’s nearby, and in fact in some of the ancient stories Stoyerle is Ebbensalma. Long ago, this place was ruled by giants. The Marquis of Stoyerle was a giant, but was kind, and would take in runaway slaves (humans) and give them humane treatment. At some point, the Marquisdom of Stoyerle “discovered” Ebbensalma when they drained the swampland, and then moved Stoyerle to Ebbensalma. This would have happened over 1000 years ago. The wall was built over 1000 years ago. So there were humans living here at some point before/after the wall went up.

We spend a day observing the area. We see the garden emerge to tend to things. He appears to be made of mirror like material. Moves slowly at first, but can move very quickly when he sees something. It appears to be made of liquid metal like mercury. It tends to some plants and then goes back in.

At the end of two weeks, we wistfully say goodbye and get ready to leave for our own adventure in the old empire.

Time to move on to Elstir’s Memorial.

Elstir’s memorial is a “mansion castle” i.e. not huge. It’s surrounded by well-groomed gardens. It’s watched over by two towers, appear to be made of chustra, but quite aged and weathered. We put on actual physical disguises.

(From Serram: the password for the guardian is Desiduously in an ancient language)

We Transport through Plant outside the grounds, and walk down into the maze. The maze is not that complicated, but is taller than our heads. Take our times to enjoy the maze and the beauty of it.

As we get close to the entrance of the maze, there are branches from trees growing in the hedge, and we can hear the sound of … wind? Of a mass of people celebrating something (cheering). Looking up at the chustra towers, we can read the inscription “We worship no gods but those of our own making”.

We all make our saves (-2), so we do not run away in fear. We are overcome with a sense of pride in humanity. Well, the humans do. The non-humans do not feel this. We enter the maze (we figured out the route as we approached). Efrim starts saying desidiuously.

The hedge opens up instead of leading us around the maze, and standing on the side is a reflective human sized creature. It appears to be holding an empty binder in one hand.

“Greetings servitor. Your masters and creators have beckoned us to visit. Disiduously.” He turns when we say the password, the hedges part for him, and he walks down a row. We try to follow him. The hedge stays open for us. He’s walking down a wide aisle that wasn’t there before. He’s walking silently. He begins to climb the steps. Carved into the hedges, like topiaries, are faces that we recognize. Faces of the 27….. Al thinks he sees Chrysma. We look for Thanos, Carrock thinks he sees it. There are actually only 26 that we can count. Hard to tell who is missing. Some are hard to recognize because there are not a lot of detail.

The guardian walks up to the door, grabs the doors by the rings, throws them open, and then steps to the side.

It’s a large chamber. There is a chustra figure of Elstir inside. A platform inside with seats. We’ve never been able to see Elstir in such detail. He wears robes, with elegant boots. Some kind of skirt thing peeks out from under the robe. Robe is tied with a bow? The bow is tied to have the appearance of a fundamental (shaped like a bat). He carries a book in his left hand (no title), the other arm is straight. It looks like the guardian that appeared in front of us has the same stance as Elstir inside. The boots are leather and tan. He’s about 40. Brown locks of hair. So color has been added to the chustra to make it appear more lifelike. It is lifesize. It feels like we are in the room with Elstir.

“Greetings Elstir, we have come to honor you.”

“we would love to peruse your book.”

Lackshmi detects Immortal Magic. Up on the platform, on the back wall, there is a secret compartment that detects immortal magic. L opens the compartment, there is a guest book with names. There is also a quill. Chitherki is the last one to visit. Like the visitor log at Nar’s tomb, it’s full of names, but there are more. Lots of visits from Thanos. His last visit was a few thousand years ago. Yveny visited 3 centuries ago. When the gods visit, they use their original names. Ensem was last year about 7 centuries ago.

Al suggests to Efrim that he uses the Tome of Elish to Lore the Book and the Quill. They are magically preserved. Any mark put in the book with the quill cannot be removed by anyone except the designers. Designers: Chitherki, zeni, Shydemn (or Shydem).

The platform has several chairs, way more than 27. Al sits down to contemplate. Illusions kick into motion on the statue of Elstir. There are little touches to bring more life to him. His pupils turn to look at us, he smiles a little. Then we hear a voice… speaking a language that we don’t recognize at all. Some with ancient tongue, immortal tongue, and giantish recognize some words. Speech runs about 4 minutes. He seems to be saying “human” and “giant” a lot. It’s a stirring speech.

L. words a wish to be able to understand this language and casts Wish. Stands up. Al says she should sit in a different chair to trip the magic again.

“I speak to you now on this spring Alders day.” A stirring 6 minute speech. They are at a moment of victory. They’ve reached the natural borders of the Semu empire. They vanquished their enemies, brought the giants to heel. “You might think this is a time to rest, but I will not rest. I will liberate all humans everywhere.” This is Elstir’s most famous speech. We’ve seen quotes from this elsewhere. “In my view we are all equals, in being our own masters and deciding our own fate.” “We must choose between a new age for Yanneh, or a new age for all humankind.” “I cannot go to my grave thinking that Yanneh is enough, and the conscience rebels against it.” “The people of Cluster and the Prime are our people too.”

Efrim and Carrock also cast Wish to hear the speech. As soon as it’s done they start transcribing it. Al does not use the Wish.

After the first time we hear the speech, the door to the east opens up. Remains open after the second hearing. The life like illusion ends at some point though.

We go into the next room. Mural. “Year -52”. “We shall break the ancients of fealty and make new ones.” It’s not an artistic depiction – it’s text. The oath of fealty to race. Signed by elstir, yveny, chitherki, and natane.

Efrim recites the Oath of Fealty.

Then a series of 5 frescos, each in its own room. The rooms are large, like they are built for big crowds.

The first room shows a meeting with giant rulers, including a trokklan giant queen.

The second mural shows a meeting with stone giants, trading gems and jewelry. No fighting.

The next mural shows a slain mountain giant king, and the group of humans. They look like they’ve been in a battle.

In the fourth mural shows 29 people. 27 we recognize. They are leaning on, draping themselves on a giant sized throne. We recognize all of them. There is a list of names at the bottom. The two additional names are: Steternal and Brethrou. They are all humans. We don’t know which is which, but we are able to narrow the extra guys down to these two guys. One of them is standing next to Koritiku’s master. The other one is standing next to Ensem.

The fifth mural is a map. “The fertile empire of the Rains”. It’s of the Semu empire. It looks like it’s this continent. There are towns identified. “Stoyerle” is on the map, but it’s not marked as a major city. Ebbensalma is on the map too. “Timara” and “Windstruck” are two of the major towns. “Qath” is the other. Koyreskist is not on the map. The orcs appear to be excavating Windstruck. The cities are on the map with visual depictions of a couple of buildings. Capitol looks like maybe it would be Timara.

The next room contains only one mural. The archway to the room says something like “the three treaties”. It shows elves, dwarves, and cyclops. “The goal is to unite ourselves, and divide them.” Godlings in the treaties mural include Chrysma and Thanos. Just the two of them. Elstir is there too, but those two are featured as doing the negotiations.

Next room is dedicated to the Narriston War. “But our work is unfinished (year -7)” over the threshold. Depicts humans struggling to reach a line of storm giants. Nar is in the lead flying, Elstir is standing next to him with his right arm crushed. The ground is covered in human bodied, fried from lightning, or crushed by boulders. You can hear faint sounds of thunder and crashing from the painting.

Second fresco is called “Vanquished”. A battlefield in the clouds. Slain humans and demi-humans, and cloud giants. Bodies bristling with arrows. A severed giant arm, resting on the clouds. Second battlefield is on a plateau in the mountain with slain mountain giants and cyclops. Cyclops appear to be on the side of the giants. Some of the mountain giants look familiar. Like the ghost of the vanquished mountain giant king that we talked to. It’s those mountains.

Next: Elstir’s Alder Day speech in the meeting room, standing before the other 25 godlings. Some of them look stoic, some look excited, some look fearful.

Chitherki looks

Chrysma and thanos look moved.

Rathin is nodding (head animated to move)

Crem and Thresh look tired.

Then we enter the next room, showing the Semu Empire in year 17.

“Linking the Empire (9-18)”. Largest room of the three. Murals on three sides. One shows Elstir overseeing the building of canals with Crobyum and Crem. Canals run all across the empire. Another depicts them setting up communication shrines (with mirrors we saw). The other depicts them distribution Compendium of Treatises. They are distributing a book to the people. It’s the same shape as what the guardian was holding, but with pages in it. We think the titan that has been here the whole time and is into political treatises might know something about this. Need to track him down and ask. The Power Tower with rings are depicted. There are four chains linking two towers with each other. Shows a chustra forge that is in what became the wormland area in the west. No depiction of Sofar Mists’ home. The shallow sea is there though. The mountains appear to have faces carved already. So the face carvings would have pre-dated the 27.

“Routing the Vssgon” (year 61). Disappointing. Artists did not portray the vssgon. They show a severed tail being set to flame by elstir. In a cavernous area. Scene is taking place underWe can see the emerald material piled up. We wonder if the vssgon was on this plane or another one, and if it’s another, how did he get there? Efrim uses the Tome to LORE for a gate node on this side of the wall.

“Mourn a Friend and Leader (year 62)”. There is a bonfire in a giant sphere. Masses of people gathered around in Ebbensalma (with Chustra walls). 24 godlings are gathered to mourn (excluding Natane, Elstir, and Fynnis). All 24 are absolutely mournful. There are wailings and lamentations coming from the painting. Chethem (late 20’s, sensual) is having a more hysterical reaction. Looks like someone is trying to hold her back. The flames of the bonfire move and provide warm. No clue on how he died. In this picture, Chrysma has an elaborate hairdo with a pick or comb in her hair.

This is the last room. The door goes back into the main room.

*side note: the worms all showed up after the wall showed up. The whole plan is foggier and darker, killed a lot of vegetation and made way for the worms. The museum in Koryeskist says that the old empire wanted to liberate everyone, so they set up Koreyeskist so trade information, which eventually became a trade town.

Discussion

Useful things: compendium of treatises. Names of towns and characters. Can search for things tied to Thorn. Look at dead god houses, dead god shrines. Look at Elstir’s girlfriend’s stuff. Two people in Stoyerle. Map shows towns depicted having lots of shrines. One of them is on the worm side of the wall: Sythe.

By year 7 it looks like maybe they have stopped aging. Except Fynnis and Nar.

Further exploring the towers: they are kind of too small to climb, but they are in fact carved out with stairs. There is a little room (seen with xray vision), that have little gardening tools. They have immortal magic on them. There are 3 binders. 2 are empty. One has scraps of paper. Not a chustra book cover. Looks like it hasn’t been moved in centuries. Covered in dust, can’t read title. Try to read. See two characters: Treatises. Compendium. It radiates immoral magics like a spell effect. L. uses x-ray vision to read through the cover. She can see the last page of a treatise that appears to be on swordcraft, how to make intelligent swords. And the next one appears to be a treatise on education (by Chitherki). We talk about ways to get our hands on the book without triggering an alarm.

We go to the front door. The guardian is still waiting for us. Efrim asks him if he can open the door so we can get a book. He shakes his head no. He asks if he will go get a book for us, he nods his head yes. He goes and gets the empty book with the chustra cover. Efrim uses the Tome of Elish to repair the book, and the pages start rebuilding themselves. Hours later, the book is fresh and new. First page is about horses and hippogriffs. The big binder has 1 treatise per 27.

1. Horses and hippogriffs (land and air cavalry)
2. Meier – Aerial warfare
3. Prisnitono – happiness and aestheticism.
4. Virr – strength training and exercise (edited)
5. Effins – piety
6. Natane – fundamentals of magic (all magics, not just vain) (edited)
7. Elstir – liberation of humankind
8. Thrush – preservation of the flesh (edited)
9. Rethin – archery (and hunting)
10. Breinnu – marriage
11. Koronamus – rulership
12. Chrysma – self-effacement
13. Thanos – sentience (edited)
14. Literano – principles of pre-cosmology (more like abstract metaphysical questions)
15. Tuaren – sources of magic (mostly vain magics. She’d heard of Cluster, and of the disks we just learned about) (edited)
16. Crobyum – chustra (edited)
17. Yveny – properly breeding animals
18. Coritine – Swordcraft. How to make a good magic sword. And prepare a sword to receive intelligence
19. Chethum – romantic love
20. Shydem – purposes of art
21. Chetherki – education
22. Karim – on defense of warfare (defense, and focus on tactics)
23. Ensue – “the Rituals”
24. Fynnis – History
25. Tuon – Smithing
26. Xx – harvesting
27. Ensem – language

The only civilization around at the time was giants. There was no core set of human knowledge at the time, so this book really lays the foundation for humans to evolve into higher functioning beings. The book is written in Semu. Lackshmi begins copying using Lackshmis Quill.

We ask the guardian to leave them out while we copy them. We get the impression that these were meant to be shared with visitors. There is an immortal preservation spell on the covers of two, not the third, and not the pages.

“Books edited. Spells not replaced.”

Chitherki was the last person to edit them. He flips to the Natane section, flips to the end, and then writes “edited version”.

(Truesight: exalted. 31+ hit dice. )

Rules: don’t damage. Don’t enter closet.

In one tower, there is a spell effect that will allow you to see the Semu Empire as it was at it’s height.

In the other tower, you can’t go up it, but there is an illusion of each of the 27 descending the stairs and disappearing around the corner, one at a time. You can see each one as they were, maybe at the beginning, circa -52.

Who was the last person to visit and when? “hobgoblin. 2 years ago. Sat in garden.” The hobgoblin closely examined the book cover. Eltir’s Guardian tells us the name of the hobgoblin (“Gary Miller”).

Who was the last person to visit with the password? “Serram”.

Does anything else need to be repaired? The guardian takes off very fast. Points to the top of the towers. Chustra crenulations. There is a flagpole that disappeared thousands of years ago. The Tome repairs the flagpole and the flag. There is now a brand new Semu Empire flag flying over the memorial.

Are you allowed to lie to Dihua? “no.”

Who can change your orders? “Some gods. Dihua.”

The treatises are in first person. They tend to take a high and mighty tone. The 27 became famous as teachers. Chrysma makes references to the reader as “my friend” and she makes frequent references to her other treatises. The two most frequently mentioned are:

• Truth and Value.
• Compassion and Wholeness.

She talks about the importance of recognizing flaws. The insidious intrusion of Ego as our greatest downfall. How you treat those beneath you. Spontaneity and the importance thereof.

Begins with the fertile empire of the rains. A storm giant (Marquis of Stoyerle) began accepting human refuge slaves.

Fynnis’ Treatise of History

In year -119, swampland was drained to make more swampland. The farmers became very curious and smart, eventually more people moved there and it became a town called Ebbensalma.

In year -79 the year established academies for humans to study the advancement of Chustra. The Marquis found that humans were making more progress than the giants.

Year -52, they surreptiously obtained foreign aid, and 29 leading teachers overthrew the marquis (first marquis’ son), and established the Semu Empire and the Oath of Fealty to Race. Immediately entered wars with the giants.

-49 Steternal, permanently kills another teacher (the other we didn’t know). Elstir investigates and finds it was a foreign plot. So Steternal is killed permanently.

-48 the remaining 27 establish a state religion. “We shall follow no gods but those of our own makings” added to the oath. Thanos and Chrysma dissented and wanted to swear oaths based on sentience rather than race.

-26 Young captain Nar recognized for his leadership

-20 All cyclops freed. Fertile Empire retreats to the skies and declare war on all the humans.

-15 Natane contracts incurable illness and dies. Digestive issues.

-12 Battle for the Heavens. Semu defeats the fertile empire with airships. Semu now controls land and sky for first time. They begin to interlace the empire (building canals. Communication shrines for talking between cults).

-7 Elstir gives Alders Day Oration, imploring everyone to liberate humans in all worlds.

-6 Narriston War, formed alliance with elves and dwarves to drive giants out of plane.

-5 Gods of earth, winds, and metal send in invasion, recruit cyclops back to their side and encourage them to rebel.

-1 Elstir and friends defeat a series of giant gods. Bronze father king

1 Elstir and friends begin traveling to other planes.

*The countdown is to year 1: The year the 27 began travelling to other planes to bring liberation to humans.

Natane’s Treatise on Magic

1. Most powerful: of the divine ancestors (gods)
2. Second: bestowed by ancestors (their clerics)
3. Third: color magics (vain) this section is really short.
4. Fourth: mysterious magics that are hard to explain. Druids. Collossi. Other things (can get details).

Tuaren’s Sources of Magic. Very short. Was a dragon god. Had to leave the neighborhood. Left an artifact behind. Experimented. Added another one for different kinds of spells. Etc etc. the end.

Smithing: very technical.

Chustra: not a ton of detail. But describes the forges. Chustra is mined, and we help humans create their own divine ancestor magic effects. Only the 27 are capable of creating these.

We go to Qath. Find the Path to a version of the compendium right before the fall of Blackmoore. Portal down to a collapsed building, which we excavate. There are a lot of scrolls in there, and a rack with 27 scrolls on it. We Find Object to locate the scrolls that are the edited treatises and Repair Object on those before we touch anything and ruin everything.

Unedited Treatises:

Fundamentals –Describes how to develop one’s own ancestor magic. At will spells, for example.

Preservation of flesh – eating gravels in sequence. (we’re on track, but these instructions are more explicit).

Strength – this includes bone hardening

Chustra – tells us exactly how to forge chustra. How to turn chustra ore into finished.

Version is from 3602 BC.

Self effacement – the language has changed.

Sources of Magic – how yance artifacts were made, general principles.

Sword craft – has more details on steps to create an intelligent sword. Relies an immortal spell that is used to create creatures.

Ritual: had some things on how to honor the goddess. Music is important. The comb is important. Singing, companionship. Not so much focus on nature and life. In this scroll they refer to Chrysma (not Thorn or Thia). (Her shrines will refer to Chrysma and Thorn, both).

History: Fynnis had doubts about whether or not Septurnal was actually in foreign pay when he was executed. This version doesn’t reference any of the dissent by Thanos and Chrysma to the new Oath of Fealty. This says Fynnis chose to die a natural death because “it’s what Natane would have wanted”. On Natane’s death… says he started aging super fast (revised version says he had digestive problems?). It says Elstir died because the gods of EMERALDS* sent him a curse.

*never heard of this. A consortium of gods?

Used Wish to be able to cast spells for one turn without having to touch the object. Then Case Lore. From the “other” scrolls, we can narrow down the ones that look interesting enough to repair with the Tome (without destroying them). ^Al’s idea, by the way.

• Compassion and Wholeness – interested in different kinds of compassion. One is where you identify with someone because you can imagine yourself in his shoes. The other is where you imagine being them. Interested in the effects of the different kinds of compassion. (Says imagine being them is better. More conducive to wholeness.)
• Truth and Value – relationship between “facts of the matter” and ethical values. She admits that her views have changed, and evolved. Unusual because it’s self-effacing for a god. Goes on about how to resolve issues between fact and value. A true philosopher. “Pre-cosmology and meaning”. Five liked to write like this. Thanos was one of them.
• More on Preserving the Flesh, in greater detail. There are things here we can use. It’s not too hard for us to figure out where we are in our own development. We’ll be able to hop faster, monitoring our own progress. The goal is to have a body that doesn’t start decaying if there is no life force in it. I.e. we can hop into an avatar, and back into the original body without any harm done to the original. No real connection between having an immortal body and immortal magics. You could have a mortal body and access to immortal magics, or have an immortal body but not immortal magics. These instructions are geared to humans. Elves and the like might not benefit in the same way, since their bodies are already more resistant to decay to begin with?
• Other treatises by Chetherki
• Several histories, the one we are interested most details the next 1000 years of what happened to the 27 after Year 1. It’s just a scroll, so it’s still cursory, but it covers the foundation of the Rebel sphere. Led by Thanatos, as we suspected.
•  

Al tells Efrim to Lore the building where we found the scrolls. 1 turn later… it was a private library.

“Year 1” to the Semuites is year 5340 BC. Al searches using Locate looking for maps. Finds a whole rack, has about 10. Narrow it down to maps from around 4200 BC (1000 years later). Maybe use Scroll of Questioning. When were you created? When was the last time you were touched by human hands? When were you destroyed?

Get two old but not exactly identical maps of Semu. One shows the shrines. Dated 1522 (circa 3800 bc).

Get a laughable map of the prime plane. All the continents are off. Alpheim and Darokin are kinda close.

Get a map of Cluster that isn’t too good.

Get a map of Citadel. “Island of Pegasi” is referenced on it.

Maps of specific Semu locations… Map of Qath (city we are in).

Map of MINES of the DWARVEN COLLECTORS

Map of Timara

Map of Koyreskist. Shows original temple sites for the 27 gods. Chrysma’s former temple is now Deus’s temple.

Vague map of Fell

We are full of ideas for how to improve the plays that the playwrights have been producing. We want to introduce Thanos as the villain behind the foreign assassinations, and somehow loop in a Deus-like character, “Dudas”, that comes out of nowhere and sweeps in to save the day. Make it look like Deus was the actual inspiration for the changes to the play.

We check our map of Qath and try to find a chrysma temple. There were multiple temples to the 27, and 2 shrines. One big, one street side. The big map shows us where Chrysma’s biggest temple in Semu, which is west of the capitol. We decide to check out the one in Qath first.

We dig down about 15 feet. A nearby excavation has flooded the area. The shrine is wrecked, but we can see the walls. We can see her holy symbol from the time. This is a “Thorn” shrine. The symbol is an extremely stylized harp and comb. Walls are bare. There are two inscriptions of her treatises on the walls. A pedestal, that is empty. A cornerstone says the shrine was blessed by……… Preshiate (Presh EE ah tay) in year 1512. We decide to find the path to the corpse of Preshiate. AL SUGGESTS WE RAISE HER AN ADD ANOTHER HIGH PRIEST FOR CHRYSMA. Carrock casts the spell and starts flying WSW. He seems to be flying toward the mausoleum town, or maybe the capitol… Lots of flying… Decide to transport via plant to mausoleum town. We look for mausoleums tagged with “TRAITOR” as we walk around. We find them, they are not names we recognize at all. If they have holy symbols on them, they seem to be random. From our knowledge of Semu rituals, it looks like they were buried honorably. The ritual book is emphatic that all death should be honored equally, including your enemies. The tombs have dates. Oldest have the year 600 something.

…Resume find the path. Start flying west. The big temple is in that direction. Transport via Plants to there. Al volunteers to be stoned so we can do it in one trip.

We arrive at a Shrine site. It’s in a wetlands. There is no shrine here. Carrock Finds the Path to the site of Thorn’s shrine from that time. We want to go down.

We rest for the night, redo spells. Lower Water, passwall down. Get to a place where there is a lot of bones, all massed together.

We let the top fill in with a breathing hole and make and excavation chamber. There is not wreckage of a building at all. Only a huge cross section of bone. Looking at the bones, carrock picks up a skull. Al suggests that these are all Thorn’s followers. All of the bones are on the same level. There are hack marks on a lot of the bones. A lot of broken bones.

Carrock casts Speak with Dead.

What emerges is a hunched over form in a white dressing gown. She was an old woman. Her gown is embroidered with Thorn holy symbols, and she has the comb in her hair.

How did you die? Went to sleep…

What year? 1524

Who would have taken over at the time of your death? Simese. He was a sweet boy… I regret every time that I kicked him.

*FtP to Simese* his skull is nearby.

Simese was also a high priest of Thorn. Also died of old age.

How old were you when you died? In years? 146.

“The other priestess says she was sorry for kicking you when you were young.” “That’s nice to hear, she was a force to be reckoned with. Much better for Thorn than me.”

Who took over for you? I’m not sure… he names three people.

Next guy… died in 1783 or something.

Eventually, we get to a skull of “Feinate”. She is the last high priestess of Thorn in Semu. She died in 2319 (3021 BC). Killed with an axe. “We were swarmed by a mob of followers of Thanos. They hauled me out, killed my paladins first, and then they killed me.” She looks to be about 30 years old.

We discuss what to do… talk about maybe reincarnating her, and her paladins. We discuss it with her. She expresses some excitement and says that she’d be down with the idea of being reincarnated, 4,000 years after her death.

She says that she retained 5 paladins in the area because she was worried about getting attacked, and four of them rushed to her aid. She gives us the names of those people.

She’s deeply invested in her belief in Chrysma that she is willing to accept any challenges that come with being reincarnated, and worshipping a goddess that isn’t quite the same.

We gather ALL of the skulls and bones of the dead to take with us.

*Spent a long time talking about options for what to do with Feinate. The pros and cons of bringing people back to honor Thorn, or to teach them to honor Nameless Goddess. We agree that the best thing regardless would be to bring her back to Tae Ullari to be part of the Ostbruck Troubadours, for example.

Q: We summon up her ghost again, and ask her where we might look for hidden artifacts or items of religious value that we could search for to unearth and take back. Anything that might have been hidden before Thanos could burn everything… Where might there be highly durable relics?

A: The Open Box. Something paladins would travel around with. Actually super secure. Need the key. They would open the box where they would travel and give to the community. Gifts to people that would treat them well, but food for everyone. Basically a tool for missionaries. Gives us the name of the paladin who had the open box.

A: A “zither”. Stringed instrument. Had been transported to the temple in Koyrekist. This is an actual artifact.

A: There’s a legend… with a braid of Thorn’s hair that she gave to Agave.

Q: Where might there be off-plane temples or shrines that might have survived the purge?

A: 5 foreign lands. 1: Autkaft – does not have Thorn symbols.

2: Tortoise Back. 275-3. Also has living collosi. Home of Agave.

3: two Continents. Has temples on both continents. One has 2 continents. One has both humans and elves, on the other they are at war. There is a big black tower a few planes away. There are a lot of planes with 2 continents. She says it’s an outer plane (second ring out) Well known that it’s near the plane with the chustra mines. 🡨 that’s an outer plane but just barely. There is an elf story about those who made peace with humans, and some who didn’t. Find out more about that later.).

4: “Home of the colossi”. 271-9? Hardest one to reach. There is a vortex in the way.

5: the Prime. Something doesn’t add up… She says “tortoise back” is near a plane with a big tower, but the plane we’re thinking of is nowhere near Citadel.

Q: Can you name some of the priests that have been traveling the planes and other powerful people? A: she gives us some names. The greatest priestess in the history of the religion is the first old lady we talked to. She is credited for setting up the temples on the prime, the two continents, and tortoise back.

A: She gives us the name of a paladin: Lysinik. Most powerful paladin of Thorn at the time. Has demon tattoos from his youth from before his conversion. Had some twisted ideas before Chrysma won him over. Doesn’t specify what “Demons” means…

Q: We’ve yet to find a weapon made of chustra. Why is that?

A: A lot of the artifacts that exist today have chustra in them, even if it doesn’t look like they do. Chustra is malleable. Sky Green Emerald only has a certain range of purposes.

We talk again to the first priestess that we spoke with, the one who founded the off world temples.

She appears hunched over again. “You again!”

Q: we’re trying to locate the temple on the two continents.

A: Temple? On the two continents? Excuse me but I set up two temples there. One on Great Harmony and one in the great forest. She gives us the directions. We deduce the planar coordinates. It would put us at 271-2N. Have to go through dash 1 to get to dash 2. “Dash1” is the place with the chustra mine.

We know there is a giant plane at 270-272, known for having giant sized animals, burial mounds, and sticky trees. We didn’t know there were elves there. She boasts that the temple in Great Harmony has elven followers. The first elven followers for Thorn.

In Al’s racial history, the story of the elves that lived in harmony, and the elves that lived at war with the humans, the honor goes to the elves that lived at war and refused to assimilate and accommodate the humans. They retained their culture.

She says she set up a temple on the Prime, but she doesn’t think it would be doing very well. “Those bastards, I knew they would let me down.” There is a continent called the Grain field continent. i.e. Alphasia. Trade city called Akro. Doesn’t think it would be doing very well. She gives us a description and we can figure out where it is. East of the main continent.

Q: we ask her about how to set up a temple.

A: She goes on and on in great detail, and gets very snippy about making sure it’s done right.

Al casts Locate Object: Key to the Open Box. Something shows up. We dig to it, and find it. There are some other things in the same spot. Looks like someone threw out what they thought was worthless. 2 coppers, and 1 silver, minted ancient Semu coins. Depiction of 27 stars on one side. Image of a man with curly hair (Elstir) and a symbol for Elstir’s name.

Al casts Locate Object: Open Box. No results.

Find the Path: Open Box. No results.

Find the Path: to a paladin that was carrying the box.

Find the Path to Braid of Thorn’s Hair: no results

Find the Path to Zither: no results.

Find the Path to remains of person who was carrying Braid of Thorn’s hair (have name): Get a hit. Headed North. We triangulate. Directions lead toward the biggest yellow orc city on the plane. Transport to near the orc town. Find the Path to the body again. Stills right to the orc metropolis. We disguise up, and go invisible.

There is some kind of festival happening today, so there are a ton of orcs out in public, getting drunk. Some orcs are working. There is a big party happening behind a wall. On a big elderly orc woman, there is a necklace of bones. She’s passed out. There are a bunch of orcs, including guards. Carrock heads toward the orc woman.

Al true sights. She is 13 HD orc, 11^th level shaman.

They are roasting 3 bugbears for their party food. It’s the middle of the day. Carrock is going to try to just take the bone necklace off her neck, invisible, and fly away. She swaps him away. Carrock unclasps it, hard. She opens an eye. Her necklace is floating away in the air. She sees it and starts shouting in yellow orc. Al recognizes it as foul language.

Lackshmi casts L. Enchanted Slumber. Some of the guards fall asleep, but others are taking aim. One is throwing an axe. The axe misses.

Efrim casts Time Stop. He and Carrock get away in 30 seconds.

Lackshmi and Al hold hands and fly out of the city together. The orc guards that were not affected by the slumber throw open the gates of the compound, pour into the street and start attacking random people in the street.

*This orc city appears that it may have been built by Orcs. This city was not on the ancient Semu maps.

LORE the necklace: Necklace of spell storing. Only clerics or shaman can use it. Has 5 spells stored. Dispel magic, animate dead, purify food and water, neutralize poison, and insect plague.

The necklace is finger bones. Lots of bones, could be more than one person. Find the Path helps Carrock find one that belongs to our target.

We go a safe way away from the city, and cast Speak with Dead on the finger bone.

The image of an ashen skinned man rises into the air. He has messy, dreadlocked hair. He appears to be very strong.

Q: Is Thorns Braid really from the immortal goddess Thorn?

I believe so.

Q: What happened to the braid?

The everlasting followers of Thato must have taken it from me when they killed me.

Q: what powers did the braid have?

Transport through Plant, Massmorph, and Remove Curse.

Q: name?

Kreffa paladin of Thorn from Diamond City (that’s the city on Tortoise Back).

Q: who do you think would have the braid now?

He gives us the names of people that came to attack him. Sounds like nosferatu that served a lich.

There was a sudden attack on the high temple of Thorn. He figured out it was organized by a lich priest named Maak-na, and there was an attempt to purge them from the plane. He was trying to protect her communities.

Artifact Lore about a braid? Yes, there is a braid of hair artifact. “Hair of elven goddess” or something, known for transport through plants. Last known to be somewhere on the prime.

Q: Do you want to be reincarnated and rejoin the fight? Like the Fienate?

He would like to have his life again. He hopes it’s not revenge alone that is motivating him.

We decide to Reincarnate the priestess while we are still in Semu, let her get acclimated to life again, and let her spend 4 months in Ebbensalma getting powerful.

COMMUNE:

When we raise the priestess, will she be able to get spells by honoring Thorn? Yes.

Is the braid really Thorn’s hair? *pause* Yes.

Should we try visiting the Shrine in Alphatia? No.

Go to Ebbensalma, do some reincarnates!

Everyone is excited to be reunited. There are more bugbears there now. They are able to tell us the story

REINCARNATE: Priestess: 1. She is very similar to her original form. Dark black form instead of blonde. Very good looking. About the same age (30). She looks like she’s from Galadoran, on the southern continent. Lackshmi works on a fake new identity for her.

Paladin: 5: Elf. Lackshmi tries to do some wish wording to change his new form into his original form. Efrim lends a hand and they come up with some pretty good wording. Lackshmi’s wish was going to screw up the age of the elf, and make a 300 year old human. Efrim fixed it.

Result: man with ashen skin, but bald. Still buff. He wants go kill undead, but out of love of life – not revenge.

We don’t speak their languages at all. We will teach them elven in Ebbensalma. Lackshmi and Al set out to learn Semu from them.

We have MORE questions from them.

As soon as they mediate, then can get spells. They get vanilla cleric spells, not Nameless Goddess spells. They get very close, since they are the only ones that speak each other’s languages, and remember things from their age.

She’s 24^th level. He’s 18^th level.

She has a 14 Intelligence that needs to be wished up. 16 days of wishing to get to max.

He a 13 Intelligence and 15 wisdom. 12 days to max wisdom, and 16 days to max intelligence.

We can get them both maxed out in 49 days, without using Iustal’s help.

She got permission to stay here for 2 months from the 27.

The party deliberates how much information about Thorn we should share with Iustal.

He was wondering about the 27, or was it 29? He wonders…

How does he know? He leads us to a building that was scrubbed clean, and 29 stalls, perhaps for steeds. It’s underground. Each one is labeled with names. The 27 plus the 2 new ones.

When it comes to forbidden knowledge, he’s happy to trade in it, but we don’t see the need to burden him with Chrysma/Thanos drama when he doesn’t need it.

He has compiled his own history of the 27, using the lists of servants etc. as a basis for explaining their wealth of their families, and thus their position in this social order.

He thinks Eppens is Arashis who went to Citadel and was killed by Thanos. He has some prior knowledge.

His theory: There is a library high up in the tower. Koren visited and brought back books from ancient times. Decided there was something else he needed, so he went back in and was killed in the tower.

The knowledge he brought out was disseminated. Topics: elemental mastery. Secret Crafts? Maybe. That’s one theory.

Arashis was on the council of Citadel. He represented the sphere of Disorder on the council. He refused Thanos’ permission to the plane, who was the supreme hierarch, so Thanos replaced him on the council and then killed him. That seems to be the first god that Thanos killed, that we know of.

How did that happen?? We ask Feinate and Kraffa. They lived at a time that they understood that Thanos was a villain. The first priestess didn’t think of Thanos as a villain, even though he had already turned on some of the 27.

Arashis believed in order, and didn’t think Thanos would respect the order on Citadel. Order was based on the way giants did things. It wasn’t uncommon that permission should be denied. Secondly, among the 27 there was no “supreme” hierarch, and they wanted to preserve the idea that they were all equals and there was no king. Eppen made a principaled stand against Thanos, and he killed him for it.

Were there any reprisals? Seems like the gods stood by and watched it happen.

If you ask the early Thorn followers, it’s only been one generation since this happened. They have since been taught that seeking eternal life is a bad thing. You can’t have a meaningful life if there is no end. And it deforms human psyche if there is immortality. You have to accept that your own death is inevitable. The kind of immortality that Thanos was granting people (undeath) seems deeply unnatural. Undead Warriors were the first new form of undead that they became aware of “50-60 years ago.” Undead Warrior Assassins would appear with the sole purpose of killing religious opponents. They were creeped out, but they didn’t even really think it was that unusual. They were all extending their lives, this was just like a new kind of extended life.

Thanos became the most powerful of the 27 before he started delving into undeath for his followers.

As Feinate understands it… human beings principle advantage over their enemies is their ability to unify. They see that as the biggest achievement of Semu. They unified the empire, overthrew the gods, and then spread their message to humans across the cosmos.

His top lieutenant was Crobyem for a long time. Then he killed her and replaced her with Mausawu. Crobeym was known as the Paladin of Night.

When did the tea club meet? It was before this time. Matonn had a cloud giant avatar. He was not a human, he was/is a giant god. Also worshipped by sphinxes.

There is a comment about her taking refuge with her friend… who do the earlies think that is? Crem. Hedemal the Wise, that is. The faded tactician.

Why did Thanos fade her instead of kill her? If you can’t kill the god, if she is somewhere that can’t be accessed , you do the next best thing, which is kill off all the followers and effectively neutralize her.

…

In the last week in Ebbensalma, a hobgoblin steps on a crystal flower, and we all take our hiding position. We crystal ball the surface.

A new golem comes and stands on the hill. Dihua comes and stands in front of the armory. Feinate told us a particular building was “the armory”. The armorist started preaching polygamy, which is a giant concept, so they executed him. Pyramid guy with tentacles turns over everything in the street (this is where the flower was crushed). The pyramid thing finishes investigating, flies over to Dihua, and Dihua puts her finger on the wall of the armory, and burns a Semu symbol on the wall. The symbol means “I KNOW YOU ARE HERE.”

We think “you” is a reference to the citizen of the Semu Empire that we brought back into the city.

We manage to finish out the months with no further interactions with the guardians.

We stone the companions and prepare to leave.

LAST CALL: Crobyem’s House. House of Crobyem is in Ebbensalma. It’s not sealed. It’s been sacked. It’s large. Some were laboratories. Bookshelves built into the walls. Quotes of Elstir inscribed on the walls. X-Ray vision reveals… nothing.

Locate Chustra: find tiny flakes here and there. It’s refined.

HANDWAVE: going back through the wall. Passwall out, leave a stunned bird, and then teleport away.

We go to the temple of Deus. It doesn’t match the description. They say the old temple was razed and this one was built on top of it. But the old cellar is still there. Al disguises as a human and uses his status as a esteemed citizen to talk his way into the temple, bluffing about an infrastructure project were we are mapping old koreykist and need to see the cellar. They let us in, for 10k gold, and requiring that Al will submit to a Lie Detect to make sure we haven’t removed anything.

We get to the cellar. L. activates x-ray vision and starts squeaky farting so that we laugh for several rounds. They have painted over characters for life:death. Balance. Scrutiny:self-scrutiny.

There is a secret storage room, filled with Deus stuff. It’s not a big room. Looks like an outline of an altar. There is no altar now.

On the Etherial? There is a little compartment, about the size of a guest book, but it’s empty.

Straight down? Looks like there was water running at one time – there is a channel. But it’s been sealed off. You would have to crawl on all fours to get through there.

The Deus cleric confirms our hunch. “The temple district and the noble houses had sewer systems.”

Al pretends to make an appointment to come back next week to learn more about Deus.

Carrock is going to the other play with Julia Hala.

Lackshmi finds the old temple of Crem. He’s in a side street, it’s very small. It’s been taken over by Entalius. Sphere of Matter. Peasants, Tradition, and Common Resistance. L. makes a small donation and goes in to learn more about the god. He was popular on the Prime until the second moon. She asks about this temple, and old owner. He says “It was a temple to one of the 27. I’m interested too. What do you know about him? He must have been very brave for standing up to Thanatos.” L engages him on the topic somewhat. He says he found some stuff from the old god, L. asks to see it. Comes back tomorrow. He comes out with a trunk. He prayed, had the insight that if you could contribute to enrichment of the temple, then he could share what he knows. Asks for 5k, agrees to 3k.

He brings out rubbings of inscriptions on the walls.

“Competing for the high ground.” It’s a military tactics charge of instructions.

In the cellar, on the ceiling. “Wait”. Can wait, or better to wait.

Also in the cellar. “Life: Death”, “Balance”.

The holy symbol: Shield with a rune.

Efrim and Al go around to temples of Jaigon, Hel, and Serram. Hel is happy to see us back. Hopes that we are supporting the values of Hel and the goals of Hel abroad. “Please support the Soibund Jennites!”

WE go back to the Prime. This has been life changing for Iustal. Now he gets all the inside jokes that we’ve been sharing for the last year or ten. Plus he’s finally super smart just like us.

Turns out that he’s been to the living colossi plane, and in that area. He is thinking a lot about outer planar travel. He will study up on Mental Impenatrability if we want him to work on chustra.

First thing when we get back: LORE/Find the Path to the Braid and the Zither. The Braid gets a result!!

The Braid of the Elven Goddess. Artifact specialist at Catalon knows about it. In hands of master thief were-panther. Turns out, it’s one of Nameless One’s informants. Find the Path, points West. Name: Yellow Tooth. No loyalty to Catalon. He’s useful, but he’s not a good guy. We could rob him, but leave him in place. He’s a raper and murderer.

We come up with a plan to appear before him in a dream. “You have something that doesn’t belong to you. We are coming for you. You will give it to me. Don’t worry, I will give you something in return because I am a kind and loving being. I know what you’re thinking. Don’t run. If you think you want to refuse, I invite you to consider the alternative.” *show thieves guild meeting with them all dead and being disintegrated.*

Carrock makes a deal with the Isle of Dawn druids to make a Transport via Plant item in exchange for a Song of Life item. We plan to give the thief the magic item that does the transport in exchange for the artifact. If he doesn’t agree we will just kill them all and take it.

We get a physical description of him. He’s 13^th level were-panther. 30^th level thief.

We launch the plan. Teleport to Darokin City. FtP to a seedy inn. There are guards at the doors and on the roof.

Clairvoyance to look in and make sure we find the right guy. He’s getting busy with two chicks. Guards posted at the door. There are plants in the room. (this is a problem because of the Transport via Plant artifact power).

Contemplating changing plans to time stop and just steal it from him.

Find the Path to the braid: headed to building, same window.

Efrim Time Stops. Elasticates down the chimney, grabs his bag, his robe, and his satchels, and goes back up the chimney. Creates illusions of the stuff we stole. Later we crystal ball the room and he’s passed out, hasn’t noticed.

We consider illusions to use on him that he sees to keep him from blaming the people that he is with. When he’s awake, a vaporous man drops through the ceiling, touches the bag, it disappears, and the vapor man slides through the floor. “what? What?!?!!” He pulls out (dick swinging wildly) and jumps out bed to alert the guards. And chase after the phantom. We escape with the artifact and a ton of other useful treasures.

DAY OF RISING

The day when clerics can ask 6 questions.

Feinate communes, does the Honor Thorn rituals. Concentrates without speaking.

Am I speaking to the Goddess? *I’m talking to her* You’re speaking to me, Feinate. On this day, you are speaking to me.

Why can we only talk to you on this day?

Because it’s all I can manage.

The elves that were converted on 2 continents to worship Thorn… What happened to them?

*They were the core group that became the faneare*

Are they still there?

*No. They departed long ago.*

How do we get the lost fanaere tribe out of the drydon?

*It’s figurative.*

**Speculation ensues**

Is there any hope?

*You tell me.*

What happened to the temple in the homeland?

*It was destroyed with the rest. But what you told me about Serram has me soaring.*

Tell me the story about Agave. Oh, also we recovered your braid.

*in my experience there are no true friendships among the gods. But still I try. My “closest” friend has changed over time, but I did indeed take refuge with a friend, and still am. Crem.*

We are training up Thorn followers, but if humans pray to Nameless Goddess, will they get the same spells fanaere do?

*All these upgrades that you give me with your questions, Carrock, give me great hope. But I’m afraid I don’t know. I suspect only faneare can get them, but I don’t know. You found me. I didn’t find you.*

*She gives names of the 2 most powerful friends on each plane we are going to.*

Can you use regular travel methods to get to the last fanaere?

*Last I knew, it was dangerous travel even for the gods. The most formidable challenge isn’t getting there, but figuring out how to get back. … Tell Feinate that there is hope.*

Outer planes have some weird properties that prevent travel.

We get ready to go out of town. Al descends on Ostbruck and declares it a holiday. We kick off a 4 day festival. And fill the town storage with wine casks. Efrim MacGregor rocks the stage and introduces the Tae Ullari Troubadours. It’s a nice way to launch our new product line: Religion.

ON TO THE OUTER PLANES!

We Travel, and find our way to the plane of the Sticky Trees. There are also giant animals and burial mounds. Iustal says that people have tried to animate them, speak with them. Doesn’t know if anyone has tried to reincarnate them, but if you dig down you find bones. Giant bones are bigger than storm giants. There are also Chustra mines. Iustal has never heard of the mines. Kreffa knows exactly where they are, or are supposed to be.

The node is near the top of a very tall hill. Steep slopes. A few trees, sloping into a wide basin. Large – redwood sized. Where the basin begins, trees disappear, and the mounds appear. Mounds go for about 5 or 6 miles, and there are a lot of them.

We see a giant snail.

(Retroactive: Kreffa uses Natane’s disk for 6 months).

“Uh! I can’t see them! The mountains in the distance! I can’t see them! Carrock, you look! Many sharp teeth, two flat teeth? That is where the mines are.” – Kreffa

Carrock casts Rainbow, with a max range of 180 miles. We jump on. We go over the heads of giant eagles and giant birds with really long tail feathers. And arrive on the rocky slope of a mountain. Kreffa says upon landing “I have to confess, I’ve never actually been to the mines.” The tops of the two mountains are cut off, and seem much smaller even than what Kreffa remembers.

Find the Path to: Golem. No Results

Find the Path: Open Mine Entrance

Find the Path: Efrim MacGregor. Carrock starts walking.

We kill a giant tarantula

We look around for more chustra, and only find some shards.

We stay the night and then head to the next node. The node is marked by “felled trees”. The sticky trees are here. Al goes through some steps to collect some of the goo for alchemical research.

Cast Travel, fade out of this plane and into…

TWO CONTINENTS.

Wooded area… looking a little alien. Don’t recognize the trees, but they are more familiar than where we came from. Two continents, both have humans on them. Neither of them has elves now. Western and Eastern. Kreffa says it’s Great Harmony and Great Forest. We are in Great Forest. Humans and elves were at war on this continent. We have a map of the continents that shows the major towns (thanks, Catalon!). They haven’t managed to conquer nature here, so the humans are second to nature. Iustal’s advice: If you see humans, be humans. Kreffa says they are not of the far seeing human types.

Find the Path: remains of Nyani. She was a priestess of Thorn. Thorn told us she might be here. We’re on the eastern continent. Carrock starts flying west.

Preshiate gave us pretty good information on the locations of the temples here. After an hour of flying, he doesn’t seem to be headed to the western temple.

We Rainbow toward the edge of the eastern continent.

We transport via plant to a place that looks like the ruins of a village. Just stubs of walls, no actual buildings.

We dig down (Move Earth) about 55 feet, and find a pile of caskets. Carrock speaks a strange word and opens a casket. She has some worn trinkets. Carrock Speaks with Dead.

An old woman image shimmers up.

What happened to the temple?

*I don’t know, it should be intact, right?*

What year did you die?

*She gives a year, but in what reckoning? She gives same answer as the others. Year of the purge. 2319*

We’re x miles south of the temple. Do you know why you are buried here?

We open the casket on top. Kreffa speaks the word before Al opens the top.

Kreffa casts Speak with Dead this time.

His name is Reiner. He is a cleric of Thorn.

What year did he die? 2319.

How did he die?

Slain at the hands of the eternal followers of Thatos.

We check the other caskets.

Most powerful in the group is the first person we talked to. 24^th level.

Next most is one of the other three. A woman in her 50’s. 16^th level.

Kreffa wants to talk about Thanatos… As he remembers, he was interested in undeath to give his followers eternal life. Not to turn people against their will. He was a bad guy, but not a monster.

SPEAK WITH DEAD

Where are the holy relics to fight against Thatos?

*Group puts together a list of 14 items*

*Turns out the old lady, the first skull, was also killed by the deadites, but she was killed first so she didn’t see the destruction of the temple.*

The other dead bodies are Paladins of Thorn.

The one item on the plane: The Lens of Thorn. Has special undead fighting abilities. Amplifies undead turning effect. Can turn it on yourself and reveal your own flaws. In conjunction with a book, you can recognize your own flaws and increase your wisdom (+2). The book is called the Treatise on Self-Effacement. It’s supposed to be very painful.

Find the Path to Lens: Takes Carrock West. Triangulate. Going west again. Very far west.

Iustal comes back. Consult map. Looks like western continent, maybe pointing at an inland lake. Blue Song Lake. Kreffa identifies it as the Great Green Lake.

Iustal comes back from meeting human communities. We are in the nexus of three nations:

1. Messnar.
2. Horselords. He met the horselords. The horses here are a foot taller than horses we know. Big, strong, but don’t live as long.
3. Lizardmen. Talakarina.

They are usually at war with each other. The horselords say they have truce with the lizardmen. The rumor that humans are friendly doesn’t seem to be all that true.

The ocean is considered dangerous. There are lots of druids. People pay them to move around or deliver messages. There are druid communities. They were the ones that lived in harmony with the elves.

They call the Western continent The Rising Sun. Sun goes west to east here.

There are some mages here. Some lycanthropes. Some undead.

We’re currently in the western middle of the eastern continent.

To build some good will, we offer to take messages to the western continent. They give us some, and money to pay someone to deliver them to various villages there.

**

We Transport via Plant to the Western Continent.

Find the Path: Names of contacts from Thorn. (They go off in different directions).

FtP: Temple location. Looks like artifact and temple are close.

First we look for the people….

The Great Green Lake is about 60 miles square. 10 miles wide by 60 miles long. Transport to the shore of the lake. Collapsed wooden cabin nearby. Area looks abandoned, but not ancient. The lake is more blue than green…

Carrock flies out over the lake. Flies roughly 200 feet out and heads down.

Al activates Survival from the Cloak, and turns gaseous (for 12 hours). The party grabs his items as they start to sink into the water. Al uses telekinesis to grab his armor, which is sinking fast.

The party enters the water, there are several large turtles in the area. 2-3 feet in diameter. They have runes on the bottom of their shells. Three do, one does not. Lackshmi reads the rune with the spectacles. The rune reads “Sacred/Preserve”. They swim away when we enter the water.

Down below it looks like it used to be land. There is a small village under the water. 20 feet below the surface.

Carrock fly/swims down and goes into a building, through the roof. He pulls at the floor boards and they fall apart. He digs at the wet soil. Lackshmi Lowers Water and the digging gets a lot easier. Eventually he unearths a coffin. Lore is cast, the coffin shows that it is imbued with a curse that will mark anyone disturbing it without using the password.

Efrim searches the area with the talking dagger for gems and metals. Al looks at the rest of the buildings for runes or sigals.

Al forms a whirlwind (since he’s gaseous) and raises the coffin up from the bottom and moves it to the shore, and sets it down.

Someone shouts something we don’t understand. We spin around and see a girl that looks to be about 10 years old. Way too many flowers in her hair, with a pitchfork much too big. She shouts something again.

Lackshmi casts Vies Verbal Communication.

“He’s a druid and he’s very handsome and I want to blow him kisses! *blows kisses*”

Carrock uses ESP. Her father taught her to honor druids and so she is trying to do that.

Efrim uses Truesight. ½ HD.

Do you live nearby? Yes. She gives a name.

Why are you speaking so funny? *I have druid knowledge too, and I’m using it to speak with you.”

She points at Kreffa “He’s one of the dark people!” They used to live here. They are very noble and can see like eagles.” There are some of his people in the town. I live in the village. Town is on the other side of the lake. Points to NE side of the lake. Called “Mill Home”.

We’re druids from far away…

The little girl asks for a blessing for their farm. It’s not doing very well and the druids won’t help. We distract her and get to asking the spirits questions.

Name: Treehorn. Died in 2319. Killed by undead warrior assassin. It wore platemail made of a special metal. Undead warrior had been hunting down followers of a scary giant religion so people tolerated him, and he suddenly turned against followers of Thorn in 2319. Dead guy is a 16^th level cleric. He was leader of the temple, but just for a few weeks. Previous one got an incurable disease. He was wasting away, not able to digest any food.

Clay suggests that undead warriors are created by radiation inside pyramids, and they have an emit radiation attack. So people get sick from contact with them…

Fate of the Lens? He had it, last he checked. He was near the temple when he was killed.

Did the church hide burial sites of the fallen so they couldn’t be raised by Thato? No, but that’s a good idea? Why were you buried near this lake then? That’s strange. They must have decided it wasn’t safe to bury me on temple grounds, or years later someone moved me.

There is a shrine to Crem in Mill Home, same as our temple.

…

We go to the farm. Meet a father, three sons, the daughter again. The mother is dead. The father comes over. Is pleased to meet a druid. Points out that he hasn’t broken any of the druid rules on his farm… apparently there are boundaries and the druids tolerate the farmer if he doesn’t change too much or try to take more land. He provides us with a name of a local head druid we could talk to. For short, call her “Gentle Kiss of Wind”.

Lots of repairs that could be made. Broken plows. We make new plows for them. Buy two new big horses and bring them to the farm. Efrim casts useful spells on the family members and permanences them on them all. Efrim casts Efrim’s Effloral Essence on the little girl. It causes her favorite flowers to grow in her hair.

We ask if they know anything about Thorn. “Oh yeah, the temple. My son knows about that.”

The town has ruins from ancient times that they still preserve. One of them is the temple of Thorn. They maintain it, and the druids encourage people to honor Thorn.

We leave a letter with the family for the druids to explain the changes on the farm, in case they have any problem. “We are a travelling group of mages from a far off land. We have tried to maintain a balance in the aid we have given them. Please don’t mess with them. Signed, Friends of Thorn”.

There is a druid who is responsible for maintaining the temple. He comes once per week. He is known for carrying a lens, and sometimes blesses people for service to nature.

We discuss whether or not we should reincarnate the local priest and leave him here.

Caring Nurturer of Sprouts is the druid that maintains the Thorn temple. Protects from lesser undead.

The whole treatise on Self Effacement is inscribed in walls of the surviving building.

Treatise on Compassion and Treatise on Life and Death are also inscribed on walls.

We get invited to dinner at the royal house in the town. Have dinner with the king (an idiot) and his younger queen. She fills us in on some of the history of the elves and worshippers of Thorn.

Efrim and Lackshmi spend some time trying to see if the King’s senility can be cured or fixed by any means we have available.

Q: We’ll be staying here for several weeks. Any highlights of your domain that we should be sure to check out? There is a lot of temple grounds that they have not built over. Check those out. A mostly submerged tower out in the lake. A mage once lived there. Fascinated with water. It wasn’t Sean MacGregor. Lots of things they are proud of that they will show us.

The person that inspired the elves to start worshipping Thorn was Sunny Hope. Golden Petals – elf leader that led them off the plane to the stars.

When they left, they left from the other continent, which means they went to the inner planes, not further out. So they went to Reason, to the Shining Isles, something happened, and when they came back, they had been turned to faenaere by the faedorn, but we don’t know where that was. There were several tribes created (7?) and then they spread out among the cosmos because they were being chased, hunted.

***

We visit the temple. The one preserved has her holy symbol, and engravings of birds. “Birds of Life” started appearing when undead were all over the place. The birds protected you from undead, or undead were afraid of them.

We meet the history buff… he seems to believe in implausible stories. Thinks the elf leaders were god-like. Sunny Hope “discovered the secret powers of the birds of life” and summoned them to protect everyone when legions of undead were threatening. There was a wave of undead attacks that came after the assassinations that was way worse.

Sunny Hope helped people re-discover the cult of Thorn after the early established religion had been killed off.

Clerics of a goddess named Night appeared everywhere and started animating the bodies. So they moved the ones they could and hid them. The elves fought nobly against the undead, but decided that the humans would be wiped out if they stayed there, so they left for the stars. Elven travelers still come through, but they are rare. Last one before us was decades ago.

There is an oath of fealty to life that Chrysma was promoting after Chrysma and Thanos promoted the oath of fealty to sentience. The leaders received the oath through a vision.

The amateur historian is happy to show us around town and show us where elves used to live.

We go back to the Temple on the day the druid is supposed to be there. We see the guy, tending some gardens. He slowly gets up. Wearing robes, and chainmail underneath. He gets very excited when he sees us. Al tells him that we are pilgrims. Carrock starts fielding questions about Thorn and the religion. Kreffa shows him his Thorn holy symbol.

He says… About 30 years ago, someone who had been coming here began praying to Thorn, and started having revelations. That was his master. This guy has been following Thorn ever since. So you are a cleric of Thorn? Yes. He had a visit that he was going to be visited by elves with wings. Efrim takes the Owl out of his bag to make the Non-Detection area, and he gets excited. Elves? Wings! My vision is coming true!

Do you know what happened to the elves when they left this plane? Went to a place where they did plant worship. They went to the stars. They became elves with wings. Like my vision! Why don’t they come back? They don’t want to bring the undead back. They are called faenare.”

Do they have special powers when the sing together? Yes, did the elves? Yes.

Carrock eventually listens to Al as his wise elder and reveals his true self to Caring Nurturer of Sprouts. His life now has meaning.

COMMUNE:

1. Is Serram providing the cleric with spells? No.
2. Lay out the plan. We’re trying to reincarnate the old priests and priestesses of Thorn, pretend they are druids, and train them up on the new ways of Thorn… Should we do that? YES.
3. We are worried about these clerics being discovered. Should we, by proxy, eliminate the follower of Old Nyx? Yes.

Surveillance…

The follower of Old Nyx is a tailor.

FtP to Cleric of Old Nyx: Takes us on a slightly different path, to a town further away. She detects as 3^rd level cleric. Gets together with three followers to perform ceremonies. They are all 1^st level or normal humans.

ESP – thoughts of the tailor are about work, the bad harvests, and the great secret about his gender (some followers of old nyx seek the promise of sexlessness in the afterlife).

Plans meander from wishing the tailor into a woman, to killing all of them mysteriously, to killing them all openly, to snitching on them to the local head druid and letting them “keep an eye on them”. We decide to get in touch with Gentle Kiss of Wind.

We meet her in a forest grove. There is a warm breeze and we see her standing there. Ratty clothes, but revealing. Looks like a beautiful 40 something beggar. She says “I’ve been expecting you. Welcome elves, and humans.” I know you’ve met with the queen. Hope you’re not too attracted to the trappings of power. talks a little about the importance of protecting nature. Touts her coven. She has an hour, and would like to have tea. Follow me. Through a tree to a campsite with other beggar types.

“You would have loved our friend Mad Jak. We would like to bring in some help for Sprouts. Kreffa here will be leaving, but returning.” “This is a handsome one.” Kreffa asks if he can give her a hug. She recognizes him as one of the far seeing people. “I recognize those avian eyes…” She asks about the goddess. “So how is it that the goddess Thorn is rising after having lain fallow for so long?” Carrock says “there is a need for rebalancing.” Yes. I’m surprised to see Thanatos. He has no presence here right now. Yaggri, but not Thanatos.”

We give her the list of Nyx followers. That’s great!

We also have clashed with undead on an epic level in our travels. We can cast a spell that will attract wandering undead and lead them to an area – a trap. We can make items

We would like you to watch over the “coven of Nameless Thorns”.

Are there high level undead around? Nosferatu maybe, but not liches.

We offer to clear out the low level undead for her. She is happy to take the assistance.

We set up some CUM magnets. She asks that we bring one of the druids, Deeply Rooted in the Ground. Kreffa goes a little hog wild smashing them as the shamblers start showing up. We ask him to let a couple through in order to demonstrate the trap. Bone Solvent in a pit.

We make some quickie items by permanancing CUM3 onto some moveable items. Instruct the druids to call lightning to destroy all the things that are drawn in. The item can be moved by transport via plant periodically.

Time to Reincarnate the 8 ancient paladins and Priests of Thorn.

First two clerics come back as a gnome and a Neanderthal. Lackshmi and Al quickly Wish them back to bodies of their original form.

The next day, Lackshmi reincarnates the remaining clerics and gets a dwarf and a Halfling. Wishes ensue.

Al reincarnates the paladins and gets one that is human, and one that is a Halfling. One Wish.

Sprouts administers the Wisdom power of the artifact on us after bringing these followers. The power is temporary. It’s +1 wisdom for 2 years, or +2 wisdom for 1 year.

Al’s flaws is that he has too little respect for life, has flirted with the allure of being an undead liege, is too likely to spend life with little regard, and doesn’t honor his elven heritage.

Lackshmi’s flaws is that she has focused too much on power and too little on happiness and life.

Carrock resents having to be the leadership of the fanaere. At heart he’s a windsinger. Wants the easy life, drinking wine and singing songs. But maybe he’s being too restrictive on how he defines leadership. Needs to be true to himself.

Efrim has two “super obvious flaws”. Terrible husband. Terrible father. Feels a lot of guilt for the burdens he knows Carrock carries. So if he’s not helping his family, he figures he can help Carrock. But by doing so out of a sense of guilt, he’s making Carrock’s struggle about himself. Efrim needs to learn to live for his own goals, and support his own family.

*everyone note what wisdom bonus you selected.

Sprout is giving daily lessons on his version of Honor Thorn.

Al will get to know each of the old school clerics (4) and paladins (2) on a personal level. We’re going to be friends. There will be drinks. Needs to be close in order to use Immortal Eye and Communication later on.

We plan for them to slowly restore the temple, “discover” ancient texts for the new treatise that the temple didn’t already have.

Carrock will guide Sprout to a more current version of honoring the Nameless Goddess.

We do what we can to get the “Coven of Nameless Thorns” going, and prepare to move ahead into unknown planes. Hug everyone goodbye. We run a bunch of permanences on them, Detect Invisible, Vie’s Verbal Communication for Sprout, and See Etherial, etc.

**

Next out is 272-3, the storm plane. Then 273-3, then 274-3.

Storm plane: ocean and a bunch of islands. Lots of electrical activity. 1% per hour chance of getting struck by lightning while there. The next node is a few hundred miles away. We cast Travel and fade into the Storm Plane.

The scene is total violence when we arrive. We’re on an island in a huge hailstorm. Carrock casts Weather Control, and the storm calms. Iustal teleports, reports that he arrives at the node with a small tree. We leave a potted plant behind and step through it.

Step through Iustal’s tree. The weather calms when we arrive. It’s warmer. On a high hill, exposed rock. It’s night time. Must be a small plane. We fade out of this plane, and fade into the plane of Spires.

It’s in a basin. Consists of 16 spires in the fashion of the spires in the Godlands. Cork screw shapes that look like they are for giants. Surrounded by swamplands. There appears to be some kind of reverse vortex in the sky, like it’s spinning in reverse and pushing out clouds instead of sucking them in.

Efrim says “Where do you think it’s pooping out from?” “Pooping out? Oh you think it’s the out end of a vortex? I don’t know. Now, you’re going to want to ask me about these spires. A long time ago some gods set them up, some still use them as petition points for their followers.” Minor gods. Nottenkil (the bridge maker. God of the Hex, and interplanar communication). Noamgaia (the sleeper. God of the wheel. Corruptor of the Young.). Noamgaia is the god whose shrine we fell into on the prime, with Mummy servants. He had spells designed for controlling your constructs after death. (Lingering Mneumona or something).

It’s dangerous to climb the spires. It’s supposed to be a test. Are there Fallud dryads? We ask Iustal. “No, there aren’t fallud dryads here.” The plane is known for giant rocs

How do we investigate planes to the west as we explore out? What does Iustal recommend? If you are worried, you chain yourself to a fixed object and open the gate. Give yourself enough chain to step through and experience it, but give yourself the chance to be pulled back.

Al casts Immortal Eye to get a closer look at the Spire belonging to Nottenkil. Looking at the upper part of the spire. There are spider golems here, just like on the spires on Godlands. Further up there are clouds swirling very fast. The ornateness of the structures is indescribable. Every foot is carved into an image of some sort, and the spires are 1000’s of feet tall. There is no railing on the spire. It’s just a narrow staircase. Lands below… forests and swamps, but also pyramids peering out from the tree tops.

(invisible torture side effect)

We’re not doing intel on Planar West right now. We’re going to go to the colossi. L Teleport No Error to the node. She arrives, and there is a large tree (redwood), and it has big vines instead of leaves. Car sized venus fly trap mouths. She arrives within feet of one. It stays open. Doesn’t move. The rest of us step through our plant. Kreffa is a little rattled. None of this was here before.

Carrock speaks with the trap tree. We get some info about the last people to use this gate, decades ago.

Efrim creates a wall to protect the tree when the gate opens.

We see a large, ripped leaf (30’ across) fall from high up in the sky to land half a mile away. We go check it out. We arrive quickly, scaring off a giant sloth that also came to see the leaf.

It’s dark red. The veins are purple. It appears to be somewhat fuzzy. It’s

Truesight: leaf is 0 HD. There are 9 creatures on it with ¼ HD crawling on it. They look like human beings with cut off arms and legs, two heads on the back.

We cast Sleep. Creatures slow, and then stop. Heads pop up. Breathing gets slower.

LORE the leaf. Efrim makes save v poison. “Velvet leaf of Degnek” Degnek is a far outer plane, of which Yoichig has heard rumors.

LORE a bug. Lackshmi makes save v poison. “bicapital worker bug”. Insect eyes all over their head. Al uses some tongs to put a bug in a jar.

TORTOISE BACK

Al casts FURTIVE GATE (becomes a missionary for Pflarr) and we peer through. This is TORTOISE BACK. Ash is falling everywhere. It looks extremely hot. We can see erupting volcanoes in the distance. Kreffa is shaken. This is his home. The colossi seem to be still living here, in spite of the volcanoes created by gods.

Al suggests that we pray to Thorn and sing for strength and resilience at this terrible moment. We try to comfort Kreffa.

We step through. It looks like most of the active volcanoes form a line east to west, but veer north as it gets to the west.

Map of the continent from the old days show one big continent on the north, and a southern continent. We can’t see the southern continent from here.

Bad news: Diamond City, where the temple was, is right underneath the volcano.

FtP: Zither, Paladin. No results.

FtP: Remains of Agave. Start flying SWS. Carrock stops. Casts Rainbow for maximum range. Very tall, goes above the ashen cloud. Can see where it’s not falling then. Not as much ash is falling in the south. We are still getting covered by ash as if it were snow falling. Upon landing, Carrock continues to fly SWS.

AGAVE

Casts Rainbow again.

Land in an area, start digging. We move earth to reveal a low building town. Keep digging, dig under a building, eventually we reveal a full skeleton that glows with immortal magic. LORE on it, it is imbued with immortal Preserve, and immortal anti-animate dead.

Carrock casts Speak with Dead. “What is your name?” *My name is Agave*

Carrock relates the story that we know of between Thorn and himself. “What is the true story” *That is a beautiful myth. I don’t think she fell in love with me, but she was sympathetic to my plight. Tried to help. Eventually we realized true death is the only escape.”

Somehow Thanatos gets power from undead. How does that work? *He gets power from his followers, including his eternal followers.* All dead on all planes give power to Thanatos.

Speak with Dead #2: what caused the schism between Thorn and Thanos? *She found that he was being disgeniune about undeath. His interest in preserving life was not for the sake of his followers, but for him.*

What did she say to you when after she asked Thanos for your release? *We spoke many times. She tried, but she realized he was not persuadable. But she was going to try something else. But that failed, and she was going to try again. And that failed. And she told me I had to choose: freedom from my service or eternal life.*

So, this plane has been annihilated, with volcanoes wrecked by immortals. No Thorn followers, no people. You have no house. Do you want your remains to stay here? There are blessings on your remains from the goddess to keep you from being animated. *when it was time to die, she asked me to let down my guard, and I said I wanted to be next to my flowerbed. And that was the last thing I knew. I’m not sure I would want to be anywhere else.*

Speak with Dead #3: Questions about Undead Warriors. Created in a large mausoleum laboratory. By Calokora. One of the mesthotic elect.

Automatic fear in all creatures

Take additional 1d10 from any attack, save vs paralysis or para for 10 days

Immune to spells 3rd level or less

Can summon undead.

Detect evil,

Control undead.

Fantastic AC. Fantastic HP (around 200 maybe). Depends on what level they were when they were created.

Grandmaster of at least 2 weapons. One melee one missile.

We know she took refuge with Crem. Would that have been close to here? Yes probably close to here. It would have been in the outer planes or far outer planes.

Do you know why she was in this neighborhood so much? She loved our people, our culture, our disposition. She was interested in the giants of antiquity and their magical constructs. Her followers flourished here.

#4: How did you become a servant of Thanatos? I did in battle. I was brash and foolhardy. Always careful to guard the lives of the innocent. Woke up in the lab/mausoleum and I was in her service. She could command me. She learned that I would serve her more skillfully, more ably, more deadly, if she let me act on my own volition rather than through direct command. I won a thin kind of freedom.

Where was that mausoleum? He gives a unit of measurement. Sounds like it was pretty close. It was on this world. There were other undead warriors, but I was the best by far. No one was as good at killing as me.

Kreffa confirms that the lich was on this plane at the time.

*questioning continues*

***INTERVIEWS WITH COLOSSI***

Green/white female (Jade)

They want to know why they can’t read our minds.

They want to know if we are gods, why we are there.

They want to know if we know why the gods caused the rift.

Carrock Communes and tells them that the gods created the rift. A council of gods created the rift. *blame Thanatos*

Last question: what did Thorn and the Colossi talk about? Going to the City.

Second:

They want to know how old we are, if we fear death. Refers to the city below.

…

Al casts Immortal Eye and dives 200 miles below the surface. For perhaps the first time in history, a mortal is seeing the City of the Colossi below the surface on Tortoise Back. There is blue sky, and ocean, and a small city on an island. Crystal buildings. Many colossi in that frozen look, moving from place to place, but not moving.

Lackshmi casts Wish, and then Read Languages from the Spectacles on Al. Suddenly he can read the symbols on the buildings. The runes combine three elements. Phonetic, somantic, and material: How the word is pronounced, the purpose, and a material. E.g. Reading, Platinum, *shwa*

Drive the immortal eye further into the city.

An alabaster white statue of a woman…ruby hair and green amulet. Standing among books, appear to be made of metal. Al moves the eye into the building with the Reading symbol, and her eyes follow the eye (which is immortal invisible, by the way). He ducks the eye around the corner of a stack of books trying to evade her, and she is standing right in front of the eye. Sensing there is little time, Al starts reading titles off the spines of books:

Year 5224. Recording. *pronunciation*

Year 5225. Recording. *pronunciation*

He tries to maneuver the eye around her, and keep reading spines until the end of the stack.

Year 10310. Recording. *pronunciation*

The eye disappears and Al’s vision is back on the surface. The party transports toward the node, wondering what to do next, and sleeps in a spherical Wall of Force for the night. In the morning, we see that there is an onyx colossi watching us from half a mile away. It approaches.

He has a rune on his shield: Invulnerable/timeless, onyx *pronunciation*. He addresses us: Can you say anything else about why you are here that you haven’t already said?

…We seek to understand history and need knowledge for our own recordings. Blah blah Thanatos.

“I don’t care about those things. What do you know about the ancient history of this place?”

Our companion lived here 3000 years ago. We know that there is the city below. … …

I want to know more about Chrysma and her interactions with your people…

“We are done.” He sinks into the earth.

FAR SEEING HUMANS

We do some more find the paths… none of Agave’s tips for items pan out. We FtP for the nearest living human more than 50’ away. Carrock starts heading south… Pass through Plants to the Agave place. Then resume FtP. Seems to be headed out to a sub-continent island out in the ocean… get to the shore. Rainbow again. Climb off in the middle of the rainbow.

Down below there is a shoreline … 11 human beings. On the shore, pulling in nets. 2 adults. Up the hill there is a lake. There is a layer of ash on the lake. 2 young men trying to clear the lake of ash. They are wearing furs, even though it seems warm here. They stay at the edge of the water.

We drop out of the sky and approach them. Kreffa starts speaking very rapidly, they seem to not understand. He reaches out to touch them. And they start talking.

Suddenly Onyx appears halfway out of the beach, leaning over us, looking furious, and holding a red tipped spear. His voice BOOMS but he says very calmly:

You do not have permission to view our city. You cannot visit and cannot view our city without permission. We are finished.

The humans we were talking to take off running, screaming in fear. Al double checks himself for runes and curse symbols. Iustal says… my mind is blown. We’ve learned in 24 hours more than people have in centuries of trying to study them.

Efrim makes an Ash rune and clears the pond they were clearing. It’s now crystal clear.

Kreffa comes back. “They will meet us but hide your weapons. Meet over that hill.”

There is a disk over there. It’s HALF A MILE in diameter. There are shapes on the bottom side.

“They have a disk magician among them. They want to be close to the disk when they meet with you.” Sure. No problem. We hide them up at the top of the ridge.

We fly up there, but then approach on foot. Every single person in the village comes out. About 40 adults and 30 children.

We spend a long time talking with the village magician about how the disks work, and comparing magical notes. Al hits on the village girls (literal girls, apparently. Did you know it is really hard to tell the age of a human? They all look the same.) We spend the night among them.

Also, apparently one of the tribes worships Deus. We plot ways to steal from them and give to these good people.

[XP AWARDED].