[AE, Finality] Campaign Session Notes

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House rules and such are here.

Ability Scores
Each player rolled a set, and everyone got to pick the set they wanted, and everyone chose what Guy's player got - 17, 16, 16, 14, 13, 11

Dean [3 Loresong, 8 Magister] Became a full spryte, focuses on blasting spells. A former slum dweller in Finality, has set out to stop being one of the little guys.

Guy [3 Human, 8 Magister] Occasionally referred to as the Perfect Man, his magic is focused on buffing and debuffing

Eir [11 Unfettered] A tibbit from one of the industrial worlds that used to be controlled by the star spawn, now post-apocalyptic. Wields a laser rifle and rides a cyborg spitting raptor.

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Session I

En media res, the party starts the session in retreat from the entrance of a pyramid from the roar of a dragon. Over the dune, they see nothing for a moment, only to be surprised by its blue scaly head breaking the sand and covering all of them with lightning. It is promptly taken out by a flurry of laser shots to the face, and they proceed to explore the interior of the pyramid. It's a bit slow and upward inclined as they check for traps, until they notice their torch quickly burning very bright; noting that the passageway is full of flammable gas.

Whipping out a glowglobe, they continue down the hall until they reach a wide qoi pond and the tunnel begins a downward incline again. The passage ends into a central chamber that makes up most of the pyramid's volume, where the young dragon's hoard lay, over two thousand pounds of copper pieces!

After a bit of deliberation, they manage to fit all of the money into fey storage and begin their trek back to Finality and exchange it for bank notes, only paying the 2sp toll for each character.

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Session II

They rest for a time at Dean's place in the Bramblevine neighborhood, and receive an invite to the museum due to Guy's academic connections. It is a symposium for pre-illithid culture, a genre of study that Guy's submitted a few papers over the years. So the group attends, which is largely a formal affair and a bit of a droll, until the final talk.

An arcanaloth by the name of Aksehm is hosting the symposium, and his talk includes an announcement of three new proteges which he looks forward to many success due to his investments to the field of cultural studies, to which the lighting directs itself to the party. There's an applause and the party is ended.

They go forward to speak with Aksehm, and discover that his public approval of the group will make them targets for those that wish to embarrass the arcanaloth, and if they can survive the assasination attempts they will receive his backing for archaelogical expeditions (think Jones and Croft definition of expedition).

After leaving the place, they are approached by four mephits just outside the museum, saying they are a message from Mosh as congratulations on their newfound connections and to beware of equally newfound enemies. Guy recognizes the message, a salt and three ooze mephits, to be an old style of communication with wizards. The type of mephit sent indicates the tone of the message, which in this instance meant...

As such mephits are expendable, they're brushed off readily and the group decides to research Mosh. They learn he is a marsh giant from Fafnismal, who got rich from a single large find shortly after the Astromundi Proclamation, only to never succeed at another for the last century. For the entire time, he's been a vocal neckbeard of anything done by Aksehm.

Deciding that he's not worth the trouble of dealing with, they find out where he lives, a former desert turned marsh since he moved there a century ago. After a quick suit up, they set forth to kill him.

Through the portal to Lagbas, they travel for two days and prepare for the crossover, as the village is a theocracy and takes its cleanliness very seriously. While the tolls are very cheap, one must perform a thorough cleansing before being allowed through their gate to Fafnismal; harsh scrubbing, scented baths, and most hair shaved off. Eir opts to turn into a tabby to evade the shaving requirement (still gets a flea bath and harsh brushing).

Just before they begin the cleansing, they are approached by an oni and five ogres, all in togas and shaved bald. They're there to advise against entering Mosh's lands. There is a difference of opinion, and one ogre survives, begging for his life. They let him live and get some more information about Mosh. Mosh is cyclopean, able to shoot fire, curses any who earn his ire, and seems to love harsh weather.

The party travels through to Fafnismal to begin the day's journey to the marsh.

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Session III

Reaching the edge of the marsh, they reach Ribbiton, which is predominantly human with a large minority of ogre. All of its export is exotic moss, frogs, & catfish. Asking around, they find out the nearby ogre town is not Mosh's base, but he does terrorize the place periodically for servants.

Going into the marsh for half a day, they see a mesa with some ruins built into the side along with a heavily eroded tower on the top edge. An entrance nearby, flanked by weeping angels, is a stone door with old engravings. For the lulz, they examine it and find an aura of evocation and no traps. Throwing an open lock, it sets off the lightning bolt trap for a smidgen of damage, and they enter. It's a 10' wide hallway making a wide spiral upward, where partly up, Guy hears footsteps behind him just around a corner where they can't see.

Throwing an eldritch web, they prep their weapons, and see a pair of gargoyles (the angels from earlier) slowly try to bust through and get killed.

Farther in, they enter a chamber and get ambushed by four gray oozes, which heavily injure Eir when one successfully grapples and constricts like crazy. After a quick heal up from slaying them, they go up the last stretch and entire the base of the tower, worn into being more like a chimney than a tower. There are a couple overhangs where floors existed, and an altar on the side.

It's a pair of kuo-toa statues with a closed chest between them, honoring the god Pinniploop. Much like Blipdoolpoolp, but more emphasis on self-loathing and introversion, and is frequently called the God of Suicide by outsiders. They examine the altar and find a bit of divination magic and a trap, which will knock over the pillar if the chest is opened. Using an unseen servant from a distance, they open the chest, and the pillar crushes that spot...and the tunnel below, and a few foundations for the tower as a whole. The entire structure shudders a bit, in fact.

Looking out the window, over the mesa, four dozen zombies break out of the moss and begin slowly shuffling toward the tower (alerted by the divination magic of the trap). After a sorcerous blast takes out one short of a dozen, they realize it's not worth the effort (Eir has 24 shots left at this point). Guy shovels the gold and gems from the chest into his pants, pushes Eir and Fluffy off the edge, and casts safe fall on all of them on the way down.

Short on ammo, they decide to go back to town and get Eir's power cells recharged. Not wanting to risk becoming fatigued at any point, they stop for the night a few hours from town for Fluffy to get fully rested. That morning, they are ambushed by a dire crocodile, which nearly one rounds Dean (bite, grapple, death roll, brings him three away from death). It is then dazed for six rounds by Guy, and Eir plugs a dozen laser blasts into its brain.

The party is now sitting atop a 44-ton crocodile, and realize that it's worth a substantial amount of money to the right buyers, just in the meat.

Next week, the session with start with them trying to figure out how to get a gargantuan carcass to Finality, just over three days travel away.

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Session IV

Dean & Guy slice the meat into 900 pound chunks and use their entire casting capability to lather it with gentle response so the material doesn't go bad, send Eir to town with a sack of gold to rent all of their horses and carts at double rate. Bringing them, along with a one day hire of the resident ogre, they load up the carts with eleven tons of dire crocodile meat. All told, after hiring them out, paying the tolls and fees, it costs them three days & 70gp to travel back to Finality with the haul. From there, with a Gather Information, they manage to sell the meat for a cool 13k receipt.

After stopping by the Void neighborhood to recharge and stock up on power cells for Eir, a ring of sustenance for Fluffly, and a short run through the market for some cure wands, they return to their quest into the swamps for Osken. After a week of searching, they enter a deep and impenetrable fog, and I roll terribly high...getting a glabrezu. In attempt to not get a TPK from the roll, and vowing not to use that one book's random encounter table any more, I pull out some of my old reaction roll notes. In the end, disguised, the glabrezu asks them out of sight what they wish for; to which only Guy responds with "I wish I could see."

Guy now has a constant-on ability to see all of the sins committed by a person. The definition of a sin in this context is being the cause emotional and/or physical suffering in another living thing. In terms of severity for this definition, harming a sentient is worse than harming an animal-intelligence, willful action is worse than ignorant negligence (especially for indirect causes), and justification means little. The exact mechanical effect is ad-hocced as a continually active detect evil with a redefinition; adventurers count as undead (murder-hobo after all), evil adventurers all register as evil clerics, evil creatures of great age (including successful outsiders) or exceptional sins register as evil outsiders, entities with either limited social interaction through their life or actively non-violent lifestyles register as evil creatures. Information is gained instantly to the full three rounds without the need for concentration or waiting, but lingering auras and non-sentient entities do not show up. Getting information on specific sins will be covered at a later time.

Guy is instantly stunned by seeing the glabrezu just as it gets close enough to be seen through the fog before teleporting away. A mental note for the group to get goggles using lead-infused glass, so Guy can still see without being taken out of a fight whenever they face very evil stuff.

Another couple days pass as they try to find Osken's castle, and finally see it through a torrential downpour of rain. It's more a set of castle ruins, as Osken doesn't try hard to maintain the exterior's quality. There are about six ogres visibly milling about (they don't see the oni flying away on an errand). With a few shrouds of darkness, they sneak by the ogres into western staircase below, where two ogres and an oni see Guy. After a short battle of shouting, they're attacked by another half dozen ogres from above.

They search and use appropriate size on the ladder leading down so Fluffy can go down it after a bit of cajoling by Eir. Entering the first side shaft, they're heard by Osken and walk into a fog cloud. Guy notices part of the cloud shows a bevy of sins, so he gets to go during the surprise round when the oni exits gaseous form to attack, and throws it 50' back with a gusting wind. As it also removes the fog, Osken opens with a beam of fire from his cyclopean eye while his four ogres loose a volley of arrows at Guy. It is a harried fight, as the only one left standing is Dean while all of the enemies are largely untouched; Dean promptly pulls out a sonic sword and single-handedly kills Osken, then intimidates (VERY lucky roll, considering his size) the lot to get to keep whatever they can grab so long as they leave the castle immediately.

Everyone dings to level 7.

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Session V

For the moment, the party is joined by a new player, currently playing a tiefling version of Eir with a pair of revolvers instead of a laser rifle on a raptor; going by the name, Dante.

Licking their wounds, they drag themselves into a side room that is largely empty, ward the door, rest, and empty out half of a wand of lesser transfer wounds. While waiting, Eir hears a cricket cough a mile away (Notice check 35); so she also overhears the ogres debating going deeper into the dungeon to get the marsh giant's (Osken) accumulated treasure. An oni reprimands them for stupidity, because that treasure was tribute to the Mothers, and they don't dare displease them; just to count their blessings and get leave with the loot at hand.

Intrigued at this 'tribute' accumulated over centuries, they venture deeper into the dungeon after they finish resting for the night. After a bit of debate on swimming through a subterranean pool, they do so and find a separate cavern going even deeper. There's a flash of silvery pink light that flashes in the depths before shooting out and into the ceiling above like a bolt of lightning, which intrigues them more. There's a cavern entrance with a pair of armed derro. They are obvious cultists of some god of cleansing light, paranoid of heathens entering the chambers, and the party offers no real tribute; after the bloodshed, they enter.

This section of the underground is a 10' diameter tunnel that looks like it was bored by a massive earthworm, with periodic openings on the sides to rooms that are near-perfect 20' diameter spheres. For the purposes of expediency, I assured the party that this section of the dungeon is larger than it seems because we using a montage through the chambers and hallways with nothing significant; as the party isn't interested in becoming encumbered with mushroom jerky, spare boots, and shovels.

Their first real chamber is a chamber half-filled with water and a hanging from the walls are a dozen camouflaged chokers, who are promptly incinerated by a fireball from Hank. The same happens with the next room's contents of two dozen kobold zombies. Next is a room with veins and bone struts along the sides of the hollow chamber, fleshy fronds that twitch in the air, skinlike wall surface, and a skeleton in the back with a thick wall vein sprouting through the rib cage to hold up three blood-coloured fruits roughly the shape of a tiny eggplant. Nothing overtly dangerous happens as they magically examine the place, discovering that the fruit are grossly shaped potions of greater battle healing (9d6 healing each).

Continuing, they find a chamber that's more hemispherical in shape and elongated, with a number of kobold cultists and a pair of derro in the back. The room has a subtle twitch of 'not-right' to it, and from the shadows (this group is stealthy as all get-out), the party sees them giggling as if high from the incense and occasionally flickering out of sight like a strobe-light. Guy recognizes the effect as not invisibility, but a temporal version of teleport, jumping moments into the future.

They open with a headshot into one of the kobolds and Guy blasting them with a gaze of terror (all are panicked for four rounds); so all of them disappear entirely, only to reappear in the exact place 5 rounds later and run for a move action before time-shifting again when they see the party's still there. Since they're not experiencing the 5 rounds during the jump, they're still panicked when they arrive and jump again when the party's still there. Readied actions kill most of them, since they're not displacing in location when time-jumping. Hank & Guy have some fun with a derro by placing stuff where he'll appear, which causes him to reappear elsewhere in the room with a scream; for those familiar with Arcana Evolved, this is standard effects of teleporting into stuff, though from the derro's perspective he just spent time in the Time Vortex. They finish off the derro and examine the remaining unused incense, incense of meditation.

The walls are lined with giant flytrap pods. Inside two of them are kobold cultists, and many of the empty ones have a trail of slime footprints leading away from them. Further down & out of sight, they hear some chanting in heavily dialectal Gith (about two dozen in number). In a rush, Dante sprints ahead of the party to the end of the corridor, seeing a small amphitheatre with half a dozen derro and nineteen kobold cultists (adept 2) all congregated in worship around a Large pumice glowing with silvery pink light. One of the kobolds is just then walking toward the center of worship, visibly losing colour before turning into powder. Dante smiles and shoots at the rock with his surprise round.

The party just manages to run and catch up when the six derro all cast sound burst, Dante using his first full round to shoot the rock some more. The kobolds' array of magic blasts knock out Hank and Dean and heavily damage the other two. Playing dead to pull out the healing fruit, Eir stealthily feeds one to Hank just as Dante falls unconscious and then fireballs most of them to oblivion. They begin to slowly recover, but as soon as Dante's above 0, he strides over and starts swording off chunks of the glowing idol. Within two rounds, the rock splits open to spill out a glorious light and begins to pull drain Dante. The party, heavily wounded, manages to destroy it thanks to Eir's force damage; but not before Dante & Fluffy are disintegrated by the entity.

They finally patch themselves up and examine an out of place door in the back of the chapel.

[hogarth]

(When you say "fireball" and "sound burst", are you just using shorthand for one of the eleventy zillion spells in Arcana Evolved that do area elemental/energy damage, or are you actually mixing and matching AE and 3E spells?)

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When I refer to fireball, I mean AE's sorcerous blast, which is the same thing except for the variable damage type. As for sound burst, that's the actual 3E spell because it's one of the spell-likes for derro. When I use monsters with spell-likes from 3E, I don't convert them to AE spells unless there's a 1-to-1 correspondence; such as teleport or dominate.

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Session VI

The party searches the derro compound for a little while before finding one secure enough to rest for twenty hours so they can recover their spells. Once they do so, they head back to the chapel to examine the door; a large wooden affair with ogre skulls attached, also held in place by a lesser door seal. After about four tries, they finally manage to remove the seal so as to open it and trek into the damp tunnel (more natural that what they've been traversing).

Shortly, they find themselves on the surface in the middle of a vast rice field covered in fog; their familiarity recognizing that at some point they traversed worlds in the tunnel. Within 100' they see at least two or three giant skeletons slowly going through the rows in undead automation. They are on a raised portion with the cavern entrance directed along a cleared path leading into the distance.

Trekking down the raised dirt road, after a couple miles, they pass a copse of trees with a particularly large tree showing a maug shoved halfway into it (effects of teleport attack). Using contact, they discern that the maug remains conscious and chop down the tree with judicious use of energy blade.

Grimlock Joins Your Party!

Grimlock: Maug Warmain, and the surfer life chose him. Was punished by a passing orc mage forty years ago.

They believe Grimlock to be a trustworthy fellow and invite him to join them in their noble quest of liberating the wealth out of backwater despots. Grimlock remembers where the Mothers reside, as they've been around for two centuries, and leads the way. Several hours later, they're in the woods and are approached by a passing hill giant and his trio of dire wolves. Due to nobody in the party knowing Giant, there's some very rough attempts at communication, and are brought before the Mothers' keep; a large and opulent castle of pure white and capped with gleaming gold. Answering the iron door is a stone giant in black armor of the highest quality, who discusses a couple things with the hill giant 'ranger' before speaking with the party; specifically inquiring as to what they're doing and what business they have with the Mothers. There's some hemming and hawing about this, but they ultimately make the decision to tell the giant there was a misunderstanding and they were just passing through; no desire to meet with the Mothers.

While they were discussing things, Eir sneaks by and scouts out the compound. There's about eight ogres milling about in general serf duties. In front of the hall are four zombie ogres, standing guard. Inside the opulent hall sits three handsome women on thrones, scaled up because they are each 13' tall. To the side is an ogre working as a chef, cauldron at the ready for the meal. Two of the women, still discussing matters in Giant, exit through the back through some silk curtains and the sounds of splashing are heard.

Eir returns just as the group's discussions reach a conclusion. The stone giant states a need for 100gp as a toll for passing through the lands, and the party decides to pay...in blood. The two giants are dazed for six rounds while the wolves are fought for awhile; one managed to trip Dean and damage him for a moment before he teleported straight up. By the time the wolves were killed, the rest of the ogres mobilized; they closed/locked the gate and lined up on the ramparts with longbows to start firing. A couple fiery explosions and lasers to the face kills them while Grimlock pounds the two giants into a pulp. A single strength check is sufficient to shatter the gate into a pile of nothing but shards of wood.

Walking in, they see the zombies lined up and the chef in front with a cleaver in hand. He asks if they're willing to throw down their weapons and beseech forgiveness from the Mothers, to which they say no. Expecting as much, he tells them that the zombies are set to attack any who approach; he's not paid enough for this, so the chef throws down his cleaver and leaves.

Testing whether their orders are purely proximity attack or if self-defense is included if attacked from range, Grimlock throws a rock at one of the zombies; who singly picks up its club and charges. After it's killed, Dean tries a mudball on another while flying high overhead, and is met singly with another use of the longbow that actually hits. This continues a little while, until they finally kill them.

Meanwhile, Eir has returned to sneaking into the hall to see what the Mothers are doing. Two are hurriedly dressing, hair still damp from the swim; the third reaches into a locked chest to pull out a trio of handbags, distributing it as they gather around the cauldron to cast a spell. After doing so, they each reach into their handbags and pull out a ball of fur and throw it away from them. Out comes two horses and a lion, they call the horses back into the bag and reach again, getting two brown bears. With an imperious command they send the beasts out. While doing so, Eir sneaks around in search of important components, pocketing a couple potion vials.

Just as the zombies are killed, a lion pounces and two bears maul Grimlock. The fight lasts a while, and the Mothers consult with a magic mirror, becoming more concerned. They scream in frustration once a bear and a lion is killed; pull out another lion and bear from their bags as they're killed. They're not sent out immediately, waiting until the third is defeated for the command to charge (seeming to have a sense of their status). During this wait, Eir sleights the bags from each of them, not getting spotted until the third one is lifted (treated as a surprise round for them).

Eir wins initiative and runs out the door to the party, yelping for them to save her. The bear by this point stopped attacking Grimlock and looks at Eir questioningly; with dawning realization, Eir commands the bear to go inside and attack the Mothers. The party follows behind, Eir giving the command for the other two beasts to attack once she can see them. Just as the first player enters the chamber, it's revealed the Mothers spent their round dismissing veil to reveal themselves as giant sea hags; and I apparently rolled like a god, because not a single freaking animal was harmed by their horrific appearance(!?). Eir and Dean lose 8 strength (Dean crashes face first into the ground), Guy loses about 3, and Grimlock pulls a honey badger at their faces.

Combat ensues, one of the beasts is killed by the sorcerous blast, one hag is bound in chains of vengeance into unconsciousness, another is smashed by Grimlock's sword, and the third hag runs out the bag door into the pool. A bear follows and grapples her as Grimlock walks up and kills her.

They gather what valuables they can find: mirror of fate (augury at will & divination 1/week, requires rhyming questions), three tan bags of tricks, potion of enlarge (CL 5), two potions of transfer lesser wounds, and three thousand gold in various dresses, tapestries, jewelry, silk, and dinnerware. They also realize the entire keep is covered with mirage arcana; the place a low quality wood affair, the opulent hall better described as a large shack. As they sit back to rest, the wind picks up, and they realize that first spell cast earlier was control weather set for a blizzard.

The building shakes unsteadily.

P.S.: Despite Eir tripling her supply of clips last time she was in Finality, she's got only a bit over a dozen shots left. Things are going to be tight on their trek back to Finality to recharge everything. Guy is contemplating getting some ranks in Craft (super-science) next level so he can use major creation to make a charging station.

P.S.S. Ding. Everybody but Grimlock are now 8th level.

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In case you haven't noticed, I do not handle Stealth the same as the core rules. If you have total cover or concealment from the viewer's PoV, you can make a Stealth check (or if they're distracted and you only have partial cover/concealment). Until you do something other than move, observers get only one Notice roll to detect you; their check serving as the point of detection based on your actions. This means if they rolled 3 less than your Stealth, they'll notice you if you move greater than half speed or get 30' closer (assuming you started greater than 30'). If someone is actively watching for intruders, a move action, lack of cover/concealment gives the observer a +10 to Notice and a +4 if they know who they're looking for. Carrying a light source makes stealth effectively impossible (-20 visual), and even if unseen, they can still pinpoint the source and know what square you're in.

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Session VII

Quickly digging a hole in the ground big enough to hold the party except for Grimlock, the blizzard starts hitting. Grimlock sits on the edge of the hole, pinning a few boards of wood to hold it in place from the 60mph winds. During the next two days of continuous blizzard, the party manages to make do by burning all of their torches, taking advantage of the insulation from dirt and their rings of sustenance; while Grimlock (and one of Eir's animals from the bag) fights off prowling winter wolves.

Things are disrupted enough for them to get back to the marsh world unmolested after the blizzard passes, and ultimately they return to Finality in one piece. They unload essentially everything but the bags and the mirror, get Dean working on making wands, Guy selling all of the stuff while buying the services of an enchanter to upgrade the party's gear, and Eir getting her power cells recharged.

After about two weeks, Eir and Grimlock head to Eir's homeworld to pick up a new cyber-raptor, but return right in the middle of the gate house being entirely on fire. It's not a huge inconvenience, about a dozen damage before they get out, but they watch the owner of the place haggle with the fire fighter because he's past due on insurance payments. Feeling helpful, Grimlock hands the firefighter enough money to get him working on the place while Mackleuk (the distressed gate house owner) thanks him immensely. Mackleuk can't seem to find the person he hired to watch the gate, but his method of searching was thinking kind of hard to send a psychic signal.

Once the fire is stopped entirely, Grimlock joins Mackleuk in assessing the damage done, which includes a lot of his invested cactii stock that was stored in the building. Brushing off, some of the underlying stonework foundation is revealed, including a peculiar rune; the sight of which makes Mackleuk babble for a round as blood drips out his nose before passing out. About 15 minutes later, he finally comes to, and behaves notably different to make Grimlock suspect someone else is home. Eir is sent to get Guy & Dean while Grimlock restrains Mackleuk (with threat of force) right there in the rubble.

A couple hours later, everyone is there. Dean attempts to use detect magic on the rune, Guy can't recognize it (rolled atrocious on the Knowledge check) and decides to try out his sin vision by taking off the lead-lined glass goggles he got so he could safely walk through Finality. As soon as Guy faces Mackleuk, he freezes in staggered horror of the amount of sin he witnesses. Everyone acts confused as to exactly what he's seeing since there isn't anything hostile happening (anyone that evil couldn't not be attacking us by now, they reason). Just as Dean's detect magic charges to full detail, he sees modify memory hit Guy as Mackleuk leaves his line of vision, as well as an active magic jar like effect on Mackleuk; and now Guy claims he saw something invisible behind Mackleuk that triggered his special sight.

Dean casts see invisibility, sees nothing and makes motions that something weird is happening. Just as he says this, Eir claims that she felt something touch her mind while Mackleuk is going "why am I over here, where's my fur?!"

There's some chasing and more mind swapping, ultimately leading to Eir and her cyber raptor Jada being swapped and evil-Mackleuk back in the human body; all three tied up, covered in bruises (subdual damage), and in separate rooms that only Grimlock is allowed to enter because constructs are immune to mind-affecting (which this mind-swapping thing is being treated as).

There's some negotiation and chained dispel magic to fix Eir and Jada, ultimately leading to an agreement. They already destroyed the rune, evil-Mackleuk will be allowed to go free if he answers three questions. Evil-Mackleuk, from what Guy could remember from seeing his sins, is older than most known species, and has been without morals the entire time; combined with his behavior now that jig is up, indicates he knows a lot of stuff.

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Session VIII

This session, Grimlock's player is obligated to other events.
Dean's question for evil-Mackleuk is for the location of a repository for treasure vault locations. The answer is known as the Citadel of Zuraihman, on the Sandy Wastes of Gauw; where he stored a list of monuments and tombs to destroy. Gauw can only be reached through the City of Brass, and its portal is under lockdown from general safety concerns.
Guy's question is for the location for solid research into the origin of the human race, to which he's directed to the Cornorost. It can be reached through the Westernmost peak of the Mountains of Grief in the world of the Violet Isles, that can be reached through Hestavar. There, the central most monument should house information pertaining to the first humans.
They obtain Aksehm and give him their third question, as well as the Mirror they got earlier. Aksehm takes advantage of the question, informs the party that evil-Mackleuk is a Yithian.
Next week, the party suits up for their expedition for the Citadel of Zuraihman, and are given a farewell by Aksehm along with a few other venture capitalists; giving the party Rings of Fire Resist 30 each as their investment to ensure a successful mission, along with obligating themselves a share in the treasure.
Once in the City of Brass, they are approached by a noble Jann by the name of Tuhman with an offer of taking them anywhere within the city. They decline and go to the Zuraihman monument, and are given a card that can contact Tuhman and ensure he can find them at a moment's notice. After leaving him, they find a massive obsidian boulder blocking the portal entrance, covered in names of those killed by Zuraihman when he invaded the City before his defeat about two centuries ago. They plan their move, unsure of what to do with the efreet honor-guard in sight; and activate the magic item given to them by Tuhman. This covers them in a long duration glitterdust and sends an 'alarm' to Tuhman, making the efreet suspicious and declares them under arrest once they name-drop the Jann. They kill the efreet quickly and are approached by Tuhman, apologizing for his name causing such a ruckus; he's still in trouble for escorting a number of guests into the Sultan's harem (he lives by his word when he says he'll guide you anywhere within the city).

After a game of chance, they earn the right to Tuhman's services and get through the portal.

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Session IX

In the portal, they end up on the world known as Zuraihman. In the sky above is an incandescent 'moon', and the world follows a 50-hour day. The world is known for its Thousand Plains of Zuraihman, each containing a thousand thousand Citadels of Zuraihman, each an identical stepped pyramid with black edgings. Their directions required them to follow the morning sun, and it was high-noon when they arrived; so they made camp in the shade of a Citadel.

Later that day, they see a dozen cat-sized heads with six horns apiece, all rolling across the sand dunes like tumbleweeds. Dean recognizes them as Doru, lesser-breed genie petitioners that hate mortals, lust for secrets, and are essentially the imps of dead genies. Just as they get within 300', Eir takes aim and starts blasting. They turn invisible, take flight, and begin charging. Dean's heightened see invisibility and waterball kill a couple, and about two survive long enough to reach Grimlock's sword. A pack of hyenas eye them from a distance, never approaching.

It's the middle of the night when three hyenas approach, turning into ghuls; essentially genie ghouls. Eir approaches herself to negotiate. They learn the world has clans of genie spirits, who largely agree with Zuraihman's practices of hating genies, and most of them have been searching for the True Citadel of Zuraihman. They feel it was their right to be the first to step foot in such sacred territory and claimed ownership of the Eye of Zuraihman within the True Citadel, lest they suffer the wrath of their clans. Eir and the group consented to their demands by permitting the clan to send a representative (and retinue) to accompany them into the Citadel, the share being the Eye.

That morning, Ghaw joins the party, a petitioner derived of the marid; imagine a scrag with extra horns in appearance, along with about half a dozen doru. Thus begins the travel, which lasts for about a week before they reach the True Citadel, largely unmolested due to the temporary blessing of the clan. Reaching the True Citadel, identical to all of the others thus far, they ignore half a dozen flame jet traps, are shown how to walk around a couple pit traps and a destruction ward, and finally enter deep enough (using Tome rule against teleport failing beyond 40' of material) where a difference from prior Citadels show up; an Iron Golem guard.

The fight is fierce, but they eventually manage to triumph. The next room is the map room, with a series of bronze tablets with star charts inscribed upon them, each separately placed in front of a model of some kind of landmark. In the center of the room is a hovering eyeglass, the Eye of Zuraihman. Eir warns Ghaw of the likely trap, who regards it enough to send a doru over to grab it. Two rounds later, the doors slam shut and lava begins swiftly pouring in to fill the room. Ghaw attempts to dimension door out, and finds himself failing, then realizes that he's immune to fire and laughs at the party who only have Fire Resist 30.

Dean's shoving tablets in his bag of holding while Grimlock and Guy begin bashing their way through a secret door in the back, figuring it to have less absolute protection; succeed, and jump down the slide of lava before the room fills up completely (Dean slams and seals the door shut behind them). Ghaw never noticed Eir pickpocketing the Eye of Zuraihman. The group takes moderate damage ultimately from their pyroclastic immersion.

At the bottom of the slide, they encounter a sentient guard (near-identical to a kolyarut) of the Citadel conversing with someone on a crystal ball, furious as defilers of Zuraihman's legacy. Just before the Clockwork guardian is defeated, he slams Eir with a geas/quest to seek out the Seer of the Yellow Rose and bequeath it the Eye of Zuraihman.

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Session IX

In the portal, they end up on the world known as Zuraihman. In the sky above is an incandescent 'moon', and the world follows a 50-hour day. The world is known for its Thousand Plains of Zuraihman, each containing a thousand thousand Citadels of Zuraihman, each an identical stepped pyramid with black edgings. Their directions required them to follow the morning sun, and it was high-noon when they arrived; so they made camp in the shade of a Citadel.

Later that day, they see a dozen cat-sized heads with six horns apiece, all rolling across the sand dunes like tumbleweeds. Dean recognizes them as Doru, lesser-breed genie petitioners that hate mortals, lust for secrets, and are essentially the imps of dead genies. Just as they get within 300', Eir takes aim and starts blasting. They turn invisible, take flight, and begin charging. Dean's heightened see invisibility and waterball kill a couple, and about two survive long enough to reach Grimlock's sword. A pack of hyenas eye them from a distance, never approaching.

It's the middle of the night when three hyenas approach, turning into ghuls; essentially genie ghouls. Eir approaches herself to negotiate. They learn the world has clans of genie spirits, who largely agree with Zuraihman's practices of hating genies, and most of them have been searching for the True Citadel of Zuraihman. They feel it was their right to be the first to step foot in such sacred territory and claimed ownership of the Eye of Zuraihman within the True Citadel, lest they suffer the wrath of their clans. Eir and the group consented to their demands by permitting the clan to send a representative (and retinue) to accompany them into the Citadel, the share being the Eye.

That morning, Ghaw joins the party, a petitioner derived of the marid; imagine a scrag with extra horns in appearance, along with about half a dozen doru. Thus begins the travel, which lasts for about a week before they reach the True Citadel, largely unmolested due to the temporary blessing of the clan. Reaching the True Citadel, identical to all of the others thus far, they ignore half a dozen flame jet traps, are shown how to walk around a couple pit traps and a destruction ward, and finally enter deep enough (using Tome rule against teleport failing beyond 40' of material) where a difference from prior Citadels show up; an Iron Golem guard.

The fight is fierce, but they eventually manage to triumph. The next room is the map room, with a series of bronze tablets with star charts inscribed upon them, each separately placed in front of a model of some kind of landmark. In the center of the room is a hovering eyeglass, the Eye of Zuraihman. Eir warns Ghaw of the likely trap, who regards it enough to send a doru over to grab it. Two rounds later, the doors slam shut and lava begins swiftly pouring in to fill the room. Ghaw attempts to dimension door out, and finds himself failing, then realizes that he's immune to fire and laughs at the party who only have Fire Resist 30.

Dean's shoving tablets in his bag of holding while Grimlock and Guy begin bashing their way through a secret door in the back, figuring it to have less absolute protection; succeed, and jump down the slide of lava before the room fills up completely (Dean slams and seals the door shut behind them). Ghaw never noticed Eir pickpocketing the Eye of Zuraihman. The group takes moderate damage ultimately from their pyroclastic immersion.

At the bottom of the slide, they encounter a sentient guard (near-identical to a kolyarut) of the Citadel conversing with someone on a crystal ball, furious as defilers of Zuraihman's legacy. Just before the Clockwork guardian is defeated, he slams Eir with a geas/quest to seek out the Seer of the Yellow Rose and bequeath it the Eye of Zuraihman.

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Session X

Seeing as how Eir's geas cannot be removed by the party at this time, and escaping the prison world is part of her compulsion, they loot/search the crypt until they find a very well hidden secret exit to the outside of the citadel; picking up a crystal ball with 15 charges of heightened sending still in it.

One of the powers of the Eye of Zuraihman is that the user can ignore all range penalties to Spot checks in a cone as a standard action for the round. Using that, they find an agash, another type of genie petitioner. After a bit of negotiation with her tribe, they are given information as to the source of a noble djinn hermit in the nearby mountains, on the condition that they accept a curse to have their first available wish to include freedom for the tribe from the prison world. As Eir stayed in total stealth the entire time, she managed to evade both notice and being placed under the curse.

Going forth, they fight off a separate tribe of ghuls who were attempting to sabotage their aid of the rival tribe. After a bit of searching, they find a pair of stealthed guards in front of the djinn's hide-a-way. Dean throws a pair of resilient spheres on them before they can alert the djinn while Eir sneaks in to aim her laser at him for when he attempts to jump to another world to escape capture. After a bit of negotiation, they agree to not help the tribe out there by having Eir request a single wish; which is for the party to be back in Finality. One nose wiggle later, they're home.

Once home, they deliver a lot of their goods to their benefactor, Akshem, as well as information on what happened except for the Eye of Zuraihman. They ask what he knows about the Seer of the Yellow Rose, which he info dumps about it being the mysterious leader of a cell-based cult known as the Amber Flush; whose secret purpose is to steal information pertaining to powerful artifacts, while maintaining their public front of being a ruthless wine trading company that happens to have a monopoly with one world and is thus painfully wealthy as an organization.

Dean makes a custom 1st level wand to sell to a Dao for a limited wish to remove Eir's geas while Guy removes the curses. Eir investigates the Amber Flush, finding out that they're gathering their money to pay off several wizards to divine the identity/location of those who've acquired the Eye of Zuraihman, and to take it by force.

The next day, while in the bar discussing their next plan, all of the patrons get up and leave while a posse of eight leather jacket wearing members of the Amber Flush file in, twirling switch blades (and snapping their fingers to a catchy tune). A yellow-robed, one-eyed orc with a pointy mace stands from his spot on the bar and approached the party; who at this point are commenting on the potential value of hawking the thugs' clothes. The orc interrupts their cavalier attitude with an attempt at extortion for their Eye of Zuraihman, disintegrating a mug with an eye-ray for emphasis.

Nine seconds later, four of the nine get to survive. Those survivors were panicked by Guy's gaze of terror before the rest of the party could strike them down, who don't feel like putting in the effort to chase them down.

Guy loots the bodies of their wallets and more valuable armor/weapons to hawk for money while Eir goes home to set up the power pack charger for her laser rifle.

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Session XI

While waiting for the power clips to charge up, after an hour, Eir notices that a street urchin is plastering posters nearby; they're wanted posters of the party. The order of the Amber Flush is offering an 18.000gp reward for all three of them and their possessions, dead or alive.

A couple hours later, while Guy and Dean sleep in their rooms and Eir takes watch on the roof. Eir notices a black-skinned/bald angel teleport onto the roof while another black-skinned/ginger hobgoblin jumps atop from the ground below in trained silence. They creep toward the roof entrance, searching for traps, then begin to pick the lock. Eir's completely unnoticed and laser blasts the angel to half health with one shot. They flank and swing swords and daggers, failing to land a hit. Eir responds with a full-attack in melee, still dodging the AoO attacks, and knocks all of them into the negatives. She doesn't bother checking on their unconscious bodies and continues her guard duty while they lay in their own blood.

Afterward, Dean heads out to Rust Town to sell his ring of fire resistance for extra cash. Turning a corner, he runs into three magma mephit thugs (square jaw and everything) being hooligans in general. In surprise, the black skinned hobgoblin jumps him from behind for the flank and stabs him with a dagger while the mephits wail with their clubs. Dean does a simple teleport and heads back to the group.

They decide to go to the museum to borrow their investor's magic mirror for advice on where the Seer of the Yellow Rose is, so they can kill him and end the bounty for the Eye of Zuraihman. They get a set of identifying marks for where the Seer is hiding. Attempting recon, they find out that the Seer is warded against scrying, so they attempt to scry the hobgoblin from earlier; seeing him with the angel in a different wing of the same museum. The two ask an employee if they saw Guy come in, get confirmation, and begin to plan their attack to get him alone.

Guy casts sanctuary (the AE equiv) on himself and walks into the room before they can leave. He's seemingly alone, Dean and Eir hiding from sight. They jump to flank him, tossing a sphere of darkness while the hobgoblin charges and curses in surprise at his physical inability to attack. Guy dispels the darkness and comments that the other two could solo them, and he's got a friend; he points to Grimlock, who is eating a falafel in the opposite side of the room and waves.

With that, the hobgob and angel pull out their copies of the wanted posters, rip them in half, and leave.

Delaying their departure to buy some more equipment and resting again at home, they get attacked by a squad of bueroza, whom they beat up. They now leave for the Seer. They cross a world or two, moving swiftly to evade more bounty hunters, reaching the Viridian Limbo; a frontier world with a greenish sky. Traversing another couple days, they reach the Silver Plains and see a distant mine shaft with a handful of quickly made buildings surrounding it. About two dozen yellow robed Amber Flush (orc and human) milling about in day-to-day business. At least one building holds food and there are several carts filled with wine barrels.

They watch from a mile away with the Eye, see a hill giant with a burning warhammer by his side exit the mine to give some commands before going back down. Eir goes forward to scout, gets a head count of the people above ground, and goes down the shaft. It's at a steep angle (20 degrees) and curves in a wide spiral, with a mine cart rail down the center and the walls lined with stone. After half an hour, she reaches the bottom, with a long hallway with two sets of doors on each side and a massive one at the end.

There are large windows into each of the four rooms on the sides; one is a trauma center with empty beds as more medically-inclined Amber Flush mill about, another is a robust and large-scale alchemy lab with a hill giant working at it, another is a combination library and divination chamber filled with a huge number of divination equipment (none inside), and the fourth is a fully operational tech shop with the tools necessary to construct a laser rifle and similar equipment.

The massive door (big enough for two elephants to walk through) at the end of the hall has no windows, but bears the sigil of a yellow rose with an eye in the middle of the flower. Not wanting to risk discovery by opening any of the doors to explore further, Eir sneaks back to the surface and reports her findings to the party.

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Session XII

We don't have the player for Grimlock arrive until later in the session, and my general rules assume such characters are absorbed in the mists of obscurity (ala Mark the Red in Gamers).

Just over half a mile straight up, our spryte looks down upon the surface camp as they break bread for a communal meal for all three dozen of them. Using the Eye and doubling its area, the 9d8 blast of fire kills every single one. They begin their descent to the bottom. Amazingly, through a combination of my terrible rolling and the opposite on their part, they are unnoticed while the rest toil in their chambers.

They sneak to the back and ambush the hill giant and three orc acolytes working in the super-tech workshop, which also doubles as the primary interface for an advanced power generator. It's a struggling fight, as Dean & Eir are invisible, so Guy was about to die from the focus fire until a resilient sphere saves him. They slowly get the rest of the facility's stuff pouring in to flank them; eventually crushed. They check out the other rooms (even the cooling chambers for the generators) for obvious loot and go before the final boss's door.

It's mechanically opened/closed, and they shut off central power. They fail to break it down, so Dean casts the 5th level version of open. For the round it takes to begin unlocking and opening, they get a booming voice from behind as an opening monologue.

This is the Merchant Prince of the Neogi Company, Final Aribiter of the Valley of the Fae, Seer of the Yellow Rose.

"Ye mighty, know despair as upon my works you BEHOLD!"

Winning initiative, Eir's poison-spitting mount blinds the Seer and the group promptly trounces the now hobbled boss. There's a moment of fear as after they spread out to surround and several eye rays manage to luck through the miss chances, but half the party has touch ACs in the 20s and I rolled poorly. Then they got a chains of vengeance and a solid coup de grace.

After the fight, they see the chamber; a curved hallway circumnavigating the outer edge of a mile wide spherical cavern filled with a 200mph storm of immense proportions; mimicking a painfully large transdimensional control winds as cast by an epic caster. They find notes and research stations of the Seer's numerous attempts to get to the center of the effect; air elementals, incorporeal undead, teleporation, weather-controlling magisters, etc. The primary techniques being worked on before its death was constructing a +1 seeking antimatter rifle of distance (the halfway completed rifle in the high-tech workshop and getting the Eye of Zuraihman to be used by an available spellcaster to use sorcerous blast on the center. After numerous uses of divination, it was confirmed that the center held a magic teacup that seemed to be generating the storm as well as an White Orb of Dragonkind; with a lack of confirmation as to what protections the teacup may have against destruction, and a fevered hope that the gun or magic blast could destroy and allow the acquisition of the Orb.

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The player for Eir was very surprised with how easy the boss fight was.

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Session XIII

The party searches around a bit before trying out a diminished sorcerous blast on the tea cup in the center of the storm, which successfully destroys it and ends the storm. The Orb remains floating in the center atop a saucer. Flight granted to everyone to head toward it while Dean tests whether dimension door will work now that the storm is gone and beat the rest by about ten minutes; which works. He can't examine the properties of the saucer with detect magic because of the aura of the Orb, but 'claiming' the Orb (sitting on it, since he can't pick up a sphere 2/3 his height) allows him to determine it to be a full-blown Orb of Dragonkind (White).

It's deemed too dangerous to put in a museum for fear of the social consequences. There's some debate, and it's ultimately decided that Guy will wield it. Dean can't reasonably carry the thing, and he hates the idea of losing so much of his touch AC. Eir's AC & Reflex save will actually see a downgrade if she wields the Orb. Grimlock's player isn't around to debate much, and currently seems to like the weapon he got earlier from the Hill Giant...

Final Massive Mace of the Cursed Ceremony of Everburning A +3 greatclub, any struck must make a DC 16 Reflex save or be set on fire. With any critical hit, flame strike is centered on the target hit at caster level 7, the wielder is immune to the spell's damage; performing a CdG on the ground may not deal extra damage, but a critical hit still happens and triggers the effect.

They then gather everything valuable that isn't tied down and go back to Finality, making a nice pile of money.

From there, they look into a lead to the Vampire Jarl in the frozen North of the world Suzar (a week's travel by horse from the gate to Finality); the spawn of the Vampire King, reportedly the child of the First Human, and a terrible force of destruction that was banished long ago. After a montage, they're protected from the cold and surrounded by slain yeti, skeletons, and snow orcs in a field of bloodied snow. The door ahead is locked, which is promptly brandished open and they slay the frost giant and giant ice golems guarding the inner sanctum. They try a bit harder to break the seal, only to be ambushed by a tribe of rampaging orcs just as they open the door.

They close the outer door in the ogres' face, where they pick up one and use as a battering ram to force it open despite Grimlock's attempts. They fight for another round or two. Dean and Eir notice the sarcophagus inside the inner sanctum stirs slightly, a chime rising from it before turning invisible and vanishing entirely. They run in, sense the presence of recently used teleportation magic. The southern wall is a giant lens (illusion magic from the outside makes it look snow-covered) focusing the summer sun on the sarcophagus, with an incinerated vampire giant within.

The chamber walls are covered with inscriptions warning of the eternal darkness should the Chime of Release be used. Elsewhere, they find a collection of letters between the Jarl and some entity known as the Dark Herald (the shadow of the Vampire King given independent life), the writing consisting of language as if they were siblings. The Jarl describes her unlife being fraught with regret for betraying the Vampire King, and the moral inability to have the Chime of Release destroyed like she should, eventually culminating in her building a crypt to be warded and shielded from scrying or teleportation to prevent the Chime from being obtained and her sire released from his prison at the Temple of the Sun.

With this, the sun begins to develop black spots that grow and shrink across its surface; looking very ominous. They get confirmation from their arcanaloth contact that the Vampire King's freedom is a Bad Idea™. The party suits up and teleports to the library (a week's journey south, normally) on the planet to figure out where the Temple of the Sun is. After paying the sages some money for assistance to look it up in only an hour, they figure out the temple's location is part of the title...on the surface of the Sun.

The sign is more of a suggestion.

There's a earth-side temple with a gate directly to the Temple of the Sun, only ~300mi east in the Lonely Desert. Dramatically, they hear screams of citizens outside. Rasts (natives of the sun) have descended en masse upon the populace to drink consume blood; they state for the purpose of gathering sufficient food for the Vampire King, believing his banishment is soon to an end.

The rasts are slain, Dean finishes his nap to regain spells; as it's already been a day and the casters only need 2hr rest to recoup. Dean teleports with Eir & Jada about five miles straight up, uses the Eye to directly observe the desert temple, and teleports the lot from there. Guy uses scrying to observe Dean directly, and teleports him and Grimlock over.

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Updated the last post to include the rest of the session.

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Session XIV

From their earlier scan of the Temple of the Sun (Earthside), many of the monks there (mostly dwarf, some humans) were wandering in a daze. All of them were riddled with open sores, random mutations such as a single wing, a tentacle for a leg, an extra mouth, etc. A couple were chewing down on a corpse, and most of the rest were wandering like a crazy hobo. Being careful, they teleported just outside of the temple's estates, gave Jada's Ring of Fire Resist to Dean and told her to hide out there until they came back.

Going into stealth-mode, the group could practically do a dance number to evade detection, as the monks had a -4 Notice skill (pile of crippling disfigurements and insanity and obvious starvation). This was skimmed over at best, as they looked for the portal to the true Temple of the Sun.

"Hey. Pal. Don't make this weird."

In the deepest part of the estate, they see the portal, and are intercepted by an aghash (breed of evil genie that's good at curses). There's a round of spells thrown at each other, and everybody makes their saves. Then they pull diplomacy and realize that the div just doesn't want them around to stop its cursing, and happily agree to leave right away. The div agrees, thinking they're part of the group that passed through earlier.

Through the portal, they see a horde of bat-winged hell hounds battling azer priests (forced on the defensive and are hunkering down) while a massive black and red colored werewolf (fire giant lycanthrope) in hybrid form scours the area. Around his neck is a metallic chime. Seeing the group, the werewolf directs about a dozen to split off and handle the party while he ducks into a chamber. The party disperses the hellhounds with a fear-based burst, then heads down to duel. Dean is quickly sent into bleeding from the surprise attack (greatsword to the face hurts), and the fight goes for awhile before they take him down, then systematically either kill or run off the hell hounds on the estate.

The priests thank them, help bind their wounds, and bestow upon them their most valuable treasure. Each gets a Vial of Sunfire [sheds light as a torch that deals 1d6/round to all undead in its light, can be consumed to get a heal effect].

They finish resting, get their spells, go through the portal and quickly teleport home before the div can do anything. Then they teleport back to pick up Jada. After a bit more research, they head out for the Dark Herald, former shadow of the Vampire King.

It's a creepy moor, following the aesthetic of Eastern Europeans living near Dracula's castle. All seem distrustful of outsiders, one crazy/sociable one babbles at them to beware the Dark One and its decrees; no undead permitted, clerics of 'good' are to be shunned, and none shall deny the whims of the Cursed One. The Cursed One was in a long-ago desecrated church, seeming to be a human native and probably the only fat citizen, judging by the feast before him while beautiful women fawned over him.

The party asks for information on humans, since he intimately knew the Vampire King. After a momentary bit of confusion at what they were speaking of, the Cursed One changed dramatically in countenance, shooed away the women (dispelling the glamours he apparently maintained on them) and chastised the party for speaking of the Vampire King. Mentioning the effort required to keep the Cursed One from getting curious, the Dark One tells them of its past; it didn't become sentient until the Vampire King was already ancient by vampire standards, but it did know he was one of the first humans to exist in the beginning. The King avoided the topic of his homeworld, treating the subject as one would treat an abusive father long since dead.

After a bit of back and forth, the party manages to get the Dark Herald/One to remember a few old lines of its corporeal 'half'. The King had mentioned coming from Seobos, of the Zalor constellation. In addition, the King had once or twice mentioned that his tribe knew their creator gods on a face-to-face level, who otherwise liked their isolation; to the point of seeding nearby worlds with other life they had created to discourage visitors. Based on comfort levels, the Dark One guessed that the King's came from a jungle biome.

And so, returning to Finality to research incredibly archaic star charts, they find the location of Seobos. The Zalor constellation is very isolated, not near any portals, so travel will require a series of plane shift castings and repeated star chart analysis to confirm bearings. That will be next session however...

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Session XV

They contact their sponsor, Aksehm, for assistance in getting to Seobos. Intrigued by the archaeological significance in finding the human homeworld for so little money; the arcanaloth makes a few connections. For equipment, Aksehm provides Eir with two energy clips, enchanted such that any shots fired with them will have the human bane trait.

The next day, the party is introduced to Jorgen, a winged drow in shadowy dragonscale armour; currently played by a visiting friend as a guest PC. Jorgen is paid independently by Aksehm for travel only, and any additional assistance is to be negotiated by the party; the drow only asks for a share of the treasure in exchange for aiding as any other member of the party in combat.

Toward the end of the conversation, Eir manages to get a good enough Notice check through Jorgen's disguise self, and readily gets through the Will save to penetrate the illusion and see's Jorgen's true form; an armoured Star Spawn (illithid with wings). She instantly becomes distrustful and wary with Jorgen, and spends the next several days keeping the laser rifle in hand while they travel, refusing to speak on the subject of (or to) Jorgen. For backstory, Eir's homeworld is still a Nausicaa-style apocalyptic wasteland, two centuries after the Astromundi Proclamation due to its use as an industrial planet.

Jorgen's acceptance of the job is due to a personal goal of sampling exotic new tastes.

It takes five planar standard days to reach the farthest reaches of the gate network closest to planet Seobos, to a gatetown known for its shrimp and whores. From here, they confirm their bearings to the first planet on their journey; known as Butter. It's a fairly small planet, known for its foliage's pale yellow coloration. They make camp and wait for the 17 hour cooldown to finish, darkness falling three hours in. They notice a complete lack of any signs of non-plant life larger than insects. Two hours into the night, they hear movement.

In stealth, they waited. Jorgen got mental reading before they broke cover, about half a dozen of them, all thinking "meat! meat!" When the group pounced, they saw it was a pack of Dwellers in Darkness. They charged the exposed Jorgen, and ultimately all but one dies. Jorgen charms the unconscious one as they heal it to consciousness, and learn that their tribe will gather in greater numbers to find them; they're omnivores, but have a extreme psychological urge for meat except for their own species. It comments that Guy would be safe because he smelled like one of them.

Eir uses her three bags to summon two bears and a horse, then commands them to charge in three separate directions for as long as they can. The group then flies in a fourth direction, toward the desert, where the Dwellers tend to avoid due to lack of caverns and dryness. There is talk of legend where there used to be plentiful sky meat because they could evade the Dwellers so readily, but something came from the sky and slew all of the sky meat; the Great Feast the Dwellers called it.

After the cooldown ends, they get their bearings and shift (with the charmed Dweller in tow) to the next world, Amurru. A world covered in bones and other forms of life the same color through general camouflage and just the environment in general. Their Eye showed it had massive bone oozes roaming about. They aim their shift directly at a large one of them (due to the minimum 5 mile distance from the destination), and find themselves inside a cavern with a now very angry Brute that was making a nest for its young.

The battle was a bit harrowing because of the close quarters and its enormous hit points. Eir's laser rifled had the anti-human clips, which reacted to the Brute as if it were also human. Jorgen's attempt at charming failed and got burned for ten damage due to its Hostile Mind feat. Outside, they see the rest of the Brute's pack slowly making its way to the cavern due to the setting sun; the party decided not to stick around to deal with upset natives and flew away to rest and recuperate while they waited to leave. They forgot to bring the Dweller with them; poor girl.

The next world, New Rashon, has been sundered into three rocky pieces from an ancient calamity, but it retains an atmosphere. When they arrive, however, they end up aboard a sailing ship with a bright blue sky and lapping waves. The crew of drow sailors were singing shanties in Common, but stop and call upon their captain when they see the party. A model pirate, she asked what stowaways be doing aboard her ship. Jorgen avoided speaking, because he believed his telepathy & wings would seem conspicuous; but the crew turned out to also be telepathic and unfurled their own wings, so it ended up with a less charismatic member of the party attempted to parlay. They had their weapons/staves confiscated and were thrown in the brig.

When not being watched, Eir turned into a cat to walk between the bars while Dean used his SLA open on the bird cage. The two went into stealth and overheard a brawl by the crew over some card cheating. Eir sleight of handed the keys (41, nobody saw) and checked on the sleeping pirate sitting atop the chest with their gear. After an hour of waiting, the ship reached a dock and began opening fire with the shore; where humanoid lions in soldier uniforms shot back with musket rifles.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Eir went to the now unguarded chest and got everything for the rest of the party and unlocked the brig for Jorgen and Guy to get out. She went ahead and got ready to help the soldiers by getting a surprise round on the drow sailor. The single shot went completely through him as if a ghost, permitting a Will save and thus Eir saw it as a Shine Bright who looked at the scorch marks and floated down below (it won initiative for the first round) with the look of defeat. Having then switched for anti-human rounds, Eir promptly shoots four laser blasts at four 'drow', who reacted in shock at the pain but promptly left the battlefield when it was their turn. The remaining one shot Eir with a flintlock, revealed to be magic missle, but obviously the 20 damage was not enough to stop her from using one more shot on her turn.

The soldiers walked up and congratulated the party in stopping the pirates, who floated back into view as everyone but the party turned into Shine Brights in applause. The mirage arcana is also dismissed, showing the party to be on a ruined sailing ship atop a drained lake. Dean's player smacked his head when he realized that it was a bunch of people playing war games. One of them heal Eir's wounds with a touch, and the party is given the treasure chest in the bottom of the ship; usually used for their games, but too heavy to use with their mage hand power.

Inside the chest is a +1 ghost touch light mace that deals +3d6 force damage 1/day and grants access to the runic spell template. In addition, there is ~6000gp in gold coins and gold plateware.

Their next world is without much in the way of knowledge due to distance and lack of interplanetary culture, Mersi VII. A moon orbiting a gas giant, their Eye showed it as a rather typical M-class biome with signs of renaissance cities with humans walking about.

They arrived atop a dinner table, every guest being short human (4 to 4.25 feet tall) except for one. At the head of the table sat a young adult white dragon, who was rather incensed at the interruption and people standing in the gravy. Jorgen placated the dragon with a charm, and awkwardly enjoyed the party as guests in the five-course banquet. To keep in its good graced, Eir gifted the dragon with a bag of tricks, who was quite pleased with it. After dinner, the dragon retired to its bed in the back while the party headed out. In an eerie fashion, strangers would walk up and express their anger at the party showing them up with their awesome gift. As one would finish doing whatever its job was, it would walk away and another would pick up the conversation where they left off; making the party worried as they realized they were dealing with a hive mind (Kroten).

Apparently the Kroten were appeasing the dragon with periodic gifts of a house and a big meal of hunted game, so it would choose not to eat members of the community. They feared a break down of this social contract due to their gift being upstaged by the party who will leave without care for the consequences. Fearing a mob attack, the party decided to sneak back to the house to dominate the dragon, but the Kroten had previously agreed to guard him.

After a bit of a fight, Guy managed to get inside and dominated the dragon with the Orb, who then called off the Kroten with threats. The party then takes a look at the dragon's hoard; a substantial amount of money in art pieces and raw coinage, several potions, a wand of CLW, a couple scrolls, and an intelligent trident.

Gorffwys is a self-professed enemy to all with a sinful heart, forged by an exile of the Iron Mages of Gerz, it was wielded by a Vargouille paladin for centuries before being lost to history; apparently into a white dragon's hoard. It's nominally a +4 iron trident with rusting grasp at will and wall of fire 3/day, Ego 18, speaks Common and Vargouille, and has a mindset not unlike Kore from the Goblins webcomic (Lawful Good, Special Purpose of Slay All).

[virgil]

Session XVI

After a good, solid rest, the party studied a couple secure areas under the control of the dragon Nigliktok to ensure easy teleportation when they returned; so as to pick up the 6 thousand gold worth of copper on the way back (too heavy to carry and still fly). Their destination, Caseopea V, is heavily shrouded in clouds from their vantage point so they can't get a good assessment for what the general planet is like.

They arrive, finding themselves in an extremely dark operating room of iron walls with only the patient on the table and an opaque mesh window on one wall. The human patient looks like a partway completed autopsy, but the organs are still beating and show artificially stretched veins and nerve endings connecting them back to the main body. A telepathic siren sounds off in their heads, announcing contamination, intrusion, and other concepts generally considered negative.

A ruminative floats in through a sliding door, and doesn't believe the party's reasons for infiltration and destruction of months of research. Negotiations break down, and handle-less scalpels float up to begin stabbing at the party before the ruminative is blasted into oblivion. The party enters stealth so heavily, they manage to evade ruminative blindsight, even Nigliktok!? They're in what's best described as a military research facility deep underground, which they navigate out of, only to get seen by eight ruminative along with a Great Mind (Medium-size advanced ruminative with +4 all stats); all arranged in a 50' half-circle in front of the entrance. Guy and Nigliktok use their breath weapons and kill all of them in a single round.

Outside is a city of giant brains, surrounded by ten to fifteen story buildings in a half-mile radius. Dean dimension doors straight up to get an aerial view for this, and also learn that it's heavy forest the rest of the area around the city. Falling back down to inform the party, they beeline for the woods, and are intercepted by two each of magically equipped gargoyles and Great Minds. Dean and Guy are wounded, and Jorgen eats the brain of one gargoyle, before they're horrifically slain. Once that's done, they run for the woods again, killing a couple extra ruminative on the way who try to stop them.

After three hours in hiding in the woods, their spells are restored and Eir's anti-human e-clips are recharged. Then the pea-soup fog rolls in, and our resident super-senses hear footsteps of something big coming their way. Once within 40', Dean uses gusting wind to make a corridor to see it; a Huge giant whose skull has been bisected so that a ruminative could 'ride' in it (brain stem gives it animal intelligence at best) and fire super-charged magic missile bolts at the party. They quickly kill the pilot and 'daze' it for a minute, which is plenty of time to kill the mindless beast and go deeper into hiding in the woods until they can shift again.

Once they do so, they travel to Seobos, landing in a trough of pulped human flesh soaked in some kind of venom that only Guy has to save against. In front of them is 150 ophidians, behind them is a high priest yuan-ti abomination, looking pretty incensed at the intrusion. However, they temper things sufficiently to be pushed into a cleaning chamber to wash off the meal and be presentable for proper debate.

From there, treating Nigliktok as they would an ambassador, they are sent out to go to one of their gods' temples to beseech mercy from the Grand High Priest; one of their 40 gods being there in person. Long story short, they're given an armed escort of yuan-ti to walk to the temple over the span of three days, and Guy's poor Knowledge (religion/history) roll of 32 allows him connect the observations to understand that humans are created from ophidians and was done by the gods of the planet. These gods want cultural isolation, seeded all of the nearby planets with dangerous lifeforms, and destroyed all nearby gates, to discourage visitors.

Guy's Orb picks up dragons inside the temple, two of them white.

[virgil]

Session XVII

Upon arriving to the temple, they are escorted down at least 60' deep, cutting them off from teleportation and shifting to another world; as I use the Tome teleportation rule. They are given a chamber to wait a time until the Grand High Priest was ready to receive them, and are provided with a variety of meals (all meat).

During their wait, they are approached by a red dragon; with a typical looking head, but a body more appropriate on a chinese dragon (long & serpentine, stubby limbs). It offers services and connections with the greater nation if the party can obtain any treasure from the holy of holies (chamber of the yuan-ti god). After it leaves, a pair of dragons enter (green & white) with the same physical deformity that the red possessed, as well as behaving like creepy twins in conversation despite. These two plead for the party to demand freedom for them if they manage to beat the Grand High Priest, as they expect the party to be sentenced rather harshly for dominating a white dragon.

After a time, the party is escorted, passing by a shaped black dragon in a cage with a bit of a homicidal streak. The main room has the Grand High Priest (yuan-ti anathema, reduced to CR 15 after reducing HD/CL by 6 and SR by 3, otherwise unchanged) as well as a few halfbloods with healing equipment, a chained up blue dragon atop a nest of eggs, and an abomination. After a bit of discussion, including permitting the party to choose the manner of their execution, they are dropped down a pit in the chamber as they prepare everything. The white dragon, still dominated by Guy, attempts to escape; only to run into a captured unicorn, and granted temporary freedom.

Dean managed to evade detection, so he flies up after shrinking himself to fit between the bars of the pit's gate. While invisible/unscented/silented, uses open on the blue dragon's collar, followed by the cage for the black dragon who then opens up by killing the unicorn (tries to kill the crew in general, but the unicorn dies first). This gets the white dragon back under Guy's command, who calls for death to the true monster. This leads to a charge of three dragons on the Grand High Priest, dealing a fair bit of subdual damage to him. He's promptly healed to full by the priests, then uses blasphemy on the dragons, who are all banished to the last plane they were on (not native); Dean barely manages to make his save, so he's not banished to Caseopea V, but is still dazed. This is considered the time to strike, and the rest of the party pours out of the now unlocked pit (Dean earlier) with flight magic.

The fight is brutal, but ultimately after some fog magic & blindsight spells, they manage to keep Eir alive long enough to kill the Grand High Priest and the star spawn swallows an abomination's brain.

After the fight, a Sarrukh opens the back door, Dean having sealed the other door to the place to keep the rest of the temple from attacking. At this point, thanks to fortuitous luck on the reaction roll, they manage to eke out some diplomacy; where the star spawn throws down some fleshcrafting secrets, two rings of fire resist 30 (good for other minions), and lots of diplomatic skill (45 on his roll). This grants them freedom as well as a Sarrukh-crafted albino cobra whose scales tell the tale of the Sarrukh's creation of humanity (snakes are books, after all); namely experimentation in making a more arcane-capable servitor race they regret having made in retrospect due to their fecundity and rebellious nature. During the conversation Eir is unnoticed as she sneaks into the Holy of Holies to grab everything that isn't tied down; including a golden Ouroboros ring that produces nonmagical versions in regular enough intervals act as an everfull purse, half a dozen sapphires worth 1.2k each, seven cure wands (CL 5, meta'd to have close range rays), a semi-living golden frog statue covered in magical 'eggs' on its back (charged rod of wonder, more or less), a +5 Intelligence crown, & 500pp.

The group hoofs it to the part of the temple where they can shift to Caseopea V to reestablish control over Nigliktok.

[Dr_Noface]

I like this thread.