AAR: The Tree of Life

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etherial
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AAR: The Tree of Life

Post by etherial » Fri Aug 17, 2018 3:41 am

The Tree of Life
Time: 2018-08-16@24:00 GMT
GM: etherial (Ursula)
Circle: 7
Difficulty: Easy

Player Rewards:
Avalandohamagannahnieventhallailmar: 2 TIPs, 6000 Legend, 1700 silver worth of half-price Elementalist spells and/or Perception training
Blaethynn: 2 TIPs, 6,000 Legend, 850 sp
Quis'Tan: 2 TIPs, 6000LP, 850sp, Jaspree's Favour
Varis: 2 TIPs, 6000 LP, 850 Silver

Downtime Actions Available:
Blaethynn: Alchemy (Rank 4, Step 15) (Booster Potion, Kelix's Poultice. Kelia's Antidote, Salve of Closure, Halt Disease Potion)
Blaethynn: Craftsman (Rank 5, Step 20)
Blaethynn: Forge Armor (Rank 4, Step 15)
Blaethynn: Forge Weapon (Rank 6, Step 17)
Blaethynn: Item History (Rank 5, step 16)
Varis: Research 22 (Rank 4)
Researchers may spend 20/2 Silver for +3 Steps

Further Information:
The tribe of Mandrakes have been returned to being normal Elves. Also the children they kidnapped have been returned to normal.

Reyntrannin
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Re: AAR: The Tree of Life

Post by Reyntrannin » Tue Sep 04, 2018 4:17 pm

[From an official incident report filed with the Merrith guard

Some of my companions and I heard a rumor that there had been a problem with Merrith’s children running away recently, along with reports of strange activity around… What’s that? Oh, my friends. Well, Avalan and Quis’tan and I were all here previously, around the time X’arol’s Solace came into being. I’m not really sure what connection Varis has to Merrith, since we only recently met.

Anyhow, once we got here, we noticed all the children on leashes or harnesses if they were outside. The only exception we found was a young Ork man named Gormek. We decided to chat with him and he finally clued us in to what was drawing the children away. Seems they were hearing music in the night and wandered off to see what was making it. Gormek? Oh, he said he heard the music too, but wasn’t interested in little kid stuff like that. In fact, he took great exception to any reference to his youth. I will say the lad is brave. He came with us to help the other children without even the slightest hesitation.

We went that afternoon, while the sun was still up, and examined the tree that X’arol had become. Who was X’arol? Oh, a Questor of Jaspree who gave her life to cleanse the old Raggok temple. I’m surprised you haven’t already heard the story. I was actually there for that. You see….

Oh, right, I should stay on what happened the other night.

So when we looked at the tree, there wasn’t any sign of danger, although a few large winged lizards seemed to be nesting in her upper branches. Just to let you know, they’re not too aggressive, but they get nippy if you wander too close. How do I know? Oh, don’t worry about that. Weren’t you wanting to know about the children?

Right. So that night, the four of us stayed up with Gormek, waiting for the music to start. Turns out we could hear it too, perhaps because we are Adepts? I really haven’t found out why, but we followed the sound and found a rather numerous group of humanoid figures dancing around the tree and playing musical instruments. The song itself seemed to be an enchantment, but fortunately I was distracted a bit at the critical moment. When I saw my compatriots moving to join the dance, I quickly used my power to suppress magic and freed Varis, who was able to completely break the spell with his mastery of the arcane arts.

As we observed the humanoids, we noticed they looked like elves that had been combined with wood. This reminded us of legends about creatures called mandrakes. We also noticed that a number of them were much smaller than the others, and a suspicion of what had happened began to form in our minds. To test this, Varis and I began using our Talents to try and remove the magic that had transformed the mandrakes and found that they were indeed the missing children. We sent them off to Gormek, who was supporting us from the rear, and turned to face the response of the older beings. Instead of charging at us as we expected, the mandrakes put up only a brief resistance before running towards the tree, slipping inside it as if it were a pool of water. Avalan managed to bind a couple of the small ones in place long enough for us to free them of their enchantment.

We couldn’t celebrate for long, though, as a quartet of wood elementals appeared and engaged us in combat. They were fierce, but we eventually defeated them. Avalan and Varis used their mastery of Elemental magics to summon a friendly wood spirit that acted as a translator for the tree. It seemed that X’arol, in her new guise, wanted to ‘protect’ the children from the corruption of civilization. E were not able to communicate effectively enough to get X’arol to change her heart, so in the end, we had the elemental make the tree less suitable for the mandrakes, forcing them out of their hiding spot and allowing us to complete their transformation back into the children and elves they once were.

From what we could observe, Jaspree approved of our actions and gave a new blessing upon the area. Hopefully, everything should be at peace there from now on, but I would recommend building a shrine to Jaspree, just to keep her favor.

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BattleChad
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Re: AAR: The Tree of Life

Post by BattleChad » Fri Sep 07, 2018 11:07 pm

The Great Library of Throal thanks Blaethynn for his contribution.

Journal Rewards: 300 Legend Points and 212 Silver

ender3rd
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Re: AAR: The Tree of Life

Post by ender3rd » Sun Sep 09, 2018 1:32 am

From the submission of Quis'Tan to the Throalic Library:

A rumor reached Throal that the children of Merrith were acting strangely; running away. After some uneventful travel, we arrived to find that all the children were on leashes or something similar, else boarded up in their houses. From Gormek the Cavalryman we learned that he could also hear the music which the children were singing. He disliked comments on his age, possibly a gahad. Our investigation led to X'arol's Solace, the apparent source of the music. We saw what I take for espagra in the branches but did not seriously disturb them given that Jaspree's influence kept them from being overly aggressive.

That evening we also heard the music and arrived at the X'arol's Solace to see what appeared to be elves which had been imbued with wood spirits. I'd heard of such Mandrakes before in my studies of how different groups survived the scourge. These were blessed by Jaspree with protections against minor horrors. To avoid the more major horrors, however, the Mandrakes lost most of their sentience. The Mandrakes obviously came in two groups: full-sized beings and shorter beings. On the assumption that the shorter beings were probably the missing children we used a variety of talents to try to disrupt their enchantments. I was successful in Suppressing their Curse and others Dispelled the Magic. This done, the remaining mandrakes fled into the tree with ease.

Shortly thereafter wood elementals attacked and were defeated with some difficulties. A summoned wood elemental informed us that X'Arol - never perfectly stable to begin with - had decided that protecting the children included preventing any "corrupting" influence of civilization. Ever hard headed she insisted on protecting as many as she could.

The elemental aided us in forcing out the mandrakes in waves small enough to manage successfully; holding them off with weapons while their enchantments were broken.

It seems quite obvious that Jaspree approved even though we fought to stop the actions of one of her questors. Perhaps we should establish some sort of watch over the X'Arol in case future excesses occur.

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BattleChad
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Re: AAR: The Tree of Life

Post by BattleChad » Mon Sep 10, 2018 3:24 pm

The Great Library of Throal thanks Quis'Tan for his contribution.

Journal Rewards: 300 Legend Points and 212 Silver

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