AAR 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed [Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT]

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Serespar
Posts:215
Joined:Fri May 18, 2018 3:53 pm
AAR 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed [Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT]

Post by Serespar » Sun Oct 17, 2021 3:04 am

LFG: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed…
Date/Time: Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT
Difficulty: ECR 2M
Rewards: Standard for ECR. Alt Reward of Half Price Discipline Training
GM: Drew

Note: This will be a test run with the new Roll20 scripts. Chris has agreed to be there to help with any issues that come up, but appreciate your patience and flexibility if anything bumps things and takes a bit more time. If you can log into the new table copy and look over your character conversion before the game, it will help facilitate starting on time. Tks.

~ o ~

Image

Rumor:
While in Throal, you’ve been open to the idea of a little paying work; turns out that whole eating and adventuring thing involves money, who knew? Plus, a little success may be just what you need to build up some good contacts for bigger opportunities later. So…


Anyway, <insert role playing transition appropriate to your character here…>.

… and then you tracked the rumor back to a dwarven lawyer by the name of Vostut; some ancient geezer at the firm of Gajorvi, Jukse & Hvordan. Their office is in the Grand Bazaar, over in Scrivener’s Row. Word is Vostut will be interviewing prospective adept hires-on-a-budget tomorrow at 9:00 am sharp. The old guy is supposed to be kinda a stickler for being on time and not wasting his, so if you want to make the cut and get in on the paying work, you’ll need to keep that in mind. Word on the street is the guy tends to give the nod to well-rounded groups that can just knock out whatever it is he needs; solo adepts are sometimes hired, but with him, the wind seems to blow in favor of folks who work together.

The background digging you did made it sound like the lead had some real potential. The guy and the firm are both supposed to be reasonably legit in a plausible deniability sort of way, and rumor has it that they have contacts all the way up to some really powerful people in Throal. The firm is known for discretion for the clients and paying on time to free lancers.

Since the rumor is they are looking for available Novice adepts, the job lead might be something you could finesse into <insert personal character goals here>…

~ o ~
Last edited by Serespar on Sun Oct 24, 2021 4:48 pm, edited 3 times in total.

Sharkforce
Posts:527
Joined:Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:39 am

Re: LFG 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed… [Schedule TBD, see Discord Survey]

Post by Sharkforce » Wed Oct 20, 2021 3:22 am

Name: Garak
Date of Last Game Played: Available evidence suggests Aug 31, but as this is little more than a a faint memory who can say for sure?
Circle: 3
Discipline: Archer
Unique: Failure is not an option - it is mandatory. The option is whether or not to let failure be the last thing you do.
Downtime: Nope.

It looks like it will probably be Saturday or Sunday evening, and both of those work for me anyways.

ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm

Re: LFG 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed [Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT]

Post by ChrisDDickey » Thu Oct 21, 2021 6:07 pm

Name: Caesar Bonaparte
Date Player last played: August
ECR: 3
Discipline: Illusionist 3rd Circle - Human.
Quote/Unique: now notice that at no time do any of my fingers leave my hand.
Notable Abilities: Illusion
Downtime: None.

sigfriedmcwild
Posts:335
Joined:Wed Nov 13, 2019 6:59 am

Re: LFG 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed [Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT]

Post by sigfriedmcwild » Thu Oct 21, 2021 11:43 pm

Name: Teyo
Last played on: 2021-09-25
ECR: 1 (0lp)
Discipline: Swordmaster 1
Quote/Unique: The truth is out there
Notable Abilities: Being aggravating
Downtime: None

marcrobitschek
Posts:18
Joined:Tue Oct 05, 2021 12:44 am

Re: LFG 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed [Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT]

Post by marcrobitschek » Fri Oct 22, 2021 12:31 am

Name: Kalandar
Date of Last Game Played by player: first game
Circle: Circle of your character First circle
Discipline: Thief 1
Unique: I am good at picking locks and using a sword.
Downtime: not sure
([Further Details] Availability est mostly after 6:00 pm on Wednesday and Weekends after 600 pm

Stenus
Posts:4
Joined:Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:55 pm

Re: LFG 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed [Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT]

Post by Stenus » Fri Oct 22, 2021 10:56 pm

Sign up kelek the weapon smith as soon as I can make him.

Serespar
Posts:215
Joined:Fri May 18, 2018 3:53 pm

Re: AAR 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed [Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT]

Post by Serespar » Sun Oct 24, 2021 7:55 am

Thanks to those who played in the undead mummy monkey of doooom tomb exploration adventure and saved some of the folks missing from Pheasant Hollow. You guys knocked out some serious puzzle moments with creative play.

Thanks as well to Chris for all the upgrades in the character sheets he and JB have been working on.

Also, a big welcome to the new players, Marc n Mark.

...

ECR 2M Standard awards for characters: Garrak the Ork Archer, Cesear the Human Illusionist, Teyo the Windling Swordmaster, Kelek the Elven Weaponsmith and Kalandar the Elven Thief.

Base Award; 800 LP, 200 SP, 3 TIPs, normal downtime awards (2 weeks for the new players, 3 weeks Long Absence award for existing players).
Journal Bonus Award; +5% LP (+40 LP) and +25% SP (+50 SP) for posting to your character thread.
Alt rewards of half price discipline training, small light crystals and light lanterns (net any selected alt reward value against silver award when posting to character thread as per standard WM rules).


Will leave the handouts up on the test table for a bit, for folks to refer to as needed while writing journals. Also, please send Chris any bug reports / follow up items for iron out.

Fun table and hope you enjoyed. Apologies for going long and any lore heavy box text moments. Appreciate your patience with interface sort out issues (especially with the direction dynamic lighting).


~ d

Sharkforce
Posts:527
Joined:Thu Feb 28, 2019 8:39 am

Re: AAR 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed [Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT]

Post by Sharkforce » Mon Oct 25, 2021 12:49 am

The Journal of Garak of Irondelve, Part 4: A Lady In Need May Pay Indeed

Note: if it seems like Garak is being a little vague about names or neglects facts that may serve to identify their ultimate employer, it is because he believes the employer expects him to be at least somewhat discreet.

I've been saving up to buy a proper bow for some time now, and saw a good opportunity to establish a working relationship with a firm of advocates in Throal known to work with the noble houses; Gajorvi, Jukse & Hvordan. It seems they wanted a more organized group, so Caesar and I gathered a team of ourselves and a few newcomers. Well, mostly he did the gathering. He's much better at talking than I. Joining us were Kelek, and Elven Weaponsmith, Kalandar, an Elven Thief, and Teyo, a Windling Swordmaster.

We showed up and saw that with the competition (if you can call it that) we would handily win the contract. We were ushered in, to my surprise, to meet Mr. Vostut Jukse himself. One of his clients who I should probably not name, but I shall say they were well-connected, had an urgent request that we look into matters relating to a hamlet to the north of my hometown of Irondelve, a place called Pheasant Hollow. I've heard of the place; the local fowl make a tasty meal, and every so often a caravan goes out that way to stock the only store.

We were provided some documentation detailing the events we were to investigate relating to the disappearance of some of the villagers, and sent on our way to join a courier to be provided for the town's needs, as well as some horses to get us there quickly as the matter was urgent. We were the initial response, with a more powerful team of Adepts to follow behind us while we gathered information and prepared the way. Our courier was most exceptional in every way, and brought us expertly to our destination.

Upon arriving, we were directed to "The Store" which was the site of the latest disappearance. Daphne was the only one left of what had been three people living there; her son Gerald had been among the earliest to disappear, and her husband Harald was the most recent. She sent for others to join, including the Elder and a retired guardsman who had been leading the investigation thus far. Not much had been found; each of the missing had disappeared in the night, with nobody noticing anything. They had not taken their day clothes with them. Searches had been conducted, but nothing had been found.

Some patterns did emerge however; to my eye, the disappearances were coming more quickly. When we initially received word, only 4 had gone missing. By the time we arrived, there were 12. All had been in their homes, except for the first, a young Orc forager by the name of Angie, who was presumed to have been in the jungle and not returned. My working theory at this point was that Angie had stumbled across something awful (but which I hoped was not a Horror), died, and then the thing had come after the village.

Also, when I said that nobody had seen anything, what that actually meant was that the locals refused to acknowledge the one person who knew something, a young girl named Kristy. Everyone seemed reluctant to get too close to her, as if they thought her to be rather eerie. A couple of us thought she had the makings of an Adept, which was quite remarkable as she looked to be very young (later discussion revealed she was 4 years old).

Also, she had heard strange flute-like "voices" singing in the night, including the night her mother had disappeared off to the west without acknowledging her presence while wrapped in cloth and having strange markings over her covered eyes (this did absolutely nothing to relieve my worries that this might involve a Horror). No clues my ass. These people had simply ignored what they didn't want to hear. In any event, what with her saying she saw her grandmother's spirit nearby, the fact that everyone seemed unsettled by her, and a seeming ability to notice seemingly spirit-related events, I had my suspiscions she had the makings of a Nethermancer (which were later confirmed). Her father had obviously not been caring for her since her mother disappeared, and seemed drunk and abusive. His name can remain unheard forever, so far as I am concerned.

We arranged for the girl's safety (and got her some food) to stay with the courier we had arrived with, at least for a day or two (she couldn't commit to longer, as she might need to leave). I'm not certain if Caesar did something to smooth things over with the villagers or if they just didn't care so long as nobody expected *them* to take care of the child, but if nothing else came of this I was determined that the child was not going to be left here to be neglected or perhaps killed as a scapegoat for every missing pet (a common event when you're almost on the borders of the Servos) or minor misfortune, and frankly I wouldn't have minded if we had to burn some bridges (figuratively or for that matter literally if necessary) to ensure her safety and education.

Our next stop was out on the edges of the town towards the Servos. Tracking became much easier for me once we got away from the busier areas in the main village, and I quickly picked up a trail leading into the Servos (which we later found was a direction the locals had avoided searching for nearly a month, a piece of information which they really ought to have shared in my opinion; after all, if you have looked literally everywhere else, the remaining place is the obvious one to look).

This trail brought us to what appeared to be a war between the local monkeys and apes, the living against the undead, which further suggested we were going the right direction. The monkeys were not so hard to kill, but I could certainly do with never having rotting maggot-filled dung thrown at me ever again. We burned the corpses, cleaned ourselves off, got our second wind, and continued into the jungle until we found a cave which I could only wish had been more spacious. As if the jungle wasn't cramped enough, in a few places we had to squeeze through holes where the ceiling had collapsed (which was not very reassuring to say the least).

We quickly found Angie, who was dead and missing several organs in a spiked pit trap. In hindsight, the monkeys we had burned were also missing those organs. We decided we didn't have time to extract her safely and hoped she would not rise from the dead to kill us, then pressed on promising to properly put her to rest at a later date. Eventually we found a room filled with sand. Perfectly level, raked smooth sand. No dust, no footprints, no signs anyone had gone through. It was just on the other side of a tiny gap where what I hoped was a falling block trap triggered by something rather than an accidental collapse, so we crawled back through it and lobbed some stones on the sand; sure enough, the stones sank, and a horde of beetles the size of my head came crawling out looking for something to strip the flesh off of us (or so I suspect; we had come across a number of bones on our way in, all of them practically polished clean as if the flesh had been gnawed away).

Eventually a few undead wrapped in cloth came out. Some of them we recognized from a book the locals had put together with pictures, a timeline, names, and so forth. They sang a song in the astral which Teyo was able to learn, smoothed out the sand, and left. We made a note of where they walked, and sang the same song as we walked through. At this point I should mention that Caesar had earlier on looked into the Astral and it was quite unpleasant; dozens of slaves being marched into the cave, and a strong taste of blood magic did not bode well for them. I suspected this was a kaer which had been breached by a horror, and was frankly not looking forward to what we might encounter, but I wasn't about to retreat until I had done as much preparing for the second team as I possibly could. Still, this wasn't terribly good news for us, even though we had at least found some of the missing (sort of).

The area across the sand had statues, one of which had its heart clawed out by something highly unpleasant. And yes, I *did* just say the statue's heart had been clawed out, and no I don't particularly know why. Perhaps that was the source of a ward protecting this place. Perhaps the thing hated art. Perhaps it just liked desecrating whatever that statue represented. In any event, it wasn't my job, and it wasn't getting us any closer to our goal. Astral sensing suggested smaller statues to the side had "blood magic channels" leading off behind a wall, and as we had no better ideas I bled a little into one of the bowls they were holding.

That had an effect, so Caesar did the other one and the undead wrapped in cloth opened a wall and invited us in. Just what I always wanted: an invitation into a passions-accursed cave by the undead. Well, they didn't seem like they were trying to kill us, so we went in and I made a point of watching how they closed the wall up for later. There was some sort of knocking device as well, which Caesar was able to read about in the markings all over the room (which were apparently writing though I could make no sense of it; he said some parts were Theran, and I guess he could read some of those).

He went on for a long time, but the short version of all the writings he was able to read here and later: some rich jerk favoured by a "Creanon" monkey passion was buried here, making it a tomb rather than a kaer. Apparently it was standard procedure for rich jerks to murder all their slaves by removing their organs while they're alive, sometimes drugged, and turning them into undead slaves in the process to serve them for eternity in the afterlife and fill their tombs with beautiful artistic works representing all their rich jerk possessions so that they could have parties even while they were dead or something. The important thing is that it gave us somewhat of a layout of the tomb, which gets us closer to our goal.

So apparently whatever thing was ripping out statue hearts (in the astral as well, apparently, not that I had any way of knowing) had a beef with this rich jerk I guess? Frankly, I don't really care what happened to the damned slaver and murderer anyways, but seeing as how this still suggested the place we were in had been breached by a Horror it still counted as bad news. Bad news with a silver lining, to be sure (as Teyo remarked, "It couldn't have happened to a better person"). Still no sign of that horror just yet, and we hadn't found the missing people (other than the two that we saw had been turned into undead).

We went into the next room, which had more writing and a large worm-shaped hole with jagged stone teeth ringing it the whole way down, a good 60 feet after we dropped a torch in. Again, my "this looks like a Horror's work" sense was tingling. Teyo flew down and reported that we were going to need my rope for the last 20 feet as there was nothing more than flimsy vines to climb, the hole dropped out of the ceiling. I really didn't want to climb those teeth, but shockingly it wasn't some Horror's gullet and we didn't all die. This was apparently where the rich jerk and his family had been buried, and also where their burial sites had been desecrated. Don't care. Next!

We pushed onward and found Kristy's mother as well as another missing person, also undead, working on the walls in this unfinished part of the tomb. Still no sign of hostility (they even bowed to us, and at least it seemed they were not created by a Horror), so we pushed into a network of caves filled with dead ends (as I recall, these were supposed to be places for more people to be buried later, but apparently the entire family had died at once, meaning that there would be a shortage of rich jerks to murder their slaves. Boo-hoo, I'm soooooo sad for them. What a shame that they couldn't stick around to make the world a worse place).

Eventually we found the place where slaves were murdered and turned into eternal undead slaves. Some monkey was cutting up living people (including some of the ones we were looking for, not all of whom had been murdered yet) and sticking monkey brains in their heads, apparently, to bind them into servitude. Makes no sense to me, but that's just fine. A stone through an undead monkey surgeon's head apparently has about the same effect as putting it through the head of most anything else. Caesar said some jars nearby held the spirits of the poor souls who had been enslaved by the whims of some ancient dead jackass so he could have a prettier hole in the ground for his rotting carcass, so we brought those out with us. More importantly, we also freed the unlucky few who had to watch others be slowly transformed into undead slaves before their eyes, knowing their turn was coming. We also brought out the undead slaves' bodies (that was tricky, they didn't want to go and we had to tie them up and drag them out, an experience I could've done without).

When the second team showed up, it was our good fortune that they had a Nethermancer with them. He was able to figure out a way to give the poor souls who had been trapped a final rest (except one who chose to be made into a thread item. Different strokes, I guess. I'd hate to be stuck in a bow, no matter how nice it is, and not be able to move about freely). The Nethermancer, Gupta, also agreed to take on Kristy as an apprentice, so that's sorted. Doubt any of the townsfolk will give him any trouble, even her drunken useless father.

Also, apparently we had made the arr-key-oh-law-ji-cuhl find of the century or something. I think the scholars mean it's important history stuff. They went on and on about how the rich jerk was famous and helped design kaer defenses. I say he's still a rich jerk who enslaved and murdered others for his own gain, which makes him no better than a criminal in my eyes. Should've took the opportunity to relieve myself in his tomb while I had the chance.

Anyways, I practiced my tracking skills some more hunting down the remaining undead monkeys (or most of them, anyways... the jungle will claim any that we missed, since we destroyed their ability to make more). I hate unfinished business.

Apparently there's some big thing with a Horror that hates the monkey passion and attacks dead people from the place the monkey passion comes from out of spite? I'm not too clear on it, I was mostly there to finish my job. The people had been rescued, the undead had been dealt with, all the rest of that stuff is just extra distractions I don't need keeping me from my goals.

(note to Drew: I, the player, enjoyed the background information. Garak is an Ork Archer going the shortest distance between two points and is in a hurry to accomplish all the things he wants in his life, and as such he payed less attention to the parts that weren't directly related to finding the missing people than I did. Which means that I got a bunch of backstory, and he got "okay, there should be a hidden door there and at the end of that room a concealed hole leading down to more stuff", for example).

marcrobitschek
Posts:18
Joined:Tue Oct 05, 2021 12:44 am

Re: AAR 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed [Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT]

Post by marcrobitschek » Mon Oct 25, 2021 1:44 am

AAR: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed
GM: Redwraith
ECR: 2 M
Difficulty: Medium

Player Rewards:
Kalendar
800 lp
157 sp
Alt Rewards: Alt rewards of half price discipline training, small light crystals and light lanterns


From the journal of Kalendar
A dwarven lawyer by the name of Vostut; some ancient geezer at the firm of Gajorvi, Jukse & Hvordan. He did our interview. We were asked to look into a disappearance of one Ger Gerald for a dwarf lawyer representing Lord and Lady Brathensmer. We received letters of introduction and letters about the missing man. Plus the investigation of the currier.

We did not have any problems getting there the lady who guided us was very through.

When we reached Pheasant hill there were other people missing a total including Ger 12 people varying from a elf to a orc scout. None were adepts. During the interviews with the town folk we saw that one man and his daughter were separated. The man had his wife stolen and was drinking his sorrows away. He tried his his daughter we were finally got the child away and talked to her.

Her name was Kristy who we found out was talented as a NETHERMANCER. She had the clue that helped with the case. She had heard during the night her mom went missing. Kristy was awoken that night by a melody voice and wind chimes. When she went to her parents room her mother acted strange and did not react to her calls. She left the house going west toward the jungel;. Side note the villages had looked every where but the jungle. They had checked the outskirts but never going in.

We decided to go to the last house and look for tracks we did get luck and follow the tracks into the jungle. As we were following the tracks we hear what sounds like monkeys attacking something as we come to the area. It was undead monkeys and regular monkey's fighting. We attack the undead one. We were able to fend them off but were hurt. I received a grave wound and was not really useful after that. After resting for as while we continue we thought about returning and coming back, but decided to continue.

After finding a care that been opened we went in quietly we learned very quickly about the use of light source. Even steathing need a light source or a way to see in the dark. Low light does not cut it. We found a pit trap and one of the missing people was at the bottom. After going through tunnels we found two mummies that were one town person and Ger. They did not attack us but bowed and continue working on the wall.

Before getting there we had to climb into what looked like a horror maggot body. We finally got to a area with 2 statues and a huge statue with a dogs head, before that there was a area filled with bugs when we the a stone they attacked but by going on the edges we were safe.
Our archer taught us a neat trick to get them to open the door by messing with the area they opened the door and let us in.
There were three rooms nothing really interested me but the magic using were very interested ion the ape magic. He talked about souls and balancing but not my cup of ale. I was interested in finding valuable like they said was burred in the toumb's but we never found it.

We did finally find some of the living villagers, but one died while we were fighting to save them. At the end we were victorious. The more advance team came in and were able to clean out the care.

The gentle man Ger is right now in a item hoping to reunite with his loving wife. Kristy was taken to become a apprentice with the high cirle NETHERMANCER.

ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm

Re: AAR 2M: A Lady in Need May Pay Indeed [Saturday Oct 23, 2021 at 2200 GDT / 6:00 PM EDT / 5:00 PM CDT / 3:00 PM PDT]

Post by ChrisDDickey » Thu Oct 28, 2021 5:26 pm

From the writings of Caesar Bonaparte, Human Illusionist. 

Word was going around the Grand Bazaar that the firm of Gajorvi, Jukse & Hvordan needed some low level adepts quickly, and that they would hire the best team available at 9am sharp the next day. The word was that they wanted an established team, so when I heard that Garak, an Archer I had aventured with before was also interested in the job, we found three first circle adventurers to fill out the team, met up with them to learn their names and what they did, and presented ourselves at the firm as an established team. In addition to Garak and myself we had Kalandar the Elven Thief, Kelik the Elven Weaponsmith, and Teyo the windling swordmaster.  We met with an elderly dwarf by the name of Vostut, who hired us and briefed us. Less than an hour later we were on loaned horses and riding away.

The story, in short, was that some people were going missing from a village named Pheasants Hollow some few miles NorthWest of Irondelve (3812). One of the missing persons happened to be the brother of a  young woman who had married very well into a fabulously rich trading house. The young lady's parents had written to her to send help for her brother. The trading houses' normal trouble-shooters were all out of town on other assignments, so the rich in-laws sent us as an advance party to see what could be done to keep the situation under control until the more advanced team could catch up with us. We were expertly guilded upon our hurried way by a Courier in the employ of the trading house, Alyssa Tomlinsoon of House Mikul, a beautiful and fascinating young woman. 

Upon our arrival in Pheasants Hollow, we were welcomed by what seems like the whole of the village, who were desperate for our help. When the letter that brought us here had been written some 2 weeks ago only 4 persons had gone missing. By now there were 12, and included not only the brother of the young woman who had caused us to be dispatched here, but her father as well, taken just two nights prior. We investigated and found that they had all seemingly disappeared during the dead of night, only their nightclothes were missing, none had gotten dressed or taken their shoes or even slippers. Even normally light sleeping spouses did not notice them getting up and leaving, it was as if they noiselessly and tracelessly melted away. 

We did eventually find one witness, a young 4 year old girl said that she had woken up the night her mother went missing, she heard pretty music, a tinkling and rattling, and a voice like a flute. Her mother got up as if sleepwalking and walked to the West, toward the Jungle. Kristy sang the tune she had heard for us, and it was so eerie it caused the hair to stand up on our necks. The girl was considered strange in the village (it was obvious to us that even a 4 years old, she was one of the strongest Netehrmancy Aspirant any of us had ever seen or even heard of) and her father was not treating her well. Before we left we arranged for her to apprentice with a Nethermancer back in Throal. 

We visited the hut of the 2nd to last people taken, a mother daughter team of herbalists, and managed to find some relatively fresh tracks, which we followed West, into the Jungle. There we saw some monkeys and apes battling some mummified monkeys and apes. Some of the mummies attacked us, and we slew them. We found that in addition to being covered in bandages, the undead had all had their tongues, stomachs, lungs, livers, intestines, and brains removed.  We followed the tracks of one of the wounded mummies back to a dark and ominous cave. 

Exploring the cave we found the remains of one of the missing villagers in a pit trap. Continuing to follow the apparently natural windings of the cave, we reached some areas of worked stone that eventually we learned were part of an enormous tomb complex. We spotted some mummies that matched the descriptions of some of the villagers that had been missing the longest and eventually figured out how to enter the inner part of the tomb. There were many hieroglyphics in various parts of the tomb, They were apparently a writing called Creana from some other province of the Therian empire. I was able to work out some of the meaning using my knowledge of reading Therian. I am including an addendum that holds a sampling of the pictograms and my best guess of what was written there, but the short answer was that this was the tomb of some magical bigwig from the province of Creana, and that he had this tomb prepared for himself. 

We continued deep into the bowels of the tomb and eventually came upon a place where a mad mummy was making more mummies of the captured villagers and captured apes and monkeys. We fought the mummy and some animate disembodied organs, which was disturbing. But in general fighting just a lung is easier than fighting a whole person so we made quick work of things. We found some jars that seemed to be holding the souls of the persons that were turned into mummies  and were able to establish communication with them. Returning them to life was not an option, one chose to become a spirit powering a magic item, the others asked to be destroyed. 

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