SESSION 25B: BLOOD ON THE ORRERY

June 21st, 2008
The 12th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

THE SURGEON STRIKES BACK

They left the clan caves and returned to the Laboratory of the Beast. As they passed the large sigil of Ghul on the first level of the complex, however, they heard voices coming from the antechamber. Motioning for the others to stay back, Tee stealthed her way forward.

The door to the temple of obsidian was open.

Tee waved for Ranthir and the ghulworg to come forward. They tried to keep their approach quiet, but between the awkward wizard and the massive creature of bone-and-adamantine it wasn’t clear which was less discreet. After a particularly loud noise, the voices coming from the temple suddenly stopped.

Tee signaled them to stop and then moved quickly to her left and hid behind one of the large statues of Ghul.

She was just in time. A moment later, a strangely horrific creature emerged from the short hall leading to the temple. The lower portion of its body had been replaced with an artificial creation of steel and flesh resembling a giant spider. An ogre’s upper torso jutted up from this spider-like body in front of a large, bulbous abdomen. The ogre’s arms had been replaced with two large, blood-encrusted blades. Its entire torso was covered in a thick shell of adamantine.

The spider-ogre glanced around the antechamber and then began slowly circling the perimeter. Tee quickly began climbing up the statue she was hiding behind, hoping to avoid the perimeter search.

This worked, and the spider-ogre passed her by. But there was little chance that it would miss Ranthir and the ghulworg standing in plain sight down the next hallway. Tee wracked her mind, but she couldn’t think of anything to do.

It didn’t matter. As the spider-ogre reached the hall, Ranthir sent the ghulworg on a charge. With a single, bone-crushing snap of its jaws, the ghulworg bit the spider-ogre’s head off.

It had happened so quickly that the spider-ogre had not even a moment to respond. Not so much as a gurgle had escaped its throat. They all froze in a moment of silence, waiting to see what would happen.

And then a voice came from the temple: “Is everything… all… right?”

It was the distinctive, buzzing drone of Ribok – the servant of the Surgeon in the Shadows.

Tee tried to bluff her way through it, assuming a deep voice and calling back: “Everything’s fine.”

There was a moment’s pause. And then Ribok spoke again: “Mistress Tithenmamiwen?”

Tee cursed under her breath. Ranthir waved his hand and webbed the hallway leading to the temple.

“Yes, Ribok. It’s me,” Tee said.

“And my… ogre?”

“Dead.”

“I see…” There was another pause. “Perhaps an… accord… could be reached?”

In other circumstances, Tee might have considered that. But there was a terrible suspicion growing in her mind. “What happened to the workers from House Erthuo?”

A long pause came here.

“They will no longer trouble… anyone… in this world.”

“Neither will you.”

They used the ghulworg to form the center of a “wall of death”, with Tor and Agnarr slowly burning their way forward through the web.

As they approached the temple doors, however, sudden waves of fire from the modified Shuul dragon rifles they had left in the temple suddenly washed over them. This burned away the last of the web, but also scorched them badly… and filled them with the dread certainty that the powerful chaositech they had left in the temple would soon be turned against them.

A brief melee broke out around the doorway. There were two rifle-wielding thugs there – their muscles bulging out to an unnatural size and in unnatural locations. Jagged shards of bone jutted out of at their elbows and knees and shoulders. The bones of their hands, too, stuck out in scythe-like protrusions which they used to slice viciously at any bit of exposed flesh. A half dozen more of these thugs stood further back in the chamber, and Ribok himself stood atop the highest terrace in the room.

Tor finally cut down one of the thugs. The other two fell back, joining the rest of the thugs as they suddenly broke for the sides of the chamber.

Agnarr grinned. If they were going to hold back like that, then they could just send the ghulworg in and—

Suddenly chaositech arrows shot out from the sides of the chamber, turned sharply in mid-air, and rushed towards Tor and Agnarr.

“That’s what those do?!” Tee cried in outrage. “I should have kept them!”

“They were tainted,” Dominic pointed out.

“I don’t care!” Tee said.

As Tee’s joking suggested, they were still feeling pretty confident. But things took a rapid turn for the worse: Ribok thrust the glass sphere filled with black liquid above his head and shattered it. The thick, viscous liquid poured down over his body, forming itself into the thick, black hide of a hideous demon. The metal of his implanted eyes melted away, revealing empty sockets filled with flame.

“The Galchutt have seen all that you intend!” he cried, his voice transformed into a bass thunder. And lowering his out-stretched hand, he began launching soul-rending arcane energies lancing down the hall.

In the confusion of the moment, the party’s battle formation foundered into something of a muddle. No one seemed certain whether they should be pushing their attack as planned or retreating to regroup under the unexpected conditions, and so they waffled in the middle as arrows continued arcing unnaturally around the corner and the demonic blasts of the Ribok demon burst in their midst.

Agnarr was the first to fall, dodging a volley of arrows but getting caught by a blast of dragon rifle fire in the narrow hall.

Even as Agnarr fell, however, Tor was able to cut down the second rifle-wielder and advanced into the temple itself.

But just as it seemed like he might be able to rally them, Ranthir was caught by one of Ribok’s blasts. And as Ranthir slid to the floor…

The ghulworg skeleton went feral.

Tee cursed loudly. Tor, realizing the danger and hoping to control the battlefield, turned and slammed the doors of the temple shut behind himself.

Seeing the massive doors cut off their sight of Tor was disconcerting for the others, but they had little time to worry about it. The ghulworg was creating complete chaos. The bony bulb of its tail had smashed Dominic to the floor, crushing his ribs and knocking him unconscious, before the priest even realized what as happening.

Tee, with little choice, drew her longsword and attacked… but the adamantine-laced bones of the creature turned the blade easily. Before she could try again, the creature’s claws lashed out and raked from from sternum to hip. Tee collapsed in a froth of blood.

But Tee’s attack had been worth it, buying Elestra enough time to dive for Ranthir. Laying her hand on his unconscious form, she let the strength of the city flow into him.

Ranthir opened his eyes, muttered an arcane syllable… and the ghulworg was once again under his control.

The wizard stood up. “I’ve had enough,” he said with a grim determination. With a wave of his hand, he sent the ghulworg charging down the hall. It smashed into the doors.

On the other side of the doors, Tor – who had been fighting an entirely defensive battle with his back pressed up against the door and blockng as many blows as he could with his shield – was uncertain what to think. But then Elestra cried out, “Tor! Open the doors!”

Tor swung the doors wide and the ghulworg bounded into the temple.

The Ribok demon fell back, but the ghulworg’s tail lashed out and smashed into him. The demonflesh encasing Ribok seemed to deform, and the horrendous sounds from cracking of bone and ripping of sinew echoed against the obsidian walls. With a horrible, unintelligible curse, Ribok vanished in a flash of light.

The remaining thugs fell upon the ghulworg and finally succeeded in hacking his splintering and broken bones apart.

But the ghulworg had bought the rest of them enough time to get Agnarr back on his feet. He rushed down the hall to Tor’s aid, and – without Ribok’s demonic assistance – the bone-sharded thugs proved no match for them.

They were shown no mercy.

BLOODY ON THE ORRERY

As Dominic and Elestra began healing their remaining wounds (and Ranthir mourned the loss of the powerful ghulworg), Tee grabbed Agnarr and ran back down the hall to check on the workers from House Erthuo.

The scene they found was gruesome: Bodies were scattered throughout the first two chambers of the bloodwight complex, many in various states of dismemberment. Faeliel’s body was spread-eagled across the orrery itself, dripping blood down upon the silver spheres.

Ranthir, coming upon the scene, eased Faeliel’s body to the ground. With tears welling in his eyes, he turned back to the others with a crack in his voice. “He wouldn’t have wanted the mechanisms damaged… is there anything we can do?”

He wasn’t asking about the orrery. But the stench of decay was thick in the air and he knew the answer before Dominic said: No. They had been dead for too long.

The death of these innocents struck the companions hard. They had been the ones to give House Erthuo the location of the orrery. They had been the ones followed by the Surgeon’s men. And they had only been a few hundred feet away as they were helplessly butchered. They knew they didn’t truly bear responsibility for this atrocity, but it nonetheless sat heavy on their souls.

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Player-Initiated Vectors – Campaign Journal: Session 26A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

I’m launching my new Youtube channel today. The first video is Advanced Gamemastery: Mysteries in RPGs, looking at the Three Clue Rule.

The original Three Clue Rule essay was written in 2008. Revisiting the material today in this new format was interesting, allowing me a chance to incorporate some new thinking on the topic and also clarify some of my older ideas.

Going forward, the plan for the Youtube channel is to do more video essays while also beginning to explore unique content that’s only possible in a video format (including a project known as Short Shots™). The Alexandrian you know and love isn’t going anywhere, either: While videos will allow me to reach out to a new audience and do new things, there are still lots of big ideas and tools that are best suited for the essays we all know and love here on the site.

If all goes according to plan, I’ll have a new video for you next week about the Goblin Ampersand. If you want to know what that’s all about, make sure to subscribe!

… okay, I know it’s a cliche, but in all seriousness: Particularly for a brand new channel, it would make a HUGE difference if you take the time to like, comment, and subscribe. That engagement will help push the video out to a wider audience.

Good gaming! And I’ll see you at the table!

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Four factions. Two cabals. One 600-pound head.

In 2003, the universe got rewritten and the Comte de Saint-Germain — arguably the most important human to ever exist, the Once and Future Eschaton of the Invisible Clergy — got his brain scrambled. Now the race is on to retrieve the huge stone religious bust in which some of his memories are locked up.

That head was dug up and stuck in a museum in Québec, but now there are at least two different groups looking to steal it, another looking to steal it from whoever steals it first, and a fourth that would rather the head stay right where it is.

Can the players steal it? Defend it? Steal it back again? It’s all up to them.

Bring Me the Head of the Comte de Saint-Germain is a three-part mini-campaign for Unknown Armies by Greg Stolze. It reveals (and revels in) some of the deepest secrets of the setting and has several really cool features:

• It’s designed to be either seamlessly slipped into an ongoing campaign or picked up and run with zero prep using the deliciously well-developed pregenerated characters.
• The players actually swap roles between the protagonists and antagonists.
• There’s a really fantastic, full-featured heist scenario that kicks everything off.
• Multiple, flexible finales give the GM support no matter which way the players torque the adventure.

As the producer, I basically had nothing to do with any of this. It was a pleasure to just step back and let Stolze work his magic, while I focused on facilitating the presentation and design of the final book to maximize its utility and present Stolze’s work in the best light possible.

But if you take a peek at the credits page, you will notice that I do have an “Additional Writing” credit. This is for one very specific addition to the text, and like the extra in a Broadway play who walks through the background of a rainy scene and tells his parents the show is about a man with an umbrella, that’s what I’m going to be talking about today.

ON EXHIBIT

As I mentioned above, the opening hook and adventure for Bring Me the Head is a heist. Specifically, the PCs are stealing a huge stone head from Le Museé de la Civilisation Américaine in Québec. This was fully developed by Stolze:

• Blueprints (including a diagram of security cameras)
• Fully detailed security measures
• Detailed breakdown of entrances, locations, etc.
• Guidelines for handling likely methods of moving a 600-pound stone head

And so forth.

This is where my one addition comes in: I wrote up exhibit lists for each of the exhibit halls in the museum.

For example, here’s the one from the Autochtones des Plaines (First Peoples of Canada) exhibit:

• A stuffed bison
• Rifles used by Ojibwe and Dakota hunters
• TV playing videos of Ojibwe, Dakota, and Cree people, both contemporary scholars and interviews from the early 20^th century
• A child’s jacket with embroidered Dakota floral patterns
• Beaded bandolier bags
• Nooshkaachi-naagan (Ojibwe winnowing tray) for separating grain from chaff
• A turtle-style cekpa ozuha (umbilical cord pouch) which served as a child’s first toy and a lifetime charm against death

I even ended up doing one for the souvenir shop (with some tie-ins to the various exhibit lists):

• Tiny replicas of Augusta Savage’s busts
• Plastic Mixtec jewelry
• A poster facsimile of the Canadian constitution
• Commemorative coffee cups
• Stuffed bison and caribou toys
• T-shirt that reads “Je suis venu au Québec et je n’ai reçu que ce t-shirt français”

Unknown Armies uses a sidebar reference system, so these lists are positioned in the sidebars where they won’t clutter up the primary text, but are readily available to the GM while running the scenario.

I felt having these lists in the book was important because, based on playtests, it seemed that these specific details were:

1. Difficult for GMs to improvise on the spot (often resulting in generic responses like “there’s a lot of modern art in this gallery” instead of specific details); and
2. High-value in terms of improving play.

First, the specific details tended to make the museum feel more “real” to the players. It also provided some meaningful color to flesh out onsite surveillance ops and some well-defined, “Oh shit! The exhibits!” moments if/when fighting broke out during the heist.

Second, this kind of specificity can serve as a launchpad for player improvisation. I don’t know exactly what the players might cook up with the hodge-podge of stuff in the souvenir shop, for example, but it will be interesting find out.

Third, expensive items can provide temptation to PCs who might want to snag something extra during the heist. This actually pivots off a suggestion that Stolze had already made in the adventure:

How honest are your PCs? If the answer is “not very,” they might take the opportunity to steal secondary stuff, either to distract from the stone head, or to resell, or just because it seems nice. Anything of great value escalates the pursuit considerably. Stat up a private detective with no occult knowledge but lots of resources to dog the PCs’ tail.

(The text is in bold there because guidance for the private detective is also given as a sidebar reference.)

Having specific potential targets in the various exhibits makes it more likely that one of them will catch the eye of a PC (or otherwise become featured in their plans).

Ultimately, this adheres to the Principles of Smart Prep: Identifying high-value material that’s difficult or impossible to duplicate through improvisation.

And that’s basically it. It’s a small detail, but particularly when multiplied across the hundreds or thousands of GMs who will run these adventures, I think it can make a big difference.

PDF – Print

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 25A: The Second End of Ghul’s Labyrinth

They stepped forward into Elestra’s sanctuary. The wall closed behind them, transforming itself into a fireplace with a crackling fire already lit. Directly above the fire, a mirror was hung.

“What is this place?” Tee asked.

“A secret,” Elestra said, looking around with a sense of vague familiarity overwhelming her. “I think I’ll be able to open a doorway to this place no matter where we might be. We should be safe here. No one can see the entrance from the outside.”

Elestra is an urban druid.

The seed of this custom class came from an article in Dragon Magazine #317, but although the original packet of photocopied pages are still nestled away in the player’s folder, we’ve made any number of alterations to it over the years.

The original impetus was that Elestra’s player was interested in playing a druid, but it didn’t seem like a good fit for an all-urban campaign. She proposed playing the urban equivalent of a druid instead and I was able to pull the Dragon Magazine article from my archives.

Which, I suppose, is the first lesson when you’re looking to customize the game: See if somebody else has already done the work for you.

Actually, as we’ve continued customizing the class — modifying it to reflect both her vision and my vision of what an “urban druid” should be — most of what we’ve done is basically the same thing, with the only twist being that I’m frequently re-skinning material to achieve the desired effect.

“Re-skinning” something in an RPG system just means that you’re taking a mechanical element designed to model one thing in the game world and instead using it to model something else. For example, in this session you can see an example of how we’ve re-skinned a rope trick spell with a flavor conducive to the urban druid (i.e., opening the walls of a city and literally crawling inside them).

I’m a big fan of re-skinning. In fact, the very first RPG article I ever published was about re-skinning magical spells. (It appeared in an electronic fanzine distributed through the old Prodigy online service.)

Until recently I had a vague memory that I’d been introduced to the concept via an entire article discussing it in Dragon #162 (which was my first issue of the magazine). But upon going back to verify that, I discovered it was actually just one sentence in an article about roleplaying intelligent undead by Nigel D. Findley:

Finally, a lich fascinated with the aesthetics and nuances of magic, rather than its eventual outcome, might have eccentric versions of familiar spells: magic missiles that look like multicolored sparks, or fireballs that explode accompanied by a musical tone, for example.

I think I may have been conflating memories of the fanzine article that I wrote with Findley’s off-hand suggestion, but this is still a great re-skinning technique. And I’ll actually employ it on-the-fly when running NPCs: I’ll see that they have some vanilla spell in their spell list, but then describe it with radically different special effects in actual play. (In some cases, the players have then made a point of seeking out the enemy spellcaster’s spellbook so that they can learn the intriguing variant.)

The versatility of re-skinning becomes even more apparent when you realize you can also make small changes while re-skinning: Grab a goblin stat block and give it +2 armor to model a humanoid ant. Or a fly speed and stinger attack to model a humanoid bee.

At a certain point while doing this sort of work, you’ll probably realize that the difference between re-skinning and homebrewing something from scratch is much more of a spectrum than it is a sharp distinction: Using existing elements of a system as a touchstone for how the new thing you’re designing should work is more of a necessity than an option. The nice thing about straight-up reskinning is that it essentially lets you homebrew in the middle of a session without missing a beat.

As a final note, for some reason when I talk about re-skinning mechanics, some people become confused and think that this somehow means that the mechanic is dissociated. The argument seems to be that if a mechanic can model two different things in the game world, it must mean that it’s not associated with either of them. But this is not true: Just because we resolve an attack with a sword and an attack with a mace using the same rules for attack rolls, it doesn’t follow that your character doesn’t understand what a sword or a mace is.

I mention this mostly because I think the sword/mace distinction can be useful for grokking re-skinning: There are some RPGs in which there may be some slight mechanical distinction between a sword and a mace, but even the most detailed RPG is still an incredibly abstract model of the “reality” of the game world. One should not be surprised to discover, for example, that a tree, a crumbling wall, and a cliff face might all be described as a DC 15 Athletics check to climb.

PUTTING THE MYSTERY IN THE MAGIC

The other thing you might note here is that I use the re-skinning of Elestra’s rope trick to further deepen the meta-mystery scenario of the PCs’ amnesia: Her spell creates a place that they both remember and do not remember.

This technique is consistent with Putting the “Magic” in Magic Items, in which I wrote:

All of this advice can really be boiled down to a simple maxim: Life is in the details.

The difference between a cold, lifeless stat block and a memorable myth is all about the living details that you imbue your game world with.

If you let something like a rope trick spell exist in your campaign as a purely mechanical construct, then it will generally have only the blandest of utilitarian function. But when a spell truly lives in your campaign world, it can become an expression of personality, a clue to a deeper mystery, possess any multitude of meanings, and form any number of vivid memories.

And re-skinning can help unlock all of that potential.

NEXT:
Campaign Journal: Session 25B – Running the Campaign: Player-Initiated Vectors
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 25A: THE SECOND END OF GHUL’S LABYRINTH

June 21st, 2008
The 12th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They stepped forward into Elestra’s sanctuary. The wall closed behind them, transforming itself into a fireplace with a crackling fire already lit. Directly above the fire, a mirror was hung.

“What is this place?” Tee asked.

“A secret,” Elestra said, looking around with a sense of vague familiarity overwhelming her. “I think I’ll be able to open a doorway to this place no matter where we might be. We should be safe here. No one can see the entrance from the outside.”

Ranthir, too, was struck by the familiarity of the place. Following some instinct he turned suddenly towards the mirror above the fire. Touching it, he was surprised to see the mirror’s surface suddenly frost over. When it cleared a moment later, it was a transparent window looking out into the hallway they had just left. They could see the ghulworg skeleton crouched there, waiting patiently for their return.

“What did you do?” Dominic asked, looking slightly alarmed.

“I don’t know…” Ranthir said contemplatively. “It just seemed like the right thing to do…”

“Well, at least this way we don’t have to worry about getting ambushed when we decide to leave,” Agnarr said.

Dominic started poking at random things around the room. “If it worked for Ranthir it might work for me…”

Tee smiled and took over where Dominic left off, giving the room a quick and cursory search without turning up anything of particular interest.

Tor, meanwhile, had counted the beds. There were just enough. “Well, at least I won’t have to bunk with Agnarr again.”

EXPLORING EVERY CORNER

(09/13/790)

The next morning they returned to the stairs and headed down to the second level. There was still one small section of the complex that they had not yet explored: The hallway beyond the torture chamber from which the undead horror with long, blood-sucking claws had come.

There they found a long hall containing a table of black stone and massive, yet elegant, high-backed chairs. There was also a large aubrey of preserved oak containing a large number of silver goblets and three bottles of ancient orcish bloodwine – all perfectly preserved by one of the many preservation spells which had been laid on these halls.

Unfortunately, these preservation spells had turned the next chamber – an office of some sort – into a rather gruesome scene: The large desk on the far side of the room had been smashed into two pieces, which lay upon a once-luxurious carpet which had been horribly stained and soiled… and so laden with blood that it squished beneath their feet.

Fresh blood made them nervous, so Agnarr was nominated to check it out. He found the desk to be nothing but splintered wood, but has he backed away cautiously he suddenly gasped in pain as a sharp blade lacerated his ribs from behind.

A black centurion had silently entered through the far door and taken them all by surprise as it lunged out of the flickering shadows cast by the flames of Agnarr’s sword. There was a moment of fear at the sight of such a deadly opponent… but then they realized that they were still being followed diligently by the ghulworg.

Agnarr backed away from the centurion, carefully parrying its blows. And then the ghulworg leapt in, smashing it to bits in mere moments.

Pushing through the door the centurion had come from, they discovered a small complex essentially identical to the one in which they had fought the other centurions. In fact, several more centurions were already in the process of activating. But their numbers made little difference: The ghulworg made short work of them.

In fact, the group showed such little concern over the matter that Tee was already searching the blood-soaked office before the last centurion fell. In the floor, under the oozing carpet, she found a hidden safe.

A safe meant there might be something particularly valuable. So, with a fair degree of excitement, Tee quickly broke the combination and spun the door of the safe open.

She was somewhat disappointed to discover that the safe was almost entirely empty. The only thing it contained, in fact, was a heavy roll of parchment. Unrolling it she discovered a text of thick, reddish-black Orcish characters. Despite being written in Orcish, the entire document appeared to be elegantly scribed. Near the bottom of the page an immense black seal had been set and impressed in the wax was a familiar skull-shaped sigil. A piece of black-and-gold ribbon had also been attached to the wax.

Tee handed the scroll to Ranthir, who quickly deciphered it using a quick bit of legerdemain:

By the divine hand of Ghul – Skull King, Banelord’s Heir, Sorcerer’s Get, and Blue Lord of the Arathian Stock – Ulthorek tal Yattaren is thus set down as the Chieftain of the Laboratory of the Beast. Within such domain, he shall rule by the Hand of Ghul.

Ghul the Skull King

“Interesting,” Elestra said. “Is it worth anything?”

“If that’s actually Ghul’s signature and seal, it might be worth quite a lot, actually,” Tee said… although she was doubtful that Ranthir would be willing to part with it. (In fact, he had already slipped it into one of his many pouches.)

They were now confident that they had mapped out every corner of the complex (with the exception of whatever might be inaccessible behind the various bluesteel doors they had discovered), which meant that there were only a few loose ends left for them to investigate.

They started with the vault they had unsuccessfully attempted to break into before. The four iron rods, each topped by a ball of brass, still stood in the corners of the room – menacing only because of their vivid memory of the electrical bolts which Agnarr had triggered twice before.

While the others kept to a safe distance, Tee tried to access the vault door using the magical properties of her new ring… but this failed spectacularly, and she only narrowly managed to dodge the worst of the electrical bolts she triggered in the attempt.

With a shrug, Tee got to her feet and left the room. A few moments later, the ghulworg had smashed down the vault doors (although many of its bones were visibly blackened from the electrical storm it suffered in the process).

They were very disappointed, however, to discover that their painful efforts had been in vain. The walls of the iron-shod vault were lined with numerous shelves both large and small, covered with small, carefully-crafted niches which were each clearly designed to hold some unique item. But all of the niches were now empty.

BACK TO THE CLAN CAVES

Which left only the seemingly bottomless pit at the center of the massive, silvery-grey pool.

Using her boots of levitation, Tee “walked” her way across the ceiling above the pool and then dropped down to the walkway circling the pit. Behind her she could hear Elestra trying to convince the others that they should start prying out the glowgems on the ceiling, She shook her head in exasperation and made her way around the edge of the pit, carefully keeping her distance from the familiar brass-tipped rods of iron positioned around the walkway.

Halfway around the perimeter she noticed that a line of pitons had been driven ladder-like into the wall of the pit. Even with her keen elven vision, Tee couldn’t see how far down they might go.

She called out to the others, telling them what she had seen. They decided to see where the pitons might lead. Elestra transformed into a hawk and flew the boots of levitation back and forth, allowing the others to safely cross the pool one at a time.

They climbed down the pitons. After more than a hundred feet, they ended at a narrow fissure that cracked the otherwise smooth sides of the pit.

There was still no bottom in sight below them. Tee, who had taken back her boots of levitation, used them to descend another 500 feet and still couldn’t see any end to the sheer shaft.

She returned to the others and they decided to pursue the path of the pitons. Squeezing through the fissure they worked their way through a series of tight caves that gradually widened as they delved deeper. For awhile they were able to walk in a rather cramped fashion, but then the caves narrowed again and they found themselves crawling for a long while.

At last, they crawled their way out into a larger passage that – as they stood up, brushed themselves off, and stretched – looked rather familiar. Turning to the right, they quickly confirmed their suspicions as they entered a cave with a familiar message written in Goblin upon the wall: “These caves belong to the Clan of the Torn Ear.”

They were surprised, however, to find that the holy symbols of Vehthyl and Itor had been written on the wall directly beneath the familiar greeting.

They were still discussing what this might mean when a goblin entered the cave. They didn’t recognize her, but she certainly recognized them. She told them that she had just come from the fungal farms, but she would be more than happy to take them to Crashekka and Itarek.

Passing through the siege gate, they entered the Great Hall of the clan. Crashekka sat in her place of honor at the far end of the hall, and Itarek stood beside her. They greeted the heroes with wide, toothy grins.

“Welcome, heroes of the world above!” Crashekka said. And then Itarek strode forward and shook their hands, a custom that they had inadvertently taught to him.

Tee carefully asked them about the holy symbols they had seen, not certain of what their reaction might be. But Itarek seemed more than happy to explain. “Our tribe has been touched by the gods of the holy man,” he said, gesturing towards to Dominic (who fidgeted nervously). “I was the first to receive their visions, but many have dreamed their words. And there are greater wonders, too.”

He took them to the maiden’s chambers where Dominic had saved the lives of the tribe’s woman. There he showed them newborn goblins, each bearing a sigil of one of the Nine Gods.

Dominic’s brow furrowed. “Does this mean I need to stay and teach them?”

“I don’t think so,” Tee said, but she couldn’t really keep the concern out of her voice. She wasn’t sure what any of this might mean.

When the question was put to Itarek, he shook his head. “No. I know you have your own path to follow in the world above. And we shall have to find our own path to the Gods’ Truth.”

NEXT:
Running the Campaign: Re-Skinning – Campaign Journal: Session 25B
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index