DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 40E: A Final Questioning

Tor was able to quickly explain the situation and turn the children over to the custody of the watchmen. He decided, however, to claim that he had rescued them from the Temple of the Rat God instead of the Temple of Ebon Hand. (He was already concerned about them delving into the dangerous depths of the former; he didn’t think adding the dangers of the latter was a good idea.)

Meanwhile, the others were loading up the carts. Tee and Nasira drove those over to the Ghostly Minstrel, where they met with Tor and presented the paving stones to Tellith. She was delighted when they showed her how they worked, and they quickly made arrangements to get them installed as the front steps of the inn.

These magical paving stones are a pretty minor detail in the campaign journal here, and you won’t see them suddenly play some huge and significant role later on.

But I love them so much.

I originally added the paving stones to the Temple of the Ebon Hand because I had the idle thought that people arriving via sewer tunnel would be kinda gross. A prestidigitation spell would solve the problem, and the form factor — schlupping the sewer waste back down into the sewers — just made sense.

The others quieted and Tee walked through the wall. As she passed onto the white marble, the floor suddenly glowed brightly and the filth of the sewer was drawn away from her body, down through the illusionary wall, and into the sewer channel beyond.

“That’s handy.” Tee smiled, pleased that her clothes weren’t going to be ruined by the sewer after all. But she was concerned about the light, so she levitated up (with one last schlurping noise) and worked her way along the ceiling.

I never imagined that the PCs would be interested in looting the paving stones. It was, after all, a minor magical effect packaged into a huge form factor. But when the players had the idea of gifting the stones to the Ghostly Minstrel, it was a truly inspired thought.

(I don’t actually recall exactly which player first had the idea. In fact, I didn’t even remember it a few hours after the session, which is why it’s not recorded in the journal.)

The stones were, in fact, installed in front of the inn. And almost every single time the PCs comes home, they make a point of standing on the stones so that the blood and gore and sludge can all be whisked away. I also make a point of occasionally mentioning other delvers arriving at the Ghostly Minstrel and taking advantage of the stones.

As such, these stones have become an ever-present memorial to their accomplishments. They’re also a permanent feature in Ptolus now; a constant reminder, albeit a minor one, that the PCs actions have meaning and can transform the world around them.

Which goes a long way towards explaining why I love it when the PCs loot infrastructure — not for its monetary value, but because it can be repurposed. It shows that the players have become invested in the setting. I love seeing what they build, and I also love the tangible trophies of their exploits being a living part of the campaign.

Of course, not all of this infrastructure needs to be magical or even structural. Looting décor is also a common variant: In my first D&D 3^rd Edition campaign, an elemental cleric named Talbar (played by the same player who created Agnarr) had a bag of holding dedicated exclusively to beautiful antique furniture he was collecting to furnish the temple he was planning to build.

When the players start laying down roots, all kinds of interesting things can grow.

Campaign Journal: Session 41A – Running the Campaign: TBD
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 40E: A FINAL QUESTIONING

July 25th, 2009
The 22nd Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

MALLECK’S LORE

The others had seen nothing of her struggle. They had seen her snatched from the air, a brilliant flash of scintillant energy, and then she had been standing in front of them again slamming the door shut. When she told them what she had experienced, they agreed that the chamber would be better left alone.

There was little of the temple left to explore now. They stumbled into Malleck’s chambers and found them to be luxuriously accoutered: He even had a personal bathing tub with alchemical mechanisms for heating the water. Among his personal effects they found a large cache of gold, along with additional papers and correspondence.

LETTER FROM SILION TO MALLECK

Malleck—

Valla has told me of your anger regarding the recent slowing of stock for your experiments. But if you must sate your fury, turn it towards Wuntad – he demands the same stock as you, and his desires are… particular. We have bent all of our efforts to fulfilling his requests, and have little time left to seek out what you need.

Nor are our friends among the Ring of Iron able to supply what you want. They never deal in those so young.

                                                                Silion

They also found three scrolls of black papyrus, covered in archaic runes written in a silvery ink. Ranthir was able to identify the runes as Ancient Common, and the ink as liquid mithril.

PROPHECIES OF THE CHILDREN OF CHAOS
(translated)

On three scrolls of black papyrus, written in faded silvery ink, are fragmentary passages of Ancient Common.

The most complete of the three scrolls details a “ritual of mutilation” – a mystic rite designed to directly affect living tissue to deleterious effect.

The second scroll is badly damaged, but appears to be the tale of Cajjan, Scion of Gellasatrac. Cajjan “stood at the right hand of the Ebon God” while the “campaigns of the blood armies” were fought – campaigns filled “with the carnage and destruction of the darkest paths”. Most of the rest of the scroll has been effectively destroyed, but towards the end there is a single phrase left intact: “—and in the blood of the savaged god was vested the promise of their power. And in the Hour of Black Rain that promise will be kept and the Dukes of Chaos shall be—“

The majority of the third scroll is covered in badly fragmented astronomical signs. In the center of the scroll, however, is preserved a passage of text: “There shall come those who bear the signs of the Nine. And in answer to their call there shall stand the Children of Chaos. And their ranks shall be matched. And their numbers shall be even. And their power shall be that of all fate.”

THE SANCTUARY

They decided to check the upper level of the temple. Heading up the stairs they passed through a seemingly unremarkable antechamber. Upon one wall there was a red tapestry emblazoned with the image of a black hand. The floor was covered with a round black rug.

As Tee passed over the latter, however, it suddenly sprung to life. As it tried to tangle itself about her feet, she leapt away… stumbling into the tapestry which, likewise, animated with malicious intent. Off-balance from her leap, she found her arms quickly caught up by the thick fabric.

The others, meanwhile, had scarcely had time to react to Tee’s predicament when the rug suddenly lunged in their direction – covering the doorway entirely. Agnarr and Tor tried to hack their way through it, but the strangely animate fibers of the rug proved bitterly resistant to their blows. Tee, meanwhile, was losing her struggle with the tapestry. While keeping her arms pinned, one corner of the tapestry curled up around her throat – pushing her back against the wall and choking the life out of her.

By the time Tor and Agnarr had gotten through the rug, Tee lay slumped against the wall. She’d stopped breathing.

Agnarr ripped the rug off of her and used his sword to pin it against the opposite wall – the flames slowly consuming the thinner fabric of the tapestry as it writhed. Nasira rushed to Tee’s side and was able to quickly resuscitate her.

Tor smiled at Tee. “It would have been ironic if we had destroyed the entire temple only to be laid low by a rug.”

Tee rubbed her throat. “I’m not laughing.”

They finally passed into the outer sanctuary itself. Much like the Temple of the Rat God, it consisted only of a single long hall: The wood-paneled walls were painted black with narrow red and black stained windows. The floor was carpeted in crimson, and the entire chamber was dominated by a massive idol statue depicting a hand in black stone:

Each digit of the hand was topped by a burning candle set into fingertip niches. Behind the idol there was a black wood cabinet filled with bizarrely twisted musical instruments, apparently of ritual significance. With a grim set to his mouth, Tor snuffed the candles while Agnarr smashed the musical instruments. They debated destroying the idol itself, but decided it would take too much time.

There were no cultists to be found in the upper level, however. Either they had fled or they had descended to the melees below.

A TEMPLE LEAVE-TAKING

They dragged their loot (which now vastly outstripped the capacity of their bags of holding) into the upper sanctuary. They even decided to grab two of the glowing pavestones as a present for Tellith (so that she wouldn’t have to worry about wandering delvers trampling dirt and muck into her front hall at the Ghostly Minstrel).

While most of them stayed to watch over the loot, a couple of them went to hire a carriage and two carts. When they returned, Tor used the carriage to take the three children they had rescued from the prison to the watch station on Pirveyor Street. There he was recognized by the watchmen on duty (which again filled Tor with a thrill), and Tor discovered that word was already spreading of their exploits at the Temple of the Rat God. (Apparently watchmen had been summoned from the Pirveyor Street station to aid in what must have been a massive clean-up operation at the temple itself.)

Tor was able to quickly explain the situation and turn the children over to the custody of the watchmen. He decided, however, to claim that he had rescued them from the Temple of the Rat God instead of the Temple of Ebon Hand. (He was already concerned about them delving into the dangerous depths of the former; he didn’t think adding the dangers of the latter was a good idea.)

Meanwhile, the others were loading up the carts. Tee and Nasira drove those over to the Ghostly Minstrel, where they met with Tor and presented the paving stones to Tellith. She was delighted when they showed her how they worked, and they quickly made arrangements to get them installed as the front steps of the inn.

Back at the temple, the others hired a second carriage, loaded Malleck and Silion into it, paid off the driver to keep his mouth shut, and had him drop them off at the same warehouse in the South Market where Tee had questioned “what’s-his-face” (as Elestra called him; meaning Jamill). Having secured their well-gotten gains, Tee, Nasira, and Elestra jumped into a third carriage and took it to the warehouse to meet up with the rest of them.

A FINAL QUESTIONING

They decided to wake Silion up first and try questioning her again. They kept her bound and blindfolded, but she proved no more talkative than their first attempt: Her answers mostly confined to snarls, threats, and bitter sarcasm.

With a shrug, they turned their attention to Malleck.

“That’s right,” Tee said. “The Ebon Hand is gone. You’re losing your friends one temple at a time.”

“Malleck is no friend of mine,” Silion snarled, although she seemed somewhat subdued at the revelation.

Malleck was coming around. “You traitorous rat-bitch! You led them to me!”

Her role as provocateur satisfied, they knocked Silion unconscious again and turned their focus on Malleck. In the hopes that he might prove more useful, Nasira summoned a holy light and wrapped it around him – forcing him to speak nothing but the truth.

Malleck proved considerably more malleable, but he wasn’t going to talk without cutting a deal first.

“What do you want?” Tee asked.

“My life,” Malleck said with a sardonic smile.

“Fine,” Tee said. “But I don’t want to see you in Ptolus any more. You leave town. You don’t come back. That’s the deal.”

“That’s more than acceptable,” Malleck said.

“We want to find the Tolling Bell.”

“My contacts within the Bell are Illadras, Ibard, and Wulvera,” Malleck said. They were somewhat taken aback (perhaps even shocked) to find someone willing to talk so freely. But Malleck shrugged. “We have a deal.”

He confirmed that Illadras could be found at the Temple of Deep Chaos in the sewers beneath Oldtown. He had not spoken directly with Ibard in several weeks and wasn’t sure when she planned to return to Ptolus. And Wulvera “ran Porphyry House, down near the Warrens”.

“What about Wuntad?” Tee asked, her curiosity boiling over.

“I don’t deal with him directly,” Malleck said. “But he can be reached through Wulvera at Porphyry House.”

“And your slaves?”

“I buy them from Silion,” Malleck said. “I don’t really trouble myself with the details. I think she kidnaps some of them. Others I know she buys through the Ring of Iron.”

“How do we cure the boy?” Agnarr asked, a grim tone in his voice.

“What boy?”

“The boy you were operating on.”

“Oh,” Malleck said off-handedly. “You don’t.”

They pressed hard on this issue, but apparently he knew of no way to reverse the process. “Why would you want to take away their perfection?”

Agnarr barely stopped himself from killing him.

Eventually, however, Malleck grew tired of their questions. He was particularly amused by what he described as their “endless paranoia”. (They had asked him about Zavere, the Commissar, Rehobath, the new Silver Fatar… and on and on and on.) “If all of these were cultists, do you think we would be hiding in the sewers? No. Not yet. But our time will come. Enough. We have a bargain and your questions have come to an end. Release me and I will go.”

Tor looked to the others. “Are we done?”

Tee nodded.

Malleck laughed. “Yes, I think we are.”

Tor chopped his head off.

The others stared at him in shock.

“Just for the record,” Tee said. “I was going to let him go. Just want to be clear on that.”

“I know you were, dear,” Tor said. “But he tortured children. I was never going to let him walk free.”

Tee quietly wondered, though, what had become of the Tor they had first met not so very long ago.

They woke Silion again. She was still blindfolded, but as soon as she came around she smelled Malleck’s death in the air. She went into a panic. Pissed herself. And then went into a babbling state of shock. With a grimace of impatience, Tor killed her, too.

“We can still ask her a few questions,” Elestra asked. “I can force her body’s memories to speak through the Spirit of the City. But we’ll only be allowed three questions, so we should choose them carefully.”

Tee nodded. “Let’s make sure we get it right.”

They debated the list of questions for the better part of half an hour and then Elestra wove her magic. Silion’s decapitated head rose into the air, its blood dripping in a sickly, coagulate gore down onto its own corpse below.

“Where can I reach Terathera?” Elestra asked.

“She works with Wuntad.” Silion’s voice was a spectral, muted howl.

“Where is Wuntad?”

“I have not spoken with Wuntad in months. He was working on a great project beneath the streets of Oldtown.”

“How can we find the Ring of Iron?” (Tee felt fiercely that they should work to end the slave trade in Ptolus. It offended her to the very depths of her soul.)

“They can be found on the Docks. There is a route through the sewers from the Temple.”

The head fell with a dull, wet thud.

“Which temple?” Elestra asked the others, almost rhetorically. “The rats or the mutants?”

“I’m guessing her temple,” Nasira said.

Agnarr was throwning. “I just thought of a better question. Mahdoth’s shipment.”

“Maybe,” Tee said. “But we know where that’s happening. We’ll know what it is when we intercept it.”

They took a step back.

“Two headless corpses in a warehouse,” Tor said. “Just another day in Ptolus.”

“It’s just like our first day,” Tee said, sharing a dark laugh with the others.

Running the Campaign: Looting Infrastructure – Campaign Journal: Session 41A
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 40D: Children of the Hand

The blood trail ended abruptly (Tee guessed that Malleck had magically healed himself), but Tee’s sharp nose caught the passing of his scent. With something of a wild guess, she directed Elestra to send a burst of lightning in that direction—

And struck the invisible Malleck!

Malleck howled with pain. He was still invisible, but Tor followed his voice and caught him in another spray of blood.

“May the Galchutt consume you!” Malleck appeared, his hand outstretched towards them. A pillar of fire erupted around Tor.

Back in Session 38, we talked about the Secret Life of Silion: A major villain who, in accordance with the Principles of RPG Villainy, got shot in the back of the head before the PCs ever saw her face.

I follow the Principles in moments like that because, first, the players love that sort of well-earned victory: They put in the work to take Silion by surprise, and they were rewarded.

But I also do it because it sets up moments like the one you see in this session:

The grey-skinned man turned to one of the priests, “Give me your potion! Now!”

“Yes, Malleck.”

“It’s Malleck!” Tee cried with triumph.

Malleck swallowed the potion and disappeared.

“Dammit!”

The villain Malleck is trying to escape! Will he succeed?!

If the players thought I was just trying to gimmick Malleck’s escape — that it was a preordained conclusion — this would be the moment when they would check out of the session. At best I might get a few perfunctory (or extremely frustrated) attempts to “find” him, but the writing would be on the wall and they’d just be going through the motions.

But because I played fair with Silion, they know that I’m playing fair now: Malleck might escape. But if he does, it will be because they failed to stop him; not because I prohibited them from interrupting the cutscene.

And so, instead of the players checking out, the stakes were instead ratcheted to a whole new high. The table was electrified, and every player’s attention was laser focused on the game, bending their wits and pulling out every trick they could think of to figure out where Malleck had gone to and how they might force him out of invisibility.

As you can see from the journal, the PCs ultimately pull it off. Malleck wasn’t able to escape. It was a very different victory than the one they had with Silion, but it was just as well-earned and just as satisfying.

Just as Silion’s death had set up this sequence with Malleck, so, too, did Malleck’s death set things up for the next villain. She’ll arrive — or, rather, return — in the next session. And unlike Silion and Malleck, the PCs won’t be so lucky in preventing her escape.

But the great thing is that when she does escape, they won’t blame me. They won’t dismiss her slipping through their grasp by thinking that it was foreordained. Just like they own their successes, they also have to own their failures. And that makes those failures — and the consequences of those failures — even more powerful.

No one in this campaign doubts that I play fair with my villains, because I do, in fact, play fair with my villains. The proof is in the pudding.

When you establish the honesty and integrity of the game world, everything lands harder, victories and setbacks and the consequences of both. So when you’ve established that kind of trust with your players, you’ll ALL reap the benefits for years to come.

Campaign Journal: Session 40E – Running the Campaign: Looting Infrastructure
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 40D: CHILDREN OF THE HAND

July 25th, 2009
The 22nd Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

They regrouped in the laboratory. The boy, whimpering in pain, was fading fast.

“Is there anything we can do for him?” Tee asked. Nasira shook her head. Tee, wanting to spare him the pain, slid a dagger through the boy’s ribs and into his heart.

Even as Tee’s dagger was coming free, Agnarr was dumping Silion’s body out of the bag of holding, removing the iron collar from around her neck, and placing it on the boy. A debate immediately broke out: Some wanted to preserve Silion for a second round of questioning. Others wanted to do the same for Malleck.

“We need Malleck to tell us what he’s done with the missing children,” Elestra said.

“We know what he did with them,” Agnarr said. He was adamant that they keep the boy alive, and it looked like the iron collar was the only way to do it.

Tee and Tor, meanwhile, teamed up to track down the priests who had fled from Tee. But when they went into the barracks they could find no trace of them.

“Could they have teleported out?” Tor asked.

“If they did, they could be bringing friends,” Tee said.

“Target practice.”

Stymied as they were, they began tearing the barracks apart. They found a map of a route through the sewers (which appeared to lead back to the Temple of the Rat God), but little else of interest. In a chamber adjoining one of the barracks, however, they found an officers’ chamber. (“Probably belongs to that red-cloaked woman,” Tor said.) On a table near a crystal decanter they found a pair of letters—

LETTERS FROM ILLADRAS TO FREIN

Frein—

I’m tired of seeing your grotesque men skulking around Crossing Street. The concept of discretion is apparently beyond your crude ability to comprehend. I have instructed the Brothers of Venom to take care of the necessary security precautions. Dilar believes they can use the “Brotherhood of Ptolus” to recruit those we’ll need.

                                                                Illadras

Frein—

You can mouth all the empty protests you want, it matters little to me. Your threats of taking the matter to Malleck are quite laughable. I am sure that Malleck is already aware of the situation here at the temple. And if you believe that Malleck has more of Wuntad’s ear than I do, I suspect you’re destined for a brutal disappointment.

                                                                Illadras

—and as Tor read them out loud, Tee discovered a hidden compartment in the room’s wardrobe which contained what appeared to be a map of the entire temple.

The map revealed a secret door on the far wall of the barracks. It seemed clear that the priests must have used it.

“If they did,” Tor said, “Then they must be long gone. They could have easily taken those stairs to the surface.”

Tee cursed, but thought they should still check out the small complex of rooms beyond the secret door in case the priests were holed up in there.

Directly beyond the door they found an armory well-stocked with a variety of common weapons. The next door, however, led to something far more disturbing: An altar of ebony bedecked with chains of black iron and covered with stains of dried blood. More of the chains depended from the ceiling, and from these hung the corpse of a man – his intestines hanging out from deep, runic gashes carved into his abdomen.

They felt their stomachs churn at the sight and Tee murmured a nearly silent oath to make the cultists pay for their foul debaucheries.

Through the next door they found the missing priests: They had freed two centipedic horrors from the chained collars that kept them here, and as Tor and Tee came through the door they unleashed them for the attack.

The skittering horrors had scarcely gotten halfway across the chamber, however, before Tee had placed a pair of blasts from her dragon pistol through their chitinous skulls. The priests began chanting their dark prayers, but Tor was upon them before they could finish the incantations.

When they returned to the others in the laboratory, they found the debate over the use of the iron collar continuing apace. Tee and Tor quickly saw it settled: The boy would be kept in suspended animation. Tor would bind, blindfold, and gag both Malleck and Silion. Nasira would bring them to the very brink of life and they would hold them there for as long as necessary.

While the others went back to searching the nooks and crannies of the complex, Ranthir settled down to watch over their freshly-bound prisoners while reading through the various manuscripts he had taken from the temple’s library.

The map Tee and Tor had found indicated a second secret panel located in the laboratory. With the map as her guide, Tee was able to easily find and open it, revealing a small chamber with several narrow tables lining its walls. The tables were covered in a variety of alchemical equipment, magical scrolls, enchanted incenses, and the like. Among these was a sack of red velvet that felt hot to the touch. It contained a tiny ember of pure elemental fire, and Tee was delighted to discover that it could be used to create a wide variety of fiery effects.

There were also a plethora of papers, and Ranthir was more than happy to interrupt his reading for even more reading. Many of the papers detailed a variety of alchemical procedures, of which the most important seemed to be the Alchemical Creation of the Children of the Hand.

ALCHEMICAL CREATION OF THE CHILDREN OF THE HAND

Many of these papers are thickly covered in alchemical symbols and notations. Others are a chronological chronicling of what appear to be research experiments.

The alchemical concoction described is meant to be used in conjunction with a mystical ritual (which is not detailed). It appears to be designed to induce extreme mutative behavior in test subjects, and the goal of the process appears to be the creation of “children of the hand”.

The full meaning of this phrase is made horribly apparent as the research notes turn towards studying the efficacy of the procedure. “Only the youngest demonstrate desired manifestations.” Those older than adolescence are described as being “cellularly mortified” and “lacking in morphable plasticity”.

Detailed anatomical reports and autopsy studies detail the results of the procedure: Green and black mottled skin. The skin of the hands turns entirely black and the fingers lengthen into scythe-like claws. The bodies slowly cover with pus-filled sores as the procedure continues to wrack their bodies with painful transformations. So painful that their screams of agony are ceaseless… and so their tongues are pulled from their mouths to silence them. Eventually the sores begin bursting, oozing blood from the slowly spreading open wounds.

There was also a letter.

LETTER FROM THE DAWNBREAKER

Now that we have secured the idol, the ship’s guard must be strengthened. We will require at least six of the Children of the Hand. I will not brook any further delays, and I pray you will not make it necessary for me to broach this subject with Wuntad to see it properly concluded.

As long as the idol is aboard, the Dawnbreaker will not return to port. Deliver the children to the Argent Dawn the next time she docks. They shall be safely delivered from there.

                                                                Ibard

Tee was convinced that the letter was referring to the Idol of Ravvan. Their failure to secure the idol still ate at her conscience, but now they had a way of finding it again. Unfortunately, they also had a long list of commitments that would need to take priority over it.

They did a second sweep through the barracks and finished tossing them. From there they headed to what proved to be a small prison complex. Tee had to pick the lock, and as the door swung open they were confronted by a single panicky cultist clutching the handle of a door further down a long hall.

“Don’t come any closer! Or I’ll unlock it! I will!”

Tor edged forwards. “Sir… You need to calm down. We won’t—“

“I said don’t come any closer! I’ll do it! I’ll do it! I’ll—“

The door the man was holding was suddenly smashed open. His skull was instantly crushed by the heavy iron door as it was driven into the far wall. Stooping through the doorway came a Child of the Hand. It was even more horrific than the descriptions Ranthir had provided from the alchemical notes suggested: Its skin was a sickly ebon morass of pus, blood, and mottled green. Its muscles were horribly deformed in their excess. Its mouth was opened in a mute and endless howl of groaning pain.

It charged down the hall and smashed Tor into the wall with a powerful, grunting blow. Agnarr pushed Tee out of the way and came through the door to meet it. The creature’s powerful blows pounded mercilessly at the fighter, who was horrified to see that the creature’s pulsing, ever-growing muscles possessed some form of regenerative powers.

They did note, however, that it feared the flame from Agnarr’s sword. When they eventually managed to cut it down, they were forced to use flame to finally end its misery.

Nasira, with tears in her eyes at the thought of the innocent, tortured child the cultists had destroyed, healed the vicious gashes left by its scythe-like claws.

At the end of the hall they found a torture chamber: Manacles hung from the walls, and disturbingly stained wooden stocks, a rack, and even an iron maiden cluttered the large room. On a blood-stained table near the racks, there were notes from a recent interrogation.

NOTES FROM THE INTERROGATION

FIRST SESSION

The subject has proven to be remarkably resilient. After three hours on the rack, “Catya” was still protesting innocence. However, proper application of the weeping stone broke her resolve. Apparently her real name is Leesha.

SECOND SESSION

After putting her left eye out with the poker, the subject screamed Wulvera’s name before losing consciousness. I have spoken with Malleck and he will contact Wulvera to make sure that some misunderstanding has not taken place. Although if she’s a spy placed here by the Bell…

THIRD SESSION

With Wulvera denying all knowledge of any “Catya” or “Leesha”, Malleck has given me permission to proceed. The rack is proving of little use with this one.

FOURTH SESSION

The weeping stone has broken her. The subject has admitted she came to spy on us. She followed shipments out of the Teeth of Light to Porphyry House. Coming to Ptolus she was spotted by Wulvera’s guards, but she was able to learn of their connection to our temple.

Malleck will be pleased to learn of Wulvera’s failure. Those of the Bell may chastise us for a lack of discretion, but it seems they cannot keep their own counsel.

FIFTH SESSION

There is nothing more to be learned from this one. Malleck has given me permission to use her meat for the feast.

The mention of a weeping stone drew their attention to a smooth, black stone that lay on the table nearby. On closer inspection, they found thin veins of silver etched across its surface. Ranthir confirmed its identity: Created through alchemical processes that inflicted terrible – and sometimes lethal – pain on a living creature, such a stone would cause anyone touching it to his or her face to begin to weep and feel great sorrow. It was a common, if expensive, tool of malign torture.

Meanwhile, Nasira had taken the keys from the dead cultist and was opening the other prison doors. Agnarr was keeping a wary eye on her, afraid that they might find another of the Children of the Hand.

Instead, to their great joy, they found three unaffected children. They had been doped to somnulence, but otherwise seemed fine.

Nasira decided to stay with the children and watch over them. Ranthir and Elestra, wanting to stay near her, moved Malleck and Silion to the cell the Child of the Hand had been kept in. (It had been barely large enough for the child, but big enough to fit all four of them comfortably.)

THE MAZE

They returned to the sacrificial chamber of black chains. There was a locked door leading away from this chamber and Tee spent several long minutes struggling with the difficult lock. When she finally managed to trip the tumblers, she gave a jubilant cry and threw open the door—

And barely managed to dive out of the way of an explosion.

Agnarr helped her up. “You should check for traps.”

Beyond the door was a short hallway ending in another door. Halfway down the hall she stepped on a loose paving stone—

And a burst of fire filled the hall.

“You should check for traps.”

She reached the second door and checked it scrupulously for any sign of danger. Finding none, she opened the door and—

Explosion.

“You should check for traps.”

Beyond the door lay an odd-shaped chamber of gray stone. The floor of the chamber had been carved with an intricate maze-like pattern that seemed to shift and move as Tee looked at it.

Tee had no interest in stepping out onto the maze. Activating her boots she eased herself into the air—

And was ripped down to the floor, finding herself trapped on the first step of the maze. The way behind her had become clouded with a scintillating aura of energy and she could feel the strength of both body and soul being drained down into the twisted pathways of the maze. She felt herself gripped by a compulsion to step forward along the maze, and with each step the maze itself disappeared behind her.

The ordeal seemed endless, and with each step she took Tee could feel the presence of something horrific and powerful growing in her mind or the maze or both. It was as if the sheer, intense suffering of the labyrinthine labor were calling out to some malefic, ineffable entity. She felt her own soul acid-stripped bare before its dark power, and still the compulsion clutched her feet and drove her forward.

At last her weary, psychic-beaten footfalls along the back-twisted spiral forced her into the very center of the room – the apex of the maze. And in that instant she felt that distant, dark power touch her mind fully; she seemed to look out through its hopelessly faceted eyes onto a vast web of malevolent ambition.

She felt, twisted in its thoughts – thoughts which seemed to flow like the broken edges of the maze itself; thoughts she could comprehend only because the maze had twisted her own thoughts – an offer to share in its power; in its glorious vision of the world: All she needed was to accept and that power would be hers. It would flow through her and give her strength and let her—

Revulsion coiling in her heart, she reached for the lesson Doraedian had taught her and turned the dream against itself and took one last and final step… And found herself standing outside the chamber.

She reached out and slammed the door shut. But in one last glimpse of that chamber she could see the maze begin to re-etch itself into the floor of the chamber.

“You should really check for traps.”

Running the Campaign: The Villain Who Doesn’t Escape – Campaign Journal: Session 40E
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 40C: Malleck’s Last Stand

Nasira had turned her attention to the boy. She found that his heart was failing him. The process that was transforming him was obviously botched and incomplete and now it was killing him.

Hearing this, Agnarr couldn’t contain his rage. He was furious over the boy. With a grim look of determination he charged back out through the secret door.

Magic is cool because it brings a lot of flashy bling to the table: Balls of fire. Personal aerobatics. Magic missiles.

But what I think makes magic awesome is that it lets you explore unique and impossible situations, and some of the most powerful of these are moral dilemmas, because they provide a really powerful crucible for character to express itself. Who are you? What do you value? When put between a rock and a hard place, what will you choose to do?

What makes magical moral dilemmas special is their novelty. Most of us are probably familiar with the trolley problem, and we’ve each literally spent a lifetime figuring out our moral and ethical compass when it comes to the situations we encounter in our lives. We likely even have long-settled opinions on big issues, even though it’s unlikely we’ve ever personally had to, for example, make the decision to declare or not declare war.

There are nevertheless, of course, ways that we could challenge and explore these moral issues through play. (And, of course, our characters will not necessarily share our moral or ethical outlooks.) But we’ll be walking through familiar territory either way.

With a fantastical dilemma, on the other hand, the fantastical element immediately confronts us with a parameter we’ve never had to deal within our own lives, and likely have never thought about before. Even when there’s a fairly obvious and direct parallel between the fantastical dilemma and a set of real world ethics, the mismatched edges will often crop up and challenge our trite, preconceived answers in the most surprising ways.

For example: Is it ethical to use an invisibility spell to eavesdrop on a private conversation? And, if so, under what circumstances?

Here we could probably draw a fairly direct connection to wiretapping. But what if you’re just coincidentally invisible and people walk into the room you’re in? Do you have an ethical obligation to reveal your presence?

And consider the moral situation the PCs find themselves in with the Children of the Hand. What moral obligation do they have to children who have been fully transformed in monsters? Does the same hold true a child that has only partially been transformed? What if that child is in agonizing pain and no longer able to communicate?

To see how the PCs dealt with this, here are some minor spoilers from the beginning of the next campaign journal:

They regrouped in the laboratory. The boy, whimpering in pain, was fading fast.

“Is there anything we can do for him?” Tee asked. Nasira shook her head. Tee, wanting to spare him the pain, slid a dagger through the boy’s ribs and into his heart.

Even as Tee’s dagger was coming free, Agnarr was dumping Silion’s body out of the bag of holding, removing the iron collar from around her neck, and placing it on the boy. A debate immediately broke out: Some wanted to preserve Silion for a second round of questioning. Others wanted to do the same for Malleck.

“We need Malleck to tell us what he’s done with the missing children,” Elestra said.

“We know what he did with them,” Agnarr said. He was adamant that they keep the boy alive, and it looked like the iron collar was the only way to do it.

Here we see another magical element — the iron collar that preserves dead bodies so that they can be raised at a later time — add new facets to the dilemma.

You can draw some parallels to medical ethics, of course, but they’re not straight lines. Is this more like a medically induced coma, temporarily stopping someone’s heart when they have tachycardia, or illegal medical experimentation?

And while we’re here: What, exactly, are the ethics of keeping a bunch of dead corpses in a magical netherspace between dimensions so that you can periodically yank them out and question them under compulsive sorceries?

Asking for a friend.

Campaign Journal: Session 40D – Running the Campaign: The Villain Who Doesn’t Escape
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index