Session 99 Aftermath

[DMDarcs]

Conna walks in on the group as they are looting the shrine to Lamashtu. She is wearing layers of what must be very heavy bearskins, and carries a spear. She looks less the part of a quiet advisor, and much more like a warrior. She looks back at the red dragon corpses and notes the absence of the lamias. "It appears you have been busy. Come - we have much work to do." Conna leads the party to the large central pit - the one with all the bones and corpses in it - and proceeds up the ramp that circles it. The dire bears, in their caves around the ramp's edge, begin to stir, but settle down quickly with a glance from Conna.

This is the first, with the exception of a brief fly-over, that any of you have really seen of above-ground Jorgenfist. The entire compound is surrounded with a fifty-foot stone wall. To the south lies the gate inside, currently propped open, and as always flanked by two seventy-foot high towers. There are five other towers as part of the wall; four of these are slightly conical stone towers, seemingly made without seams, whereas the fifth, in the southeast portion of the wall, is twice as tall as the other towers, and made of black stone in a much more ancient style.

Within the walls, to the north of the pit, is a towering stone spire, covered in white streaks that extend from a hole about fifty-feet off the wall all the way to the ground. A long building in the northwest has wooden walls and no windows; smoke pours out of a large hole in the ceiling. To the northeast is a smaller stone building. A large wooden building in the southeast has odors emanating from it that suggest it is a stable of sorts. The southwest is a large area of hard-packed earth. A wooden podium has been constructed at the edge of the courtyard closest to the pit.

And then there's the giants. Oh, the giants. The exact numbers are hard to make out, but there must be close to 100 stone giants here, with almost as many hill giants and ogres (combined). There are also two other giants with frost-white skin and light blue hair, fully decked out in the chain mail/helmet combinations of warriors of the north. "You may watch, but it would probably be best if you did not follow me onto the stage," Conna advises you. There is much milling about and nervousness as Conna advances onto the podium, carrying her spear and a sack; murmurs of Mokmurian's absence are mostly treated with scoffing and derision.

Conna's entire speech is given in Giantish. She starts with a recitation of the history and ancestors of the Kavarvatti tribe. She builds up to her rule of the tribe with her husband Vandarrec. She speaks of the birth of her son Mokmurian, and how his diminutive stature filled his parents with pride as they knew he would be gifted with the powers of sorcery. She speaks lovingly and proudly of the day his arcane powers first manifested, and how successful they knew he would be. The speech takes a turn, however, when she speaks of how Mokmurian murdered his wife -- his wife, who had discovered Mokmurian's dark secret: Mokmurian was no sorcerer. She tells how the elders discovered what Mokmurian had tried to hide spellbooks from his wife, spellbooks that she discovered, spellbooks that reeked of magic from humanity, the unholy magical systems that once enslaved the ancestors of all giant-kind. She describes the burning of his books; Mokmurian's censure as a traitor; and how Mokmurian was exiled into the wild to fend for himself. She tells of Mokmurian's return to the Vale of the Black Tower with lamia allies from afar, his fortification of the land, and construction of Jorgenfist. She tells of Mokmurian's challenge of leadership to the Kavarvatti tribe and the underhanded slaying of Vandarrec with the forbidden magic. The crowd starts to become incited as she speaks of how the spirits of the Ancient Lords, particularly one named Karzoug, started to sway Karzoug and cause him to lie to his followers. Many of the crowd begin to boo at Conna at this point.

It is then that Conna drops here spear and jumps straight up into the air.... and stays there. Acid sprays out of her fingers, burning holes in the stage, quieting the crowd down. She reminds the crowd how Mokmurian had practically ceded entire control of the Kavarvatti's to a stone giant named Barl Breakbones; how Barl was supposed to provide a tribe of ogres and carts of weapons from Hook Mountain, but was slain by a group of adventurers; how Drogart - whom she publicly points out to the entire assembly - has done nothing to glorify his tribe or Mokmurian's army since that defeat; how the dragon Longtooth was the only survivor from a raid on a human village, flying back, licking his wounds, and hasn't been seen from since. This is when she pulls Mokmurian's head out from the bag, commanding all to look on the face of their so called leader, commanding all to look on the sins of their upstart leader who has been punished by the ancestors.

The crowd of giants is silent for a few minutes. The two light-skinned giants leave the crowd and tromp into the small stone building. Murmuring, the nervous kind, starts to erupt from the crowd. The mumbling dies down again when the two giants return, one carrying a large sack over his shoulder. They both very pointedly walk through the crowd, heading directly towards the open gate. The unladen giant yells out, "The frost giants of the Kodar Mountains rescind our allegiance."

Over the next several minutes, some fights break out between some of the giants - fist fights mostly - but the crowd disperses towards their separate camps. Over the next hour, some of the camps begin to dissemble; others have tents that are abandoned as giants simply walk away with their dire bear pets. It appears that the giant menace to Varisia has been dissolved.

[DMDarcs]

[Reminder of the loot from the shrine of Lamashtu. There are two incense burners made of silver, chased with mithral. They have no marks on them indicating any type of religious significance. Underneath the altar, you found several books and scrolls. Dothan, after looking through them, discovered that they were full of descriptions on how to disembowel, decapitate, drown, and otherwise slaughter all major types of giants and humanoids, especially in ritual killings and sacrifices. One motif that was repeated often was of opening a creature's belly, inserting a starving rat, then healing the belly closed so the rat would gnaw its way out to freedom in a mock birth. Horrific, but very beautifully created by a talented (and demented) artist. There was also a scroll of remove curse.]

[Mike]

Dothan was furiously ( but surreptitiously) scribbling shorthand notes through Conna's presentation. She's already composing an epic around this to tell the tale as she told it, downplaying the rile of their own party.

[Mike]

On returning to the library...

The clockwork librarian has made good on delivering books. Dothan pages through them in frustration, only able to puzzle out one word in fifty of the cursed Thassilonian. Soon, she has enlisted Kay and Anna. Anna has her own research as well but happily helps translate for Dothan as well. Dothan paces behind the two spellcasters as they pore through books, Dothan insisting that they look for certain key terms. Dothan is constantly scribbling in her journal and flipping pages back and forth as she mutters to herself. Anna and Kay don't follow everything she is asking for--Dothan makes logic jumps in her head that the other two aren't completely aware of - but they're the ones who know how to read the books. At each step, the librarian feeds more books into their assembly line as it figures out what exactly they are looking for.

[Most of these are Pat's words and images. They were too good not to share.]

[Mike]

[BTW--my bonuses here due to the library, librarian, and translating assistance are enormous. My rolls are very good.]

[Phoebe]

[So, you can't just SAY that without telling us what a representative bonus is like so we can gape in awe...]

[This story is all soooooo exciting! The drama of the giants is just really cool. I can also see our party having differences of opinion about what to do with our finds, especially since one indifferent person wants to burn them immediately... ]


Dwyn listens to Conna's speech in rapt silence, standing behind her friends so as not to be easily seen. The Black Tower fascinates her, different as it is from the neighboring structures, and perhaps left over from an ancient time like the other ruins they have come across. She puzzles over this for a while, her thoughts drifting, until Conna suddenly mentions Hook Mountain. "Wait, does she mean us? We stopped the ogres - that part must be about us," she thinks to herself, "unless maybe they've been getting together here for a while."

Her musings are interrupted by the sudden appearance of the severed head, displayed by his own Mother! "How... how can it be," she wonders. How could any children of Erastil consider this appropriate? Yes of course, he was evil and corrupt, and he well deserved to die. But for his own mother to disgrace his corpse in this way, to display him in front of everyone in a public spectacle? Yet the giants seem to demand no less, if Conna is to gain back her authority. How bizarre their ways are, she thinks. How hard to grasp that these people worship the same father God!

When the frost giants step forward she pokes her head out, wide-eyed, to get a better look. "Mom and dad had lots of stories about frost giants, from when we lived near the Kodars, but this is the first time I've seen one with my own eyes," she whispers to the others. Did they rescind their allegiance because they're wicked and only wanted to be in league with Mokmurian? Are they loyal to this Karzoug too? Or did they simply leave because the spell of Mokmurian's control was broken, and they need to return to their own people?

Dwyn couldn't be sure - she made a note to discuss it later with Dothan, who knew everything about everything, probably from reading books. Yes, books were good for stories, like her mother's, and like Conna's, which no doubt Dothan was going to turn into one for the ages. And books could be good for information, even if they're boring. But books like the ones Mokmurian gathered, that even this wild and dangerous flock of Erastil's faithful considered worthy of burning? Those brought nothing but trouble and evil.

[Mike]

[I'm sorry... I'm rolling at +54 And +55 on Knowledge checks.]

[Phoebe]

That's me gaping.

[Zen]

[Mike]

I know things. Terrible things.

Darcs, how long does each of these +55 knowledge checks take us? Because the answers to my questions have led to more questions, and we'll never get a better chance than this.

[Mike]

My three questions so far were about ethillion, Karzoug, and the Runeforge.

Karzoug was one of the Runelords. The Runelord of greed I believe. The seven Runelords ruled over Thassilon 10,000 years ago. The Runelords represented what we call the seven deadly sins, which they twisted and renamed as virtues. The Runelords were welders of unimaginable arcane might. Karzoug, in particular, ruled using armies of enslaved giants. The giants were ruled by
towering monsters known as rune giants. We have already seen what i assume is rune giant. Which of Karzoug's other allies may rise next? He was known to consort with, blue dragons, eerie denizens from the nightmare realm of Leng, blooddrinking outsiders known as scarlet walkers, and immense lamia harridans who towered over most giants. That last is super scary. The next lamia we confront may be over 25 feet tall.

Karzoug ruled over the region of Thassilon known as Shalast. Each Runelord was a master of a different school of magic. Karzoug's was unparalleled in Transmutation magic. However, his opposition schools were Illusion and Enchantment. It is believed he was vulnerable to weapons enchanted with such magic, although there is np record of anyone testing that theory. The other Runelords would have had similar strengths and vulnerabilities. I'm pretty sure this is going to be very important to us in the future.

Now for this bit of history: Karzoug warred with his neighbors, but none more so than Alaznist, the Runelord of Wrath and ruler of Bakrakhan. Between their nations, along a ridge known as the Rasp, Karzoug built immense sentinel statues to watch over Bakrakhan, while Alaznist built towers called Hellfire Flumes to prevent Karzoug's armies from invading. Citizens of both nations worried that the war between Karzoug and Alaznist would soon escalate to the point where they could bring about the end of the world.

I'm thinking that Bakrakhan is underwater now, and Sandpoint's old "lighthouse" may be one of those he'll flumes, possibly along with those X's out in the water. Those marks may be the former location of this Rasp. The location of the pool that creates Wrathspawn under Sandpoint lends support to it being in old Bakrakhan. This is all speculation though.

Back to what we do know: where are they now? If their plans went to task, the Runelords are not dead. The runelords devised methods in which they could escape the world and enter a state of suspended animation, so they could ride out cataclysms. In theory, their surviving minions would then waken them to reclaim their empires once the cataclysms had ended.

So Mokmurian was actually physically restoring Karzoug from hibernation. Presumably the other six are waiting somewhere for the same after 100 centuries.

[Mike]

That brings us to the Runeforge. The runelords were each master's of their own school's, but their individual weaknesses prevented them from combining and mastering ALL magics.

In response to this failing the runelords agreed to the construction of a shared laboratory in a region held neutral by their seven nations. They named this place Runeforge, and here, practitioners of each of their seven specialties could work in tandem with one another, with little fear of sabotage, mockery, or interference, in an environment untainted by rivalries and grudges. It was intended to be a place of pure magic, where masters of each Thassilonian specialty could work and confer and create. The seven runelords bound themselves by edict that they themselves would never directly interfere with or even enter Runeforge, for fear that their presence would hamper the work being performed there. Each runelord chose from among his servants those who best represented his or her desires and goals, then sealed those servants in Runeforge using their own magic. Runeforge provided nourishment, comfort, and shelter for those within - servitude in Runeforge was a great honor, and a post held for life. Once a season, the
inhabitants convened in the central chamber, around a well of power at the heart of the Sihedron Rune, and there they reported to their runelords the natures of their discoveries and advancements in magic. The well could even function as a portal, allowing the transport of discoveries and creations to their masters in the seven distant capitals of Thassilon.

The work done in Runeforge was anything but safe, and often the wizards within its walls succumbed to madness or were slain by errors in judgment or experiments gone tragically awry. Although there was no shortage of replacements, the runelords had little interest in allowing just anyone into the complex. Only those of keen wit and quick mind could learn the ritual of opening required to enter Runeforge - a restriction that ensured that only the most gifted wizards were chosen for the honor.

Within months of the arcane laboratory's foundation, the runelords were hard at work, searching secretly for ways to influence Runeforge without revealing their interests to each other. Unfortunately for them, they had been too thorough in their initial magic, for fear that the other runelords would do precisely the same thing. Runeforge functioned as intended: neutral ground for masters of Thassilonian magic to learn and study.

Some of the final works to come out of Runeforge supposedly were the various methods of hibernation.
The runelords tasked their Runeforge factions with devising methods of surviving even the greatest catastrophes. Each faction was working with a different solution.

So it would seem that Karzoug was successful. And based on Nualia and stuff we found in Sandpoint, possibly Alaznist was as well. So far, I don't even know the names of the other Runelords, much less their specialties, related "virtue" or weaknesses or if they may have survived the cataclysm as well.

[Tahlvin]

Now we're getting somewhere!

[Mike]

And thus to ethillion.

Ethillion is the last ingredient needed to effect a cure for Illian. The secrets of its creation are lost to time (so far), but it is known that it absorbs the energy of magical items. When it does that, the magic item becomes inert and mundane, but the ethillion becomes charged, and thus useful. Ethillion has many uses, but its most popular seems to have been boosting arcane magical ability. Consume a dose and you magic becomes more potent, your arcane senses more acute, your magical research and crafting more efficient and expedient.

It is abjuration magic, and I found a set of incomplete notes that talk about it being used in new "runeforged" weapons. Combine ethillion with other magic schools and created weapons that are extra effective versus opposed schools. But the exact method of combination is a mystery. What I have is:

Step 1: get ethillion and enchantment magic

Step 3: defeat necromancy

So the bottom line is: I need ethillion to heal my uncle, and the creation of ethillion seems to begin and end at this Runeforge place.

Incidentally, finding this Runeforge may also be the key to preventing the return of great evil and the subsequent destruction of the world as we know it. But that is secondary.

[Tahlvin]

So what all started as a group that got together to fight some goblins that were attacking Sandpoint during the Swallow Tail festival (or whatever party it was) just a few short months ago, is now a group that's trying to stop the evil Runelords from awakening again and taking over the world. Oh, and helping to save Dothan's uncle/father-who-won't-openly-admit-it.

[Mike]

Akif is tall and dark. Dothan is tiny and pale. Orcish blood just expresses in strange ways, I guess.

[Zen]

WOW! That's a boatload of information...

So, do we have a clue as to where this Runeforge is?

[Phoebe]

MIND BLOWN WHOAAAAAA this library plus super smart person has DONE SOME PRODUCTIVE THINGS!

Amazing that after so long playing, we have finally reached some actual insight into the whole storyline! I love how mysterious it is, and you get little tendrils of it here and there - long ago I remember thinking it was all about infighting among the families of Sandpoint! Or maybe, infighting among the mobsters and politicians of Magnimar! And then I developed a huge theory about how we, today's civilization, were all crust sitting on top of buried, evil, ancient sites, mainly marked by passages and pools of underground waters!

Well, I guess my theory wasn't totally crazy, but perhaps if Dothan is right it should be limited to the area around Sandpoint, where perhaps the Wrath gods stir up anger via their subterranean pools? That would explain why, perhaps, we are not finding them out by Fort Rannick - just a swampy place and massive waterfall. I wonder if there is some additional Runelord who lives out there by Turtleback Ferry and Hook Mountain and all that stuff, who represents a different thing and therefore has demons trapped in a dam and so on.

And excuse me but Dwyn has to give y'all a somber "TOLD YA SO!" with respect to all this stuff being evil and wicked as all getout! So at least instincts were correct even if player theory was confused about the why and how.

I'm wondering now if we should try to figure out how the ancient stones we found in Sandpoint are supposed to work - can Dothan investigate any of that stuff? Specifically investigate intelligence on how these tower/weapons were supposed to work? Do we think the black tower here is one of those, or given the distant location, perhaps one of the sentinel towers for Karzoug? What about Thistletop - might it be a tower for the Wrathful one?

[Mike]

Oh yeah, and nobody tell Dwyn.

[Eliahad]