[Exalted] Solar Circle of the West - whole slew of updates 3/8/09

This is the storyhour for the Exalted game that I play in. We're a slightly nicer group of heroes than the Firefly game I run, but that may be because the evil bastard Paul is behind the storyteller screen.

AlwaysToast said:

My game is set in my version of the Exalted world. While it is similar to the standard world, it is different enough to discourage assumptions that my plots have anything to do with material printed in various books.

The character creation session was actually two sessions. One for all the solars and one for Empty Bucket, as the player was not at the first session. Yet he managed to go through the same events without changing anything significant.

The first session has more notes by me then most other sessions will have. As my players showed an interest in seeing this information, and it doesn’t effect my plotting.

Click to expand...

The regular schedule for gaming is trading off with my Firefly game every monday. You should be able to expect an update for one of the games every week, usually going up by sunday night (most of the time, I get exalted updates done on sundays, cause they're longer than the firefly ones).

Cast of Characters

Player Name: Dan
User Name: Welverin
Character Name: Patient Tiger
Exalted type and Caste: Solar - Eclipse
Concept: Thiefly bodyguard of Jahar


Player Name: Alex
User Name: Ao the Overkitty
Character Name: Gareth
Exalted type and Caste: Solar - Twilight
Concept: Master Smith
Description: Gareth is a forty-five year old man with reddened skin (presumably from too much time spent in the forge). He has short, grey hair and a scar running vertically from his right eyebrow, across the flap of skin where his right eye used to be and down to his right cheek. He stands about six feet tall and has a muscular build. If seen with his shirt off, he has a few burns and a couple line scars on his chest.


Player Name: Ryan
User Name: Guedo79
Character Name: A-dom
Exalted type and Caste: Solar - Night
Concept: Thugly guard


Player Name: Liz
User Name: Evil_Kitty_Grrl
Character Name: Jade's Luck
Exalted type and Caste: Solar - Zenith
Concept: Geisha house good luck charm


Update for after 4/10/06 session - Jahar Got His Wish
[sblock]Character Name: Patient Tiger
New Caste: Night

Character Name: A-dom
New Caste: Dawn[/sblock]

Player Name: Arianne
User Name: None
Character Name: Bianca
Exalted type and Caste: Solar - Eclipse
Concept: Mini-cow farmer now stuck with the Circle


Update for 6/20/06 - We now have a website for the game. Solar Circle of the West site

Session 1: Character Creation: Barge Party

Written by Alwaystoast.

Alwaystoast said:

tems marked as such:
>whatever

Are from my original plot notes, made before the session.

Italicized comments
>whatever
Are just my random comments about the game.

Click to expand...

Session 1: Character Creation: Barge Party
It is the first day of Calibration between the year 766 and 767 RY (Realm Year). All the characters are on the island of Atlantis, located on the eastern side of the islands that make up the West.

“It’s the first day of Calibration! And (any appropriate characters) has been invited to the Party of the year. It will be held on the pleasure barge of Admiral Peleps Krod, docked at the city of Atlantis, on the island of Atlantis. Even though the Admiral is not attending, this is looking to be one of the most important parties of the year. It will be lasting for three days. You expect to see a number of your friends at the party as well as make business deals.”


A-Dom is working as part of the security force. He is Thug number 4.
“If the right two thugs die.. I get to be thug number 2!” (As A-Dom said, Being thug #1 is too much work.)

>Opportunity to give Alms to the Disenfranchised on the docks before entering. Compassion Test.

Empty Bucket is amongst the Disenfranchised begging along the docks before the pleasure barge. However he is not as cute and/or pathetic as the disenfranchised children.

Jade’s Luck arrives first, before her Matron Jade arrives. She politely gives money to the disenfranchised beggars along the docks. She gets into the party just fine.

>Some compassion.

Gareth arrives next. He gives a little money to the beggars.

>Some compassion.

When Gareth gets to the barge, he finds his name is not on the list. He waits.

>He was invited, but the players didn’t know an honest mistake happened.

Sesus Weijin Jahar and his bodyguard Patient Tiger arrive. Jehar ignores the orphans. Patient Tiger watches carefully for thieves, and is ready to kill any of them who try.

>Compassion Lacking for both of them.

>Willing to lie to get another character (who wasn’t invited) into the party. Conviction Test.

They get to the boarding plank, and recognize Gareth. Jahar uses his status as a Noble to insist Gareth was invited. Which of course the guards accept as reasonable.

>Captain of Security Wimbull will ask upstanding people to inform him when something is wrong. Conviction test, Investigation prone

Wimbull takes Gareth aside. Gareth happily accepts.

Chieftain Zuwuzu tries to make a sacrifice to a water spirit for safe passage. A Monk (non D-B) of the Immaculate Order will try to stop them. Conviction, Temperance

Everyone notices except Jade’s Luck. They all go over to investigate. A-Dom tries to get the Monk’s attention. The monk, happy for the help says “Get rid of him.” A-Dom picks up Chieftain Zuwuzu and throws him off the boat. Everyone is happy about this solution, cause they have avoided “magic bad.”

Gareth keeps his word and goes to tell Wimbull about the situation while it’s happening.

>Demonstration of more conviction, and honesty

>Dinner is served. 7 pm
>While dinning, the ropes tying off the vessel are cut from shore. The ship begins to drift.

Actually, everyone is sitting on cushions for dinner. Except Tiger because he is standing up guarding Jahar. Tiger makes his check to notice the ropes being cut by the beggars who were not happy about how little money they got. Tiger says something to the effect of “Guards, stop them!” Guards pick up bows to shoot the children (Including A-Dom, who is happy to shoot children “I was only going to aim for the legs...”). Gareth runs over and throws a large hunk of money to the beggars and tells them to run for their lives.

>Gareth clearly has compassion. A-Dom clearly has very little.

Empty Bucket was amongst the ones cutting the ship free. Afterwards, he tried to figure if there was any food around. Of course there was food... on the ship. So he swam around the ship (he put his bucket, yes he carries a bucket, hence the name) with the bucket floating on the surface upside down, and his head in the bucket. Then he climbed up into the barge through one of the oar holes. Inside the ship he found a towel... then promptly blended in as the piss bucket boy.

>Tallcrest the Sorcerer, a Dragon-Blooded who is on the ship casts the spell upon the ship while everyone is eating.

Tallcrest finishes the spell just after the children incident. He even explains the spell. It prevents any supernatural from boarding the ship. The side effect is it prevents all mortals from leaving the ship. Prevention is caused by an invisible wall of force.

Empty Bucket misses this explanation. Which causes some issues later.

>Head Chef Alphonze asks you to sign three different false names to the roster, and you'll split the pay the three non-existant workers earn. While doing this poison residue is planted upon them. Conviction/Temperance, Larceny

He asks A-Dom. A-Dom happily signs three names. James, Bob, Ralph. They split the money.

>A-Dom again, showing his low virtues. Also showing his willingness to commit crime.

Empty Bucket gets into the kitchen and steals food, and empties the contents of his bucket, which has been used by a number of people, into the stew that will later be used to serve the slaves. He in fact got 6 successes on his stealth roll to not be noticed. Empty Bucket then hides amongst the staff.

>For a scholarly character, realize that the Tallcrest the Sorcerer’s room has a rare volume they've been wanting a copy of for years. With all these people on board, no one would know who took it... Conviction/Temperance, Occult/larceny

During the multiple courses of meals, Tallcrest remembers he forgot something in his room during. He gets up to go get it. So guards get up to go with him (Sorcerers aren’t allowed to be alone during Calibration). Jade (the madam) offers to send Jade’s Luck with him so the nice guards can eat their dinner.

Jade’s Luck takes notes of all the nifty things she could steal. But decides against stealing while next to the sorcerer owner.

>Personal Duels . Valor.

Peleps Herod (the effective captain), who is rather drunk, wants a demonstration of Gareth’s sword quality. So being an Earth Aspect DB, he walks into the dueling circle and says “Hit me!” Gareth fails to hurt him. “What a pansy, I said HIT me!” Gareth tries again, and does better. “Ouch!” Herod hits Gareth for quite a bit (5 bashing). Herod then orders a number of weapons.

>After Dinner.
>The chance to stop a drunk (Cynis Jahmar) from beating/raping the staff. Compassion. Combat skills

Jade’s Luck, A-Dom, Tiger and Jahar notice. Only Jade’s Luck cares. So she drags the guard A-Dom (Jade is confident she can’t win a fight) down to stop it. Of course she doesn’t call it a rape. She tells him it’s theft.
“I mean, you’re suppose to PAY for sex.” -Jade’s Luck

Empty Bucket notices this, as Cynis Jahmar pushes past him, and goes about his business.

>Empty Bucket, lack of compassion

So A-Dom and Jade’s Luck interrupt the Cynis, who really is a jerk. As he stops what he’s doing, but stands with a foot on the woman’s chest to talk to them.

As this is a charge of theft, A-Dom asks the woman “Did he pay you?”
Victim “I’m not a whore!”
A-Dom “Oh... guess there is no theft here.” Walks away.

>A-Dom, no compassion here.

Jade’s Luck, decides to enlist the aid of Gareth (who is still wounded with bashing). Gareth, who actually has compassion, really does try to stop the Cynis. The Cynis takes this as a personal attack on his character, and challenges him to a duel. They go to the dueling ring, decide upon using no weapons, and go at it. Gareth is quickly knocked out. The Cynis who is drunk and frustrated, keeps beating on him.

Everyone else has a chance to actively intervene. However, they all passively intervene. Looking for a Judge, trying to talk the Cynis into calming down, etc.

So Gareth exalts as the Twilight. He then makes the Int + Occult roll to remember the Sorcerer said Mortals couldn’t get off the boat. Being an Anathema, he is no longer mortal. So he jumps over the side.

Nobody (of the guests) remembers who exactly the Cynis was dueling, as many people are drunk, and there have been a number of not too exciting duels. The characters all keep their mouths shut, because they have all associated with Gareth. So they don’t want to be accused of anything related to an Anathema. A-Dom then says “I think it was one of the kitchen staff. James I think.”

>Brilliant piece of work, blaming an imaginary individual who can never be found.

So there is a quick check of the staff and James, Bob, and Ralph are found to be missing. So James must have been the Anathema, cause A-Dom got “a real good look.”

Everyone now notices that the barge was cut free at some point, and has drifted out of the bay.

Slaves are sent down to row.

Empty Bucket attempts to get away and hide, not wanting to be put to work rowing. However he is grabbed and told to clean up the Anathema Blood. As is could be toxic or poisonous. He gets told he can just use the wine in his bucket (He’s been stealing bottles of wine), as this is an emergency.

He objects “Screw that, I’m going to drink this wine!” and hits the person who gave him the order with a wine bottle. Only then does he notice that the person is Judge Grimoth. Grimoth stomps him hard. Being badly wounded Empty Bucket tries to jump off the boat head first... and hits the invisible wall wounding himself more. Grimoth puts a foot on him and starts asking “Who’s slave is this?” With 1 health level left, Empty Bucket tries to lunge down the stairs below decks, head first. With the wound penalties he has one die. He rolls a 1 on that one die. So he knocks himself unconscious.

>You get exalted by being in horrible danger... not by being incompetent.

So Empty Bucket is taken down to the “body room.”

>More cushions are put out to lay about or sleep on. 11pm (Night)

>Treatment of bodies.

A-Dom is told to take the body of someone who died in the dueling ring to the storage room, along with a slave. He is there to make sure the slave doesn’t steal from the corpse. That’s his job. He notices that there are a few extra bodies already there. One of the extra bodies is Empty Bucket (he is just unconscious). He loots them too. Then he reports the extra bodies to his boss the chief of security.

All Empty Bucket’s jade (that was gotten from other party members as a donation) was stolen by A-Dom. He was good and unconscious for 12 hours.

>As a running joke, every time any character went into that room, I added one or two bodies to the pile. As a number of people were getting assassinated by nobles and the Abyssals.

Jade’s Luck decides to go back to the Sorcerer’s room to steal stuff.

>In the Tallcrest cabin, there are hideous half-alive magically mutated animals. With almost-human voices they beg for death. Compassion. Occult/Lore (there might be magical defenses in there too.)

As she is looting valuable things that will be hard to notice have gone missing (not that hard room is messy) she hears “Help me” coming from behind a curtain.

While she’s doing this Jahar and Tiger are going below decks on the other side of the ship.

She peaks behind the curtain and sees the experiment/torture part of the chamber. She finds the mutated and tortured cat who is asking for help. So she takes out her knife and slits it’s throat.

She then hears a chorus of “Me next! Kill me next!” As all the other animals start begging for death. Monkey, rats, birds, lizards, etc. So she lets the monkey out of the cage and gives it her knife. Monkey “I never liked you!” Stabs the bird. “Die scum!” Stabs the lizard. Jade then takes “bubbly acid looking stuff” and pours assorted random chemicals upon the torture equipment. She does in fact start a fire.

So the magic warning system goes off. “Guards! Guards! Intruder in the Sorcerer’s chamber! Guards! Fire!”

A-Dom is the first guard on the scene. He sees her coming out of the room that is on fire. Jade’s luck tries yelling Fire! And running away. A-Dom gives chase but fails to stop her.

So they are running the length of the ship below decks. Jahar and Tiger hear a commotion and see people running towards them in a dark corridor. There is some pushing and shoving, as Jahar wants to be in front to see, and Tiger Eye wants to be in front to protect him. As they get closer A-Dom says something to the effect of “Stop! Thief!” So Tiger tries to do a sweep kick as Jade’s Luck tries to jump over him. She succeeds... He botches. So he ends up sweeping A-Dom, who was right behind her. So they end up in a pile on the floor as Jade’s Luck runs off.

She goes and hides in the room... with all the corpses. Empty Bucket is now under a number of them.

A-Dom goes up upon the deck to report to his boss. But he runs into the drunken Peleps Herod first. This conversation goes poorly... as A-Dom is speaking fast and rambling, and Herod is picking out key words and using them to make up his own interpretation. Which is something to the effect of “I let the thief escape on purpose.” So Herod beats him into a bloody pulp.

A-Dom exalts as the Night Caste. “Can I like... punch through his chest?”

>So I let him, it’s not terribly important, and it causes more chaos for later. So he kills Herod by ripping out his heart, and then jumps off the boat. (He saw the first demon do it.)

Everybody else is below decks. So they don’t realize who is being called a demon. They eventually get above decks and find out stuff is going on. Jade’s Luck manages to sneak back to the party, as the only guard who saw her... turned into a demon.

Jahar and Tiger get back up top and inspect Herod’s body. Someone is sent off to get slaves to take the body away. They find out all the slaves are sick with some kind of food poisoning. Well somebody needs to drag the body downstairs.... And Tiger is real close to the body, and a commoner. So he and a guard are told to do it. Jahar goes along too... hoping to steal stuff. Which is Tiger is planing too. Tiger and the guard go into the room. The guard then starts stripping the body and complaining about how you can’t take stuff from the body of a noble. Tiger tries to palm something, and fails. So they start fighting, and calling each other a thief. Jahar comes into the room and knocks the guard out. They take all Herod’s money, but decide against stealing his jewelry. They then tie up and gag the guard.

Jade’s Luck goes to check the slaves. She does a little medical investigation, mostly yea, they are sick and food poisoning seems right.

>Slaves die of food poisoning. 5am. (Night into Dawn - Day)

Jade’s Luck starts being concerned about the food. So she goes and tells the Judges that the slaves were poisoned and are now all dead. So nobody is rowing the boat. The Judges decide that commoners will have to row. Jade’s Luck points out that a food taster will be needed, since if the commoners get sick, nobody will be rowing the boat... Jade’s Luck is suddenly the food taster, being a commoner who doesn’t look very useful for rowing.

There was also some blame being spread around about the poisoning. So two staff members who served the slaves were going to die, then just be tortured... eventually they questioned the Chef. As Jade’s Luck tries to lead the conversation away from the killing and torture of people who may be innocent.

>Chef blames person he framed. Judges investigate and find planted evidence. Fun ensues.

>Unfortunately for my plan... the person he planted the evidence on (A-Dom) already exalted.

But A-Dom is scape-goated, by Jade’s Luck, so the two servants manage to get off with no punishment.

Jahar and Tiger spot Jade’s Luck, and recognize her from below decks. Tiger tries to sneak up behind her (easy) and quietly draw his sword (With two judges facing him). “What are you doing with that sword?” -Judge

Tiger “Umm... She was running from the guard earlier.”
Judge “Which guard?”
Tiger describes A-Dom.
Judge “You mean the Anathema? Good job girl. Glade you escaped alive.” Pats Jade’s Luck on the head.

The Judges realize someone is going to have to clear out the slave corpses before the commoners are sent down to row. Rowing will be bad enough, don’t want to scare them. So the Judges order Tiger to move all the bodies to the “body room.” Jahar complains he won’t have his bodyguard, but is told he can stay next to the judges if he feels unsafe. So Tiger spends a lot of time below decks moving a lot of bodies a very long way below decks.

So Jade’s Luck becomes the official food taster. Jahar is suspicious, so he goes to the kitchen to check things out. Of course he wants to be subtle about it, and he is the only noble in a kitchen full of servants. When the head Chief asks him what the hell he is doing he responds with “I was just looking for a quite place to think.” Knowing this makes no sense, as the kitchen is the loudest place on the ship at this time.

When he doesn’t go away, the Chef asks him if he wants anything in particular. Jahar points out something being roasted. So the Chef cuts him off some, and poisons it. Jahar had no chance of spotting the abyssal magic poison (Although Gabe knew he was going to get poisoned). So he eats it.

Jahar is the Dawn Caste.

Tiger who is still below decks hears “Demon, Demon!” So he just ignores it, as going to investigate will probably just lead to removing more bodies.

Empty Bucket wakes up. Under a huge pile of bodies. Tiger opens the door and throws another body on the pile, then leaves. Empty Bucket digs his way out and starts looting corpses for a set of clothing. While he is doing this, he hears Judge Nessil coming and buries himself back under a bunch of corpses.

>Judge Nessil is really an Abyssal, who will begin animating Zombies once there are enough bodies.

As Judge Nessil is animating the corpses, Empty Bucket decides that his only way to survive is to “act like a zombie.” Which he proceeds to do, with 5 successes.

So the sun has risen by now. Breakfast is going on in full swing. And an eclipse starts.

Tiger, below decks, is going to stuff another body into the “body room.” This is when the players remember there is a bound and gagged guard at the bottom of a rather large pile of corpse in a rather small room. However there is someone inside, Judge Nessil who is animating the corpses as zombies. So the zombies all grab hold of Tiger.

Empty Bucket is the one saying “Brains! Braiiiiins!” He tries to get to the back of the group of zombies.

Tiger becomes the Eclipse.

So the Zombies have to let Tiger go, because of the Eclipse diplomatic immunity deal. He really wants to kill the abyssal... but he will get attacked by the zombies if he does. So he just runs and jumps off the ship yelling “Zombies!”

So the guests, rather tired of the Anathema who just run off the ship instead of staying on so they can be killed, kind of ignore him.

Judge Nessil takes the zombies and starts killing, and animating everyone below decks. Empty Bucket used this time to lock himself in a room that had already been checked by the zombie crew.
>Note the complete lack of compassion. He was happy to let everyone else die to the zombies as long as he was safe.

Jade’s Luck manages to get away from food testing, to “powder her nose.” Which is reasonable given how much she would have had to eaten by that point. So she goes below decks to find someplace to hide. After a few hours she goes walking around below decks.

>Zombies are discovered. Noon. (Zenith)

While wandering around, she sees some people walking towards her. She recognizes one of them as Herod... who had his heart ripped out. So she decides to go the other way. But there are zombies shambling towards her that way.

Jade’s Luck exalts as a Zenith.

>Yes, I got a perfect circle. I’m amazed.

So, I tell her, she can kill zombies by force of will (Which is basically the Zenith caste power). So she gets rid off all the zombies near her. Then she goes looking for zombies. “Till I can’t kill them no more.”

So she just keeps frying them, until her totemic anima image appears. Being a fox. Now she is below decks, and her flame wasn’t big enough to go above decks. But her totem image was. So there were a few jokes about the glowing fox head chasing people around the deck. She finally jumps off the boat.

So Empty Bucket hears the zombies being destroyed, and eventually comes out. Sneaks into the kitchen, steals a bunch of booze, then sneaks below decks and gets hammered. Then, now having less common sense from being drunk, he decides to go above deck. He is spotted, and accused of being the zombie summoner in league with the Sorcerer Tallcrest. So he is tied to something, and is being lashed to death.

Ok, Empty Bucket, doesn’t fit as a Solar. He isn’t heroic, or even very skilled. Plus, I already had my perfect circle.

Dan said something to the effect of “He should be a Lunar, the only thing he is good at is surviving.” However, I really didn’t want a Lunar in this game, especially with a player who had never played Exalted before.

So I asked Alex, “Yes or No, should I do it to him?” Alex said Yes. So it turns out Empty Bucket is a Dragon-blooded.

So Empty Bucket is a Water Aspect Dragon-Blooded Lost Egg... and he jumps off the ship.

End Session(s).

Synopsis of 6/27/05 Session - "The Arrival"

Synopsis of 6/27/05 Session

"The Arrival"

Gareth arrived on the island to find a picnic basket on the beach. Opening it up, he found a sandwich and note addressed to him with a map on it. Following the map led him to a crypt. He didn’t notice much inside the crypt except a sarcophagus containing a suit of armor and a three-foot sword. Somehow, he knew he had made them.

A-dom arrived on the island and found a chest on the beach. Inside the chest was a suit of armor and a note that said, "Dig". Buried beneath the sand was a big club with a golden spike in it.

Jahar arrived on the island in shock. He stumbled onto the shore and found a pair of golden bracers in the sand. His vision clouded and he saw these bracers, on his arms, but his arms were much larger. He knew this was him, but not anymore. He put the bracers on as he felt it should be... and then they sized themselves to his arms and he could no longer take them off. This was the last straw, and he stumbled into the jungle, burning, and sat down in shock.

When Tiger arrived on the island, he talked to a man. He was told he needed to collect the circle, but to wait a few hours for them all to arrive.

Jade’s Luck arrived on the island and found a shiny chakram in a tree. She also proceeded to inspect a veil that she had swiped from the Wizard’s room.

Empty Bucket arrived in an underwater cave while fishing for some food. He met an old man who acted like he knew him and told him he was late. While the old man tried to tell him a few things about being a Dragon-Blood and lead him somewhere, Bucket proceeded to get distracted a lot. He found ROB (Ridiculously Overpowered Bucket) and wandered off to find the kitchen. Eventually the old man managed to send Bucket off to find the Circle.

Having waited around a while, Tiger went off in search of the rest of the Circle. He first found A-dom, who was expectantly suspicious, but went along with it. They next found Luck and there was much with the accusations from A-dom. They found Jahar sulking under a tree going on about being a demon. He didn't even see them approach. After a bit of talking, they seemed to partially convince Jahar he wasn’t a demon. About this time, Gareth exited the crypt and made his way towards the noise of several people talking. The group talked about what had happened and what they were all doing there and what they should do now. Gareth had strange remembrances of making several of the items scattered throughout the group. Empty Bucket arrived and several of the Circle looked ready to kill him before he could alert more Dragon Bloods. Somehow, Gareth and Jahar remembered Bucket as the Circle’s loyal servant. This bought Bucket enough time to save his ass, though he vehemently denied the loyal servant part. Repeatedly. Gareth found a button and proceeded to poke it many times throughout the rest of the session. Hotheaded dragon-bloods are so fun.

After much discussion and conversing with the bucket (not to be confused with Empty Bucket), the group headed off in search of the Obelisk. This was mostly at the bucket's urging. By this point, Jahar was relatively engaged, although the bucket talking to him had been a little much. Jahar, realizing if he was going to make any sense of this he'd have to find this obelisk, intuitively read the obelisk's direction from the geomantic layout of the trees. This proved to be the start of a great many odd readings Jahar continued to see in things. Eventually, at Jahar's direction, they came to the obelisk. It was at the center of the island, so some skepticism at Jahar's geomantic readings was probably in order. Gareth and Jahar remembered feeling a great sense of accomplishment about it. Jahar proceeded to touch the Obelisk and converse telepathically with it, talking shop about sorcery and the Immaculate Order, as well as that odd concept (to an obelisk) such as time. The obelisk, Opec, was too busy to talk to anyone else. In the mean time, Empty Bucket touched the Obelisk and got knocked fifty feet back and impaled by a branch. He was quickly found regenerating (thanks to his muddy boots.) Jahar was absorbed in Opec at the time and never even noticed. Eventually they finished and a more sedate Jahar, once distracted from staring at a leaf, told the group a ship was coming and they should head for the shore.

A boat beached on the island looking to refill their water supplies. Empty Bucket quickly exerted his Dragon Blooded might and got them to transport himself and ‘his servants’ off the island. There was much clamor within the group about the uppity Dragon-Blood.

Since it was odd for a ship to be sailing during Calibration and the crew seemed tense, Gareth and Luck tried to get some information. Gareth got nothing out of the crew but Luck made the captain into her boy toy and got out of him that they were transporting slaves to Atlantis for House Cynis and weren’t even getting paid. It was pretty much a ‘you do this or else’ kind of thing. The Circle got worried when Luck went down to see the slaves and got that look in her eye. They got even more worried when she brought Gareth in on trying to help the slaves. Jahar was very against doing anything that would call attention to the Circle and was very adamant about it. Gareth got the slaves the only food that was on board (a loaf of bread) while Luck got them a barrel of water (5ft slip of a girl carrying a huge barrel equals not subtle). Luckily for the Circle, Gareth and Luck were unable to come up with a plan to get the slaves away without drawing attention. Furthermore, the ship docked before Gareth and Luck could convince each other not to care that the rest of the Circle wanted discretion. In the meantime, Bucket stole everything that wasn't tied down, and then stole the ties.

When the boat arrived at the docks, a large whirlpool was noticed and the ship was directed away from it. It seemed the slaves were to be a sacrifice to the angry Water Spirit. The dock dragon-bloods took the slaves over to the dock to get ready to do their ritual. Jahar questioned why they didn't have any local slaves available for slaughter, but was so distracted by Jade's Luck he completely forgot to inquire about it. Gareth completely failed his Compassion roll (which was good, because he had no clue what to do) while Luck made hers and had to help the poor slaves. Donning her veil, she pretended to be a Dragon-blood and stopped the sacrifice. Speaking out to the Spirit of the Bay, she poured on her Social charms and got it to manifest in a form besides the whirlpool. She found out the Spirit was angry about all the garbage in the bay and promised to do something about it. She managed to say some rather choice words to screw up the dragon-bloods’ argument and even tick them off a little with some comments about sacrificing dragon-bloods instead (effectively offering herself up as a sacrifice). She convinced the spirit to give them till an hour before the end of Calibration to clean up the mess then sent the guards away for a while.

Below, Bucket found lots of shipwrecks and various other garbage on the bay floor. He proceeded to try to loot everything in sight. By allowing the Circle to share in his anima power, they proceeded to move the chunks of ships off to the drop off and chuck them over. While the rest of the group took small chunks and pieces, A-dom was able to carry whole ships, reducing the clean up to under three hours.

With the spirit appeased, the guards led the slaves off towards one of the House Cynis compounds. Before they could get far, Gareth and Bucket negotiated the sale of a tailor. That was one slave, at least, that would have a better life (in theory).

The group headed off to Jade’s and a brief conversation occurred about what to do now. Bucket was told he wasn’t allowed to wear his muddy boots inside. The Circle then went their separate ways. Luck and Bucket stayed at Jade’s. Gareth took the slave back to his townhouse and got it clothed, fed, and showed it around the shop. Tiger and A-dom followed Jahar back to his townhouse where he got A-dom on retainer as another bodyguard. Jahar remembered being an old man sneaking into his own room. Inquiring with Tellus, he found out an old Anathema snuck into the compound some fifty to sixty years ago, stole an artifact, and killed himself with it in Jahar's bedroom. This really, really upset Jahar - especially after he continued to have flashbacks throughout the house. He resolved to find more about this. Unfortunately, the artifact in question was thrown into a volcano, according to Tellus.

Synopsis of 7/11/05 Session - "A Wyld time in Highwatch"

Synopsis of 7/11/05 Session

"A Wyld time in Highwatch"

During the month of down time, Gareth approached each of the members of the Circle about disturbing dreams and visions he was having. A-dom‘s dreams of ale and women were unlikely to have been from a past life. At least, Gareth hoped they weren’t since they also involved Elephants. Bucket had no clue, but was informed that Gareth had talked him up to the slave and it had better not come back to bite him in the ass.

Out of the others, only Jahar seemed to have a clue about what Gareth was talking about. It seems that, in the past, the Circle went their separate ways after ‘Gareth’, Lightbringer (Jahar), and Fortune (Jade’s Luck?) had a disagreement (since it was Gareth’s vision, he didn’t know what he was called back then). Something about Lightbringer and Fortune always getting delayed by going off to save some mortal. ‘Gareth’ had relayed this information to a large egg with lots of feet and a mouth. He wasn’t happy the thing was there and wanted it gone. When he realized there was something wrong with the fact he was relaying this information, ‘Gareth’ died. Jahar simply said that, after that point in time, something very bad happened.

Jahar, apparently, had had some visions/dreams of this time as well as some of a recent incarnation. Before they parted, Gareth did mention that, in a dream before he woke up, he heard a woman’s voice that he was sure was his own say, “This time, I won’t let the little things get in the way.”

In his discussion with Luck, she asked Gareth if he could make her a war fan that wasn’t as flimsy as the paper one she owned to compliment her new fighting style. Over the course of fifteen hours, he proceeded to make the most perfect example of a good war fan.

------------

Jahar got approached by one of his elders about ‘that thing that needed to get done.’ To which point, Jahar sent A-dom to collect the Circle and meet at Jade’s to go on a short journey while Tiger prepared horses for the three of them. A-dom, being A-dom, proceeded to mess up those directions when he met with Luck and Bucket. He told them to meet outside of town, as it would be more discrete. Finding neither of them had access to horses, A-dom cursed and told them to just meet outside the city. Luck told Mother Jade she had an errand to run for a few days and was taking the new servant/messenger boy. Gareth, at least, knew a guy he could borrow a horse from. He assembled a sales case and told the slave he’d be gone for a few days.

While Gareth, Luck, and Bucket each made their way to outside the city, A-dom proceeded to successfully and stealthily steal three nice horses from a nearby stable and bring them outside the city. Why three, we don’t know. Either he thought Gareth needed a horse or he was just bad at math. He got back to Jahar’s estate only to find Jahar and Tiger gone. He caught up with them at Jade’s and informed them he had made an un-executive decision to change the meeting place.

Once they met up outside the city, everyone went on their way. Jahar was fairly tight-lipped about where the circle was going. Empty Bucket kept asking where they were going and why, but Jahar ignored him and got distracted elsewhere. No one else pressed him. Seemed to be a lot of trust going on there. After a few hours, it was pretty evident that Bucket, Luck, and Gareth knew nothing about riding. They stopped for food and sleep at an inn for the night. After stopping at the inn, Jahar recognized something about the saddle of the stolen horse Jade’s Luck was riding. While the group was eating, Jahar had a new saddle delivered. While the group was stopped the next day for lunch in the wilderness, he tried to spook the horse and get it to flee. It just looked at him like he was nuts. He brought A-dom over and started to berate him about stealing the horse, saying the owner was a Dragon-Blood and had a grudge against Jahar. Through this conversation, the horse responded by nodding and shaking its head to questions semi-posed to it, which freaked out Jahar. It was then that they realized that A-dom had stolen this woman’s intelligent familiar. Jahar had A-dom lead the horse over to an apple tree, so they wouldn’t be discussing the horse’s fate around the horse. A long discussion ensued. At some point Rob was consulted.

Rob pointed out killing or getting rid of the horse wouldn’t matter, as the group was clearly seen at the inn by the innkeeper and the stable boy with the horse in question. So any perusing Dragon-Bloods didn’t need to find them with the horse to determine their guilt. There was strong objection (even from the less compassionate people) to burning down the inn and killing everyone who saw them to cover up an honest mistake... that was made while stealing horses.

Jahar then had Tiger hold the familiar by the apple tree, while he berated A-Dom. This lead to A-dom stating, “I apologize, sir, and next time I will quiz the horses before I steal them.”

While they were talking, Empty Bucket filled Rob with apples. However Rob refused to swallow them. “Great, I have a finicky magic bucket.” At the end of the conversation, Jahar took the horse’s saddle and tossed it on the fire. Empty Bucket immediately called dibs and tried to grab it off the fire. It took Jahar a few seconds to explain why the saddle needed to be torched.

The Circle continued to make way towards Highwatch, as they were later told by Jahar. It was later found out that Jahar was sent to collect some taxes, but for now the group remained ignorant.

When they got close to their destination, sounds of screams and calls for help were heard from Highwatch by Bucket and Luck. Bucket didn’t care, but Luck forced her horse (the familiar) to speed off towards the town to help. Since Bucket’s horse was tied to Luck’s, he was forced to follow. Gareth sped up to follow after them, but proceeded to fall off his horse shortly after. A-dom noticed a fight happening ad decided to join it. Jahar though he heard a sound behind him and proceeded to investigate with Tiger.

When Luck, Bucket, and A-dom arrived at the town, they found a bunch of Shrabbits (rabbit sized half shark/half rabbits) and some floating jellyfish with spears chasing around and attacking some children. Luck proceeded to fall off her horse onto a small child she was trying the save (botch). A-dom gracefully fell off his horse onto a shrabbit. Bucket attempted to pelt the shrabbits with apples... then gave up and started squishing them with the bucket, which turned out to be much more effective. Luck tried to jump up and hall herself onto a rooftop while carrying the child. However she miscalculated where to grab the roof (botch) and fell back to earth... landing on the child, again.





Gareth, Jahar, and Tiger eventually made it to the battle and there was much squishing of the shrabbits and a few squishings of the jellyfish. Bucket was amusing himself by knocking shrabbits into the air. Unfortunately he wasn’t paying much attention and lost his grip on Rob (botch), which didn’t amuse Gareth because Rob hit him in the head. The jellyfish retreated back up the hill, leaving the shrabbits behind.

It was clear that they had wandered into a Wyld area. Gareth was very happy to have learned Integrity Protecting Prana and for having the forethought to put it up every day since leaving Atlantis. He extolled the charm’s virtues several times throughout the day.

Gareth and some of the others heard screaming coming from the town hall. Still armed and armored, Gareth charged in to find a giant cookie eating Fred (a random villager). He took two large chunks out of the cookie. As Jahar pointed out, it was one tough cookie. It fought valiantly, but under one of Tiger’s blows, the cookie crumbled.

Bucket ate a piece of the cookie, which he found to be quite tasty. So he tried to put more pieces of the cookie into Rob. Rob however, kept spitting them out, saying something to the effect of, “No way!” So Bucket put some pieces in his saddlebag for later.

Gareth and Tiger kept the living villagers busy while the others gathered the bodies of the dead villagers so Luck could give them a proper burial. Gareth’s method of keeping them busy was to show them his wares.
“Step right up folks, As you can see in today’s world, one needs to own a good weapon to protect yourself from shrabbits...”

He made two sales.

While torching the building the bodies had been moved to (to cover up for the fact that Luck incinerated the bodies magically), an armored penguin arrived in town. It challenged anyone there to try and close the chaos portal, calling everyone weak and useless. It then called out the name of a move and slid all the way back up the hill. A-dom felt a very real need to follow the penguin and defeat its challenge.



The group spent two hours “relaxing” as most people wanted to regain some essence, and heal a little. During this time Bucket tried to cook a shrabbit to eat. However when the shrabbit juices fell into the fire, the fire jumped up and attacked Bucket. He and Jahar put down the fire before it spread. However Jahar noticed that the grass around the dead shrabbits was uprooting itself and forming grass phalanxes, using other pieces of non-animated grass for spears. Jahar then talked to Bucket about why it is a bad idea to eat Wyld food. Bucket pointed out he ate the Wyld cookie, and was fine. He even had more in his saddlebag for later. Jahar looked over at the horses to see the saddle bag in question crawling away from the bones of Bucket’s stolen horse. The Saddlebag looked quite full.

The group decided to not dilly-dally anymore. Although they did tell the horse familiar to stomp the grass creatures, and protect the other horses.

Reaching a cliff, they found the trail continued off onto some particularly solid clouds. It was found that, whenever anyone but Gareth spoke, his or her words rose up from the ground in massive blocks of hardened ink. This caused the group to have to climb over them. After everyone pantomimed and got on their way, they reached a floating island.

It was an island of earth floating in the sky with a large maple tree upon it. The island appeared to be experiencing every season simultaneously, as part of the tree was in full bloom of spring, part covered in leaves of summer, part sparsely covered in autumn leaves, which also cover the ground, and part of it was bear and had ice upon it. Under the tree were a tiny lake (or a large puddle) and a small fire. Next to the fire was a silvery looking tent.

A-dom was the first to charge onto the island and quickly got caught up in the autumnal leaves of the tree. One by one the group got trapped by one element or another upon the island. Luck was the last one, but managed to escape the fire. She later remembered that Fire was related to Dawn castes. Realizing fire was related to Dawn caste Solars, she ran around trying to remember who the dawn caste was while being chased by said fire. Once she remembered (luckily Jahar’s anima symbol was glowing), she dived into the bubble of water encasing Jahar. The Fire followed, and extinguished itself. Through trial and error, dumbfounded looks, ROB being surprised at the Circle’s stupidity/uneducatedness, and Jahar making himself very loud to be heard outside his water bubble, the group was able to work together and escape their entrapment. Luck hamster balled the water to earth to push Tiger out of the earth encasing him, Tiger pulled Gareth out of some silvery air he was entrapped in, Gareth pulled A-dom out of the leaves, A-dom pulled Bucket out of the ice entrapping him, and Bucket pulled Luck & Jahar out of the water. Most of the group was glowing greatly at this point, and Jahar was even totemic with a giant Octopus around him.

Jahar forgot to reduce his volume again once outside the bubble, which led to everyone within a hundred miles or so hear him yell the word “PENGUIN!” As he was trying to direct the groups attention to where he was pointing. In a more, subdued voice, he asked people to start digging. A-Dom asked if anyone had a shovel, to which a shovel fell from the sky. A-Dom then asked if anyone had a naked woman. A naked elephant faced beast-woman fell from the sky and landed on A-Dom. She then promptly got up and, looking at the Circle, screamed “Solars!” and ran away. A-Dom shrugged and started digging while Gareth commented, “At least she knew what we were and not just demons.”

Digging into the earth of the floating island, they found a small figurine of penguin armor that started spouting insults at them. While closing its beak seemed to cancel out the Wyld area, it also made the floating island plummet. It was quickly figured out that closing the beak was a bad idea. However, A-dom found sticking his finger in the armored penguin’s mouth stopped it from speaking while not making the island plummet. They were quite a ways down the cliff now, though and needed to get back up. Also, with the figuring spouting insults, words were appearing next to island still, obstructing the cliff. It was somewhat quickly found out that different words and languages could affect the landscape. Seaspeak made watery letters while Flametongue produced fiery ones. Jahar made said some slithery letters and made a slope back up to the cliff top. Once there, the group clamped the penguin’s mouth shut and all were saved from the Wyld.

About this time, Gareth actively tried to break the others out of their hallucination that they had stopped the Wyld. They didn't seem to notice anything he did, but did continue talking to him (just not responding correctly to anything he said). Smashing the penguin with his sword probably would have eventually worked, given enough time.

------

Fast forward to the rest of the group waking up, in pain with a lot of bashing damage. They were all alive, minus one magic horse, one stolen horse, and Jahar's horse (Jahar's saddle & saddlebags remained, however). A-dom’s skin was now the exact color and shade of brown as his hair.

Synopsis of 7/25/05 session - "Poison and Paranoia"

Synopsis of 7/25/05 session

"Poison and Paranoia"

Gareth, Jade's Luck, and Empty Bucket decided they wanted/needed to return to the city of Atlantis as soon as possible, so they left Jahar behind with his two servants to clean up his political mess in Highwatch. When they returned to the inn they had stayed at on the way out, they heard a bard sing a new ballad for a new brotherhood of dragonbloods that was about the events in highwatch. When they got back to the city, they found the ballad was everywhere.

The ballad said:

This is the content of the ballad, which is in fact really bloody long. Not the actual words:

The song is about the Brotherhood of Horses Irrevocably Cleansing Anathema. It starts off with the events of last Calibration. The Brotherhood stabled it’s prized group of horses, decedent from one of the Scarlet Empresses’ favorite mount. For membership in their Brotherhood requires vast love and devotion to their prized horses. As they were going on a barge. The Brotherhood was walking from the stables on the way to the barge party of Admiral Peleps Krod, when they were ambushed by a group of disenfranchised. Who were promptly slaughtered... in self defense. One of the disenfranchised turned out to be an Anathema, and gave the brotherhood a mighty fight before they killed it.

The Brotherhood took this as a sign that there must be more Anathema in the slums. So they went searching. After two days they found a spirit who told them servants of the Anathema had been in the slums. But had taken to the sea on a ship that did not sail. They rushed to the harbor and found the only ship that did not sail was the barge that was cut free from it’s mooring on the docks. Clearly the anathema they had killed was only a decoy to prevent them from reaching the party on time.

So the Brotherhood of Horses Irrevocably Cleansing Anathema was forced to go to a less prestigious party. Where they managed to route out and kill a few heretical heathen islanders who were in attendance.

After Calibration they went north of the city of Atlantis to fight some zombies that had crawled ashore during calibration. They spent several weeks making sure the northern shores were clear of such filth before returning to the city.

Again they stabled their horses with much reluctance, at the first stable they came to. As they had traveled long and far, and wanted there horses to rest as much as they wanted it for themselves. So they went to bath and attend personal affairs. Their horses had not been in the stable for more then a few minutes, in fact only one of the horses had been unsaddled by a stable boy, when a vile cancerous bastard snuck into the stables and stole three of them.

So the Brotherhood of Horses Irrevocably Cleansing Anathema returned to the stables and found their horses missing. Luckily one of them was so blessed by the dragons that he could follow the tracks of the horses and the thief no matter what they walked upon. So they tracked them out of town. Where the thief met a group of people. Then it was quite simple to follow the trail of mud. Those bastards were using decedents of the Scarlet Empress’ horse, to haul MUD!

(Much cursing and booing from the crowd. As the crowd clearly feels for the poor horses.)

Unfortunately because they were down three horses, the Brotherhood was forced to walk. As none could bare to ride while the others experience such grief and anguish from being separated from their prized mounts. They eventual reached an inn where the theif and his group had stayed.

Where they got descriptions of everyone in that group. Most scandalously one of the men in the group was a member of a noble house, although he was much too weak, petty, impotent, and cowardly for the Dragons to bless him with Exaltation. Apparently not everyone in the group knew the horses were stolen. So we can only hope, for the sake of his house, that he did not know the horses were stolen.

The group with the horse theif in it, made it to Highwatch, which was under assault by the wyld. The noble-born man foolishly, and stupidly tried to lead his friends to save the town. But almost all of them were seduced by the wyld. It told them they had won, but they were already it’s slaves. Only one of them, a honest merchant, managed to keep his wits.

So the merchant did the only reasonable thing he could do. He ran to find Dragon Bloods to deal with the wyld and save the town, as well as his pathetic and retched companions.

The Brotherhood of Horses Irrevocably Cleansing Anathema arrived at the town. They found two of there horses well. But one horse, the very best horse the owner had ever had, was eaten by the wyld. But even through the joy and grief, they managed to drive back the wyld and save the town. The merchant came crying and pleaded to them to save his friends. They even saved the idiot nobleman, and his friends, with the thief among them. But they found the group so pathetic that they allowed them to live. As to kill them now would just create a disenfranchised when they reincarnated. Plus, there are other punishments... more fitting then death.

Click to expand...

Meanwhile, in Highwatch, Jahar worked his hardest for a week to try and have the town still be able to function after paying their debts to his family. The town's accountant, overcome from his experience from the wyld and with the recent debt problems, ended up killing himself by the end of that week. The town ended up selling most of their worldly possessions and furniture to some wandering greedy merchants.

After the merchants left, Jahar then expressed his desire for the merchants to not make a profit.

“How many horses did you want sir?” was A-Dom’s response.
“No horses. Just Jade. Collect all the Jade you can.” Jahar
“Do you want me to ask it any questions?” A-Dom
“Umm... No I think we can safely steal jade without questioning it first. Just no artifacts.” Jahar
“Well I knew that.” A-Dom

So Tiger and A-Dom quite happily snuck into the Merchant’s camp at night to steal all their supplies of cash and any small trinkets that could be easily carted off (forever after referred to as “Statues” by the players. Despite that word never being used in the description of the stuff). They acquired enough to meet his goal, plus ten percent. No horses this time.

Before Jahar, Tiger Eye, and A-dom returned to Atlantis, Jahar made sure the residents of Highwatch had enough to survive. While A-dom was off seeing about fencing the non-Jade items, Jahar ran into Tellus. Jahar’s mother was not pleased and Jahar’s dad was hiding in his Manse. Jahar was to report to his mother with her servants as soon as possible.

Jahar ran off to catch A-dom and, together, they stored their goods at Gareth’s. Gareth forgot to mention the ballad.

Leaving Gareth behind, the three of them head off to chat with Jahar’s mother. She was showing Iris (Jahar’s older sister) how to properly sharpen a Grand Daiklaive. Jahar was seriously frightened by the image of her holding that sword, from his past. Conversation didn’t go too well. A-dom tried to lie and He was called on it. A-dom was sold into slavery to House Sesus for the insult of the horse theft and the resulting dishonor with Iris signed as owner at the courthouse.

Sometime after Gareth, Jade’s Luck, and Empty Bucket had returned, Jade’s Luck had a bad dream about an island in the north. There was fire, there was war, and there were dead bodies that later rose. There was also a dark cloud that looked like a skull. Not good stuff. She went to Gareth, since ‘he seems to be the one whose mind is most in the present’ (and yet, he has the most levels of Past Lives, was then commented). When told about this, it triggered a memory in Gareth. He was sitting on a beach reading a book when a freaky little guy approached. He had platinum blonde hair and Gareth remembered his name as being Wretch. Wretch said the ‘something something’ princess has had another…
Now, a couple of days ago, Gareth was approached by his friend, whom he had borrowed the horse from. It seems that the Swiftstone archipelago was in need of weapon smiths; some problem with them dieing or disappearing, it wasn’t specified. Anyway, the materials were there and a forge would be provided, so it would be strictly a profit deal.
He connected the dream to the job opportunity and thought it might be a good idea to go up there.

Gareth approached Jahar at his estate a couple of days later. Jahar had been hiding for a while and had yet to hear the song, so Gareth informed him of it. Gareth then brought up a proposal for House Sesus to Jahar about funding a venture to the Swiftstone archipelago. He gave Jahar an abbreviated version of the plan and let him know it would be good to see him out and about again. Jahar had Gareth write up a proposal.

The Circle met a few days later at Jade’s Teahouse in a secluded room. There, the rest of the Circle was brought in on the full situation. This included the Circle posing as a group of weapon smiths to explain away Gareth’s fast and efficient manner. They decided to go along with it. Jahar arranged transport, making sure slave A-dom didn’t just steal a boat for use.

The boat ride was very long. We’re talking months at sea. Boring. About two or three days away from their destination, the ship approached the island of Jade’s nightmare (complete with dark cloud).

Much arguing between Circle ensued. Gareth & Luck wanted to stop, Jahar & Tiger wanted to continue on and come back, and A-dom & Bucket didn’t care. Rob’s comment when asked (by Jade’s Luck) for the vote was: "Yes, stopping undead is good. Do that." Bucket maked an unexcutive decision and told the ship’s crew to park by the island.

As the Boat stopped, Jahar sighed. Bucket leapt overboard and headed to shore, having found a way to get past the arguing. The Circle waited for the dingy.



Whe the group got to Town A they found it looking deserted. Jahar & Bucket knocked on the door to the only apparently inhabited house together. An old woman with a kitchen knife answered. Lots of sick people were inside. She said there was a plague. Jahar went and washed in the ocean.


Bucket, with his medical knowledge, used alcohol to sterilize his hands, mouth, and scrap of cloth... that he put over his face. He then went back to the door, with a mask over his face. The little old woman with the kitchen knife screamed “Bandits!” She then tried to stab him several times. He disarm her.

Empty Bucket: I’m a Healer! Stand still or I’ll hurt you!

Empty Bucket: Medicine 5, Compassion 1. He honestly meant every part of that statement.

Bucket quickly determined that it was a poison, not a plague. Plan A was put into motion (collect dead bodies together in a house and torch it). A-dom, & Tiger checked the other houses ‘for bodies.’ Unfortunately (for them) they just found the bodies. A-Dom decided to hurl the bodies across town into the designated house, for his own amusement. It turned out that this was a clear case of disrespecting the bodies of the dead. Zombie. Luck torched zombie. Gareth yell at A-dom, and then attempted to throw A-dom to see how he liked it. A-dom successfully resisted and the two eventually got back to work.

While Plan A was in motion, Bucket learned ROB could purify food and drink. He began purifying the town’s supplies. Blankets, food, water, and bandages were all covered in the poison. Townsfolk blamed Town C for the plague/poison and said Town B were Demon worshippers.

Tiger headed off towards Town B with Bucket following a bit later. Town B was not too far away. They were much healthier, had guards posted, and seemed militaristic. They were very willing to sell stuff to Tiger for weapons. Also, they referred to Town C as Demon worshippers and Town A as plague/poisoners. Bucket arrived and was his usual charismatic self. Bucket was specifically told to not go to town C. He then took a torch, and promptly started walking directly towards town C. Two village guards followed him, and were spotted by Bucket. He flaired his anima to get respect... not realizing that the barbarian tribes on the island were not part of the realm. They called him a Realm Demon, and then attacked. People hurt him, and thus must die. Circle members in Town A heard a fight breaking out and headed over to break up the fight. Luck left three kids to tend the burning building.

Between when Tiger & Bucket left and the fight, Jahar had been investigating. It turned out the Witchdoctor was the only one free to travel between the towns. He was 7 feet tall, had pale white skin, and was roughly 150 years old (though he looks only 50). He was kind enough to take care of everyone, but Town A said he’s really ‘their guy.’ He took over for the old Witchdoctor when he died of disease/plague.

Circle met up with Bucket, berated him for killing, and moved him away from the town. They then started talking about the Witchdoctor and tried to figure out what to do. Sometime later, said man was standing next to the group and had apparently been there for some time. Seemed a kindly enough fellow, though was very suspicious. He said he loves all the villages and does his best to get them to not fight. He did make a comment about being a little bit dead and a little bit alive. Jahar took this to mean he was the spawn of a mating between an undead and a mortal. Now everyone wanted to shower. He was questioned about the sickness and Bucket bragged about having figured it out. They discussed proper procedure and Bucket led the doctor back to Town B to show him what the poison looked like. Town B wanted to know what Bucket did with Fred and George. Witchdoctor discretely let the villagers know Bucket killed them and he must be working with Town C. The rest of the Circle were just from a ship.

Gareth got Jahar aside and made sure they were on the same page with regards to the doctor. That is, they couldn’t kill him until he was discredited or they’d be in big trouble. Jahar and Gareth spread this to the rest of the group. Witchdoctor didn’t do anything suspicious for the rest of the night. Gareth & A-dom were left to watch over him.

When the sun came up, two things happened. First, Luck watched as the three children she left to tend the fire faded out of existance. Second, the Witchdoctor changed. He hunched over and his entire manner shifted. He began sprinkling the poison all over stuff. Gareth tried to stop him and asked for A-dom to help. The Witchdoctor threw dust in Gareth’s face. A-dom tried to whack Witchdoctor with his club. In mid swing, Gareth told A-dom not to kill him. A-dom said, “What?” and barely managed to wound the doctor. A-dom got the bag of poison away from the doctor and Gareth tried to grab him. Doctor threw a second bag of poison in Gareth’s face and caused sneezing fits. A-dom tried to stop the doctor, but he got out the door. Tiger saw the Witchdoctor’s hunched run and had heard the struggle. As the doctor tried to run past, Tiger pulled out his long straight sword and ran him through with his sword. The runes etched upon the blade read Diplomacy in Old Realm before Tiger sliced the man and Deception in Old Realm afterwards. Not that anyone in the Circle could read Old Realm. As poison dripped from the blade of the very nice sword, the Witchdoctor crumpled to the ground.

Synopsis of 8/8/05 session - "We're so Screwed"

Synopsis of 8/8/05 session

“We’re so Screwed”

Through quick thinking, A-dom held the door to the hut in Village A shut while Jahar and Luck discussed what to do with the body. A-dom, Gareth, and Bucket stayed behind while Jahar, Luck, and Tiger went off with the Witchdoctor’s body.

While Luck was torching the body, chaos erupted. It seems the death of the Witchdoctor put out the sacred flame in all three villages. Bucket got on top of another hut and looked around. He could see villagers marching. A band of women and children were heading from Village B to Village A while a band of men were headed from Village B to Village C. Luck activated Harmonious Presence around this point.

A-dom noticed that the hut was getting warm. He opened the door then quickly shut it again. Apparently, the hut was on fire and the people inside were all smiling.

A large fight ensued with Circle members running everywhere. Women and children were torching buildings in Village A while Jahar scattered them by flaring his banner. A good deal of the Circle didn’t worry about their animas and just let them flare. The people looked highly drugged out of their minds.

Lots of men in village B were knocked unconscious. Most of the men from village C were slaughtered, though I can’t remember by whom (probably fire). The women and children from Villages B and C met up and start killing each other. They pretty much all died. While Jahar and Tiger were trying to stop what was going on, a little girl flared up with a dark, black aura.



Jahar got the rest of the Circle to the beach where this is happening. In the forest, Gareth was keeping watch over the tied up unconscious people and Luck & A-dom were taking care of the bodies. The little girl blamed the group for what happened, particularly Luck (the dark prophet). She swore vengeance and ran off across the ocean. Tiger could only keep pace with her. No one else had a chance.

About this time, it was noticed that the fires had spread from all three villages and the forest was burning down. The circle ran into the forest to save the living unconscious people. Gareth, Jahar, and Luck started picking up lots of people (# equal to strength score) to one side while A-dom, Tiger, and Bucket started bringing them to the other side. A-dom had a lot of strength charms activated, so he was only encumbered by how many arms he had. Tiger used lightening speed to quickly get people out. Bucket lazily dragged one person by the arm until the person died from the transport. He then dragged the evidence back into the fire. All in all, about fourteen people ended up on Tiger’s side and eleven ended up on Gareth’s.

It was noticed by A-dom that the ship was now sailing away. With the captain having a spyglass and people not being too picky about their animas, they had seen anathema and fled. Being asked to by Bucket, A-dom proceeded to throw him after the boat. He missed, but got close. As a bonus, he skipped Bucket four times. Bucket got onboard and tried to get the captain to go back to the island. He only succeeded in convincing him he wasn’t in league with the anathema, his traveling buddies. They sailed off.

A-dom saved several trees from being torched or mostly burnt by ripping them up and chucking them to the beach. When things died down, the group reassembled. Now stuck on the island, Gareth made a shelter and a few fishing poles while the villagers awoke. Assessing the damage, the villages were all torched and the only survivors were three members of village C and twenty-two members of village B. Cruddy canoes were found in the villages and it was decided that village C people should/could leave (since village C people didn’t want to die in the night by the other villagers). Village B people were happy, since they now ruled the island.

Bucket arrived at the harbor relatively easily three days after departure. He had stored all of the Circle’s stuff in ROB, minus the Jade. Since there was a blizzard outside, the captain didn’t want to stick around till morning and just wanted to leave. Bucket was forced to pay up for the passage and get off the boat. Harbor Master Dreary, who tried his best to help Bucket off the boat, greeted him. Bucket would have none of that and got led to the Inn. He told Dreary he was wandering about, seeing sites and sowing his oats. He decided to stick around the Inn until the Circle showed up and meet up with them then.




The Circle eventually left the island on two crappy canoes, heading for the Swiftstone Archipelago. It was a crappy six-day journey. Sea was rough, it snowed, and everyone was cramped and didn’t sleep. Especially Gareth, cause he was steering. The group was hungry and very thirsty and generally ill tempered. They landed on a small inlet and dragged the boats ashore. Gareth and A-dom took the time to find/make a sheltered place and a fire before passing out. After rest, A-dom tore up a chunk of ground and hid Gareth’s armor and sword under it. It took a little convincing to get Tiger to just get back in the canoe to sail around to the docks, since walking could lead people back to Gareth’s stuff.

They were each greeted by Dreary and he helped them out of their boats. They all went up to the Inn. It turned out Dreary was the cousin of Gareth’s friend back in Atlantis. Gareth & Jahar discussed contract terms while the others chatted with the bartender and met up with Bucket. Once terms were agreed upon and the contract was altered, Gareth signed and shook on it. Dreary’s anima flared and a bloody caste mark appeared on his forehead, which looked just like Tiger’s. Luck fled the Inn while Gareth commented, “That was certainly interesting.”

A conversation between Dreary and the others ensued, though Jahar was the principle speaker. It turned out Dreary was a Death knight, though he felt the name was a bit of a misnomer. He was a nice enough chap and rather helpful with informing the Circle of things. A-dom partook of lots of beers. Turns out he was a rather happy and friendly drunk. He let it slip what he was.

Dreary: Are you a Solar?

A-dom: I’m an Anathema.

A-dom also let it slip that Tiger was a Solar. This led to Dreary finding out the whole Circle was, pretty much. This, in turn, led to a long discussion about Solars and the order of things (which seemed fairly reasonable). Seemed they REALLY dislike Dragon-bloods, but that’s because they’ve mucked up the world. Dragon-bloods weren’t allowed in Onyx and were only allowed on the island if they were highly supervised. No one pointed out Bucket was a dragon-blood.

Dreary was a very insightful and perceptive fellow. He knew a fair amount about things pertaining to the group, though without letting on whether he knew it was the group or not. He also was very good at picking out when someone lied or told a half-truth. He didn’t really seem to care when people did, but he did point it out. It turns out the little girl had arrived on the island and was now under the tutelage of his lord, the Silver Prince. She wouldn’t be let out for a couple months, so the Circle was safe-ish. Seems dragon-blood assassins kept killing off the craftsmen. One of the more recent reasons why they weren’t liked. Also, found out that the islands were now called the Skullstone Archipelago and were, in fact, a shadow land. They found out that if you left the lands by night, you entered the Underworld and got stuck there (poor sailors, but that solved a problem for the Circle). Now, if you left by day, you would go into Creation. Oh, and ‘evil’ undead bad and must be squished or subverted by a necromancer. Controlled undead ‘good’.

Gareth went out to talk to Luck and was unsuccessful in calming her down. He did stress no squishing of ‘good’ undead and no leaving at night. He then returned to the Inn while Luck headed to the docks to sit in one of the boats. A-dom partook of even more beer and got to meet the zombie in the basement making it, along with Jahar. Seems zombies could deal with simple instructions like beer making. Things were much safer for all involved that Luck was freaked out in the canoe.

Eventually, Transport was arranged to head to Onyx. The chest for Gareth’s stuff was brought outside by Gareth and Jahar, who headed back to the docks to talk with Luck. More stressing of the ‘don’t leave at night’ thing was done and Jahar did a better job of explaining things, though she was still freaked. Gareth summoned his stuff and stuck it in the chest for transport. Everyone loaded onto the newly arrived carriage for transport and away they went (Bucket paid for passage, as he ‘tagged along).

Along the way, the group stopped at a couple inns and ate lots of fungus (the only ‘safe ‘ food most places). A conversation was struck up with a ghostly bar matron by Jahar and tried to engage Luck in it. She would have none of it. At one place, the Circle had steak as the only cow was butchered while the Circle watched. Here Bessy. Good girl. *wham wham wham with a sledgehammer* A ghostly moo could be heard out back a bit later.

Eventually, they got to Onyx. The city wall was a skeleton, which Gareth remembered was a bitch to kill. Entering the city, they were taken to the Necropolis and led into a waiting room. Luck and Bucket decided they didn’t want to meet the Silver Prince and booked. Half an hour later, Gareth, Jahar, A-dom, and Tiger were led into a large chamber. There were lots of shadowy people around it. Up ahead sat/stood the Bodhisattva Anointed by the Dark Waters. Chained and footless at his feet was a man both Jahar and A-dom recognized as the cook from the barge.

The Bodhisattva said he’d deal with the cook later and greeted the group. A-dom said he wouldn’t mind waiting and watching the punishment. He and Jahar acknowledged they had met the individual and A-dom even kicked Feety McNowalk a few times, at the Bodhisattva’s insistence. A-dom was always happy to oblige in torture, it seemed. A rather nasty flail was brought out, but Jahar forestalled this by striking up a conversation with the Bodhisattva.

It was found out that the cook did not work for him, or so he said. He had no interest in taking over the world or killing everyone and disliked those Deathlords that did. He just wanted to see people do their jobs properly.

They discussed lots of things, like the proper order of things and how everything would be easier if everyone did their proper jobs. Lots of discussion about how the Circle needed someone to properly teach them about what they were and the like. Opec was mentioned, along with Solar domains in the Underworld. It seemed you could take it with you. Also, there was a small discussion about a ghost from the First Age who blamed his master for killing him. Seemed the master liked to build Monoliths and was named Evening Tide of Autumn. It was brought up several times that, for some reason, no one ever wanted to trade with them.

After a while, the others were introduced. Before they left, the Bodhisattva and A-dom discussed a little more about the Cook's fate. He was to die, but he needed to be punished. A-dom gleefully offered to help with the punishment. The Bodhisattva just smiled. A-dom happily told the Deathlord, "I like you!" He inquired if A-dom just had the two artifacts. When A-dom answered affirmatively, the Deathlord gave him a red rock.

Gareth was then shown to his shop. Over the next month, there were dinners with the Bodhisattva and Jahar received several books on occultism. Luck was still seriously wigged out.

Synopsis of 8/22/05 session - “A SAS SINS!”

Synopsis of 8/22/05 session

“A SAS SINS!”

The session started with Jade questioning ROB about other types of Exalted. He didn’t know anything about the Death knights, so they must have come about after his time. There were the Solars who ran stuff. There were the Lunars who followed Luna and were the bodyguards of the Solars. There were the Godbloods, who weren’t really Exalted, but whatever. They were like the dragon kings. There were the Dragon-Bloods, who were servants and the like. And there were the other guys, who talked a lot and did stuff. ROB didn’t have any experience with them.

Over the month after the last session, Gareth had been working and training, sleeping very little, and glowing like a sonofabitch. Several alive young men between the ages of thirteen and twenty came to Gareth’s workshop to ask about becoming apprentices. Wanting to pass on knowledge to younger folk and not knowing any reason not to instruct these youngsters, he took them on. This slowed him down a little crafting, since he had to give instruction, but it was all good.

Ryan: Whenever I think about, you know, the undead armies rising up and like attacking the dragon-bloods, I think of A-dom sitting on top and going YEE-HAA!

People often dropped off a large shipment of metal and picked up the weapons that had been made. Gareth spent all his time in the shop. Bucket was off playing the happy tourist. Jahar was spending time discussing magic, studying, and exploring the city. A-dom spent a lot of time at the palace, where he was introduced to a guy called Drunken Raven (simple-minded fellow who likes beer and hitting things and playing with dolls) by Jahar. Jade’s Luck spent her time learning how to be supernaturally scary and practicing on the people who got too close to her and she possibly impeded work at the forge.

The morning started like any other. Gareth got to the forge and began work. Not getting a lot of sleep and being in a shadow land, he was rather low on essence, so used the minimal amount of Flawless Handiwork Method possible on the first sword of the day. Gareth noticed an anvil in the middle of the forge sliding over as every weapon in the forge exploded, sending shrapnel everywhere. Lots of apprentices were now lying about with metal chunks in them as a masked man in dark, assassin-like clothing exited from the hole.

When Gareth stood and questioned him about what just happened, the guy looked back in the hole and said, “You didn’t kill them all!” A second, almost bashful voice droned, “Sorry.”

At this point, Gareth summoned his sword and yelled, “Help! Help! Assassins!” Jade’s Luck was in the backroom when she heard Gareth’s yell and headed to help out. When A-dom heard the yell, he charged towards the shop with his weapons out saying, “A Sas Sins!” Jahar saw him and followed.

The masked man moved to stab an apprentice as a man with a long, pointy nose and brightly, multi-colored robes, carrying a nasty looking axe exited the hole.



He moved over and hit the dead apprentice with his axe, an obvious sucking noise in the air. When Gareth summoned his armor, he started to glow. The masked man shouted, “Anathema!” in surprise. The brightly colored guy merely asked, “What? You didn’t notice when he summoned the sword?”

Gareth’s only response was, “No . What’d you expect to find here?” as he attacked the masked man. Unfortunately, Gareth seemed to have not been paying attention to his surroundings and impaled an apprentice on his sword. The brightly colored man followed up by whacking the guy on Gareth’s sword with his axe with another sucking sound. Luck entered out of the backroom, exclaimed the badness of the situation, activated a defense charm, and chucked her chakram at the guy with his axe in an apprentice, wounding him.

Her exclamation awoke Tiger and he came running. Having been wounded and seeing the numbers of Anathema growing, the brightly colored guy with the axe jumped back, did a summersault and dropped back down the hole. Gareth brought his body-laden sword around to dislodge the corpse into the masked man, then brought his sword back around to slash at his gut. Now seriously wounded, the masked man jumped down the hole and the anvil slid back into place.

Jade’s Luck started tending to the two living apprentices when A-dom arrived in the doorway. “A Sas Sins!” He was quickly instructed to remove the anvil. When he did, everyone else could see the mechanical device attached to the bottom.

A-dom jumped down the hole, followed by Tiger and then Jahar. Bucket arrived and was given a short synopsis of what happened. An echoey A Sas Sins! could be heard below. Bucket took the time to quickly grab a crowbar and the others jumped down into what turned out to be a sewer, following behind. A-dom quickly picked up the trail, finding one set of boot prints and one set of hoof prints. The tracks led on in the sewers for a little while before heading off into a cave.

The group quickly became two. A-dom charged forward, occasionally yelling A Sas Sins!, with Tiger keeping up. With his heavy armor, Gareth lagged behind, with the rest of the group sticking with the light source.

As A-dom and Tiger reached a large room, they noticed it was full of purplish mushroom. The tracks stopped right before the mushrooms and looked like the person leapt. A-dom leapt over the mushrooms and continued on with a yell of A Sas Sins! A-dom must have been really bored those past two or so weeks, because he just kept on going.

Tiger couldn’t safely carry anyone while he ran along the wall, so he left Jahar behind and followed A-dom. The rest of the group caught up and discussed how they were going to get across. Throwing Bucket was quickly discussed and discarded, since Gareth couldn’t hurl him forty feet. Backing far away, they tested the mushrooms by throwing rocks. Poof! Lots of spores. Jahar took the time to stop and cast a spell, making his skin turn gray. Luck poked at him in a couple of places, but Jahar stopped her from poking his eyeballs. Then Jade’s Luck threw her chakram to clear a path, with it becoming hundreds of chakrams. More spores.

Up ahead, A-dom could be heard saying “Oops!” as he broke some tripwires, causing a cave in up ahead. Tiger and A-dom cleared the cave in without the rest of the group getting through the mush room and charge on. A Sas Sins!

Running along, Tiger tried to take the lead, stating A-dom wasn’t very good with the traps, but A-dom won’t let him. Up ahead, A-dom spotted the masked man, seriously wounded by Gareth, running along as best he could.

A-dom: (maniacal laugh) A-HA! HA-HA-HA! A Sas Sins!

The man ran through a doorframe, which looked rather out of place in this cave.

Meanwhile, back at the other group, Bucket asked the others just how long they could hold their breath. It was quickly decided that everyone would run through, holding their breath, and thenstand by Bucket as he soaked them down, washing off the pollen. After doing this, they continued on until the reach the cave-in. Everyone failed to notice the large lion skeleton up above as it dropped down onto Gareth, biting him.



He yelped in pain and raised his sword to create a barrier between himself and the lion. He was only partially successful. As the creature chewed on Gareth, Luck zapped it with her anima power, Jahar failed to do it much harm with his sword, and Bucket smacked it around with ROB.

Gareth: Don’t let it bite me again!

Luck switched to her chakram to do lots more damage and Gareth was actually able to hold the lion off with his sword. Bucket managed to eventually kill it and tried to take the head as a trophy. It was very heavy, ROB wouldn’t eat it, and it would impede him keeping up, so he begrudgingly left it behind. He bandaged up Gareth. Now with a badly wounded Gareth, they continued on to try and catch up with A-dom and Tiger.

Back with A-dom and Tiger, A-dom got to the door to see the wounded man holding a lever.

A-dom: (same tone as yells of assassin) Craaaaaap!

A-dom dove through the door before it shut. Tiger just managed to scoot through the door as it slammed shut from the man pulling the lever. They now found themselves trapped in a room with the wounded man close by and the brightly colored guy further back. A-dom quickly approached the wounded guy, who now had a Fire caste mark blazing on his forehead. The guy just managed to dodge the swing of A-dom’s club. Tiger rushed through the room and headed towards the brightly colored guy. He slowed down just enough so that he could slash across the dragon-blood’s chest and then along his back.

A-dom looked angry as the now dead dragon-blood dropped. Poor A-dom hadn’t been allowed to partake in any causing of pain. As he rushed towards the non-assassin looking assassin, Tiger stumbled. He suddenly felt weaker and his sword felt very heavy. A-dom leapt towards bright boy with his club raised, spike poised. Landing, the spike wounded the guy nicely. The guy then dematerialized, leaving an extremely frustrated A-dom. He grunted curses and sounded like he was having a brain aneurysm. Noticing the tunnel continued, he gave a very half-hearted and quiet, “grr... assassins…” As a parting gift, A-dom felt much less mighty with his club.

They ran around a couple more corners before they saw a very average looking man standing about twenty feet beyond a glowing red doorway with runes carved on the frame. Tiger commented about how he didn’t want to run through that.

Average Man: You’re not my assassins.

A-dom: (crazy half laugh, then quietly) I don’t have to throw...

Tiger: We ARE assassins. Do you need new ones?

Average Man: No, you’re Solars. I’ll be leaving now.

The average man started chanting and a swirling vortex started to appear behind him. This is just not A-dom’s day. He growled and loudly said, “Kill! (pause) Doorway Scary! (pause) Occult Bad!”

Tiger whipped out his bow and aimed to take a shot.

A-dom: (confused Hulk voice) Bow? What’s that like?

Tiger: It’s good for hitting things from far away.

Tiger let loose. The arrow grazed the man, but does nothing to interrupt his chanting.

A-dom: (confused Hulk voice) I have a ranged attack...

A-dom hurled his club at the man and managed to barely connect, but once again didn’t manage to interrupt his chanting. The club dropped to the ground, leaning up against him. Then A-dom realized something.

A-dom: Crap, my club is over there!

Tiger: That’s why I can Summon the Loyal Steel. I can summon my sword from ANYWHERE.

A-dom: Can you summon mine?

Tiger: No.

A-dom: Please?

Tiger fired again, with no major affect. A-dom barely managed to conquer his fear. With a shaky yell of “Don’t drink my beer!” he hurled himself through the doorway. As he passed through the doorway, his blood literally boiled. Smoke came out his ears, nose, and mouth, and he shrieked from the pain. He was, however, alive. He shakily walked over and picked up his club, just managing to stay upright.

Before A-dom was able to swing, the man disappeared into the vortex. The vortex closed, leaving A-dom alone in a room. Well, mostly alone. There was a sacrificial altar with a corpse on it in the room.

While A-dom was trying to figure out what he was going to do, Tiger heard a loud Thwing! Figuring the others got to the door, he told A-dom he was going to go let the others in. A tired A-dom eagerly offered to stay where he is.

While Gareth was trying to figure out how to dismantle the metal door, it swung open to reveal Tiger. Tiger took the time to loot the dragon-blood and close the door before leading the others back to the doorway.

After being filled in on what went on, Jahar inspected the doorway. To show what the doorway did, A-dom tossed the corpse through the doorway. What resulted was a pile of pus.

Jade’s Luck: Why don’t we just make a new door.

This gave A-dom the idea to start bashing the wall. This shifted a few bricks, but not much happened. Jahar made a pretty show of runes and chanting, but was unable to dispel the doorway.

Tiger: You know, the other guy took a longer time casting.

A-dom: Grrr. Cast longer!

When trying to remember the boss of the assassins, Tiger realized he really couldn’t remember anything distinctive about him at all. He was a tall-short skinny-fat guy.

Impatient as ever, A-dom got the idea to attack the doorframe itself. He picked up the Altar and started smashing away. Apparently the others had more sense and ran away screaming. All except Gareth, that is. The doorframe exploded before he was able to do anything, knocking down both him and A-dom. But, the doorway was no longer glowing and things looked more normal. To test the door, Jade’s Luck retrieved the other dead body and tossed it through. The group moved in to inspect the room.

About this time, Jahar noticed the magic of the area was fading and it was what was keeping this constructed area stable. Pointing the ceiling out to Gareth, he looked up. Gareth felt a surge of knowledge of stonemasonry enter his mind and noticed that this place had no supports.

The Circle started running for the exit as the structure began to collapse. Gareth dismissed his armor, and then his sword so he could keep up. His giant bear ran along with them. Rooms collapsed right behind them. With lightening speed, Tiger sped ahead to open the doorway so the others wouldn’t have to stop. When they got to the slightly crushed skeleton, Bucket grabbed the head. It slowed him down too much and no one would help, so he had to drop it.

Once back in the safe sewers, Gareth headed back towards his shop, saying he needed a shower and some rest. Bucket and Luck stayed behind for Bucket’s anima to go down while the rest followed Gareth.

Gareth’s bear anima was the first to exit into the shop. They found Dreary, Drunken Raven, and Dark Talonblood standing there. A safe distance away from the hole stood about 15 city guards.

Dreary: Oh good, it’s you.

The two apprentices that lived were fine. Filling the Death knights in, it turned out they knew about the Fire aspect dragon-blood, but not about there being two more involved. After description, they identified the guy with the axe as Hurknar, a second circle demon. Upon hearing Hurknar got away, Dreary told Raven to get Pont to demon ward everything. Upon the lack of information on the boss, they seemed puzzled and worried.

They shuffled out of the shop and went about dealing with safety things. The shop got a little cleaned and the Circle rested. Healing charms were activated. Once he had enough essence recovered, Gareth joined in with both of his healing charms.

Eleven hours after they got back to the shop, Tiger, Jahar, Luck and Bucket heard a noise up on the roof. Tiger, Jahar, and Bucket went to investigate while Luck tried to wake Gareth. Being fairly wounded and tired, he was unhappy about shifting into a state of consciousness. He was even less happy when a large, heavy thing landed on top of him and took a big chomp out of his side.



He immediately summoned his armor, though he was really hurting at this point. With the room now illuminated by Gareth, those that were there and awake started beating on the new bone lion. Gareth summoned his sword to defend himself and stuck it in the creature’s mouth to push its teeth away from his body. He was, unfortunately, too groggy and hurt to put up much of a resistance. The beast took a big bite out of his jugular. The others quickly dispatched the creature and Bucket went about hacking off its head for a trophy while Gareth lay dying. Jahar applied pressure just in the knick of time to snatch Gareth from death’s clutches. The healing charms did their job in barely keeping his parts together and mending them. Though Gareth remained unconscious, bloody, and in a big mess.

Synopsis of 9/20/05 session - “Avast, Ye Land Lubbers! We Be Going On A Trip!”

Synopsis of 9/20/05 session

“Avast, Ye Land Lubbers! We Be Going On A Trip!”


The mess was cleaned up and Gareth was moved to a clean bed. Jahar and Jade’s Luck examined the bones before Jahar smashed the bones into fine sand. Jade’s Luck realized A-dom was seriously dehydrated and set him up in a bed in the room Gareth was in and brought him much bat broth soup.

Jahar arranged for an unoccupied crypt to store the bones in. He set up the bones into three piles; one in a closed sarcophagus, one in an open sarcophagus and one on the floor. Sometime during the night, Jade’s Luck and Tiger moved over to the crypt to stand watch while Empty Bucket and Jahar stayed to protect Gareth. Jade’s Luck and Tiger watched the crypt from a cracked open door to the tomb. At sunrise, Luck watched as the specks of bones floated into the air and disappeared. Expletive followed.

Back at the forge, Jahar was in the process of casting Bones of Stone at sunrise. He noticed a speck of bone float up from a crevice in the forge where he had chiseled a rune on a bone a second before the Bone Lion appeared. The Lion had more scorch marks than before; a hold over from the damage done by Jade’s Luck. The Bone Lion made a beeline for the door where Gareth and A-dom were. An unconscious Gareth went ‘Arrrrrr!’ Luckily, A-dom noticed the Bone Lion and shut the door. The door lasted less than three seconds. A quick battle ensued in which a still seriously injured A-dom helped Jahar keep the lion from getting much past the door by bracing against the doorframe and grappling it while Bucket bashed it with ROB. Luck arrived and zapped it shortly before Bucket killed it again.

While picking up the mess and discussing what they had seen, it finally came to the group that they needed to get Gareth well away from where this creature was killed before sundown. Jade’s Luck was damaging it and making it easier to kill each time, but it’d be back again soon. Jahar went to see the Bodhisattva and talked about getting the group far away from the lion. The Death lord said he’d need to amend the contract with a conscious Gareth, but he could get the group far away quickly. They would just have to all be there. So, an hour after the attack, Jahar had been granted an audience with the Bodhisattva for the entire group. Now, Bucket didn’t want to appear before the Death lord at all, but the Bodhisattva had expressed that everyone HAD to be there. Jahar talked about finding a diplomatic way around this. ROB expressed the most expedient idea was that he could store Bucket, if he were dead. After all, the group knew of Bucket’s great healing powers and that he wouldn’t even stay dead. Tiger took that idea to heart and drew his sword.

Jade's Luck: Can't we solve this with diplomacy?

Tiger noded and skewered Bucket with his sword, Diplomacy. Jade’s Luck expressed great displeasure with this course of action. The not quite dead, but unconscious Gareth expressed his agreement by moaning, “Arrrrrr!” Jahar didn’t seem pleased that Tiger had acted before a course of action was agreed upon. ROB was put in the armor chest, since he did not want to be seen by the Bodhisattva. Gareth was then carted out on his bed to the Palace.

After detailing the situation to the Bodhisattva, he looked over A-dom and Gareth and asked A-dom if he felt well. The answer was no. The Bodhisattva offered to heal Gareth enough to make him conscious, and fix A-dom some too.

Laying his hand on A-dom, the wretch yelped in pain and passed out. He looked noticeably better, though. Moving on to Gareth, the searing pain awakened the craftsman, but didn’t make him pass out like the wussy A-dom.

Gareth: I need a beer.

Gareth was quickly fetched a beer. The smell of beer awakened A-dom and he was brought one as well. The Bodhisattva talked to Gareth, proposing an amendment to his contract, offering to postpone it till say, some time within the next hundred years. Gareth had full say in when he fulfilled said remaining two months, but by ninety-nine years and ten months, it became mandatory. Gareth would be paid for his month’s service now and the remaining two months when he did the work. He could even split up the time into two one-month sessions. The agreement was made and the pact sealed.

The Bodhisattva then talked about sending the group away from there. He had a minion captain of a ship, which he would relocate them to. Before that, he offered both A-dom and Jahar something, but they had to promise they wouldn’t lose it. The two fools agreed (pact sealed) and A-Dom was given a black book (we didn't know A-dom could read). Jahar was given a card (like from a tarot deck of cards). Gareth’s payment was brought out and the Bodhisattva then had the group hold hands or whatever (physical contact necessary). He then drew a playing card with the picture of a captain of a ship on it. The captain looked more and more life-like until he reached out of the card and grabbed Jahar, pulling everyone through.

The group was now standing, sitting, laying on a bed on the deck of a ghost ship. The dark, green sun of the Underworld shone overhead. Dark water stretched across the horizon in most directions. A familiar looking island could be seen in one direction. And, strangely enough, everyone felt compelled to talk like a pirate. They quickly met the Captain, The Undefeated Dolphin of the Deadly Seas, and found out the ship was hunting pirates. Arrr!

Captain Dolphin: We be the Bodhisattva’s privateer crew, of the Bloodless Maiden. That be the ship you’re on. ARRRRS!

Gareth was a little confused by the sails not being there, but it looked like a good ship, so he complimented it.

Jade’s Luck: Be there quarters for a fair maiden be and her things. (pause) arr?

Jahar: Would you be needing some help with these pirates, Captain?

Captain Dolphin: Aye! That’d be helpful.

Salty Sam led Jade’s Luck down to some nice quarters, where she stowed her stuff and removed ROB from the chest. ROB spit Bucket out and Luck stored him in the room. He eventually got better.

A-dom (referring to Jade’s Luck): Isn’t she bad luck? Shouldn’t we throw her overboard?

Captain Dolphin: No. The Bloodless Maiden loves blood-filled maidens on her.

The captain was a nice enough guy, for a dead guy. When he turned around, he revealed eight swords still stuck in his back.

Gareth: I’ve looked like that.

Captain Dolphin filled the Circle in on the pirates. Said pirates had plundered some of the Bodhisattva’s goods and they were on a mission to retrieve those goods. They thought the pirates were on the island and they were planning to surprise them in a few hours. Arrr!

A-dom: Avast?

With Seventeen hours to relax, Gareth and A-dom relaxed and rested. Gareth looked a lot better after Eleven hours, and a bit better still several hours later. A-dom took the time to read some of his book, which appeared blank to everyone else. Jahar sang pirate songs with the crew. The crew loved him and thought he was cool.

Captain Dolphin: Are you calling the Captain a dirty dolphin?

Jahar: You know you like it.

Captain Dolphin (in agreement): Arrr.

They met Chum, who was a sailor with a nasty shark bite and Jahar asked the Captain about a portal back to Creation. Fortuitously, there was such a portal on the island, near the big, black, phallic symbol.

Empty Bucket became nondead and fully healed. The crew didn’t seem to care about his presence. Bucket was noticeably pissed about being killed and blamed the first person he saw, Jade’s Luck, and the rest of the Circle.

Jade’s Luck: The wee dragon-blooded scallywag is a might perturbed by his unfortunate ending. (pause) ARRR!

Jahar: Me thinks, Tiger. You be having, like, a talk with this young scallywag, should things set aright.

Jade’s Luck: Me thinks you should not be eating anything that comes from his kitchen, all right? Arr.

Bucket was referred to both Dirty Bucket and Chum Bucket before the circle headed down to speak with Bucket.

Empty Bucket: Which one of you rotten scoundrels is going to die next? Arr! Why am I talking like pirate?

Jahar: The pirate in me says, ye be askin for it.

Ryan: Arr, I download an mp3.

Jahar: Arr, we understand you might be a bit angry at us?

Empty Bucket: You KEELED me.

ROB: You got better!

Bucket blamed everyone for killing him. Everyone tried to shift the blame off of themselves, but Bucket was stubborn.

Empty Bucket: I’m getting a new Artifact. Arr!

ROB: Good Luck.

Ghostly echoes of Bucket cursing at the group could be heard.

A-dom: You need to get over this.

Empty Bucket: You’re next. You try it!

Gareth: I don’t think they should have done it, okay?

Empty Bucket: Okay! I like you still.

Alex: I find it funny I am the only one to maintain Bucket’s good graces.

Gabe: Such as they are, he’ll still let you die.

Alex: Oh yeah.

He continued to accuse the Circle of killing him, telling Jahar he should have stopped Tiger by leaping in front of the blade from across the room. He could do it. After all, he’s Exalted.

Jade’s Luck: You’re Exalted too. Why couldn’t you jump out of the way?

Empty Bucket: I’m Dragon-Blooded. We suck!

ROB (important voice): Empty Bucket! Stop Sucking!

Not understanding ship lingo, Empty Bucket went to the poopdeck in search of poop to punish ROB. The circle gave him just enough info to go searching for the head instead, with no directions to it. Eventually, Empty Bucket came back with a head named Johnny. Johnny died a silly death where he lost his body while drinking. And to add insult to injury, his best friend stole all his hats. Johnny’s job on the ship was as the figurehead. Jade’s Luck found Johnny a hat, then A-dom preceded to mess with him by stealing and returning said hat.

As the ship approached the island, Gareth procured himself an eye patch. A group of people were spotted upon the beach by those not being Gareth. A-dom recognized two of the figures as being demons.

A-dom: Aru? (confused monkey noise) ATHEMA! (gleeful). Those are DEMONS! ARRRR! Demons off the Port… Thingy!

Gareth: I’m glad you’ve learned the difference between port and starboard...

Captain Dolphin: That’s starboard, you idiot.

Gareth: Well, at least you learned the terms.

The Circle activated charms and got into a boat with some ghost marine. Jade’s Luck got scary (Terrifying Apparition of Glory). Gareth and A-dom sang “What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor?” Jahar joined in. Bucket didn’t want to go along, but Luck ordered him to come along. Bucket walked on the ocean floor underneath the boat.

When the boat within a short distance from the island, Jade’s Luck yelled out to flee while they still can. A large group of the pirates on shore fled, leaving only eight and the two demons. All the marines in the boat jumped out and swam away. The rest of those in the boat thought about fleeing, but managed to stop themselves. Both demons started casting. A-dom, Jade’s Luck, and Gareth started rowing fast while Jahar and Tiger shot arrows at the demons and mook-pirates. A few seconds later, a swarm of Obsidian Butterflies flew forth from one of the demons. Everyone in the boat dived into the ocean to avoid it, with varying degrees of success. Only a second or so later, another swarm flew forth from the other demon. This time, Gareth lifted up the boat as a shield while Jade’s Luck and Jahar hid behind him. With a land bridge of sharp Obsidian shards leading to the island, the circle stopped swimming/rowing and charged. With a mighty leap, A-dom landed in front of one of the demons and brought his club down on its head. The battle was short lived, seeing as the demons had wiped out their own mooks with their spells. One more swarm of butterflies was sent forth. Jade’s Luck and Jahar hid behind Gareth and his boat shield, with Gareth and the shield taking the damage. One of the demons dematerialized and the other got his head sliced off by Gareth. When A-dom went totemic, theme music began to play about him. I imagine it was something akin to the Imperial March.

The Captain rowed ashore and took over the menial stuff like recovering the treasure and squishing the pirates. With Bucket and Johnny rejoined with the Circle, the group went to go talk to Opec.

Jahar talked with the dark Opec about stabbing himself in the face, current state of affairs in Creation, Death lords (they’re friendly fellows), and the Underworld. Bucket wanted to mess with Jahar while he was out of it talking to Opec, but Jade’s Luck ordered him not to. Jahar also found out the portal on the island always leads from the Underworld to Creation, but only sometimes from Creation to the Underworld. Opec kind of liked the Death lords and didn’t have a problem with shadow lands. He did say that creating shadow lands to cover Creation was very bad, though. It seemed Jahar’s previous incarnation was the only one that ever came to visit him. Opec said he liked visitors, just not Gareth or Tiger. A-dom found out that Opec was Lightbringer’s funeral marker, but didn’t share this with anyone. It turned out that when Opec was being ‘created’ (our bound, or mutated into his current state), he was formed several hundred feet in the air. He landed on Lightbringer. Opec showed an interest in A-dom’s book and did something with it or to it when he held it up to the obelisk. Jade’s Luck questioned Opec about whom the Death lords serve. Opec said the Death Gods and said they were completely different from the Yozi. He asked her if she was a priest and said he thought she should be and she should have a chat with her god about it. Opec didsn’t like to talk to Gareth and Tiger and only grunted noncommittal answers at them. He was happy to chat with E=everyone else.

Gareth: I don’t think he likes that I made him.

Tiger: This thing is so over hyped.

Before leaving, A-dom asked Opec if Death lords collected souls. When Opec told him about soulsteel, he was intrigued and wanted to learn more. In answer to another question, Opec said he didn’t think a Death lord could turn a Solar into a Death knight.

The Circle finally left Opec and headed for Gareth’s crypt. As they approached, they saw some ghosts come out of the crypt. The ghosts could be heard saying, “Yeah! The masters have returned! The masters have returned!” Then they faded away.

The inside of the crypt looked a lot like it did on the other side. There was lots of writing in Ancient and a sarcophagus with a suit of armor in it identical to Gareth’s armor. Jahar and Empty Bucket translated the scripts. Over the door, it said Here Lies the Evening Tide of Autumn, Binder of Opec, Creator of Atlantis, And Lord of All in Sight. There were several funeral poems about how great Autumn was, written by other members of the Circle (The Wretch of Winter, The Priestess of Summer somethingorother, & others).

Gareth made sure to seal the sarcophagus and tried several phrases to get the security system turned on.

Gareth: Guard This Place… Once More!

Jahar: Hey savior. You might want to say that in old tongue.

Gareth (in old tongue): Defend Here Now!

Figuring that was good enough, the Circle walked out of the crypt to look for the portal. When they got outside, they found themselves back in Creation. Jahar immediately went over to talk to Opec. A-dom and Gareth laid down to rest and heal. Gareth’s eye patch and Bucket’s friend Johnny disappeared when they passed back into Creation.

Synopsis of 10/3/05 session - "The super short synopsis from my bachelor party"

Synopsis of 10/3/05 session

"The super short synopsis from my bachelor party"

Gareth finished making an excellant boat in one day. Well, he could have finished it in just over four hours, but he decided to take his time and make it a little nicer.

With the boat done and sitting in drydock, Gareth and A-dom set off to one of the other islands nearby to look for tar (A-dom said he had an idea of where to look).

A-dom led them to the center of a village, where he assured Gareth the tar was right under their feet. They met some 'primatives' (they didn't know what jade). Gareth traded a canoe to one of them in exchange for guiding them to the tar pit (took 5 minutes to make fancy looking, excellant canoe). Led to tar pits. Took 30 minutes to widdle out a bucket.

A-dom was naughty. Got tar. Returned back to our island.

Ship got mostly tarred. Gareth & Jahar played name that past life memory. Seems Gareth was responsible for the destruction of the largest library in the west. This is why Jahar has had such a hard time finding any books. Gareth's responce: Sorry. My bad.

Gareth talked to Jahar about A-dom's naughtiness and showed him the result (along with the boat).

Synopsis of 10/10/05 session - “Religion and Marriage”

Synopsis of 10/10/05 session

“Religion and Marriage”

Jade’s Luck returned from her meditation/conversation with the Unconquered Sun to find A-dom standing next to two rather dusty looking skeletons (Bob and Fred). She scared them off, much to the displeasure of A-dom. The two got into an argument and it came out that A-dom had learned how to raise and control the dead. Those two were his friends and he was in the process of determining which of them was smarter. When he decided to replace his friends, Jade’s Luck screamed Vile Necromancer! and stopped him in the middle of casting.

A-dom: Oww! What the hell did you do that for?

Jade’s Luck: (shrieky voice) You were doing vile magic! You aren’t supposed to be a necromancer!

A-dom: I had to replace the two you smoked! I can be a necromancer. I have lots of potential!

Jade’s Luck: (shrieky voice) GARETH!

Gareth was dangling over the side of the ship, trying to figure out a name to chisel on the boat when he heard the yell of vile necromancer.

Gareth: Maybe if I ignore them, they’ll go away.

When he heard Jade’s Luck yell his name, he sighed and released himself from his rope, dropping to the ground.

Gareth: (muttering) Jahar was supposed to intercept her before she found A-dom.

Gareth grabbed a coconut on the way so he’d have something to eat.

Gareth: (to A-dom) What did I say about doing this around her?

Jade’s Luck: (shrieky voice) You knew about this??

Gareth filled her in on the other island they visited.

Gareth: While we were on that island and picking up the tar, A-dom started doing something weird and unnatural.

Jade’s Luck: More weird and unnatural than raising the dead?

A-dom: You people are really judgmental.

Luck made a few not quite idle threats and A-dom felt the need to respond in kind. Gareth did his best to keep them from killing each other. It wasn’t easy, since when a soggy Bob and Fred came back from being scared off, Jade’s Luck fried them.

A-dom: Oi! Those guys cost me essence!

Jade’s Luck: It doesn’t cost me essence to poof them?

A-dom: Not enough!

After Jahar showed up and was filled in, the two came to what could possibly be referred to as an understanding. It was agreed that A-dom would not use his powers to do things beyond need (i.e. no raising the dead for fun and games or stockpiling) and he’d only keep them around as long as necessary. In return, Jade’s Luck would not destroy his creations and or toast Skelly. A-dom agreed to this decision. Jade’s Luck, not so much. She said she would, but one could tell she wasn’t happy to have to compromise and might ignore the agreement.

A-dom: I promise not to abuse my nifty new powers and make large armies of undead.

With that out of the way, the Circle concentrated on the task at hand, the barbarian island where Gareth and A-dom got the tar. Gareth felt this island would be a good place to start developing friends and eventually followers of the Unconquered Sun. The Circle discussed for a while how to convince the barbarians that they should worship the Unconquered Bum. It was decided that they should get to know the people and do good things for them to get in their favor.

A-dom: Apparently their money system is based on canoes.

Gareth quickly chiseled the name Friendly Maiden on the boat and they loaded Gareth’s money and Patient Tiger onboard. Bringing a few canoes along to act as dinghies and a large rock with a rope to act as an anchor, the circle headed off to Hoen-ba island. The trip took a lot less time with a sailboat as opposed to a canoe and the Friendly Maiden sailed around until the villages were spotted. A-dom made idle comments about the untapped workforce on Opec’s island.

Jahar: A-dom, if you continue this idea, I’ll learn Necromancy, find Rosewind’s corpse, animate it, and have it follow you around telling you how awesomely compassionate you were.

A-dom: Really? (pause) Sounds like a lot of work.

Jahar: Yes.

A-dom: So, what you’re saying is, if I do something fun, you’ll do something fun.

Gareth: I don’t think you’re properly motivating him.

Jahar: I’m giving up now.

Jade’s Luck: Who is Rosewind?

Gareth: Oh. Rosewind the Compassionate. Very sweet little girl who went about helping all sorts of people with a smile on her face. She carried around a huge club with a gold spike in it. She also acted much more mature than A-dom does now. He swears that incarnation must have been a fluke.

A-dom weighed anchor and the Circle headed over to the island via canoe, leaving Tiger sleeping onboard.

Wandering in towards the village, the villager Gareth and A-dom had dealt with before noticed them.

Gelf: Hey look, the tar people. Hey guys. Love that canoe.

A-dom: We enjoy your tar.

Jahar fumbled around trying to find out if they had any problems that needed fixing.

Gelf: (to the other villagers) Anyone need a canoe? I think they’re looking for tar again.

A-dom took the more direct approach.

A-dom: What do you guys worship around here?

Gelf: You want talk to Hoen-ba-ba-den.

A-dom: Hoen-ba-ba-den. You worship him?

Gelf: Her. No. She’s our shaman. You want to talk to her?

A-dom: Not really.

Jade’s Luck, however, did want to. Gelf offered to translate, since none of the Circle spoke barbarian. Gelf spoke Sea tongue because he went to other islands and found stuff to trade. Once a year, they went to the big island (Atlantis) to trade. He said the people there were annoying.

Gelf: They’re always complaining about things. We weren’t doing things right. We should follow their religion. Hoen-ba-ba-den said he was delicious.

Jahar described an Immaculate Monk.

Gelf: Yeah. That’s the one. That one was coming here to bother us. We don’t eat the ones there.

This was back when Hoen-ba-ba-den was younger, though.

Gelf led the Circle into Hoen-ba-ba-den’s hut, greeting her loudly as he entered. The shaman looked old. There was no real way for them to determine her age, beyond being somewhere in the forty to seventy range. She was wearing a mishmash of fabrics; some silk, some leather, part of a flag.

Hoen-ba-ba-den went ba ba ba in typical barbarian speak while Gelf translated. She explained about religion there, which was the worship of local spirits that caused them trouble. It was a minimalistic effort to keep their lives running smoothly. All in all, seemed rather efficient. The list of those they worshipped and the offerings included:

• Gnash, the Shark god. Sacrificed chickens to about every three months. Prevents people from being eaten and fish from being chased away.
  Fel-kor-nar, the local fishing god. Pray to him regularly before catching fish.
  Zquo the rat god. He gets a pig twice a year to prevent rats from eating too much of the storage food.
  The random storm god who comes by and harasses them.

The Immaculate monk that got ate was a typical Immaculate monk. Annoying and self-important. The shaman agreed that it was a stupid religion.

Hoen-ba-ba-den had only eaten two people and both of them were complete jerks. The other was a pirate who tried to steal the chieftain’s sister. He didn’t even bring any chickens.

Jade’s Luck: You’d think that a Chieftain’s daughter would be worth, oh I don’t know, a couple of good metal knives…

Hoen-ba-ba-den: Oh yeah.

Jade’s Luck: …or maybe some chickens and a steak.

Gareth: Or maybe even a ship.

Hoen-ba-ba-den: *Unintelligible*

A-dom: (mutters) I don’t need a chieftain’s daughter...

After Jahar, Jade’s Luck, and A-dom got involved in a tangent conversation between them, Hoen-ba-ba-den laughed and said they were funny people who talked much and said little. How true she was.

Jade’s Luck asked her if they ever worshipped the sun, to which she responded a puzzled no. The concept of worshipping things that were good to them and caused delight puzzled the shaman. After all, they were already doing it.

Hoen-ba-ba-den: If the sun stopped shining, we’d probably take up worshipping it.

* A-dom got a nasty grin on his face *

Gareth tried to explain the concept of worshipping something good to help keep those that were bad in line, but he failed miserably to the point of even confusing the rest of the Circle with what he was trying to say (Alex speak goodly). Gareth decided he should just stick to making and selling things and leave the bringing of religiosity to the others. Well, maybe not A-dom or Tiger. Bad things could happen there.

Hoen-ba-ba-den felt that that was a lot of needless worship and they wouldn’t have any time for themselves.

Jahar finally got the good idea that they should offer to assist the barbarians and offer them items in exchange for temporary lodging and food so they could discuss things in private. When the topic was brought up to Hoen-ba-ba-den, she said we’d want to talk to Chieftain Klun. He was very wise and would be willing to trade.

They thanked her for her time and said they would like to exchange knowledge at a later date.

Meanwhile, Tiger woke up on the ship. Wandering around for a little bit, he found a tar-covered skeleton wearing a tar-covered hat. It seemed friendly so he didn’t smash it.



Wandering some more, he found they were anchored off the shore of another island, but there were no dinghies on the ship. While trying to figure out how to get to shore dry, the rest of the Circle exited the shaman’s hut. Both A-dom and Tiger spotted each other. A-dom rowed out to get Tiger.

While rowing back, Tiger asked A-dom what that was on the boat.

A-dom: Oh.. uhh. Yeah… uh, that’s Skelly.

Tiger: Skelly?

A-dom: Yeah. Skelly. He’s my first.

Tiger: You plan on getting more of these?

A-dom: Not at the moment.

Tiger: And you know what he is?

A-dom: Yeah. He’s uh, a skeleton… and he came from the tar pit… and I kind of made him.

Tiger: You MADE HIM?

A-dom: Yeah. Wiggled my fingers. You know. And… Skelly! I’d do it again, but people would get upset. I had made two more and, uh, Jade’s Luck didn’t like them. So, I’m kind of keeping that on the low down.

Talking with Chieftain Klun was a lot easier, in a way. He didn’t need a translator, so Gelf walked away. Klun pointed out the nice parts of the island (trees, tar pit, fresh water). A-dom added in the cemetery. Jade’s Luck brokered the deal, offering pretty much any manufactured goods. Klun said some people could use some knives sharpened, among other things. They found out they only eat those Hoen-ba-ba-den says they should eat. Klun also relayed some info about the neighboring islands:

The island to the south was empty. The island to the north had some nice people on it, but was a dangerous couple day’s trip, since overnight in a canoe isn’t easy. He was concerned about a comment about building a second ship without a crew, since they suspected we might be pirates then. And they didn’t like pirates cause they kidnap people.

After their chat with the Chieftain, they wandered off to discuss what to do about spreading their religion. A-dom displayed unseen intelligence by arguing that the only person they needed to convince was Hoen-ba-ba-den (course, he called her Bubba-Hotep and Babba Yaga). Jade’s Luck thought convincing a local spirit to do nice things when prayed to would be the way to go. Unfortunately, no one actually knew how to talk to spirits yet. What Jade’s Luck had done in that bay had been a fluke. Jahar had a different tactic.

Jahar: If she only worships things that are bad, why don’t we be bad?

A-dom: Hey. Let’s go check out the cemetery.

That plan was quickly shot down, since it wouldn’t be a lasting solution, since the Circle would have to stick around and keep being bad. A-dom pondered out loud if the Circle could convince her by trying to make her Exalt. Jahar wanted to build a castle to the benevolent sorcerer god. When that was shot down and he had to defend himself by saying he knew he wasn’t a god, he suggested the Circle gain the people’s trust and build a temple to the Unconquered Sun.

Over the next month, Gareth sharpened some tools, built a temple, made some canoes, and made a small sea worthy boat for the chieftain. The Chieftain thought Gareth was cool because he gave him a ship. Gareth talked to Hoen-ba-ba-den to find out if they would have a problem with them building a temple and if not, where was acceptable. She told him of where he couldn’t build one (not in town, not on the tar pits). Elsewhere was okay. Jahar found a spot on the other side of the island, next to the secondary water supply. It was a functional temple, though not very pretty, since Gareth had no clue about architecture yet.

Jahar acted like a scary pedophile by offering a little girl a trinket for a locket of hair.

Jade’s Luck: What was that he was doing?

A-dom: Oh, he’s looking for a virgin for something. I think it has something to do with a volcano. I don’t know.

The long-term plan was for Jade’s Luck to teach everyone about the Unconquered Sun so Gareth and Jahar could proselytize. Over the month, they acquired two thirteen-year-old kids, Jinx and Hex, who thought the Circle was pretty cool. They were taught how to tend the temple. Jahar tried to instill in them a desire to read. Lots of writing and pictures about how cool the Unconquered Sun was was then written around the inner walls of the temple.

The Circle left and headed back to Atlantis. There were no problems docking. The Circle split up to go tend to their lives. Jade’s Luck went back to talk to Jade. Gareth took the gold and silver and went back to his shop. Jahar, Tiger, & A-dom took the hunk of jade and the gems and went back to Jahar’s family estate. Skelly was told to get in the bucket (in the ship’s hold) and stay still.

Gareth’s shop was fine, as was the slave. The slave was a little bit better at sewing. He’d spent a little bit of money and had been selling ‘Welcome to Atlantis’ shirts. Gareth stowed his stuff. He spent the rest of that day visiting his family.

When the trio got near the estate, Jahar noticed Tellus standing outside the entrance, waiting. Tellus was in good spirits and told Jahar his father wanted to see him in his den right away.

Jahar: You seem a lot happier than you usually are when you’re standing outside waiting for me

Tellus: Well you aren’t in trouble for once. But it will be interesting.

Jahar took Tiger and A-dom with him as he went in. He entered his father’s den to find his father sitting on one of the couches talking to an old wood-aspect dragon blood.



They have a lot of paperwork between them and they both straighten up when they notice Jahar.

Jahar’s dad: Come in, Jahar. I have wonderful news. Your mother and I have arranged a most excellent marriage for you. I know you weren’t expecting this, but you have to face facts. You’re a mortal dynast and you’re not going to live forever. So you can’t just dilly-dally around wasting time like your sisters. As well, an arrangement as good as this with House Cynis might not come up again for another hundred years.

Cynis Cujug: Given your parents’ impeccable breeding and amazing rate of exaltation among their children, House Cynis has every confidence that you and Jara will have similar breeding results.

Jahar: And what does she have to say about this?

Cynis Cujug: Oh she’s thrilled.

The meeting was brief after that, as Cujug had to go home to set things in motion. The wedding was scheduled for a week’s time.

Cynis Cujug: Sesus Weijin Jahar, I look forward to you marrying my grand daughter.

Jahar was informed that this was a political alliance made necessary by events upon the Blessed Isle. House Memnon was looking like it was trying to seize the throne and other houses were looking to present a united front against them. Jahar was granted great liberties in this arrangement, such as keeping his own name and retaining possession of his room and holdings at the Sesus estate. Also, the first two children who do not exalt will be handed over to House Sesus. Plus, if he produces a good number of exalted offspring, House Cynis just might be able to prolong his life.

Jahar was reeling from the news and didn’t really react when told his sister wanted to see A-dom right away. She needed his help with preparation work. Something about shopping. And thus the emasculating and humiliating of A-dom began. His tale was a sad one over the course of the next several days. That he was forced to wear a string with a flap in the front and nothing else was the least of the degradations.

Jade’s Luck found Jade to be fine and rather busy. Jade filled Luck in on the political situation, all the weddings, and the large number of parties that were happening. In fact, she was putting Luck in charge of the bachlorette party for the wedding of Cynis Jara and Sesus Jahar. Jade’s Luck sent off congratulations to Jahar immediately. Jahar was not the least bit amused. Jade’s Luck came by Gareth’s shop to inform him of the marriage. He set her straight about the marriage not being a happy thing. Her opinion of Jara changed when she found out the woman was the one who smacked all of the Circle, but Gareth, with a Gore Maul to bring them out of a Wyld trance and took special pleasure in smacking Jahar.

Jahar and Tiger were able to sneak away for a little while the next day to get to Gareth’s shop. Dropping off an invite, he informed Gareth of the marriage and his sudden need for protection. Gareth remembered Jara well and understood Jahar’s need. He sent the slave over to his sister’s to work and got Tiger to stick around and guard. He then made the forge as sealed off light-wise from the outside as possible and quickly made twin excellent swords for Jahar. The first one, a defense sword, came out much nicer than the offense sword, but oh well. He’d have time to do better ones later. Once the coruscant aura had gone away, he sent Tiger back to Jahar with the swords.

The week passed quickly for everyone but A-dom. His torture was quickly sending him towards the breaking point. At the bachlorette party, Jade’s Luck did a good job of making sure the proper people didn’t get buggered and, if they did, that she got paid for it. A-dom didn’t like having to ‘amuse’ the crowd using a dead body (and no necromancy). He tried juggling the dead body, but didn’t do well. He got whipped badly. When taken into the slave area to get cleaned up, another slave tried to teach him that he should be more compliant. Poor dead body number two. Then A-dom did his naughty little trick. He sent the zombies to ‘go mingle’ and sat back to listen to the chaos. It took half an hour before people noticed in the drug-smoke fog. Jara was sure Jahar was to blame. A-dom got yelled at for hiding in the slave quarters. He impressed people with some acrobatics while trying to amuse the crowd. The word limber got thrown around. Somehow, an auction started up with A-dom as the bidding item. Jade’s Luck, in an effort to help, sent off a runner to Jahar while she did her best to drive up the price of A-dom.

Meanwhile, Gareth, Tiger, and Jahar were having a good time at the bachelor party. Not able to escape his fate, Jahar was spending his last night as a free man in a drug induced stupor. Gareth saw the guy who had beaten him into exaltation there. He manipulated people into brawling and beating up the guy. The runner showed up and informed Jahar in private about the auctioning of A-dom. Of course, Jahar was in no state to care or relay the information.

Ultimately, the bidding ended, with A-dom going to the rich man from House Mnemon that was responsible for the first dead body. A-dom was taken home by his new master and unspeakable things were done to him that night.