Shemeska's Planescape Storyhour (Updated 29 Jan 2014)
Shemeska
Adventurer
Ashy said:You and me both, Shemmy, you and me both.
Now we just need for me to win the lottery and start building a massive amount of Hasbro stock, or just buy WotC from Hasbro all at once. And then, to quote ol' Duke Rowan, "Things will change when I'm in charge."
*grin*
Wishful thinking, but good wishful thinking.
But regardless, I've got this week's storyhour update finished for this SH, but #2 won't be finished since I've got two seperate games to run this weekend and been busy with research this week. Will update #2 next week.
Clueless
Webmonkey
You laugh. But I do have plans if I ever win one. Which reminds me- I need to check how the lotto bill is going in NC's legislature.
Oh - and preliminary heads up to the two of you: http://www.planewalker.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=654
A sort of 'warm up' thread...
Oh - and preliminary heads up to the two of you: http://www.planewalker.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=654
A sort of 'warm up' thread...
Shemeska
Adventurer
“Don’t touch anything…” Florian said, directing her statement to Nisha, Clueless, and Skalliska.
“Hey, they killed a marut, I can’t exactly complain about whoever built this place.” Nisha said as she did a quick impression of an inevitable, and then an inevitable keeling over dead.
“What exactly did Maruts enforce?” Toras asked the others as he examined the jagged, rent metal at the point where the marut’s neck had been. “I know that inevitables are pretty much mindless constructs who go out with specific orders in order to punish people who break specific universal laws.”
Nisha stuck out her tongue.
“Death.” Tristol said. “Everything is supposed to die eventually. That’s a natural thing and people who cheat death for any reason risk a marut coming after them to remedy the situation. This one failed…”
“I’d say so.” Clueless said as he moved around the room to avoid the dead construct.
“The delicious oh irony.” Nisha quipped in scramblespeak right into the marut’s insensate ear.
“Don’t taunt the dead Nisha,” Florian said.
“For the second time in a day or so: He’s dead, he doesn’t care. And if he gets back up, the manifest irony will kill me anyways.”
“Anyway, there’s nothing else here, and I can’t find any traps or passages. So let’s go ahead and move.” Skalliska said to the others.
Clueless was bothered though, “If maruts are supposed to make sure people die when they should, might it be safe to assume that its target might still be walking around somewhere? Down here?”
Florian glanced at her holy symbol, “Let’s not think about that too much.”
Fyrehowl and Tristol both stood looking into the next room, or what they could see of it through a short, connecting hallway. Fyrehowl was tensed and Tristol’s tail was bottlebrushed.
“…what?” Clueless asked warily.
“It’s not too late to turn back is it?” Tristol asked.
As they gazed into the next room, nearly thirty statues of Dabus stared back at them. Each was carved in immaculate detail, but each in a different shade of stone. Only a thin border of stone surrounded the field of statues.
“And we find a pattern: don’t touch anything.” Florian said with a poke into Nisha’s ribs.
“No such thing as patterns.” Nisha added defiantly.
Florian chuckled, “Ok, patterns or not, we all scoot around the edge of the room and nobody touches and of Fell’s petrified, retarded cousins. Deal?”
None of them disagreed in the slightest. And so, one by one, they slowly worked their way around the room and to the single exit on the other side. Once they were all collected together at the exit they gave one last disturbed glance at the Dabus collection and then continued on.
As they turned the corner, the hallway opened into a small, featureless white chamber with only two objects in view: a single chair and a hovering chessboard complete with all the pieces for a new game.
“Told you so.” Nisha said with a smirk. “So much for don’t touch anything.”
“No exit.” Skalliska quipped.
“Who can play chess?” Toras asked as he indicated with a face that his own skill might not be up to snuff.
“I can play wizards chess, but it’s not completely the same game.” Tristol ventured.
The others glanced around and shook their heads.
“Better than the rest of us.” Clueless said as he pulled out the chair for Tristol to sit down on.
Tristol raised his eyebrows and took a deep breath before he sat down on the chair. As he did so the board slowly turned to orient itself with the white pieces facing him.
“Alright, white is mine. Guess I’ll be going first.” The aasimar said as he reached out with his index finger paused above one of his queen’s pawns.
He moved the pawn forward and immediately one of the black pawns slid silently across the board to block and oppose his move. Tristol furrowed his eyebrows and considered his next move. It was a slightly different game than he was used to playing, but it was still chess at its most basic and he knew how to play. However he was out of practice and it was really going to depend on how good the unseen other player was.
Tristol brought a knight into play and a black bishop slid across the board in turn. Another pause and then he moved his queen out, followed several turns later by a king’s rook. Pieces were traded in turn largely for no advantage but then the mage managed to capture one of the white bishops without losing a piece or compromising his position.
“Looks like you’ve got an opening there Tristol.” Florian said.
The aasimar nodded sagely, but his ears twitched with nervousness and his tail was tapping against one of the legs of his chair. Clearly he was still worried despite his momentary gain against his opponent.
“So I do. I still don’t know what happens if I lose though…”
Florian paused and looked concerned, “Sh*t. Yeah you’re right.”
Meanwhile Skalliska was suddenly looking up towards the ceiling for any traps. There were none, but it didn’t wholly alleviate her nerves.
“Check.” Tristol said as he threatened the black king with a bishop.
The black king saved itself by moving a pawn to block the way. However Tristol’s next move removed one of its knights from play. From that point on the game was largely over. Tristol lost a rook but took the black queen in the process and slowly ground the other side down to little more than a surrounded king when he finally called out, “Checkmate.”
As soon as Tristol finished the game the board drew back several inches and a doorway appeared in the far wall opposite them where none had previously stood. Tristol had won and so they had their way forward; hopefully they had their way out.
The next chamber was dark and cavernous, home to a giant planar orrery and models of the various planes of existence. The only illumination came from the glowing crystalline details of each of the planes, and each seemed to rotate in turn, allowing them to gaze at them in a slow progression of details. However as they gazed at the crystal, steel and bejeweled representations of the planes and their layers, something wasn’t quite normal about it.
“Arcadia still has three layers up there.” Skalliska stated, pointing at the layer which had in the past decade been sent hurtling into Mechanus by the misguided actions of the Harmonium.
“That’s not the only one. Some of them have layers missing, or extra layers. Some of the layers of planes are given slightly different names even. This thing is sodding old…” Fyrehowl said with admiration.
Clueless was staring at the mist filled interior of a globe that represented the trackless sea of the ethereal. Deep within its depths, jewels hovered and danced, representations of the demiplanes that dotted the ethereal depths like foam upon an endless ocean shore. And then two of the demiplanes moved, drawing close to the surface and then retreating: One of them was black and shadowy with tendrils of black mist trailing like tendrils across the space to the globe that represented the prime material. A sense of dream emanated from it and skeletal faces seemed to press and strain against its glassy surface.
The other was glimmering and double sided, one luminous and golden, the other dim and silvered. Clueless grinned as he looked into that particular globe and felt a sensation of fey laughter echo from within, at once both alluring and whimsical and also bitter and contemptuous: home.
“Well, at least nothing is leaping out to kill us.” Florian said as she glanced at the door on the other side of the chamber.
Tristol nodded, “Aye. And as much as I might love to just sit here and scribble down some notes on the differences between this and the planes as they are now, we don’t have the time to spare really. A shame.”
As they left the dimly lit chamber and its model of the planes, the exit led them to an intersection of two hallways. They glanced down each of the three possible exits but they snaked out of sight and no real detail could be garnered without actually venturing down them. Nisha glanced at Fyrehowl, wondering if the lupinal had any feelings one way or the other about the choices.
“Not a clue. Do your thing and pick randomly. That’s probably about the best we can do.” The cipher replied with a shrug.
“We go right!” The Xaositect said as she went to the left.
Clueless chuckled as he and the others followed her down the corridor. They didn’t walk far however as the hallway ended at a sealed doorway less than fifty feet later.
The door was made of gilded wood and carved with an ornate passage. Several glyphs were also cut into the surface at seemingly random points along with faded paintings of ashen men and women who all seemed to be asleep. Skalliska walked up to the door and narrowed her eyes, glaring down her snout at the symbols.
“Ok, I recognize them. But damn they’re old.” She said without touching the door.
“What’s it say?” Tristol said, equally recognizing the singularly antique quality of the dialect of draconic used in the passage.
Skalliska paused and read over it once more, then spoke the passage to the others aloud, “Sleep long and sleep silently Brothers of the Dreaming, lest you awaken and tempt the Bladed One to end your immortal days.”
A silence descended over the group and Toras was already backing away from the door. The mention of ‘Bladed One’ in the context of their current location was simply too much to expect any of them to actually venture past the door, whatever was behind it. Quickly, and without a glance back, they all walked back to the intersection and took one of the other routes.
Tristol glanced at Skalliska, “Any idea of who or what a ‘Brother of the Dreaming’ is or was?”
The kobold shook her head, “Not a clue. Sure I’m curious, but given what the door said I’m not willing to break it down just to satisfy my curiosity.”
“Effective warning then…” Florian said with a chuckle. “Just add that on your tomb if you’re buried in Sigil and you can be sure that no berk is going to break into it.”
“I don’t plan on dying of old age in Sigil.” Toras said with a pat of his hand on his sword.
“I don’t plan on dying of old age anywhere. I can’t.” Fyrehowl said.
“I don’t plan on dying at all!” Clueless said.
A minute later they all ascended a staircase and emerged into the very center of a much larger room; and it was far from empty. Radiating outwards from them in a pattern seemingly modeled after the Great Wheel were statues, nearly a hundred in all, each in perfect, lifelike detail. Archons, guardinals, eladrin, modron, slaadi, and all of the fiends and the lesser examples of the natives of the planes all stood in stony glory within the vaulted chamber, all staring at them.
“Creepy…” Florian said.
“Wow. I don’t recognize all of these even.” Tristol added.
Toras and Clueless drew their swords. “Not taking chances on if any of these are alive…”
And indeed, most of the figures seemed to have been carved in poses most befitting their nature, some even as if they might have been caught and transmuted to stone or metal. And then Florian touched a statue of a vrock…
“Sh*t!” She screamed as the fiend was immediately enveloped in a flash of light, burst into motion and lunged at her with a murderous shriek.
Heads snapped and weapons were suddenly drawn as the Tanar’ri howled in rage and raked its claws across the cleric’s midsection. Far from a statue, the thing had either been turned to stone or simply been held in some form of temporal stasis, preserved like an insect in amber through the long years.
Rising up with a crimson swath spattered across its wings, the fiend was enveloped in a cone of bitter cold from Fyrehowl’s outstretched hand and ragged beam of energy from Tristol. It screamed in mindless pain and rage as the spells blasted it free from its bloody quarry and dashed it across the floor. When it died it did not revert to stone; it was an actual vrock.
“Holy breasts of Sharess! What in the name of Tempus was that for?!” Florian bellowed out from the floor, looking at the battered corpse of the fiend. “No! Seriously! That was a sodding statue!”
Toras helped her up from the floor and healed most of the wound across her torso. Florian whispered an incensed prayer to Tempus and finished the job as she glanced in irritation, and then wariness at the multitude of statues that dotted the chamber. The others immediately jumped to the same unhealthy conclusion.
“Oh hells…” Clueless said as he stepped back from a perfect representation of a Glabrezu.
“Every sodding one of these. Cr*p…” Skalliska whispered with wide eyes as she glanced at the cold marble form of a Gelugon that towered over her less than two feet away.
Nisha shook her head, “Not all of them.”
“Why do you say that?” Tristol asked.
“Because nothing happened when I threw myself into the arms of the incubi statue over there. Hey, forbidden love and all, and it’s not like I’m crazy enough to try the real ones. Too deadly, and they’re the type of guys who never go for second dates.” Nisha said with a pout as she gave the seductive looking statue a smack on its rear.
Toras blinked, speechless.
“There’s protection for that sort of thing you know.” Clueless said abruptly.
Toras blinked again.
“…or so some Sensates have told me.” The half-fey added quickly.
Fyrehowl snickered as she glanced at the various celestials and fiends, half tempted to touch the guardinals. However she held back, unsure as she was as to if they might be controlled by magic even if they were actual members of her race held in stasis.
“Ok. So some of them are real and some of them are just statues. Some of them are made of gold, silver and other valuables. Thief bait and curiosity killers… cute.” Florian said with a shake of her head.
“Yeah yeah yeah… don’t touch anything…” Nisha said with a pout.
Meanwhile, Tristol was glancing at the fiend statues with a perplexed look on his face. “I don’t really recognize all of them though. There are some of the statues on the Baatezu side that aren’t actual fiends that I know of. There’s a nupperibo, and then one of them with tentacles, and one larger than that with… spikes… sprouting out of its back.”
The mage motioned to the bloated forms of those fiends, and how the Baatezu near to them seemed antagonistic in pose and expression. The archons cattycorner to them also seemed posed defensively; it all made little sense.
Clueless was glancing at the gleaming metallic forms of the various Rilmani, largely at the golden face of the aurumach and the silver of the argenach.
“Heh. Never seen any of them before. Heard of them, but never seen them.”
Skalliska glanced up at them, “You probably won’t either. Argenachs are supposed to always go around in disguise, and most Rilmani will probably never see an aurumach. That’s what the golden ones are called.”
And then the curious silence was broken by a sudden, “What the hell?…”
All eyes suddenly focused on Fyrehowl.
“What the hell is that –thing-?” Fyrehowl asked as she pointed to a looming figure that stood mostly in shadow behind the collected figures of each of the yugoloth subtypes.
It was carved of sickly gray marble that was streaked with imperfections, spots and minute flaws that gave it a tired, aged, decrepit appearance. It had a smug grin across its skeletal, vaguely reptilian or goat-like muzzle, and sunken, dead white eyes. Its arms were raised dramatically, and given the source of illumination in the chamber, the light streaming down through the dusty air gave it the appearance of holding puppet strings that trailed down to the yugoloths that stood in front of it.
“What kind of yugoloth is –that-?” The lupinal asked.
If a fiend could look old, ancient by comparison to the others, this one did. It was carved in a marble whose patina of spots and inclusions seemed like age spots and open sores across its sallow, parchment thin hide. Standing, cloaking in shadow as it was, it was heads above the other ‘loths and exuded a palpable menace simply by its posturing.
“For the love of Tempus himself, don’t touch it.” Florian said as they gathered around the base of the figure and examined a phrase carved into the marble base that it stood upon.
And do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
“Hey, they killed a marut, I can’t exactly complain about whoever built this place.” Nisha said as she did a quick impression of an inevitable, and then an inevitable keeling over dead.
“What exactly did Maruts enforce?” Toras asked the others as he examined the jagged, rent metal at the point where the marut’s neck had been. “I know that inevitables are pretty much mindless constructs who go out with specific orders in order to punish people who break specific universal laws.”
Nisha stuck out her tongue.
“Death.” Tristol said. “Everything is supposed to die eventually. That’s a natural thing and people who cheat death for any reason risk a marut coming after them to remedy the situation. This one failed…”
“I’d say so.” Clueless said as he moved around the room to avoid the dead construct.
“The delicious oh irony.” Nisha quipped in scramblespeak right into the marut’s insensate ear.
“Don’t taunt the dead Nisha,” Florian said.
“For the second time in a day or so: He’s dead, he doesn’t care. And if he gets back up, the manifest irony will kill me anyways.”
“Anyway, there’s nothing else here, and I can’t find any traps or passages. So let’s go ahead and move.” Skalliska said to the others.
Clueless was bothered though, “If maruts are supposed to make sure people die when they should, might it be safe to assume that its target might still be walking around somewhere? Down here?”
Florian glanced at her holy symbol, “Let’s not think about that too much.”
Fyrehowl and Tristol both stood looking into the next room, or what they could see of it through a short, connecting hallway. Fyrehowl was tensed and Tristol’s tail was bottlebrushed.
“…what?” Clueless asked warily.
“It’s not too late to turn back is it?” Tristol asked.
As they gazed into the next room, nearly thirty statues of Dabus stared back at them. Each was carved in immaculate detail, but each in a different shade of stone. Only a thin border of stone surrounded the field of statues.
“And we find a pattern: don’t touch anything.” Florian said with a poke into Nisha’s ribs.
“No such thing as patterns.” Nisha added defiantly.
Florian chuckled, “Ok, patterns or not, we all scoot around the edge of the room and nobody touches and of Fell’s petrified, retarded cousins. Deal?”
None of them disagreed in the slightest. And so, one by one, they slowly worked their way around the room and to the single exit on the other side. Once they were all collected together at the exit they gave one last disturbed glance at the Dabus collection and then continued on.
As they turned the corner, the hallway opened into a small, featureless white chamber with only two objects in view: a single chair and a hovering chessboard complete with all the pieces for a new game.
“Told you so.” Nisha said with a smirk. “So much for don’t touch anything.”
“No exit.” Skalliska quipped.
“Who can play chess?” Toras asked as he indicated with a face that his own skill might not be up to snuff.
“I can play wizards chess, but it’s not completely the same game.” Tristol ventured.
The others glanced around and shook their heads.
“Better than the rest of us.” Clueless said as he pulled out the chair for Tristol to sit down on.
Tristol raised his eyebrows and took a deep breath before he sat down on the chair. As he did so the board slowly turned to orient itself with the white pieces facing him.
“Alright, white is mine. Guess I’ll be going first.” The aasimar said as he reached out with his index finger paused above one of his queen’s pawns.
He moved the pawn forward and immediately one of the black pawns slid silently across the board to block and oppose his move. Tristol furrowed his eyebrows and considered his next move. It was a slightly different game than he was used to playing, but it was still chess at its most basic and he knew how to play. However he was out of practice and it was really going to depend on how good the unseen other player was.
Tristol brought a knight into play and a black bishop slid across the board in turn. Another pause and then he moved his queen out, followed several turns later by a king’s rook. Pieces were traded in turn largely for no advantage but then the mage managed to capture one of the white bishops without losing a piece or compromising his position.
“Looks like you’ve got an opening there Tristol.” Florian said.
The aasimar nodded sagely, but his ears twitched with nervousness and his tail was tapping against one of the legs of his chair. Clearly he was still worried despite his momentary gain against his opponent.
“So I do. I still don’t know what happens if I lose though…”
Florian paused and looked concerned, “Sh*t. Yeah you’re right.”
Meanwhile Skalliska was suddenly looking up towards the ceiling for any traps. There were none, but it didn’t wholly alleviate her nerves.
“Check.” Tristol said as he threatened the black king with a bishop.
The black king saved itself by moving a pawn to block the way. However Tristol’s next move removed one of its knights from play. From that point on the game was largely over. Tristol lost a rook but took the black queen in the process and slowly ground the other side down to little more than a surrounded king when he finally called out, “Checkmate.”
As soon as Tristol finished the game the board drew back several inches and a doorway appeared in the far wall opposite them where none had previously stood. Tristol had won and so they had their way forward; hopefully they had their way out.
The next chamber was dark and cavernous, home to a giant planar orrery and models of the various planes of existence. The only illumination came from the glowing crystalline details of each of the planes, and each seemed to rotate in turn, allowing them to gaze at them in a slow progression of details. However as they gazed at the crystal, steel and bejeweled representations of the planes and their layers, something wasn’t quite normal about it.
“Arcadia still has three layers up there.” Skalliska stated, pointing at the layer which had in the past decade been sent hurtling into Mechanus by the misguided actions of the Harmonium.
“That’s not the only one. Some of them have layers missing, or extra layers. Some of the layers of planes are given slightly different names even. This thing is sodding old…” Fyrehowl said with admiration.
Clueless was staring at the mist filled interior of a globe that represented the trackless sea of the ethereal. Deep within its depths, jewels hovered and danced, representations of the demiplanes that dotted the ethereal depths like foam upon an endless ocean shore. And then two of the demiplanes moved, drawing close to the surface and then retreating: One of them was black and shadowy with tendrils of black mist trailing like tendrils across the space to the globe that represented the prime material. A sense of dream emanated from it and skeletal faces seemed to press and strain against its glassy surface.
The other was glimmering and double sided, one luminous and golden, the other dim and silvered. Clueless grinned as he looked into that particular globe and felt a sensation of fey laughter echo from within, at once both alluring and whimsical and also bitter and contemptuous: home.
“Well, at least nothing is leaping out to kill us.” Florian said as she glanced at the door on the other side of the chamber.
Tristol nodded, “Aye. And as much as I might love to just sit here and scribble down some notes on the differences between this and the planes as they are now, we don’t have the time to spare really. A shame.”
As they left the dimly lit chamber and its model of the planes, the exit led them to an intersection of two hallways. They glanced down each of the three possible exits but they snaked out of sight and no real detail could be garnered without actually venturing down them. Nisha glanced at Fyrehowl, wondering if the lupinal had any feelings one way or the other about the choices.
“Not a clue. Do your thing and pick randomly. That’s probably about the best we can do.” The cipher replied with a shrug.
“We go right!” The Xaositect said as she went to the left.
Clueless chuckled as he and the others followed her down the corridor. They didn’t walk far however as the hallway ended at a sealed doorway less than fifty feet later.
The door was made of gilded wood and carved with an ornate passage. Several glyphs were also cut into the surface at seemingly random points along with faded paintings of ashen men and women who all seemed to be asleep. Skalliska walked up to the door and narrowed her eyes, glaring down her snout at the symbols.
“Ok, I recognize them. But damn they’re old.” She said without touching the door.
“What’s it say?” Tristol said, equally recognizing the singularly antique quality of the dialect of draconic used in the passage.
Skalliska paused and read over it once more, then spoke the passage to the others aloud, “Sleep long and sleep silently Brothers of the Dreaming, lest you awaken and tempt the Bladed One to end your immortal days.”
A silence descended over the group and Toras was already backing away from the door. The mention of ‘Bladed One’ in the context of their current location was simply too much to expect any of them to actually venture past the door, whatever was behind it. Quickly, and without a glance back, they all walked back to the intersection and took one of the other routes.
Tristol glanced at Skalliska, “Any idea of who or what a ‘Brother of the Dreaming’ is or was?”
The kobold shook her head, “Not a clue. Sure I’m curious, but given what the door said I’m not willing to break it down just to satisfy my curiosity.”
“Effective warning then…” Florian said with a chuckle. “Just add that on your tomb if you’re buried in Sigil and you can be sure that no berk is going to break into it.”
“I don’t plan on dying of old age in Sigil.” Toras said with a pat of his hand on his sword.
“I don’t plan on dying of old age anywhere. I can’t.” Fyrehowl said.
“I don’t plan on dying at all!” Clueless said.
A minute later they all ascended a staircase and emerged into the very center of a much larger room; and it was far from empty. Radiating outwards from them in a pattern seemingly modeled after the Great Wheel were statues, nearly a hundred in all, each in perfect, lifelike detail. Archons, guardinals, eladrin, modron, slaadi, and all of the fiends and the lesser examples of the natives of the planes all stood in stony glory within the vaulted chamber, all staring at them.
“Creepy…” Florian said.
“Wow. I don’t recognize all of these even.” Tristol added.
Toras and Clueless drew their swords. “Not taking chances on if any of these are alive…”
And indeed, most of the figures seemed to have been carved in poses most befitting their nature, some even as if they might have been caught and transmuted to stone or metal. And then Florian touched a statue of a vrock…
“Sh*t!” She screamed as the fiend was immediately enveloped in a flash of light, burst into motion and lunged at her with a murderous shriek.
Heads snapped and weapons were suddenly drawn as the Tanar’ri howled in rage and raked its claws across the cleric’s midsection. Far from a statue, the thing had either been turned to stone or simply been held in some form of temporal stasis, preserved like an insect in amber through the long years.
Rising up with a crimson swath spattered across its wings, the fiend was enveloped in a cone of bitter cold from Fyrehowl’s outstretched hand and ragged beam of energy from Tristol. It screamed in mindless pain and rage as the spells blasted it free from its bloody quarry and dashed it across the floor. When it died it did not revert to stone; it was an actual vrock.
“Holy breasts of Sharess! What in the name of Tempus was that for?!” Florian bellowed out from the floor, looking at the battered corpse of the fiend. “No! Seriously! That was a sodding statue!”
Toras helped her up from the floor and healed most of the wound across her torso. Florian whispered an incensed prayer to Tempus and finished the job as she glanced in irritation, and then wariness at the multitude of statues that dotted the chamber. The others immediately jumped to the same unhealthy conclusion.
“Oh hells…” Clueless said as he stepped back from a perfect representation of a Glabrezu.
“Every sodding one of these. Cr*p…” Skalliska whispered with wide eyes as she glanced at the cold marble form of a Gelugon that towered over her less than two feet away.
Nisha shook her head, “Not all of them.”
“Why do you say that?” Tristol asked.
“Because nothing happened when I threw myself into the arms of the incubi statue over there. Hey, forbidden love and all, and it’s not like I’m crazy enough to try the real ones. Too deadly, and they’re the type of guys who never go for second dates.” Nisha said with a pout as she gave the seductive looking statue a smack on its rear.
Toras blinked, speechless.
“There’s protection for that sort of thing you know.” Clueless said abruptly.
Toras blinked again.
“…or so some Sensates have told me.” The half-fey added quickly.
Fyrehowl snickered as she glanced at the various celestials and fiends, half tempted to touch the guardinals. However she held back, unsure as she was as to if they might be controlled by magic even if they were actual members of her race held in stasis.
“Ok. So some of them are real and some of them are just statues. Some of them are made of gold, silver and other valuables. Thief bait and curiosity killers… cute.” Florian said with a shake of her head.
“Yeah yeah yeah… don’t touch anything…” Nisha said with a pout.
Meanwhile, Tristol was glancing at the fiend statues with a perplexed look on his face. “I don’t really recognize all of them though. There are some of the statues on the Baatezu side that aren’t actual fiends that I know of. There’s a nupperibo, and then one of them with tentacles, and one larger than that with… spikes… sprouting out of its back.”
The mage motioned to the bloated forms of those fiends, and how the Baatezu near to them seemed antagonistic in pose and expression. The archons cattycorner to them also seemed posed defensively; it all made little sense.
Clueless was glancing at the gleaming metallic forms of the various Rilmani, largely at the golden face of the aurumach and the silver of the argenach.
“Heh. Never seen any of them before. Heard of them, but never seen them.”
Skalliska glanced up at them, “You probably won’t either. Argenachs are supposed to always go around in disguise, and most Rilmani will probably never see an aurumach. That’s what the golden ones are called.”
And then the curious silence was broken by a sudden, “What the hell?…”
All eyes suddenly focused on Fyrehowl.
“What the hell is that –thing-?” Fyrehowl asked as she pointed to a looming figure that stood mostly in shadow behind the collected figures of each of the yugoloth subtypes.
It was carved of sickly gray marble that was streaked with imperfections, spots and minute flaws that gave it a tired, aged, decrepit appearance. It had a smug grin across its skeletal, vaguely reptilian or goat-like muzzle, and sunken, dead white eyes. Its arms were raised dramatically, and given the source of illumination in the chamber, the light streaming down through the dusty air gave it the appearance of holding puppet strings that trailed down to the yugoloths that stood in front of it.
“What kind of yugoloth is –that-?” The lupinal asked.
If a fiend could look old, ancient by comparison to the others, this one did. It was carved in a marble whose patina of spots and inclusions seemed like age spots and open sores across its sallow, parchment thin hide. Standing, cloaking in shadow as it was, it was heads above the other ‘loths and exuded a palpable menace simply by its posturing.
“For the love of Tempus himself, don’t touch it.” Florian said as they gathered around the base of the figure and examined a phrase carved into the marble base that it stood upon.
And do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
***
Lobo Lurker
First Post
SWEET! The groups first encounter with a baernoloth I take it?
Question for the players: Did you guys/gals ever figure out just who/what Vorkanis the Ebon actually was? (yes/no will suffice).
Question for the players: Did you guys/gals ever figure out just who/what Vorkanis the Ebon actually was? (yes/no will suffice).
Gez
First Post
The whole chess part reminded me of... Harry Potter. From "I play Wizards' chess" to the door opening.
You should update the thread title to tell it's been updated today!
Like the Rabelais reference, although I'm not sure what it's doing there exactly. Foreshadowing by the narrator about the headless actions of Nisha?
You should update the thread title to tell it's been updated today!
Like the Rabelais reference, although I'm not sure what it's doing there exactly. Foreshadowing by the narrator about the headless actions of Nisha?
Gez
First Post
"And do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" is the common English translation of the full content of the Book of Law of the Abbey of Thélème -- a fictionnal place described in Gargantua, chapter 55.
Here's the relevant excerpt, in all its barely-understandable-even-for-me "Olde Frenche" glory (as written in year 1534):
In modern English, this gives: "Their whole life was governed not by law, status, or rules; but according to their free will. They rose from bed when they felt it fine; drank, ate, worked and slept when they desired it. No one was watching them, nor forcing them to drink, nor eat, nor to do anything. As was established by Gargantua, in their law was only this rule: “do as you will”."
Here's the relevant excerpt, in all its barely-understandable-even-for-me "Olde Frenche" glory (as written in year 1534):
Toute leur vie estoit employé non par loix, statuz ou reigles, mais scelon leur vouloir & franc arbitre. Se levoient du lict quand bon leur sembloit: beuvoient/ mangeoient/ travailloient/ dormoient quand le desir leurs venoit. Nul ne les esveilloit/ nul ne les parforceoyt ny à boyre/ ny à manger/ ny à faire chose aultre quelconques. Ainsi l'avoit estably Gargantua. En leur reigle n'estoit que ceste clause. Faictz ce que vouldras.
In modern English, this gives: "Their whole life was governed not by law, status, or rules; but according to their free will. They rose from bed when they felt it fine; drank, ate, worked and slept when they desired it. No one was watching them, nor forcing them to drink, nor eat, nor to do anything. As was established by Gargantua, in their law was only this rule: “do as you will”."
