Finally, tyrant and murderer...
Heh, I know. It was quite a coincidence that we got this version of the Crypta, and I'll explain a bit of its background in my comments below (oh my, this sounds like a random youtube video...), even if this means that I'm going to post a shorter chunk of this session which is only the second part of the vault:
---
Next up is a puzzle with numbers and we both guess that this is where most Clergymen would have given up as it requires quite a lot of logic. We solve it after a while, open a door and suddenly stand in front of a demonic blob. The blob attacks us without warning and “bites” Auryn with corrosive slime. We manage to defeat the thing without too much hassle, but Auryn's wound seems quite dire and a close examination reveals that it might be infected with a demonic disease. Ottavia offers to take care of it and she manages to cleanse the corruption with one of her miracles.
Behind the blob we find eight holes in a wall, but six of them turn out to be trapped and only two activate a mechanism that pulls up one wall of the room which reveals a hidden but shattered mirror. We try to fix the mirror and to our surprise, each piece magically reconnects with its counterpart. However, as we work on the mirror-puzzle, we see that our reflections are skeletal versions of ourselves and that the reflection contains a door that doesn't exist in our reality.
As soon as we fix the whole mirror, the skeletons get a will of their own, crawl out of the mirror and start to attack us. And unfortunately, they seem to be direct copies which means that they got the very same abilities that we have. However, they seem to lack our tactical abilities and teamwork. We guess that skeleton!Ottavia might be the easiest one to shatter and Auryn explains that getting her down might need a coordinated attack, so maybe skeleton!Carlyle should be next. We down them one after another and as they seem to re-form inside the mirror-verse, we decide to shatter it again.
As we know that the skeletons just mirrored our motions up to the point when we fixed the whole mirror, we decide to leave one shard out and let our copies open the door in the mirror-verse. This causes an open door to appear in our world as well.
(Tizbiz said that this wasn't really the intended solution, as we should have gone through the mirror, fought the skeletons and run for the door, but he thought the idea was too brilliant to ignore)
Behind this door we finally find Ashima-Shimtu who's hanging on hooks above a pool filled with holy water. Auryn instantly recognizes this figure as the tyrant and murderer she saw in Nevard's vision and guesses that she might have some kind of map that leads everywhere.
Before we can get to her, we are suddenly approached by a strange humam looking figure clad in the tattered robes of a Godhand. He mutters mere nonsense, but when he sees Auryn he calls her the “brood of the whore Srasama” and she's barely able to resist the urge to bury her weapon in the man's chest for this insult of her goddess.
“Calm down. Judging by his mad eyes, his mind is beyond gone.” Carlyle says with a mix of both relief and sorrow while the demoness laughs in amusement.
Between us and the man are more mirrors and as soon as we pass one of them, another skeletal double emerges which we cut down quickly. So we decide to take the careful route and avoid walking in front of the mirrors.
“Oh what a pity, I almost began to enjoy your little show. Now could you please take care of this babbling madman as well? I'm sick of his voice.” Ashima-Shimtu says with a sarcastic undertone. The moment she finishes her request, the mad Godhand charges at us to defend “his mistress” and we beat him unconscious and tie him up for good.
“Well done. Now welcome to my domain, Auryn, daughter of Galadin, daughter of Kaealys, daughter of Launga, daughter of Kasvarina Varal, daughter of Lorpadi Varal, daughter of...” (she continues this for quite a while, kind of alternating between male and female names after Kasvarina) “and also welcome Gabriel Carlyle, thirdborn of house Carlyle, human whose soul was reborn by a dying goddess. I am Ashima-Shimtu, mistress of this forsaken domain, keeper of secrets and prisoner of the foolish Clergy”
“What a coincidence. That'd make us two secret-keepers in one room” adds Auryn, hinting at the meaning of her own name.
When then ask the demoness how she ended here and how it could be possible that she stayed in our world as we know that demons and other extraplanar creatures can stay no longer than 5 minutes in our realm. She finds this question rather amusing and explains that she's been here since the rise of the demonocracy and found herself unable to return to her home plane after their rule ended. She didn't want to die like the legions she once commanded and so she offered Triegenes' followers her wisdom. She adds that she's a potent seer and knows many secrets, even if those Clergy fools didn't really know how to use her knowledge. Still many desperate priests came to her over the years, begging for her insight. Even if she grew kind of lonely over the last century or so.
We take her by her word and ask her about Miller and Kasvarina and their reason for entering this forsaken place. Ashima-shimtu laughs and immediately asks us what we're willing to pay in return for this story. Auryn answers that she'd offer a story for a story which would be a fair trade in her eyes. The demoness declines this offer though and says that she could tell Auryn of her mother's fate and well-being if she'd still be willing to share her tale. Now it is Auryn who declines as she says that she'll visit her mother soon enough and doesn't need petty divinations. She insists to hear the story of Kasvarina and asks Ashima-Shimtu to name her price should she not be satisfied with Auryn's offer.
Unfortunately for us, Ashima-Shimtu shakes her head and says that this tale is a story for another time as she knows that this won't be the last time the three of us will meet. We call this quite a self-fulfilling prophecy as this way she herself is making sure that we will return in the not too far future.
“What a clever lot you are.” she chuckles. “But you should know that my predictions are quite... reliable. And so you should also know that it will be the two of you who will doom this world. Oh the sweet, sweet irony.”
We tell her that we don't put much trust in demonic prophecies or doomed fates and instead prefer to take our fate into our own hands. It seems like Ashima-Shimtu is quite amused by our reaction and so she offers us something truly valuable: A one-way ticket out of her crypt. If we promise to take the crazy Godhand and the priestess with us that is. And if we tell her a secret that no one else knows in return.
“She of all should know how to keep a secret.” Auryn says and agrees. She then thinks about “the secret” for a while and decides to play it safe, walks up to the demoness and whispers her secret into her ears. Carlyle is next and he almost stoically walks up to Ashima-Shimtu, whispers something and returns. Ottavia isn't used to making a poker-face and so she's kind of agitated when she's telling her secret and we can guess that it must be something about Luc Jierre.
Ashima-Shimtu then says that we'll have to wait until noon the next day, so we might as well rest peacefully here. We tell her that we'll wish to travel to a small inn near Vendricce that Auryn knows from her first journey with Zahir. She adds that she knows that no one knows we're still alive – even if that might change soon - and we get that we could use this to gain the element of surprise.
(This whole Crypta Heraeticorum episode was both strange and fun at the same time. I'm usually a bit skeptical when it comes to dungeon crawls, but this was mostly clever traps and puzzles and very light in terms of rooms with random monsters. So that's a huge plus. But let's start at the beginning.
First, Ottavia is a really great NPC. She has a believable motivation as far as we know as she's both ideologically and emotionally bound to Luc Jierre. She was also totally convinced that they're the good guys and we're the bad guys, so much that she's willing to die for her idea of defending Luc. But that also meant she offered a perfect opportunity to win her over. Also, we genuinely liked the pair and got the impression that they are well-meaning, albeit a bit naïve. I hope that we made a strong enough impression on her by trying our best to save her and get her back to Luc despite her suicide-assassination attempt that she'll return as an ally someday. She also knows quite a bit about the two of us now, so... *fingers crossed*
Second, Tizbiz only realized that there was this Crypta Add-on adventure when we just finished the dungeon and returned to Vendricce. So he took quite some time to create his Crypta by combining parts of other Cryptae versions he saw in other threads. Or so he said. He then realized that the actual adventure contained sacred artifacts of Srasama and hooks that would be valuable to us and promised to either use them should we eventually return - meaning the crypt has a will of its own and/or can change its layout - or simply store them in another dungeon of the Clergy. So yeah, looking forward to that as well.
Third, and that's a well-meaning advice from a non-native English speaker who's quite fluent in this language but nonetheless not used to all sayings, limmericks and folk lullabys to all other non-native speaking DMs: Be careful when you integrate word puzzles in English. Your players might not get the point of a puzzle at all when said puzzle plays on sayings. There was one such puzzle in the Crypta, but I don't really remember when or where so I didn't include it in my recap. And we really didn't get it because there was no equivalent saying in German. The – also language-dependant - courtesy door worked just fine on the other hand because this translated well. Just... don't frustrate your players.
Fourth, Ashima-Shimtu and that whole Kasvarina/Miller story. What a revelation. I'm sure that Auryn and Carlyle mirroring the two is merely a coincidence in the original adventure, but I don't know if Tizbiz has anything planned that way as he kind of toys with the fact that Auryn looks very much like Kasvarina in addition to being her direct descendant and as we believe that Miller could just be a Deva who teamed up with his people's mortal enemy. They also seemed to be close, so... maybe all this has happened before and it will happen again)
Heh, I know. It was quite a coincidence that we got this version of the Crypta, and I'll explain a bit of its background in my comments below (oh my, this sounds like a random youtube video...), even if this means that I'm going to post a shorter chunk of this session which is only the second part of the vault:
---
Next up is a puzzle with numbers and we both guess that this is where most Clergymen would have given up as it requires quite a lot of logic. We solve it after a while, open a door and suddenly stand in front of a demonic blob. The blob attacks us without warning and “bites” Auryn with corrosive slime. We manage to defeat the thing without too much hassle, but Auryn's wound seems quite dire and a close examination reveals that it might be infected with a demonic disease. Ottavia offers to take care of it and she manages to cleanse the corruption with one of her miracles.
Behind the blob we find eight holes in a wall, but six of them turn out to be trapped and only two activate a mechanism that pulls up one wall of the room which reveals a hidden but shattered mirror. We try to fix the mirror and to our surprise, each piece magically reconnects with its counterpart. However, as we work on the mirror-puzzle, we see that our reflections are skeletal versions of ourselves and that the reflection contains a door that doesn't exist in our reality.
As soon as we fix the whole mirror, the skeletons get a will of their own, crawl out of the mirror and start to attack us. And unfortunately, they seem to be direct copies which means that they got the very same abilities that we have. However, they seem to lack our tactical abilities and teamwork. We guess that skeleton!Ottavia might be the easiest one to shatter and Auryn explains that getting her down might need a coordinated attack, so maybe skeleton!Carlyle should be next. We down them one after another and as they seem to re-form inside the mirror-verse, we decide to shatter it again.
As we know that the skeletons just mirrored our motions up to the point when we fixed the whole mirror, we decide to leave one shard out and let our copies open the door in the mirror-verse. This causes an open door to appear in our world as well.
(Tizbiz said that this wasn't really the intended solution, as we should have gone through the mirror, fought the skeletons and run for the door, but he thought the idea was too brilliant to ignore)
Behind this door we finally find Ashima-Shimtu who's hanging on hooks above a pool filled with holy water. Auryn instantly recognizes this figure as the tyrant and murderer she saw in Nevard's vision and guesses that she might have some kind of map that leads everywhere.
Before we can get to her, we are suddenly approached by a strange humam looking figure clad in the tattered robes of a Godhand. He mutters mere nonsense, but when he sees Auryn he calls her the “brood of the whore Srasama” and she's barely able to resist the urge to bury her weapon in the man's chest for this insult of her goddess.
“Calm down. Judging by his mad eyes, his mind is beyond gone.” Carlyle says with a mix of both relief and sorrow while the demoness laughs in amusement.
Between us and the man are more mirrors and as soon as we pass one of them, another skeletal double emerges which we cut down quickly. So we decide to take the careful route and avoid walking in front of the mirrors.
“Oh what a pity, I almost began to enjoy your little show. Now could you please take care of this babbling madman as well? I'm sick of his voice.” Ashima-Shimtu says with a sarcastic undertone. The moment she finishes her request, the mad Godhand charges at us to defend “his mistress” and we beat him unconscious and tie him up for good.
“Well done. Now welcome to my domain, Auryn, daughter of Galadin, daughter of Kaealys, daughter of Launga, daughter of Kasvarina Varal, daughter of Lorpadi Varal, daughter of...” (she continues this for quite a while, kind of alternating between male and female names after Kasvarina) “and also welcome Gabriel Carlyle, thirdborn of house Carlyle, human whose soul was reborn by a dying goddess. I am Ashima-Shimtu, mistress of this forsaken domain, keeper of secrets and prisoner of the foolish Clergy”
“What a coincidence. That'd make us two secret-keepers in one room” adds Auryn, hinting at the meaning of her own name.
When then ask the demoness how she ended here and how it could be possible that she stayed in our world as we know that demons and other extraplanar creatures can stay no longer than 5 minutes in our realm. She finds this question rather amusing and explains that she's been here since the rise of the demonocracy and found herself unable to return to her home plane after their rule ended. She didn't want to die like the legions she once commanded and so she offered Triegenes' followers her wisdom. She adds that she's a potent seer and knows many secrets, even if those Clergy fools didn't really know how to use her knowledge. Still many desperate priests came to her over the years, begging for her insight. Even if she grew kind of lonely over the last century or so.
We take her by her word and ask her about Miller and Kasvarina and their reason for entering this forsaken place. Ashima-shimtu laughs and immediately asks us what we're willing to pay in return for this story. Auryn answers that she'd offer a story for a story which would be a fair trade in her eyes. The demoness declines this offer though and says that she could tell Auryn of her mother's fate and well-being if she'd still be willing to share her tale. Now it is Auryn who declines as she says that she'll visit her mother soon enough and doesn't need petty divinations. She insists to hear the story of Kasvarina and asks Ashima-Shimtu to name her price should she not be satisfied with Auryn's offer.
Unfortunately for us, Ashima-Shimtu shakes her head and says that this tale is a story for another time as she knows that this won't be the last time the three of us will meet. We call this quite a self-fulfilling prophecy as this way she herself is making sure that we will return in the not too far future.
“What a clever lot you are.” she chuckles. “But you should know that my predictions are quite... reliable. And so you should also know that it will be the two of you who will doom this world. Oh the sweet, sweet irony.”
We tell her that we don't put much trust in demonic prophecies or doomed fates and instead prefer to take our fate into our own hands. It seems like Ashima-Shimtu is quite amused by our reaction and so she offers us something truly valuable: A one-way ticket out of her crypt. If we promise to take the crazy Godhand and the priestess with us that is. And if we tell her a secret that no one else knows in return.
“She of all should know how to keep a secret.” Auryn says and agrees. She then thinks about “the secret” for a while and decides to play it safe, walks up to the demoness and whispers her secret into her ears. Carlyle is next and he almost stoically walks up to Ashima-Shimtu, whispers something and returns. Ottavia isn't used to making a poker-face and so she's kind of agitated when she's telling her secret and we can guess that it must be something about Luc Jierre.
Ashima-Shimtu then says that we'll have to wait until noon the next day, so we might as well rest peacefully here. We tell her that we'll wish to travel to a small inn near Vendricce that Auryn knows from her first journey with Zahir. She adds that she knows that no one knows we're still alive – even if that might change soon - and we get that we could use this to gain the element of surprise.
(This whole Crypta Heraeticorum episode was both strange and fun at the same time. I'm usually a bit skeptical when it comes to dungeon crawls, but this was mostly clever traps and puzzles and very light in terms of rooms with random monsters. So that's a huge plus. But let's start at the beginning.
First, Ottavia is a really great NPC. She has a believable motivation as far as we know as she's both ideologically and emotionally bound to Luc Jierre. She was also totally convinced that they're the good guys and we're the bad guys, so much that she's willing to die for her idea of defending Luc. But that also meant she offered a perfect opportunity to win her over. Also, we genuinely liked the pair and got the impression that they are well-meaning, albeit a bit naïve. I hope that we made a strong enough impression on her by trying our best to save her and get her back to Luc despite her suicide-assassination attempt that she'll return as an ally someday. She also knows quite a bit about the two of us now, so... *fingers crossed*
Second, Tizbiz only realized that there was this Crypta Add-on adventure when we just finished the dungeon and returned to Vendricce. So he took quite some time to create his Crypta by combining parts of other Cryptae versions he saw in other threads. Or so he said. He then realized that the actual adventure contained sacred artifacts of Srasama and hooks that would be valuable to us and promised to either use them should we eventually return - meaning the crypt has a will of its own and/or can change its layout - or simply store them in another dungeon of the Clergy. So yeah, looking forward to that as well.
Third, and that's a well-meaning advice from a non-native English speaker who's quite fluent in this language but nonetheless not used to all sayings, limmericks and folk lullabys to all other non-native speaking DMs: Be careful when you integrate word puzzles in English. Your players might not get the point of a puzzle at all when said puzzle plays on sayings. There was one such puzzle in the Crypta, but I don't really remember when or where so I didn't include it in my recap. And we really didn't get it because there was no equivalent saying in German. The – also language-dependant - courtesy door worked just fine on the other hand because this translated well. Just... don't frustrate your players.
Fourth, Ashima-Shimtu and that whole Kasvarina/Miller story. What a revelation. I'm sure that Auryn and Carlyle mirroring the two is merely a coincidence in the original adventure, but I don't know if Tizbiz has anything planned that way as he kind of toys with the fact that Auryn looks very much like Kasvarina in addition to being her direct descendant and as we believe that Miller could just be a Deva who teamed up with his people's mortal enemy. They also seemed to be close, so... maybe all this has happened before and it will happen again)