Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
EN Publishing
[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="gideonpepys" data-source="post: 7506096" data-attributes="member: 79141"><p><strong>Session 68, Part Four – All’s Well Down Here</strong></p><p></p><p><em>Bedtime, children. Please, please hush.</em></p><p><em>You don’t want granny waking up.</em></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: 10px">-Common Risuri Nursery Rhyme</span></strong></p><p></p><p>Folk tales tell of a child who disobeyed his parents and kept breaking plates, windows, and everything else he could. His parents, on the edge of poverty and unable to keep replacing the destroyed property, took their son into the woods and told him to play a game: close his eyes and sing a song about breaking dishes, down from ninety-nine dishes until there were none left.</p><p></p><p>While the boy counted, the parents snuck away, hoping the boy would perish and they’d never have to replace another broken item. But his singing attracted Granny Allswell, who loved his voice and adopted him to sing for her forever, along with all the other children who had been abandoned in the woods. He became a gremlin, and on his birthday the next year, his parents found everything they owned cracked and shattered.</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><strong>*</strong></p><p></p><p>After being led through the mine by their gremlin guides, the unit heard a murmur of hundreds of tiny voices, accompanied by the hearty but somehow off-putting smell of stew. The tunnel grew taller, and scaffolding on the left led up to a small air vent. Beyond it, the passage opened up into a vast chamber, lit only by a dim fire-light emerging from a pit to the north. Magical fire runes around the pit kept the stew bubbling nicely.</p><p></p><p>The chamber was filled with a whole host of gremlins, most of which stoodd less than a foot tall in height, though their varied coloration forming a sickly, wriggling rainbow carpet. They gathered and cowered before the north wall, from which – some twenty feet above the chamber floor – Granny Allswell’s enormous head protruded like a grotesque gargoyle. Her bulbous eyes swivelled independently about the chamber and her mouth lolled open, finding continual humour in the gremlins’ antics. </p><p></p><p>At the foot of the wall lay a huge pile of shiny (and not-so-shiny) metal doodads acquired by the gremlins. The mining cart rails ran directly into the pile, but any miner could tell that the tracks seemed out of place stopping at the wall. </p><p></p><p>On the right side of the room, a mass of makeshift metal cages held dozens of children, ranging between infants and twelve years old. Behind the cages sat a huge pile of red barrels marked with a fiery icon to warn of explosions; these held fire-dust used for blasting. Several of the children had their wrists tied to the bars of the cages with twine, and wooden signs hung around their necks, painted in blood with the word ‘Naughty.’</p><p></p><p>Tremble stepped forward to address Granny, whose eyes – previously pointed in different directions – spun to lock onto the unit, then twitched independently to examine each member in turn. Granny called for her children to calm down. At first the gremlins around the chamber didn’t seem to listen, but a forceful shout of “BE QUIET NOW!” caused them gremlins to freeze in their tracks and slowly slink to the edges of the room. Even the four greater gremlins retreated back in response to Granny’s outburst. Once the gremlins were settled, Granny called for the unit to come closer so she could “get a better look at them.” Then she said sweetly, “Why don’t cha tell Granny what this is all about now?”</p><p></p><p>Korrigan stepped forward. His foremost concern was for the children in the cages, so he decided to be as diplomatic as possible. He told Granny Allswell about the machinations of the Voice Rot and his servants, and that the serpent had tried to trick her into destroying the damn and incurring the displeasure of Risur and its king. It took a while to convince her of this; she couldn’t understand why the Voice of Rot would want to do such a thing – but when they finally convinced her she grew angry and demanded that they punish her rival and bring her his tongue “within a year”.</p><p></p><p>Granny was disappointed to hear that there were no more children close at hand, and angry that she had been tricked. She had heard about a sunless world and cooed that Risur’s children must be so scared of the dark. One eye glanced over at the children in their cages. “Look how safe they are in there,” she said. Granny told the new king that she wanted to stay in charge in the Athras Mountains, and she wanted a steady stream of children – just the naughty ones, though – to make part of her family. She even had a proposal: have all the miners move out of the mountains, and instead send her all the children old enough to sing a song or swing a pick. She’d keep them until they were twelve, teaching them obedience if she could, or making gremlins out of the ones who wouldn’t behave. “Then on their thirteenth birthday I’ll send them back to civilization with whatever they’ve mined.”</p><p></p><p>Uriel could see that Granny was not like the Ash Wolf or the Father of Thunder. She might seem crazy, but she was clearly as malevolent as the Voice of Rot, and he was reluctant to leave her awake and in charge of any part of Risur.</p><p></p><p>Korrigan was unhappy about all of this, but sought to negotiate – in particular for the release of the children in the cages. At once, Granny pounced, enquiring about the little ‘princeling’ he had brought with him. “For me?” she said, “You shouldn’t have!” Granny would be happy to swap the son of the king for all of the miners’ children. “He’s sure to be very well behaved!”</p><p></p><p>Uru rolled his eyes and reached for his crossbow. It was sure to kick off now!</p><p></p><p>But Kai leaned in close to his father’s ear, from his perch on Korrigan’s back, and whispered, “Let’s just pretend. I’m not afraid. I know you won’t really leave me.”</p><p></p><p>To the surprise of everyone, Korrigan agreed, pretending that he had intended to hand over Kai all along. Even Granny seemed surprised, even doubtful, and Leon stepped in to assuage her suspicions and stroke her enormous ego. Thus flattered, she was only too happy to accept. Korrigan took Kai off his back, and Granny cooed to him and called for Glower, Pout, Tremble and Guffaw to come forth and lead him to her. </p><p></p><p>Quratulain stood for a moment in shock, staring at her king and his relinquished son, both of whom she had vowed to protect. In the next instant, however, she understood his intent all too clearly – as did everyone else in the unit. Without a word being spoken, they formed a plan, following Korrigan’s wishes. (Later, they would wonder how this marvellous phenomenon occurred, but for now, they simply obeyed their clear, mental instructions.) Uriel and Uru released the children from their cages, and corralled them around Leon. (Then Uru slipped into the shadows and approached the fire-dust barrels…) Leon did two things at once: he quickly figured out that it would take him two trips – and a great deal of magical energy – to get the kids out of harm’s way fast. All the while he maintained his stream of obsequious blather designed to flatter and distract Granny. Quratulain stood poised and ready. </p><p></p><p>Korrigan bowed and began to withdraw, when Leon disappeared with the first group of children.</p><p></p><p>“What’s this?” said Granny. “Why this unseemly haste?” She was alert to duplicity and her eyes began to roam away from Kai.</p><p></p><p>“You said we could take the children,” said Uriel. “You said nothing about how.”</p><p></p><p>“Wait,” she said. “The boy must come to me before…”</p><p></p><p>Leon reappeared and, almost instantaneously, disappeared with the rest of the kids. Korrigan gestured to the others and they began to leave the chamber.</p><p></p><p>“Oh very well,” said Granny. “Be careful on your way back to the surface. I’ve heard that the tunnels are extremely hazardous. …”</p><p></p><p>Leon reappeared for the second time, and this time he had Gupta with him. At once, Korrigan transformed in a lightning bolt and went back for Kai, snatching him up into his arms. The rest of the unit was ready for action, but it turned out Granny was too:</p><p></p><p>The ‘wall’ she was ‘trapped’ behind exploded into action, forming limbs and heads as it split into three huge earth elementals. Granny began to cackle with glee and stood to take on her full sixty-foot height. “More chunky bits for my stew!” she cried, as waves of gremlins began to surge into the room from all sides. “Dice ‘em up, kids! There’s nothing tastes better than a dead double-crosser!”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="gideonpepys, post: 7506096, member: 79141"] [b]Session 68, Part Four – All’s Well Down Here[/b] [I]Bedtime, children. Please, please hush. You don’t want granny waking up.[/I] [B][SIZE=2]-Common Risuri Nursery Rhyme[/SIZE][/B] Folk tales tell of a child who disobeyed his parents and kept breaking plates, windows, and everything else he could. His parents, on the edge of poverty and unable to keep replacing the destroyed property, took their son into the woods and told him to play a game: close his eyes and sing a song about breaking dishes, down from ninety-nine dishes until there were none left. While the boy counted, the parents snuck away, hoping the boy would perish and they’d never have to replace another broken item. But his singing attracted Granny Allswell, who loved his voice and adopted him to sing for her forever, along with all the other children who had been abandoned in the woods. He became a gremlin, and on his birthday the next year, his parents found everything they owned cracked and shattered. [CENTER][B]*[/B][/CENTER] After being led through the mine by their gremlin guides, the unit heard a murmur of hundreds of tiny voices, accompanied by the hearty but somehow off-putting smell of stew. The tunnel grew taller, and scaffolding on the left led up to a small air vent. Beyond it, the passage opened up into a vast chamber, lit only by a dim fire-light emerging from a pit to the north. Magical fire runes around the pit kept the stew bubbling nicely. The chamber was filled with a whole host of gremlins, most of which stoodd less than a foot tall in height, though their varied coloration forming a sickly, wriggling rainbow carpet. They gathered and cowered before the north wall, from which – some twenty feet above the chamber floor – Granny Allswell’s enormous head protruded like a grotesque gargoyle. Her bulbous eyes swivelled independently about the chamber and her mouth lolled open, finding continual humour in the gremlins’ antics. At the foot of the wall lay a huge pile of shiny (and not-so-shiny) metal doodads acquired by the gremlins. The mining cart rails ran directly into the pile, but any miner could tell that the tracks seemed out of place stopping at the wall. On the right side of the room, a mass of makeshift metal cages held dozens of children, ranging between infants and twelve years old. Behind the cages sat a huge pile of red barrels marked with a fiery icon to warn of explosions; these held fire-dust used for blasting. Several of the children had their wrists tied to the bars of the cages with twine, and wooden signs hung around their necks, painted in blood with the word ‘Naughty.’ Tremble stepped forward to address Granny, whose eyes – previously pointed in different directions – spun to lock onto the unit, then twitched independently to examine each member in turn. Granny called for her children to calm down. At first the gremlins around the chamber didn’t seem to listen, but a forceful shout of “BE QUIET NOW!” caused them gremlins to freeze in their tracks and slowly slink to the edges of the room. Even the four greater gremlins retreated back in response to Granny’s outburst. Once the gremlins were settled, Granny called for the unit to come closer so she could “get a better look at them.” Then she said sweetly, “Why don’t cha tell Granny what this is all about now?” Korrigan stepped forward. His foremost concern was for the children in the cages, so he decided to be as diplomatic as possible. He told Granny Allswell about the machinations of the Voice Rot and his servants, and that the serpent had tried to trick her into destroying the damn and incurring the displeasure of Risur and its king. It took a while to convince her of this; she couldn’t understand why the Voice of Rot would want to do such a thing – but when they finally convinced her she grew angry and demanded that they punish her rival and bring her his tongue “within a year”. Granny was disappointed to hear that there were no more children close at hand, and angry that she had been tricked. She had heard about a sunless world and cooed that Risur’s children must be so scared of the dark. One eye glanced over at the children in their cages. “Look how safe they are in there,” she said. Granny told the new king that she wanted to stay in charge in the Athras Mountains, and she wanted a steady stream of children – just the naughty ones, though – to make part of her family. She even had a proposal: have all the miners move out of the mountains, and instead send her all the children old enough to sing a song or swing a pick. She’d keep them until they were twelve, teaching them obedience if she could, or making gremlins out of the ones who wouldn’t behave. “Then on their thirteenth birthday I’ll send them back to civilization with whatever they’ve mined.” Uriel could see that Granny was not like the Ash Wolf or the Father of Thunder. She might seem crazy, but she was clearly as malevolent as the Voice of Rot, and he was reluctant to leave her awake and in charge of any part of Risur. Korrigan was unhappy about all of this, but sought to negotiate – in particular for the release of the children in the cages. At once, Granny pounced, enquiring about the little ‘princeling’ he had brought with him. “For me?” she said, “You shouldn’t have!” Granny would be happy to swap the son of the king for all of the miners’ children. “He’s sure to be very well behaved!” Uru rolled his eyes and reached for his crossbow. It was sure to kick off now! But Kai leaned in close to his father’s ear, from his perch on Korrigan’s back, and whispered, “Let’s just pretend. I’m not afraid. I know you won’t really leave me.” To the surprise of everyone, Korrigan agreed, pretending that he had intended to hand over Kai all along. Even Granny seemed surprised, even doubtful, and Leon stepped in to assuage her suspicions and stroke her enormous ego. Thus flattered, she was only too happy to accept. Korrigan took Kai off his back, and Granny cooed to him and called for Glower, Pout, Tremble and Guffaw to come forth and lead him to her. Quratulain stood for a moment in shock, staring at her king and his relinquished son, both of whom she had vowed to protect. In the next instant, however, she understood his intent all too clearly – as did everyone else in the unit. Without a word being spoken, they formed a plan, following Korrigan’s wishes. (Later, they would wonder how this marvellous phenomenon occurred, but for now, they simply obeyed their clear, mental instructions.) Uriel and Uru released the children from their cages, and corralled them around Leon. (Then Uru slipped into the shadows and approached the fire-dust barrels…) Leon did two things at once: he quickly figured out that it would take him two trips – and a great deal of magical energy – to get the kids out of harm’s way fast. All the while he maintained his stream of obsequious blather designed to flatter and distract Granny. Quratulain stood poised and ready. Korrigan bowed and began to withdraw, when Leon disappeared with the first group of children. “What’s this?” said Granny. “Why this unseemly haste?” She was alert to duplicity and her eyes began to roam away from Kai. “You said we could take the children,” said Uriel. “You said nothing about how.” “Wait,” she said. “The boy must come to me before…” Leon reappeared and, almost instantaneously, disappeared with the rest of the kids. Korrigan gestured to the others and they began to leave the chamber. “Oh very well,” said Granny. “Be careful on your way back to the surface. I’ve heard that the tunnels are extremely hazardous. …” Leon reappeared for the second time, and this time he had Gupta with him. At once, Korrigan transformed in a lightning bolt and went back for Kai, snatching him up into his arms. The rest of the unit was ready for action, but it turned out Granny was too: The ‘wall’ she was ‘trapped’ behind exploded into action, forming limbs and heads as it split into three huge earth elementals. Granny began to cackle with glee and stood to take on her full sixty-foot height. “More chunky bits for my stew!” she cried, as waves of gremlins began to surge into the room from all sides. “Dice ‘em up, kids! There’s nothing tastes better than a dead double-crosser!” [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
EN Publishing
[ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.
Top