ZEITGEIST [ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.

Session 47, Part Three - Ascent of Screaming Souls, Part Two

With apologies to the original author, as most of this is verbatim from the adventure:

Before they could talk any more about Uriel’s revelation, the memory event shifted to a slightly earlier point, evidenced by Nicodemus’ possession of another body, and their discussion of the initial stages of the colossus project:

Nicodemus stands at the edge of the stairs, smoking contemplatively. Kasvarina seems upbeat, and jokes with Nicodemus that he’s lucky to have a new body each visit, since with the way he smokes he could never climb all these stairs. Then she explains her recent visit to the Cauldron Hill facility in Flint to see the excavations. Progress has been swift since the rusted gates were built into the Stanfield canal. Nicodemus comments that he hasn’t seen Kasvarina look to happy in a very long time. She pauses, looking almost embarrassed, then says that she spoke with the golems that the Mindmaker has been training. “They called the Mindmaker ‘father’, and called me…” – she pauses, laughs –“’mother’”.

As the event ended, there was a crackle in the air, and a sudden movement down below that caught their eye: By now, Danoran troops were swarming onto the island, but this wasn’t what drew their attention. Stepping into view as if out of nowhere, the colossus arrived at the edge of the river. It threw up its giant head and cried ‘MOTHEEEERRR!’ in a voice like the collision of worlds. Then it plunged into the water – just shin-deep on the colossus, but enough to send huge waves crashing over the Danoran boats and up and onto the island as it waded towards the Lance. Those soldiers who did not perish at once fled in abject terror.

The unit redoubled its efforts. They fended off the shades of Elanor Yanette and Olivert Boone before reaching another memory from the 450s:

The previous Sovereign of Danor gives a report on the status of the Third Yerasol War to Kasvarina and Nicodemus (as always, he’s in a new body and smoking). The Sovereign claims that his nation’s ships just aren’t strong enough to deal with Risuri magic. This worries Kasvarina, since they need Risur to adopt industry if they’re going to be able to build the colossus.

Nicodemus points out that Risur is already building some factories, and that his friends in the Risuri government will raise a stink to guarantee the industry stays out of Slate. That makes Flint the most logical choice. The old witch mountain will keep the fey from meddling, and make it easier to construct the colossus in the Bleak Gate.

He apologizes to the Sovereign, and says they got greedy with this war and should have waited. But it’s still an excuse to pour a huge amount of money into a steam-powered warship. It just needs to sail one time and sink a few Risuri vessels.

Kasvarina proposes they hire Risuri mercenaries to steal the ship, and let them get away with it. The Sovereign blanches, not a fan of conspiring against his own country, but Nicodemus just tells him to think about the future.

Korrigan worried that this might have been the famous event when Aodhan captured a Risuri steamship. Was no patriotic moment safe from the Ob’s taint? But again, there was no time, or spare breath for contemplative chit-chat: the colossus began to climb the Lance, sending vibrations through the stones with every movement. They hurried on to reach a memory from many centuries earlier:

Kasvarina explains to Nicodemus and another Sovereign (who borrows a cigarette) what has gone wrong. They’d found the Ancient ziggurat of Avilona on an island in the sky, floating over the domain of some dragon tyrant. Kasvarina and a few researchers flew up to it, unearthed a golden seal, and found a portal to the plane of air.

After extensive divinations they attempted to replace the seal with another one and steer the portal to a different plane. That succeeded for only a few moments before some powerful destructive energy blasted outward. Kasvarina and the others fled the island, and nearly died when suddenly their flight magic failed.

Two problems are obvious. First, they can’t get back to the floating island to try again, not unless Danor’s engineers can use their new steam furnaces to power a mechanical bird. And second, clearly their under­standing of the Ancient ritual was flawed. Kasvarina thinks they’re lucky the damage wasn’t worse, and won’t risk testing at the ziggurat of Av until they know more. Nicodemus throws his cigarette away, then curses at Kasvarina for failing.

The colossus wasn’t far away now. It caught them just as Gupta was fending off attacks from the spirit of Lorcan Kell. They all prepared themselves for a futile fight when Gupta suddenly advised them to stand down. She realised that the colossus was not hostile and would certainly not attack them while Kasvarina was with them, although without her memories intact it would be very hard for Kasvarina to communicate with it. Gupta’s gut feeling was that she would have a better chance of influencing the monster at the top of the tower.

Clinging to the spiral steps, with its feet in footholds below, it came right up to them and regarded them in mute wonder. Worried that any attempt to communicate might anger the golem, they pressed on, with the colossus looming over them all the way.

Next, they dealt with the manic spirit of Tinker Oddcog, before coming to the ghost of Lya Jierre, who was holding a glass of wine, which she raised in a mute toast as they approached. Oddly, she did not attack. Even when Gupta and Marbo showed off the swords they had stolen for her, she merely raised an eyebrow to acknowledge their dickishness and watched silently as they moved on.

Just fifty feet later, came another event:

The triad meets again, again with a different sovereign. Nicodemus embraces Kasvarina and says he wishes he could have been there, that maybe he could have helped save her daughter. She waits for a moment, then pulls away and reminds him that she long ago forsook grief. If there is a mission, she will have a clear head so she can focus on the future. The dead are in the past.

Nicodemus nods, then launches into a bit of a firebrand speech about his studies into skyseer magic, the nature of the planes, and how it is possible to alter reality by altering what planes share the heavens with the world.

Though they balked at his duplicity, this was nothing the unit hadn’t already heard.

They were close to the summit now, and the last couple of hundred feet were agony (for everyone except Rumdoom, who had barely broken sweat). Near the top, the great stairway finally ducked inside the tower, just beneath the uppermost floor. It was almost pitch black, and when they illuminated the area, their magical lights reflected off a gigantic amethyst set into the ceiling, with a slightly smaller (but still enormous) yellow topaz set into the middle of that. The walls of the penultimate floor were lined with cages, all empty now. An elegant staircase took them up to the very top floor.

Statues of saints guarded four exit arches which led onto four separate balconies. Each balcony extended twenty feet out above the landscape of Methia, with only a thin golden railing along the edge. At the end of each there was a platinum loop roughly the size of a normal doorway. Kasvarina walked to the one facing east as the Arc manifested a memory…

Kasvarina steps carefully across the east balcony, which is riven with cracks. Both of the other visible balconies have already collapsed and fallen away, and the tower’s walls look unstable. She runs her hand along the platinum loop at the end of her balcony, then turns as she hears Nicodemus and Jierre (younger now) walking up the stairs into the central chamber. The two men are out of breath from the ridiculous climb.

She asks who the man is, and Nicodemus introduces him as , “Jierre, one of the priests who helped them the last time they were here.” Jierre sheepishly explains that he was human back then. Ever since he’s struggled to rally the people who are left, to drive out the Clergy remnants, and to make this new nation one founded on secularism. Kasvarina responds by drawing her sword and placing it to Jierre’s chest. She says they should work together to slay all the Clergy they can. Nicodemus defuses the situation by quoting Vekesh about patience being important for revenge. He explains that the three of them are uniquely positioned to not just kill Clergy followers, but defeat the whole faith, to make a truly better future.

Producing three rings from his coat, he hands one to Jierre, one to Kasvarina. Each is carved from stone taken from the base of the tower. He says that he knows what he’s planning will make them enemies to half the world, so he found a way to give physical form to the antimagic of Methia. If they wear these rings, none will be able to divine them, and their plans can remain secret. But he also knows from experience that power corrupts, and so he does not want to lead, but to form a council.

This is in a way a sacrament that will bond them together. They will be secret to the world, but have no secrets from each other. If one of them re­cites, “At Methia, in the Lance of Triegenes, we were founded in secrecy,” he or she will be able to know the location of any other member of the triad, and see what they’re doing. He warns them not to let anyone else hear those words, because they’d let others be able to use divinations on them normally.

With that basis of absolute trust among the three of them, he asks them to listen to his plan and, if they agree, to join him in taking long, slow revenge against the Clergy and everyone else who would use power to oppress those weaker than them.

(As they make to leave, Nicodemus notices something on the floor and bends down to pick it up. It is a fishing hook on a simple, silver chain...)

The manifested version of Nicodemus skipped, flickered with shadows, and another memory-event manifested directly on top of the current one. The memory glowed with light, then faded out, then started again, each time manifesting in a wider and wider area. Finally a wave burst out in all directions, and for the next few moments the Danoran military panicked as the entire city of Methia was restored to how it was five centuries ago…

Even when Gupta and Marbo showed off the swords they had stolen for her, she merely raised an eyebrow to acknowledge their dickishness.

Click to expand...

That's my girl.

Session 47, Part Four - The Great Malice

Once again, apologies for wholesale duplication here, but there are one or two key amendments.

As this event began to take shape, Kasvarina sagged and managed to croak out a warning that they need to make sure nothing disturbed this memory. She shouted at Borne and begged it not to interfere. The colossus peered closely at her but did not respond.

Uriel was also drawn into this event, and was too weary from the climb, the flood of memories, and the battle below, to avoid being entirely absorbed into the personality of Adriel – a young acolyte riddled with doubts about the path the clergy had chosen. Adriel was exhausted himself, having made the climb from below in order to speak more with the prisoner William Miller, by whom he had become transfixed. Here was a man who said everything he church ought to be saying, dressed in the robes of a poor itinerant monk. Adriel looked across at the rich robes and arrogant demeanour of the Grand Hierarch, then took up his place next to another young acolyte, a like-minded friend named Jierre. They made eye contact. Jierre did not like this any more than he did…

Kasvarina and the manifestation of Nicodemus stand at the top of the stairs, looking at the swath of floor made of amethyst and topaz. Plate-armored guards hold them tightly, and another half dozen such guards stand watch by the doors to the balconies. Rich gold lights glow magically behind each of the saint statues. Odd, tinny sounds of distant battle come from the balcony to the east, where a portal looks down at the fields of war outside Alais Primos. Two priests beside it manually adjust sliding, chevron-shaped lock-pieces to keep the portal open.

In the centre of the chamber, an elder priest is directing four young acolytes to assemble the ritual for the sacrament of apotheosis. Entrails and blood of a lion, an eagle, a whale, and a dragon are arranged in a ring across the otherwise pristine floor, and two golden urns sits in the center, one empty, the other filled with a mixture of the animals’ blood. Other priests stand in the room’s corners, nervously discussing battle plans.

One young paladin stands by the ritual, shirtless and proud, openly holding a sword that glows at the crosspiece with the holy symbol of the Clergy god of war.

The high priest – bedecked in more gold and enchanted finery than the richest king – turns and claps his hands twice at the sight of Nic and Kasvarina. Nicodemus curtly tells Kasvarina, “This is Grand Hierarch Silvestri.”

Silvestri thanks them for coming to witness the Clergy’s imminent second Victory. They tested the ritual and found that it does indeed work. He was tempted to just have the two of them executed, but he prefers to let them live as he agreed, so they can scuttle across the world as pariahs and traitors.

He snaps a finger, and the guards produce chains and manacle Nico­demus and Kasvarina to the wall.

With religious bombast, Silvestri addresses the gathered priests. “With this ritual, any warrior of our faith could become a vessel for a god. With holy sword in hand and blessed devotion guiding him, he could kill a thousand of the heathenous, brown masses.”

Silvestri puts his hands on the shoulders of the shirtless paladin. “This man here, he could drive back the beasts from our doorstep. But that, I’m sure, is just what these two hoped for.”

He nods, and the guards begin kicking Nic and Kasvarina, metal boots drawing blood and dropping the pair to the floor. This continues as Silvestri talks.

“No,” Silvestri rails, “one does not blindly accept the gift of a fiend. Once, our faith’s founder, Triegenes the fisherman-made-divine, used this rite to defeat the Demonocracy. Now the evil within those monsters have found new flesh in the eladrin. Killing a thousand with a holy blade will not purge the world of their apostasy. We must cut out their heart.”

He raises a hand, and the beating stops.

Unable to help himself, risking disruption, Leon used an old shamanic spell he knew to heal Kasvarina a little.

“Within the hour, our foes’ race will be no more. Bring her.”

Two priests head to the balcony to the south, and they begin adjusting the sliding chevrons around the edge of the platinum portal. It must be some failsafe mechanism to lock the portals down and prevent intruders from coming through. After a few seconds they have the lock open, and on the far side of the portal, a pair of guards hold a battered and bloody young woman.

They step onto the tower and the portal slowly closes behind them as they drag their prisoner and throw her to the floor beside Kasvarina, who gasps and struggles against her chains to reach out. She cries out her younger daughter’s name, Dala. Dala coughs blood, looks up, and reaches out to her mother, but the shirtless paladin grabs her by her leg and drags her into the circle of entrails.

Nic and Kasvarina yell for them to stop, but in the span of less than a minute, a Clergy wizard dominates Dala, and the acolytes write the name of Srasama on her flesh with the animal blood. Guards hold down Kasvarina, slit open her palm, and bleed her to fill the second golden urn. They then feed the blood to the blank-eyed Dala.

“With this sacrament,” Silvestri says, “we bless Dala, daughter of Kasvarina and faithful of the goddess Srasama. Bring forth the form of our enemy so that we might drag her down and sever the bloodline of all who worship beneath her infernal face.”

Adriel looks at Kasvarina with pity, but then looks at everyone surrounding him and casts his eyes down. Jierre, too, is clenching his jaw with suppressed emotion.

At the grand hierarch’s direction, Dala recites the incantation of the ritual, and then her eyes begint to glow. A flaming six-armed nimbus appears behind her, the aspect of Srasama taking form. Amidst Kasva­rina’s screams, four guards grab Dala and carry her toward the portal to Alais Primos. She’s already growing, and is nearly ten feet tall when they manage to hurl her through the portal. She falls to the earth and her titanic form creates a crater.

The guards then unloop Nic and Kasvarina’s chains from the wall and pull them to the middle of the balcony. Silvestri stands behind them, forcing them to watch as halfway across the world Dala transforms into the towering goddess, armed with six flaming swords. All throughout, two priests hold the portal open by manipulating the chevron locks.

Silvestri tells another priest to lower the shield over the city to let her in, and then reminds him to have the warriors say her name as they at­tack. He feigns forgetfulness and leans down beside Kasvarina, asking what her daughter’s name was again. She pulls at her chains and tries to bite him. He responds by kicking her, stomping her chest, and holding her to the ground. He tells her this is her punishment for the hubris of thinking she could defeat the Clergy. All that will happen to her people is what she would have done to his.

(Unnoticed by Silvestri, the chain around his neck detaches itself and falls to the floor…)

Looking up at the cardinal, Nicodemus tries to plead, to no avail. But Adriel has had enough: he steps in behind Silvestri and stabs him with a holy dagger. Although Silvestri’s warded flesh is as tough as armour, the blow is hard enough, and devout enough, to agonise him and enough to set off a desperate battle on the balcony between the guards and Adriel, who has been joined in his mutiny by Jierre, who fends off the guards with blazing radiant spells. The two priests holding the portal open hesitate, but don’t join the fray.

Through the portal the avatar of Srasma leads the amazed and cheering eladrin through the city walls, only to then be struck by arrows and spells and the swords of summoned angels. It takes but a minute for her to sag, fall to the ground, and be set upon by hundreds of humans. She screams, and thousands of other women scream with her.

Silvestri is about to crush the traitorous acolyte’s head with a mace when the screams distract him and the guards holding Kasvarina and Nicodemus. They rise and body-check the grand hierarch through the balcony railing. He starts to plummet, but catches Kasvarina’s chain. She swings bodily out over the void, arms pulled down by the dangling Silvestri. A guard grabs her legs and tries to pull her back, yelling for help. The priests at the portal step away from their duty.

Nicodemus sees his chance. He grabs the injured Adriel, drags him to his feet and pushes him through the portal ahead of him. Then he turns and looks back for Kasvarina. Just then, an inferno bursts forth from Srasama’s wounds, and though it stops at the edge of the portal, when it abates there is no sign of Nicodemus. A moment later the portal’s locks slide it shut.

A few moments later, the rebels are subdued. Two guards and an acolyte lie dead. Jierre slumps, bleeding, against the central chamber wall.

Kasvarina is pulled back up along with Silvestri, who staggers back into the central chamber. He orders the portal reopened so they can witness the destruction.

Suddenly, every human in the memory event, bends over in agony as horns begin to grow on their heads, and their skin turns deep crimson. The lights in the tower flicker and die, the stones begin to creak, and the central gems crack. Kasvarina stands weakly, pulls a sword from a helpless guard, and crudely decapitates Silvestri.

Suddenly the Arc began to glow on her head and her eyes widened. Brought back into the present, she gasped in wonder. Light from the Arc streamed upward in a beam. Outside, Borne gave a rumbling moan and debris fell from the ceiling.

“Now I understand!” she gasped. “All of it! By the goddess!” She looked at Leon. “Not just the past. Everything!” Her expression shifted from wonder to intensity. “I have to leave this place. Now! The portals…”

Before she could say anything else, or move to obey her own impulses, she became helplessly transfixed by the light from the Arc as it blazed even more brightly. Borne groaned again, a deep rumble that challenged the integrity of the tower.

Time itself seemed to stop. Everyone was looking at Kasvarina.

Looking back, some of them would say they caught the scent of Leaf of Nicodemus just seconds before he arrived: at full speed, but seeming to move in slow motion, wearing Andrei’s body, trailing smoke or spirits or both. As he ran, his arm arced outward, and four green globes span across the chamber to shatter in clouds of thick, dense gas.

End of Session

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EOlZyD26T4

Session 48, Part One - the painstaking round by round edition

Surprise Round

• Only Gupta notices Nicodemus, and turns to him as he arrives. “In Methia, you were founded in secret?” she asks – a magical question designed to perplex the target. Nicodemus might have been frozen in his tracks, but the spell is intercepted by one of the ghosts that swirls around him. It is sloughed off like a layer of skin.
• His ampoules land and fill the central chamber with blinding, poisonous gas. Nicodemus plunges straight into the cloud, grabs hold of Kasvarina and flies out of the south doorway to hover in mid-air.

Round 1

• Gupta and Sly Marbo stumble out of the gas, blinded. Leon tries to teleport but his spell fizzles out!
• Outside they hear Nicodemus speaking with Kasvarina: “Kasvarina, I know they’ve tried to make us enemies, but please try to think before it’s too late.”
• Uru, who has been lurking in a corner and hasn’t been hit by the gas, slinks out onto the west balcony from where he can see his target, and applies a deadly necrotic poison to his shuriken.
• With deliberate precision, Quratulain loads a vendetta bullet with Nicodemus’ name on it. She is not troubled by the gas.
• Korrigan shrugs off the stinging vapours and stomps onto the south balcony. “Nicodemus, let her go!”
• “Stay back, or I will kill her,” says Nicodemus. Borne, looming over the scene from the south-east, growls. “Borne, don’t act rashly and get your mother killed. My body might not be familiar, but you know who I am. I am Nicodemus. Grappa was your father and Kasvarina was your mother, but I am the god who decreed your creation.”
• The radiance of the Arc affects Borne too and the golem loses its grip momentarily.
• Rumdoom disperses his entourage and follows Korrigan outside.

Round 2

• Blinking away the effects of the gas, Gupta joins Uru on the west balcony and studies Nicodemus’ protective ghosts for any kind of advantage. Three of them remain.
• Leon, still blind, steps out of the gas and rubs at his eyes.
• Nicodemus talks more to Borne: “You have been raised for a single purpose: to enact the grand design and reshape the world. Your father turned from that plan and betrayed your mother. He stole her memories and twisted her into a coward. He stole your memories and left you to wander the world.”
• Heedless of the danger to Kasvarina, Uru lets his shuriken fly. It strikes with the precision of a true assassin and Nicodemus cries out in agony and is surrounded by an impenetrable cloud of smoke. He lets go of Kasvarina, but his ghosts still hold her. Borne unleashes a cry of rage that shakes the whole tower.
• Unseen by most of his foes, Nicodemus flies out of the cloud to just beyond the east balcony, dragging Kasvarina with him. She begins to shake off the effects of the arc. Nicodemus turns to Borne again. “You see that we are surrounded by enemies. I have come to give you a chance to fulfil your destiny, and they seek to stop us. Are you with me, Borne?”
• Borne nods.
• Sly turns invisible and tries to pick his way towards a vantage point without entering the gas.

• Quratulain isn’t sure where Nicodemus has gone and tries to find him in the chaos.
• Korrigan uses his canary in a coalmine pendant to fly across the Lance towards Nicodemus, telling Kai in the sling on his back to hold on tight. Rumdoom, earthbound, risks the gas and runs after him too.
• Nicodemus goes on: “And because I am merciful, I am giving your mother one last chance to come back to us. Kasvarina, don’t throw five-hundred years away. Look into my eyes and tell me you are with me.”
• After a slight pause, Kasvarina says, “Of course I am with you, my love,” and kisses him. (“Ew!” says Kai.) Nicodemus is taken aback but his surprise turns to anger as her ‘frost touch’ kiss spreads ice across his face. At once, the ghosts drop her and she plunges.
• Seeking any potentially hostile target in defence of his master, Borne swipes at Korrigan, who ducks out of the way and cleverly uses the slipstream of the enormous hand to fly after Kasvarina.

Round 3

• Leon dashes out onto the east balcony and throws himself off too. Now three figures are plunging earthward!
• Andrei’s body visibly regenerates, spitting out Uru’s shuriken as the wound heals. Nicodemus declares: “For our enemies, there will be no escape. The body I wear is disposable, and the tower on which you stand on will crumble as soon as the power of the lost Arc fades. Borne, these people turned your mother against us. They must not be allowed to live!” Borne gives another thunderous cry.
• Thinking better of trying to kill Nicodemus, Uru dashes to the west portal and turns it. (Gupta, also on the west balcony, meditates momentarily to improve her defences.) Disoriented, Sly heads west too and ends up blinded again. Quratulain patiently stalks after Nicodemus, following the sound of his voice and the shouts of her allies.
• As he plunges, Korrigan says to Kai, “I need you to show me that acorn trick.” Kai knows what he means – the trick he uses to pluck acorns out of the highest branches. Their filigree markings glow in unison and Korrigan flies after Kasvarina even faster.
• When he catches her she is already turning about in mid-air. “Thank you, Baldrey, but I am quite capable,” she says. “Although it’s been a long time.” Using long-forgotten flight powers, she heads upwards, drawing her blade. Caught in the radius of her spell, Leon finds he can fly too and – his heroism somewhat undermined – flies after her along with Korrigan.

• Back up top, on the east balcony, Rumdoom tries to issue a fiat to Borne, who is bringing his fist down on the east balcony. In the nick of time, Rumdoom realises Borne cannot physically ‘miss’ and throws himself clear just as Borne’s fist strikes and causes the very stonework to crack.

Session 48, Part Two

Round 4

• “They’re all going to turn from you,” Gupta says to Nicodemus – affecting him with the hideous eladrin spell, bone-pointing. Nicodemus again shrugs it off by sloughing a second ghost.
• Leon shouts to Kasvarina as they fly back up, “Can you convince Borne to stop attacking us?”
• “I’ll try,” says Kasvarina. “But we really need to get out of here.”
• Nicodemus arcane locks the portal Uru is fiddling with, then flies westwards, and – pulling a scroll out of a holster at his belt – conjures a web of storms on the west balcony. Then he shouts to Borne to head that way, and Borne obeys, swinging out around the south balcony towards the south-west section of the tower.
• Uru springs clear of the lightning webs and scuttles round the outer wall of the Lance.
• Sly and Quratulain are still dashing about trying to find Nicodemus.
• Korrigan flies up and shouts a command to Rumdoom, who dashes through the gas inside the tower to reach Nicodemus and vainly targets him with a ray of eschatological frost.
• Kasvarina tries to calm Borne: Borne! No! Listen to me! You are not a slave to Nicodemus! You can choose your own path! You are a kind, patient, noble boy. Be calm, little one, be calm.”
• But she has trained Borne all too well and he is entirely loyal to Nicodemus. He responds with a horrifying, moan, followed by a wave of spirits that floods the south of the tower. Kasvarina spirals away, but the wave hits Rumdoom and saps his strength him. Nicodemus, also caught in the cascade, picks up another bound spirit.
• Gupta hears the moans of the trapped spirits and suddenly realises that the souls of her family – killed when the colossus crushed their house – are trapped, wailing in torment, somewhere within the gigantic machine.

Round 5

• Frozen by her sudden revelation, Gupta is caught by the lightning webs. She tries to affect the golem with a question, using the same elvish diminutive Kasvarina used, but does not succeed.
• Leon flies towards the west portal. He recognises the destination as Cherage.
• Nicodemus tries and fails to dominate Rumdoom. Instead, he uses another scroll to conjure a cloud of acidic gas on the south balcony.
• Uru turns the north portal twice, with the help of his ghostly entourage. He can see Trekhom, although the portal is not yet open. Nicodemus responds by flying north and landing next to Uru. When he does so, the image of Trekhom blurs.
• Sly and Quratulain are still running about in pursuit of Nicodemus. In frustration, Quratulain shouts, “For ’s sake! Kasvarina, make yourself useful. Do something!”
• Kasvarina responds by casting dispel magic on the arcane lock to the west, then heads for the east portal.
• Korrigan urges Leon westward to help Gupta, who is sill trapped and threatened by Borne’s raised fist. Then he flies after Nicodemus and lands next to him on the north balcony to support Uru.
• Rumdoom takes a breath to throw of the weakened affliction.
• With a click, the western chevron – arcane lock dispelled – shifts automatically one step to the left.

Round 6

• Gupta still cannot free herself from the lightning webs!
• Leon takes out the Wayfarers Lantern, fills it with oil from Leave the Nest and enables anyone close by him to fly. Then he teleports Gupta out of the webs and onto to the east balcony.
• Nicodemus attacks Uru and Korrigan with a flurry of blows. Unable to land one, he redoubles his efforts. Uru scampers off. Korrigan parries and blocks each blow and says simply, “Not today”.
• Nicodemus flies up and away over the roof.
• Uru, out on the wall of the Lance again, uses his ghostly entourage to turn the north portal again, even though – with Nicodemus close – Trekhom cannot be seen.
• Kasvarina turns the eastern chevron lock.
• Sly uses centrifugal force to run at speed, up the inside wall of the tower, over the statues and around the gas cloud. He is still in pursuit of Nicodemus. Quratulain is too, and – waving her pistol about in frustration – says to Rumdoom, “I don’t know about you but I’m going to find the others. They may get killed otherwise.”
• Korrigan orders everyone to triangulate on Nicodemus, who is still hovering above the central portion of the Lance. Quratulain says, “Ah, at last we have some orders, where do you want us to go exactly?” Korrigan tells her that his orders were quite clear and that she will be de-deputised if she continues to be insubordinate. “Do your worst,” says Quratulain, but follows his orders nevertheless , and – along with Rumdoom, Gupta and Sly – closes in on Nicodemus (stowing her pistol now, as her aim is unreliable, and activating her built in armblade). Korrigan leads the attack. Rumdoom follows up with a blow augmented by his tyrant’s teeth and Nicodemus reels.
• Borne’s fist finally crashes down where Gupta once stood.

Round 7

• Gupta shoots Nicodemus with Reason. Even Andrei’s incredible regeneration can’t keep up with this onslaught for much longer!
• Leon uses eladrin warcasting for the first time – attacking with a hex, a curse and his dreaming blade.
• Nicodemus shrugs off the curse with a third ghost, then attacks the lantern in Leon’s hands. Leon keeps it out of harm’s way by throwing it to Korrigan (who only just about manages to catch it). Almost as an after-thought, Nicodemus arcane locks the east portal, where Kasvarina is standing, and plants a wall of hellfire over it.
• She and Uru both head north, where the portal is still partly open, and the chevron locks are now free. Kasvarina, turns it with mage hand as she lands, and Uru holds it in place to prevent it closing again.
• Sly, still invisible, now flying in the Lantern’s aura, appears right alongside Nicodemus and runs him through the flank with Lya’s rapier. “Didn’t see that coming, did you?” he sneers.
• Quratulain strikes her first vengeful blow, augmenting her blade with energies that pry open magical defences – yet another reason why the clergy feared the Mechanical Devil! It rips through the aura of protection from fire that has been shielding Andrei’s body, and Nicodemus’ host slumps and falls onto the roof.
• Korrigan uses the energy he absorbed from Nicodemus’ blows to sear Andrei’s flesh. Nicodemus rises up from his host in spirit form, chuckling as he does so.
• Rumdoom flies over to the cracked, crumbling south-west portion of the tower, where Borne is trying to pull himself up onto the roof, shouting mournfully for Nicodemus.
• The memory event begins to flicker, having diverged entirely from its original course. Perhaps that’s why Nicodemus is laughing?

Session 48, Part Three

Round 8

• Gupta lands near Andre’s body and takes off Nicodemus’ Ob ring. As she does so, she realises that Andre is still clinging to life – just.
• Leon lands another curse on Nicodemus, who sloughs off another ghost.
• Nicodemus tries to seize Korrigan’s thoughts, but Korrigan proves resistant to mental domination once again. So Nicodemus uses a bind spirit spell on poor Sly who has taken too much punishment and slumps onto the roof alongside Andre.
• Were it not for Kai, Sly would certainly be dead. But the little boy whispers something into his fathers’ ear, reminding him of a trick they learned together. Between them, they channel the pure positive energy of Vona and bathe the whole unit in healing light. Sly twitches back to life, but then lies still. “Not on my watch,” mutters Korrigan.
• It is time to leave. Korrigan orders everyone north, where Uru has just opened the portal. Immediately, Quratulain grabs Sly and follows his orders. Korrigan covers their retreat by challenging Nicodemus, who will be punished by radiant light if he defies him.
• “You cannot win!” laughs Nicodemus, sloughing off the challenge with his final ghost. “You keep trying to kill me. You, the clergy, all of you. But you can’t kill an idea!”
• “I’m not trying to kill you,” says Korrigan. “I’m trying to stop you.”
• Back over to the south-west, Rumdoom ignores Korrigan’s orders. Invoking the runes of destruction, he smashes his hammer down onto the cracked masonry, causing it to crumble just where Borne had a hold of it.
• Borne falls, catching himself on the spiral staircase about fifty feet down.
• Kasvarina turns round in the opened north portal and says to Uru, in a voice tinged with regret, “Do not follow me.” Then she jumps through the portal behind her.
• Uru realises that this was no mere request. He has been subjected to a powerful geas!

Round 9

• Gupta sees Nicodemus has no more ghosts to shield him from spells, but her magical question fails to charm him. Leon tries to curse him, but that fails too.
• Nicodemus attacks Korrigan with smouldering fists, though their fires do not harm the schism-wrought much, and he is resistant to their philosophical force as well. Frustrated, Nicodemus, flies towards the north portal and locks it. (Leon notices that it no longer fades in his presence.)
• Geased, Uru flies back towards the east portal and turns it a step. The others decide to brave the fire wall here. Quratulain turns and carries Sly back in that direction too, trying to calculate how much time they’ve got. The answer she comes up with is ‘not enough’!
• Korrigan orders Leon to ‘bag up’ Andre’s body, and co-ordinates everyone to avoid Nicodemus’ attacks. He yells to Rumdoom to join them and, somewhat reluctantly, Rumdoom obeys, looking back over his shoulder as Borne begins to haul himself up once again.
• All of the portals begin to glow with a bright, white light.

Round 10+

• Leon tries to place Andre in the absurdist web, but he won’t go in. At last Leon realises that there is a dimensional lockstone on Andre’s body! He locates it and throws it away.
• Exhausted, Gupta tries to make it to the east portal but Nicodemus catches her. His philosophical fists strike home and leave her burning. Gupta is ‘dead’ (again). Rumdoom decides this is not a good ending, and stabilizes her with a word. Then he turns back towards Borne who is clambering up onto the roof and raising his fist. Rumdoom runs back towards him and strikes the stonework again. This time, the whole south-west wall of the tower gives way.
• The portals blaze ever more brightly now, as both Borne and Rumdoom fall from the Lance. As he falls, Rumdoom raises his hammer and, instead of using his Icon of Avilona to fly upwards, uses it plummet down to strike at the golem’s face like a living missile, determined to at least dent the enormous construct.

Bright, white light consumes everything.

Moments, second, minutes pass. (Hours? Months? Years?)

When it fades, they are bathed in soft greens. Gentle floral scents surround them. A forest! But who are ‘they’?

Korrigan, Leon, Uru and Quratulain are all here. Andre, Sly and Gupta lie curled up on the forest floor. But Rumdoom is nowhere to be seen. (Neither, for that matter, is Uriel.)

They hear pipes and fiddles playing a jaunty but unmistakably militant tune. Through the woods in one direction they spy cavorting figures coming their way. Then from the opposite side, guttural whooping and the beat of drums mark the approach of a second force.

A pixie swoops past them, and it shouts to the drummers, “Here they are! Attack!”

Battle cries ululate from both directions, as two fey forces close to battle.

Clearly, they aren’t in Danor any more.

End of Adventure.

Diaspora - Reflections

Phew! There we have it. Seven full months after we began Diaspora, we finally finished it. I’m usually quite a good judge of how many sessions an adventure will take, but in this case I was way out. Granted, we missed a couple of weeks at Christmas, spent two on a subplot, five on ‘optional extras’ (Bonds of Forced Faith & Vault of Heretics) and didn’t really turn our attention to Diaspora until the end of September, but it still feels like a real marathon in the best sense. As a DM I’m both exhausted and exhilarated and have taken a fortnight off to prep adventure #9 (more of which in a later post). I also thought we needed a break to mark the boundary between adventures.

One of the main reasons Diaspora ‘broke its banks’ in this way is because I took the campaign director’s advice very seriously and sought to avoid the adventure becoming ‘the Kasvarina show’. The main alteration I made – a long-term change planned several years ago – was to have the party pursue the memories of Uriel’s prior incarnations. These memories would provide incentives to visit other areas (and draw the group towards Pala in particular), as well as revealing Stanfield as a big bad because that was a huge part of the character’s story and it flowed more organically from him. I also took pains to weave Rumdoom’s eschatology cult into the adventure, with a minor side-quest to retrieve the Skull of Cheshimox from Trekhom (in case the party missed the hints to go there) and a major side-quest to access memories that had been secreted by the Ob Triad within the Stone of Not. This transformed the Stone from a player-generated McGuffin to an element of the main story, and allowed me to set up a major rivalry with Grandis Kamanov, who now has the Stone. There were also key revelations for Gupta who learned that her family were secretly Vekeshi Mystics and had played a part in their own demise (by inadvertently helping to build the colossus), and worse, that their souls are now trapped inside Borne. (Oh, and her transformation into a weretiger, too!) And last but not least was the gradual development of a romance between Leon and Kasvarina – an offer I made the player through the use of ‘GM Intrusions’, a lovely Cypher System mechanic that in this case took the form of becoming tongue-tied and feeling bound to pursue Kasvarina’s affections. I didn’t pre-determine the outcome here, but the player accepted the challenge and worked to develop the storyline consistently (by the end of which it was revealed that he was once trained by Kasvarina and regarded himself to have been betwitched by her).

There were even more added elements that cropped up as we went along. Off the top of my head, in no particular order there was:

• The return of Gale, who needed to come back into our story at this point as we haven't seen her for years.
• The relentless attacks of Han Jierre, culminating in the destruction of the Impossible. (So Han becomes a more central foe.)
• Inclusion of almost all party allies from earlier in the campaign – Oolsholeel, Sly Marbo, Bernard of Glenwade, Krazy Krauss, and numerous members of Team B.
• Working Sokana Rel back into the campaign in a major way. (And Lt. Marseine, of which I am particularly proud – I knew that guy had a portrait for a reason!)
• My version of the El Primo subplot, which generated a lot of amusement at the table.
• Several trips to Macdam – including a major confrontation with the Ob and a vital parley with Benedict Pemberton.
• A jaunt to the Perpetual City.
• Another quick jaunt to the ‘Crucible’ to resurrect Gupta’s lover, Helandra.
• Matunaaga’s farewell episode. (Sniff!)
• The introduction of Quratulain.
• The opportunity to reconnect with Flint thanks to multiple extended visits. (Very important for our group as we haven’t been there much since the reboot.)
• The opportunity to remind the group as they travelled of key narrative hooks.
• Kieran Sentacore and Bhalu became major allies of the party, and fully fleshed-out NPCs.
• The expansion of Korrigan’s web of international contacts, and the relaunch of his political ambitions.
• The opportunity to explore new aspects to their powers (thanks to XP overload).
• Something I’d been hoping the party would do for a while: a needlewire parley with Nicodemus.

On top of all that, there is also the inescapable fact that Diaspora is something of a readaloudathon, which in other adventures (and perhaps with other groups) might be a problem. The Lance of Triegenes is the most egregious example of this: After multiple memory events on the Ascent of Screaming Souls, there are two key, major events at the top which take about ten minutes to describe. I gave my group a heads up about this and they nodded firmly to express their commitment to the story: after months of travelling with Kasvarina they were happy to discover how her story turned out.

The gradual, steady sprawl of the adventure had the welcome consequence of truly embedding Kasvarina with the group. To be honest, I couldn’t be sure how the group would respond to Kasvarina as I wasn’t sure how I felt about her myself. Part of me didn’t like her and didn’t want her to be rehabilitated and redeemed. I kind of liked the idea that the party might explore the world with her and help her restore her memories, only for her to revert to form and rejoin the conspiracy. But I didn’t want to bias the outcome from the start by playing Kasvarina in a specific way – too sympathetically, or too unsympathetically (subconsciously or otherwise) – so I decided not to roleplay her in any way, and simply narrate or describe her actions. Travelling with Kasvarina for such a long time had the effect of warming me to her, and hopefully it had the same effect on my players. They involved her more than any other DMNPC in decision making, and seemed to be very much on her side by the end of things. Moving forward, Kasvarina is going to have a bigger role in my campaign than she does in the published AP. I understand that she couldn’t really be worked into the subsequent adventures in a major way as the writers could not predict would had happened to her, which leaves a lovely blank slate for me to start with. I’m pretty pleased with my idea, but will resist the temptation to spill the beans here, save to say that it is predicated on the idea that Kasvarina now has a link to the plane of time, thanks to her long-term use of the Arc and its interaction with the Dead Magic Zone, and is going to help me tie up a lot of loose ends!

PS: Lost in all this is the fabulous section of the adventure when the PCs pursue the Arc, and in our case sought to avert tragedy at all costs. I loved that part of the adventure, and had all but forgotten about it. What an embarrassment of riches! Thank you to everyone involved in the creation of this fabulous adventure, and this wonderful campaign.

As a DM who just started running Zeitgeist for my group, this thread has and continues to be a gold mine. I plan to revist it as we make our way through the adventure because there's so much to learn (and enjoy!) from the tale of Korrigan and his motley crew of friends. Thanks for everything!

Wowzer. Seven months!

I feel less bad spending six months with Thurston writing this one.

It looks like despite the unorthodox adventure design, you ran it exceptionally well and made it pay off excellently for your group. Do your players seem happy with it?

Seriously, we wrote a sort of guided sandbox adventure where the sandbox is the entire setting. That was crazy.

VisanidethDM said:

As a DM who just started running Zeitgeist for my group, this thread has and continues to be a gold mine. I plan to revist it as we make our way through the adventure because there's so much to learn (and enjoy!) from the tale of Korrigan and his motley crew of friends. Thanks for everything!

Click to expand...

Thank you for such positive feedback. Creating the journal is hugely enjoyable, but it is good to know that it is appreciated in the way that I hoped it might be. I too mined other threads for ideas at the beginning of my campaign, and that is what inspired me to start writing my own. Good luck with yours. I am jealous - a bit like when someone says they've just started watching the Wire: I wish I could start all over again without knowing anything about it! Zeitgeist is the Wire of adventure paths.

RangerWickett said:

Wowzer. Seven months!

I feel less bad spending six months with Thurston writing this one.

It looks like despite the unorthodox adventure design, you ran it exceptionally well and made it pay off excellently for your group. Do your players seem happy with it?

Seriously, we wrote a sort of guided sandbox adventure where the sandbox is the entire setting. That was crazy.

Click to expand...

'Guided sandbox' is a good description. Because I didn't see it that way when I started it took me by surprise as it unfolded, but that made it all the more enjoyable.

As far as I can tell, my players loved it. I might ask for specific feedback at the start of the next session, by way of a warm-up exercise. The adventure provided them with the scope to explore their own backstories in a way that the rest of the campaign probably won't, so I think it was both refereshing and important at this stage in the AP.

By the way, I hope that my round-by-round account of the finale satisfied your curiosity about how the conversion coped with the flavour of the encounter. It was a great session - a four-hour fight. Felt very 4E!