Arcanis: Gonnes, Sons, and Treasure Runs (COMPLETED)

[talien]

Chaugnar Faugn: Prologue

Day 1 – Leave Coryan on the “Rapier” bound for Nyambe. Dirty, cramped and noisy (seaworthy I think) it carries Anzalone, Carbo, Flavius and me in addition to its cargo of wine.

--Carlo Schippone’s Diary​

The Hutili supplied them with a small boat, which Vlad and Beldin dutifully rowed. Kham sat in the center, brooding, while Sebastian flew overhead.

The icy peaks of the two mountains that Atum translated as “The Demon’s Horns” dominated the skyline. The dark peak of a long extinct volcano cone covered the larger southern isle, easily the biggest in the entire archipelago. The isle was swathed in thick green vegetation and dank mists.

“The Hutili say that the mists can eat through a breastplate in a fortnight,” said Beldin.

Kham rolled his eyes. “I’m sure they see a lot of breastplates, too.”

As they rowed closer the bay on the south shore of the Isle of Chaugnar Faugn, their senses were assailed with the stench of rotting vegetation, bittersweet flowers, and slow decay.

“So what are we going to tell Quintus?” asked Vlad.

Kham looked over his shoulder. Vlad was rowing behind him. “Tell him what?”

“You don’t think he’s going to want to know about his child?”

Kham let out a loud laugh. “You’re serious?”

“What?”

“What Kham’s trying to say,” Beldin grunted between strokes of the paddle, “is that he doesn’t think Quintus is the father.”

“How can you be sure of that?” asked Vlad. He looked offended.

“I’m not great at numbers, but if the elorii birth cycle is the same as a humans, then it takes nine months from conception to pregnancy.” Kham ticked off nine fingers. “Atum estimates she’s been pregnant for three months so far. She wasn’t anywhere near Quintus during that time.”

“So whose child is it?”

“Ilmarė’s,” Beldin said forcefully. “And that will have to do until she’s ready to tell us.”

Sebastian swooped by, his huge bat-like wings holding him aloft. “There’s a beach nearby. Follow me.”

They rowed after him. The south beach of the island was a wide expanse of fine black sand. It was bordered to the north by tall saw grass and finally the dense expanse of jungle beyond.

Beldin and Vlad dragged the boat to shore.

“That’s okay, we don’t need any help,” said Vlad.

Kham shoved his hands into the pockets of his overcoat. “I knew you could handle it. I didn’t want to be here in the first place, remember?”

Sebastian landed on the beach. He obviously enjoyed the freedom of flight. “I saw the remnants of a landing craft and the ruins of a campsite from above. I’ll scout around some more.” The dark-kin launched himself into the air.

“So they landed here for sure.” Vlad looked around. “I wonder who was following Livius?”

“Who else has a ship capable of sailing halfway around the world?” Kham kicked a seashell into the sea.

There was a deafening explosion in the jungle forest. A terrible wave of burnt vegetation assaulted their nostrils. Screams of pain followed soon after.

Sebastian landed on the beach again and folded his wings. “I saw a castle-like rocky outcropping that way.” He pointed westwards. “Let’s go.”

Kham peered into the forest. The jungle was too moist to burn for long, but smoke trails plumed upwards. “What the hell happened just now?”

“You were about to be ambushed by five tcho-tchos.”

“I take it back,” said Kham in awe. “I really like your wings.”

Something big and hungry bellowed in the distance. Its heavy footsteps vibrated the ground.

“I think we just piqued somebody’s attention,” said Sebastian with a brief smile. “Let’s get out of here before it shows up.”

 

[talien]

Chaugnar Faugn: Part 1 – The Citadel

Day 4 – Writing this on deck somewhere. Yesterday, Carbo used the sweet words of the Unspeakable One to break Flavius’ memory of the orders he was given. Today he employed a variation on the same subtle language to tell him our goal is Drakmar. Flavius now thinks this was the plan all along. I almost feel sorry for the fool. Anzalone has told Cho Sun we’ll leave upon docking.

--Carlo Schippone’s Diary​

A sheer cliff face of volcanic rock rose fifty feet above them. Sebastian flapped in a circle around it.

“I saw a wisp of smoke,” he shouted down. “Perhaps from a campfire.”

A stream of curses and warnings from above assailed him.

“Who goes thar?”

“Oh, I know that voice,” said Kham. “Baldric you old sea dog! Let us in!”

“Kham? Thar be Kham?”

“Aye. Now stop cursing and start lifting!”

“What th’ hell be that thing flyin’ around!”

”You’ve met him, that’s Sebastian. And he’s not so bad once you get past the wings…and tail…” Kham lowered his voice. “…and the claws…and the pointed ears…”

A rope ladder was lowered and Kham clambered up it.

Haggard from lack of nourishment, Baldric and his crew were in a sorry state indeed.

“This be what’s left of me crew.” Baldric introduced them with a flourish. “Me new first mate, Keaton. Ye know Crazy Bob, me second mate. This here’s Clive, a priest o’ Yarris. And finally Wu Shu, th’ cook. As fer ye, ye look…” he looked Sebastian up and down, “different.”

“We’ve been through a lot of changes lately,” said Kham. “I thought you gave up the pirate’s life and became an honest man, Baldric?”

Baldric grinned a gap-toothed grin. “An’ here I thought ye were dead! ‘tis a strange thing, bein’ in politics. Ye don’t know yer friends from yer enemies. A bit like piracy, only without th’ ship.”

“So you lost the election for the Privateer’s Seat on the Captain’s Council?”

“Aye,” Baldric said glumly. “Th’ fool, Xavier Gordon, won’t give up his seat. Somethin’ about stayin’ in it until th’ war is over.”

“Which one?” asked Beldin.

Baldric chuckled. “All of ‘em, if ye ask Gordon. But mostly th’ Hinterlanders hired by th’ Emperor are stirrin’ up trouble. They sent a punitive strike force against Entaris when word got out that Menisis was courtin’ th’ elorii.”

“What?” Vlad asked in disbelief. “That’s an act of war!”

“Not an outright declaration o’ war, o’ course, but it’s comin’ to that.” The other crewmembers nodded their heads. Except for Crazy Bob, who seemed to nod to himself all the time. “War keeps Freeport in business, ye see. When Egil asked me fer help—“

Kham rubbed his forehead. “Wait, Egil’s here?”

“Aye. We were pursuin’ Cho Sun’s ship, th’ Rapier, across the ocean when he doubled-back around and caught us with our pants down. Destroyed th’ Shrike too.” The men took off their hats in reverence for the loss of their beloved ship.

“Why were you pursuing Cho Sun?” asked Vlad.

“After Kham was sentenced to th’ Hulks, Egil figured he was the only chance at stoppin’ Livius. So he hired me and me mates to pursue him right to Nyambe.”

“Who else was with you?” asked Sebastian.

“The Countess D’Amberville, two of her girls, and Tranco. Funny thing, havin’ a lady like that comin’ along. I don’t know why she went with the likes of Egil, but she was very interested in stoppin’ Livius.”

“He said Tranco, didn’t he,” Kham said to Vlad. “Henry Tranco.”

“Aye, that be him.”

“Word is that they were captured by tcho-tchos,” said Beldin. “They plan to sacrifice the captives tonight.”

Baldric’s bushy eyebrows went up. “That’d be th’ village of Ola Tombo. We were separated after Cho Sun destroyed th’ Shrike. I figured they’d be dead by now.”

Sebastian and Beldin exchanged glances. “We have to rescue them. They can tell us where Livius was headed.”

“Ye’ll be on yer own, though we’ll outfit ye as best we can. All we’ve got here is fruit, goat milk, and th’ occasional wild boar.”

From the pirates’ citadel, Kham could make out the tcho-tcho village.

“Of all the people in the world,” he muttered to himself, “it had to be Tranco.”

 

[talien]

Chaugnar Faugn: Part 2 – The Village of the Ola Tombo

Day 18 – I can’t sleep. In the dark my mind always races but not with the usual nighttime thoughts of my mortality. What are we doing? I have so many fears. Will we find Drakmar? If we do, will Chaugnar Faugn and the tcho-tchos kill us as they must have killed so many? What if we are to fail to help the King in Yellow back to Onara? What if we succeed?

--Carlo Schippone’s Diary​

The drumbeats grew louder as they approached form the hills above. A spiked, bamboo wall adorned with skulls surrounded the village. Many of the island’s natives writhed and danced in a blood ritual around a fire at the center of the village.

Tied to stakes in the center of the village were Egil, Tranco, and three other women. They were bound about the wrists, ankles, and throat by narrow cords of hide. A witch doctor had slashed the men’s chests, drenching them in blood.

“It looks as if the villagers are preparing to move their prisoners very soon,” said Vlad.

Kham leaned against a tree and started cleaning his nails.

“What are you doing?” asked Beldin. “Aren’t you going to help?”

“Yep.”

“And you consider that helping?” asked Vlad.

“Yep.” Kham shrugged. “I’m staying out of the way.”

“Out of the way of what?”

A roar answered them.

The drumming stopped. The tcho-tchos turned to look at the source of the bellow.

Suddenly, Sebastian burst from the cover of the jungle canopy. A gigantic tyrannosaurus rex pounded behind him. Whenever it lost interest, the dark-kin pointed and a white ray nipped the creature in the snout. It bellowed again in rage.

“That.” Kham swigged a potion and disappeared.

Sebastian led the beast straight into the center of the village. He had lured it for miles out of its normal habitat, dodging in and out of foliage and nearly getting snapped in half once by the beast’s slavering jaws.

The tyrannosaur pounded straight through the center of the village. Tcho-tchos threw spears, fired bows, blew blowgun darts, and even the witch doctors cast spells. Nothing stopped the tyrannosaur.

It whirled. With a sweep of its tail, the tyrannosaur leveled huts and tossed tcho-tchos screaming into the air. It cut a swat in front with the front of its head, and then snatched up a mouthful of villages from the crowd. Tossing them high into the air, they disappeared screaming.

Sebastian let loose another fireball, setting the huts on fire. That ruined the morale of the tcho-tchos, who fled screaming into the jungle.

Beldin and Vlad watched.

“So…” said Vlad. “Should we do anything?”

“I think we’re more helpful here.”

Kham reappeared, having cut free the captives. They followed in a bedraggled trail behind him out of the village.

“Good job guys,” he said with a grin.

 

[talien]

Chaugnar Faugn: Part 3a – The Monastery

Day 37 – Anzalone, Carbo and I went to the Towers of Silence to speak to a holy man. Most go to listen—we went to talk. He talked of Chaugnar Faugn and the White Acolyte he waits for. We talked of the Son, the Acolyte, the King in Yellow, the Tattered King who one sees only in dreams and of the Stranger in the Pallid Mask, the Ghost who moves among us. And we spoke of the Unspeakable One, whom Carbo and Villiers have seen. I watched the man closely. Though he didn’t speak I can read a man’s eyes and he knew that what we said was true, knew what was coming, knew we were part of it.

--Carlo Schippone’s Diary​

Hiking up the face of the Demon’s Horns was no simple task. While there was no technical climbing necessary, there were plenty of passages that required strength, balance, and care.

Kham grunted, struggling up the side of the cliff. “Funny, I don’t see Tranco with us.”

“We went over this.” Sebastian hovered, flapping his wings. “They’re all in bad shape. It’s best that we leave them with Baldric. They told us that Livius and his men went to the top of the Demon’s Horns, so that’s where we’re going.”

“I’m still not sure how Yolanda got there,” said Kham. “She was in Carcosa when we last met.”

Leaving Tranco meant leaving him with Yolanda, and Kham wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“We’ll deal with that later,” said Sebastian. “Right now we have to stop Livius before he summons the King in Yellow.”

It took six hours of hard trek before they reached another dwelling. Two hours into the ascent, they had to negotiate a difficult cross-slope strewn with small rocks. Then they saw the monastery.

Built from the same stone as that on which it sat and augmented by red-painted clay, the monastery buildings clung to a steep cliff, a huge swathe of which was painted white. As they toiled closer, it was clear the greater part of it lay in ruins. Only the main temple seemed largely intact. It had tiny windows and no signs of life—no people, animals, noise, or smoke.

The main approach was across open ground, but on there were broken boulders scattered thickly all the way to one edge of the building.

“Those boulders must have once tumbled from the cliff above,” said Beldin.

When they were about three hundred yards away from the monastery, a figure appeared in the doorway. The man paused.

Vlad waved. “Hel—“

A shot echoed off the mountain above. Vlad spun in a spray of blood and collapsed.

“Sniper!” shouted Kham. He drew his pistols and ran towards the boulders.

Beldin hunkered down behind his shield and stood over Vlad. “I’m not leaving him.”

The man calmly walked towards them, reloading his rifle. A bat-winged shadow passed overhead.

Kham fired a retort. Dust exploded near the man’s feet.

There was a strange shuddering in the ground. The man looked down, curious. Little pirouettes of dirt plopped up and down out of the earth, as if something were burrowing to the surface.

Then a forest of thick, ochre-colored tentacles exploded out of the ground, encircling the man’s arms, legs, and even his throat. One tentacle yanked the rifle from his grasp.

He struggled, helpless. Then he saw the flying ochre jaws. They flew straight for his head…

Kham winced as the man’s headless body was released from the tentacles and sunk back into the ground.

“Is it just me,” he asked Skiz, who peeked out of Kham’s pouch, “or is Sebastian’s magic getting…yellower?”

 

[talien]

Chaugnar Faugn: Part 3b – The Monastery

Day 74 – We head out from Anzalone’s map reference. We split up: I lead one group to climb the dry valley. Flavius takes the other over the side of the ridge to the south. We walk all day and meet to camp as the light falls. It’s very cold and hard going. No on lives up here—there is nothing for anyone.

--Carlo Schippone’s Diary​

Sebastian looked carefully at the shooter’s head. “That’s Carlo Schippone. I saw a drawing of him in Sweet Savona.”

They entered the monastery through the door Carlo had used. Inside was a rough-hewn cave, very dark, with steps leading up. Stone steps and wooden ladders led up to another unlit cave and then into a larger assembly hall.

The hall had three small windows, each letting in just a glimmer of light. At one end was an elaborate wooden altar bearing frescoes of five Nyambe deities.

“Ever see these before?” Sebastian asked the others.

Kham frowned. “I don’t need to. Look at the last one.”

It was a yellow deity clothed in robes.

Above the altar sat racks with statues, books, and copied manuscripts. In the center of the room was a pallet, several blankets, a small barrel of water, some cooked rice, nuts, honeycomb, and hard bread.

Beldin sniffed. “Do you smell that?”

A grim, sweet smell emanated from nearby.

Vlad ducked his head out of the adjacent chamber. “That’d be the bodies.”

Vlad discovered five bodies, laid out neatly should to shoulder: four adults and a child. The bodies showed advanced decomposition.

“This must have been the holy man Schippone mentions in his diaries,” said Sebastian. “He slaughtered them all.”

“Let’s give them a proper burial.” Beldin thought of all the deaths he had witnessed at Semar. “We have the time.”

 

[talien]

Chaugnar Faugn: Part 4a – Toward Drakmar

Day 75 – We’ve found it. My group came across it at midday just where we thought it would be. The tall cliffs and the valley floor are painted orange and there are caves all around. Our porters have left, and although the guide stayed he will not camp in the valley. Anzalone is quite sick now—he woke several times in the night saying he was suffocating.

--Carlo Schippone’s Diary​

The initial passage from the monastery was as difficult as the day before. For three hours they were forced to scramble up the same steep scree-covered slope. The world was monochrome: blacks, grays, and whites.

At the end of the morning they crested the ridge. The valley was steep-sided and as bone dry as a baked furrow in a midsummer field. It climbed steeply to the east. The wind hurtled ferociously, mindlessly down it.

Sebastian landed. “No way I can fly up this. The winds are strong enough to dash me against the rocks.”

They spent the remaining five hours of daylight climbing the valley, traveling east away from the river and further into the mountains. The walking was arduous in the thin air and the howling wind, and conversation was difficult. As it got dark they were forced to camp in the open.

Fortunately, they had picked up supplies from the monastery. They were woefully unequipped for the cold weather after being boiled by the stifling heat of Nyambe.

Vlad peeked his head out of their tent. Kham was already up, staring out at the landscape.

“It’s like we’re the only people left on Arcanis,” he said to Vlad without looking at him.

There was no mark of man, although the eye could see for many, many miles from the top of the ridge. There was frost on the rocks, ice in the crevasses.

As they struggle upward the valley became steeper, its sides rising up a hundred feet or more. They walked on and on, monotonous hours in the shriek of the wind. Snow stung their faces. Only Beldin showed no signs of discomfort.

Then, at midday…something.

It was an effect that dwarfed all they had seen before. Up ahead, the entire north side of the valley was colored. The dull, baked orange color stretched right to the high cliff tops, maybe two hundred feet, and ran for about half a mile. Piercing the cliff were scores of cave openings and spread across the valley floor underneath the ruins were chortens, laying where they fell amidst vivid splashes of the same ochre color.

“Can you hear that?” asked Kham.

“Hear what?” asked Vlad.

“It’s like…like dim thunder. It comes every minute for two and persist for a few seconds, like a heartbeat.”

“I don’t hear anything.”

Beldin pointed. “You may want to take a look at this.”

They discovered a fire-scorched area. Close by was a broad, flat rock marked with a brown stain.

Sebastian kneeled down for a closer look. “It’s blood.”

 

[talien]

Chaugnar Faugn: Part 4b – Toward Drakmar

Day 76 – We entered Drakmar for the first time and there is script on the walls with drawings. In the fourth cave, a creature was watching us from the shadows—quite still—a tcho-tcho. When I saw him he moved quietly away. Flavius saw him then and he shouted and raised the gun but I stopped him. I said it must have been a monk or even one of the porters come back, but he does not believe that. He is very watchful now. Our guide left in the night. We went in again today and found fresh waste, and then human bones. Just jaws, which I think had been stripped by human teeth. There is a deep regular noise that can be heard (was it there all the time?) and the ground seems to tremble every so slightly. It moves in rhythm with my own heart. I think I am close to panic. Flavius insists we must leave the place and we agreed. He is packing everything as I write this and intends to watch all night. But none of us will leave.

--Carlo Schippone’s Diary​

The caves were quiet. The lowest were just forty feet or so up, the highest three times that.

“I count sixty-seven openings,” said Beldin.

There were paths, stairs, and handholds and footholds that appeared fashioned by hand or by use. Nothing distinguished one cave from another.

They clambered carefully up to one cave. Inside, there was a roughly circular tunnel about five feet in diameter leading back into the cliff. The floor of the tunnel was as smooth as glass, as though many, many feet had passed through. The walls and even the ceiling were smooth, too, perhaps from the trailing of thousands of p[alms and fingers. It was dark inside.

Beldin was ahead of them. “There’s all sorts of things in here.”

The tunnel traveled on for between twenty and thirty feet before opening into a small, round chamber twenty feet across and ten feet high. The wall of the chamber was rough.

“What kind of things?” asked Vlad.

“Tiny marks.”

“What?” Vlad entered the room along with the others.

“They're all over.” Beldin pointed to the walls. “Look around you!”

There were tiny marks, tally marks, grouped in nines covering the whole surface, even the ceiling—thousands and thousands of these marks.

Sebastian was looking down. “There’s a pile of bones here too.”

Kham recognized the bones but kept his mouth shut. They were human foot and hand bones. He kicked them aside.

The other caves, linked by corridors, had similarly disturbing finds that pointed to ages of habitation and reverent sacrifice—depressions with neat and separated piles of powdered bone, raised surfaces laid out with skeins of human hair, and deep troughs choked by coagulated blood.

“I hate to say this, but this is the best place to camp,” said Kham.

 

[talien]

Chaugnar Faugn: Part 5 – Night Sweats

WHAT HAVE YOU DONE in the dreams I saw the monster the root of all evil a dream and reality a nightmare or not and walking in a surge of fear and pleasure the three of us and he was a little way off they talked and when he looked around at me with his eyes I struck him down hit him again and again he took so long to fall I am looking at him now they were furious WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE wasted hatred WHAT HAVE YOU DONE but how could he matter was he the white acolyte no WHAT HAVE YOU don’t know he lies still spread out before me a bloody cut of meat he waits for them and with him they will come

--Carlo Schippone’s Diary​

Sebastian thrashed in his sleep as the nightmares came again.

Carlo Schippone felled his companion, stubbornly clubbing him over and over with a rock, patiently breaking his face down to the bone. It was a man he knew well, someone who trusted him. Kham recognized him. It was Flavius Servilius, the centurion who had demoted Quintus years ago.

Whistling tunelessly, Schippone produced a knife and started to strip Flavius’ body open like he would a rabbit. Though Kham wanted to look away, he watched him make every cut.

Then Schippone laid the corpse out on a rock, wet-red. A hundred quiet ghosts could smell the blood. They looked out of their black lair in the rock and wondered…

Sebastian too was tormented by something horrible in his sleep. He was all alone in the dark.

Something old and bloated was out there. It shifted its weight.

Sebastian stood still. He held his breath. It was coming closer.

Did it sense the trail of the tears down his cheeks? He staunched the flow but there was the tick of his heart.

Warmer.

Warmer.

Sebastian muffled his heartbeat but it listened to his shadow scraping across the rock at his back.

Found you!

It reached out with its clotted mind and took hold of him. He couldn’t breathe, his blood stopped in his veins and all he could do was pray for death, to look away as it slowly came out into the light and simply…unfurled.

 

[talien]

Chaugnar Faugn: Conclusion

A god a monster WHAT HAVE I DONE its out there a piece of the monster tcho-tcho WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE WHAT HAVE I DONE

--Carlo Schippone’s Diary​

Sebastian awoke with a start. At first light, a sobbing echoed across the stony confines of the valley. It seemed to be human and it persisted.

“Where's it coming from?” asked Vlad.

“That passage,” pointed Beldin into one of the spiraling paths into darkness.

There were bleating moans. It sounded familiar.

“DRIL?” Vlad jogged down the tunnel. “Dril where are you? Tell me where you are!”

Dril’s voice cried out louder in pain.

Kham tried to stop Vlad but he was already past him. “Althares! That’s not Dril!”

Vlad paused. The crying came from another tunnel.

“Dril?” Vlad turned back to Beldin. “Is it over here?”

“No it's over here,” said Beldin.

“DRIL!” shouted Vlad at the top of his lungs. He looked around desperately. “Well, don’t just stand there! Look for him!”

Kham shook his head. “His body was in Semar.”

“We didn’t find a body!” Vlad’s voice cracked. “We’ve seen stranger things! Maybe the Unspeakable One took him!” He turned back to the tunnels. “Tell me where you are Dril!”

“Somebody!” came Dril’s voice.

This time they all heard it. It was undeniably Dril’s voice.

“Okay,” Kham said carefully. “That can't be him.”

“Someone!” shouted Dril’s voice. “I need help please! Please help me, gods!”

Vlad ran down a low corridor that led away, sloping slightly upwards. Only a little way in it became clear it is deep and very long.

“Vlad,” shouted Kham behind him. “Slow down!”

“Dril?” Vlad shouted.

“Vlad!” shouted Kham. “Vlad!

“Come on!” Vlad was frantic, near hysteria. “I hear him!”

“Vlad do not...” began Sebastian.

He was cut off again by Dril’s voice. “Please, help!”

Vlad was urged on, running faster towards the source of the voice.

He stopped in the tunnel. Dril’s voice had been there but seconds ago. “Where is he?”

Kham caught up to him. “Is he in here?”

“No.” Vlad looked around. “Damn it.”

“No!” shouted Dril’s voice. “Gods!”

“I hear him!” Vlad took off again at a sprint. “I hear you! Where? I'm coming down the tunnel!”

“Over here!” came Dril’s muffled voice.

“Where are you?” He yelled over his shoulder at Kham. “Come on! Dril?”

Kham struggled to keep up. Sebastian, with his huge wings, had difficulty navigating the passages. Beldin was right behind him.

“Dril? Dril!? Dril is that you down there?”

Vlad reached the end of the tunnel and stopped. Kham skidded to a halt behind him.

“Althares,” was all he whispered.

 

[talien]

Chapter 53: To Drakmar - Introduction

This scenario is adapted from a Chaosium adventure, “The Upper House” from the Tatters of the King supplement by Tim Wiseman, set in the Arcanis setting. You can read more about Arcanis at Onara Online. Please note: This adventure contains spoilers!

Our cast of characters includes:

• Dungeon Master: Michael Tresca (http://michael.tresca.net)
• Beldin Soulforge (dwarf fighter/dwarven defender) played by Joe Lalumia
• Kham Val’Abebi (val rogue/psychic warrior) played by Jeremy Ortiz (http://www.ninjarobotstudios.com)
• Sebastian Arnyal (dark-kin sorcerer) played by George Webster
• Vlad Martell (human fighter) played by Matt Hammer

This last adventure wraps up the story arc involving the King in Yellow, AKA Umor, AKA the Unspeakable One, AKA Hastur. I was banking on one particular character being the salvation of the others and, as always, it never turns out that way. The players always manage to surprise me.

There are quite a few things that also surprised me, not the least of which is the cold dealings with Livius Carbo. The adventure makes a big deal that anyone facing the progenitor of the play that has killed thousands should feel bad about killing him in cold blood. Not so our adventurers!