(Cydra) The Year 271 Campaign (Low Magic experiment)

[the Jester]

Otis Optimus strides to the head of the party. “People!” he cries imperiously. “I am Otis Optimus! We are here to help you! We know the man who tortured one of your own above- he is a villain of the first order named Sir Harth- and we seek to stop him!” As he speaks, Otis makes broad, sweeping gestures.

Gestures that the people hiding here take as... aggressive. Hostile, even.

One of them starts casting a spell. Another pulls a ranseur forth. It begins to crackle, the head of it sparking with electricity. Our heroes stand, dumbfounded, at the sight for a moment.

Then a fireball explodes amongst them.

A woman near the back is shouting something, sounding both frightened and angry. Clearly, there has been a terrible misunderstanding... a tragic miscommunication.* But whatever the cause, it has led to burns all over our heroes. Hissing in pain, Dahlia casts protection from fire on herself.

Me roars and starts rushing forward, but the enemy wizard casts another spell, and a wall of blazing fire springs up before the onrushing half-orc! Me cries out in surprise as his flesh sizzles again.

“A wall of fire!” exclaims Otis. “I have heard of such things, but the techniques required are lost in our time...”

Dahlia rushes heedlessly through the wall. Thanks to her spell, she is unharmed- although smoke rises from her when she emerges on the far side. “Wait!” she cries in Elven, as she steps through. “We don’t need to fight! We are friends!”

But her arrival has precipitated a charge from the ranseur-wielding man, who lunges in and knocks Dahlia from her feet. His follow-up strike deals terrific damage to her, and she screams as electricity shocks through her body. Then the wizard casts a spell at her, and for a moment she feels her will slipping away. She gasps, forcing the alien force of the charm from her mind.

Sir Colder cries, “Wait, why are we fighting? Me, stop! Back off!”

Me hesitates; and then, trusting authority, he does as Sir Colder asks, backing away from the roaring wall of flames. Lord Cedric, on the other hand, casts resist fire on himself, the words slurred even more than usual since his recent tooth-shattering accident. Cedric strides forward through the wall, suffering only minor burns- only to find himself immediately tripped by the ranseur-wielder! “Ah!” he cries in dismay, as he lands on his back and suffers a thorough thrust from the spike and the tip.

Otis hurls himself forward. I must learn her arcane secrets! he thinks wildly. If I can recover some the ancient magicks, and bring them back to our time... He throws himself through the flames, crying out in pain as they burn his face, his arms, his body. Staggering, he blinks...

The ranseur wielder is just before him, swinging his pole arm around to attack.

“Please!” Otis cries desperately. “I mean no harm, we want to help you all escape this time!” He sinks to his knees before the warrior. “I don’t know what I have said or done to offend you, but we mean you no harm! We have not struck a blow! Please, hear us out!”

The ranseur wielder thrusts the spike at the tip of his weapon up to Otis’ chin. He says something; although our heroes don’t understand the words, the meaning is plain: Don’t move or I will slay you. Otis seeks the wizard’s eyes with his, imploring her. “I, too, am a wizard,” he calls. “We can exchange knowledge and information. Spells...”

The wizard casts a spell. He watches her carefully. I recognize this one, he thinks. It’s tongues! She will be able to speak to us!

And indeed, a moment later, the wizard steps forward and demands, “Who are you people? What do you want? And what’s your connection to Harth?”

“He ith a villain!” pronounces Lord Cedric. “Our arth-nemethith, our wortht foe! We have purthued him from the very future to thtop him from thuctheeding in hith fiendith planth! Now, who ith your lord?”

“We have no lord, any longer,” the wizard replies. “But we are the ones asking the questions, not you!” The man with the ranseur growls theateningly. Otis keeps his hands up.

“Then ask! We will answer whatever you wish to ask of us!” Sir Fwaigo groans. “We mean you no harm! If we wanted to harm you, I assure you, we could have already done so!”

The wizard’s furious anger slowly abates. She sighs. “Yes, I suppose if you wanted to cause us harm, you would have nothing to gain by waiting- not now that you have found our hiding place.”

Sir Colder smiles. “Well, isn’t that evidence that we aren’t out to get you?”

Reluctantly, the wizard nods.

“Then, let uth introduthe ourthelveth, and then we can get to the matter of who your rightful lord ith,” Lord Cedric declares. “I am Lord Thedric of Whitewater. I am from your future!”

Our heroes introduce themselves around, and then the wizard introduces herself as Adele, and the ranseur-wielder as Benito. By the time her tongues spell wears off, the villagers and our heroes are smiling and shaking hands, and the villagers are offering their hospitality- at least as much as they have to offer in this retreat. Our heroes accept. They have been running hard without a friend or ally for weeks now. They need a few weeks to recuperate, to train, to restore their strength.** And they need some time to socialize, too, to see other people again for the first time in quite a while.

There are ten villagers other than Benito and Adelle. Ferick is a crotchety old man, but full of wisdom and knowledge. Bates, a 14-year-old, sneaky boy, takes to Cedric immediately, and vice-versa. Kelra is a frightened, easily persuaded woman, who served as the villager’s carpenter. Benito’s little brother Vendoza is there; somehow, our heroes aren’t surprised that Benito’s kin might survive. His girlfriend, Alliandra, is also among the survivors of the village. Mang Trolak, a stupid but strong half-orc woman, who plainly suffers from a massive case of hero worship for both Adelle and Benito, smiles at Sir Percival; their common orcish ancestry instantly gives them a small bond. Adelle’s sister, Dannelle, is there; again, it is plain that her blood connection to the village’s leaders has saved her life. The town’s smith, a dour, stodgy, miserly, conservative dwarf named Norgent, is another of the survivors. Sir Jorgen is pleased to note that the town’s sheriff, Angora, has made it to the relative shelter of the under-village. Moreover, Angora is a woman. Jorgan’s interest is definitely piqued. Finally, the town messenger, Scarifix, is the last survivor.

Training and relaxing- our heroes find the time slipping away. Otis is amazed at the spells that Adelle knows, and she is (no doubt) a novice for her time. Yet, she can create the legendary wall of fire!

Weeks pass. Our heroes deal with a few small threats- a strange lobster-like creature that emerges from the underground waterway that the village relies on, and a few things in the town itself looking for clues- but nothing truly significant happens. The villagers, even Benito and Adelle, are very impressed by the party’s prowess. Several of the party members learn the local tongue, Palantian.

Lord Cedric cannot abide the thought that these people have no lord, so he declares Benito lord of the village. Benito seems bemused, but accepts the honor seriously.

Then Cedric makes a momentous announcement.

“We will take them with uth,” he ejaculates. “We thall take them home to the future with uth.”

So it is, that our heroes’ number swells by a dozen before they set out on the trail to the capital city of the Palantian Empire, Litel. Now they are armed with the knowledge that the villagers have; now they have a dozen sources of information about the time that they are walking around in.

The war that has ruined this land, they learn, was between elves and humans. “The humans wanted the secret of immortality from the elves, but they wouldn’t share it,” declares Ferick. “They were afraid to give us an even chance against them. Well, now we showed them!” He cackles.

Our heroes set off down the road to Litel.

Next Time: On the road to Litel!

*In point of fact, Otis fumbled not one, but two Diplomacy checks in a row here...

**This might seem like an odd decision in a game which has a certain sense of urgency to it; but on a metagame level, I told the players that I wasn’t going to penalize them for taking time to train, since I’m using training rules in this campaign. I just assumed that the bad guys had to spend that much time training themselves, as well.

 

[the Jester]

What Has Gone Before

Our heroes are from a small village called Whitewater in the barony of Kamenda, part of a fragmented larger kingdom that has mostly dissolved over the last couple of generations. The world is a low-magic, dangerous land. The elves are all gone- where, no one knows, but none have been seen in decades or longer. Kamenda’s southern neighbor, Tydon, is her traditional rival and enemy.

The party met in Whitewater, joining forces to help their local community with a variety of dangers, including both bandits and bandit hunters, monster-inhabited ruins and a goblin incursion. While dealing with this incursion, our heroes discovered that the goblins had been displaced from their usual home, Goblin Gorge, by some sort of weird, alien cyst on the ground: a giant, pus-filled bloat on the land, riddled with passages and inhabited by strange, twisted beings with unfathomable motivations. Our heroes, using salt as a weapon against the unnatural forces they faced, managed to destroy the cyst and drive off or destroy the alien entities.

Not long after, a sudden, unexpected attack on Whitewater by Tydonian soldiers led our heroes to hurry to the capital city of the barony, Kamenda City, to warn the baron. Tydon was on the move, and from an unexpected direction. Worse yet, evidence began to accumulate that one of the baron’s two top advisors was a traitor- either Sir Galadon or Sir Harth. Things got more complicated when a demonic entity allied to the mysterious traitor kidnapped one of the party members, who was- even worse- pregnant with the child of another of the pcs. Though there was a great deal of misdirection and a spider web of intrigue, our heroes finally discovered that Sir Harth was the traitor (narrowly avoiding the execution of Sir Galadon) and captured him. When their army came to attack Kamenda City, the party played a pivotal role in beating off their initial assault. However, Sir Harth- whom the party had imprisoned- managed to escape during this time. The party knew that he was involved in some sort of black magic, demon-related cult, but had no more details than that to go on.

The Tydonian army had been fought off for a time, but it was building for another assault. Desperately investigating the odd direction from which they were coming, our heroes found that the Tydonian force was crossing through a portal from Tydon. They managed to defeat the portal’s guardians, close the portal and retreat to Kamenda City, from whence the remaining Tydonians, cut off from reinforcement or resupply, were easily routed.

The immediate danger was past, but Sir Harth was still free. Our heroes had found documents indicating that Harth’s cult planned to perform some kind of ritual to open the “gates of fire” on New Year’s Eve at the Ghost Tower atop Battle Rise (once called Inverness). They resolved to be there first, and to ambush Sir Harth. But once Harth arrived with a beholder, things went horribly awry, and in the end even a small Kamendan army could not stop Sir Harth and his beholder ally. Our heroes were captured and forced to watch as Harth and his men sacrificed a pair of elfbloods- a human-elf hybrid, somewhere between 25% and 75% elven, usually closer to the lower end- and opened the gates of fire. They would have been killed, too, but for a figure that silently slew their guards and slit their bonds. This turned out to be- an elf! She warned them that some of her folk would be coming through the gate, but that they had changed while Outside. Before she could explain much more, several of the “elves” emerged. They were the same alien creatures that our heroes had fought at the cyst!

After a quick, furious battle, the party and the elf destroyed these “elves.” Then she told them that Harth had fled into the past, and had to be stopped from bringing unimaginably powerful weapons back into the present and conquering all of Kamenda- or more. She went through the gate, and the party followed after- only to find themselves in a blasted wasteland, nearly empty of life, littered with battlefields full of corpses. It was horrifying. Worse yet, the very environment sucked the life out of our heroes. The world had been torn apart by a magical apocalypse, and it was to this period that Sir Harth had gone. The elf quickly died due to the influence of something called the “elf-slayer of Varzoth”, and our heroes were left to track Sir Harth over this blasted land through an age of madness.

They eventually reached an abandoned village, but to their surprise, their investigations turned up a few survivors of the devastating war that had destroyed the world around them. After what was nearly a tragic misunderstanding, the party and the survivors joined together. Our heroes took some time to rest and train, and now they have departed on the road to the capital of the destroyed empire that they are in, for it is to that city that they suspect Sir Harth has gone- or is going...

 

[the Jester]

21

Our heroes move along the road towards the ruined capitol of the mad land that they are traveling through. Litel, it is called (according to Benito, Adelle and their folk). Now, much of what is going on in this insane time is clarified by those from this time. According to Adelle, the magic draining effect is a part of some kind of massive “spell engine” that sucks the magical power from the surrounding areas in order to power the massive effects that are devastating the land and the people in it. The elf-slayer of Varzoth, according to Adelle, is an epic living spell of incredible potency; in the far distance, the area with the flashes that are still occasionally visible beneath the maroon sky reveals its location. “Tanaroth,” Benito says sadly. “Now I’m sure it’s just a ruin.”

Down the road, beneath the dark sky, the party travels. With the villagers accompanying our heroes now, the band has grown to twenty. We certainly can’t be that discrete, now, Sheriff Jorgen thinks. There are too many of us, and too many of these new folks are not skilled at hiding or combat. Benito and Adelle are certainly a good addition to the group, though...

While Jorgen mulls over the expanded group, Sir Colder trots slightly ahead of the group, eyes peeled, alert and watchful. Suddenly he stops in surprise.

Off to the side of the road is a blasted crater. Climbing out from it is a man armored in the style of the year 272, the time from whence our heroes came. He waves at the party.

He is wearing the livery of Sir Harth.

Weapons are drawn from scabbards. “Ho there, mithcreant!” cries Lord Cedric. “Lay down your armth or be thlain!”

To the party’s surprise, the man immediately unbuckles his sword belt. “Thank the gods!” he cries. “Please, I am alone and I mean you no harm! I ask for mercy!”

“It could be a trap,” murmurs Sir Fwaigo. “My lord, I don’t trust him.”

“Come forward!” cries Lord Cedric. “If you lie to uth, you thall be thlain, unleth you come clean now!”

The man approaches, hands held up in plain view. “No, my lord, I do not lie,” he states solemnly.

“Where is Harth?” demands Otis Optimus.

“Who is this person?” Benito asks suspiciously, in his tongue- Palantian. He clearly does not understand the words of the conversation, but he is ready to strike with his electric ranseur at a moment’s notice.

Dahlia tells him, “He appears to be one of Harth’s liegemen... hold on...”

“I don’t know where Sir Harth is,” the surrendered knight sighs. “I was with him, yes, but he and the rest of the men left me behind about a month ago.”

“A month!” exclaims Kyle. Then we’re catching up to them! The tracks we found around the Ghost Tower of Inverness were about two months old, according to Jorgen. We’ve managed to cut their lead in half! But then again, we just have to catch them; they probably have to find their way to whatever they are seeking.

“Why did they leave you? What’s your name? What does Harth want? And what’s your part in all of this?” Sir Fwaigo badgers the man. Glaring, he slaps his face.

“That’th enough of that!” Lord Cedric barks. “He hath thurrendered, we will treat him honorably.” He stares hard at the knight. “Tho long ath he behaveth honorably, and maketh no attempt to ethcape. Now, anther my man’th quethtionth!”

“Escape... to where?” the knight says frankly. Then, marshaling his dignity, he turns to look at Goer. “I am Sir Porthos,” he says gravely. “Sir Harth and his other retainers left me behind because I fell ill. I became a burden, and I knew that we could not afford to slow our progress. The environment was hostile, there were terrible war beasts- it was a struggle just to stay alive, as I am sure you have all realized by now. I chose to stay behind. I had to persuade Sir Harth to allow this- otherwise, he would have carried me on his back, if he had to.”

Fortunately for Porthos, he found a way to survive. A small earth tremor caused a sinkhole to collapse, allowing ingress into a small underground cave with a pool of fresh water. Porthos managed to recuperate, but then he was alone in a hostile world, with no idea of where his friends are. Now he is overjoyed to find other folk from his time, even if they are his liege’s sworn foes, and- he tells the party- he is ready to do almost anything to get out of this terrible age. He knows that Harth seeks the capitol, Litel, in order to take the Shadow Road to the Isle of the Elves, where he will attempt to enter the Gates of Glass in the mountain where the artisan elves craft their most powerful magical weapons.

“But now I think that would be a mistake, given what I have seen here,” he goes on. He frowns. “Honestly, I am surprised that I ever thought it was a good idea.”

“What about the monster?” asks Kyle. “You know, the big thing with all the eye balls?”

“The beholder...” Sir Porthos looks confused. “You know, I’d never thought of it as a monster, really- just as another ally.”

“Perhaps it used its powers on you,” Otis says, “clouded your mind.” He looks at the others. “I am beginning to suspect that it is not Harth that is the architect of this scheme at all, but rather the beholder!”

“An interesting theory,” Dahlia nods. “It might explain a lot.”

“You! Porthos!” snaps Sir Colder. “Which one of them seemed to be in charge, Sir Harth or the beholder?”

“Well...” Sir Porthos pauses to think. “I would have said Sir Harth, before you asked, but now that I think about it... well... I don’t really know. Sometimes one, then the other. It’s almost as if they were struggling to control the direction their alliance led them.”

Our heroes question Porthos some more, but they have already gotten everything that he knows. The party draws aside to discuss his fate.

“Execute him,” Sir Fwaigo suggests.

“Bring him with us,” argues Kyle. “He surrendered, let’s take him with us. He might end up knowing something else that we didn’t think to ask, or he didn’t think to offer.”

“We can’t trust him,” Goer retorts. Otis nods in vigorous agreement.

“But he did surrender,” Sir Colder sighs. “And we accepted his surrender.”

“Sometimes, prisoners have to be executed,” Otis sniffs.

“Theriff Jorgen,” Lord Cedric announces, “thinthe you are the theriff, thith fallth on your thoulderth to dethide. I put him into your cuthtody.”

Jorgen nods. “He will come with us. Sir Porthos has a reputation as an honorable man, and he has nowhere else to go. And I would not consign anyone to this place and time, not even Harth.”

So it is decided- and the party swells to twenty-one.

And the party continues down the road to Litel.

Next Time: The party reaches Litel at last!

 

[the Jester]

As our heroes move down the thin trail beneath the rusty maroon sky, they cannot help but notice areas of burnt grass and blasted craters to either side. Here and there, the trail itself has been blasted directly and left a shattered mess. Now and again, a body- either human or orcish- lies rotting to the side. Sir Percival- himself a mix of man and orc- looks sad at this; despite being very aware of the typically savage nature of orc-kind, he still feels a crude solidarity with them. Occasionally, the charred shell of a wagon lies pushed to the side, on the edge of the trail or sometimes off it completely. Soon, as they walk along, they see a large pile of dead livestock, including cattle, goats and sheep. A lone figure is staring mournfully at the pile- an old, frail-looking human man with but wisps of hair remaining on his head. As the party of twenty-one adventurers and refugees marches up, the man turns to regard them with tired eyes.

With the aid of their new allies, especially Benito and Adelle, the party manages to communicate with this man. He is the first rational human from this age of madness that our heroes have found in the open (the villagers with them were well-hidden underground). His name, it turns out, is Noltock; at first he is suspicious of the group, but after a few minutes talking to them- or at least, those able to speak Palantian- he opens up and becomes more friendly.

Noltock raised cattle and handled animals for his entire life. Now, he has had to destroy them. When our heroes ask why, he explains that they were exposed to “gamma radiation,” whatever that is. He is very sad; this is the end of his livelihood, and likely he will die a slow death now. “But then again,” he comments gloomily, “won’t everyone? And it’s pretty silly of me to worry about my livelihood, when there’s nobody left to sell milk or meat to! Nor can I eat the meat- it might be contaminated with gamma radiation, and who knows what that might cause?”

“What’s ‘gamma radiation?’” Dahlia wonders, but nobody really answer her.

Noltock is full of doom and gloom. He knows of no other living survivors that are not extremely crazy or dangerous. There are bandits and brigands, he tells the party, but he doesn’t know where they lair. “They run up and down the Litel Road, thought,” he says. He doesn’t even know what really happened to start the war. “Probably those crazy elves,” he guesses. He does know that it all started less than a year ago. He is not well-informed of anything, but he happily shares information about sheep and cows with the party. When they ask him about Sir Harth and his cronies, Noltock claims to no nothing; but when Sir Colder mentions the beholder, he states that he heard a rumor of a beholder in Litel.

“Well, that’s where we’re going,” Sir Jorgen tells him, and Noltock grows even dourer.

“I wouldn’t go there,” he warns the party. “It was a prime target in... in the war. There won’t be much left- and what’s left will be full of mutants and radiation.”

“What’s radiation?” Dahlia asks again.

This time, Adelle answers her. “Radiation is... energy that comes from certain things. Sometimes it can be very dangerous. The energy that slowly kills creatures here, and that destroys magic that isn’t shielded by lead, is a type of radiation. Gamma radiation is another.” She frowns. “Gamma radiation can mutate creatures, change them.”

“Change them how?” asks Sheriff Jorgen.

“Sometimes it makes them stronger, harder to kill. Some creatures exposed simply die; in fact, most do. But some become gamma mutants. They often ‘hulk out’ and become much more powerful when angered or frightened.”

The party stares at her, not sure whether to believe her at first.

Finally, Otis inquires, “What about the Shadow Road? We don’t know much about that yet, either.” The Shadow Road, according to Sir Porthos, is Sir Harth’s destination in Litel.

“The Shadow Road? That is how you travel long distances here,” Adelle replies. “It’s- well, the simple way to explain it is that it’s a road through the Shadow Plane that lets you travel much more quickly than you could on our plane.”

“Do we walk?” Lord Cedric pipes up. “Or can we take our hortheth with uth?”

“No, we’ll be on a train,” Benito responds. “Kind of like a wagon train, but powered by magic.”

“Huh,” Kyle says. “A magical wagon train! Fantastic! But where would he go?”

Otis clears his throat. “More importantly, will this Shadow Road still be functioning after the war?”

Our heroes have much to ponder. They offer to let Noltock join their group, telling him that they are leaving this time and going to a better world, but Noltock snorts and declines. “No way would I go to Litel!” he declares. “Like I said, there’s bound to be mutants and radiation everywhere. No thank you!” They shrug, wish him luck and continue along their way; it is his choice, after all.

Before too long they are confronted with another atrocity. In the distance, they can see some kind of poles lining the road. As they get closer, it becomes apparent that these are crucifixions. Elves, and a few elfbloods, are strung up. All seem to be dead. As they proceed along, flanked by this grisly display, other types of victims start to be interspersed with the elves: dwarves, halflings, goblins, orcs, humans... everything. It is almost as if an unquenchable thirst for slaughter possessed someone.

Suddenly there is a cawing sound from behind some of the bodies, and a flock of horrid mutant vultures drag themselves into view. Seeing the prospect of fresh meat, they launch themselves forward. Behind them, a huge winged beast made out of bones, almost like some kind of great skeletal bat, rises up. But Benito swiftly shows his prowess, skewering one of the vultures on his crackling shock ranseur almost immediately. The vultures are foul, reeking beasts; they spit foul, disease-filled gobs of pus at the party. The large skeletal thing rushes in and tries to snatch Cedric up, but a concerted effort from our heroes slays the beasts fairly easily and without serious harm.

The party continues towards the city that they can now see in the distance. The environment changes one last time before our heroes reach it. A thin, clinging fog springs up, tinted slightly yellow and smelling like strong grapefruit. It stings the nasal passages, lips and eyes very slightly, burning just a little. There is little that the band can do, except for bite their lips and move forward. The fog is substantially more dangerous to the peasants than it is to the hardened adventurers; our heroes hope that they can clear it before anyone is seriously hurt by it.

As the party closes to within 2 miles of the ruined city ahead- they can see multiple plumes of smoke rising from it- they slow their pace.

There are riders coming towards them.

“I count eight, my lord,” Sir Fwaigo barks.

“Those look like bandits to me,” Benito comments. Those who can understand his tongue (Palantian) translate for the others. Everyone draws weapons and stands ready.

When the riders draw up a short distance away, the two groups study each other. The bandits- assuming that Benito’s assessment is correct- are led by a woman with a longbow out. Next to her is a squat dwarf, a large mace in his hand. Behind them, a half-dozen riders in studded leather fan out. Half of them have bows in hand; the others, longspears.

“Greetings, folks,” the leader says cheerfully. She looks the party over carefully, noting their armor and weapons. Their numbers. Meanwhile, as usual, there is a murmured translation by those who speak the tongue of this era for the benefit of those who do not.

“Well,” she says after a moment. Her manner is not quite as certain as it was when her band first road up. “This road is very dangerous. We came to offer you protection.”

“For a price, of course,” Benito growls.

“Of course,” the woman smiles.

“We are not in need of ‘protection,’” scoffs Lord Cedric. “We are quite capable of protecting ourthelveth!”

There is a tense moment; then, the woman nods in agreement. “It appears that you are. I am surprised to see so many people gathered in one group.”

“Oh?” replies Dahlia.

There is a moment of silence; then the woman sighs. “Pass on, friends, and good luck to you, in this unfortunate time we live in.”

The party passes on through the clinging, acrid mist. Finally it clears; and then, for the first time, Litel comes into view, now only about half a mile away.

It stretches before them: a huge, ruined city. When it was alive, it must have been home to unfathomable numbers- hundreds of thousands, or perhaps even millions, of people. The remains of tall buildings reach for the sky, but their tops have been shattered off, or they have been pushed over, toppled onto their neighbors with careless, destructive abandon. Smoke rises from innumerable places in the ruin, some of it the blackish-grey that one would expect, but some of it other, less natural colors- from an oily olive green to an unwholesome orange-brown. Everywhere, buildings have been pounded to rubble; almost nothing still stands. Entire neighborhoods seem to have been struck by some titanic hammer, and other areas seem to have been melted to glass or blasted to bare rock. Here and there, our heroes can see distant figures half-obscured by the smoke moving within the ruins.

“Wow,” whispers Sheriff Jorgen in awe.

Our heroes have never seen a city anywhere near this size. The biggest thing in their experience is Kamenda City, with its population of perhaps four thousand. You could fit a hundred Kamenda Cities in here, thinks Sir Colder in awe. And it’s totally destroyed.

What titanic forces must have been employed to do this much damage to the once-proud city? Dahlia shudders thinking about it, and about how unnatural this much city in one place is. When she comments, a debate erupts, leaving her rolling her eyes.

The approach to this ruined city leads the group to a crushed wall. The stench of corruption fills the air. Corpses of humans, whom our heroes can only assume to be either the city’s defenders, its attackers, or both, are scattered all along the shattered battlements. It looks easy enough to enter over the ruins of the fortifications, and neither to the right nor to the left does it seem as though there is a more palatable entryway.

The party advances. The villagers quail at the smell, but at this point they have little choice but to trust the party to lead them to safety. Everyone begins clambering over the rubble of the wall; but as they crest the broken wall, they spy a pair of strange clouds, shaped almost like malevolent faces, flowing over the ground towards them. They are grey-black, and seem to radiate an almost palpable hatred and malice.

“Soulbiters!” cries Benito. He moves to the side, pulling out his ranseur.

“What??” asks Sir Colder, just as one of the soulbiters flows over him. He screams and leaps aside, barely avoiding being engulfed within the mass of malice! Dahlia unleashes a flame strike at the other one, which is rushing towards Goer, and damages it, him and his mount. Nonetheless, the weird monster survives to exude a pseudopod and flail at Goer. The former squire ducks back for a moment, dodging the blow; simultaneously, the other one strikes at Benito, but it, too misses.

“Don’t let them engulf you!” cries Benito. “They’ll suck your souls!”

“Oh, great,” moans Goer.

Sir Colder strikes, then tries to move away from the one nearest him; unfortunately for him, it lashes out and smacks him across the head. He almost collapses as a terrible weakness washes over him. With a gasp, he staggers further away, but he can barely stand. “What... happened?” he groans.*

Swords seem less than effective against the monsters, but Otis and Adelle both fire magic missiles at one of them, and Benito cries, “Yes! Use magic!” So saying, he thrusts his magical ranseur at the same one and slays it.

Dahlia calls lightning at the other one, but the soulbiter flows over Lord Cedric. With a cry, Cedric is pulled from the saddle. “Aargh!!” the Lord of Whitewater shouts.

Sheriff Jorgen cries, “Here, my lord!!” He thrusts his lance forward for Cedric to grab hold of. Me leaps in, strikes and tumbles away; he manages to hurt it with the magical mace that the party found. But then Adelle fires another magic missile and finishes it off.

“Colder, are you all right?” Kyle asks.

“Yeah, it seems to be passing,” gasps Sir Colder. “But that thing did something terrible to me!”

“They are no good,” Adelle confirms.

“What were they?”

“Soulbiters,” Adelle responds. “Living soulbiters, to be more accurate. They are living spells. I take it, in your time, you no longer have the soulbiter spell?” At Otis’ reluctant nod, she continues, “Well, you’ve just experienced it, Colder.”

“What is a living spell?” Otis cries. “This is fantastic! Lost magical secrets- how does one make one, what...”

“Living spells are just that- spells given animation and a semblance of life. You could have a living fireball, a living blasphemy, a living acidic repulsion or almost any other type of living spell.”

“But why?” Kyle asks.

“They are powerful weapons,” Benito responds. “Think of it: a spell that you can use over and over again at will.”

“Although imperfectly controlled,” Adelle adds.

“All right, we need to keep moving,” Otis announces. “We know- well, we think, anyway- that Harth is heading to the Shadow Road. Where is that?”

“It’s near the center of the city,” Adelle replies. “It’s a huge octagonal building- we’ll be able to see it from some distance away.”

“All right,” declares Lord Cedric- the young lad from the village, Bates, is walking next to his horse- “let uth go! Forward!!”

Next Time: Our heroes move into the ruins of Litel, where the dead walk

*To make the effect clear here in game terms, when the soulbiter hit him, Sir Colder was hit with the disabled condition for 10 rounds: staggered, plus any standard action deals 1 hp of damage to him.

 

[the Jester]

The stench is horrendous. To either side, everywhere, the city is utterly demolished. A few buildings stand, half torn apart, here and there. Piles of rubble dozens or even hundreds of feet high alternate with deep craters. Bodies, pieces of bodies, bits of blood and brain and bone are everywhere. Never have our heroes seen a place that has been pounded more relentlessly.

Our heroes cover their faces with clothes soaked in whiskey (though Lord Cedric briefly resists the idea of using the precious whiskey in any manner other than imbibing it). The peasants following our heroes are terrified; Sir Porthos, Benito and Adelle are grim.

Soon enough, the ghouls attack.

It is a small wave of them, only eight; and still they almost drag a few of the villagers off. But our heroes manage to fend them off, slaying them with the aid of a few of the more able peasants, and soon our heroes continue along.

They talk as they go, trying to distract themselves from the omnipresent stink. It is maddening. Speculation runs in the direction that it was the beholder in charge of Sir Harth. Anything to distract themselves from the reek of corrupt flesh, cloying in the air. The sour-sweet stink of the whiskey helps, but gods! It is awful!

For an hour, they move along through the ruined streets. They round a 20’ high pile of rubble, and the stink of Litel grows suddenly, appallingly worse. A field of bodies, blown apart and ravaged by some terrible force, lies before them. Chunks of rock, brick and mortar are strewn about as well, and across the blistered crater strewn with corpses, our heroes can see the lower part of a building whose upper portion appears to have been blown jaggedly apart, perhaps a tenement or other dwelling place. There are more ghouls scavenging amongst the corpses.

“We have no need to engage them,” Sir Jorgen says. “Let’s continue towards our goal. There are plenty of dead corpses for them to feast on already.”

The others agree, and the party continues, bypassing the ghoulish scene. Very nervously, the party continues along. Blasted walls, empty windows, entire blocks smashed... the destruction is mind-boggling.

As our heroes cross an intersection, there is a sudden eruption of savage barking from the side. A pack of mangy-looking, hungry and feral dogs is bearing down on the party! Otis immediately blasts them with a fireball, and most of them drop.

The other two, however, roar and writhe. They begin to change, gaining a horrible amount of mass in just a few seconds and turning greenish.

“Gamma mutants!” roars Benito.

Jorgen lowers his lance and charges, smashing into one of the hulk dogs. His weapon crashes into it, dealing a terrific wound! But then the dog slams him with a mighty blow of its paw, hitting him with bone-crushing force. Jorgen is knocked from the saddle and crashes to the ground, knocked nearly unconscious in a single blow!

Then Benito slides forward and thrusts with his ranseur, catching the dog just under its swollen, over-muscled green chin. The tip of his weapon slices deep, discharging a blast of electricity, and then Benito carries the blow through in a wide arc that connects with the other hulk dog! It yelps, then growls. Its eyes flick to its fallen mate and it bares its teeth.

Dahlia, meanwhile, casts calm animals at it. The creature starts to settle down, but then Me moves up and it begins snarling again. Otis sighs. “Enough of this!” he cries, and magic missiles the dog. It yipes again and collapses, but its wounds are healing at a prodigious rate. Before it can regain consciousness, Sir Colder swiftly strides over to it and slits its throat.

“Whew!” exclaims Sir Jorgen. “That thing hit me hard!”

“Gamma mutants are very bad news indeed,” agrees Adelle.

The party continues on through the devastated city. They edge around large craters; Adelle and Benito both claim that there is a danger of “radiation” in them.

After they cross through a shattered alley, they emerge on a street choked with rubble, much like the others that they have seen so far in this ruined city. However, there is one noteworthy difference: this street is lined with strange poles that arch over the center of the road, about 15’ above the ground, and the ends of these poles are set with strange bulb-shaped things, most of which give off a strong white light. Some of them seem to have failed, but on the whole, it seems like a well-lit avenue.

“Interesting,” notes Otis. “If only we had more time... Adelle, do you know what these are?”

“Of course.” She sounds surprised, once again, at his ignorance. “They’re just street lights. We have them everywhere.”

Otis shakes his head in a mixture of wonderment and annoyance at her manner.

If only there were a way to take back some of the knowledge of this time! he thinks. “Keep your eyes out for a library or a wizard’s tower,” he snaps to Kyle.

“Yes, master,” Kyle replies. “That’s a very good idea.”

The group travels onward for about half an hour, and then- as if Otis were prescient- they catch sight of a tall building, probably about four storeys high, with a web of cracks running up and down the facade. Smoke trickles out from within it. A sign out front shows a series of books.

“Books!” cries Otis.

“A library!” Kyle chortles.

Jorgen points a short distance away. “A fountain! It’s dry, but I’ll see if I can find some water!” He rushes over to the plaza at which he sees the fountains. Meanwhile, Dahlia- who has been in the form of a hawk for hours now- flies over to an upper window and perches on the ledge. There are books, all right, and a slow, smoldering fire.

“It’s on fire! Ahh, we have to save the books! What if there are magic tomes in there?” Otis is frantic. He rushes forward. The party pushes through. The door leads to a 40’ square foyer, badly damaged, with several corpses sprawled about. Significant cracks are on the floor, and the furnishings- a large counter and desk, several reading tables and many chairs- are severely damaged by fire, water and force. A staircase spirals up to the next floor, and a glance reveals fallen shelves and scattered books above. However, as Otis, Sir Colder and Kyle rush into the foyer, the entire floor collapses! And a few seconds later, while everyone else watches from outside, the rest of the building follows it. Dahlia lifts off from the window sill just in time. Debris rains down, and Otis, Colder and Kyle find themselves falling helplessly through the air. Below them, massive chunks of rubble splash downinto what appears to be fast-flowing brownish sludge. The stink of sewage is atrociously strong, making their stomachs heave. Then they crash into the surface of the sludge, raising a brown spray. Around them in the fast-moving flow, they can see little bits of floating refuse: a leather slipper, a child’s toy... an arm, deprived of its body.

The flow is furiously quick. Otis manages to cast spider climb, and snatches the wall, clinging for dear life. Then, to his horror, he sees a thin, almost transparent strand of something shoot out from a ledge above and hit Kyle!

Suddenly, Kyle is being pulled into the air.

Up above, Jorgen- having given up on the fountain when the house collapsed- quickly ties his rope into a lasso, then whips it in a circle in the air and tries to snag Kyle. Success!! Now Kyle is being drawn in two directions at once! Sheriff Jorgen ties the rope to his saddle horn and backs his horse up, pulling the rope, while the- whatever it is- tries to reel his friend in, presumably for a meal! The hapless Kyle finds himself suspended in the air above the fast-flowing effluvia.

Adelle whips out a scroll and reads it off. A wall of ice springs up, cutting off the outflow, and the surging sewage calms a little. Still, there is a huge amount of brownish sludge pouring into the area. Dahlia quickly lowers the water level, and then Otis tosses another fireball back at the ledge that the creatures trying to reel Kyle in are on. In the light of the flames he can see them: strange things that look like a cross between a spider and a crab, with a long proboscis that shoots the sticky strand. There are several of them, but his fireball roasts all of the little ones. Only the biggest one remains, and not for long. A concentrated assault by the party quickly overwhelms it, and when Me’s sling stone hits it in the eye and finishes it off it is nearly a mercy killing.

The party regroups a few moments later at the top of the pit that was once a library. Otis is glum; there are few books to be found, and he feels that Adelle has wasted a powerful spell on a scroll. “I might never have another chance to learn that spell!” he cries in anguish.

She brushes his complaints aside. “I acted to save my allies,” she responds.

The party has found some coins, as well as a magical bracelet of some kind and ten soiled red magical arrows, on the ledge of the strange sewer fishers. After the party stashes these away for the time being, Sir Jorgen urges them to form up and move on. After all, they aren’t gaining on Sir Harth by standing around.

While they move on, they talk. Kyle talks about doing without high magic in the party’s home time. Sir Colder puts the mack on the village sheriff. Otis mocks him, then encourages the peasants. Adelle asks Dahlia for some healing. Kyle asks about moons. Adelle talks about harnessing moons for power, or even as weapons. The very idea of using a moon as a weapon is appalling and amazing all at once.

Deeper into ruined Litel...

Next Time: Our heroes continue their pursuit of Harth and find- a major clue: a rail line!

 

[Alcar]

Yes

Let me say, this campaign is probobaly the most difficult, and most fun I've had playing a game in a while. Our party was always looking out for one another, we had to, and even though I played the quiet wizard that beacme an ego-maniac, I knew what time it was.
I think most of the party agrees.


I hope we get back to this setting eventually, with or without new characters

 

[the Jester]

Let me say, this campaign is probobaly the most difficult, and most fun I've had playing a game in a while.... I hope we get back to this setting eventually, with or without new characters

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the highest praise I have received in quite a while. Eliciting that response is why I dm.

Thanks, Alcar!! I hope we get back to this setting eventually too!!!

 

[Tony Vargas]

I've been loving this SH from the beginning. I like the low-magic, small-scale feel early on. Now it's D&D meets Gamma World!

 

[the Jester]

Hey Tony, glad you're enjoying it. And I'm glad you get the Gamma World vibe- that's kind of part of what I was going for, only with magic.

Anyway, here's an update.

***

The weird, eyeless flying monster collapses to the ground, defeated. Our heroes check themselves over; no one is badly wounded, though its sonic attack did hurt Benito a little. But with the combined power of our heroes, Sir Porthos, Benito and Adelle- plus the villagers, who are desperate enough to fight some of the time- even a powerful single creature is quickly overwhelmed. “Having these guys along might really help after all,” Goer remarks.

“I think we need to be careful,” Kyle urges. “We don’t want to change time or anything. What if taking these guys to our time prevents them from doing something important back, uh, now?”

Lord Cedric snorts. “Nonthenthe! If we leave them here, they will die.”

“Yes, my lord,” Kyle murmurs, bowing his head.

Adelle watches closely. She is smart, and though she doesn’t speak Kamendan, she clearly is learning a word or two. Kyle feels a moment of guilt, but he just doesn’t want anything terrible to go wrong.

All around the party, the ruins and piles of pulverized rubble are dismal reminders that they are in a war zone. Even if the war is over, this city shows no signs of recovery; in fact, our heroes have yet to see a single living soul. It is a sobering thought.

“Hey, look!” Sir Jorgen points ahead. Strange dark metal tracks are recessed into the ground, running parallel to each other and about 10’ apart from each other. These weird tracks run mostly straight, but curve to enter a nearby ruined, but very distinctive, large building, with wide eaves and many pillars but a ceiling with many gaps in it. In the other direction, the tracks run straight into a massive crater about a hundred feet away, where they have been mangled and twisted.

“Tracks!” exclaims Benito. “Now we just have to follow them.”

“Huh?” asks Jorgen.

“Those are the tracks that the shadow train runs on,” Benito explains.

The ruined building still has a partially intact embarkation platform, with a set of tracks running through it. Rather than having any interior walls, the ceiling is held up by a series of massive pillars. On the opposite side of the platform, the party spies another set of tracks (the route running the opposite direction, according to Adelle). A cursory search turns up a strange map on the wall. Adelle explains that it was a route map- “These are- well, probably were, really- five different transportation routes indicated by color, so the red, orange, yellow, blue and black lines each represent one route. Here, where they all converge near the center of the city, is the main hub. I would bet that that is where Harth went.”

“Then it ith to there that we thall go ath well!” Lord Cedric cries, taking a swig from his bottle of whiskey and mussing the hair of Bates (one of the villagers, a lad of 14 years).

The party continues on. They pass up smoking buildings after their experience with the library. Now and again, they hear movement in the rubble; rats and ghouls seem to be the only survivors of the city- or at least, the only survivors willing to show themselves.

For an hour and more the group walks through the broken capitol. They must step carefully to avoid turning their ankles, or their horses’, and this slows their progress; but they know that they have gained a great deal on Sir Harth and his evil cult. Or is it the beholder and his minions? Who is really in charge there? wonder our heroes. Is Harth the beholder’s lackey, or is the beholder somehow serving Sir Harth? Does it even matter?

Sheriff Jorgen thinks, We must bring Sir Harth to justice.

Suddenly, three figures round the corner ahead and come into view. They are skeletons of metal, gleaming mechanical monsters with long blades coming from the ends of their hands. Immediately, the war machines move towards the party, closing the distance rapidly.

“Oh crap!” cries Sheriff Jorgen, and raises and fires his crossbow. The bolt penetrates the metal creature’s steel skin, sticking into it! Kyle dives for cover, attempting to hide behind the sheriff. Dahlia casts heat metal on all three of them, and they start to smolder. Me pulls his magical mace and rushes to meet the war machines, and Lord Cedric lowers his lance and spurs Thunderpuss forward with a rousing (and drunken) cry.

Battle! The clang of steel on steel as the party and the machines throw themselves into the dance, cutting, crushing, slicing, stabbing. An ear goes flying through the air as one of the war machines slices it from Sir Colder’s head. Otis screams, “Get back!!” as he sees his magic missiles resisted harmlessly by the constructs.

Even Kyle joins the melee, casting magic weapon on his blade. The war machines are fairly tough and fairly hard to hurt with direct magical assaults. The battle is not an easy one. The war machines are quick, deadly accurate and very hard to destroy. But, one by one, our heroes hack them down. The battle is far from one-sided, for most of our heroes suffer at least a wound or two, and Sir Porthos is knocked cold and nearly slain. At the battle’s conclusion, he is stable but unconscious, with a broken jaw.

“Those things are tough!” exclaims Kyle. He shakes his head. “I don’t know if we can take a large group of them, if we encounter one.”

“We may have to,” Benito tells him grimly. “If there are any large units of them left, they are probably near strategic areas- like the Shadow Road Terminal.”

“Well, what we really need to do is rest,” opines Goer. “We’re wounded, and I bet you guys are getting low on spells.” Several of the spellcasters nod.

“Let’s look for a secure place to rest while we travel,” Otis says.

***

On through the ruin, through the smell of death, beneath that tainted maroon sky. Over pulverized buildings, along or through craters, between ragged buildings scorched by fire our heroes walk. The scavenging ghouls, and here and there, rats, are the only inhabitants that the party sees. As they move down the road, they come upon a very sturdy-looking building of strange white material, similar to the walls of the nearly-abandoned village that they found previously. Though damaged by fire and impact, the building is intact.

“What is this stuff?” inquires Otis. “We saw it back around your village, as well.”

“It is called plastic,” Adelle replies. “It has very interesting and useful properties. And there are many types of it.”

“Hmm,” muses Otis. Yet another wonder of the ancients that we have lost. There is so much that we can learn from this journey, if only we can make it home! And if only there were a way to record the secrets of this era and bring them home with us...

The party moves up to the building and enters. It is some kind of armory- but it is not unguarded. Four mechanical hounds, similar to the ones that the party fought in the village, spring forth. To the party’s dismay, Mang Trolak, the half-orc villager, is torn to pieces almost immediately!

“No!” cries Benito. “Mang!”

Otis and Adelle both blast the gear hounds with fireballs, and Kyle follows this up with a magic missile spell. One of the hounds drops! Then the rest of the party rushes forward into melee as best they can- though Sir Fwaigo ends up blocked off. Cursing, he yells at Lord Cedric to get out of the way, but Cedric is busy hacking one of the hounds into pieces. “Two down!” he cries triumphantly.

Meanwhile, Dahlia casts heat metal, followed by call lightning. As her first lightning bolt cracks down and blasts one of the remaining gear hounds to bits, the other one collapses, giving off smoke and a weird burning smell.

Mang Trolak is clearly dead. The party gathers the pieces of her body and everyone heads outside. Benito, Adelle and the other villagers weep for her. Then, they set about digging a grave and planting her body into it while the adventurers keep a wary eye out for trouble. The maroon sky overhead is the color of a young scab. As the only priest present, Lord Cedric says a few words and performs a funeral ceremony; then she is buried .

“Should we go back into that building?” asks Dahlia. “There might be more trouble in there; I saw several doors.”

“It’s a distraction,” Otis declares. “We should keep going.”

“We do need to find a place to rest,” Sir Colder points out.

“We should find a place that’s less likely to have trouble inside of it,” says Kyle.

They keep moving. Past a series of buildings that smell of vinegar, past a hugely burning factory that covers nearly a block. “I thought I saw something moving in the flames,” Sir Jorgen muses.

“Surely,” Otis says eloquently, “it is not something that will help us find Harth.”

They continue their journey. Wounds itch and throb. Porthos moans in his unconscious state. Bates, the lad, stays close to Lord Cedric, who leads from the rear. Benito’s electric ranseur is in his hands. The stink of rotting corpses gets even stronger as they head deeper into the destroyed city.

Suddenly a haggard figure clad in rags stumbles out of a nearby alley.

Everyone’s weapons are drawn in a second, but the old man makes no hostile moves. Instead, crying, he stumbles towards them. “Please,” he cries in Palantian, which some but not all of the party understands. “Have some wine. Have a cup of wine...” He breaks down, sobbing. “I’m sorry!” he cries.

Somewhat dumbfounded, our heroes hesitate- and suddenly a fireball explodes around them, killing both the man and Angora, the village sheriff. “No!!” howls Sheriff Jorgen.

A cloaked figure steps out from an alley. Our heroes gasp as it casts back its cowl. A gleaming white skull is revealed, but in its eyes are large gems. One of them smokes and hisses. The other one-

Next Time: The other eye!

 

[Alcar]

Perfect

Perfect monster for this era of cydra, along with the wolf-in-sheep's-clothing. I appreciated this fight, I should have seen it coming.


BUMP