Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
JollyDoc's Rise of the Runelords...Updated 12/22
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="JollyDoc" data-source="post: 4274815" data-attributes="member: 9546"><p>“So…,” Randall said, his eyes narrowed, “what exactly was that, and what was it doing down here?”</p><p>“That, my friend, was a quasit,” Wesh explained. “As for what she was doing down here, I have no idea, but it seems that Nualia Tobyn has made her acquaintance in the past, and that puts her firmly in the column of Sandpoint’s enemies…or rather, she was in that column. But this…this is what truly sparks my curiosity…”</p><p>He made his way up one of the short stairs to the glowing orange pool.</p><p>“This seems to be the source of her sinspawn, which according to Tsuto’s journal, she was planning on using to assist Nualia’s invasion. If we could somehow shut it down…”</p><p>He stared intently into the pool for several minutes, before standing abruptly and snapping his fingers.</p><p>“Randall!” he called. “Come here. Skud, Adso, you come too.”</p><p>When the three had joined him, he began explaining his hypothesis, pacing back and forth eagerly. </p><p>“Did you see her face when she summoned the sinspawn? She was concerned, and the pool dimmed after her summoning. This means that it can only create more a finite number of times! All we have to do to drain its power is keep summoning sinspawn until its empty!”</p><p>The others looked dubious.</p><p>“So…,” Randall started again, “you want us to stand here and fight some unknown number of those things, right? Oh, and someone has to donate the blood, right?”</p><p>“Yes, yes,” Wesh waved off his sarcasm, “but we won’t summon them all at once, just one at a time. You three strapping youths should have no trouble with just one! If it will make you more comfortable, Dex and I will be ready behind you to provide support.”</p><p>“No, it doesn’t make me more comfortable, but you’re calling the shots,” Randall said morosely. “Alright, here goes nothing.”</p><p>Adso and Skud, standing on opposite sides of the pool, tensed as Randall drew his blade across one palm and let a single drop of blood fall into the churning liquid below. Immediately, the orange broth began to seethe and froth as another sinspawn heaved its way to the surface. Dexter’s bow string twanged, and magic flashed from Wesh’s fingertips. Simultaneously, Randall and Skud’s swords fell, and Adso lashed out with a powerful mule kick. The sinspawn collapsed back into the murk as quickly as it had appeared. Once more, the pool dimmed.</p><p>“Now just a minute!” Luther called from the floor below. “This has gone far enough! I object to you creating life, no matter how repulsive that life may be, just so you can then slaughter it! That is an abomination!”</p><p>Wesh cut his eyes at the priest. </p><p>“Your objection is duly noted, father,” he said coolly, “but do you want to know what I would call an abomination? Letting more of these things loose into the world so that they can then crawl to the surface and kill the townspeople we’ve sworn to protect…people like Alergast Barrett, in case you’ve forgotten.”</p><p>He turned back to Randall and nodded. The big warrior squeezed another drop of blood into the pool, calling forth another sinspawn. This one fared no better than its mate, and as it fell, the glowing pool went dark. Wesh smirked at Luther, but the priest did not look chastened. Instead, Wesh saw defiance in his eyes, and he knew the holy man was going to be trouble down the road.</p><p>____________________________________________</p><p></p><p>There was no way out of the cathedral, and so the group back-tracked to the room where the strange, red statue stood. There was a single door leading out of it. Once more Dexter examined it, pronouncing it safe a moment later. Skud and Randall formed up, and at a nod from the warrior, the half-orc shoved the portal open. The large chamber revealed beyond had obviously once served as a prison, as testified by the nearly two dozen cells that lined its perimeter. A rickety wooden platform overlooked the room, and it was upon this that the door had opened. Two flights of stairs descended to the prison floor, while a narrow wooden walkway ran from the northern edge of the platform to a passageway to the east. As Randall and Skud stepped onto the platform, they saw to their right, at the bottom of one of the stairs, a group of four sinspawn bickering among themselves over a yellowed skull. As one, they turned their heads to look at the intruders, dropping the skull to the floor, forgotten. Their lower jaws split as they hissed in unison and started up the stairs…</p><p></p><p>The battle was short and brutal. Randall, Skud and Adso quickly formed a wall between the slavering horrors and their comrades, but the sinspawn were wily. Two of them occupied the three warriors, while the other two moved to the other set of stairs. Wesh and Dex loosed a barrage of arrows, and small acid balls, but the brutes reached the platform despite their best efforts. At that point, the melee became a bloody hand-to-hand exchange, but despite several vicious wounds suffered by the companions, the sinspawn were beaten back and destroyed, one-by-one. Luther immediately set about tending the various slashes and bites, going about his work in stoic silence. The violence sickened him, though he knew it was probably unavoidable. Not for the last time, he wondered if he should have accepted Adso’s offer to return to Windsong.</p><p>_____________________________________________</p><p></p><p>Following the passage from the prison, the seven friends passed through what seemed to have been an ancient interrogation chamber, full of bizarre torture devices whose functions could only be guessed at, as well as the ruined remains of a study of some sort. This latter room, strangely enough, also contained three cell-like rooms leading off of it. Each of these contained skeletal remains of horribly deformed humanoids. One had three arms, while another had an enormous misshapen skull, and the third had a ribcage the extended all the way down to its pelvis…a pelvis with stunted leg bones strewn below its strangely flat girth. Another passage led from the study and ascended a long flight of stairs. At the top, it opened onto a strangely cold chamber, its ceiling arching to a vaulted height of twenty feet. The floor contained eleven wooden lids strewn haphazardly over eleven small pits in the ground. From the darkness within them echoed up strange shuffling sounds and, every so often, a low moan. Standing in the midst of the pit covers was what appeared to be a horribly mutated goblin. It was big, easily the size of Skud, and its flesh hung off of it in loose rolls. It bore a gleaming sword in one hand, and a bloody handaxe in the other. In addition, and much more disturbing, there was a silver dagger clutched in the hand of a third arm that sprouted from the creature’s neck. Its face looked like melted wax, and its eyes were white and pupiless. Strange runes and sigils covered its exposed skin. </p><p></p><p>“Mistress says Koruvus to kill all he sees,” the goblin-creature said in a gurgling voice, “and Koruvus sees you.”</p><p>“Koruvus?” Wesh said. “Haven’t we heard that name before?”</p><p>“Yes,” Rico answered. “Shalelu would have mentioned him. He was a champion of the Seven Tooth tribe, but he vanished several months ago. I guess we know now what happened to him.”</p><p>“I’m not as concerned with what happened to him,” Randall growled, “as I am with what’s going to happen to him. Here he comes!”</p><p>Koruvus leaped nimbly over the covered pits and closed the distance to the stairwell rapidly. Just before he reached it, however, he paused, drew in a deep breath, and spewed out a vile stream of foul-smelling blood. It sprayed across Skud, Randall and Adso, and where it touched bare flesh, it burned like acid. Dex managed to roll nimbly aside, but as he came to his feet behind the goblin, Koruvus slashed at the archer with the glowing longsword. Dex screamed as the blade cut deep into his arm, like a hot knife through butter. He fumbled for his bow as the brute advanced on him, but his arm was numb, and he couldn’t grip the string. Ultimately, he desperately raised the bow over his head to ward off what he was sure would be his death blow, but then a barrage of flashing energy bolts pelted the side of Koruvus’s head. Grunting, the goblin turned towards the source of the new attack, only to see Randall charging straight at him. Koruvus raised all three weapons, accidentally nicking himself in the eye with his dagger as it came up, but Randall’s sword dropped like a felled tree, cleaving through the goblin’s head, and almost all the way to his neck. Koruvus dropped heavily to his knees, then toppled sideways onto one of the wooden lids, which promptly gave way to his weight, dropping him into the pit below. A moment later, wet, nasty gobbling sounds could be heard echoing up from the darkness. Luther stepped forward to peer into the abattoir, and covered his mouth, sickened. A desiccated, shambling corpse knelt over Koruvus’s body, gorging itself. When the priest kicked aside the other lids, he saw that each pit held another mindless zombie. He walked slowly to stand in the middle of all the pits, then raised his amulet above his head and closed his eyes.</p><p>“I release you,” he called, “so that you may find eternal peace in the hereafter.”</p><p>His medallion glowed with the light of a small sun, illuminating the darkness within each pit like daylight. As each zombie looked towards the light, they were instantly burned to ash.</p><p>________________________________________________</p><p></p><p>They found only one last room beyond Koruvus’s lair, a strange chamber that consisted of a fifteen-foot diameter sphere. Several objects floated in the room, spinning lazily in space…a ragged book, a scroll, a bottle of wine, a dead raven surrounded by a halo of floating and writhing maggots, and a twisted iron wand with a forked tip. Perhaps the most unnerving aspect of the chamber, however, were the walls, for they were plated in sheets of strange red metal that rippled every once in a while with silent black electricity that seemed to coalesce into strange runes or even words far too often for the effect to be chance. Wesh stood at the door and extended his hand, bowing his head in concentration. Suddenly, a disembodied, transparent hand rose from his own and floated into the room, where it grabbed the book and returned to its master. Wesh quickly flipped through the pages, and then closed it, shaking his head.</p><p>“I can’t make any sense of it,” he said. “I don’t recognize the language.” </p><p>“May I?” Luther asked, and Wesh passed the book to him.</p><p>“Just as I thought,” the priest said. “It’s Thassilonian, as are the runes on the walls.”</p><p>“Thassilonian?” Wesh asked. “As in ancient Thassilon?”</p><p>“Yes,” Luther replied. “It’s a dead language, but we were required to learn it as acolytes. Many of the high masses are still performed using it.”</p><p>“What does it say?” Adso asked.</p><p>“The words on the wall make no sense. Most of them have something to do with anger, wrath…a need for revenge. Nothing coherent, though. As for this,” he held up the book, “it’s a prayer book. A prayer book for Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters…”</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="JollyDoc, post: 4274815, member: 9546"] “So…,” Randall said, his eyes narrowed, “what exactly was that, and what was it doing down here?” “That, my friend, was a quasit,” Wesh explained. “As for what she was doing down here, I have no idea, but it seems that Nualia Tobyn has made her acquaintance in the past, and that puts her firmly in the column of Sandpoint’s enemies…or rather, she was in that column. But this…this is what truly sparks my curiosity…” He made his way up one of the short stairs to the glowing orange pool. “This seems to be the source of her sinspawn, which according to Tsuto’s journal, she was planning on using to assist Nualia’s invasion. If we could somehow shut it down…” He stared intently into the pool for several minutes, before standing abruptly and snapping his fingers. “Randall!” he called. “Come here. Skud, Adso, you come too.” When the three had joined him, he began explaining his hypothesis, pacing back and forth eagerly. “Did you see her face when she summoned the sinspawn? She was concerned, and the pool dimmed after her summoning. This means that it can only create more a finite number of times! All we have to do to drain its power is keep summoning sinspawn until its empty!” The others looked dubious. “So…,” Randall started again, “you want us to stand here and fight some unknown number of those things, right? Oh, and someone has to donate the blood, right?” “Yes, yes,” Wesh waved off his sarcasm, “but we won’t summon them all at once, just one at a time. You three strapping youths should have no trouble with just one! If it will make you more comfortable, Dex and I will be ready behind you to provide support.” “No, it doesn’t make me more comfortable, but you’re calling the shots,” Randall said morosely. “Alright, here goes nothing.” Adso and Skud, standing on opposite sides of the pool, tensed as Randall drew his blade across one palm and let a single drop of blood fall into the churning liquid below. Immediately, the orange broth began to seethe and froth as another sinspawn heaved its way to the surface. Dexter’s bow string twanged, and magic flashed from Wesh’s fingertips. Simultaneously, Randall and Skud’s swords fell, and Adso lashed out with a powerful mule kick. The sinspawn collapsed back into the murk as quickly as it had appeared. Once more, the pool dimmed. “Now just a minute!” Luther called from the floor below. “This has gone far enough! I object to you creating life, no matter how repulsive that life may be, just so you can then slaughter it! That is an abomination!” Wesh cut his eyes at the priest. “Your objection is duly noted, father,” he said coolly, “but do you want to know what I would call an abomination? Letting more of these things loose into the world so that they can then crawl to the surface and kill the townspeople we’ve sworn to protect…people like Alergast Barrett, in case you’ve forgotten.” He turned back to Randall and nodded. The big warrior squeezed another drop of blood into the pool, calling forth another sinspawn. This one fared no better than its mate, and as it fell, the glowing pool went dark. Wesh smirked at Luther, but the priest did not look chastened. Instead, Wesh saw defiance in his eyes, and he knew the holy man was going to be trouble down the road. ____________________________________________ There was no way out of the cathedral, and so the group back-tracked to the room where the strange, red statue stood. There was a single door leading out of it. Once more Dexter examined it, pronouncing it safe a moment later. Skud and Randall formed up, and at a nod from the warrior, the half-orc shoved the portal open. The large chamber revealed beyond had obviously once served as a prison, as testified by the nearly two dozen cells that lined its perimeter. A rickety wooden platform overlooked the room, and it was upon this that the door had opened. Two flights of stairs descended to the prison floor, while a narrow wooden walkway ran from the northern edge of the platform to a passageway to the east. As Randall and Skud stepped onto the platform, they saw to their right, at the bottom of one of the stairs, a group of four sinspawn bickering among themselves over a yellowed skull. As one, they turned their heads to look at the intruders, dropping the skull to the floor, forgotten. Their lower jaws split as they hissed in unison and started up the stairs… The battle was short and brutal. Randall, Skud and Adso quickly formed a wall between the slavering horrors and their comrades, but the sinspawn were wily. Two of them occupied the three warriors, while the other two moved to the other set of stairs. Wesh and Dex loosed a barrage of arrows, and small acid balls, but the brutes reached the platform despite their best efforts. At that point, the melee became a bloody hand-to-hand exchange, but despite several vicious wounds suffered by the companions, the sinspawn were beaten back and destroyed, one-by-one. Luther immediately set about tending the various slashes and bites, going about his work in stoic silence. The violence sickened him, though he knew it was probably unavoidable. Not for the last time, he wondered if he should have accepted Adso’s offer to return to Windsong. _____________________________________________ Following the passage from the prison, the seven friends passed through what seemed to have been an ancient interrogation chamber, full of bizarre torture devices whose functions could only be guessed at, as well as the ruined remains of a study of some sort. This latter room, strangely enough, also contained three cell-like rooms leading off of it. Each of these contained skeletal remains of horribly deformed humanoids. One had three arms, while another had an enormous misshapen skull, and the third had a ribcage the extended all the way down to its pelvis…a pelvis with stunted leg bones strewn below its strangely flat girth. Another passage led from the study and ascended a long flight of stairs. At the top, it opened onto a strangely cold chamber, its ceiling arching to a vaulted height of twenty feet. The floor contained eleven wooden lids strewn haphazardly over eleven small pits in the ground. From the darkness within them echoed up strange shuffling sounds and, every so often, a low moan. Standing in the midst of the pit covers was what appeared to be a horribly mutated goblin. It was big, easily the size of Skud, and its flesh hung off of it in loose rolls. It bore a gleaming sword in one hand, and a bloody handaxe in the other. In addition, and much more disturbing, there was a silver dagger clutched in the hand of a third arm that sprouted from the creature’s neck. Its face looked like melted wax, and its eyes were white and pupiless. Strange runes and sigils covered its exposed skin. “Mistress says Koruvus to kill all he sees,” the goblin-creature said in a gurgling voice, “and Koruvus sees you.” “Koruvus?” Wesh said. “Haven’t we heard that name before?” “Yes,” Rico answered. “Shalelu would have mentioned him. He was a champion of the Seven Tooth tribe, but he vanished several months ago. I guess we know now what happened to him.” “I’m not as concerned with what happened to him,” Randall growled, “as I am with what’s going to happen to him. Here he comes!” Koruvus leaped nimbly over the covered pits and closed the distance to the stairwell rapidly. Just before he reached it, however, he paused, drew in a deep breath, and spewed out a vile stream of foul-smelling blood. It sprayed across Skud, Randall and Adso, and where it touched bare flesh, it burned like acid. Dex managed to roll nimbly aside, but as he came to his feet behind the goblin, Koruvus slashed at the archer with the glowing longsword. Dex screamed as the blade cut deep into his arm, like a hot knife through butter. He fumbled for his bow as the brute advanced on him, but his arm was numb, and he couldn’t grip the string. Ultimately, he desperately raised the bow over his head to ward off what he was sure would be his death blow, but then a barrage of flashing energy bolts pelted the side of Koruvus’s head. Grunting, the goblin turned towards the source of the new attack, only to see Randall charging straight at him. Koruvus raised all three weapons, accidentally nicking himself in the eye with his dagger as it came up, but Randall’s sword dropped like a felled tree, cleaving through the goblin’s head, and almost all the way to his neck. Koruvus dropped heavily to his knees, then toppled sideways onto one of the wooden lids, which promptly gave way to his weight, dropping him into the pit below. A moment later, wet, nasty gobbling sounds could be heard echoing up from the darkness. Luther stepped forward to peer into the abattoir, and covered his mouth, sickened. A desiccated, shambling corpse knelt over Koruvus’s body, gorging itself. When the priest kicked aside the other lids, he saw that each pit held another mindless zombie. He walked slowly to stand in the middle of all the pits, then raised his amulet above his head and closed his eyes. “I release you,” he called, “so that you may find eternal peace in the hereafter.” His medallion glowed with the light of a small sun, illuminating the darkness within each pit like daylight. As each zombie looked towards the light, they were instantly burned to ash. ________________________________________________ They found only one last room beyond Koruvus’s lair, a strange chamber that consisted of a fifteen-foot diameter sphere. Several objects floated in the room, spinning lazily in space…a ragged book, a scroll, a bottle of wine, a dead raven surrounded by a halo of floating and writhing maggots, and a twisted iron wand with a forked tip. Perhaps the most unnerving aspect of the chamber, however, were the walls, for they were plated in sheets of strange red metal that rippled every once in a while with silent black electricity that seemed to coalesce into strange runes or even words far too often for the effect to be chance. Wesh stood at the door and extended his hand, bowing his head in concentration. Suddenly, a disembodied, transparent hand rose from his own and floated into the room, where it grabbed the book and returned to its master. Wesh quickly flipped through the pages, and then closed it, shaking his head. “I can’t make any sense of it,” he said. “I don’t recognize the language.” “May I?” Luther asked, and Wesh passed the book to him. “Just as I thought,” the priest said. “It’s Thassilonian, as are the runes on the walls.” “Thassilonian?” Wesh asked. “As in ancient Thassilon?” “Yes,” Luther replied. “It’s a dead language, but we were required to learn it as acolytes. Many of the high masses are still performed using it.” “What does it say?” Adso asked. “The words on the wall make no sense. Most of them have something to do with anger, wrath…a need for revenge. Nothing coherent, though. As for this,” he held up the book, “it’s a prayer book. A prayer book for Lamashtu, Mother of Monsters…” [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
Playing the Game
Story Hour
JollyDoc's Rise of the Runelords...Updated 12/22
Top