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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TerraDave" data-source="post: 5750802" data-attributes="member: 22260">As before, you have spent weeks at Watercross College. Your base is the old house of both Nar-Heru and Bart, Melkar House. Again, y ou all enjoy time spent not getting stabbed, burned, poisoned, forcefully teleported, or falling, starving, freezing or having your soul sucked out. Or being grabbed by highly dangerous vines and life draining undead. Or smashed by a giant. Long term injuries, pushed over with incredible levels of adrenaline (or “will power”), slowly heal, new power and techniques are researched, practiced, and even advance, and great quantities of ale, wine, rare brandies, and various pipe weeds (depending…) are all consumed.<img src="http://www.caerleon.net/archive/paintings/maybery/etchings/php/images/tcambridge.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The gems acquired are sold, and of great value. In what may have some drunken confusion on the part of mostly Forge, they are distributed in a such a way as to allow Nar and Ghen to replenish at least some of their components. Oh, and Lucian, you seemed to somehow have less coin then the others—maybe spread to much around with the gray beards trying to find a path or a mark, but your side activities make up for it.(OK, write this down!: This replaces whatever coins and gems you have! You each have 100 pp, 1000 gp, 100 sp, 10 100 gp gems (pearls) and 1 1000 gp gem (small emerald). Nar and Ghen you each have 1000 gp in components (arcane for nar, healing/nature/religion for Ghen). Note that you may want Ghen to have more components…) You still have to collect your reward, though you venture to Northall a few times. Mr. Woolseye, the Halfling that works with Mr. Felix for the Brandt’s, keeps saying things about “due time” and “confirmation”. Large burly types are now stationed in his office. Not that you fear them, but apparently there could be legal ramifications from a mortal brawl.<img src="http://www.skyscrapernews.com/images/pics/4629CentralCriminalCourt_pic1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Buckthorn: Looks like you will have time to return to your home village. Also, there is this hide armor from the firbolg. Now that the wizard has magically cleaned it off, it has lovely embroidery in a beguiling pattern…but of course, if the healer needs it. Forge: You manage to correspond with the ol’ clan, letting them know of your mighty deeds! And receive a somewhat surprising response. Ghen: Of everyone, you, and they actually, may most appreciate the boost from the Faery Dust to your healers brooch. There is also this hide armor from the firbolg. Now that the wizard has magically cleaned it off, it has lovely embroidery in a beguiling pattern… of course, buckthorn could use it... You confirm that you can get potions in Watercross or Northall (but will you actually have the will to do so) and look for a rare herbal reagent in both. Also, there is issue of rituals, and the lack of a certain scroll…Lucian: You do well enough from backroom cards with the student crowd, at least enough to catch up with the dwarf in terms of money (where did he get all that?) and subtly pursue your interests (not just buy drinks for Nar, though he does have expensive tastes). And there is plenty of strange kit floating about, but that tends be big jinx type stuff, though as you think about it, you have a few big jinx items of your own, now. On that other item: (The book taken by Bart from where Orcus Scion Kalarel was using it to rip open a shadow rift with dire consequences…earlier owned by someone named Simon Amber…and a source of some of Nars more distinct powers and rituals) You also chat a bit with Douvan and others and well, you know that Nar has learned some things, and you also know you can or already do know them  (right behind that spoiler button…)Nar: you are pulled back into the tome and the lore that it seems to feed to you. When you step back you are not really sure what it adds up to. If you wrote down musings gleaned from the book, including odd notes from Simon Amber but also the dark teachings of the tome itself, and other notes that you may guess the origin of, and you pull together…(you absolutely do not notice Lucian’s interest or even telling him these things, though his friendship is always welcome, of course). [sblock=stuff of book]1.    In Old Deamorria none paralleled  the city Moil for the erudition of its scholars or its wealth of lore. Then it fell under the sway of necromancers and the shadow Aether swallowed the city, forever cursed. 2.    Most modrons will not accept a bribe. 3.    The firmament that separates the mortal worlds from the immortal ones is not a wall or sphere, but a lattice with many strange twists and distortions.4.    From deep in the Cosmos a great source of darkness and necrotic power has emerged, touching many worlds. In coming years, no land will be immune. 5.    Some mortal worlds are more isolated by the firmament then others.6.    With the breath of the dread god Zorrath did He imbue Orcus and Vecna with immortality and the incarnates of undeath and dark lore did they become.  7.    Vecna once walked Thraeya, to the great cities of Karnakos , strange temples of and tombs of Khembia, dark holds of Kazduaen, of course, ruins of once great Deamorria.8.    Vecna is said to disguise himself as a beggar to walk among others both amassing and dispensing dark lore. 9.    These followers of Orcus and Vecna, those that dare whisper the name of Zorrath, how many such death cultist may there be?10.    In Moil they were said to summon forth the great Codex, that which could only be born on the back of mighty beasts and none could read and maintain a grasp of their immediate reality; and from this Codex did they take much dark lore before others took the Codex in turn. 11.    In Moil they were said to travel to a throne carved for the gods. They held dark rites there. 12.    Ours may not be the only mortal world. This is practically a fact among the learned. Ours may not be the only Cosmos. This is heresy. 13.    The power of a god must both be given and taken.14.    The thesis there are angels, not fallen angels that are devils, but just angels, that are evil, is untrue, or at least exaggerated. 15.    Where the darkest remnants of Kron and the Beast arose the Abyss, from the nether regions of Chaos. But is this the true realm of slaads?   16.    A mortal world barely connected to and unknown to ours saw great and horrible death that still reverberates. 17.    The diseases of ghouls, vampires, and mummies are “natural” manifestations  of their nature, a bit of the shadow Aether brought into the living. 18.    The first demons were said to come from the dead body of Kron like maggots from rotting meat. But what of what was spawned from the offal of the Beast slain by Kron and Yavara?19.    Negotiations with a Slaad are unlikely to be fruitful. 20.    Height, length, width, even time may not be limit of dimensionality. Strange tales tale of the tesseract, a “cube” that extends into one of these other dimensions. 21.    Nothing would be better then delivering the Hive directly into Lolths lair. 22.    …and this creature became the lich Acererak. Over the scores of years which followed, the lich dwelled with hordes of ghastly servants in the gloomy stone halls of the very hill where the Tomb is. Eventually even the undead life force of Acererak began to wane, so for the next 8 decades, the lich’s servants labored to create the Tomb of Horrors. Then Acererak destroyed all of his slaves and servitors, magically hid the entrance to his halls, and went to his final haunt…23.    Whence this so called Sigil? The deep lore makes no mention of it. It is not the making of Ordos, or Chaos, or angel or fiend. Yet they say it is there. Even if it always was not. 24.    Tiefling racial appearance may be much wider ranging then most Thraeyans imagine. 25.    The Aether, strange and fragmented as any part of the Cosmos, courses with eldritch energies. The elements called on by arcane formula, the dark shadows that lead souls ever deeper to the beyond and the warping touch of true gods and risen incarnates.   26.    The Aether, its domains of dread and feywilds entice, its mists dazzle and daze. It leads to all lands, but its paths may never end. The depths that can be plunged, greater than anything under Kazduaen.  27.    No avatar of good could bring back the mercy chalice. It took a Queen of Thieves. 28.    Mortal worlds may range as widely as any distant Astral realm. 29.    The dark Aether may bring one to the level of the Styx, and the layer of Pluton. This is obvious. 30.    To satisfy the dread god, is it merely a question of spreading the shadow and its influence?31.    It is well known that Gith made dark bargains to free her people from the Illithid and lead them to Astral Realms. As it is well known that these races battle still. 32.    The mistress of the Githyanki, greater then Vecna? 33.    The Cant is an atrocity. As to be expected. 34.    The need for the sacrifice of sentient humanoids is undisputed. But one should not underestimate the appeal of eating them, especially for greater hags and slaads.35.    This book seems to want things. 36.    Cosmic rifts, also heresy?37.    Some dwarves are said to make smoke powder, and alchemist other things, but the idea that great weapons as powerful as any magic seems both ludicrous and compelling. 38.    The Amber family is largely deranged. 39.    The portals between planes may be slowly vanishing. Or at least faster than they can be made. 40.    No on associated with Melkar house can be trusted.41.    Some ancient liches maintain their form, others seem to revert to pure dust. The demi-lich is a deadly hybrid, a minimal physical presence while its soul roamed strange planes and worlds unknown to even the wisest of sages.42.    If one could map the dark places of the Aether…a tracing from which undying power would be unlimited. But to create a rift. That would also be interesting. [/sblock]</blockquote>

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