Seas of Fire

[Rune]

Hello, folk.

What follows is a tale from the viewpoint of a character I play in rootbeergnome's campaign. Any similarities that this setting has with The Sunderer's Sundered Sky setting are probably not coincidental. I hope any and all of you reading this will feel free to comment; your feedback would be most welcome.

So sit back, relax, and read on. It'll be a pretty good tale.

 

[Rune]

Nine hundred and ten years ago, the gates to the Elemental Empire were sealed. In the sealing was the sundering of our world. Now we live on the broken pillars that climb to the sky far above an endless sea of fire.

There is transportation in the form of airships, but the Guild holds an unbreakable monopoly. No one else knows how to make the ships. As the gnomes have control of the guild, this puts the little buggers in control of most trade—and the military fleets. As a consequence, they have what amounts to an empire. Locally, the gnomes have recently instituted a human council, but, of course, the Guild ambassadors hold great sway over the decisions of this ruling body.

And, of course, there is resistance to the stranglehold. That’s where we come in. And this is how our tale begins:

Session 1, part 1

You can call me Roderick. I’ve got a cozy sod hut just south of town and a small garden. My gardener, a little half-toad fellow I call "Toady" is a fine reliable fellow—when he hasn’t been stealing my rum. He does good work, though. Today is the festival marking the beginning of the wet season, a big deal around here. You see, water’s a scarce thing on the pillars and we’re damned lucky to have a small lake here. Some of the lower pillars are too hot to keep any kind of moisture at all and some of the higher ones have it all locked away in glaciers. We’re lucky.

This is our town. It’s called Lakeview, because it’s built around the lake. This is the only city of any consequence on this pillar, because there’s no other good place for one. It’s surrounded by savannas and ringed by badlands. There are three small rivers, little more than streams, really, that flow into the lake in the center of our city. The badlands are rough. At the base of the badlands, we have swamps, where the savage lizard tribes live. There are some rock quarries out there, too, though, and stone gets shipped down the rivers with salt into our town, where we export them to the rest of the world. Or, rather, the Guild does. It’s a big industry, but it’s not our biggest. To tell you the truth, fish and grains are a much bigger commodity, because there are a lot of places out there that don’t have enough standing water to fish and can’t grow their own food, either. We’re lucky. We have resources for the Guild to exploit.

Today, I’ve been waiting in "The Dancing Boar" for hours, listening to the rumors of the patrons as the day slips away. I’ve a friend arriving from a different pillar today. I won’t say which one, as he’s in a bit of hot water, but I believe he’s got someone with him. It seems his entire ring is being hunted down and they need to lay low for a while.

It’s mid-afternoon when they show up. He has a whole crowd with him. Only one of them came with him on the air ship—a woman half-elf; I don’t know where he found the rest of them. I hope they can stay out of the way. They make an unusual assortment; There’s a robed fellow with the look of a starry-eyed young wizard’s apprentice. There’s a very tall four-armed fellow with an assortment of musical instruments. And there’s even a halfling with some sort of rat-like creature. I sure hope they don’t get in the way.

My friend’s called Jared. His companion is called Maialin. The wizard-kid’s called Dexerion—as presumptuous a name as I’ve ever heard, just in case I had my doubts about his intended profession. The four-armed fop is called Virian. That leaves the halfling—he’s called (believe it or not!) Fruffy Firefoot! I’ll be calling him "Fruff," or "kid."

I try to strike up conversation with Jared in the old Cant, but he’s just gotten here and he’s not ready to get down to business just yet. I understand. The rest of them are settling in and ordering far too much to drink. Virian stands up, takes off his cloak and hat, pulls out a lute and a harp, and starts singing a song while the halfling does a funny little jig in his funny little wooden shoes. This is the song:

Have you ever tasted the Ale of Gods
I once had a cup at the Salty Dog
I had a cup at the Dancing Boar

The taste has escaped from my lips
As I tasted the sales of the fastest ships

I arrived at the tavern as I had before
And found that ale to be no more…

The four-armed fop is pretty good, if a little flat. The crowd doesn’t like the halfling very much, however; they’re throwing vegetable matter at him, which his rat-thing doesn’t mind at all. Poor kid.

 

[Rune]

Session 1, part 2

I get to talking with my old friend and I tell him about tonight’s parade. All the council’s supposed to be there and it’d probably be a good idea if we were, too. But he wants to go somewhere fancy to eat, first. I know a very high-classed restaurant downtown, so we take off (all of us, to my chagrin). He makes a bet with Virian (the only taker) that he can get a meal without paying. The rest of us decide to wait outside while Jared and Virian go in to see how good he really is. It turns out he’s not the greatest, but he’s okay. The dwarf that greets them doesn’t appear (from our vantage point outside of the window) to be overly impressed with Jared’s attempts to convince him that he represents the interests of a duke and would like to sample the fare. In the end, the dwarf goes to speak to a manager and comes back. It looks like he’s getting a free meal. The rest of us come in. The dwarf tells Fruff that the rat will have to stay outside, so the halfling goes out and sets up a table in the alley next to the window and imitates the diners on the inside. Cute kid.

I order some meal (that I can barely afford. Virian’s a good guy; he covers me with the money he made playing in the Dancing Boar.) and take it outside. I share it with the halfling. It’s almost dusk, so I take the kid and head toward the street. It’ll be good to catch the beginning of the parade. That halfling and his creature are a handful! I can barely keep him reigned in. We see a platform that the high councilor will be on and I chat with the bearers of it for a little bit. But where has that hafling gotten off to?

The rest of Jared’s group shows up and I mention that I heard there are ghosts attacking farms and caravans to the south of the city and that tomorrow morning I’m heading down there to check it out. Now, neither Jared, nor I, believe in ghosts, but we have our ideas about what’s up and we discuss it a little in Cant. We’re on the same page, I think. We definitely want to check this out and see what’s really going on.

At some point in the evening, Maialin tries to pick someone's pocket and gets chased by an angry guard, so I grab her and hide here in the crowd of people, while Virian "accidentally" knocks over a keg of ale to slow down the pursuit. She'll have to be more careful in this town.

The parade draws to a close and I take Jared, Maialin, and the very inebriated halfling to my little home. Toady has made us a nice stew (with the rest of my rum, if my nose is any good) and I give him a raise on the spot—just enough to cover the rum he’s gone through. I tell him to keep an eye on the halfling, who, as near as I can tell, is blessing my garden while the rat-thing is trying to eat it. He’s sleeping outside tonight.

Now, finally, we can get to business. Jared, Maialin, and I discuss our suspicions about the disturbances to the south. We’re pretty sure that there’s more wrong than just destroyed farms and trade goods and have a good idea what. We also have a pretty good hunch who’s behind it all, but what we can’t settle on is why.

Just then, Toady comes in and tells me that Fruff has gone off to the neighbors because he saw some light on the road. "Oh, s**t!" I exclaim and run out after him, grabbing the lantern on my way. Jared runs with me. We catch up to the kid at the edge of my cornfields quivering and wailing in fear. I finally manage to calm him, when he starts up again, pointing behind me. I turn around and see that he’s just scared of my scarecrow!

It takes me a few seconds to remember that I don’t have any scarecrows.

 

[rootbeergnome]

Well, I thought the first session went well, the players were absolutely great! The player of Virian actually wrote the song and began singing it to us! I was very impressed, everyone roleplayed very well, the players of Jared and Roderick(Rune) talked in thieves' cant as well. I think my players were ready to sink their teeth into some battle and action, but this session was fairly calm, I felt like the players needed to get to know each other a little before I started being a Rat-Bastard like Rune, so there were no EL 12 encounters this session.

Oh and I should explain something about Virian having four-arms. I picked up the book "Mythic Races" from Fantasy Flight Games, and I really enjoyed some of the races, and I wanted this campaign to have a kind of "different" feel, so I have included them in the campaign world. Virian is a "Siarran", very tall (6-7 feet), four-armed humanoids with dark skin and light hair. They essentially have 3 "off-hands" and their lower set of arms is weaker than their primary set. They have large slanted eyes and angular faces. They enjoy music and all art forms and they are generally slow to anger. Virian comes from a far away pillar, as Siarrans are not common in the area around Lake View. Also, the NPC "Toady", Roderick's payed servant and gardener, is from the same book. He is a "Rhoode" they are a squat frog like people and are often found in positions of servitude. There are other races I liked too, but I'll explain about them as the party encounters them.
I should also say, I love the Sundered Skies setting, although Rune and I created the Seas of Fire campaign setting before I started reading it, but it certainly is full of inspiration, you should definitely check it out if you havent already.

Oh, I guess I should tell a bit more about the characters as well. Jared is a human rogue, on the run from a murder that his ring(thieves guild) is being blamed for, his leader is presumed captured or dead. Virian is a traveling Siarran Bard, with a knack for writing songs on the spot. Maialin is a Half-Elven Rogue who is a childhood friend of Jared's and is also a member of Jared's (former) thieves ring. She was nearly grabbed by some guards this session when she tried to pick a noble-man's pocket (and rolled a 1!!), but luckily Virian "accidentally" knocked over a keg of ale into the guards' path, slowing their pursuit while Roderick helped her hide! Dexerion is a traveling companion of Virian, he is a Human Wizard, trying to learn all he can about the arcane ways through travel and study. Roderick is a Human Rogue who lives just outside of Lake View and knows the city well, having many contacts within it. And Fruffy is a druid (who is afraid of the dark), the "Rat" that Roderick is refering to is his Wallaby animal companion.

When Jared and Roderick caught up to Fruffy in the corn fields, I passed a note to Fruffy's player that said "You see a dark, tall, menacing humanoid sillhouette standing silently behind Jared and Roderick" It was great to see the halfling's player point and gasp and twitch as he stammered "Be-be-hind you!"
It was great to end the session at that moment, everyone was like "What? We can't stop here!" Ah, they are a battle-hungry bunch that is for certain!

We will play again a week from today, on Tuesday night and the post will come shortly thereafter. Ah...it certainly feels good to get behind the screen again *stretch*

 

[drunkadelic]

Booyah!

Howdy. I play Jared in this here campaign. I'll probably drop in from time to time just to bust Rune and R.B. Gnome's balls a little bit. But as for today, no such happenings. I would like to point out a few things.

1) Thanks to the movie Snatch, I established that Theives Cant will be spoken as Pikey. (Doyelikedags?) This brought not only amusement to the non-rogues, but a grimace of pain across Rune's face as he doesn't like picking up accents in the game. (It'sfermemaandshewantsitperiwinkleblue).

2) Also, I've got plans sometime to get Roderick's servant "Toady" to enter a no-holds barred drunken grudge match against our very own Fruffy Firefoot.

3) Don't ever try to Bluff a dwarf about free food. If it wasn't for taking the persuasive feat, I'd have been thrown out on me arse at the gnomish restaurant.


So there.

Anthony

 

[Rune]

1) Thanks to the movie Snatch, I established that Theives Cant will be spoken as Pikey. (Doyelikedags?) This brought not only amusement to the non-rogues, but a grimace of pain across Rune's face as he doesn't like picking up accents in the game. (It'sfermemaandshewantsitperiwinkleblue).

Well, not that accent anyway!

2) Also, I've got plans sometime to get Roderick's servant "Toady" to enter a no-holds barred drunken grudge match against our very own Fruffy Firefoot.

My money's on the toad!

3) Don't ever try to Bluff a dwarf about free food. If it wasn't for taking the persuasive feat, I'd have been thrown out on me arse at the gnomish restaurant.

Especially not when rootbeergnome's running the dwarf! He really likes dwarves.

Anyway, good to see you on the boards, drunkadelic! Welcome to your new home!

 

[Dawn]

Sounds like quite a cast of PCs.

Let's see some more!

 

[rathor]

arseum

I really liked the story rune. I am the human wizard in the campain. i wasn't mentioned much in the story cause i didn't stick around to make friends with fruffy's new crew. i took off looking for some of the more prestigous wizards that are suppose to be in lake view to see the festival.

here is my journal entry for the day
I arrived in lakeview fairly early in the afternoon. it was nice to be back. Viriann and I were here about this time last year for the same festivle. He wanted to return. He made great money last year performing at the Dancing Boar Tavern. I enjoy watching him work his magic with his songs.
When we got to the boar we ran into Fruffy Firefoot agian. He is a hafling that has a knack for dancing to Virann's music. Tis a shame he has to be here agian. I say if it wasn't for his dancing today Virann would have done much better on tips. Though he never does bad, but i would be happier without that little guy and his rat around. Virann seems to like him regardless of his dance. Fruffy had some friends with him. I was perticulary fond of a Half-Elven lady that was with him. She was quite drunk when i met her, but that made her all the more so attractive. If her good looks wouldn't have got the best of me i probally would have turned her into a toad for trying to steal sips of my mead.
I was just picking up a conversation with her and working on my second tankard of mead when Virann had to rip me away to an expensive resturant for dinner. I won't complain though. They had very fine mead and the half-elf came along. I thought i had done a great job with the pick up lines until i noticed that she wasn't following me and was actually with Fruffy. Prehaps I will get to liking that annoying little guy after all.
I went to the parade Rodrick, a lake view native, told me about to meet some of the local and traveling wizards that would be there. I found some alright, a whole group of them standing about watching the parade and chatting about the floats. Among them was a professor named Reynold. He had some very interesting magical theories and i took quite a liking to him early on. another in the group was thane, he talked of wanting to be a professor at the school. i didn't exactley find this guy too likable though. he seemed like he had a few things up his sleeve. but i'll try not to be too critical, he wants to be a professor, as i do some day. i spent a lot of time with the group of wizards and when the parade was over and they all when their seperate ways, i went back to the boar to study over another mead. tomarrow i want to take a trip to the library and see what i can find. i like to stop by there any chance i get when i am in this town. Viriann came in quite late and told me that he would be at the library tomarrow as well. he has always wanted to figure out how those gnomish airships work, i say it is a lost cause. prehaps tomarrow i will see if i can't find reynold agian. i want to talk to him about some of my thoughts on illusion specific magic.



ooc: crap. already midnight and i haven't even started that 500 word paper for professor hoag. guess i will have to cut this journal entry off here.

 

[rathor]

dexerion

Found some neat little hero generator over at the rpghost.com. makes some cute pictures. i generated a few of dexerion. i also got a small pic of his face that cj did for me. i will show you later r.b.gnome. here is a pic of dexerion as i see him now, poor, week, and with a stupid shortbow.

r.b.gnome and rune. i am thinking that dexerion is going to want to learn more about the trans school of magic and possibly even specilize in the study of that school. what are your thoughts on that?

 

[rathor]

wow

Just to show off how neat this little thing is. here is dexerion 5 years from now. he he he