Echolocation
Explorer
This recap will be quite long. Session 67 and 68 were a side adventure. If you're only interested in the content of the Zeitgeist Adventure Path, feel free to skip to Session 69, I won't be offended 
Session 67
For this session, players controlled one of Captain Dale's specialists. Each specialist has been equipped with a unique magical item from the Royal Vault. Also, following the sage advice of our main author, I designed this side-quest with an overarching group goal and side goals for each specialist. So, let me introduce you to what the players dubbed Team G.O.O.D.: Guardians Of Ominous Dimensions.
For the mechanically minded, each specialist was level 4 and heavily influenced by the iconic characters. That excludes the oracle, who was instead heavily influenced by my desire for jank.
Driven by a desire to defeat exotic beasts, Filtorn served in the Malice Lands. When news broke out of strange beasts emerging from the Bleak Gate in his homeland, he returned to the shores of Risur. Though excited to travel to the Bleak Gate, Filtorn never kills needlessly. He respects his prey, even after death.
Goal: Harvest a souvenir from an exotic beast of the Bleak Gate. If you can, do some from a beast where you struck the killing blow.
Gift from the Vault: Gaze of the Meek (neck slot). This silky eye of an undead beast sits nestled in cast iron steel. Reflected upon the orb are your opponent's vulnerability. When you damage a foe with a slashing weapon, you reduce each of their damage reduction and resistances by a value of 1. This penalty lasts until the beginning of your next turn.
Now in their mid-twenties, Fel has joined the millitary for stable work to support his aging family. Fel follows his own path, entrenched in the self-taught ideology of William Miller, a philosopher popular with dockers. Somehow, their patience and moral approach to life has imbued them with divine power. Just as Miller taught to admit when you are uncertain of your old beliefs, Fel has the capacity to heal others when one's mistakes has lead to their wounds.
Goal: You will not let the darkness of the Bleak Gate swallow your hope. Try to rescue survivors and use reason, rather than violence, where possible.
Gift from the Vault: Reflection of the Eternal Sun (shield). This Heavy Wooden Shield acts as a focus for excess positive energy. When the user of this shield uses Lay on Hands or Channel Energy, this shield emits a glowing light. As a free action, the user may angle the shield to shine the light upon one foe. On every attack made by that foe, they must roll twice and take the lower result. This effect lasts for one round, after which the energy captured within the shield dissipates. The hand equipping this item is capable of using lay on hands and providing somatic components to spells as if it were a free hand.
Born of a Risuri war veteran father and a Danoran minor noble mother, Stefan has the best of both worlds. He lives with his family in the North Shore of Flint, he enjoyed a lavish lifestyle supplement by private tutors in both arcane and technology. Though, in early adulthood, Stefan was pressured by his father to join The Battalion, in hopes to expose him to the harsh realities of the world. Surprisingly, Stefan rather enjoyed blending magic and martial schools of thought to combat exotic creatures. Naturally, he fell into Captain Dale's supervision. He has not yet graduated, still searching for that one idea to inspire his thesis.
Goal: During your journey in the Bleak Gate, find an inspiration and title for your thesis. In front of every good martial thesis is an even better title.
Gift from the Vault: Interplanar translator (neck slot). The interplanar translator is a magical wooden box etched with arcane runes and wards. Atop the box sits a large brass cone that captures and funnels sound waves into the box. A leather trap allows the wearer to hang this item around their neck. Dials on the translator allow sound to be amplified and transformed into useful frequencies for both in and out of combat.
Out of combat, the translator can translate any language spoken nearby to Primordial, as per Comprehend Languages. The translation is outputted from the device and may be heard by anyone with 60 feet.
In combat, as a standard action, the device may be used to track an opponent. Effectively, this lowers the opponents AC by 2 for 1 round, as the device emits subtle frequencies that help subconsciously guide human hands.
Drawn to the darkness of Cauldron Hill, Rachael provides powerful offensive tools to twist the life forces of both the living and the dead. Captain Dale keeps an eye on the Cipith, weary she will be tempted by the dark forces seeping into this world.
Goal: Ask Angharad Cipith out on a date. What? A crazed doomsaying gal can have dreams too.
Gift from the Vault: Death's Grasp (weapon). These glorified nail extensions allows the user to clutch death itself. When the user grapples with this item, they receive a +2 to the roll and may grapple incorporeal and corporeal creatures.
Team GOOD arrived in a small room, lit only by a cracked sunrod. Before them was a weakened woman, Jo, one of the soldiers that accompanied Team BAD on their initial expedition into the Bleak Gate. (Bazza, Emma, Jo and Sage were the specialists that originally accompanied Team BAD.) The unstable portal that separated us from Team BAD and brought us here quickly vanished.
Jo warned us to whisper, for fear of drawing “the mirror men”. Bazza’s on the upper floor of the facility with some Ob engineers. After months of research they determined there was a portal in a locked workshop. Potions of Gaseous Form were used to get inside. Mirror men constructs inside activated, attacked and forced them to retreat. Jo and her team was to find the keys required to open the large, vault-like door to the rest of the facility, and escort the remaining Ob engineers and Risuri military to The Waking.
Jo was too weak to fight, so instead asked Team GOOD to find three keys, each belonging to a head of department of R&D in the Ob's facility:
DM Aside. In the book, the Ob workshops are quite small. There is one dedicated to biological discoveries and one dedicated to technology, though obviously the two often cross their discoveries. I included a third department, tasked with reading the skies of the Bleak Gate. The Ob hopes to unveil alternative planes that may not be easily viewed or discovered from The Waking, as well as explore how the nature of prophecy could change when the prophecy is dreamed of in the Bleak Gate instead. This department was smaller than the others. Somay joined in hope to bring new knowledge and revitalise Risuri to embrace skyseers once again into their national identity.
Team GOOD proceeded into the next room to find a study stuffed with notes and an orrery slowly swinging.
Graffitied onto the orrery were various phrases. Phrases such as "False Prophets", "Liars", and "Skythrone Pretenders" were etched onto the planets, whereas phrases such as "Devourer", "Voidmaw" were etched onto the gears. In similar writing, one of Somay's final journey entries was found, reading: "The skythrone only seeks to deceive, to subvert fate. I have heard the others, the true gods. And they are coming."
DM Aside. In Somay's studies, he managed to glimpse a vision of The Gyre and the fate that awaits The Waking. His vision forecasts the ascension of the Voice of Rot and the destruction of all things. He understood the current planar arrangement to be one of intruders, and therefore, his order cannot currently predict the doom that awaits the world. His hopelessness and grief devoured him, and as if churned by the cosmic gears themselves, he now exists only as a mass of starstuff, a mere echo of his former being. Somay has graffitied the orrery to convey his prophecy, but it will fall on deaf/sane ears. Maybe the party will look back on this moment in Adventure Twelve, maybe they won't.
Team GOOD pushed onwards. Listening to the double doors at one end of the room, they heard pages rustling, as if a book were being flicked through, and a sinister voice comment: "“I will find you, vessel. You cannot hide in the pages much longer. I will have what is owed to me." In heroic fashion, the doors were kicked down to find a pale Sage, with jet-black eyes and arcane wires pierced into her head, wrists, and ankles: “Come closer, I can’t taste you from here.”
Naturally, a fight ensued. A snippet of dialogue, courtesy of a player's notes:
Fel: “Try to incapacitate her. She’s not in her right mind.”
Sage: (eyes turned pale) “I’m looking for a woman, Jo. Have you seen her?”
Fel: “Why are you looking for her?”
Sage: She’s a colleague, a friend! She was injured when we fell back together.”
Fel: “And what happened to you?”
Sage: “I- I was… attacked by… mirror men. No… something else before that.” Her eyes went dark again. “You think you can simply venture into this land of death with no consequences? With impunity? With no spilt blood?” She stepped forward, warhammer raised, and an incredible pressure gripped the nearby Fel and Filtorn’s heads. Fel shrugged it off but Filtorn was stunned.
DM Aside. So what the hell is going on? Whilst infiltrating the workshop, Sage fell victim to a possessor. These aberrations are a critical part of the Bleak Gate ecology, feasting upon sentience: creatures who enter the land of the dead or restless spirits who refuse to move on. In this case, the possessor was slowly eating Sage's mind from the inside-out, devouring her memories. Shortly thereafter, Sage, Jo, and Emma encountered 'mirror men'. The mirror men were not hostile, until the possessor within Sage realised it could use the mirror men to harm Sage's colleagues, making them easier prey. A possessed Sage initiated hostilities. Sage's group managed to severely wound the mirror men, but had to retreat. Sage was captured for an experimental witchoil device and Emma was captured for bio-engineering testing. Only Jo, the woman Team GOOD encountered at the beginning of the session, made it to relative safety.
The party reluctantly defeated Sage, and then defeated the black inky aberration that seeped out of her. Team GOOD pushed forward through malfunctioning spark-gap lighting before entering a technological workshop. The players missed an Ob report that described the fate of Team BAD's former sneaky bluejay companion.
Specimens of biological parts from humanoids and creatures decorate jars among this room. The two beds of this room are connected to several control panels and witchoil reservoirs. One device is an elaborate construction of fine glass tubes that circulate witchoil. Unlike the other tanks, this witchoil is extremely saturated with souls via the aid of a centrifuge. DM Aside: This experimental device attempts to skim the souls within the witchoil for their most valuable knowledge. Theoretically, the device should impart magnificent insight to anyone who can listen to all the souls within, but all who have interfaced with it have died or gone mad. This is due to an arcano-immune response from the arcane wires, though the Ob never quite figured that out. 'Sage' was the final test subject of the device.
Team GOOD encounter mirror men, constructs with mirrors sitting where a head should be. The constructs are connected to a 'cloud' of Ob archives and can communicate with each other telepathically. But since their combat with Jo, Emma, and Sage, both the archives and constructs have been damaged.
Filtorn: “Are you sure we’re intruders?”
“An abnormal number of intruders have been identified lately. Identify yourself.”
Filtorn: “Wildheart.”
“There are no Wildhearts in the Obscurati records.”
Filtorn: “Maybe it was just misplaced.”
“Impossible. Mertakov’s system is perfect.”
Filtorn laid out a very elaborate and made-up explanation of how Mertakov’s system might not be
“This is outside of my purview. Establishing contact with Mertakov.”
A new voice issued from the construct. “Hmm, this is unusual, but perhaps these are the new employees. Stow your weapons and proceed to my office.”
Before entry, each member of the party stated their name and supposed occupation within the Ob. This turned out to be the highlight of this side mission, the player's had great fun trying to come up with niche roles the Ob required. The tension of the mirror men turning onto the party combined with the sense of trickery kept things tense but fun. One player claimed they were Rock Rackus, which the mirror men commented on as being unusual, as previous Rackus was rejected for further employment by the Ob.
Inside Merkatov's office, Team GOOD found the ghost of a dwarf. The only material object on him was a key hung around his neck from a fine chain. “Please, please. Come in. Let us talk about your employment status.”
He recently received word that an elite squad of constables backed by the military would be infiltrating the facility soon. It’s very concerning. He’s glad we’re here. Maintaining secrecy is important. He floated around the room handing out ghostly papers to us that floated through our hands.
Stefan noticed a tiny sliver of flickering light between two bookshelves behind the dwarf. There’s a mirrored orb on the desk and scattered papers across the desk. The party got some information about the role of each department within the Ob. Mertakov seemed pleased with Team GOOD's inquisitiveness and seeming dedication to protecting the Ob facility. The dwarf commented that the facility has been turbulent, with many staff missing and endless piles of hazard paperwork. After a thorough discussion, his fretfulness faded - along with his ghostly form. It seemed his spirit was finally at rest, with someone new here to help protect the facility. As he vanished, the key hanging around his neck fell to the floor.
Simultaneously, there was the sound of constructs clattering to the floor in the other room - seemingly having only been powered by some psychic connection to Mertakov. Stefan investigated the bookshelves to find a secret door. Inside, was Mertakov’s body- clearly long-dead, with a scarf wrapped tight around his neck (death by dark fey) - along with several mementoes carefully laid out around the room. Lying by the dwarf’s body was an experimental rifle that seemed to have failed the dwarf in his final moments. The players was sad, and then annoyed, as they realised I made them feel bad for the death of an Ob officer.
Filtorn examined the beds in the room we’d initially met the constructs in and found scraps of arcane wire and relatively fresh bloodstains. Likely where Sage got her “additions”. Uncertain if at all related to the Possessor that took over her. Filtorn also determined that this room was used (fairly unsuccessfully) to try to listen to the souls within the witchoil in the complicated device by the beds.
Fel explored a side room filled with biological specimens. This room contained documentation on brain anatomy, not yet fully understood by the Ob. This anatomy was integrated into Borne's design.
Stefan found a dead woman in a side room, mouth filled with mushrooms and neck gashed (death by a different dark fey). She wielded an earpiece with wire that extends into her cardigan. Additionally, shield wields a bandolier filled with vials. Most are empty, but one contains witchoil and a single white mote. The woman sat, slumped, facing a bunsen burner mounted under a scorched vial. Next to the bunsen burner sits a mug half-filled with mouldy coffee. The mug reads "World's Best Mum." DM Aside. The woman used the earpiece to interrogate souls captured within witchoil. The bunsen burner helps threaten souls that otherwise cannot be threatened materially. Some souls were archived, some were destroyed, and some were used for the experimental witchoil decive.
As Team GOOD regrouped, Stefan approached the witchoil device, and noticed his Interplanar Translator started making static noises. He fiddled with the dials and the static faded to something akin to standing in a busy street: many voices but everyone was talking about something different. Fish, apple pies, equations… random mundane topics in thousands of voices. As we all listened to the broadcast voices, our awareness of time faded as we became enthralled. Each character became lost in the mundane wisdom of the masses, which unlocked hidden wisdom within themselves (+2 bonus to any one attribute).
And that's where we called the session. In the haunting workshop, where failing spark-gaps light the malfunctioned mirror men and bloodstained beds.
Session 67
For this session, players controlled one of Captain Dale's specialists. Each specialist has been equipped with a unique magical item from the Royal Vault. Also, following the sage advice of our main author, I designed this side-quest with an overarching group goal and side goals for each specialist. So, let me introduce you to what the players dubbed Team G.O.O.D.: Guardians Of Ominous Dimensions.
For the mechanically minded, each specialist was level 4 and heavily influenced by the iconic characters. That excludes the oracle, who was instead heavily influenced by my desire for jank.
Filtorn Wildheart (Slayer)
Despite being raised by druids, Filtorn never found his calling in the wilds of Risur. He lacked the capacity for magic and the patience for learning druidic language. However, he carries his hunting lessons close to his heart.Driven by a desire to defeat exotic beasts, Filtorn served in the Malice Lands. When news broke out of strange beasts emerging from the Bleak Gate in his homeland, he returned to the shores of Risur. Though excited to travel to the Bleak Gate, Filtorn never kills needlessly. He respects his prey, even after death.
Goal: Harvest a souvenir from an exotic beast of the Bleak Gate. If you can, do some from a beast where you struck the killing blow.
Gift from the Vault: Gaze of the Meek (neck slot). This silky eye of an undead beast sits nestled in cast iron steel. Reflected upon the orb are your opponent's vulnerability. When you damage a foe with a slashing weapon, you reduce each of their damage reduction and resistances by a value of 1. This penalty lasts until the beginning of your next turn.
Fel Featherson (Paladin)
Fel was born to a family of poor immigrants who travelled to Flint in the early industrial expansion, hopeful for work and money. These dreams never eventuated, leaving Fel to grow disgruntled with the state of the world. Often left to their own devices by his working parents, they found entertainment and comfort in the songs of dockers.Now in their mid-twenties, Fel has joined the millitary for stable work to support his aging family. Fel follows his own path, entrenched in the self-taught ideology of William Miller, a philosopher popular with dockers. Somehow, their patience and moral approach to life has imbued them with divine power. Just as Miller taught to admit when you are uncertain of your old beliefs, Fel has the capacity to heal others when one's mistakes has lead to their wounds.
Goal: You will not let the darkness of the Bleak Gate swallow your hope. Try to rescue survivors and use reason, rather than violence, where possible.
Gift from the Vault: Reflection of the Eternal Sun (shield). This Heavy Wooden Shield acts as a focus for excess positive energy. When the user of this shield uses Lay on Hands or Channel Energy, this shield emits a glowing light. As a free action, the user may angle the shield to shine the light upon one foe. On every attack made by that foe, they must roll twice and take the lower result. This effect lasts for one round, after which the energy captured within the shield dissipates. The hand equipping this item is capable of using lay on hands and providing somatic components to spells as if it were a free hand.
Stefan Gosselin (Sorcerer)
Born of a Risuri war veteran father and a Danoran minor noble mother, Stefan has the best of both worlds. He lives with his family in the North Shore of Flint, he enjoyed a lavish lifestyle supplement by private tutors in both arcane and technology. Though, in early adulthood, Stefan was pressured by his father to join The Battalion, in hopes to expose him to the harsh realities of the world. Surprisingly, Stefan rather enjoyed blending magic and martial schools of thought to combat exotic creatures. Naturally, he fell into Captain Dale's supervision. He has not yet graduated, still searching for that one idea to inspire his thesis.
Goal: During your journey in the Bleak Gate, find an inspiration and title for your thesis. In front of every good martial thesis is an even better title.
Gift from the Vault: Interplanar translator (neck slot). The interplanar translator is a magical wooden box etched with arcane runes and wards. Atop the box sits a large brass cone that captures and funnels sound waves into the box. A leather trap allows the wearer to hang this item around their neck. Dials on the translator allow sound to be amplified and transformed into useful frequencies for both in and out of combat.
Out of combat, the translator can translate any language spoken nearby to Primordial, as per Comprehend Languages. The translation is outputted from the device and may be heard by anyone with 60 feet.
In combat, as a standard action, the device may be used to track an opponent. Effectively, this lowers the opponents AC by 2 for 1 round, as the device emits subtle frequencies that help subconsciously guide human hands.
Rachael Cipith (Oracle)
For the first two decades of her life, Rachael's identity was destablised, resulting in an existential anxiety that tore apart her life in both The Dreaming and The Waking. Even her vision has deteriorated. Unable to distinguish realities, Rachael fell into a circle of conspiracy theorists. There, she met Abiera Stackhouse of Eschatologists of Flint United, a fringe end-times group. And there, she found her calling. The inevitable end of the world provided the stability and grounding she needed to reform her identity. In part due to her time in The Dreaming, her belief in a doomed world imbued her with divine magics capable of bringing that belief to life. Now, she speaks with a profound calmness, even when she is attacked from enemies beyond her sight.Drawn to the darkness of Cauldron Hill, Rachael provides powerful offensive tools to twist the life forces of both the living and the dead. Captain Dale keeps an eye on the Cipith, weary she will be tempted by the dark forces seeping into this world.
Goal: Ask Angharad Cipith out on a date. What? A crazed doomsaying gal can have dreams too.
Gift from the Vault: Death's Grasp (weapon). These glorified nail extensions allows the user to clutch death itself. When the user grapples with this item, they receive a +2 to the roll and may grapple incorporeal and corporeal creatures.
Gatecrashing
Team GOOD arrived in a small room, lit only by a cracked sunrod. Before them was a weakened woman, Jo, one of the soldiers that accompanied Team BAD on their initial expedition into the Bleak Gate. (Bazza, Emma, Jo and Sage were the specialists that originally accompanied Team BAD.) The unstable portal that separated us from Team BAD and brought us here quickly vanished.
Jo warned us to whisper, for fear of drawing “the mirror men”. Bazza’s on the upper floor of the facility with some Ob engineers. After months of research they determined there was a portal in a locked workshop. Potions of Gaseous Form were used to get inside. Mirror men constructs inside activated, attacked and forced them to retreat. Jo and her team was to find the keys required to open the large, vault-like door to the rest of the facility, and escort the remaining Ob engineers and Risuri military to The Waking.
Jo was too weak to fight, so instead asked Team GOOD to find three keys, each belonging to a head of department of R&D in the Ob's facility:
- The Chief Arcanotechnological Engineer Volton Mertakov.
- The Chief Bioengineer Francis Lockheart.
- The Chief Skyseer Somay Sloam.
DM Aside. In the book, the Ob workshops are quite small. There is one dedicated to biological discoveries and one dedicated to technology, though obviously the two often cross their discoveries. I included a third department, tasked with reading the skies of the Bleak Gate. The Ob hopes to unveil alternative planes that may not be easily viewed or discovered from The Waking, as well as explore how the nature of prophecy could change when the prophecy is dreamed of in the Bleak Gate instead. This department was smaller than the others. Somay joined in hope to bring new knowledge and revitalise Risuri to embrace skyseers once again into their national identity.
Team GOOD proceeded into the next room to find a study stuffed with notes and an orrery slowly swinging.
Graffitied onto the orrery were various phrases. Phrases such as "False Prophets", "Liars", and "Skythrone Pretenders" were etched onto the planets, whereas phrases such as "Devourer", "Voidmaw" were etched onto the gears. In similar writing, one of Somay's final journey entries was found, reading: "The skythrone only seeks to deceive, to subvert fate. I have heard the others, the true gods. And they are coming."
DM Aside. In Somay's studies, he managed to glimpse a vision of The Gyre and the fate that awaits The Waking. His vision forecasts the ascension of the Voice of Rot and the destruction of all things. He understood the current planar arrangement to be one of intruders, and therefore, his order cannot currently predict the doom that awaits the world. His hopelessness and grief devoured him, and as if churned by the cosmic gears themselves, he now exists only as a mass of starstuff, a mere echo of his former being. Somay has graffitied the orrery to convey his prophecy, but it will fall on deaf/sane ears. Maybe the party will look back on this moment in Adventure Twelve, maybe they won't.
Team GOOD pushed onwards. Listening to the double doors at one end of the room, they heard pages rustling, as if a book were being flicked through, and a sinister voice comment: "“I will find you, vessel. You cannot hide in the pages much longer. I will have what is owed to me." In heroic fashion, the doors were kicked down to find a pale Sage, with jet-black eyes and arcane wires pierced into her head, wrists, and ankles: “Come closer, I can’t taste you from here.”
Naturally, a fight ensued. A snippet of dialogue, courtesy of a player's notes:
Fel: “Try to incapacitate her. She’s not in her right mind.”
Sage: (eyes turned pale) “I’m looking for a woman, Jo. Have you seen her?”
Fel: “Why are you looking for her?”
Sage: She’s a colleague, a friend! She was injured when we fell back together.”
Fel: “And what happened to you?”
Sage: “I- I was… attacked by… mirror men. No… something else before that.” Her eyes went dark again. “You think you can simply venture into this land of death with no consequences? With impunity? With no spilt blood?” She stepped forward, warhammer raised, and an incredible pressure gripped the nearby Fel and Filtorn’s heads. Fel shrugged it off but Filtorn was stunned.
DM Aside. So what the hell is going on? Whilst infiltrating the workshop, Sage fell victim to a possessor. These aberrations are a critical part of the Bleak Gate ecology, feasting upon sentience: creatures who enter the land of the dead or restless spirits who refuse to move on. In this case, the possessor was slowly eating Sage's mind from the inside-out, devouring her memories. Shortly thereafter, Sage, Jo, and Emma encountered 'mirror men'. The mirror men were not hostile, until the possessor within Sage realised it could use the mirror men to harm Sage's colleagues, making them easier prey. A possessed Sage initiated hostilities. Sage's group managed to severely wound the mirror men, but had to retreat. Sage was captured for an experimental witchoil device and Emma was captured for bio-engineering testing. Only Jo, the woman Team GOOD encountered at the beginning of the session, made it to relative safety.
The party reluctantly defeated Sage, and then defeated the black inky aberration that seeped out of her. Team GOOD pushed forward through malfunctioning spark-gap lighting before entering a technological workshop. The players missed an Ob report that described the fate of Team BAD's former sneaky bluejay companion.
Date: 32nd of Autumn, 500 A.O.V.
Location of Incident: Point of Entry #3
Filed by Personel #83. Personel #83 and #16 reported strange yet subtle monologing outside of Cauldron Hill. Experiment #1072 was sent to scout the location and identified a translucent bird-like figure observing the entrance to the facility. The spirit, likely a recently deceased blue jay, was apprehended in witchoil for further observation. Its disposition to monologue and mastery of the Common language indicates a capacity for intelligence. Given its desperation to observe our facility, even in the afterlife, suggests it was once a companion of a powerful wizard or druid which opposes our interest.
Ammendment by Chief Arcanotechnological Engineer Volton Mertakov: I recommend allocating a medium to interrogate the spirit for its worldly allegiances. I suspect the drive of the incorporeal deathform is strong, and thereby exclude it from entering the feed into the experimental witchoil centrifuge. Following interrogation, the spirit will be archived until further notice.
Location of Incident: Point of Entry #3
Filed by Personel #83. Personel #83 and #16 reported strange yet subtle monologing outside of Cauldron Hill. Experiment #1072 was sent to scout the location and identified a translucent bird-like figure observing the entrance to the facility. The spirit, likely a recently deceased blue jay, was apprehended in witchoil for further observation. Its disposition to monologue and mastery of the Common language indicates a capacity for intelligence. Given its desperation to observe our facility, even in the afterlife, suggests it was once a companion of a powerful wizard or druid which opposes our interest.
Ammendment by Chief Arcanotechnological Engineer Volton Mertakov: I recommend allocating a medium to interrogate the spirit for its worldly allegiances. I suspect the drive of the incorporeal deathform is strong, and thereby exclude it from entering the feed into the experimental witchoil centrifuge. Following interrogation, the spirit will be archived until further notice.
Specimens of biological parts from humanoids and creatures decorate jars among this room. The two beds of this room are connected to several control panels and witchoil reservoirs. One device is an elaborate construction of fine glass tubes that circulate witchoil. Unlike the other tanks, this witchoil is extremely saturated with souls via the aid of a centrifuge. DM Aside: This experimental device attempts to skim the souls within the witchoil for their most valuable knowledge. Theoretically, the device should impart magnificent insight to anyone who can listen to all the souls within, but all who have interfaced with it have died or gone mad. This is due to an arcano-immune response from the arcane wires, though the Ob never quite figured that out. 'Sage' was the final test subject of the device.
Team GOOD encounter mirror men, constructs with mirrors sitting where a head should be. The constructs are connected to a 'cloud' of Ob archives and can communicate with each other telepathically. But since their combat with Jo, Emma, and Sage, both the archives and constructs have been damaged.
Filtorn: “Are you sure we’re intruders?”
“An abnormal number of intruders have been identified lately. Identify yourself.”
Filtorn: “Wildheart.”
“There are no Wildhearts in the Obscurati records.”
Filtorn: “Maybe it was just misplaced.”
“Impossible. Mertakov’s system is perfect.”
Filtorn laid out a very elaborate and made-up explanation of how Mertakov’s system might not be
“This is outside of my purview. Establishing contact with Mertakov.”
A new voice issued from the construct. “Hmm, this is unusual, but perhaps these are the new employees. Stow your weapons and proceed to my office.”
Before entry, each member of the party stated their name and supposed occupation within the Ob. This turned out to be the highlight of this side mission, the player's had great fun trying to come up with niche roles the Ob required. The tension of the mirror men turning onto the party combined with the sense of trickery kept things tense but fun. One player claimed they were Rock Rackus, which the mirror men commented on as being unusual, as previous Rackus was rejected for further employment by the Ob.
Inside Merkatov's office, Team GOOD found the ghost of a dwarf. The only material object on him was a key hung around his neck from a fine chain. “Please, please. Come in. Let us talk about your employment status.”
He recently received word that an elite squad of constables backed by the military would be infiltrating the facility soon. It’s very concerning. He’s glad we’re here. Maintaining secrecy is important. He floated around the room handing out ghostly papers to us that floated through our hands.
Stefan noticed a tiny sliver of flickering light between two bookshelves behind the dwarf. There’s a mirrored orb on the desk and scattered papers across the desk. The party got some information about the role of each department within the Ob. Mertakov seemed pleased with Team GOOD's inquisitiveness and seeming dedication to protecting the Ob facility. The dwarf commented that the facility has been turbulent, with many staff missing and endless piles of hazard paperwork. After a thorough discussion, his fretfulness faded - along with his ghostly form. It seemed his spirit was finally at rest, with someone new here to help protect the facility. As he vanished, the key hanging around his neck fell to the floor.
Simultaneously, there was the sound of constructs clattering to the floor in the other room - seemingly having only been powered by some psychic connection to Mertakov. Stefan investigated the bookshelves to find a secret door. Inside, was Mertakov’s body- clearly long-dead, with a scarf wrapped tight around his neck (death by dark fey) - along with several mementoes carefully laid out around the room. Lying by the dwarf’s body was an experimental rifle that seemed to have failed the dwarf in his final moments. The players was sad, and then annoyed, as they realised I made them feel bad for the death of an Ob officer.
Filtorn examined the beds in the room we’d initially met the constructs in and found scraps of arcane wire and relatively fresh bloodstains. Likely where Sage got her “additions”. Uncertain if at all related to the Possessor that took over her. Filtorn also determined that this room was used (fairly unsuccessfully) to try to listen to the souls within the witchoil in the complicated device by the beds.
Fel explored a side room filled with biological specimens. This room contained documentation on brain anatomy, not yet fully understood by the Ob. This anatomy was integrated into Borne's design.
Stefan found a dead woman in a side room, mouth filled with mushrooms and neck gashed (death by a different dark fey). She wielded an earpiece with wire that extends into her cardigan. Additionally, shield wields a bandolier filled with vials. Most are empty, but one contains witchoil and a single white mote. The woman sat, slumped, facing a bunsen burner mounted under a scorched vial. Next to the bunsen burner sits a mug half-filled with mouldy coffee. The mug reads "World's Best Mum." DM Aside. The woman used the earpiece to interrogate souls captured within witchoil. The bunsen burner helps threaten souls that otherwise cannot be threatened materially. Some souls were archived, some were destroyed, and some were used for the experimental witchoil decive.
As Team GOOD regrouped, Stefan approached the witchoil device, and noticed his Interplanar Translator started making static noises. He fiddled with the dials and the static faded to something akin to standing in a busy street: many voices but everyone was talking about something different. Fish, apple pies, equations… random mundane topics in thousands of voices. As we all listened to the broadcast voices, our awareness of time faded as we became enthralled. Each character became lost in the mundane wisdom of the masses, which unlocked hidden wisdom within themselves (+2 bonus to any one attribute).
And that's where we called the session. In the haunting workshop, where failing spark-gaps light the malfunctioned mirror men and bloodstained beds.
