ZEITGEIST Tizbiz Zeitgeist Campaign

[Lylandra]

So we return to the summer court, approach Fordren and ask him for yet another six-eyes talk. He realizes that we're being even more serious than usual, so suggests a second stroll at the beach.

“We know who you are, so no need for more secrets and lies.” Carlyle says calmly.

“I see. I've been warned in advance. You are quite the persistent lot.”

('Twas Harkover Lee who got the sending out in time. Guess he feared that Gradiax might overreact should he feel threatened by our knowledge of the pact)

“I take this as a compliment” Auryn replies cautiously while keeping a close eye on the man.

We then carefully ask him whether our assumption that another dragon, his offspring, might be hiding on the Isla, which is why we might need his help to prevent a catastrophe. He reminds us that we don't need to be that cautious as he knows about our intentions and then suddenly turns all talkative himself.

“You see, fifty years ago I had been quite lonely, so when I discovered this egg inside my old hoard I decided to incubate it. And then she... hatched! I didn't remember that whelplings are so tiny when they crawl out of their shells. And she, Teraklir, was of the most adorable kind.” Fordren says with what no one though he could ever display: Genuine, loving emotions for a person other than himself. He pauses for a while and melancholy enters his voice.

“But alas, she was crippled, deformed. Tainted. Born without both wing and claw. A disgrace.”

“A disgrace for whom? Not for you I suppose. And why would Gradiax even care for the opinions of lesser dragons?” Carlyle adds, instinctively supporting even the child of a dragon while playing with the elder dragon's pride.

Fordren nods sternly before he continues his tale. He explains that young dragons lack the ability to take on a human form, and he couldn't allow her to enter the realm of mortals without risking her and his wellbeing. So he created a single duplicant and gave it to her as a gift to explore the outside world. He also gave her one of his personas, the identity of the industrialist Benedict Pemberton, when he realized that Teraklir was as interested in technology as he.

(So yeah, this is what the “little sparrow” was all about. A father calling his daughter by a cute nickname. Even if the name lost much of its cutesy and was filled with bitterness over time)

He goes on to tell more about Teraklir's development after that. Like all young dragons she turned rebellious when she grew older and tried to cut herself off from her powerful father. Bit by bit she must have somehow been able to reverse engineer the duplicant technology (Maybe with a bit of help from Tinker Oddcog?) and, well, duplicated it. He guesses that she then developed a plan to replace people with key positions of power in Ber to eventually take over the country.

“A brilliant plan indeed, but utterly foolish and dangerous in the hands of a whelp. No surprise that she screwed it up in the end. Oh my, Teraklir, what chaos, what dangers you have put us all in.” Fordren says with an honest sigh while also praising his child's plan to basically usurp Ber.

“Dangers for all of us indeed” Carlyle adds. “You know that we cannot just let your child throw Ber into more chaos and we also cannot risk having her reveal the secret of dragons being alive”

For a moment, Gradiax just stares right through Carlyle with a look that could kill. We then swiftly add that King Aodhan has offered to let Teraklir join the Pact of Boyle if she wishes to do so, so she may continue living her life in peace. And as we also guess that Pardo and his gnolls know about the existence of living dragons, we'd also need a proper dragon duplicant to provide convincing evidence that the gnolls had merely been fooled by some clever tinkering.

(Well... literally Tinker-ing. Do not remind me of all the Oddcog puns)

Fordren seems to relax a bit but also states that convincing his stubborn daughter might be a fool's errand as she's solely focused on accumulating power right now.

“Damn you, little sparrow, why are you so desperately trying to prove your worth?”

This is where we just ignore the fact that both Gradiax and Teraklir are dragons and see the dilemma both father and daughter are trapped in: Gradiax, who is genuinely loving his child (no matter what Lee has said before) and who is seemingly concerned that she might have maneuvered herself into a corner and said daughter Teraklir who seems to be trying to prove her worth to her father no matter her birth defects.

“Maybe someone who's as strong-willed as your daughter might help her see the trap she's sitting in right now?” Auryn asks carefully, resulting in a short laugh from Fordren.

But even he sees that allying with us in that regard might be his best chance of getting Teraklir out alive. He warns us that making her listen will not be an easy task as he, in his fatherly concern, also created a powerful defensive/offensive matrix tied to his lair that could empower his daughter to be on par with a fully grown dragon. A device so strong that it might make her feel invincible. He then offers us to tell us the means to disable said magical matrix if we promise to him that his daughter will live.

As we don't wish to see the dragon's secret unearthed and also see no reason to kill what must be a dragon teenager with too much power (especially one who also maybe suffered from her father's superiority complex), we promise to keep Teraklir alive. Fordren seems satisfied and so he tells us that the Matrix consists of 36 blue and 36 green gems, floating in a complex geometrical pattern. And that all we have to do to shut it down would be to collect all the gems. He explains that, while we'll be busy trying to infiltrate his hoard, he'll be on the move, too, trying to regain control over his old defensive mechanisms.

We promise to do our best to prevent a catastrophe, but also state that protecting Risur has to be our top priority. And as both of our parties need to make several preparations, we excuse ourselves and head back to our tent at the summer court.

(can I just say that Gradiax' experiences with Teraklir just added another layer to his relationship with Auryn? I can easily see him getting frustrated by a teenage Teraklir who shuts old dad out and basically works against him in some regard as Pemberton all while he wished to keep his little whelp he adored so much. He's just the one who'd have a hard time accepting that his offspring has a will of her own. So... fast forward to Auryn whom he thought would be much easier to control and keep. Which turned out to be so much not the case as well. )

There, both Auryn and Carlyle try to sort all of these new information out while trying to make sense of it. Auryn seems very much surprised by “Fordren's” love for his daughter and explains that she needs some time to process what she just learned from the King and what appears to be a 3000 years old dragon in the guise of a danoran industrialist. Especially if that includes maybe a spark of sympathy for said dragon.

“I... I just don't understand what I'm feeling right now. Relief? Concern? I mean... dear Srasama, Francis Fodren is a dragon. What does that mean?”

“It means that you are beautiful.”

“Pardon...?”

“It is true. You see, if the oldest of Dragons wanted you, and only you, then you have to be someone special. Someone who deserves the attention of beings of legends. Also, this millennia old dragon just entrusted you with the well-being of his only child and he has sworn to never harm Risur or any Risuri, so you'll be safe forever. And I also got the feeling that you made quite the impression on him”

(Yeah, of course this is just Carlyle's way of stating his own thoughts and feelings. I guess he just doesn't think that his own opinion is impactful enough to state it directly.)

Auryn laughs silently in response.

“Then it shall be relief. Isn't it funny that knowing that my 'enemy' is not a mere man but a dragon is making me feel truly free for the first time? It is as you said... he cannot harm me. He's bound to King Aodhan by his pact with King Boyle”

(which is obviously just Auryn-speak for “there is someone who has power over him and this guy is on my side”)

Next we decide that we should rejoin Bruse Cavallo and his war campaign against the gnolls on the Isla. We learn that it might take up to one week until he got all ships ready for departure and hopes that our reinforcements will be able to make it in time. We promise that the Impossible and another vessel will join the beran fleet in time and also contact druids who are willing to help us with weather magic. Margit joins their cause, stating that shaping nature and influencing the weather has always been her schtick. We add that there might be some strange floating Island above the Isla that could cause the strange storms surrounding the home of the gnolls, which is something we've learned from an ancient tome.

(Which is pretty much a lie as Gradiax had told us that he doesn't know the real cause, but he had once seen hints of an island in the sky when he had tried to reach it as a young adult. We do believe that the Ziggurat of Avilona might be up there somewhere, but chose to ignore it for the moment as it was basically off limits)

Bruse Cavallo also informs us that the Danorans will be among the fleet as well, but he already arranged for them to be part of the rear defense and not be allowed to leave the formation. We take this as a reason to talk to Harkover Lee about the Danorans once again. We explain that Lya Jierre will most likely try to sneak onto the Isla de las Focas and ask him for his orders. The Principal Minister agrees that keeping the Pact a secret has to have utmost priority, even if that means silencing Lya Jierre. Should we have to resort to such drastic measures, Lee promises to gently inform our King of his fiancee's demise.

After this is settled, Carlyle turns to Auryn who's looking quite miserable at the prospect of ending Lya's life.

“You do know that I don't take lives lightheartedly, don't you? But if we got no other choice, I will do it. We're agents of Risur and Harkover Lee relies on our ability to make the right choice. And Lya Jierre is no innocent or hapless person. She knows what she's doing, even if she keeps making the wrong decisions”

Auryn nods slowly. “I understand. And I agree. But I do believe that there is another way, one that does not involve bloodshed. See, we do know quite a bit about the Isla and the hoard, courtesy of Gradiax. We know the only route she could take to get inside that hoard. So we intercept her when she's trying to get in and... that's it. She will know nothing about dragons and we got no reason to eliminate her”

“A fine plan. Alright, we'll do it your way.” Carlyle says, visibly relieved about both the alternative plan and the fact that his partner has taken his last resort so relatively calmly.

 

[Lylandra]

(On to a rather long-ish post. I'll leave this one here as I could not get it out of my mind )

So we join the beran fleet with two ships from Risur alongside the Lux Profectusque as they sail towards the Isla de las Focas. As we already expected, the weather turns from bad to storm as soon as we get closer to the island, but fortunately our weather druids are able to keep the storms at bay. Then we see that the gnolls haven't been idle either as they block off their island with a large fleet on their own. What really astonishes us is the fact that they got... rather small wyverns to attack us from the air. Wyverns which are mounted by... magically shrunk gnolls!

Fortunately, we know magical ways to fly as well, so we take to the skies to handle these unusual threats. Auryn flies close to one of their groups and utters a single, paralyzing note which makes the wyvern's wing motions stop as well, plunging them down into the sea. Meanwhile, Carlyle takes care of the rest.

From the ships below, we can hear several of the beran sailors cheer for us. But the cheers quickly turn to cries of surprise and shock when two large, automatically acting dragonboats approach the fleet, shooting fire. We take a closer look at the ships and realize that these are actual seaborne golems.

“These fools... let me show them the downsides of automatons” Auryn says with a big grin before taking a deep dive through the golem's fire. Then she takes control of the ships one by one orders them to turn around to shoot at the gnoll's fleet.

(I've never regretted to learn that nifty spell. It has become one of Auryn's signature spells and she managed to troll Lya really hard in adventure 9)

“Seems like we do have to risk less lives than we anticipated. I hope you don't mind this kind of 'mind-bending', Bruse Cavallo. Not like they have actual minds of their own” she chuckles as she takes a quick fly-over to the beran flagship before returning to our risuri vessels. Bruse Cavallo nods with a big grin before shouting the order to engage the enemy fleet.

The battle starts with lots of cannon fire on both sides. However, from one corner of our eyes we spot that one vessel seems to ignore the orders of the Bruse and head for the Isla on a different route as it is heading directly towards what's left of the storm: The Lux Profectusque. We signal the defection to Bruse Cavallo who orders the Lux to return to the formation immediately. But it seems like he's being ignored. Of course, Cavallo is infuriated by this willful disregard of his orders. We take the Danoran defection as a signal to hurry to the Isla immediately, so we take a smaller boat, turn it invisible and let Margit summon a tailwind to speed us up.

Fortunately, we do know how to find the entrance to the hoard of Gradiax as soon as we land on the island on a forsaken beach. Knowing the general direction, it is quite an easy feat to find the tracks leading to the grand caverns, so we take a few minutes to prepare for an ambush on Team Lya. It doesn't take much longer and the trio of Lya, Rush and Merton enters the entrance, discussing the curiosity of “feral gnolls” building a railway into their mountain. Then, we spring our trap, knocking each of them out before they realize what hit them. We tie them up and disarm them, then put them into a lorry so the gnolls won't spot and kill them should they happen to patrol the area. To make matters even more safe, Carlyle conjures an illusory wall to hide the lorry containing team Lya.

After taking care of the Danorans, we decide to head deeper into the mountain. After following the tracks for a while, we spot a group of gnolls handling pallets. They seem to be guarded by a pair of mechanical rhinoceroses and we find that the only way forward seems to be behind said pallets. So we have no choice but to engage the gnolls and their automatons. Auryn takes one of the rhinos and bends it to her will while Carlyle initiates combat with the gnolls. The second rhino takes this opening to impale Auryn's left leg, leaving her atop the raging automaton while ordering the other one to destroy its companion. Carlyle makes haste to disassemble toe second rhino with some mighty slashes before taking care of his wounded partner.

“Don't worry, it won't even leave a scratch” he says while pouring a healing liquid onto the gaping wound which starts to close immediately.

"Thank you. Don't know what I would do without you" she returns with an honest smile.

After Auryn is healed up again, we continue our descent through the tunnels. We finally arrive in what appears to be a cave where several gnolls are busy operating a pump and corresponding generators. We hear more yapping coming from other caverns and agree that this must be where the gnoll's base is located. We decide that the gnolls are not our primary concern as we're still looking for Tinker and Gradiax' daughter Teraklir. And as there seems to be an elevator in the pump cavern, we take out the gnolls and use said elevator to descent even deeper.

(Tiz told us afterwards that there were abducted people hidden inside these caverns who had been forced to operate their duplicants. We never expected that the duplicants were moved by hostages and thought they were defectors or totally different people. oops.)

After arriving at the ground level, we leave the elevator and find even more tracks and a lorry. Inside, we spot a severed duplicant's head which turns into the striking image of Tinker Oddcog as soon as we take a closer look. Tinker seems to be as insane as ever as he states that the machines talk to him and also that the “large folk” cannot understand his kind of art. We try to argue with him again and try to convince him to come with us, but the head then starts changing and finally turns into the head of Mr. Pemberton. He invites us to come down to his realm and talk like grown-ups (that being obviously meant as a jab at Tinker), so why don't we take the lorry to come to him.

We check said lorry for any possible kind of trap while the head turns inert again. When we find none, we decide to take the ride further down into the volcano. As we're drawing close to the end of the track, we spot countless unused duplicants standing at each side of the track and we get the uncanny feeling as if someone's about to replace half of Ber with them. When we finally arrive the end of the track, we find ourselves in a gigantic kind of forge where countless mechanical parts lay scattered on the ground. Also, we spot a non-moving conveyor belt and an eldritch object shooting a large, continuous laser beam at a lake filled with lava. We take a short glimpse at said object only to guess that this might just be the fabled eye of the Tyrant Yeref.

“There you are!” Tinker shouts, waltzing in with what appears to be an enormous mech-suit. “Look who's the small ones now!”

We try to approach the mad gnome diplomatically, asking him to join our team and help us uncover the secrets of the Colossus Borne, whom he helped to create. Tinker doesn't want to hear any of it though, so we try a different approach.

“Mr. Oddcog, you seem to know more about machines that we could ever do. Because you have a special gift of hearing their whispers. So... if you could just teach us how to listen and understand them... and maybe talk to them, that alone would help us so much.”

“Teach?! No! No, no no! I'm here with PEMBERTON! I'll stay with Pemberton and the machines!”

“Shush, Tinker. You still got work to do, don't you?” Pemberton says calmly as he enters the forge.

And Tinker simply does as he's been told. He then turns to us and smiles.

“Finally some company who's playing on a higher intellectual level.” he adds while looking around warily. He then doesn't beat around the bush as he immediately offers us to join him in his plan to take over Ber. After all, these barbarians are nothing more but wild, chaotic beasts who long for the hand of a strong leader.

"And you do think that a dragon girl is the ideal 'strong leader' for a people who made great efforts to leave centuries of dragon tyranny behind them?” Carlyle says with a smirk, leaving “Pemberton” awestruck.

“Don't look so surprised, Teraklir. We know who you are. We're not here to harm you, we're here to make you an offer. Abandon your conquest of Ber and join the Pact of Boyle. You can imagine what happens if the Berans find out who you are and that your kind still lives.” Auryn adds.

“This is HIS plan, isn't it?! Using his thralls to try to control me, that's so typical. Not this time. I WILL rule all of Ber. TINKER! Remove these pests!”

As Tinker returns still heavily armed, we withdraw to the forges' entrance to lure him out a bit. Then Auryn makes a dive for the cockpit, smashes its window open and charms Tinker while Carlyle keeps a close eye on “Pemberton”. Who makes a beeline to the control console which seems to be the thing that's operating the laser beam. Fearing that the enraged dragon might redirect the beam towards Tinker and Auryn, he uses a teleport spell to place himself between duplicant and console.

“It is enough, really. We're not here to harm you, so please don't try to hurt the one person who might understand you more than anyone else”

“You know nothing, puny human!” Pemberton says, while still moving towards the console. Which leaves Carlyle with no choice but to destroy the duplicant.

Meanwhile, Auryn lures Tinker out of the forge, only to realize that this Tinker is yet another duplicant. So we let him discard his steamsuit in the lave lake. Among the scarreted parts on the conveyor, we also find an almost finished mechanical dragon duplicant, which in turn means that we didn't really need the improvised version from Fordren. So we take the drakelicant with us and start searching for the real Teraklir.

We enter the next room only to find what appears to be cocoon-shaped sleeping capsules, two of which contain Tinker Oddcog and “Minister of Rebellion” Pardo. Then, we hear a sharp mechanical noise and other conveyors getting activated in the tunnels before hearing a familiar voice in our heads.

“I managed to regain control of the defense mechanisms. I can also deactivate the teleportation blockade at your signal. And...” he sighs mentally “...let me clean this up a bit. This should not be... duplicated by anyone”

We then see masses of unused duplicants being flung towards the lava lake as if they were moved by an invisible force.

“Let me take care of the sleeping ones. You go find my daughter. And give her the ring I put into your pocket, will you? She doesn't know how to transform yet.”

As soon as Fordren's voice is out of her head, Auryn starts searching her pockets immediately, where she finds a ring imbued with polymorph powers. Without giving the how and when too much of a thought, we then try to find Teraklir as quickly as possible. It doesn't take too long and we find an illusory wall, leading to another corridor which then leads to an enormous cave filled with mountains of ancient treasure.

But that's not all... as on top of all this splendor we see a colossal dragon, large as a house and surrounded by comparatively tiny blue and green floating stones.

“So, you finally found Gradiax the Terrible, Steel Tyrant and Master of Ber. Submit yourselves, mortals, and you may live.“

“Impressive.” Carlyle says “But you cannot fool us. We know who you are and you are still a half-century old dragon youth. So please, cast off your illusion. We do not intend to fight you.”

“I do not care for your intentions. This is MY realm and you shall suffer for your foolish resistance!”

Then the gigantic dragon opens his mouth to release its fiery breath. We take cover and agree that talking won't work at this stage.

“The stones. Blue is for offense. I take the left, you take the right.” Auryn whispers, then casts an acceleration spell before starting a dance of fire protection.

Carlyle nods and then twists time itself to come closer to the floating stones he starts collecting immediately. Teraklir instantly realizes what we are trying to do and flies into a full rage, attacking us with all her empowered form has to offer. We try to dodge and parry her furious attacks as good as we can, but still suffer some injuries in the process. Collecting the gems seem to work though as her claws grow much slower and smaller by each stone.

("Collect the stones before the dragon smashes you to pieces" is a wholly different type of encounter than your usual ones. Tiz said that the original Teraklir would have been too easy, especially as we eliminated Lya and Tinker out of the equation. So he took the stats of some way bigger draon and reducet it bit by bit. Which was quite painful at the beginning)

As soon as we got all the blue ones, we turn to the green stones. This time, Teraklir's offense is much weaker and she doesn't get a single hit on us. Still mad, but even a bit impressed, the dragon hisses “If you can defeat me, then maybe I'll give this king of yours a chance. But that won't happen.”

“When we defeat you” Carlyle replies, “then maybe our king will give you a chance.”

(this is funnier in German since “if” and “when” are the same word which can be used in a temporal and in a conditional sense.)

Auryn laughs briefly as she collects her part of the green stones. As soon as we got the last gem, the draconic matrix destabilized completely, dissolving the image of “Gradiax” to reveal the person underneath it: A red dragon, not much taller than a horse, wearing both a metal claw and a metal wing. Before Teraklir gets the chance for further attacks, Auryn points her weapon at Teraklir's chest and lets her eyes flash with violet light.

“We defeated you. There is no use in fighting us at this point. Surrender. Now.”

The dragon growls, but she still lowers her claws and ceases her hostilities. Then she laments that we ruined her perfect plan which would have certainly worked were it not for us and our interference in Ber. We agree that her plan was really clever and might have worked, but also remind her that Ber has some allies and friends in its neighboring countries which would have surely intervened the moment a Tyrant Teraklir would have proclaimed herself “ruler of Ber”. After all, that's what King Boyle did to help the Berans get rid of the Tyrants in the first place. The same King who, we remind her, had also defeated her powerful father.

“See, this is why we came here, Teraklir. To offer you to become part of the Pact of Boyle in the name of King Aodhan of Risur. It is neither in our, nor in the other dragon's interest that the world knows about you.” Carlyle explains.

“We don't want you to be hunted down. We don't want you to die. We hope that you can lead and make a life of your own, free from your father's shadow.” Auryn adds.

“In the guise of a weak human, I suppose. Disgraceful.”

“Strength does not depend on form. Perhaps you can understand this if you try to look at our world through the eyes of our kind. Your father wasn't afraid to do so, so why should you?” Auryn says, handing the Ring of transformation to the young dragon.

Teraklir finally agrees, takes the ring and promises to keep her identity a secret and never harm Risur or its citizens. We take this as a first step, but remind her that she's have to swear the oath in front of the King for it to be official. So we cast a sending spell to Harkover Lee to tell him the news and request a private audience as quickly as possible. As soon as Lee replies that we shall meet at the teleportation circle in Slate, we tell Gradiax to lower the teleportatoin ward, take the now-elvish looking Teraklir and teleport to our capital.

When we arrive in Slate, we're quite surprised to see that the place is warded off with lots of illusion magics. Also, all guards seem to have left the area and we are welcomed by King Aodhan and the Principal Minister. Our King is a bit astonished to see the teenage elf with the metal prosthetic, but he then directly proceeds to the official part of the Pact, making Teraklir, daughter of Gradiax, swear that she won't reveal her identity or try to harm Risur. In return, he welcomes her under the protection of the crown.

As soon as the short ceremony is finished, Teraklir states she's disappointed that she never even got the chance to prove her strength to Gradiax, and that she had to submit to a human on top of that.

“Don't hate yourself.” Carlyle replies. “Your father knew about your plan and he called it brilliant. But like any good father...” - Auryn is breathing heavily at this part - “...he was concerned about your future. He doesn't want to lose you, even if you don't care for him at the moment. And even he had to admit that creating the duplicants was a mistake. Such a technology is a threat to everyone.”

Auryn takes a moment and then adds that her people also once ruled over a great empire, the grandest the world had ever seen. And that their leaders could be seen as Tyrants, too, at least from the perspective of a slave. It took a catastrophe that nearly killed all of her people to see their mistakes and move on to another way of life.

“Think about it this way: Through our survival, through our change, we actually became stronger and wiser. And the next time the Eladrin will appear on the word's stage, we will be free from the shackles of our past.”

She then shakes her head as if she just realized that she had never thought about the Malice and their survival this way. Teraklir seems to remain skeptical, but she mentions that she'll maybe start her new life by studying magic and technology at Pardwright. We decide to leave her (and the eye of Yeref) in the able hands of Harkover Lee and King Aodhan.

(and this is how we managed to keep the whole Pact of Boyle stuff a national secret. This is also not the last time that we've seen Teraklir in action)

 

[Lylandra]

Since we left Team Lya in the entrance to Gradiax' hoard and do not plan to let them lot there, we return to the Isla after our delivery of Teraklir. Before we take care of them, we are hailed by a slender danoran buisnessman who's holding the shattered body of a dead gnoll in one hand.

“I must admit that I felt quite sad when I killed him. He's been such a nice and loyal fellow.” Fordren says with honest regret, though he makes it sound as if he just had to put his pet puppy to rest. Still, sacrificing Pardo was the only option if he wanted to keep his and Teraklir's secret safe. He then hands Pardo's body to us and leaves without turning back.

We then untie Lya and her two bodyguards and heal them up. We then straight up tell her that we got Tinker and brought him to Risur for further questioning while leaving out the other details about the how and where.

Lya sighs in response and replies that it seems as if we beat her this time. She asks about the state of the gnoll rebellion and whether we found the culprit behind the attempted coup. We present dead Pardo and Tinker's dragon dupicant and explain that the clever gnoll got Tinker to craft a draconic vessel for his soul. With this appearance, he tricked the gnolls into worshipping him as the returned Gradiax, thus inciting their wills to overthrow the seemingly weak Bruse. By defeating the Minister of Rebellion and revealing the truth to the gnolls, we hope to stop their foolish rebellion though and bring peace to Ber.

“Very well then. Seems as if Risur found new best friends in the beastmen. How fitting. I just hope that we'll never have to see each other's faces again.”

“Oh, I do hope that we'll meet again. We do not see you as an enemy” Carlyle replies. “And I do hope that you'll one day see the error in blindly supporting everything the Obs want you to do. Though I do wish to ask you for a favor: King Aodhan has stated his wish to talk to one of the Obs' leaders. He'd like to understand the motivation behind your group.”

“Huh, quite the strange thing to ask for. But I do know dear Aodhan and I think that this is an honest request. I'll see what I can do, but will give you no promises.”

We then bid her farewell and suggest that she, Merton and Rush should leave the Isla immediately as we fear that the volcano might just collapse every minute.

(Thanks, Gradiax, for the memo)

We then return to the beran fleet and deliver our evidences to Bruse Cavallo. It doesn't take much longer and the Bruse is able to defeat the rebel fleet who seem to suffer under their lack of leadership. Being victorious, Bruse Cavallo then invites us to join him in his big celebration in Seobriga. We thankfully accept, but mention that we do have to take some time to question Tinker. So please do not start partying during the next few hours, okay?

We then teleport back to the RHC HQ where Tinker is being held in an extra secure cell. Unfortunately for us, the poor gnome still seems completely nuts. The only thing that gets him motivated is the prospect of bging able to invent something (no matter what or for whom) and he laments having no tools or other material for his inventions. When we ask him about Borne, he gets starry-eyed and talks minutes about minutia details concerning his construction. He doesn't know jack about the Obs though. Not that he would care much about them either. He doesn't even remembet the names Kasvarina or Alexander Grappa. We also realize that this orb he's carrying with him all the time seems to be precious to him, so we take it from him to see if this can make the gnome more cooperative.

Thinker protests heavily, but he has no real say in this. We decide to leave him alone for a while and use the spare time to examine said orb.

(Session 39)

It takes us a day to figure out that it was actually the orb which drove Tinker to the crazy state he's been in. While trying to examine the thing, we start hearing whispers and decide to handle it carefully. After a while, Carlyle seems to be able to establish a connection to the “Godmind Urn” and as he attunes to it, the object shifts its form completely, turning from a mechanical device to a rather small metallic pin with the risuri coat of arms.

Carlyle states that, while he's still hearing these little whispers every now and then, he managed to drive them back to his subconscious. Also, they now center around all things Risur instead of machinery. Auryn promises to keep a close eye on her partner and warn him should his behavior start to shift from normal to obsessive.

(Being a Spirit Medium, Carlyle was of course able to fully utilize the Urn. He chose Risur as his preferred domain, as he sees himself as a protector of his nation)

When we return to Tinker, we find that he's kind of cured of his madness. He seems still unhappy that he's imprisoned and very eager to make himself useful. Or so. At least, he wishes to get back into some sort of workshop to start tinkering again. We agree that allowing Tinker to develop gadgets for Risur might be a good idea, as long as he's doing so under strict surveillance.

As the beran victory celebrations are still in development (Corta is pretty much a perfectionist), we head back to Citada de Cavallo to talk to Dr. von Recklinghausen about his lost “son” Andrei. We tell the good doctor that Andrei is currently working in the railway construction team of Liss, which is why this could be the perfect opportunity to reunite with him. Von Recklinghausen agrees that his work is basically finished here, but that he'll have to get back to Lynn Kindleton first, whom he had left in Seobriga. He's also quite nervous when it comes to Andrei and we sense that he's afraid of meeting him.

We agree that the doctor needs more time thinking about his relationship to his son and offer him to bring him to Seobriga, as we're being invited to the grand celebration by the Bruse. So the doctor says goodbye to the people in Citada de Cavallo and we all teleport to Seobriga. There, we part ways and head to the Bruse's palace.

On our way there, we notice a red-scaled kobold in our shadows who appears to be following us. We appear to ignore him, but keep a close eye on the small fellow. When we arrive at the Palace, we ask for an audience with Bruse Cavallo as Carlyle intends to keep his promise to the late Bruse Shantus.

To our surprise, we meet the red kobold again, and this time he's treating us with snacks courtesy of the Bruse. Carlyle asks him about his occupation and the kobold replies that he's one of the Bruse's many servants.

“Very well. Then would you kindly show me around the wine cellar? I owe the Bruse a favor and don't intend to disappoint him” Carlyle asks the kobold, who seems surprised. Nevertheless, he leads Carlyle down a few stairs into the large storage room. Carlyle takes some time to find the right bottle of wine (Bruse Shantus had been oddly specific) and then turns back to the kobold.

“So, would you now tell me who you really are? After all, you're a pretty lousy servant.”

“Oh, but I am a servant of the Bruse indeed. El Extrano, at your service. No need to be surprised.”

Carlyle raises his brow in return as he really got no reason to be surprised at all. Extrano quickly states that he's the master spy of Ber, which is why he'd like to know more about this wine conspiracy. Carlyle agrees and tells the kobold about his spiritual exchange with Bruse Shantus. He mentions that Shantus had asked him to bring Cavallo a specific bottle of wine, and that's all there is to know. Meanwhile, El Extrano tries his best to not appear surprised himself. He seems to be a nice and competent fellow, but tries really hard to make a good appearance.

When Carlyle returns from the cellar, we are called to meet Bruse Cavallo in his office. We see that his desk is buried in paper and the old orc seems glad for the distraction.

“I'm beginning to understand why Shantus turned out that way. This is just crazy. Whoever thought that 'bills' and 'double-checkings' were a good idea needs to have his head smashed in”

Carlyle explains that this is just the way it had worked back when he was still a wee child 500 years ago and that this sort of bureaucracy probably stems from Crisillyir, so no need for further punishment. He then hands the bottle of wine over to Cavallo and says that Bruse Shantus explicitly asked him to give that one to his old friend as a gift for his new reign. And he had to promise Shatus to make Cavallo drink a glass as well, he adds.

“Ha! That bull-head! Remembering stories like that... reminds me of why I liked him so much back in the days.” Cavallo shouts out with an honest laugh. He then tells us about that particular bottle of wine: After uniting Ber and having Roye Bruse taking the lead of the nation, they had received a cartload of wine bottles as gifts and signs of goodwill from all over the world. And as neither of them knew jack about wine, they didn't know how to choose the right bottle for their private celebration. So they decided to toss rings and see where they'd land. And the bottle Carlyle brought up right now was exactly the one Cavallo had 'won' during this game.

He then beheads the bottle with his saber (inducing a hard cringe from Carlyle) and fills three glasses.

“To Roye and Shantus! To old friends and new! And to the proudest nation this world has ever seen!”

“To Ber!” we reply, sip at our glasses and find that the wine is oddly drinkable. Cavallo then explains that he'll probably not stay Bruse for too long as he feels that his daughter Corta is far better suited for all that. We agree that she's a good candidate as well and state our hope that Risur and Ber will stay good friends in the future. We know that we cannot speak for our king, but feel that he wishes to forge a stronger bond to our direct neighbor as well.

After the audience, we say goodbye to Bruse Cavallo and head back to the entrance. Carlyle mentions that we should try to meet up with Fordren again as we still got matters to discuss. On our way out, we come across Mr. Pemberton who greets us. Auryn turns to him to thank him again for his help in Sawyer and wish him good luck with the new Bruse. But this time, Pemberton appears to have no knowledge about that episode in Sawyer, so we get that this 'Pemberton' has to be Gradiax again. Pemberton explains briefly that his old rival, Fordren, appears to have left his business in Ber behind, which is why he'd gladly fill in the gap.

After leaving the dragon in disguise behind, Auryn asks Carlyle about his business with Fordren.

“I'm worried for Nathaniel Vantrys. See, if Fordren is Gradiax, and Cecilia, Nathaniel's betrothed is a Fordren, then who is she? Just another one of his puppets? For once I thought that everything was fine for the young Lord, that he could find true happiness and now her love for him could be nothing more than an act.”

Auryn nods as she understands Carlyle's worries. She says that she didn't get any sign of dishonesty from the young woman, but better be safe than sorry. So asking 'Fordren' about his relatives would definitely be a good addition to our to-do list.

(As this basically finishes the plot of adventure 6, I guess that this is the best place to give my/our feedback from a player's perspective. Keep in mind that we don't know the original material and Tizbiz changed quite a lot in the later parts regarding Gradiax and Teraklir.

First, we overall enjoyed the adventure by itself. The tasks were pretty much sraightforward in itself (building a railroad and making friends with Cavallo, then unearthing the culprit behind the coup) but still offered some sweet twists and cameos (Recklinghausen's return, the Pact of Boyle, Fordren's true identity). The railroad wasn't really our favourite part, but I already discussed that in a previous post.

We really love Ber as a nation. The idea and history of the beran culture is really unusual and cool, most of the oddballs there are likeable and even Shantus' obnoxiousness and 'stupid game' made sense in some way. We really didn't get his motivation behind Lya's challenge towards Cavallo as this basically meant risking a war with Risur, but that's it.

The dragon revelation - also really cool! Especially due to our connection to Fordren. Tiz told us that it would have been Gradiax/Pemberton himself who'd staged the coup and we guess that he didn't want to reignite Auryn's hatred for the guy. It would have made us put effort to separte him from Teraklir though as Auryn wouldn't have stayed quiet about her relationship to Teraklir's father.

Also, Teraklir. That character has such a cool concept!

We also deviated a bit from the intended course of the adventure as we really found intended and unintended ways to keep the survival of dragonkind a secret to the world. It made a lot of sense to keep it that way from our character's and King Aodhan's/Harkover Lee's perspective, and it really helped staying on good terms with Ber.

Regarding the rest of our criticism... it doesn't apply so much to chapter 6 itself as to the grander scheme of Zeitgeist. Because all in all, the adventure was as impactful to the overall plot as a filler episode. Sure, the dragons being alive was a big reveal, but that's one little detail that didn't really come into play that much.

Getting Tinker was basically irrelevant as his "notes on Borne" had no impact at all - we didn't learn anything useful about the Colossus until we found Grappa in adventure 7. I guess he's kind of interesting for steamsuit pilot characters and he got this "technical development" memo, but... err... that would need a proper "tech tree" to be tangible. Like, every X months (or adventures) you can pick a tech that Tinker has finished his reseach upon and tadaa! Innovation! Including the option to specialize on said tech for bigger progress (electricity, propulsion, mech-suits for our army, whatever). I know that getting our hands on Tinker is "optional" as having Lya succeed needs to be a possibility, but that way it felt a bit lackluster.

Same thing with the Godmind Urn. The way it is written, the artifact is such a cool (and possibly powerful) tool. I know that there shouldn't be too much emphasis on it as only a Spirit Medium is able to handle it properly, but it never ever got used or even mentioned after adventure 6. I put a lot of effort into trying to figure out what and what not would be possible with the Urn, but unfortunately it got written off as some random +5 skill bonus.

This also applies to a lot of future custom artifacts that players can get their hands on in Zeitgeist (the Humble Hook, the Blade of Srasama, the Eye of Yeref, the Arc of Reida to some extend). Only the Arsenal of Dhebisu appears to truly matter at some point of the campaign. As someone who loves to dive deep into the lore and world of a campaign, I'd have loved to see more impact of stuff like that. Especially as I really put a lot of effort into connecting the Living Blade to the overall story of Burning Sky and the Torch played a pivotal role there as well.

Also, in hinsight, it didn't really matter that we made good friends with the Bruse at all. Adventure 10 & 11 made all berans readily believe the - hardly believeable - Ob lies, going so far as to prepare for a war with Risur. Which made us question why we even put so much effort into forging a friendship with our neighbors. But I guess I'll discuss this in further detail during adventure 10 & 11 )

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

You have some similar feedback to ours concerning several of the weaker points of the Zeitgeist adventure path's storytelling, the bits most dearly lacking in cohesion.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

I think you are underestimating the role of Tinker in the campaign as published , he actually can if left with the Orb improve Risur's technology in quite remarkable ways, most of these do not impact on the pc's directly but by book 8 in my campaign we have introduced morse code radios and dynamite/TNT to the campaign which has remarkably improved the capabilities of the Risur military and communications.
He also provides the normal link to Leone and Grappa but your campaign may have handled that introduction differently.
The Orb itself is rather more than a +5 to skills, after looking at it my players were way too scared too touch it, that way lay madness and creeping towards being something other. Exactly what it does depends on the domain and there is not much guidance for more unnusual domains I think I may have had fun with Risur. Within my own campaign it would have helped one pc become a dragon, another would have been a lot like Tinker , the third would have gained the power to control and create air elementals getting stronger and weirder as time went on, and the last one they would have really regretted having the orb as she would have started to manifest as an incarnation of the end of the world. Unfortunatly they left it with Tinker

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

As written, the orb can be separated from Tinker without issue. He can still produce technological revelations.

The godmind urn is given no background lore whatsoever, and is never mentioned again, not even during book #10, Godmind. It is somewhat of a letdown.

 

[Andrew Moreton]

Your interpretation and mine differ on what happens when you take the urn away from Tinker.
I also would like more background on some issues but I am always keen on that, however to get every detail I could want we would have to have another 3 or 4 volumes the same size as the existing 3 which would have been a lot of work and a lot of extra money to spend. I could make the same points you make about every one of the dozens of RPG settings I have in this house , never has every detail of background and lore been covered not even Glorantha or Shadowrun which fill much more shelf space and are full of detail. In every campaign there must be blank space and that is where GM's earn their keep interpreting it as necessary for their campaign and for their players.
For instance I have spent hours working out much more of Kasavarina's life details before the Great Malice which 'could' have been included but without the special circumstances of my campaign very few players would want to sit through another Dozen of Kasavarina's memories without any relevance to the main plot.
The God mind urn if there had been another dozen pages on it , my players would have still walked away , so in many campaigns no more is needed. I know it's secret in my campaign if the players go back to it but that was a bit of thinking and creating on my part. Its quite clear that the urn and the Godmind of book 10 are completely unrelated one is a collective mind which has become unto a God so literally a GodMind, while the urn seems to contain the mind of a god or perhaps a protogod. The more I think about it the more I regret not inflicting it on my players , yet.

 

[Lylandra]

Yeah, my opinion is entirely based on player experience, and I am only one of two players. So who knows what's on the sourcebook and what's on the GM?

Regarding Tinker, I remember that there was this one handout, but I don't remember too much of it. Most of it had been combat boni or combat objects, so we didn't put too much thought into it. TNT & co are something that every good alchemist in PF can produce by himself anyway. Morse code / telegraphs and electricity would have been rather sweet as they'd eliminate our long-range communication difficulties. Tinker didn't care much for anything else and it was hinted that he'd been a disruptive, potentially lethal element, so we kept him under close surveillance. We as players would have needed something concrete, tangible, like said tech tree. Being subjected to overly much DM jurisdiction, especially in terms of flowing time / development progress can be difficult.

I know that the orb is potentially great, I took great lenghts to advocate for it myself. But my other two players were rather stubborn and didn't know what to do with it besides the +5. And since I was not the player whose character was able to interact with it, I let it fade to the background. Regarding the Humble Hook, that was the point where it affected me personally. But that's something for the discussion of adventure 11

Agreed that Zeitgeist would have profited from more material, especially in the later parts. I wouldn't have minded to play one adventure in each of the larger nations post-Nightfall. Also agreed that a campaign this huge depends on the GM as no writing team can cover up for all the different possibilities and playstyles. Or keep everything 100% consistent all the time. I had to adjust a good portion of WotBS myself as well, but I'm also much into worldbuilding and consistency and know my players very well.

Please don't take my criticism too harshly, I just like to point out the aspects of the campaign that we (as players) would have loved to see turn out differently.

 

[EarthSeraphEdna]

I personally believe that an area where the original Zeitgeist adventure path falls flat is that it frequently goes wide on subject matters and worldbuilding, instead of going deep. Rather than introduce a given topic (an NPC, a location, a magical phenomenon, an artifact, etc.), build upon it, delineate how it affects the rest of the world, and so on, thereby giving the GM a better perspective from which to build their own material, the adventure path more frequently introduces new ideas with surface-level information. You can see this with, for example, duplicants and mortal possession especially.

I would have rather had fewer introductions of new ideas, and more expansions of preexisting ideas. It is just my personal preference, though.

 

[RangerWickett]

The narrative intent of adventure 6 is to shift gears from "defend Risur" to "globe trot in order to protect the whole world." I wanted to throw a lot of hooks at a party in hopes that they'd latch onto something they like in Ber, because ideally that makes the players care about 'saving the world' in a more personal way.

So I didn't need the events in Ber to matter too much down the line; I wanted to establish what the baseline of that area is, and introduce characters who could be the anchor point for later adventures showing the broad scope of the threat the Ob pose.

And yeah, it's meant to be a lighter romp, and more of a Bond film, whose villain can hopefully become one of those endearing bad-guy-allies later on.

I appreciate the criticism, though. Getting Tinker or not doesn't change the campaign too much.

As for befriending the Bruse not mattering, maybe I didn't present it well. The intended point was that after the Ob do their Axis Seal ritual, the rest of the world starts acting out of character, being magically manipulated despite knowing better. Only Risur - thanks to PC intervention in Slate and Flint - and a few strong-willed NPCs in other countries were able to resist. I think my idea was that whoever the Bruse was didn't really want to invade Risur, but felt like they needed to work with the Ob because everyone else was.

I certainly had my eyes more on the "hit the ending target for adventure 13" goal, and didn't plan as well for 10 and 11. When collaborating with the other author Liz on 11, she wasn't as deeply involved with the broader story arc, and so we focused more on making sure each individual act was a fun and epic conflict. I didn't push as much on building solid connective tissue with the rest of the narrative. My bad.