ZEITGEIST [ZEITGEIST] The Continuing Adventures of Korrigan & Co.

[gideonpepys]

Conversations with the Dead - A Prologue to Zeitgeist Season 7

The unit spent an extra day on Nem, to allow those who had brought along lost ghosts of the Bleak Gate to converse with them, here where their spirits were strong enough to be seen, heard and even physically interact with.

Helandra

Rescued by Gupta, Helandra was no longer took the form of a comely ananta paudha, at least not at first. Her spirit was formed when she died, and it would seem that when she did so she was quite old. It transpired that Jenny Greenteeth possessed her and made several jaunts through time, eventually abandoning her in the Dreaming several centuries ago, having taken possession of another unfortunate - the Birch Queen's sister.

"By the time the evil green spirit vacated me I was already past my prime of youth. Unable to return to the modern day, I passed the rest of my years in the Dreaming. But when I died I fought to linger in the realm of the dead in the hope that I would one day find you and tell you all that I have learned..."

Now strong and self-aware enough to remember what she had to say, Helandra was able to provide some fascinating insights into the mind of the evil half of Kasvarina's spirit.

[More of which at the table on Monday...]

Elizabeth

While on Nem Korrigan's wife was also fully self-aware and able to interact physically with her surroundings. She spent most of her time talking to and mothering Kai, who was shy at first but soon began to ask the artless questions all four-year-old would ask of their dead mother. When he went to sleep, Korrigan and Elizabeth had a chance to talk alone:

Elizabeth began by saying, “I am sorry for keeping my intentions from you. I thought you would try to stop me and was not in a good state of mind. Perhaps if I had trusted you we could have found another way and you would not have to have raised our son on your own.”

"I know you did what you believed was best and now I am trying to do the same," Korrigan replied. "I am grateful you did what you did so Kai could have a chance to live, and I am sorry I wasn't there for you. But who can tell what would have happened if we made other choices? I am just happy that you and Kai have this chance to meet each other."

"I am happy too, though it saddens me to think of everything I have missed. I did not know that the spell I had cast would cause me to perish, though I knew it would cost me dearly. Thinking about it now, I can see that the fey bargain I made was as one-sided and I was foolish to enter into it. But then Kai would not be here without it. He has told me a lot about your adventures together. I do not judge you for your decision to bring him along; it is not for me to do that. But I wonder - what do you think the Voice of Rot want with him?"

"No one can fully foresee their the consequences of their actions," said Korrigan. "All we can is do the best we can with what we have. You had the courage to do that, and this not only gave life to kai, it also gave him a foundation for courage and wisdom of his own. He will always remember what you did for him. He may be a child, but he shows awareness and understanding beyond his years. He has something.. Unique. Who can tell what he will be able to do with it. But I'm doing my best to guide him. That's why I keep him close. We are surrounded by a storm unlike anything anyone has experiences before. I could shelter him from it, but I choose to guide him through it. One thing you can be sure of - he will never be alone and unprotected.

"As for Voice of Rot..." he went on. "Well, we know what he wants - the destruction of all. The question is, does he want Kai because he needs him to further this end, or because he knows that Kai can foil him. I have been thinking about it a lot, but I don't have an answer yet."

"You are right," said Elizabeth. "Strangely, it does not trouble me that you are taking Kai into the eye of the storm. I trust you, and I know that he will not come to harm. Now that it is too late I remember all of the reasons why I fell in love with you. You are the best person I have ever met, and I am lucky to have found you. My only regret is that I let my frailty and fear cloud my judgement and lost the sense to put faith in you, which was my downfall."

She took his hand and planted a kiss on his cold, stony cheek.

El Perro

A message for Uru from beyond the grave:


Transcript: "How ya doin', stinky trasgo? it's been a while, init? I hope, for your own good, you kept my firearms, because I'll be back someday from the realm of death... I can't stand having no flesh body... I can't feel the smell of gunpowder!!!"

Uru obfuscated with an amusing anecdote about loaning El Perro's pistol to someone but not giving them any bullets. What a hilarious plank! (This enabled him to sidestep the part where he gave the gun to a deep faen shaman in return for the secret to shadow walking. It escaped Uru for the time being that the self-same shaman was in fact now a member of Rumdoom's retinut, so in some respects it could be argued that he did still have the gun.)

Then he sounded out El Perro to see if he was open to the idea of "founding a Ghost Assembly, a small force of militant-minded incorporeal undead who could help investigate and castigate violators of the rules of your realm. In the meantime, I'll work on seeing what I can do to give ghost a more robust method of sensing the world."

El Perro agreed to co-operate since he is, or was, always a man of action... and also had a certain soft spot for the little creature.

Uriel, meanwhile, put two and two together and suspected that Uru might be closer to finding a solution than he realised. ...

Lavanya

Perhaps we should draw a discreet veil over her newfound capacity to interact physically with Leon?

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 236, Part One

A Trip Down Memory Lane

Helandra’s memory was dim, despite the boost to her spirit from the plane of ruin, and what she remembered had to be teased out by careful questioning. Gupta called on the others to help, as although she knew Helandra best, and had the closest connection to her, the others knew more about events that preceded her involvement, and – certainly in Korrigan’s case – were more personally invested in what Helandra had to say about Jenny Greenteeth.

Korrigan’s first question was, “Why does she want Kai?”

Frustratingly, Helandra did not know the answer to that, but she was able to say that getting hold of him was her sole motivation. It wasn’t mere opportunism, but the reason for her existence. Just as Lavanya had come into being with a mission, or series of missions (some of which she could not articulate the reason for either). It was her whispers to the River King that had originated the initial fey bargain with Elizabeth (although this came after she abandoned Helandra, and took possession of the Birch Queen’s sister).

They mulled over Kai’s importance once again and realised that his deep connection with the planes stemmed from his ‘schism-wrought’ blood: Korrigan’s nature had been changed on Axis Island, but unlike many others he had been able to survive the schism and pass his unique nature on to his son.

Gupta asked Helandra if she had experienced different timelines, like Leon and Lavanya had. Helandra found that intriguing and thought very hard about it. It would certainly make sense of some of the fragments of memory that did not seem to link to one another or even seemed contradictory.

Korrigan asked her if Greenteeth truly served the Voice of Rot, or if her involvement with him was more self-serving. Helandra did not know about Greenteeth’s allegiance with the Voice of Rot, and so the hag’s involvement with him must have come later. Helandra apologised that she was unable to be clearer or provide better answers.

Leon asked her about Kasvarina’s encounter with the serpent on Reida, which she had witnessed. Helandra said that Kasvarina’s intention had been to beat the Voice of Rot to the plane of time and commune with it for as long as possible. She succeeded, but her communion was interrupted by the titan’s arrival. Kasvarina was poisoned and… they knew the rest.

Lavanya wondered aloud if Kasvarina had created Jenny Greenteeth on purpose, or at very least was aware that her creation would come about as a corollary of her own.

“We do need Kai,” said Uriel.

Lavanya asked, “What else have her machinations made you do?”

They thought about the planar idols (retrieved by Leon at the behest of the mysterious Thinker), and also realised that Korrigan’s latest brush with Greenteeth had showed them the way to the Gyre…

Meanwhile, Uru spoke to Uriel about his plan to create a Ghost Assembly. Uriel didn’t know about that precise plan, but he did sense a strengthening of Uru’s connection to the spirits that surrounded him, one that did not necessarily stem from their presence here on Nem. He thought about it for a while and had a sudden revelation: The Voice of Rot once had domain over both corporeal and incorporeal undead. He no longer controlled spirits, but his eye did. Could it be that the loss of his eye had precipitated this loss of power? And could it be that Uru might now be in a position to seize that portion of the serpent’s portfolio, now that he too was a titan in possession of the Voice of Rot’s eye?

Uru set about at once to dismantle the Cyclopean Revelation so that he could get his hands on and begin to study the Eye.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 236, Part Two

Padyer, Av and the Plain of Rice

They returned to Padyer, to investigate the warded tower they had found last time, when both Uriel and Leon had been otherwise occupied. Timing their touchdown to avoid the boiling seas, they dispelled the wards and gained entrance, while Kai divined the plane’s very unhelpful traits. Uriel used location loresight to learn about Padyers’s history:

A hugely powerful elementalist captured avatars of the gods of fire and the sea and tried to bind their power into a staff. He then sent out a burning wave to annihilate his enemies in a coastal kingdom, but the wave did not stop. It carried its scalding heat across the entire world, until finally it reached the mage’s own tower. He managed to ward his tower against the wave, but it was not long before all the water in the world became hotter than the ignition point of flesh and wood. The mage plane-shifted away, taking his deadly staff with him, but leaving behind a dead world.

Once inside the tower, they found a veritable treasure trove of spellbooks and magical items. Leon and Uriel each chose a particularly powerful spell to take away for study. There was so much to be investigated here that they decided to stay longer than planned, even while the raging sea crashed around the warded tower, and when they left, their pockets were bulging with interesting artefacts and weapons they hoped to use against the Golden Legion.

On to Av, just passing through on their way to the Plain of Rice, but interested to see what had become of it: It was now a broken fragment slowly rotating in space. On one side, the Bleak Gate analogue of Cauldron Hill ; on the other, the Dreaming, in an area blighted by the factories of Flint. In the distance they spied a Golden Legion windskiff, flying low and capturing survivors.

They made a beeline for it, and Uru readied the Tyrant’s Eye. But before they even got there, they saw an amorphous , dark shape sweep like a wave out of the blighted forest and consume the devils and the skiff! Uru caught sight of a tiny, green figure that seemed to be directing this mass, and as they neared they heard music, as if the blighted wave was being being conducted somehow. When the wave subsided, they could see that the devils were dead –even their succubus commander – and the golden chains had been torn from their slaves. (This was not ideal in the case of those who had not only recently succumbed, and they were in the process of dying a noisy, horrible death. As Quratulain might put it, such is the price of freedom.)

At once, Leon recognised the Huldregarl, a powerful forest spirit he had once travelled with. It was formed from the rotting mulch on the forest floor, full of dead leaves, insects, fungi and carcasses. Leon had once travelled with the Huldregarl, and with its tiny companion, Etiotek Ekiokiet: a tiny, plant-like sprite, who soothed and communicated with Huldregaal through song. They did not recognise him in turn. (Nor had Ascodel, Nbed or Redcoat, for that matter.) But they saw he was one of the Unseen Court and asked for tidings.

Leon said that they were on a quest to rescue Thisraldion from captivity on Egalitrix (thereby restoring this plane) and asked if the two would accompany them, but neither was happy at the thought of going aboard the Coaltongue. They would stay here and prevent the Legion from taking any more slaves. Korrigan told them he might communicate with them from afar (in case they distrusted what they were hearing, as so often seemed to be the case). Before they left Av, Uru gathered soil and plant-life to create a Terrarium.

The Plane of Rice was… the Plane of Rice. They did not pause to create a golden icon.

Their visit to these last two planes marked the end of their first fortnight in the Gyre.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 236, Part Three

The Mirror of Opposition

Their route caused them to approach Mavisha from the south-east, where the plane did not abut another, and gave on to the cold, cold emptiness of space. The waves and chop of the surface came to an abrupt end, and a sheer, smooth face of water descended as far as the eye could see.

As a man of the sea, Admiral Smith was fascinated and insisted on taking a closer look. The Coaltongue flew down, close to the whatever supernatural, invisible force-field kept the water suspended.

The seas were teeming with life: turtles, schools of fish, sharks, dire anamalocarises, and the like. A few despondent fish men, just intelligent enough to grasp their world’s doom, dangled listlessly at the edge of the sea, looking into the void. They showed signs of amazement as the Coaltongue flew by.

At length, they had had enough of sight-seeing and prepared to ascend to the surface of Mavisha and investigate the plane fully. Just before they did so, Uru felt a twinge – a pull or call from a nearby spirit. He told the others, and they went to see what the matter was:

A shipwreck, mostly submerged, rocking against the edge of the world. The vessel’s enchanted wooden hull had survived thousands of years of abuse, but still unmistakable to Xambria, who piped up for the first time in many days and announced this to be of Ancient design.

Using the stone disks and Uru’s rebreathers (for those who needed them), the unit went to explore. They found it was possible to pass through the supernatural barrier with intentional movement.

The hold of the boat was filled with golden weapons looted from legionnaires the orcs fought millennia ago, as well as a gold plate that acted as a star chart of planes in the multiverse (which Uru made sure to purloin). It seemed this vessel was once capable of sailing between seas of different worlds.

Amid the piles of treasure a corpse lay face-down, wrapped in tarred cloth that preserved its flesh. His hands had been chopped off, and the deck bore ancient stains from where he bled out. When they began poking around nearby, the mummy rose up, but did not attack. It revealed an orcish face whose tusks and brows were pierced with gold chains. For a moment his hollow eyes took in the party with a primordial menace, but then he fell to his knees and held up his stump arms in a plea.

Uriel was able to converse with him in the tongue of the Ancients. In life, the orc’s name was Athotoc. He confessed that he had betrayed his people, but not by his choice. He was enslaved by the legion and told them of the plan to find the soul of this plane. Fortunately his people survived the ambush, but they butchered Athotoc, thinking him to be a genuine traitor. As he bled to death, he shouted a warning, naming the world that one of the legion’s generals, Paelyrion XVIII, was mustering his forces in. Athotoc perished, but his soul remained, waiting for news that his people succeeded in creating the seal.

“They did succeed,” said Uru at once.

Athotoc was content.

They asked him if he knew how the Ancients had linked Lanjyr to a sun. Athotoc did not even know about that, but was not surprised when he was told it was Toteth Topec’s idea. “Always a dreamer, that one…” They also asked how the Ancients had put the seal in place. “Every wizard in the world,” he said.

Then Athotoc asked them a favour. He told them to go to the nearest island, and find a golden oval, wrapped in wolf fur, buried in a mass grave where his kin disposed of the legionnaires. He asked them to destroy it, so that his soul could be free. And he warned them not to look themselves in the eyes in the golden mirror’s reflection, or else they would be slaves too.

They did as he requested and found the island choked with vines covered in fine fibres that glowed at their tips, and horseshoe crabs wearing golden helmets scrawling eerie patterns in the sand. The mass grave was easily found, since nothing grew over the sea-smoothed stones of a huge cairn. Their excavation turned up the weapons and chains of hundreds of legionnaires tangled with bone fragments. Buried in the centre was the tattered wolf pelt Athotoc had mentioned. It was wrapped around a large oval shape.

Rumdoom decided to destroy it with the Stone of Not, but the Stone only destroyed the wolf pelt, revealing the mirror. Fortunately, Rumdoom was able to resist the magic of the mirror and, giving an angry snarl, both shattered and obliterated it utterly.

Hoping that this might be the favour the plane needed for them to bond with it more easily, they had Kai make the attempt. But, no; the attempt failed. If they were to quickly create an icon of Mavisha, they would need to look elsewhere.

End of Session

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 237, Part One

The Mysteries of Mavisha

Searching for a way to effectively bond with Mavisha, they flew across the surface of the sea, heading towards the nearest unexplored island. On the way they flew over an atoll where a small group of fishmen were clustered over the carcass of a sea creature. Once again, the fishmen raised their heads and ululated at the Coaltongue.

The unit decided they might be worth talking to and flew down on stone discs. As they approached, half the fishmen dived into the water. Four stood their ground for a moment until one by one they jumped in too, with the last one to go throwing a futile spear in warning.

Korrigan shifted into his aquatic form and went in after them, with Uriel following in the form of a great sea turtle. They tried to make it obvious that they weren’t giving pursuit; just hung in the water as though curious. Gradually, the fishmen returned to cautiously circle around them. Then Korrigan reach out telepathically and had a rudimentary conversation with them. He asked if they had had any problems lately (beside the obvious, imminent end of their world with they may or may not have been aware of). The fishmen said ‘not in our village, but in those that way’ (gesturing north-east). It seemed that a malevolent force had lured the fishmen from their dwelling places and left them entirely empty. Gupta wondered if there might be aboleth here. Perhaps this was where they originally came from?

So they travelled north-east, and experienced a sinking feeling when they consulted their chart: to the north-east, Mavisha shared a border with Shabboath, where the fearful savants had lurked. So they sailed high over the cluster of islands and travelled to where the two planes almost touched, taking the Coaltongue down to see if there was any kind of connection. All they saw was a mist-shrouded cluster of floating rocks – not an uncommon sight in the Gyre. But as they drew nearer, Leon’s truesight revealed this to be an illusion which disguised an immense, two-hundred-foot long, waxy tunnel, joining Shabboath with Mavisha.

“I’ll fire up the Tyrant’s Eye!” Uru declared, eagerly, until Korrigan asked him to wait: the tunnel could be easily rebuilt if they didn’t find the savant, and that might be harder if it was spooked. A quick check revealed no guardians here. Uriel invoked the detect planar energies ritual given to them by the Voice of Rot. He used it to trace Shabboath energy from the tunnel, through the water, back to the largest island at the centre of a cluster they had passed over.

No one wanted to tangle with the strange savants again. But none of the other water planes had been suitable, Uriel reminded them. (Uru nodded his approval, as retaining Mavisha appealed to his innate conservatism; he was glad to see the others were coming round.) Rumdoom, however, was having none of it. He and Hildegaard had counselled against poking around in Shabboath, and the unit had ended up fleeing the lightless depths. Hildegaard wanted nothing more to do with psychic sea-creatures. They would remain on the Coaltongue. In preparation, Uriel cast the powerful foresight spell he had picked up on Padyer, which would improve his chances of defeating the dangerous savant.

The others headed down to the surface on stone discs. On the beach they found exhausted, dying fishmen and, now close, Leon penetrated a vast illusion concealing another waxy structure: this one a great tower, crawling with fishmen who appeared to be molding it. Many of their corpses littered the beach at the foot of the tower, having fallen from a great height; the others had died from exhaustion. Uriel cast truesight too, and together he and Leon established that the sigils covering this tower were capable of greatly magnifying psychic energies. Fortunately, it was not yet finished.

Uriel reached out telepathically to see what was controlling the fishmen. At once, he sensed that this might have been a mistake – the dominating mind gazed back as he did so, and their presence was now revealed.

At once the sea behind them erupted and huge tentacles swept the beach: a dominated kraken, flailing its tentacles in defence of its master. Ducking and dodging, they ran for the entrance to the tower, where Uriel was convinced they would find the savant. Korrigan was struck, grabbed and squeezed.

Hidden up front, running through shadows towards the tower, Uru noticed a fishman walk out of the tower with incongruous calm. It strolled straight past him (hidden as he was) and headed towards Uriel, who was close behind and distracted by the thrashing kraken. There was something very odd about this fishman. Perhaps a hint of luminescence too? It raised an arm to touch the deva, who whirled the Staff of the Hierophant in defence. Uru took a careful shot, straight through the fishman’s neck. In vanished in an instant, leaving behind a psychic residue which Uriel recognised: a schistic projection!

Meanwhile, Leon teleported Korrigan out of the grasp of the kraken and cursed the creature; Quratulain shot it with her lantern blaster set to ‘shrink ray’ and reduced it to the size of a mere squid. It could no longer threaten them from the shoreline.

Freed up, they ran into the tower. The whole structure was filled with water! The ‘entrance’ simply a force-field that held the water in place but allowed the fishmen to come and go. Within, the tower was entirely hollow, curved and smooth and covered in similar sigils to those outside. Dead fishmen floated in the water, worked to death.

A huge, alien form detached itself from the wall of the tower and headed down into a channel above which the tower had been built: the savant, in the flesh. As it went, it summoned a swirl of tiny elementals that churned up the water and tore up the corpses. Korrigan and Gupta were caught up in this maelstrom. Quratulain miscalculated her response and attacked with a Vekeshi Blade, which did no good whatsoever.

Uru dodged the elemental chum swarm, and ranged ahead on Little Jack, who had been fitted with a propeller for aquatic work. Although he could not hope to catch the fast-moving savant, he was able to use a magic item he had found in the tower on Padyer – a hunter’s charm, which meant he was able to know the savant’s location and direction of travel.

Leon used oil of Urim in the Wayfarer’s Lantern to protect them all from harm. They had a quick telepathic conference – all the while buffeted by the chum swarm – before they decided to pursue the savant. Leon created dimensions doors to expedite their flight; Quratulain lobbed grenades behind them, putting paid to the swarm.

The tunnel, which had clearly been excavated at this end, wound down through the island for many hundreds of feet. The water became very dark and cold. Eventually it gave out onto the open ocean. Uru sensed that the savant was headed in the direction of the waxy tube.

They teleported to the tube and discussed the prospect of ambushing the creature. In the end, they decided to take no chances. They called in the Coaltongue, teleported onto it, disguised the vessel with roiling stormclouds, charged the brand and waited.

When Uru told them that the savant had entered the tube, they fired the brand, killing the savant instantly and blasting it into open space. Then they returned to the island and destroyed the psionic amplifier in the same way, before attempting to bond with Mavisha once again.

Success!

“That,” said Calily, as the set off again, “was truly impressive.”

 

[RangerWickett]

Wow, that's a hell of a killing move.

I feel like you made the savants even bleaker than I did.

 

[gideonpepys]

Wow, that's a hell of a killing move.

I feel like you made the savants even bleaker than I did.

Well, you had a lot on your plate at the time.

Yes, it was a lovely way to dispatch the savant. Mustn’t forget, though, that the players made the assumption they had dealt with the savant. They haven’t realised there are more on Shabboath, simply that the one the killed was responsible for all of the schistic projections they encountered on that plane. I doubt they’ll ever discover that fact (unless I find a way to reintroduce it) so if they choose to bond Lanjyr with Mavisha, they’ll be bringing the savants along for the ride. (This, though, will be something of an anti-climax after the final encounter of the campaign...)

 

[RangerWickett]

I mean, you already have a big aboleth plot that you added. Maybe this just sets up a renewed aboleth threat, albeit one that won't come to light for a few lifetimes.

 

[RangerWickett]

BTW, the savants here are a reference to the nineties era The Night Below campaign, the only published campaign I've ever run to the end.

 

[SanjMerchant]

Q's use of a shrink ray suddenly reset my mental model of her abilities from Terminator to Samus Aran. Now she just needs flying space leeches.