gideonpepys
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.
Dealing with Tokoloshe
For the last few months, a group of local urchins had been helping Uru to tend the upper reaches of his garden, in a disused building in the Nettles. At the surface, beautiful tropical plants had been cultivated around a central well, all surrounded by the crumbling stone walls of the roofless building where the dry well was discovered. There were four: twin pixies, a young boy with caterpillar treads for feet and a hengeyokai hedgehog. Uru had never troubled to learn their names, as such things rarely concerned him. The children did not know about the deeper reaches of the garden; even the pixies did not venture down there, as they did not like damp, dark, enclosed spaces.
One day, the caterpillar boy appeared outside Tinker Jack's, but lingered on the threshold, unsettled by the spidery toys in the window. Uru came out to speak to him and he said he had lost his friends. They had gone to the garden some time ago but he, because his caterpillar treads were slow, had lagged behind. By the time he caught up, the others were gone. He thought they were hiding, but they did not return for a long time. In the end, he decided they must have gone elsewhere, as they often did such things to tease him. But that was days ago and he hadn't seen them since.
Fearing the worst, Uru ignored Malthusius' instructions not to approach Tokoloshe until they had learned his truename. He stole into the garden, scrambled down the well, and entered the Garden of the Dead he had created in a network of caves down below.
He heard singing. Tokoloshe was flapping about congratulating himself in rhyme, a rhyme which just so happened to end with the line: "For my name is..." the truename itself being a combination of guttural sounds accompanied by lots of phlegm. Uru saw that Tokoloshe (we'll stick with that name for now) had placed the pixie twins in cages, while the hedgehog hengeyokai was curled up in a whimpering ball.
Incensed, Uru was just about to attack Tokoloshe when he sensed movement in the deep fey foliage. Strange, spiky plant creatures now lurked there, summoned by Tokoloshe to guard his new lair. Wisely, Uru retreated and went to fetch whichever unit members were available, returning with Matunaaga, Malthusius, Rumdoom and a vendetta bullet loaded into El Perro's gun with Tokoloshe's truename on it etched in abyssal (courtesy of Malthusius).
The ensuing conflict was satisfyingly brief. Tokoloshe and his demonic plant-raptor minions were soon defeated. Uru recaptured the quasit-like creature and with Malthusius' help placed it for safekeeping in the same sealed bottle he had found it in, before returning the Nettles children to their families.
To punish Tokoloshe Uru designed a special cuckoo clock, using the same marks he found on the stoppered bottle to bind the demon within it. This clock marked the holy days of the clergy calendar by injecting the demon with holy water and propelling him through little doors as he screamed in agony. Uru installed it in his garden as a reminder that he should always listen to Malthusius from now on.
DM's Note: This was just a wee side-quest intended to entertain anyone who showed up early to the session. The fun part was singing the silly song (based on the old Rumpelstiltskin myth) but inserting the demonic truename of Tokoloshe at the end (which is pretty much just a series of puking sounds).
I also love the way that Uru's player has developed his own little mini-world and his own mini-campaign.
Another touching development is the way in which the Uru-Malthusius dynamic has dramatically altered in the last couple of weeks. Previously, Uru really didn't like Malthusius. He resented any attempt by Malthusius to exert authority over him (even in the form of advice). He considered Malthusius to be a rival of Korrigan, although nothing could be further from the truth. He undermined Malthusius whenever he could, made jokes about him, and even went so far as to try to turn everyone against him back in the clergy vault. When Malthusius confessed to leaking information to Stanfield Uru felt vindicated, and when the old deva began to act suspiciously (driven by Xambria's possession), Uru was more or less convinced that Malthusius had been a bad guy and a traitor from the very beginning.
But when Uru was betrayed by Tokoloshe and found himself trapped half-in, half-out of the Bleak Gate, he knew Malthusius was the one to call. Malthusius then needed to devote a substantial amount of his free time to nursing Uru back to normality, and in response their relationship seems to have completely changed, to the point where one of the other players remarked on it last week saying, "I love the way you two are like best friends all of a sudden". I expected Uru's player to rankle at this and revert to his old hostilities but he just shrugged and carried on playing nice.
Great stuff!
For the last few months, a group of local urchins had been helping Uru to tend the upper reaches of his garden, in a disused building in the Nettles. At the surface, beautiful tropical plants had been cultivated around a central well, all surrounded by the crumbling stone walls of the roofless building where the dry well was discovered. There were four: twin pixies, a young boy with caterpillar treads for feet and a hengeyokai hedgehog. Uru had never troubled to learn their names, as such things rarely concerned him. The children did not know about the deeper reaches of the garden; even the pixies did not venture down there, as they did not like damp, dark, enclosed spaces.
One day, the caterpillar boy appeared outside Tinker Jack's, but lingered on the threshold, unsettled by the spidery toys in the window. Uru came out to speak to him and he said he had lost his friends. They had gone to the garden some time ago but he, because his caterpillar treads were slow, had lagged behind. By the time he caught up, the others were gone. He thought they were hiding, but they did not return for a long time. In the end, he decided they must have gone elsewhere, as they often did such things to tease him. But that was days ago and he hadn't seen them since.
Fearing the worst, Uru ignored Malthusius' instructions not to approach Tokoloshe until they had learned his truename. He stole into the garden, scrambled down the well, and entered the Garden of the Dead he had created in a network of caves down below.
He heard singing. Tokoloshe was flapping about congratulating himself in rhyme, a rhyme which just so happened to end with the line: "For my name is..." the truename itself being a combination of guttural sounds accompanied by lots of phlegm. Uru saw that Tokoloshe (we'll stick with that name for now) had placed the pixie twins in cages, while the hedgehog hengeyokai was curled up in a whimpering ball.
Incensed, Uru was just about to attack Tokoloshe when he sensed movement in the deep fey foliage. Strange, spiky plant creatures now lurked there, summoned by Tokoloshe to guard his new lair. Wisely, Uru retreated and went to fetch whichever unit members were available, returning with Matunaaga, Malthusius, Rumdoom and a vendetta bullet loaded into El Perro's gun with Tokoloshe's truename on it etched in abyssal (courtesy of Malthusius).
The ensuing conflict was satisfyingly brief. Tokoloshe and his demonic plant-raptor minions were soon defeated. Uru recaptured the quasit-like creature and with Malthusius' help placed it for safekeeping in the same sealed bottle he had found it in, before returning the Nettles children to their families.
To punish Tokoloshe Uru designed a special cuckoo clock, using the same marks he found on the stoppered bottle to bind the demon within it. This clock marked the holy days of the clergy calendar by injecting the demon with holy water and propelling him through little doors as he screamed in agony. Uru installed it in his garden as a reminder that he should always listen to Malthusius from now on.
DM's Note: This was just a wee side-quest intended to entertain anyone who showed up early to the session. The fun part was singing the silly song (based on the old Rumpelstiltskin myth) but inserting the demonic truename of Tokoloshe at the end (which is pretty much just a series of puking sounds).
I also love the way that Uru's player has developed his own little mini-world and his own mini-campaign.
Another touching development is the way in which the Uru-Malthusius dynamic has dramatically altered in the last couple of weeks. Previously, Uru really didn't like Malthusius. He resented any attempt by Malthusius to exert authority over him (even in the form of advice). He considered Malthusius to be a rival of Korrigan, although nothing could be further from the truth. He undermined Malthusius whenever he could, made jokes about him, and even went so far as to try to turn everyone against him back in the clergy vault. When Malthusius confessed to leaking information to Stanfield Uru felt vindicated, and when the old deva began to act suspiciously (driven by Xambria's possession), Uru was more or less convinced that Malthusius had been a bad guy and a traitor from the very beginning.
But when Uru was betrayed by Tokoloshe and found himself trapped half-in, half-out of the Bleak Gate, he knew Malthusius was the one to call. Malthusius then needed to devote a substantial amount of his free time to nursing Uru back to normality, and in response their relationship seems to have completely changed, to the point where one of the other players remarked on it last week saying, "I love the way you two are like best friends all of a sudden". I expected Uru's player to rankle at this and revert to his old hostilities but he just shrugged and carried on playing nice.
Great stuff!
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