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

[gideonpepys]

Zeitgeist Season Five Post-credit Sequence

At Korrigan's behest, Leon sought to access the Chamber of Dreams, and after a few days’ study and experimentation, he succeeded. When he stepped inside, he found that the opulent bedchamber he had created had been replaced by an austere, white room with stark furniture – a rectangular metal table and four metal chairs – reminiscent (if not identical to) the chamber in which he had once met Lavanya when she answered his call for help.

To his surprise, the chamber was also occupied. Jaques, the Vekeshi Mystic who had sought access to Kasvarina when she was a ‘guest’ in Sentosa, was sat at the table, reading a book and sipping from a glass of brandy. Jaques greeted him and said that he was very pleased to see him, as “it is not especially comfortable here, although the brandy is very good”. He hoped that Leon would enable his immediate release.

Leon recalled that the satyr Dantes, another mystic who they met in the Dreaming, had told them Kasvarina had last been seen in Ushanti, and had departed in the company of Jaques and Helandra (the ananta paudha whom Gupta had bedded, killed in tiger form, and resurrected with Kasvarina’s help).

“Kasvarina asked me to wait here for you,” said Jaques. “She wanted a method of communcation that was more responsive and reliable than a magic mouth! So at least I’m good for something. Also, I had no desire to follow her when I learned where she planned to go. Helandra is made of sterner stuff!”

When Leon asked where that was, Jaques took another sip of brandy, gestured upward with his eyes and then said casually, “Off-planet, in some haste. Something about trying to beat the Voice of Rot.”

 

[RangerWickett]

Taking a break for a bit?

 

[gideonpepys]

Taking a break for a bit?

For summer hols, yes. Back in September to tackle the titans!

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 64, Part One - Bole

Bole was capital of its own nation in ancient times, and it still maintained its grandeur today. Historically rich from lumber and from fertile forest gardens cultivated with the aid of the fey, in recent years it had boomed as a hub of trade. The Barret Damworks, a network of mill dams and locks completed three decades ago, tamed several tributary rivers from the Anthras Mountains, allowing the Great Delve river to flow smoothly westward, all the way through Slate and on to Shale. The concurrent development of steamships fostered traffic of great barges traveling up and down the river, while the railroad linked it to Flint. Today raw materials pass through Bole to and from nearly every corner of Risur.

Without pomp and ceremony, or even any forewarning, the new King of Risur arrived in Bole. It was only three days since the refugee crisis began – a day to gather information, a day for preparation, and a half day for travel. Only Quratulain, Uru and Gupta travelled with him (and Kai of course) – Leon was still pursuing the trail left by Kasvarina, Rumdoom was dealing with matters eschatological and Uriel was engaged in vital studies, trying to establish the exact nature of the changes that had beset the world as a result of the Ob’s interference. They would all be travelling to Bole in another few days.

Gupta disembarked from the rear of the train, separate to the others, to keep a distant eye out and watch for trouble. A press of people who wanted to board at once was held back by train guards, watchmen and RHC officers. Korrigan asked one of them where to find the Chief Inspectress and was told her office was ‘in the theatre district’.

They made their way through the darkened streets that were, far from the railroad, quiet and peaceful. No signs of the forest fires here just yet. Bole was very different in character from Flint – situated in a wooded valley, every building made from sturdy logs, not stone. No wonder they feared the advance of the Ash Wolf.

A boy in RHC uniform ran up to Korrigan and saluted, handing him a hand-written note. ‘To the King’. It was a hastily scrawled invitation to ‘come and have a drink in my office before you involve yourselves in local affairs’. A horrible breach of protocol, but one which Korrigan determined to overlook. At least she knew they were here. They followed the boy to the office, where they found Chief Inspectress Shaiaila Lundquist. She was dressed for action, in a long brown leather coat and high boots, but had her feet up on the desk when they arrived. She gestured for them to pull up a seat and offered them some locally brewed whiskey. Theatrical posters hung on the walls, and there was a primitive phonograph in one corner, though nothing was playing right now. “Well, it’s about time, your majesty,” she said.

“Now I can see why Bole is in crisis,” Korrigan responded, falling into Lundquist’s trap. Having feigned a lackadaisical attitude, she now explained in great detail how, given the lack of magic, it was vitally important for her to be in her office in order that her subordinates could find her – that it was more important for her to co-ordinate on all fronts than show up in person to deal with just one crisis of several. She complained that many of her own officers had joined the refugees fleeing north and she had been forced to deputise almost any willing volunteer, so close and continual guidance was a necessity. As she spoke, Korrigan realised that he was dealing with someone who bore a grudge against assumed authority, and rather than rising to her bait, sat down and said, “Yes, I met one of your latest recruits out on the street.” Then he demanded a full report.

Shaiaila explained that the refugee situation was straining the city, but having fey titans – which most people thought were just tall tales – wreak havoc was at least giving people something immediate to try to deal with, since no one had any idea what the sudden disappearance of the sun and stars meant. Her local agents had collected a lot of eye-witness sightings of the Father of Thunder to the west, but only a few (panicked and unreliable) of the Ash Wolf in the east, and none of Granny Allswell, though miners to the south reported an unprecedented uptick in gremlin sightings. At first it was just a matter of equipment breaking, and the theft of metal items, but recently, children had started going missing. Gupta, who had studied the history of the titans before they left Flint, added that all five titans hadn’t been active for seventeen centuries, and it was unprecedented for more than one to pose a threat in such a localised area. Lundquist threw her a glance which may have been half admiring, poured herself a whisky, threw herself into her chair, and asked what the hell the king intended to do now.

They shared ideas. Gupta suggested they light a wicker wolf in order to draw the Ash Wolf away from populated areas. They could couple it with a huge celebration to lift the peoples’ spirits. Uru balked at this part of the idea. (Unbeknownst to the others, having slightly misunderstood the nature of the hivemind phenomenon, Uru had tried to create a huge manifestation of himself to protect the city while he was gone – encouraging a group of Nettles street urchins to sing their favourite songs about him. When the hivemind formed, it was smaller and less powerful than the one created by the mob of workers, but working alone, it was all Uru could do to contain and destroy it.) The Chief Inspectress was scathing in her appraisal: “Just what we need. More fire.”

Korrigan’s idea to flood the valley by opening up or destroying the Barret Damworks was equally impractical as the dam works were many miles away and the damage would be difficult to control or direct. Lundquist’s own assessment was that the Ash Wolf posed the most immediate threat. It had already destroyed a few outlying settlements and seemed to be growing slowly closer to Bole. Korrigan decided to simply follow the latest sightings, and search the forest for signs of the wolf. He did not want to go up against it until reinforcements arrived, but once they had found the titan, they could keep track of it, and strike when the other members of the unit joined them. He asked Lundquist to provide scouts; she mumbled surly acquiescence. Lundquist then recommended they speak with Ochran Eisner, the city’s Minister of Fey Affairs.

 

[RangerWickett]

Hivemind Uru is both delightfully creepy and frightfully egotistical at the same time.

Welcome back!

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 64, Part Two

White Tongue

A classically-trained druid, Ochran’s duties included appeasing the fey spirits in the forest gardens and along the railroads to deter attacks. Only a few fey were still in the real world, stranded and weakened when the Dreaming was cut off by the Ob’s ritual, but Lunquist hoped that Eisner might have useful information about how to keep the fey titans from attacking Bole directly.

They found the Minister on the city’s outskirts, directing a volunteer unit painting archaic sigils on trees and stones in the woods around Bole. Ochran was far from personable, uncomfortable with eye contact, and only responded when directly addressed multiple times. Used to dealing with head-in-the-clouds druidic types, they persisted and encouraged Eisner to explain that these wards would keep the titans at bay, though he could not guarantee their lesser minions wouldn’t enter the city. Uru examined the sigils, and recognised them to be obscure icons that were indeed an anathema to even the most powerful fey fey titans. However, Uru realised that the sigils were being deployed in exactly the wrong way. If the sigils faced the city, any titans who entered would be goaded away and back out into the wilderness. But these were facing outward – a sure provocation to any titan who drew near.

When confronted with his mistake, Ochran struggled to come up with an excuse. Though Korrigan could see he was lying, he appeared to accept this story at first, gave orders for the sigils to be reversed and then asked Eisner to accompany them elsewhere for further discussions. As they went, Eisner grew increasingly agitated. When they were out of sight of the general public, Korrigan ordered Quratulain to draw her pistol on Eisner. Realising further protest would be useless, Eisner began to mutter a hasty incantation but Uru webbed up his mouth before he could finish it. Once they had neutralised him with mage cuffs, they removed the webs and he hissed at them, revealing a forked, white tongue. Under duress, he confessed his allegiance to the Voice of Rot, whose favour he was working to garner, for this was surely the end of days, when the great serpent would reclaim his dominion over all things, and only his favoured few would be spared. (They recalled that the name of the cult Reed Macbannin had used as a cover for his murders during the Obscurati convocation was called the White Tongue.) Eisner said that he had not heard from any of his lord’s messengers since the sun disappeared. He recoiled in horror when Uru threatened him with the Sword of the Black Needles, and went on to admit that his own sister was working towards similar destructive ends in the mining camp of Favela.

When they returned to RHC HQ with their prisoner, Lundquist seemed impressed, and agreed to send some of her best officers to arrest Katlin Eisner while Korrigan and Co. began their search for the Ash Wolf. With Lundquist now taking them seriously, they were afforded the best, most seasoned guides, and duly provisioned, and possessed of the latest news from the forest, set off through the forest gardens to find the lupine titan.

Muleshoe

Three days later, they found themselves in the outlying town of Muleshoe. Located twenty miles east of Bole, it lay in a valley clearing, surrounded on all sides by forest. Though it normally boasted a population of over a thousand, most had already fled the forest into Bole, following several sightings of smouldering wolves in the woods over the last few days, as the forest fires burned ever closer to their homes. Leon, Uriel and Rumdoom were due in town that day, but Korrigan decided to investigate ahead of their arrival, with a plan to withdraw and regroup if the Ash Wolf was observed.

Along with their seasoned ranger guides, Lundquist sent several watch men along to help evacuate those who were too weak to leave. Lumberjacks were desperately trying to clear the trees nearest the town, and the forest fire was almost upon them when the king and his retinue arrived. They spread out, and it was Uru, followed shortly by Gupta, who first set eyes on one of the Ash Wolf’s pups – a smouldering dire wolf the size of an elephant. It stood, wreathed in wisps of smoke, at the edge of the forest and was swiftly joined by another. Then another. Before long, Uru could see a half dozen or more.

Back in the centre of town, co-ordinating the evacuation effort, King Baldrey experienced a surge of power which he now recognised as a sign that a foe of great strength was nearby and about to contest for control of the land. Then Uru and Gupta saw the Ash Wolf himself, towering over the treetops. He was joined by another half dozen ‘cubs’.

In accordance with their plan, Korrigan gave the order to fall back and regroup, but as they withdrew, the Ash Wolf gave a terrifying howl, and his pack of cubs spread out at great speed to encircle Muleshoe.

Before they could escape, they saw four of the smouldering wolves heading straight for them. The eyes of these wolves were glowing, and as they ran their wreathes of smoke grew thicker, almost entirely obscuring the wolves.

As they bore down, Uru fired from hiding. One of the wolves gave a yelp and tumbled to the ground, struggling to raise itself up. Gupta prepared herself for combat, seeking a weakness she could exploit, equipped with the foreknowledge of her research into the titans. Quratulain drew her pistols and aimed, waiting for just the right moment.

One of the wolves’ eyes glowed even more brightly, and from it issued a great firestorm. Korrigan planted his feet and determined to resist the blaze as best he could, knowing it issued from the Ash Wolf himself. The others sought to throw themselves clear. Gupta did not make it (nor did their two ranger guides who were immediately incinerated), but Uru and Quratulain got away just in time. Now Quratulain’s targets were close enough, and distracted enough, and she fired – not at the wolf that was coming for her, but the one who was coming for Gupta. The great beast yelped, and veered away.

With Kai’s help, Korrigan had reattuned some of his planar powers, and so was able to fly out of the flames and give orders from above the battle. Gupta won clear of the conflagration, while the remaining wolves attacked Quratulain, filling the air with choking smoke. They could already see another two heading towards them, to take the place of the one that had fled, and the other that had almost been felled and was still struggling to get to its feet.

Now the Ash Wolf bombarded them with more fey magic: turning their weapons and armour to wood, then hurling an entire flaming tree over the rooftops to crush them. Quratulain found herself entirely lignified; Uru and Korrigan were crushed and pinned.

Then a voice so vast and grave it could only belong to the Ash Wolf intoned, “Risur has slain my child. Burned my home. By the old rites, I demand blood and flesh.” His voice seemed to come from all directions, as if the roaring forest fire itself spoke for him.

From beneath the burning branch that held him, a struggling Uru replied, “Did a tree fall on this pup of yours? We haven’t killed anyone, more’s the pity!”

There now came a dreadful pounding of paws, as the Ash Wolf itself charged in at them, moving at an impossible speed. He snapped at Quratulain, caught her in his jaws and carried her off into the forest, where he deposited her, deep in the forest fire, where she found it difficult to rise. Though she could resist heat, and cared nothing for smoke, now that she was made of wood, the flames were very dangerous indeed. She was very badly injured and as she lay there she thought to herself, “While I am happy to fulfil my role as bodyguard, I do not really want to die as a charred piece of wood. I wonder if the change is reversible. I guess one could say that King Korrigan speaks softly and now carries a big stick.”

Soundtrack for Ash Wolf fight:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEMQo22VjjU

End of Session

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 65, Part One - Phantom Cavalry

Things were going badly: Quratulain was caught in an intense blaze; Korrigan was trapped beneath a tree; close to exhaustion, Uru used the spell he had embedded in his sword and disappeared up a rope trick to take a breather.

Korrigan invoked his connection with the plane of time, and a future self appeared alongside him, took to the air and flew towards Quratulain (or as best as he could guess her location). As he flew she came within range of his defender sword, and he learned she was in a bad way indeed. The trapped Korrigan urged Gupta to follow him, away from the wolves. In hybrid form, she put some distance between herself and the pack, wishing as she went that she had reattuned with the Third Blade of Srasma, so she could help Quratulain.

The smouldering wolves followed. The Ash Wolf uprooted another tree and aimed it, not to hit the now fast-moving targets, but to crash across Gupta’s path. She turned to face his ‘pups’.

In the midst of the forest fire, having struggled to rise, Quratulain now fell to her knees.

To the south of Muleshoe, riders appeared, flying above the treetops on phantom steeds. Reinforcements had arrived! Uriel flew to aid of Gupta; Rumdoom and Leon headed for the Ash Wolf. Leon had brought the Book of Kelland. “The Ash Wolf does not light forest fires,” he declared. “He follows them in search of his mate.”

Unable to find Quratulain, but knowing how desperate her situation was, Korrigan turned in mid-air, faced the Ash Wolf and said, “You accuse us of things we haven’t done. We haven’t killed your pup. But we know who did.”

This gave the Ash Wolf pause, then it snarled and surged towards Korrigan. Though it moved once again with astonishing speed, Korrigan (both the airborne version and the tree-trapped one) winked out of existance before it could strike. Perplexed, it skidded to a halt and turned about in an enormous arc.

Gupta turned full tiger and fended off four smouldering wolves at once.

Rumdoom attacked! As his phantom mount drew close to the Ash Wolf, he leapt out of the saddle, hammer in hand, and grew to giant size as he did so. But he mistimed the jump, and landed face first in the dirt at the Ash Wolf’s feet.

Uru poked his head out of his rope trick. Seeing the coast was clear, and the battle had moved several hundred feet away, he jumped onto Little Jack and buzzed off in pursuit.

Arriving to aid Gupta, channelling the dragonslayer, Jannick, Uriel performed barrel roll on his phantom steed, and struck one pup with the Arsenal of Dhebisu – now in the form of an enormous greatsword. The blade struck true, and wolf erupted in a terrible inferno, causing Uriel and Gupta to recoil before it. It fled. Another wolf dashed in to take its place.

Quratuain collapsed and lost consciousness. Leon sent his spirit pseudodragon, Rahu Ketu, to find her, while he flew right up to the astonished Ash Wolf. “This forest fire was set by agents of the Voice of Rot to trick you into attacking us,” he said.

Taken aback by his boldness and audacity, the wolf said, “He would not dare!” But he and his pack stopped attacking. “My pup was slain by blades,” the Ash Wolf added, as if that proved or disproved something.

Rumdoom got to his feet and straightened his helmet. “Are we still fighting or what?” he said.

They were not. A parley began, during which Korrigan reappeared. The unit offered to track down the killers. The Ash Wolf said it would give them a day to do so before its hunt resumed. Then it told one of its pups to lead them to its cave, where the body of the slain wolf could be found. Another padded out of the forest fire holding Quratulain in its jaws. It placed her gently down in front of the unit.

She should have been dead, but Korrigan detected a glimmer of life. “The Blood of Ostea,” said Uriel, cryptically, before going on to detail the astronomical researches that had detained him.

While he spoke, the unit provided Quratulain with healing and then – unable to alter her lignified condition – sent her back to Bole with the rest of the evacuees.

 

[gideonpepys]

Session 65, Part Two - What have Leon, Rumdoom and Uriel been up to?

Uriel had devoted himself to astronomical researches. He had identified, and discovered the basic nature of, four of the new planes: Fourmyle – the new plane of space, with an Empowerment aspect that enabled the new teleportation phenomenon (that would soon become widely known as Fourmyle Jaunting); Baden – a small, spectral moon around Fourmyle with a Flight aspect; Ratios – an earth plane with a Logic aspect, leading people to use reason in their arguments; and Ostea – a bloody plane of water with a Healing aspect, that was pertinent to Quratulain’s case.

Uriel explained that all but the most grievous wounds would now heal themselves over time. Only a truly fatal blow – a beheading, or something similar – would cause death. This was a great relief to the rest of the unit. Uriel added, in a sombre tone, that one side-effect of the changes he had discovered was that deva (such as he) would no longer reincarnate. “Death is death,” he said.

Uru clapped his hands and rubbed them together in glee: he had a long list of deva he wanted to kill, he said. The others looked at him, askance. Surely the only deva who deserved such a fate had been killed very recently? Uru reminded them of the nihilistic deva of Methia who wanted to die. “But they helped us,” somebody said.

“So I’m going to help them,” Uru replied.

Leon had been side-tracked while seeking passage to Slate. When he stepped into the Chamber of Dreams, he found Jaques waiting for him with word from Kasvarina: She had arrived in Ushanti with a dire warning. They should evacuate, she said, and get word to other enclaves to do the same. The Vekeshi took her seriously, but were reluctant to abandon their sanctuary; Jaques did not know what had become of them. He and Helandra had left with Kasvarina and travelled South – all the way to the southernmost tip of Ber, where they waited within view of the Silent Storm. When the Great Eclipse happened, the Silent Storm ceased, and Kasvarina used her new flight powers to take them up to the Ziggurat of Avilona, which floated on a small island a mile above the sea. Within, she hoped to find a means to travel to the stars, ‘a cosmic slingshot’ was how she described it. Jaques didn’t like the sound of that, nor the reason she gave for doing so – to beat the Voice of Rot. And so she sent him back here, with a message for Leon:

“You will need to follow me sooner or later, and find your own way to do so if this one does not work.”

During his story, Jaques gestured to a new door in the Chamber. Leon opened it and found himself before the windswept Ziggurat. But with pressing matters calling him elsewhere, he investigated no further for the time being. Instead, he travelled on to Slate (to meet with Viscount Price-Hill and thereby set up sending communications), and then returned to Flint where he bid farewell to Jaques.

He spent the last day relearning the phantom steeds ritual; and linked portal, too, as Rumdoom was keen to visit Trekhom, where his followers had set up a teleportation circle.

Rumdoom sought a means to contact the Deep Ones, to warn them of the hivemind phenomenon and seek an alliance. To that end, he sought out the cache of Krazy Krauss, late associate member of the unit, who had (like Rumdoom) been mind-controlled by the aboleth, until he blew that part of his own brain out. Krauss had been killed by the Thing from Beyond, and so could not help sift through his piles of junk, but Rumdoom felt sure that it must contain some means of communicating with his alien masters.

Sure enough, with the help of dozens of Rumschatologists over two whole days, Rumdoom found what he was looking for: a broken tadpole-like device that may or may not have been organic in nature. Rumdoom had found a similar thing in the back of his own neck, when the Deep Ones had used him in an attempt to destroy Flint. Could it be fixed, and if so, used to transmit a message back to them? Rumdoom left this matter in hands of his followers before travelling to rejoin the unit in Bole. (There was no time now for a trip to Trekhom; that would have to wait.)

 

[RangerWickett]

Uru is as always a gem.

I'm intrigued by what you'll do with the aboleth here.

Oh, and of course I'm pleased to have a sufficiently terrifying Fey Titan.

 

[gideonpepys]

Uru is as always a gem.

Agreed. There's some funny stuff in the next session report too, but it won't be the same as it was at the table, without the actions and sound effects.

I'm intrigued by what you'll do with the aboleth here.

Yes, I'm having fun stringing these early story-lines out into epic tier. I'm trying to do so in a way that doesn't intrude on the main adventure path too much, because we have such a lot to cover already! (Timing is a bit of an issue because, before the idea of returning to Zeitgeist was mooted, we signed up to the Invisible Sun Directed Campaign, which we have to at least start by July 2019. That will run for a year. I very much doubt we'll have Zeitgeist finished by then, but I'm hoping to leave us with just one adventure left. Depending on where we get to, we might play out the heavenly hex-crawl over the course of many months - simultaneous to Invisible Sun - to give it that truly epic, lengthy feel.)

Oh, and of course I'm pleased to have a sufficiently terrifying Fey Titan.

Me too. It was made all the more terrifying by the absence of several party members. They really didn't want to be caught in the open like that! Cypher System makes high-level combats really fraught because the PCs have to spend their 'health' to land each blow. (So they become slowly more and more exhausted even if the enemy never hits them.) By the end of the combat they hadn't even started on the Ash Wolf! I'm glad it worked out that way; it would be a shame if the titans didn't live up to their reputation.