I’m back with more Dungeon Crawl Classics conversions of my Calvenor setting (if you have no idea what I’m talking about, check out the links above). I’ve got remarkably little preamble today, so let’s just jump right in!
Thanks to my protagonist Alric Mistsong, this expression of the demon-god of darkness and oblivion made for a relatively easy write-up. In fact, I’m inspired enough that I’ll adapt Alric’s future DDM mishaps—and possibly even spells—to be consistent with some of the tables here. Fun fun!
Comparing a cleric’s experience of Orthuun to a wizard’s is always interesting when creating these parallel entries. As a patron, Orthuun is vastly more destructive, generally in a wider area and affecting more people. Clerics, meanwhile, are slightly more sinister and able to dominate opponents one-on-one. That’s not a distinction I intended when embarking on the write-ups, but I think it’s cool.
Everything in Alric’s body ached. Indeed, pain had become such a constant experience these past two days that he hardly knew where to focus on it. He was footsore. His weaker leg complained with every step, worse than at any point in his life. His hips felt pulled out of their sockets. His entire torso itched and burned with half-healed bite marks. He had strained an arm muscle in the climb out of the Starless Rift, and any time he tried to lift something it screamed. Somehow, he’d twisted his neck wrong, so that looking to his right triggered a lightning bolt of agony. Even his jaw ached. The mage couldn’t remember what the embrace of a soft bed was like, how it felt to lose himself in his thoughts without his body demanding attention.
And yet, the mental anguish he experienced was worse. They had failed to keep Saelith the Vanished contained, and now he was free upon the world after centuries of imprisonment. Yesterday, they’d seen a hill giant on the plains, evidence that Orthuun’s army was beginning to assemble. Twice today they’d passed small animals, dead and with either their eyes or faces gone. How long did they have until Oakton and its surrounding settlements were under siege? A year? A month? Could humanity survive the Blind Sovereign’s forces, or were the secrets to defeating the demon lost to time? Did the knowledge of who created Thornmere Hold and the Starless Rift exist in the Inkbinders Lodge somewhere? Were there other caches of ancient artifacts nearby that would prove the key to repelling Orthuun? The implications of this journey swirled in his mind.
Colliding with those dark thoughts were more personal ones. How was he alive with no heartbeat? Or was he even alive? Saelith had called him “darkling” …was it only a matter of time before he succumbed to some sort of corruption? Would he turn on his companions eventually? Would he suffer the same fate as Hadren Kelthorn, devoured by some shadowy beast with nothing left behind? Should he abandon his magic before he was a thrall of the demon, or was it too late? Could he even get rid of the Tome of Unlit Paths? Did he want to?
“You’re doing it again,” Vessa’s voice broke in.
Alric blinked and looked at her. She was grinning. Gods but she was lovely, even after the perils they’d shared. Vessa limped as badly as him and kept touching her side tenderly. She said she’d thought she cracked a rib or two, and her shoulder where the rock had struck her was mottled in gruesome bruises. And yet still: She was lovely. Her lopsided grin was as much a light in the darkness for him as the sun finally appearing overhead.
He returned the grin. “Sorry,” he said, blushing. “I suppose I am.”
“A pip for your thoughts?” she asked, cocking her head.
“No, no,” he chuckled sourly, and waved his hand as if repelling a bad smell. “Nobody needs to share the misery of my mind. I apologize. You were saying?”
She paused a beat, as if wondering whether to probe. Instead, she pointed at the low, forested hills ahead of them. “I was saying that Mae thinks we can make it to Vastren Hollow by nightfall if we fancy a bed, but I’m not sure I want to return there. What do you think?”
Alric pursed his lips. “A bed does sound nice, and perhaps there is food remaining there that hasn’t spoiled. But…” a flash of bodies torn apart across the village’s streets filled his vision, and corrupted skratts leaping upon him in the night. He frowned. “I can see avoiding it too.”
“You’re no help,” she laughed. “I just…” she shivered. “You don’t know what I saw there that night. The nursery…” He thought he saw a tear form and she suddenly turned away, rubbing at her face.
“Vessa,” he said gently, then repeated her name. She looked up, eyes wet, face defiant, and sniffed. “On second thought, if an army was going to muster somewhere nearby, they’d pick Vastren Hollow. Indeed, perhaps Orthuun sent the skratt horde there specifically to clear it out, to supply his forces. We’d be safer in the woods, I think. Undetected.”
It was a fanciful theory, and one he didn’t believe. Vessa may have thought so too, but her momentary hard mask dissolved. A warm smile transformed her face, and another tear formed. She let it fall onto her cheek. “Thank you, Alric. I’ll tell her.”
Vessa squeezed his shoulder briefly before padding ahead to catch Maelen, who remained irritable and standoffish since the Starless Rift. The squeeze hurt one of his wounds, but Alric didn’t care. It was a sign of connection and fondness that he held onto, and for a brief time his dark thoughts receded.
By the time he’d come back to the present, they’d entered the tree-packed hills of the Greenwood Rise. It felt strangely unfamiliar. Alric couldn’t have put his finger as to why, but the more accomplished forester Vessa did.
“The insects and birds,” she said, her voice suddenly low. “They’re quiet.”
Yes, that was it exactly. The forest had previously brimmed with ravens, jays, and chittering insects, even in winter. Yet now there was only the rustling of their footsteps on fallen leaves and… nothing. It was almost like being back in the caverns below ground. Alric shivered and scanned the canopy above. There he spied a bird sitting atop a low branch overhead, quietly watching them. Several steps later he saw another, perched and otherwise still. As they passed beneath the second bird, it took flight in a frantic flapping of wings and rustling of leaves, yet at no point did it call out.
Maelen seemed to recognize the same oddity and fell back to join them. Her wary eyes scanned, her hand not far from the wrapped handle of her mace.
“Predator, you think?” she asked Vessa in a low whisper, eager.
“No,” she said simply. “Feels different, doesn’t it?”
“Not to me,” the warrior growled, and now she did pull her weapon into her fists. As Maelen stalked forward, ready for battle, Vessa shot a worried look at him. He pursed his lips and shrugged.
All that afternoon, the trio moved through the woods, vigilant but sensing no obvious danger other than the preternatural quiet. Their ears led them to a stream, made more vibrant by the recent rains. They paused there to clean themselves and refill waterskins, while Vessa stalked upstream with her bow. When she returned later, she carried three fish tied together with a spare bowstring and a beaming expression. Despite her constant yearning for the city and complaint about the wilds, Alric thought that Vessa was happiest when she’d hunted a meal that could feed her companions. Happier, even, than finding gold to spend on drink and lotus leaf. There was insight there, one perhaps he’d share with her in a quiet moment.
That night, Maelen directed them to make camp at the base of an immense redwood tree. The cooked fish was delicious, and the meal proved to be a welcome counterbalance to the strange, tense silence of the surrounding forest.
After they’d eaten and cleaned up, a howl carried to them through the trees, low and impossibly long, fading into something that sounded like breath being drawn in. After that… the profound silence seemed almost suffocating. They looked at each other nervously, and Maelen suggested they douse the fire and set watch. Alric wasn’t sure he could sleep after that call, but performed his evening tasks dutifully and lay down on his bedroll with staff close at hand. Surprisingly, he was asleep almost as soon as his eyes closed.
Alric rarely dreamed, and when he did of late his sleep was plagued by nightmare scenes of either creatures with flashing claws and teeth leaping from the shadows upon him or, almost more horribly, of sitting in his chair in the Inkbinders Lodge while darkness gathered, gathered, and, eventually, consumed everything around him until all was utterly black. These nightmares had him gasping awake, clutching at his chest, eyes straining to ensure he was not blind. In misery, all his worries would come flooding into him then, with the list growing longer each day.
Tonight, however, his dream began with him resting his back against the wide, ancient trunk of a tree, one leg resting idly across an enormous root. It was summertime, or at least the temperature was warm and pleasant. He wore his old scribe’s clothes—not the robe or cloak he’d taken on this journey—a detail he didn’t notice immediately but would remember after waking. Golden sunlight dappled the scene, filtered through the leaves above. Birds twittered and chirped, unseen, from somewhere beyond. The soil beneath him was as comfortable as a feather mattress. A light breeze stirred the leaves and sent the branches above swaying. Alric smiled and sighed with contentment. In that moment, he wanted for nothing in the world.
At the edge of the glade in which Alric lounged, the bushes rustled. A majestic stag stepped forth, its shoulders seemingly as tall as the mage would have been standing, its rack of antlers preposterously large. Looking back on the dream, Alric was surprised he didn’t regard the enormous beast as a threat. Instead, he felt simple awe at such a powerful presence, and humility as it regarded him with its round, brown eyes. It was then Alric noticed that those immense antlers had sprigs of leaves growing from parts of them, and small flowers.
The stag bowed its head, almost imperceptibly, and moved through the glade. As the sunlight played across its flank and back, he thought that perhaps the beast’s hide wasn’t covered in fur but a finely grained bark, almost as if the creature were a wooden construct. When it lifted its cloven hooves, the animal left delicate flowers behind in the low, green grass of the glade. Alric marveled at the little spots of bloom… had they been there before? Why hadn’t the weight of the creature crushed them? Had they grown from its passing? In the moments it took him to ponder those details, the stag was gone.
Alric exhaled, feeling the wonder of the moment, and closed his eyes. The dream ended then, and left in its wake a deep, velvety embrace of sleep.
Duskmarch 28, Ashday, Year 731
He blinked awake. It was daytime, well past dawn. Wasn’t he supposed to have had the last watch of the night? Sitting up, he looked around the campsite. Vessa and Maelen were there, the thief on her side and the warrior on her back, both just beginning to stir. He yawned and stretched, his body complaining at the motion less than any morning in recent memory.
“I just had the most amazing dream,” Vessa purred, stretching an arm skyward.
Later that morning, Vessa was still marveling at their fortune.
“It was the Rootmother, it had to be!” she said excitedly. “All of us having the exact same dream? The tree? The stag? Waking up refreshed, like we’d slept in an inn? It’s the Rootmother, I’d swear my life on it!”
Alric couldn’t argue the point, and even Maelen and her foul temper seemed to accept that they had all received some sort of blessing from Oakton’s most revered goddess.
“Keep your voice down, lass,” the warrior admonished. “It may have been her in our dreams, but something’s still spooked the forest’s wildlife. Remember the howl from last night.”
“What does it mean, though?” Vessa asked urgently, her voice dropping to a loud whisper. “Alric? Do you think she’s trying to tell us something? To guide us in some way?”
They moved through the Greenwood Rise at a good pace, all of them buoyed by the restful night. Already, the companions had crested the hills and were making their way down the eastern foothills, the trees becoming thinner and further apart. It allowed them to see the wider expanse of land ahead of them, a wrinkled landscape of green hills all the way to the coast, with cloudless blue skies overhead. The journey was a stark contrast to their way west from Leandra’s Rest more than a week before, when this part of their trek had been shrouded in fog. Truly, the Redwood Marches were a wonder of beauty on a clear day.
The only pall was the still-silent woods. They’d seen plenty of birds that morning, and more than a few brown squirrels. But unnatural quiet still hung over the forest, making every step and conversation feel impossibly loud and dangerous.
Alric considered Vessa’s question. “It’s possible that the Rootmother is sending us a message, though I admit it’s a difficult message to interpret. Or perhaps everyone in the area had the same dream, not just us, and it’s the goddess telling us all that we’re safe in her embrace.”
Vessa smirked. “Why Alric… you’re starting to sound like a priest. Going to join the Rootbound when we get back?”
He blinked, thrown off by the comment. Before he could answer, though, Maelen shushed them both.
“Quiet!” she growled. “Listen.”
Alric did. Animals were growling and yipping somewhere beyond a wooded ridge, off to their right. Wolves, perhaps? Or wild dogs of some kind? The sudden animal noise was startling. Alric’s throat went dry.
“Vess, go see,” Maelen whispered. “I’ll bring the lad.”
Without a word, Vessa padded off towards the noise, crouched low and with bow in hand. In moments she’d disappeared over the ridge.
As Alric followed Maelen, staff gripped tight, the sounds grew steadily louder. What he had thought perhaps was a pack of dogs playing now sounded distinctly more aggressive. A sharp whine of pain punctuated a series of frantic, snarling growls.
They found Vessa on one knee at the base of a slender tree, bow drawn and arrow nocked, looking down the slope to a gentle hollow between two low hills. Maelen crouched low near another tree two strides away, and Alric tried his best to mimic her movements.
The scene below made him gasp.
Two packs of wolves clashed there, each with at least two dozen members. One of the groups was primarily brown and white, the other black and gray. The sheer number of creatures was startling… Alric didn’t know his forest lore well, but he didn’t think packs usually grew that large. They snarled and darted and leapt at one another, a mass of bristled fur and gnashing teeth. The conflict was brutal and loud, and already a handful of the animals were lying dead or dying amidst the grass.
As he watched, fascinated, it seemed to Alric that the black wolves were winning this territorial war. Two-thirds of the fallen wolves were from the brown pack, and they seemed the ones yipping and whining, being chased far more often than chasing.
Like a bolt of lightning, realization hit him: Only the brown wolves were making noise. He scrambled to Maelen’s side, squinting. The nearest wolves were perhaps forty paces away and he did his best amidst the chaos to focus on the closest black wolf, who had just made a lunge at an opponent and narrowly missed. It turned its head to the side, giving Alric a perfect profile as it scanned the battlefield for the next attack.
Its eyes were pitch black, like hollows in its dark-furred face.
He tugged at Maelen’s arm. “We have to go,” he hissed.
Perhaps she had the same thought, or perhaps something on his face convinced her. She paused only a breath before nodding once and signaling Vessa. The three of them edged away from the low hilltop and back the way they came.
They neither saw nor heard the wolves that had been stalking them until the attack.
Last week, the party avoided confrontation with a hill giant and now realize that the world is different since Saelith’s release. We’re back to Hexploration mode, entering the Night Shift of their second day back to Oakton. The group makes camp but doesn’t deduct rations thanks to Vessa’s foraging. I Consult the Bones and get Yes/Nil on Twins but No on Judgment, with a Sun on the Fortune die. Nothing happens, and it’s a pleasant evening of rest.
Now the party heads east, and if all goes well by the night they’ll camp within the Greenwood Rise’s forest. Everyone heals 1 hit point, putting Alric at 9, Maelen at 12, and Vessa at 4. I roll on weather and the day remains rain-free. Next, we do Maelen’s Guide roll, which she crushes with a 2. How about Vessa’s Forager roll? A 15 is a success, so no need again to deduct rations. I roll “fish” on the random hunting table, so apparently, they found a stream.
Given the good omen last night and Great Success on her roll, I’ll skip the possibility of a Travel Event for the day. Instead, I’ll ask a Fate Question: Does the party find evidence of more change in the world? I’ll say the possibility is “Likely,” which as Chaos Factor 7 means 85% chance of yes. I roll 46.
That night the party camps in the forest. No need to deduct rations, so it’s just time to Consult the Bones: The Twins want to get the party back to Oakton, and roll No/No, so who cares if the Judgment die is a Yes. Another Sun shines on the Fortune die. I’ll give the party pleasant dreams (inspired by my recent work on The Rootmother as a deity) and say they’ll rise as if from a night at an inn, regaining 2 hp each. At 11, 14, and 6 hp, this is probably the first time since the climactic fight in the Starless Rift that I would be less-than-terrified at them getting into combat.
Finally, I’ll reduce the Chaos Factor to 6 as they start regaining their proverbial footing.
XXVI.
Duskmarch 27, Moonday, Year 731
Everything in Alric’s body ached. Indeed, pain had become such a constant experience these past two days that he hardly knew where to focus on it. He was footsore. His weaker leg complained with every step, worse than at any point in his life. His hips felt pulled out of their sockets. His entire torso itched and burned with half-healed bite marks. He had strained an arm muscle in the climb out of the Starless Rift, and any time he tried to lift something it screamed. Somehow, he’d twisted his neck wrong, so that looking to his right triggered a lightning bolt of agony. Even his jaw ached. The mage couldn’t remember what the embrace of a soft bed was like, how it felt to lose himself in his thoughts without his body demanding attention.
And yet, the mental anguish he experienced was worse. They had failed to keep Saelith the Vanished contained, and now he was free upon the world after centuries of imprisonment. Yesterday, they’d seen a hill giant on the plains, evidence that Orthuun’s army was beginning to assemble. Twice today they’d passed small animals, dead and with either their eyes or faces gone. How long did they have until Oakton and its surrounding settlements were under siege? A year? A month? Could humanity survive the Blind Sovereign’s forces, or were the secrets to defeating the demon lost to time? Did the knowledge of who created Thornmere Hold and the Starless Rift exist in the Inkbinders Lodge somewhere? Were there other caches of ancient artifacts nearby that would prove the key to repelling Orthuun? The implications of this journey swirled in his mind.
Colliding with those dark thoughts were more personal ones. How was he alive with no heartbeat? Or was he even alive? Saelith had called him “darkling” …was it only a matter of time before he succumbed to some sort of corruption? Would he turn on his companions eventually? Would he suffer the same fate as Hadren Kelthorn, devoured by some shadowy beast with nothing left behind? Should he abandon his magic before he was a thrall of the demon, or was it too late? Could he even get rid of the Tome of Unlit Paths? Did he want to?
“You’re doing it again,” Vessa’s voice broke in.
Alric blinked and looked at her. She was grinning. Gods but she was lovely, even after the perils they’d shared. Vessa limped as badly as him and kept touching her side tenderly. She said she’d thought she cracked a rib or two, and her shoulder where the rock had struck her was mottled in gruesome bruises. And yet still: She was lovely. Her lopsided grin was as much a light in the darkness for him as the sun finally appearing overhead.
He returned the grin. “Sorry,” he said, blushing. “I suppose I am.”
“A pip for your thoughts?” she asked, cocking her head.
“No, no,” he chuckled sourly, and waved his hand as if repelling a bad smell. “Nobody needs to share the misery of my mind. I apologize. You were saying?”
She paused a beat, as if wondering whether to probe. Instead, she pointed at the low, forested hills ahead of them. “I was saying that Mae thinks we can make it to Vastren Hollow by nightfall if we fancy a bed, but I’m not sure I want to return there. What do you think?”
Alric pursed his lips. “A bed does sound nice, and perhaps there is food remaining there that hasn’t spoiled. But…” a flash of bodies torn apart across the village’s streets filled his vision, and corrupted skratts leaping upon him in the night. He frowned. “I can see avoiding it too.”
“You’re no help,” she laughed. “I just…” she shivered. “You don’t know what I saw there that night. The nursery…” He thought he saw a tear form and she suddenly turned away, rubbing at her face.
“Vessa,” he said gently, then repeated her name. She looked up, eyes wet, face defiant, and sniffed. “On second thought, if an army was going to muster somewhere nearby, they’d pick Vastren Hollow. Indeed, perhaps Orthuun sent the skratt horde there specifically to clear it out, to supply his forces. We’d be safer in the woods, I think. Undetected.”
It was a fanciful theory, and one he didn’t believe. Vessa may have thought so too, but her momentary hard mask dissolved. A warm smile transformed her face, and another tear formed. She let it fall onto her cheek. “Thank you, Alric. I’ll tell her.”
Vessa squeezed his shoulder briefly before padding ahead to catch Maelen, who remained irritable and standoffish since the Starless Rift. The squeeze hurt one of his wounds, but Alric didn’t care. It was a sign of connection and fondness that he held onto, and for a brief time his dark thoughts receded.
By the time he’d come back to the present, they’d entered the tree-packed hills of the Greenwood Rise. It felt strangely unfamiliar. Alric couldn’t have put his finger as to why, but the more accomplished forester Vessa did.
“The insects and birds,” she said, her voice suddenly low. “They’re quiet.”
Yes, that was it exactly. The forest had previously brimmed with ravens, jays, and chittering insects, even in winter. Yet now there was only the rustling of their footsteps on fallen leaves and… nothing. It was almost like being back in the caverns below ground. Alric shivered and scanned the canopy above. There he spied a bird sitting atop a low branch overhead, quietly watching them. Several steps later he saw another, perched and otherwise still. As they passed beneath the second bird, it took flight in a frantic flapping of wings and rustling of leaves, yet at no point did it call out.
Maelen seemed to recognize the same oddity and fell back to join them. Her wary eyes scanned, her hand not far from the wrapped handle of her mace.
“Predator, you think?” she asked Vessa in a low whisper, eager.
“No,” she said simply. “Feels different, doesn’t it?”
“Not to me,” the warrior growled, and now she did pull her weapon into her fists. As Maelen stalked forward, ready for battle, Vessa shot a worried look at him. He pursed his lips and shrugged.
All that afternoon, the trio moved through the woods, vigilant but sensing no obvious danger other than the preternatural quiet. Their ears led them to a stream, made more vibrant by the recent rains. They paused there to clean themselves and refill waterskins, while Vessa stalked upstream with her bow. When she returned later, she carried three fish tied together with a spare bowstring and a beaming expression. Despite her constant yearning for the city and complaint about the wilds, Alric thought that Vessa was happiest when she’d hunted a meal that could feed her companions. Happier, even, than finding gold to spend on drink and lotus leaf. There was insight there, one perhaps he’d share with her in a quiet moment.
That night, Maelen directed them to make camp at the base of an immense redwood tree. The cooked fish was delicious, and the meal proved to be a welcome counterbalance to the strange, tense silence of the surrounding forest.
After they’d eaten and cleaned up, a howl carried to them through the trees, low and impossibly long, fading into something that sounded like breath being drawn in. After that… the profound silence seemed almost suffocating. They looked at each other nervously, and Maelen suggested they douse the fire and set watch. Alric wasn’t sure he could sleep after that call, but performed his evening tasks dutifully and lay down on his bedroll with staff close at hand. Surprisingly, he was asleep almost as soon as his eyes closed.
Alric rarely dreamed, and when he did of late his sleep was plagued by nightmare scenes of either creatures with flashing claws and teeth leaping from the shadows upon him or, almost more horribly, of sitting in his chair in the Inkbinders Lodge while darkness gathered, gathered, and, eventually, consumed everything around him until all was utterly black. These nightmares had him gasping awake, clutching at his chest, eyes straining to ensure he was not blind. In misery, all his worries would come flooding into him then, with the list growing longer each day.
Tonight, however, his dream began with him resting his back against the wide, ancient trunk of a tree, one leg resting idly across an enormous root. It was summertime, or at least the temperature was warm and pleasant. He wore his old scribe’s clothes—not the robe or cloak he’d taken on this journey—a detail he didn’t notice immediately but would remember after waking. Golden sunlight dappled the scene, filtered through the leaves above. Birds twittered and chirped, unseen, from somewhere beyond. The soil beneath him was as comfortable as a feather mattress. A light breeze stirred the leaves and sent the branches above swaying. Alric smiled and sighed with contentment. In that moment, he wanted for nothing in the world.
At the edge of the glade in which Alric lounged, the bushes rustled. A majestic stag stepped forth, its shoulders seemingly as tall as the mage would have been standing, its rack of antlers preposterously large. Looking back on the dream, Alric was surprised he didn’t regard the enormous beast as a threat. Instead, he felt simple awe at such a powerful presence, and humility as it regarded him with its round, brown eyes. It was then Alric noticed that those immense antlers had sprigs of leaves growing from parts of them, and small flowers.
The stag bowed its head, almost imperceptibly, and moved through the glade. As the sunlight played across its flank and back, he thought that perhaps the beast’s hide wasn’t covered in fur but a finely grained bark, almost as if the creature were a wooden construct. When it lifted its cloven hooves, the animal left delicate flowers behind in the low, green grass of the glade. Alric marveled at the little spots of bloom… had they been there before? Why hadn’t the weight of the creature crushed them? Had they grown from its passing? In the moments it took him to ponder those details, the stag was gone.
Alric exhaled, feeling the wonder of the moment, and closed his eyes. The dream ended then, and left in its wake a deep, velvety embrace of sleep.
Duskmarch 28, Ashday, Year 731
He blinked awake. It was daytime, well past dawn. Wasn’t he supposed to have had the last watch of the night? Sitting up, he looked around the campsite. Vessa and Maelen were there, the thief on her side and the warrior on her back, both just beginning to stir. He yawned and stretched, his body complaining at the motion less than any morning in recent memory.
“I just had the most amazing dream,” Vessa purred, stretching an arm skyward.
I try to limit dream sequences, as I think they’re sometimes overdone in fantasy fiction. That said, it was a fun way to give the little boon from the Fortune die some exposition. The story had also been gruesome and dark for quite a while, so it’s an opportunity for me to give the reader a breath.
Now, back to Hexploration! The party is making great time, and by my math will reach Leandra’s Rest by end of day. I’ve given the party their 2 hp each in healing. The weather die says “Clearer, less humid” so it’s a lovely winter day (if it’s not obvious, the weather in the Redwood Marches is temperate relative to many places in our world). Maelen makes another Guide roll, but Vessa surprisingly fails her Forager roll with a 19 – I had to check if that was a Terrible Failure, but her Perc is so high only a nat-20 will get her in trouble, thankfully. Still, the party will have to use their last rations today, just in time to restock at Leandra’s Rest.
Will there be a Travel Event before then? I Consult the Bones and the Judgment die says Yes, overruling the No/Nil of the Twins. The Fortune die, meanwhile, is an ambiguous Nil. On the Travel Event, I roll: “Discovery As luck would have it, the company discovers or otherwise happens upon any secret information about the current hex (if they have not already found it). If there is no such information, they discover a Monster Lair instead. Roll for a Random Encounter, but use Lair numbers for #Appearing (p.166). Consult the Bones to determine whether one of the Lair’s outer sentries have detected the PCs (depending on the circumstances, including mode of party travel).”
Interesting! The party’s theory is that armies are massing, right? Well, here we go. They’re about to find support for this theory. In terms of what sort of monsters the party discovers, the area between Vastren Hollow and Leandra’s Rest is a mix of forest and grassy plains. I’ll roll once and consult both Random Encounter tables to see which I like best. I roll 18, which is either Bats or Wolves. Let’s do Wolves (I also rolled “Wolves” and not “Dire Wolves,” which is good news for the party). The encounter description says there are two rival packs fighting over territory, which works for how I’m thinking of interpreting the scene.
Last question is whether Alric, who is performing the Look Out role, detects the threat before they stumble into it. He makes a Perc(Detect) check and rolls… 13, just missing his target of 12. He has no Rerolls left so is stuck with the Failure. Per the Travel Event description, do any of the wolves notice the party? I roll a 6… yep.
Later that morning, Vessa was still marveling at their fortune.
“It was the Rootmother, it had to be!” she said excitedly. “All of us having the exact same dream? The tree? The stag? Waking up refreshed, like we’d slept in an inn? It’s the Rootmother, I’d swear my life on it!”
Alric couldn’t argue the point, and even Maelen and her foul temper seemed to accept that they had all received some sort of blessing from Oakton’s most revered goddess.
“Keep your voice down, lass,” the warrior admonished. “It may have been her in our dreams, but something’s still spooked the forest’s wildlife. Remember the howl from last night.”
“What does it mean, though?” Vessa asked urgently, her voice dropping to a loud whisper. “Alric? Do you think she’s trying to tell us something? To guide us in some way?”
They moved through the Greenwood Rise at a good pace, all of them buoyed by the restful night. Already, the companions had crested the hills and were making their way down the eastern foothills, the trees becoming thinner and further apart. It allowed them to see the wider expanse of land ahead of them, a wrinkled landscape of green hills all the way to the coast, with cloudless blue skies overhead. The journey was a stark contrast to their way west from Leandra’s Rest more than a week before, when this part of their trek had been shrouded in fog. Truly, the Redwood Marches were a wonder of beauty on a clear day.
The only pall was the still-silent woods. They’d seen plenty of birds that morning, and more than a few brown squirrels. But unnatural quiet still hung over the forest, making every step and conversation feel impossibly loud and dangerous.
Alric considered Vessa’s question. “It’s possible that the Rootmother is sending us a message, though I admit it’s a difficult message to interpret. Or perhaps everyone in the area had the same dream, not just us, and it’s the goddess telling us all that we’re safe in her embrace.”
Vessa smirked. “Why Alric… you’re starting to sound like a priest. Going to join the Rootbound when we get back?”
He blinked, thrown off by the comment. Before he could answer, though, Maelen shushed them both.
“Quiet!” she growled. “Listen.”
Alric did. Animals were growling and yipping somewhere beyond a wooded ridge, off to their right. Wolves, perhaps? Or wild dogs of some kind? The sudden animal noise was startling. Alric’s throat went dry.
“Vess, go see,” Maelen whispered. “I’ll bring the lad.”
Without a word, Vessa padded off towards the noise, crouched low and with bow in hand. In moments she’d disappeared over the ridge.
As Alric followed Maelen, staff gripped tight, the sounds grew steadily louder. What he had thought perhaps was a pack of dogs playing now sounded distinctly more aggressive. A sharp whine of pain punctuated a series of frantic, snarling growls.
They found Vessa on one knee at the base of a slender tree, bow drawn and arrow nocked, looking down the slope to a gentle hollow between two low hills. Maelen crouched low near another tree two strides away, and Alric tried his best to mimic her movements.
The scene below made him gasp.
Two packs of wolves clashed there, each with at least two dozen members. One of the groups was primarily brown and white, the other black and gray. The sheer number of creatures was startling… Alric didn’t know his forest lore well, but he didn’t think packs usually grew that large. They snarled and darted and leapt at one another, a mass of bristled fur and gnashing teeth. The conflict was brutal and loud, and already a handful of the animals were lying dead or dying amidst the grass.
As he watched, fascinated, it seemed to Alric that the black wolves were winning this territorial war. Two-thirds of the fallen wolves were from the brown pack, and they seemed the ones yipping and whining, being chased far more often than chasing.
Like a bolt of lightning, realization hit him: Only the brown wolves were making noise. He scrambled to Maelen’s side, squinting. The nearest wolves were perhaps forty paces away and he did his best amidst the chaos to focus on the closest black wolf, who had just made a lunge at an opponent and narrowly missed. It turned its head to the side, giving Alric a perfect profile as it scanned the battlefield for the next attack.
Its eyes were pitch black, like hollows in its dark-furred face.
He tugged at Maelen’s arm. “We have to go,” he hissed.
Perhaps she had the same thought, or perhaps something on his face convinced her. She paused only a breath before nodding once and signaling Vessa. The three of them edged away from the low hilltop and back the way they came.
They neither saw nor heard the wolves that had been stalking them until the attack.
And we’re back! If you don’t know why I’m posting on a Wednesday or providing nerdy Dungeon Crawl Classics content, check out either of the two links above. As I mentioned last time, the mighty Steve Grodzicki requested my next DCC treatment be Orthuun, the Blind Sovereign. When the awesome creator of Tales of Argosa speaks… let me tell you: the gods listen!
Demon-Gods Versus City-Gods
As I’ve mentioned previously, in the background of my Tales of Calvenor story is the cosmic struggle between what humanity call “demons,” roaming the wilds, and “gods,” who protect their cities. Both are immensely powerful immortal beings, and so I call them “demon-gods” and “city-gods” in my own worldbuilding documents. Think of them as titans versus Olympians in Greek mythology, which is the best analogy I can come up with from real-world lore.
The city-gods are pro-human, here to advance civilization and guardians of the cities that humans create. In DCC terms, they are the gods of Law. Each city has its own pantheon, and for the foreseeable future all the city-gods I’ll be outlining on Wednesdays are associated with my protagonists’ home of Oakton. Each pantheon of city-gods should, as a whole, represent different aspects of society that make humans’ cities vibrant and thriving. Quenvara the Rootmother, Oakton’s primary deity, is paradoxically a goddess of nature, because in Calvenor, cities can’t survive without a harmony with the natural world. We’ll meet other deities of things like music, sea trade, binding oaths, pleasure, medicine, and communication, because these things, too, are a part of human civilization.
Demon-gods, meanwhile, are here to tear down humans’ civilization. In DCC terms, they are the gods of Chaos. Demon-gods aren’t bounded by location, except that they thrive outside of civilization and roam the wilds between cities. As a worldbuilding note, I try and base each demon-god on a real, primary human fear. Orthuun the Blind Sovereign, for example, is a representation of humanity’s fear of the dark. There are also demon-gods of things like disease, fire, madness, and betrayal, because these are the things that tear human civilizations apart.
As long as I’m writing stories in Calvenor, there will be demon-gods raging against the walls of cities protected by city-gods. These immortal forces never manifest directly, but their minions, clerics, and manifestations essentially define the world in which my characters struggle to survive.
Writing Hadren Kelthorn helped me get in the mindset of what Orthuun would be like as a deity, and also who might follow a nihilistic demon-god of darkness and oblivion. Basically, Orthuun’s most devout followers are nihilists themselves, either because they’ve been beaten down by life or madness. They’re the “screw it, let’s just obliterate this world and start over” crowd. That said, Orthuun rewards his clerics with pretty sweet abilities!
I’m pleased with how the write-up came together, but I’m particularly happy with Orthuun’s holy quests. Set side-by-side with Quenvara’s, it’s easy to picture two characters being on opposite sides of the same mission, sent to destroy one another, or one hunting the other. As with so much of DCC, the story potential from these tables is dizzying.
Duskmarch 25, Hearthday, Year 731, the day of Sweet Requital in Oakton.
Maelen seethed. She would not survive floating eyes of death in the forest, face-eating skratt legions, insane cultists, and skinless nightmares only to be crushed in an earthquake. She would not die with coin-heavy packs that she never spent. Most of all, though, she would absolutely not watch more companions perish. Screw this Starless Rift! She wished she could punch Orthuun the Blind Sovereign square in the jaw.
With red mist clouding her vision, she roared forward, grabbing Alric by his oiled cloak and hauling him alongside her. Maelen’s boots hammered on the cavern floor, a rumble like thunder all around them. Debris skittered and danced, and rocks cascaded from above—at first smaller than a fingernail but soon as large as a fist. A stone glanced off her back and she shouted, “Go! Go!” to Vessa, three steps ahead of her, over the groaning earth.
The black mace’s handle slapped her thigh as she ran, its incessant hum in her ears. Maelen held her torch high, the speed of their flight and shaking ground making the light dance madly. She tripped briefly, her shoulder crunching into the jagged stone wall before rebounding. Yet she could feel none of her injuries as her panic-fueled rage grew.
By the time she’d reached the stone dais below the cavern entrance, Vessa was already climbing the rope hand over hand, her bow slung across her shoulders and heavy pack dangling from her back. She moved like a deer up a hillside, steps light and graceful despite the weight of her gear.
As she watched in horror, a rock from above bounced off the stone wall and struck Vessa hard, and for a moment Maelen thought she would let go and plummet to the floor. She hung limply by one arm, twisting above. Then the lass shook her head, grabbed the rope with her other hand, and repositioned her feet along the wall. Vessa continued upwards.
“Go!” Maelen said to the mage, tossing him bodily atop the dais. “Grab the rope and climb!”
“My staff…” Alric started, as Maelen vaulted to join him. The rumbling floor made even standing upright difficult now. She frowned when she saw the red and purple scraps of wet tissue littered across the dais, remnants of the first of those skinless creatures.
“I’ve got it!” she yelled. “Go!”
“Will the rope hold–?” he began, then saw the look on her face and paled. He turned, gripped the rope, and…
Climbed! Maelen always assumed the young man was weak because of his profession and lamed leg. Yet, she realized suddenly, she’d seen him again and again bash monstrosities with his staff and do real damage. And, she supposed, he compensated for his withered leg by bearing weight with his arms on that same stick every day. She’d never really considered that he might have some physical strength in that lanky torso of his. Without a second glance, the lad was pulling himself upwards, not as gracefully as Vessa but with steady, even movement. Maelen blinked, surprised.
Then something in the darkness crashed, like a boulder being pulverized, and she lurched into action. Maelen dropped the torch to the floor without looking back, picked up Alric’s staff and, in one clean motion, jammed it behind her, wedged between her travel pack and chain shirt. That done, she gripped the rope with thick, calloused hands, and pulled.
Alric’s question hadn’t been wrong. They’d descended one at a time, with lighter packs. Would the rope hold three of them, plus the treasure of the vault? She guessed they’d find out. With a vicious groan, she pulled, muscles bunching. Her boots found the cavern wall. She climbed.
The noise was deafening now, a combination of constant thunder and crashing stone. Twice, rocks as large as her head fell from above, one narrowly missing her arm and another glancing off her pack. Had either struck her, she would have fallen, head over feet, into the darkness. She assumed that Vessa had made it to the surface by the time she’d made half the climb, and soon after the light from above began reaching the glistening, water-stained rock all around her. Maelen was close. She yelled again, shoulders burning and hands aching, for what felt like days. Voices above her urged her on, though she couldn’t make out words over the cacophony of the Starless Rift.
Eventually, hands gripped her shoulders, pulling her upwards. Rain spattered across her face. And, just like that, she lay on her back, her panting breath making puffs in the cold winter air. Maelen wasn’t sure how long she lay there, every pain now flooding back, before Vessa called out.
“Look!” she croaked, the lass’ voice raw.
Like a turtle on its back, Maelen rolled awkwardly. She shrugged her shoulders in the steady rain to release the heavy pack and Alric’s staff so she could sit. Maelen glanced at Vessa, who sat three strides away on her knees, mouth open. The lad lay on his side between them, staring in the same direction. Maelen turned to follow their gazes.
The Starless Rift was sealing itself. The two sections of muddy plains now only lay a short leap apart. Even as she watched, still and stunned, the earth rumbled and groaned, each side reaching for the other. Over the next stretch of time—she couldn’t have said how long—the two sides met, the crack sealed. The rumbling thunder echoed across the plain, low and distant, and then fell silent. Only churned soil, the shape of a long crescent, remained.
In that moment, she thought of her mouse Tatter. The little friend had been with her for over two years and survived the worse this world could throw at them. When she’d scampered away in fear from the monstrosities in the shadows below, Maelen assumed they would find each other again. But now, with the Starless Rift closed, any hope of reunion died. The mouse was probably dead, in the darkness and offal stink of those caverns, and if not dead then trapped. A sob threatened to escape her mouth, but blind rage pushed it back. She struck the mud beside her with a fist and growled.
“What is it?” Vessa asked her.
“Get your asses up!” Maelen barked, pushing herself to her feet unsteadily. “We’re leaving this bloody place.”
“Mae?” her friend asked, but the warrior turned her back on her companions and stalked off in the rain, fuming.
She spoke little the rest of the day. It was impossible to know when in the day they’d emerged from the Starless Rift thanks to the steady storm, so she vowed to just keep walking north until it grew dark. Despite their injuries and exhaustion, she pushed them through the mud and rain, with far fewer and shorter breaks than her companions likely deserved. They didn’t push back on her militant march, though; Vessa and Alric were as eager to put distance from the Rift as Maelen.
As the journey lengthened, it became clearer that they’d emerged sometime in the morning. Was it the next day? Surely, they hadn’t spent more than that underground. Regardless, Maelen thought it made the accounting easier for when they’d reach waypoints and landmarks back to Oakton, assuming they made roughly the pace.
The longer they trudged across plains broken by low hills and dark, craggy rocks. As the miles dragged on, Maelen wondered at her own fury. Yes, she’d always been prone to getting into scraps, even as a young girl. But now the simple need for violence threatened to overwhelm her. Any increase in the rainfall, any unexpected slog of mud, any stumble by the mage—they all filled her with rage. Each slight complication, she held herself back from cursing angrily and often failed. Her fists bunched without her realizing it, tightly and painfully until her knuckles ached. Once, when Vessa whispered to her that she thought they should take a rest for Alric’s sake, Maelen barely avoided punching her friend in the jaw.
Was it the mace, she pondered? Surely the thing hummed to her in a tone only she could hear, and it seemed eager for combat. Did the weapon contain some sort of enchantment that manipulated her emotions? The very idea also made her want to strike something and smash it to pulp. But no, she thought the mace’s personality, if one could call it that, was much more jovial than destructive. Now that she considered it, the black weapon was like a mercenary companion of hers from years ago, even before the Larkhands, named Torin Bonebreaker. The man was crude, filthy, and built like a mountain, but always in uncannily good spirits. He looked forward to battle but wasn’t bloodthirsty for it. So too did it seem the mace was a humming, cheerful companion, happy to fight but otherwise just enjoying the traveling life in the beltloop at her hip. “If only it might rain more!” Torin would say if he were with them, “I don’t think the crack of my ass is wet enough yet!”
If not the mace, then why? It was the Starless Rift itself, and those skinless terrors, she realized. The utter wrongness of those creatures, combined with the oppressive darkness and bleak stone all around them, had triggered some animal instinct in her that she now found difficult to shut off. Like a cornered wolf, Maelen was snapping her slathering jaws at anyone who came near, even those meant to comfort her. She hated the uncontrolled feelings of it, but even as she spent the day grimly meditating on her emotions, could do nothing to erase it. Indeed, she almost wished the party would find more minions of Orthuun that she could destroy, that it would somehow purge her lust for violence.
They made camp in the rain, with little conversation amongst the three of them. Perhaps the only words spoken were when Vessa took inventory of their supplies and noted that they only had one more day of dry rations available, and only three torches that were both unused and had survived the constant wet. There was nothing to do about the torches, but Maelen told Vessa to keep an eye out for game on their journey, especially as they entered the forests of the Greenwood Rise. She must not have made the request respectfully, given that Vessa’s response was to spit and turn her back on her. Still, she felt confident that the lass would do some hunting, so mission accomplished.
Duskmarch 26, Stillday, Year 731
Shortly after setting out on the next day, the rain finally broke. By late morning the clouds had parted, showing cracks of blue sky and shedding the entire landscape in glistening, sparkling relief. The contrast from the previous day and horrors of the Starless Rift were stark, though it did little to lessen Maelen’s anger. For Alric and Vessa, however, the change seemed to allow for some light banter, and the two of them laughed several times at something Maelen couldn’t hear. Midday, after Vessa had crept away briefly to kill two chickens she’d spied in the long grass, the lad and lass sat closely and chattered while cleaning the animals. Maelen thought it was only a matter of time until Vessa bedded the mage and hoped she could wait until they’d returned to Oakton. The last thing Maelen needed was babysitting two lovesick kids.
Most of the day, they tromped through grassy plains stretching between occasional sandstone outcroppings. By mid-afternoon, the sky full of puffy clouds, numerous low ridges and scrub forests that preceded the Greenwood Rise appeared on the horizon. The trio topped a rise, and Vessa squinted, stopping abruptly.
“What is it?” Alric asked, looking at her with concern.
“It’s…” she licked her lips, sounding uncertain. “A tent, I think.”
Maelen shaded her eyes with one hand. Sure enough, far across the grasslands, near a low-lying ridge, was a structure that looked like a crude tent of some kind. White smoke rose from behind the tent, as if from a campfire. The more Maelen watched it, though, the less sense it made. The structure was somehow out of scale for the distance.
Vessa voiced her thoughts. “But it’s… massive.”
They ducked down in the tall, damp grass. Maelen figured that whoever set up the enormous tent couldn’t see them when they crouched, but equally there was no real place to hide their presence once they started moving. She swore, then tried to reign in her inner rampage.
“We’ve got two choices,” she said. “Backtrack and go a long way around, or head towards it and hope it’s someone willing to talk.”
“Perhaps,” Alric offered. “We wait to see if Vessa and her keen eyes can catch a glimpse of who might be setting up such a large tent in the wilds west of Oakton. Perhaps it’s knights of the Prince.”
“No banner that I saw,” Maelen shook her head. “You, Vess?”
The lass shook her head, rubbing at her bent nose in worry. “No. We’re carrying a lot of loot.” Her eyes scanned across Alric and Maelen. “And we’re awfully injured. We’ll look like easy marks to bandits.”
“But why such a large tent?” Maelen growled, her face a thundercloud of thought. “If you’re bandits, why make a bloody fire and announce yourself to everyone around?”
“It could be Saelith…” Alric whispered, and something prickled along her spine. Maelen still wasn’t convinced that a living being had escaped the Starless Rift, a general of a demon’s armies that was centuries old. But she’d also seen enough to make her cautious.
“Dammit all,” she scowled. “Let’s see if we can swing wide, then. Vess, you lead the way.”
The thief nodded and, still crouching, pushed back the way they’d come. Alric followed directly behind, bent awkwardly and his staff sticking up well above the waving grass. Maelen took up the rear and ventured a glance back towards the tent on the horizon.
Her blood went cold. A towering figure in furs and hides appeared from behind the tent, his head almost as tall as the structure. Even from this distance, Maelen could see that he was thick and heavy, his arms reaching down to his knees beneath broad shoulders. He walked with stooped, swaying steps to the side of the tent and paused, turning his slab of a back to them to look north, presumably at the Greenwood Rise.
“Giant!” Maelen hissed. “Keep your heads low!”
“Giant?” Alric paused, and Maelen shoved him forward. “Ow! Are there giants in the Redwood Marches?”
“There’s bloody one there now, you idiot!” she spat back.
Vessa, pushed her way through the grass, crouching and holding her bow low, leading them in a snaking pattern to a hill where they’d be unseen. It was maybe the worst possible position for Alric, whose lamed leg couldn’t support the crouch without the help of his staff. He fell several times, and each time Maelen unsympathetically dragged him up and barked for him to keep going. By the time they’d circled the low hill and paused, panting, even Maelen’s thighs burned with effort. A hundred bruises, cuts, and strained muscles protested as well. She groaned, stretching the leg and shoulder that hurt the most.
“Giant?” Vessa said, rubbing at her own wounded shoulder, the one struck by the rock. “You sure, Mae?”
She grunted in affirmation.
“It’s all Orthuun,” Alric panted, shaking his head.
“Drop it, lad,” Maelen admonished. “Not everything in the great wilds has to do with the bloody demon.”
“Don’t you see?” he said, a note of desperation in his voice. “Saelith the Vanished has arisen! He was one of Orthuun’s ten generals, to lead an army of darkness that will sweep over the land and destroy everything.”
“So?” Maelen scowled.
“So, a general needs an army…” Vessa gasped. “The giant is responding to… some kind of call?”
Alric spread his hands wide, as if revealing a magic trick.
“A general needs an army,” he nodded.
Maelen spat a particularly vile curse that surprised even her with its vitriol.
Okay, okay… I’m violating my own internal rules a bit. Last week, I rolled on the “Back to Base” table because Vessa failed her Luck roll to leave the dungeon of the Starless Rift without incident. Her result—damage—inspired me to set up a bit of peril in the entire party’s escape. Now I want to do a Montage to get them out safely. This decision is a double jeopardy for them, since they already had to make their Luck rolls. But dammit… it’s fun, so I’m keeping it.
As a reminder, Montages in Tales of Argosa are abstracted collections of activities towards a common goal. In this case, that goal is escaping the Starless Rift before it seals up. Each PC takes turns declaring how they’re achieving this goal, either for themselves or in support of the party. The trick is that no one can use the same activity twice. They need 6 successes and I’ll say the challenge level is Hard, so they will fail at 2 failures. Great Successes count as two successes, whereas Terrible Failures count as two failures towards the tally. In other words, one Terrible Failure and they’re stuck underground (I have no idea what happens then, but yay for emergent storytelling!).
Maelen triggered the flight out at the end of last chapter, so she’ll go first with the obvious Will(Leadership) roll to push them past their fatigue and injuries. She succeeds with a 7. Vessa will reach the hanging rope that they’d set up entering the Rift and will try a Dex(Acrobatics) to scamper up it. She succeeds with a 10. In a bit of a surprise move, Alric will try a rarely used Str roll to lug their loot-laden packs up with Vessa. He needs an 11 or less and rolls a nat-20, which is a Terrible Failure. Uh oh.
Alric will use his last Reroll of the adventure and try again: 5! That’s a Great Success! The party went from being trapped underground to a 4-0 count thanks to that Reroll. Put a bookmark here, though, because his lack of Rerolls might come back to haunt him. Maelen, not to be outdone by the scrawny mage, will do a Str(Athletics) roll to get them all up the rope and out of the chasm. She rolls a 4, which is another Great Success and the party is officially safe. I’ll say that Vessa’s 8 damage from last time occurs because of falling rocks.
XXV.
Duskmarch 25, Hearthday, Year 731, the day of Sweet Requital in Oakton.
Maelen seethed. She would not survive floating eyes of death in the forest, face-eating skratt legions, insane cultists, and skinless nightmares only to be crushed in an earthquake. She would not die with coin-heavy packs that she never spent. Most of all, though, she would absolutely not watch more companions perish. Screw this Starless Rift! She wished she could punch Orthuun the Blind Sovereign square in the jaw.
With red mist clouding her vision, she roared forward, grabbing Alric by his oiled cloak and hauling him alongside her. Maelen’s boots hammered on the cavern floor, a rumble like thunder all around them. Debris skittered and danced, and rocks cascaded from above—at first smaller than a fingernail but soon as large as a fist. A stone glanced off her back and she shouted, “Go! Go!” to Vessa, three steps ahead of her, over the groaning earth.
The black mace’s handle slapped her thigh as she ran, its incessant hum in her ears. Maelen held her torch high, the speed of their flight and shaking ground making the light dance madly. She tripped briefly, her shoulder crunching into the jagged stone wall before rebounding. Yet she could feel none of her injuries as her panic-fueled rage grew.
By the time she’d reached the stone dais below the cavern entrance, Vessa was already climbing the rope hand over hand, her bow slung across her shoulders and heavy pack dangling from her back. She moved like a deer up a hillside, steps light and graceful despite the weight of her gear.
As she watched in horror, a rock from above bounced off the stone wall and struck Vessa hard, and for a moment Maelen thought she would let go and plummet to the floor. She hung limply by one arm, twisting above. Then the lass shook her head, grabbed the rope with her other hand, and repositioned her feet along the wall. Vessa continued upwards.
“Go!” Maelen said to the mage, tossing him bodily atop the dais. “Grab the rope and climb!”
“My staff…” Alric started, as Maelen vaulted to join him. The rumbling floor made even standing upright difficult now. She frowned when she saw the red and purple scraps of wet tissue littered across the dais, remnants of the first of those skinless creatures.
“I’ve got it!” she yelled. “Go!”
“Will the rope hold–?” he began, then saw the look on her face and paled. He turned, gripped the rope, and…
Climbed! Maelen always assumed the young man was weak because of his profession and lamed leg. Yet, she realized suddenly, she’d seen him again and again bash monstrosities with his staff and do real damage. And, she supposed, he compensated for his withered leg by bearing weight with his arms on that same stick every day. She’d never really considered that he might have some physical strength in that lanky torso of his. Without a second glance, the lad was pulling himself upwards, not as gracefully as Vessa but with steady, even movement. Maelen blinked, surprised.
Then something in the darkness crashed, like a boulder being pulverized, and she lurched into action. Maelen dropped the torch to the floor without looking back, picked up Alric’s staff and, in one clean motion, jammed it behind her, wedged between her travel pack and chain shirt. That done, she gripped the rope with thick, calloused hands, and pulled.
Alric’s question hadn’t been wrong. They’d descended one at a time, with lighter packs. Would the rope hold three of them, plus the treasure of the vault? She guessed they’d find out. With a vicious groan, she pulled, muscles bunching. Her boots found the cavern wall. She climbed.
The noise was deafening now, a combination of constant thunder and crashing stone. Twice, rocks as large as her head fell from above, one narrowly missing her arm and another glancing off her pack. Had either struck her, she would have fallen, head over feet, into the darkness. She assumed that Vessa had made it to the surface by the time she’d made half the climb, and soon after the light from above began reaching the glistening, water-stained rock all around her. Maelen was close. She yelled again, shoulders burning and hands aching, for what felt like days. Voices above her urged her on, though she couldn’t make out words over the cacophony of the Starless Rift.
Eventually, hands gripped her shoulders, pulling her upwards. Rain spattered across her face. And, just like that, she lay on her back, her panting breath making puffs in the cold winter air. Maelen wasn’t sure how long she lay there, every pain now flooding back, before Vessa called out.
“Look!” she croaked, the lass’ voice raw.
Like a turtle on its back, Maelen rolled awkwardly. She shrugged her shoulders in the steady rain to release the heavy pack and Alric’s staff so she could sit. Maelen glanced at Vessa, who sat three strides away on her knees, mouth open. The lad lay on his side between them, staring in the same direction. Maelen turned to follow their gazes.
The Starless Rift was sealing itself. The two sections of muddy plains now only lay a short leap apart. Even as she watched, still and stunned, the earth rumbled and groaned, each side reaching for the other. Over the next stretch of time—she couldn’t have said how long—the two sides met, the crack sealed. The rumbling thunder echoed across the plain, low and distant, and then fell silent. Only churned soil, the shape of a long crescent, remained.
In that moment, she thought of her mouse Tatter. The little friend had been with her for over two years and survived the worse this world could throw at them. When she’d scampered away in fear from the monstrosities in the shadows below, Maelen assumed they would find each other again. But now, with the Starless Rift closed, any hope of reunion died. The mouse was probably dead, in the darkness and offal stink of those caverns, and if not dead then trapped. A sob threatened to escape her mouth, but blind rage pushed it back. She struck the mud beside her with a fist and growled.
“What is it?” Vessa asked her.
“Get your asses up!” Maelen barked, pushing herself to her feet unsteadily. “We’re leaving this bloody place.”
“Mae?” her friend asked, but the warrior turned her back on her companions and stalked off in the rain, fuming.
And with that, our party’s foray into the Starless Rift is done. They are a mess: Alric has no Abilities (including spells) left, no Rerolls, 6 Luck, and 7 hp. Maelen is out of Adaptable uses, has 1 Reroll, 8 Luck, and 10 hp. Vessa, who stayed unbothered through several combats, has 1 Trick and 1 Reroll left, but is at a measly 5 Luck and 2 hp. To make matters worse, Saelith the Vanished has escaped his centuries-long imprisonment and is now stalking the world. Yes, they have a good amount of treasure, but will they survive the journey to Oakton to spend it and recover?
To find out the answer to that question, we’re back to Hexploration. I’ve already rolled weather and got “Colder, Wetter,” so the poor party is stuck with more winter rain. Maelen will resume her role of Guide back to Oakton, and I’ll give her a +2 to her checks since she’s essentially backtracking. The difference is that Vessa won’t spend the day as a Scout with 2 hp. She’ll stick with the group and simply Look Out for danger. With the bonuses from her Wilderness Lore skill and backtracking, Maelen needs a 15 or lower on a d20 to successfully navigate. She rolls a 9.
The Bones are kind to the party on this initial flight from their defeat. The Twins of Fate say No/Nil to a Travel Event, and the Hammer of Judgment agrees with a No. The Fortune die, meanwhile, says Sun, so some sort of boon or positive sign to the day. Given how gloomy everything is right now, I’m not sure what that boon could be, so I’ll roll on the Fortune Die Examples in the rulebook: I get “Advantage on Stealth.” Ah. The rain shields them from danger for the day as they slink out of the area. Excellent.
That night, the PCs make camp. I deduct rations and realize that they only have 1 remaining each! Vessa will have to do some foraging. The book says GM discretion on whether to roll for a Night Encounter if there’s already been an event today. I’ll use the Fortune roll above to say they’re free of Orthuun or Saelith’s wandering eye and can get a full (albeit cold and wet) night’s sleep.
With the dawning of a new day, the PCs each get 1 hp back. The weather finally turns warmer and drier. Maelen crushes her Guide roll, so they’ll make extra good time back. Vessa will now Forage, and she succeeds, which means the party doesn’t need to use rations today. I’ll roll on my random hunting table: She finds some chickens. Nice.
So, a perfect day, right? I Consult the Bones: The Twins say Yes/No and Judgment says Yes to a Travel Encounter, with the Fortune die on Nil. Travel Event incoming! I roll Random Encounter. Eee! We’re in Plains & Grasslands, which is a different table than the Forests one I’ve rolled before. I get: “Palisade: A wooden palisade fifty feet on a side has been erected here, protecting a large tent within. A solitary Stone Golem stands outside the entry gate.” Whoah! I first read that as “Stone Giant” and thought it was the tent of said giant, but now see that it’s a golem guarding a tent. I am going to riff of my initial reading of it and say it’s a Hill Giant, plus add in the Orthuun/Saelith angle, with no palisade. Didn’t think we’d be here but yay for random tables!
Time to roll my Activity die for the first time in a long time: I get “Eating: Having a meal, cooking,” etc. Appropriately enough, I also roll a Reaction on the Hill Giant and get: Hungry. Let’s catch the narration up and then jump in!
She spoke little the rest of the day. It was impossible to know when in the day they’d emerged from the Starless Rift thanks to the steady storm, so she vowed to just keep walking north until it grew dark. Despite their injuries and exhaustion, she pushed them through the mud and rain, with far fewer and shorter breaks than her companions likely deserved. They didn’t push back on her militant march, though; Vessa and Alric were as eager to put distance from the Rift as Maelen.
As the journey lengthened, it became clearer that they’d emerged sometime in the morning. Was it the next day? Surely, they hadn’t spent more than that underground. Regardless, Maelen thought it made the accounting easier for when they’d reach waypoints and landmarks back to Oakton, assuming they made roughly the pace.
The longer they trudged across plains broken by low hills and dark, craggy rocks. As the miles dragged on, Maelen wondered at her own fury. Yes, she’d always been prone to getting into scraps, even as a young girl. But now the simple need for violence threatened to overwhelm her. Any increase in the rainfall, any unexpected slog of mud, any stumble by the mage—they all filled her with rage. Each slight complication, she held herself back from cursing angrily and often failed. Her fists bunched without her realizing it, tightly and painfully until her knuckles ached. Once, when Vessa whispered to her that she thought they should take a rest for Alric’s sake, Maelen barely avoided punching her friend in the jaw.
Was it the mace, she pondered? Surely the thing hummed to her in a tone only she could hear, and it seemed eager for combat. Did the weapon contain some sort of enchantment that manipulated her emotions? The very idea also made her want to strike something and smash it to pulp. But no, she thought the mace’s personality, if one could call it that, was much more jovial than destructive. Now that she considered it, the black weapon was like a mercenary companion of hers from years ago, even before the Larkhands, named Torin Bonebreaker. The man was crude, filthy, and built like a mountain, but always in uncannily good spirits. He looked forward to battle but wasn’t bloodthirsty for it. So too did it seem the mace was a humming, cheerful companion, happy to fight but otherwise just enjoying the traveling life in the beltloop at her hip. “If only it might rain more!” Torin would say if he were with them, “I don’t think the crack of my ass is wet enough yet!”
If not the mace, then why? It was the Starless Rift itself, and those skinless terrors, she realized. The utter wrongness of those creatures, combined with the oppressive darkness and bleak stone all around them, had triggered some animal instinct in her that she now found difficult to shut off. Like a cornered wolf, Maelen was snapping her slathering jaws at anyone who came near, even those meant to comfort her. She hated the uncontrolled feelings of it, but even as she spent the day grimly meditating on her emotions, could do nothing to erase it. Indeed, she almost wished the party would find more minions of Orthuun that she could destroy, that it would somehow purge her lust for violence.
They made camp in the rain, with little conversation amongst the three of them. Perhaps the only words spoken were when Vessa took inventory of their supplies and noted that they only had one more day of dry rations available, and only three torches that were both unused and had survived the constant wet. There was nothing to do about the torches, but Maelen told Vessa to keep an eye out for game on their journey, especially as they entered the forests of the Greenwood Rise. She must not have made the request respectfully, given that Vessa’s response was to spit and turn her back on her. Still, she felt confident that the lass would do some hunting, so mission accomplished.
Duskmarch 26, Stillday, Year 731
Shortly after setting out on the next day, the rain finally broke. By late morning the clouds had parted, showing cracks of blue sky and shedding the entire landscape in glistening, sparkling relief. The contrast from the previous day and horrors of the Starless Rift were stark, though it did little to lessen Maelen’s anger. For Alric and Vessa, however, the change seemed to allow for some light banter, and the two of them laughed several times at something Maelen couldn’t hear. Midday, after Vessa had crept away briefly to kill two chickens she’d spied in the long grass, the lad and lass sat closely and chattered while cleaning the animals. Maelen thought it was only a matter of time until Vessa bedded the mage and hoped she could wait until they’d returned to Oakton. The last thing Maelen needed was babysitting two lovesick kids.
Most of the day, they tromped through grassy plains stretching between occasional sandstone outcroppings. By mid-afternoon, the sky full of puffy clouds, numerous low ridges and scrub forests that preceded the Greenwood Rise appeared on the horizon. The trio topped a rise, and Vessa squinted, stopping abruptly.
“What is it?” Alric asked, looking at her with concern.
“It’s…” she licked her lips, sounding uncertain. “A tent, I think.”
Maelen shaded her eyes with one hand. Sure enough, far across the grasslands, near a low-lying ridge, was a structure that looked like a crude tent of some kind. White smoke rose from behind the tent, as if from a campfire. The more Maelen watched it, though, the less sense it made. The structure was somehow out of scale for the distance.
Vessa voiced her thoughts. “But it’s… massive.”
They ducked down in the tall, damp grass. Maelen figured that whoever set up the enormous tent couldn’t see them when they crouched, but equally there was no real place to hide their presence once they started moving. She swore, then tried to reign in her inner rampage.
“We’ve got two choices,” she said. “Backtrack and go a long way around, or head towards it and hope it’s someone willing to talk.”
“Perhaps,” Alric offered. “We wait to see if Vessa and her keen eyes can catch a glimpse of who might be setting up such a large tent in the wilds west of Oakton. Perhaps it’s knights of the Prince.”
“No banner that I saw,” Maelen shook her head. “You, Vess?”
The lass shook her head, rubbing at her bent nose in worry. “No. We’re carrying a lot of loot.” Her eyes scanned across Alric and Maelen. “And we’re awfully injured. We’ll look like easy marks to bandits.”
“But why such a large tent?” Maelen growled, her face a thundercloud of thought. “If you’re bandits, why make a bloody fire and announce yourself to everyone around?”
“It could be Saelith…” Alric whispered, and something prickled along her spine. Maelen still wasn’t convinced that a living being had escaped the Starless Rift, a general of a demon’s armies that was centuries old. But she’d also seen enough to make her cautious.
“Dammit all,” she scowled. “Let’s see if we can swing wide, then. Vess, you lead the way.”
The thief nodded and, still crouching, pushed back the way they’d come. Alric followed directly behind, bent awkwardly and his staff sticking up well above the waving grass. Maelen took up the rear and ventured a glance back towards the tent on the horizon.
This situation feels like it warrants a simple Fate question: Is the hill giant (which is what I’ve placed in the scene instead of a stone golem) in a position to spot them? I’d call the chances “Unlikely” on the Mythic GM Emulator Fate Chart, but with the Chaos Factor at 7 this still provides a 65% chance of a Yes. I roll a 20… the giant definitely can spot them.
In that case, it’s time for a Group Dex(Stealth) check, where two of our three PCs must succeed to avoid notice. Vessa has the best chance of success and will roll first: Her 15 is below the 17 she needs and succeeds. How about Maelen? A 14 is just under her 15 target. Whew. So now Alric only needs to not have a Terrible Failure. His Dex is only 7, but he is trained in Stealth. He will succeed at an 8 or better, but needs to roll under a 13 to avoid the TF. My roll is… 4.
Well, fine. I spent time thinking up a backstory for the hill giant, what he was doing out on the plains, and how these details fit into the Orthuun/Saelith stuff, apparently for nothing. I’ll add him to the Characters List to possibly appear down the road and look for ways to make the massive tent somehow relevant later (also a helpful reminder to use that list!). This emergent storytelling stuff is fascinating.
Her blood went cold. A towering figure in furs and hides appeared from behind the tent, his head almost as tall as the structure. Even from this distance, Maelen could see that he was thick and heavy, his arms reaching down to his knees beneath broad shoulders. He walked with stooped, swaying steps to the side of the tent and paused, turning his slab of a back to them to look north, presumably at the Greenwood Rise.
“Giant!” Maelen hissed. “Keep your heads low!”
“Giant?” Alric paused, and Maelen shoved him forward. “Ow! Are there giants in the Redwood Marches?”
“There’s bloody one there now, you idiot!” she spat back.
Vessa, pushed her way through the grass, crouching and holding her bow low, leading them in a snaking pattern to a hill where they’d be unseen. It was maybe the worst possible position for Alric, whose lamed leg couldn’t support the crouch without the help of his staff. He fell several times, and each time Maelen unsympathetically dragged him up and barked for him to keep going. By the time they’d circled the low hill and paused, panting, even Maelen’s thighs burned with effort. A hundred bruises, cuts, and strained muscles protested as well. She groaned, stretching the leg and shoulder that hurt the most.
“Giant?” Vessa said, rubbing at her own wounded shoulder, the one struck by the rock. “You sure, Mae?”
She grunted in affirmation.
“It’s all Orthuun,” Alric panted, shaking his head.
“Drop it, lad,” Maelen admonished. “Not everything in the great wilds has to do with the bloody demon.”
“Don’t you see?” he said, a note of desperation in his voice. “Saelith the Vanished has arisen! He was one of Orthuun’s ten generals, to lead an army of darkness that will sweep over the land and destroy everything.”
“So?” Maelen scowled.
“So, a general needs an army…” Vessa gasped. “The giant is responding to… some kind of call?”
Alric spread his hands wide, as if revealing a magic trick.
“A general needs an army,” he nodded.
Maelen spat a particularly vile curse that surprised even her with its vitriol.
Duskmarch 25, Hearthday, Year 731, the day of Sweet Requital in Oakton.
Vessa groaned and rolled to her back. Something wet and sticky had sealed one side of her face to the floor and the motion tugged at her skin painfully. For several heartbeats she lay there, breathing through cracked lips and trying weakly to gain her bearings. Her entire body hurt, sharp stabs of pain everywhere alongside a deep ache.
Where was she? The floor felt hard, but soft, liquid forms touched her skin, sliding around as she touched them like lifeless slugs. The smell of rotten meat and the heavy, sharp scent of blood filled her nose.
She coughed and remembered in a start: The tomb! In Starless Rift!
Something crusted over her eyes, so she scrubbed at them with one hand and opened them wide, struggling to sit up. Even with her eyes open, there was only blackness. Panic seized her chest and she began panting, remembering the hordes of skinless terrors piling atop her companions… Maelen dropping from exhaustion and pain, ready to die… Vessa’s own desperate intervention, and—oh! Wings! She patted her shoulders awkwardly, trying to reach her back. The raven’s wings were gone as if they’d never existed.
She needed light.
For a long, terrified stretch of time, Vessa explored the space around her on hands and knees. The horrifying creatures’ organs and ropy muscles lay everywhere, sloughed bonelessly to the ground as they died. She tried to calm her own frantic breathing and the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears, to sense if any of the things’ telltale snuffling or clacking of teeth were nearby.
She heard nothing. The tomb was as silent as it was dark. Lifeless.
Sobbing, she found a single arrow, but not her bow, or the dagger she’d unsheathed from her boot to tackle the creature looming over Maelen. How far had she and the creature tumbled and fought before everything went dark? She remembered it abruptly ceasing its movements and beginning to disassemble. Then all light had gone out and…
She couldn’t remember anything after that. Her muscles felt stiff and half-numb, blood drying tight against her skin. How long had she been unconscious? Were her companions still here or had they left her? Were they dead? Visions of Maelen dropping her black mace to the stone floor, defeated… of Alric being buried under a pile of skinless bodies clawing at him.
“Maelen?” she croaked, her throat dry and voice rough. “Alric?”
No answer.
Truly panting now, her search became desperate. Her hands slid through wet, cold offal. She sobbed, pushing forward and patting in front of her. Vessa called out again, her voice high and frantic. Still no one answered.
She was alone. Trapped in darkness, with nothing to fight and no one to save.
It was the Larkhands, all over again.
With a sudden gasp of triumph, her hand touched a leather strap. Either her travel pack or the pack of a companion. She pulled it to her knees, slick fingers shaking and fumbling with the clasp. Snot ran over her upper lip as she cried loudly, pushing through the materials in the pack until she found the long, solid form of a torch. More searching produced a tinderbox. Shaking her head, shuddering with sobs, she clumsily struck flint and steel to no effect. Vessa growled and redoubled her efforts. There was a brief flicker of light as she produced a spark. Then another. Another. A fourth time was enough to catch the resin-soaked cloth. For a moment, nothing… and then fire bloomed at the tip of the torch, shedding a dancing, orange light around her.
Vessa wiped a forearm across her running nose and tear-blurred eyes to look around, shoulders shuddering.
She was still in the tomb, its polished black walls making a perfect square topped by a low dome. Gore from the skinless terrors lay everywhere, only vaguely human-shaped and strewn seemingly haphazardly. Any etched runes along the walls or floors had been scratched out or split by spiderweb cracks. Her head scanned back and forth, eyes wild and wide, looking for her friends. Vessa pulled herself to her feet, body protesting with pain and stiffness, and swept her torch around in a wide arc.
There! She stumbled, tripped, and stumbled again to where she saw Maelen’s legs, splayed beneath a mound of red tissue and stinking organs. Vessa dropped to her knees and pushed the offal away. Thankfully, the remnants of the abominations had only covered her torso, not smothered her face. Was she breathing? Maelen’s chest rose and fell slowly, steadily. The thief sobbed again, then wiped her eyes and searched for injuries.
Miraculously—and somehow wrongly, a tiny voice in her mind whispered—the most grievous wounds she’d seen as Maelen faced death in the battle had healed. How? Was Alric able to use his magic after she’d tackled away the creature looming over her? Still, the warrior’s flesh was riddled with bites, bruises, and angry scratches. Nothing fatal that she could see, but none of it would feel good, and Vessa didn’t think she had enough bandages to wrap everything. Maelen would be in very real danger of infection if they couldn’t treat those wounds.
Something in the shadows behind her groaned, and Vessa’s heart skipped a beat, a scream catching in her throat and threatening to escape. She whirled, holding her torch out defensively.
Alric, coated head to toe in crusted blood and scraps of gore, stirred weakly. She moved to him as quickly as her battered body could manage. He was alive!
Eventually, they all limped to the edge of the black, still pool to take stock of and address their injuries as best as they could manage around the column of warm air. Alric was the worst of them, both in terms of how many bite wounds he’d suffered as well as overall spirits. He looked ten years older than when they’d entered the Starless Rift, haggard and stooped, every movement eliciting a wince of pain. None of his wounds bled significantly, and once they’d cleaned him of the gore, they didn’t bleed at all. Vessa thought that odd but he rebuffed any attempts to discuss it. His new cloak, however, was as shredded as his robes had been, and utterly ruined. She gave him hers… she liked her older cloak’s fit better, anyway.
Maelen couldn’t keep the concern from her eyes or voice when she regarded Alric. “Lad…” she said, licking her lips. “Can you… heal yourself?”
The look he gave her was haunted and filled with shame. He shook his head grimly, then turned away.
Vessa moved to speak to him, but Maelen grabbed her bicep. “Leave it,” she murmured.
So, with a weary sigh, Vessa worked to address her and Maelen’s wounds as best she could, cleaning them both of as much from the horrible nightmare they’d experienced as possible. When that was done, they were still filthy and stunk worse than a tannery, but it still felt considerably better than being caked in gore.
For the rest of her torch’s life, she navigated carefully and filled with disgust through the places in the tomb where they’d fought the skinless terrors. Vessa found her bow, dagger, and enough arrows to half-fill her quiver. When she returned to the warmth of the poolside hole, she handed Maelen back her heavy mace. The warrior took it and stared down at its black, spiked head for a long while, jaw clenched, longer than Vessa lingered. Both of her companions, it seemed, had winding paths in their own thoughts to explore.
She only had two torches left in her travel pack, same as the others now. With a weary sigh, she lit one of them and wandered back to the tomb. Ignoring the viscera strewn everywhere, she picked her way towards the central area, where Saelith the Vanished had been entombed. The concentric circles of runes all around the indentation in the stone were littered with cracks, shards of basalt crunching under her boots as she approached.
The circular tomb was empty. Vessa wished she was surprised, but it’s what she expected. Those horrific creatures had been working like bees in a hive to weaken the magic here and, apparently, they succeeded. Was Saelith alive again, walking the caverns somewhere nearby? Or was his liberation simply part of a larger ritual, the body now gone to serve some grander purpose for the demon-lord Orthuun? Surely Alric would have an opinion, some theory he would want to research back at the Inkbinders Lodge.
The thought of Oakton made her chest seize in longing, and for a moment Vessa couldn’t breathe. Whatever was happening in the Redwood Marches—the corrupting influence of a dark god and its army’s generals—it no longer had anything to do with Vessa Velthorn. Maelen had promised her that once they’d left this place, they would return to the city and stay there for a long while. She would take whatever coin they’d recovered from this place and make a life beneath the stretching branches of the Argenoak. She would rebuild the reputation she’d enjoyed with the Larkhands as a thief-for-hire, breaking into merchants’ vaults and guild houses once more. She looked down at the lark tattoo on her hand and smiled grimly. Nightwights and corrupted skratt hordes and certainly skinless monstrosities would be reserved for her nightmares from now on, and nothing more.
Envisioning home provided her with a spark of energy, and Vessa left the vacant circle in the room’s center to explore the far sides of the vast room, away from where they’d entered and fought the terrors. Discarded piles of organs still lay strewn here, but few enough that she could avoid them easily. Vessa held her torch out front, the orange light dancing over the black stone and its scratched, defaced symbols.
She stopped, blinking. Ahead, a section of the wall was open, pushed inwards like a door though it had no handle or visible hinge, twice as tall as Vessa and three times as wide. When they’d first entered, had this door been open? The thought unsettled her. She didn’t think so, though it was possible their collective torchlight didn’t reach to the far side of the room. Still, as she soared over the battle—she had flown!—Vessa was sure she would have seen such a large opening. She glanced over her shoulder to check if one of her companions was there with a torch but no. She was alone. Hm.
Carefully and quietly, she stalked towards the opening. As she approached the wall, her eyes roamed over the surface and her ears searched for any noise beyond her flickering torch. Sensing nothing, she stepped into the opening.
On some level, she knew that she was taking unnecessary risks. Perhaps the day’s constant peril had numbed her to danger, or perhaps she knew in her bones that Saelith the Vanished had already left his prison. Whatever the case, Vessa found a tall rectangular room of the same smooth, basalt walls, much like the vault they’d discovered in Thornmere Hold.
It was just as sparsely filled, too. A few squat wooden chests sat neatly organized upon the floor, alongside a small scroll rack. The gold-gilded lantern with a stag seal that hung from a hook near the doorway was the twin of the one she’d sold three months ago and was the strongest evidence that this place was indeed created by the same ancient order that had buried the artifacts within Thornmere Hold. Alric would be pleased, with plenty of new theories to occupy his time. Vessa hoped those chests held coin, or at least valuable items they could sell. Grinning, she turned to go fetch her companions.
As she exited, her eyes caught something in the firelight. A small dark blemish on the otherwise smooth stone of the door. She bent down, bringing her torch to see. It was… a keyhole? She fished the golden key she’d retrieved from the corpse. The key slid perfectly into the lock. So. A locked vault, after all, with a barely perceptible keyhole along the blank surface of wall one would have to know existed. But how had it opened, especially after the battle? And why were the contents still here? Unless there had once been more housed in the vault? She shook her head, padding away. More mysteries of the Starless Tomb.
She found Maelen and Alric in the same place she’d left them, on opposite sides of the column of warm air. Maelen still stared absently at her weapon, while Alric’s back was to her across the hole in the floor, eyes unfocused and head bent. Vessa doubted they even noticed she’d departed, much less returned.
“Hey,” she said. Maelen’s head snapped up, her face a thundercloud of anger. Alric blinked slowly and, painfully, turned his body back to face them both. Vessa waited until she had both of their attention and ignored her friend’s glare. “I found something. Come on.”
They gathered their packs and she led them through the rocky corridor and back to the tomb, then around its perimeter towards the back wall. Neither of her companions spoke while they moved, each still lost in thought. When Vessa glanced back to check they followed, she couldn’t decide which expression concerned her more: Maelen’s scowl at everything and anything, or Alric’s abject despair. She wondered briefly how she must appear. Could it be that she was the least haunted by this awful place? Whatever the case, they all needed to be free of it, and soon.
When they returned, the vault door still lay pushed open. Vessa stepped into the middle of the room and turned in a slow circle, holding her torch before her, to show the chests and scroll rack. The air in it felt stale, oddly still.
“Treasure, Mae,” she said. “And perhaps answers, Alric.”
Maelen grunted and pushed into the room, immediately dropping to her knees in front of a chest and examining the lock. Alric limped to the scroll rack and settled himself painfully in front of it. Vessa grinned. Good.
For another full torch’s light, they worked. And with each passing discovery, both of her companions returned to some semblance of their former selves. In the end, they’d profited an entire chest each of old copper oaks and another of silver thorns. Not any golden crowns here, but still enough money to—almost—be worth the misery they’d endured.
In addition to the coins and the golden lantern, one chest included two items: First, a carefully packed silver chalice that Alric immediately declared magical, though he said he would need to study it in more detail to understand its properties. Second, a long wooden case that revealed a needle, like an oversized sewing needle, as ebon black as Maelen’s mace and seemingly made of the same alien metal. Alric declared it magical as well, and when he laid the needle upon the floor it slowly turned on its own volition, then stopped. Alric tapped his lip with a finger, puzzling at its intent, before returning it to the case.
The mage also took four scrolls. One, he said, was a written log on the construction of Saelith’s prison, while another seemed to be a journal from early years here by one of its occupants. Alric said both documents would be invaluable to uncovering the history and intent of the order who’d fought Orthuun long ago. The final two scrolls were magical spells, though again he said he’d need to study them to understand their intent. His mention of spell-scrolls sent a thrill through Vessa, and she again remembered flying over the tomb on her giant raven’s wings. Perhaps, she thought, there would be one positive memory of the Starless Rift, at least as its other horrific visions faded. She’d flown.
By the time they’d filled their travel packs and pockets, Maelen was again ordering them around with grim efficiency, and Alric was positing ideas about the greater meaning of ancient orders. Vessa hoped their lifted spirits would endure through the return to the surface and desperately, desperately wished that return would be terror-free.
Maelen was the last to leave the vault. She lingered there, squinting.
“What is it?” Vessa asked.
“It’s… emptier than Thornmere Hold,” she said slowly. “I’m not complaining about the coin, mind you, but…”
“You think Saelith took something before he left?” Alric said thoughtfully. “Yes, that makes sense. He undoubtedly was the one to open the vault in the first place. He was looking for something, and now has it.”
The doom of that sentence hung in the air. Vessa cleared her throat. “It doesn’t concern us. He’s gone, and someone will fight him, but not us. We need to get out of here and back to home.”
Maelen blinked and nodded once. “Right enough. Let’s go.”
With so many coins weighing down their bags, Maelen didn’t think they could return the way they’d arrived, across the still pool of water. That decision suited Vessa just fine. Not only did she worry about both companions’ injuries, but she didn’t relish the idea of freezing to death, wet, without the warm column of air on the opposite side.
Yet by the time they’d left the vault behind, each of them was left with only a single unburnt torch each. They would need to navigate through unexplored caverns with the very real danger of getting lost and running out of light. As a result, they decided to have Maelen carry a single torch, keeping the other two as replacements. The warrior walked as briskly as she thought Alric could follow given his poor health and lack of walking staff, with Vessa close behind.
Thankfully, the cavern complex of the Starless Rift was not vast. Maelen located a hidden exit from the tomb that avoided the flooded chamber and led them around, through rocky corridors and, occasionally, open caverns, though none as large as the one that had housed the most gruesome of the otherworldly monsters. Indeed, they discovered no less than four additional piles of viscera, where more of the abominations must have been prowling when Saelith escaped. Alric guessed that somehow the ritual that had opened the Starless Rift had also spawned the awful minions throughout the cave complex.
“It all makes sense,” he said in his deep baritone, as they stooped at the pool’s opposite edge. They’d found their way back around to their previous route, and now the mage had his staff and Vessa her shortsword. “The members of the order that created this place hadn’t been corrupted like those the ageless figures from Thornmere Hold. Somehow the tomb seems to have held Orthuun’s corruption at bay. At least until Hadren cracked open the rift. Then, well…” He shrugged one shoulder and winced at the pain it caused. “We know what happened next.”
Those three members of the order had been slaughtered, and horribly. While other skinless creatures prowled the darkness hunting, the mass of them had gathered at the tomb to free the Blind Sovereign’s general. Once freed, the power of the ritual had been severed, which is why the abominations had all, as one, dropped lifeless to the stony floor. Vessa shuddered as she remembered it all.
Then a thought struck her, which she said aloud. “But if the ritual only lasted long enough to free Saelith… Why is the Rift still open?”
Alric paused, considering it.
And, as if the idea had triggered it, the entire cave complex shuddered once. A deep rumble echoed all around them, then settled into silence.
“What was–” Vessa began to ask.
“We go. Now,” Maelen cut her off.
They exited back towards the large chamber, filled with natural stone columns, where they’d fought the most terrifying of the skinless creatures and where the ancient orders’ members lay eviscerated. They hustled, all injured, without comment or question.
As they passed closer to the exit, the rumble began again, this time building and shaking the floor beneath them. A stray rock tumbled nearby.
“GO!” Maelen yelled, and they began a last, desperate flight through the darkness.
Duskmarch 25, Hearthday, Year 731, the day of Sweet Requital in Oakton.
Vessa groaned and rolled to her back. Something wet and sticky had sealed one side of her face to the floor and the motion tugged at her skin painfully. For several heartbeats she lay there, breathing through cracked lips and trying weakly to gain her bearings. Her entire body hurt, sharp stabs of pain everywhere alongside a deep ache.
Where was she? The floor felt hard, but soft, liquid forms touched her skin, sliding around as she touched them like lifeless slugs. The smell of rotten meat and the heavy, sharp scent of blood filled her nose.
She coughed and remembered in a start: The tomb! In Starless Rift!
Something crusted over her eyes, so she scrubbed at them with one hand and opened them wide, struggling to sit up. Even with her eyes open, there was only blackness. Panic seized her chest and she began panting, remembering the hordes of skinless terrors piling atop her companions… Maelen dropping from exhaustion and pain, ready to die… Vessa’s own desperate intervention, and—oh! Wings! She patted her shoulders awkwardly, trying to reach her back. The raven’s wings were gone as if they’d never existed.
She needed light.
For a long, terrified stretch of time, Vessa explored the space around her on hands and knees. The horrifying creatures’ organs and ropy muscles lay everywhere, sloughed bonelessly to the ground as they died. She tried to calm her own frantic breathing and the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears, to sense if any of the things’ telltale snuffling or clacking of teeth were nearby.
She heard nothing. The tomb was as silent as it was dark. Lifeless.
Sobbing, she found a single arrow, but not her bow, or the dagger she’d unsheathed from her boot to tackle the creature looming over Maelen. How far had she and the creature tumbled and fought before everything went dark? She remembered it abruptly ceasing its movements and beginning to disassemble. Then all light had gone out and…
She couldn’t remember anything after that. Her muscles felt stiff and half-numb, blood drying tight against her skin. How long had she been unconscious? Were her companions still here or had they left her? Were they dead? Visions of Maelen dropping her black mace to the stone floor, defeated… of Alric being buried under a pile of skinless bodies clawing at him.
“Maelen?” she croaked, her throat dry and voice rough. “Alric?”
No answer.
Truly panting now, her search became desperate. Her hands slid through wet, cold offal. She sobbed, pushing forward and patting in front of her. Vessa called out again, her voice high and frantic. Still no one answered.
She was alone. Trapped in darkness, with nothing to fight and no one to save.
It was the Larkhands, all over again.
With a sudden gasp of triumph, her hand touched a leather strap. Either her travel pack or the pack of a companion. She pulled it to her knees, slick fingers shaking and fumbling with the clasp. Snot ran over her upper lip as she cried loudly, pushing through the materials in the pack until she found the long, solid form of a torch. More searching produced a tinderbox. Shaking her head, shuddering with sobs, she clumsily struck flint and steel to no effect. Vessa growled and redoubled her efforts. There was a brief flicker of light as she produced a spark. Then another. Another. A fourth time was enough to catch the resin-soaked cloth. For a moment, nothing… and then fire bloomed at the tip of the torch, shedding a dancing, orange light around her.
Vessa wiped a forearm across her running nose and tear-blurred eyes to look around, shoulders shuddering.
She was still in the tomb, its polished black walls making a perfect square topped by a low dome. Gore from the skinless terrors lay everywhere, only vaguely human-shaped and strewn seemingly haphazardly. Any etched runes along the walls or floors had been scratched out or split by spiderweb cracks. Her head scanned back and forth, eyes wild and wide, looking for her friends. Vessa pulled herself to her feet, body protesting with pain and stiffness, and swept her torch around in a wide arc.
There! She stumbled, tripped, and stumbled again to where she saw Maelen’s legs, splayed beneath a mound of red tissue and stinking organs. Vessa dropped to her knees and pushed the offal away. Thankfully, the remnants of the abominations had only covered her torso, not smothered her face. Was she breathing? Maelen’s chest rose and fell slowly, steadily. The thief sobbed again, then wiped her eyes and searched for injuries.
Miraculously—and somehow wrongly, a tiny voice in her mind whispered—the most grievous wounds she’d seen as Maelen faced death in the battle had healed. How? Was Alric able to use his magic after she’d tackled away the creature looming over her? Still, the warrior’s flesh was riddled with bites, bruises, and angry scratches. Nothing fatal that she could see, but none of it would feel good, and Vessa didn’t think she had enough bandages to wrap everything. Maelen would be in very real danger of infection if they couldn’t treat those wounds.
Something in the shadows behind her groaned, and Vessa’s heart skipped a beat, a scream catching in her throat and threatening to escape. She whirled, holding her torch out defensively.
Alric, coated head to toe in crusted blood and scraps of gore, stirred weakly. She moved to him as quickly as her battered body could manage. He was alive!
Welcome to the aftermath of Saelith the Vanished being freed. On one hand, it’s awesome that all three PCs survived what was a nearly impossible encounter, and I’m rewarding them by a) allowing them some time to gather themselves without immediate threat, b) leaving them in the tomb where they still can find treasure, and c) keeping their gear mostly intact. On the other hand, they ultimately failed to both defeat the skinless terrors and keep Saelith imprisoned, which will likely shape the rest of their (possibly short) lives. Here are the consequences I decided as a result: First, everyone awakes at 1 hit point, even Vessa. Second, everyone loses 1 point of Luck (which feels fair, as it’s the equivalent of passing a Luck check against the hazard of Saelith’s liberation). Third, they’ll need to each burn an additional torch for recovering down here, leaving them with 2 each. If they stay exploring the Starless Rift, there is every possibility they will run out of light. Finally, Alric’s new cloak is shredded (which is fine, because it means they have three cloaks for three PCs).
That said, I’m going to give them a Short Rest in these hours after waking. Alric passes one of his two Will checks and it only makes sense to recover hit points, which will bring him to 7 of 14. Maelen thankfully passes both checks and will use one for hit points (10 of 20) and one to replenish her Supplies, just in case. Finally, Vessa also passes both checks and will use both for hit points (10 of 14). It makes sense to me that Alric gets the short straw on this recovery given his encounter with Saelith. His magic—and likely enthusiasm for using it—is currently gone.
I’ve already established that a Major and Minor magic item exist down here. Did Saelith leave the Major Item here, though? I’ll do a quick Fate roll, and the normally-50/50 chance gets bumped to 85% because of the Chaos Factor (which has climbed to a record-level 8!). But I roll… 90! He took it with him, and I’ll have to remember that if and when the party ever confronts him again. What a bummer for the party, but it both makes logical sense and adds an additional consequence for failing in the previous encounter.
Still, Saelith will have left the less important stuff (to him), which still means booty for the party. To figure out what this booty will be, I’ll use the Lair Treasure table in the Tales of Argosa rulebook, targeting the HD 3-4 line in honor of the skinless terrors and subtracting the Major Item. I roll 265 copper pieces, 840 silver pieces, 3 (aww…) gold pieces, a scroll of A Wisp Unseen (very cool… the same spell Hadren used in the Heart & Dagger to kick off this adventure), a scroll of Place of Perfect Night (another thematic addition), a scroll of “complex formulae and detailed charcoal sketches” which the rulebook says depicts a flying contraption but I’ll twist to say is the design for this prison, which may be valuable later, a “silver chalice with sun and star icons. If you warm yourself in sunlight for 15 minutes and drink from the cup, you don’t require food or drink for the next 24 hours,” which sounds very much like something placed by the ancient order against Orthuun, and, finally, an unblemished needle that I’m going to twist the description and function of to fit the story. By GM fiat, I’m also going to add the same item they found in Thornmere Hold: a gold-gilded lantern with a Calvenor seal on it (I’ve decided these go onto the possible Threads List, which includes an adventure seed that may or may not shape the story). No Major Item, but that’s still a lot!
Eventually, they all limped to the edge of the black, still pool to take stock of and address their injuries as best as they could manage around the column of warm air. Alric was the worst of them, both in terms of how many bite wounds he’d suffered as well as overall spirits. He looked ten years older than when they’d entered the Starless Rift, haggard and stooped, every movement eliciting a wince of pain. None of his wounds bled significantly, and once they’d cleaned him of the gore, they didn’t bleed at all. Vessa thought that odd but he rebuffed any attempts to discuss it. His new cloak, however, was as shredded as his robes had been, and utterly ruined. She gave him hers… she liked her older cloak’s fit better, anyway.
Maelen couldn’t keep the concern from her eyes or voice when she regarded Alric. “Lad…” she said, licking her lips. “Can you… heal yourself?”
The look he gave her was haunted and filled with shame. He shook his head grimly, then turned away.
Vessa moved to speak to him, but Maelen grabbed her bicep. “Leave it,” she murmured.
So, with a weary sigh, Vessa worked to address her and Maelen’s wounds as best she could, cleaning them both of as much from the horrible nightmare they’d experienced as possible. When that was done, they were still filthy and stunk worse than a tannery, but it still felt considerably better than being caked in gore.
For the rest of her torch’s life, she navigated carefully and filled with disgust through the places in the tomb where they’d fought the skinless terrors. Vessa found her bow, dagger, and enough arrows to half-fill her quiver. When she returned to the warmth of the poolside hole, she handed Maelen back her heavy mace. The warrior took it and stared down at its black, spiked head for a long while, jaw clenched, longer than Vessa lingered. Both of her companions, it seemed, had winding paths in their own thoughts to explore.
She only had two torches left in her travel pack, same as the others now. With a weary sigh, she lit one of them and wandered back to the tomb. Ignoring the viscera strewn everywhere, she picked her way towards the central area, where Saelith the Vanished had been entombed. The concentric circles of runes all around the indentation in the stone were littered with cracks, shards of basalt crunching under her boots as she approached.
The circular tomb was empty. Vessa wished she was surprised, but it’s what she expected. Those horrific creatures had been working like bees in a hive to weaken the magic here and, apparently, they succeeded. Was Saelith alive again, walking the caverns somewhere nearby? Or was his liberation simply part of a larger ritual, the body now gone to serve some grander purpose for the demon-lord Orthuun? Surely Alric would have an opinion, some theory he would want to research back at the Inkbinders Lodge.
The thought of Oakton made her chest seize in longing, and for a moment Vessa couldn’t breathe. Whatever was happening in the Redwood Marches—the corrupting influence of a dark god and its army’s generals—it no longer had anything to do with Vessa Velthorn. Maelen had promised her that once they’d left this place, they would return to the city and stay there for a long while. She would take whatever coin they’d recovered from this place and make a life beneath the stretching branches of the Argenoak. She would rebuild the reputation she’d enjoyed with the Larkhands as a thief-for-hire, breaking into merchants’ vaults and guild houses once more. She looked down at the lark tattoo on her hand and smiled grimly. Nightwights and corrupted skratt hordes and certainly skinless monstrosities would be reserved for her nightmares from now on, and nothing more.
Envisioning home provided her with a spark of energy, and Vessa left the vacant circle in the room’s center to explore the far sides of the vast room, away from where they’d entered and fought the terrors. Discarded piles of organs still lay strewn here, but few enough that she could avoid them easily. Vessa held her torch out front, the orange light dancing over the black stone and its scratched, defaced symbols.
She stopped, blinking. Ahead, a section of the wall was open, pushed inwards like a door though it had no handle or visible hinge, twice as tall as Vessa and three times as wide. When they’d first entered, had this door been open? The thought unsettled her. She didn’t think so, though it was possible their collective torchlight didn’t reach to the far side of the room. Still, as she soared over the battle—she had flown!—Vessa was sure she would have seen such a large opening. She glanced over her shoulder to check if one of her companions was there with a torch but no. She was alone. Hm.
Carefully and quietly, she stalked towards the opening. As she approached the wall, her eyes roamed over the surface and her ears searched for any noise beyond her flickering torch. Sensing nothing, she stepped into the opening.
On some level, she knew that she was taking unnecessary risks. Perhaps the day’s constant peril had numbed her to danger, or perhaps she knew in her bones that Saelith the Vanished had already left his prison. Whatever the case, Vessa found a tall rectangular room of the same smooth, basalt walls, much like the vault they’d discovered in Thornmere Hold.
It was just as sparsely filled, too. A few squat wooden chests sat neatly organized upon the floor, alongside a small scroll rack. The gold-gilded lantern with a stag seal that hung from a hook near the doorway was the twin of the one she’d sold three months ago and was the strongest evidence that this place was indeed created by the same ancient order that had buried the artifacts within Thornmere Hold. Alric would be pleased, with plenty of new theories to occupy his time. Vessa hoped those chests held coin, or at least valuable items they could sell. Grinning, she turned to go fetch her companions.
As she exited, her eyes caught something in the firelight. A small dark blemish on the otherwise smooth stone of the door. She bent down, bringing her torch to see. It was… a keyhole? She fished the golden key she’d retrieved from the corpse. The key slid perfectly into the lock. So. A locked vault, after all, with a barely perceptible keyhole along the blank surface of wall one would have to know existed. But how had it opened, especially after the battle? And why were the contents still here? Unless there had once been more housed in the vault? She shook her head, padding away. More mysteries of the Starless Tomb.
She found Maelen and Alric in the same place she’d left them, on opposite sides of the column of warm air. Maelen still stared absently at her weapon, while Alric’s back was to her across the hole in the floor, eyes unfocused and head bent. Vessa doubted they even noticed she’d departed, much less returned.
“Hey,” she said. Maelen’s head snapped up, her face a thundercloud of anger. Alric blinked slowly and, painfully, turned his body back to face them both. Vessa waited until she had both of their attention and ignored her friend’s glare. “I found something. Come on.”
They gathered their packs and she led them through the rocky corridor and back to the tomb, then around its perimeter towards the back wall. Neither of her companions spoke while they moved, each still lost in thought. When Vessa glanced back to check they followed, she couldn’t decide which expression concerned her more: Maelen’s scowl at everything and anything, or Alric’s abject despair. She wondered briefly how she must appear. Could it be that she was the least haunted by this awful place? Whatever the case, they all needed to be free of it, and soon.
When they returned, the vault door still lay pushed open. Vessa stepped into the middle of the room and turned in a slow circle, holding her torch before her, to show the chests and scroll rack. The air in it felt stale, oddly still.
“Treasure, Mae,” she said. “And perhaps answers, Alric.”
Maelen grunted and pushed into the room, immediately dropping to her knees in front of a chest and examining the lock. Alric limped to the scroll rack and settled himself painfully in front of it. Vessa grinned. Good.
For another full torch’s light, they worked. And with each passing discovery, both of her companions returned to some semblance of their former selves. In the end, they’d profited an entire chest each of old copper oaks and another of silver thorns. Not any golden crowns here, but still enough money to—almost—be worth the misery they’d endured.
In addition to the coins and the golden lantern, one chest included two items: First, a carefully packed silver chalice that Alric immediately declared magical, though he said he would need to study it in more detail to understand its properties. Second, a long wooden case that revealed a needle, like an oversized sewing needle, as ebon black as Maelen’s mace and seemingly made of the same alien metal. Alric declared it magical as well, and when he laid the needle upon the floor it slowly turned on its own volition, then stopped. Alric tapped his lip with a finger, puzzling at its intent, before returning it to the case.
The mage also took four scrolls. One, he said, was a written log on the construction of Saelith’s prison, while another seemed to be a journal from early years here by one of its occupants. Alric said both documents would be invaluable to uncovering the history and intent of the order who’d fought Orthuun long ago. The final two scrolls were magical spells, though again he said he’d need to study them to understand their intent. His mention of spell-scrolls sent a thrill through Vessa, and she again remembered flying over the tomb on her giant raven’s wings. Perhaps, she thought, there would be one positive memory of the Starless Rift, at least as its other horrific visions faded. She’d flown.
By the time they’d filled their travel packs and pockets, Maelen was again ordering them around with grim efficiency, and Alric was positing ideas about the greater meaning of ancient orders. Vessa hoped their lifted spirits would endure through the return to the surface and desperately, desperately wished that return would be terror-free.
Maelen was the last to leave the vault. She lingered there, squinting.
“What is it?” Vessa asked.
“It’s… emptier than Thornmere Hold,” she said slowly. “I’m not complaining about the coin, mind you, but…”
“You think Saelith took something before he left?” Alric said thoughtfully. “Yes, that makes sense. He undoubtedly was the one to open the vault in the first place. He was looking for something, and now has it.”
The doom of that sentence hung in the air. Vessa cleared her throat. “It doesn’t concern us. He’s gone, and someone will fight him, but not us. We need to get out of here and back to home.”
Maelen blinked and nodded once. “Right enough. Let’s go.”
I won’t bore you here with the accounting of it, but I’ve spread the loot across their various Gear Slots on the three character sheets. In the end, they must leave about 200 copper pieces behind, but I’ll just handwave the amount they found and say the total they discovered was 200 cp less, and that they can bundle everything back with them.
Speaking of handwaving, with their packs laden with loot, I don’t see how the party can successfully cross the black pool in the same way as before, though Alric will obviously want to retrieve his staff and Vessa her shortsword. At the same time, I’m not currently keen on continuing another 4-5 sessions of dungeon exploration as they make their way through an alternate route through the caves of the Starless Rift, especially if the primary foe (the skinless terrors) have returned to the void from whence they came. As a result, I’m going to use the very cool Back to Base rules in Tales of Argosa, which allow for a single Luck roll to see if each PC can make their way out of the dungeon (in this case) without major incident. If they fail, there’s a table to see what prevents them from doing so, and the consequences. It’s an elegant way to handle the situation I’m in, and especially great (as the rulebook states) for “West Marches-style” games that rely on each game session starting in a particular place, possibly with different players.
Unfortunately, the party is low on Luck. I’ll let them modify the roll with their strongest stat, based on what each PC relies on to get out of fixes. Let’s see how this goes: Alric will make a Luck(Int) check and succeeds with an 8. I’ll now reduce his Luck to a paltry 6. How about Maelen? I’ll give her a Luck(Str) check in hopes she can power her way through an obstacle or two. She unfortunately fails with a 12, though, and I don’t want to use her last Reroll to try again. As a result, she rolls on the Back to Base table and gets: Animal Death. Well, damn. I’d already said that Tatter ran away when sensing the skinless terror boss. Apparently, she’ll find (or not find) the poor mouse’s corpse and poor Tatter is no more. I never really figured out how to use Tatter in the story, but I envisioned it possibly becoming Alric’s familiar at some point. Oh well. Sorry to see you go, little rodent!
Finally, Vessa’s Luck(Dex) roll also fails with a 13, and I also don’t want to use her last Reroll. She takes Damage, which I’ll set as 1d10. If she rolls 10, things get hairy and I may need to slow down to deal with a… situation. However, another disaster (sort of) averted: 8 damage brings her to 2 hp. Ouch. I’ll have to figure out some narrative way to explain the added injury. Ohhh… I have an idea. Peril incoming!
With so many coins weighing down their bags, Maelen didn’t think they could return the way they’d arrived, across the still pool of water. That decision suited Vessa just fine. Not only did she worry about both companions’ injuries, but she didn’t relish the idea of freezing to death, wet, without the warm column of air on the opposite side.
Yet by the time they’d left the vault behind, each of them was left with only a single unburnt torch each. They would need to navigate through unexplored caverns with the very real danger of getting lost and running out of light. As a result, they decided to have Maelen carry a single torch, keeping the other two as replacements. The warrior walked as briskly as she thought Alric could follow given his poor health and lack of walking staff, with Vessa close behind.
Thankfully, the cavern complex of the Starless Rift was not vast. Maelen located a hidden exit from the tomb that avoided the flooded chamber and led them around, through rocky corridors and, occasionally, open caverns, though none as large as the one that had housed the most gruesome of the otherworldly monsters. Indeed, they discovered no less than four additional piles of viscera, where more of the abominations must have been prowling when Saelith escaped. Alric guessed that somehow the ritual that had opened the Starless Rift had also spawned the awful minions throughout the cave complex.
“It all makes sense,” he said in his deep baritone, as they stooped at the pool’s opposite edge. They’d found their way back around to their previous route, and now the mage had his staff and Vessa her shortsword. “The members of the order that created this place hadn’t been corrupted like those the ageless figures from Thornmere Hold. Somehow the tomb seems to have held Orthuun’s corruption at bay. At least until Hadren cracked open the rift. Then, well…” He shrugged one shoulder and winced at the pain it caused. “We know what happened next.”
Those three members of the order had been slaughtered, and horribly. While other skinless creatures prowled the darkness hunting, the mass of them had gathered at the tomb to free the Blind Sovereign’s general. Once freed, the power of the ritual had been severed, which is why the abominations had all, as one, dropped lifeless to the stony floor. Vessa shuddered as she remembered it all.
Then a thought struck her, which she said aloud. “But if the ritual only lasted long enough to free Saelith… Why is the Rift still open?”
Alric paused, considering it.
And, as if the idea had triggered it, the entire cave complex shuddered once. A deep rumble echoed all around them, then settled into silence.
“What was–” Vessa began to ask.
“We go. Now,” Maelen cut her off.
They exited back towards the large chamber, filled with natural stone columns, where they’d fought the most terrifying of the skinless creatures and where the ancient orders’ members lay eviscerated. They hustled, all injured, without comment or question.
As they passed closer to the exit, the rumble began again, this time building and shaking the floor beneath them. A stray rock tumbled nearby.
“GO!” Maelen yelled, and they began a last, desperate flight through the darkness.
If you’re confused about why I’m throwing Dungeon Crawl Classics content on a Wednesday into my blog, you must have missed last week’s post where I introduced this little (and by “little,” I mean “gargantuan”) side project to translate my Oakton gods and demons into DCC-usable content. Ostensibly I’m doing this work so that I can GM a home game sometime in the future, but mostly I’m doing it because it’s fun.
Last week, I asserted that any of my Law-promoting city-gods of Oakton and any of my Chaos-promoting demon-gods of the wilds could be either deities (i.e. provide clerics power) or patrons (i.e. provide wizards power), depending on the goals and aims of the human in relationship with them. To demonstrate how this relationship differs, I’ll look at the Rootmother as a patron. She’s so protective and human-loving… she wouldn’t corrupt a poor wizard, would she? By golly, she would!
It’s fun to think about a cleric of Quenvara and wizard of Quenvara both leveling up and evolving over the course of a long campaign. The cleric would be continually steered towards the Rootmother’s edicts, sent on quests to promote her ideals and working to maintain her favor. In doing so, the cleric would have tons of healing and protection magic at their disposal. The wizard, meanwhile, would be slowly twisting and mutating over time, becoming something like an Ent from Tolkien or treant from Dungeons & Dragons, a living embodiment of Quenvara’s wishes without the strict need to uphold her ideals. Both paths are brimming with story potential, which is one of the reasons I love DCC so much.
In my write-up for the Rootmother as a patron, I’ve relied heavily on Daniel J. Bishop’s Yddgrrl, the World Root expansion of the Invoke Patron spell in the DCC rulebook. I admit, I’m totally enamored with the Patron Taint and Corruption results for Quenvara, but I suspect that’s going to be true for every patron I write.
The hardest bits, at least for me, were the patron-specific spells, since DCC spells can get absolutely bonkers at higher spell check results. The “Control Plants” spell was the trickiest, and I stared at Control Fire and Control Cold for a long time to try and puzzle out its effects. You’ll also note that I expanded the “Failure, lost, and worse!” ranges for the spells, as one of my homebrew tweaks to DCC rules is saying that any spell check result in that spell’s level (i.e. 1-3 for a third-level spell) can result in patron taint and/or corruption. Otherwise, in my experience, both patron taint and corruption are too rare, and I don’t know a single wizard player who doesn’t revel in these tables.
Next week, by request from one Stephen Grodzicki—awesome author of the Tales of Argosa rpg I’m playing in my solo-play… check out all his work at Pickpocket Press!—I’m turning my attention to the primary antagonist of my Tales of Argosa story so far: Orthuun, the Blind Sovereign. I hope you enjoyed the safety and peace of the Rootmother these past two weeks, because things are about to get… dark.
Please let me know what you think below or via email at jaycms@yahoo.com!
Alric sat paralyzed for a moment, stunned by Maelen’s sudden charge. He knew that she considered violence as a way of solving most problems, but he’d seen her use restraint before. Not this time. Alric hadn’t even been able to count all the skinless, blind aberrations crawling over the tomb and scraping at the protective runes before she’d left their sheltered corridor with an angry shout. If there had been any hope of subtlety, it was gone. Now they would fight. What he didn’t know is how they’d survive.
The closest monstrosity was a mere ten strides away, and Maelen closed the distance before the creature even registered her presence. With a mighty swing, the warrior clubbed the thing to the smooth, basalt floor, and a second strike caved its head in. The horror unraveled, as if its bones had suddenly disappeared, spilling muscles and viscera at Maelen’s feet. She immediately thrust her torch into the mass, scorching it with a wild-eyed yell of triumph.
Two more creatures abandoned their tasks, heads rising like rabbits to focus on the brief scuffle. With unnerving, jerky speed, they were loping towards her with snuffling, wet breaths, overwide mouths clacking their sharp teeth. Alric saw more of them stirring at the edges of torchlight. In moments, she would be mobbed by more of the things than even the mighty Maelen Marrosen could handle.
Alric pulled a scroll from his belt, one he’d found within Thornmere Hold.
“Help me!” he hissed at Vessa, who was just as wide-eyed and shocked, her head darting left and right, tracking the creatures. Alric pushed the torch into her hand. “Hold this.”
He’d hoped to have time someday to translate the spell upon the scroll fully to memory, but that day would never come. The mage didn’t know how to help Maelen, who seemed in some sort of berserk rage, but he could at least help Vessa survive this situation. Without sparing another thought, his eyes roamed over the parchment, his lips mumbling the words and pulling the power forth. As he spoke, the scroll’s edges blackened as if thrown in a fire, rapidly spreading and consuming the document.
Alric had often wondered at the power of inscribing a spell, allowing anyone to use its magic. It was something he had hoped to try one day, to take the power of Orthuun and translate it into readable text upon a scroll. Regardless, the intricacies of scroll work evaded him. Somehow, he innately knew the scroll-spell’s effect, how to pronounce the alien words, only when staring directly at the parchment and widening his awareness. The how and why of it was surreal. So much of the knowledge surrounding magic eluded his comprehension.
The effect, however, was immediate. Vessa gasped as enormous raven’s wings, black as night, burst from her back. Alric plucked the torch from her startled fingers, his head spinning as the spell transmitted through him and vanished, the scroll now nothing more than ash fragments falling to the stone floor. Abstractly, he noted that the magic from the scroll felt somehow cleaner, less tied to demonic power… less corrupting. An observation for another day.
“Go!” he cried out. “Fly above their reach! Help Maelen!”
“But—how?” she faltered.
“No time! Don’t think! Go now!” he urged.
With a flap of those ebon wings, she launched herself up and towards the domed ceiling, stirring his cloak with the wind of her departure. He had only a vague idea of how long those wings would remain, but he hoped desperately it was long enough to escape this place, once Maelen and he had been overwhelmed by clacking teeth and bloodstained fingers.
As quickly as she’d left, he could no longer see Vessa in the gloom. Yet an arrow shaft appeared suddenly upon one of the skinless monsters, and it shrieked a teakettle wheeze of pain, arching its ropy back and searching skyward with its eyeless head.
Moments later, something clattered within the inner circle of runes and smoke began filling the tomb. Another arrow took a creature through its neck and it slumped to the floor, unraveling as it did so into a pile of gore. The sound of enormous wings flapping echoed in the chamber. Vessa was raining death and havoc from above, and he grinned fiercely.
Out of the shadows, an abomination scampered at Alric, its hands held out from its skinless body, clawed fingers flexing. The thing was considerably smaller than the one that had mauled him earlier, but still his legs momentarily went weak, his bladder threatening to betray him. He had only a breath to ready himself and then it was upon him, snuffling wetly, grasping, and clacking sharp teeth. The stench of rotten meat filled his nose. Alric clenched his jaw and swung the torch as hard as he could manage, directly into the shining muscles and tendons of its chest. It shrieked, rearing back, and he followed it, the torch still pressed into the terror’s torso.
Then, the body erupted in flames, like a campfire’s tinder suddenly catching. In a brilliant sheath of orange flame that lit the entire room around them, the thing continued its teakettle whistling and rolled frantically on the stone floor. Alric stepped back, eyes wide, as he saw two more of the abominations stalking at him, mere strides away, stark shadows dancing across their hideous forms. They circled their burning companion, teeth clacking, crouched to leap.
An arrow struck the flaming creature, silencing it as it smoldered upon the stone. Alric edged back, torch held up defensively.
Whether they coordinated their attack or simply shared similar instincts, both horrible creatures hurled themselves upon him simultaneously, one from the left of the blackened mass and one from the right. Alric hit the first with his torch but then he went down under their wet, stinking bodies. He felt teeth tear into his shoulder while another clacked frantically near one ear. He panicked and screamed.
Alric didn’t know how long he pushed and batted with his torch, screaming himself hoarse as the things tore and ripped at him. Perhaps it was a mere eyeblink of time or perhaps much longer. Whatever the case, he almost didn’t notice that one of the creatures suddenly disappeared.
Maelen hooked the shaft of her black mace around the neck of a skinless terror and pulled it off him. The thing bucked and flailed its limbs, teeth gnashing in empty air. Alric kicked his own tormenter, gaining some distance for a breath, and sobbed.
The warrior looked awful, covered in gore and with several gaping bite marks marring her skin. One eye had swollen shut, and that side of her face looked disfigured and mottled. Yet she wrestled with the abomination, arms corded in muscle, as it struggled to free itself from the headlock and assault her. It did so, bursting free with a teakettle shriek, and then Maelen stumbled. Teeth scissoring madly, the eyeless creature reared, ready to pounce upon the warrior. Maelen glared up but her mace clattered to the stone floor. She was spent.
Then, in a burst of air, Vessa rocketed from nowhere to tackle the terror with a shout of “Nooo!” Alric saw a flash of her pale skin, black-feathered wings, and then Vessa and the skinless thing were rolling away from them in a bundle of red muscle, ebon feathers, and furious struggle.
The creature he’d kicked away was on him again, its weight pressing down upon him. The stink of offal filled his nose, teeth clacked inches from his face. Alric flapped his free hand towards Maelen and found her boot. He murmured magic words he didn’t understand, drawing on Orthuun’s power, feeling his entire body go numb. Alric felt with certainty his own impending death in this underground tomb, mauled and eaten by these creatures from some other world. He would channel as much magic as he could muster to heal Maelen before he expired.
The thing atop him shuddered, then went slack, its muscles drooping beneath his hands. Slimy muscles and organs slid over him, melting across his body like sap over a trapped insect. Alric sputtered and thrashed, trying to get himself clear of the mess and understand what was happening.
Then the torches went out.
Alric knew, in that moment, that Saelith the Vanished, general of Orthuun the Blind Sovereign, had broken free of its tomb. More of the creatures must have stayed at their tasks, defacing the protective runes. Or perhaps the damage that had already been done was enough. Whatever the case, Saelith’s tomb was breached. Death would take them. Despair filled him.
“Mistsong…” a sibilant voice, harsh and light, whispered in his ear. Alric flinched away from the sound, throwing his hands up protectively.
“Mistsong…” it repeated. “I would speak with thee…”
“Wh-what?” Alric gasped. “Who?”
“Kelthorn the Unlit is no longer of use to me. But thee…” it whispered in delight, and then inhaled deeply, as if smelling a rose. “I sense the Night Crown’s touch upon thee. He Who Knows No Dawn has taken thine heart. Darkened thine blood. Thou art part of the Endless Black now.”
“No… no, I don’t want it…” Alric shook his head.
The voice tsked. “Thine wants matter not. Take my hand, little darkling. Let us blanket this land and prepare for the End.”
Though he was utterly blind in the oppressive darkness, Alric could feel a hand being offered, a hand as large as his chest. He wouldn’t have been able to explain how, or why he knew the figure before him was immensely tall and thin, with rag-like robes floating around him as if underwater. It crouched over him, arm outstretched.
The seer Wink’s words flashed in his mind: When you get to the cliff’s edge, little mouse: Don’t jump. Run or fight, but don’t jump into the darkness!
Alric swallowed and then slumped to his back. “No,” he whispered, barely audible. “I won’t… come with you. Kill me. Take the book… I won’t…” his own words trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence, depleted of willpower.
The voice tsked again, the hissing voice directly in his ear. “Thou art weak. Watch thine cities blacken, darkling, and then will I offer again. Until then… gather thy power.”
Then the voice laughed, a light and chilling sound, echoing within the vast chamber.
Alric’s eyes fluttered in the darkness. He felt he couldn’t catch a breath, that his hollow and heartless chest was grasping for something it couldn’t quite reach. His limbs were numb and lifeless.
My Hero Brain 