11/5/23-11/8/23, rest 11/9, active 11/10
PC: Gwendolyn, Galt, Legany
Hench: Beyza, Mahin, Madrof
Our plucky adventurers did a little downtime travel to congregate, but didn’t really plan anything. Again. So the first bit of the session was “well what do we do?” They remembered that one of their primary henchmen was down with the RL&L blues after a particularly harrowing previous adventure. They also had a fair bit of magical treasure to sort out. They figured they’d head to Bellport, dig up rumors, and try to sell a scroll that was worth a bit but not particularly interesting to them.
An easy trip saw them arrive in Bellport where they met with Captain Ulfgar the Frutzii trader, who is getting a lot of face time lately for a throwaway NPC memed up 6 months ago for a Team C party that never played again. Proof that anything in your game can become important to the PCs. He had no missions for them, having offered everything in terms of reward to the previous party (of the same players) to convince him to fund a venture. The well had run dry.
A couple random rumors that Galt the Venturer got by virtue of his class ability pointed at the ocean, particularly the area offshore to the northeast of Bellport. One promised a portal to another realm filled with treasure and the other spoke of a dark storm years ago that was punctuated by a massive single lighting strike that nearly destroyed the harbor. They were pretty vague and water adventures are scary so the party chilled on that, opting instead to go see Jolus the Laughing Skull, an archmage living in a tower overlooking Bellport.
Now, Jolus existed only as a short paragraph in the original setting write-up for the campaign. No one had interacted with him in session and I started considering what type of dude this wizard might be. Naturally, Gwendolyn exclaimed her excitement over her successful Loremastery check immediately so I shared everything I knew so far, which was basically that paragraph plus an event from the beastman invasion a decade or so earlier where he destroyed a beastman FOB with magic fire from the sky. The rest would have to come later.
The trail leading to the wizard’s tower was a winding mountain path, regularly traveled by a cart and horses used by Jolus’ caretaker which the party named Irrelevant. It eventually turned to closed switchbacks, where the party perceived in their periphery faces watching them from the walls but nothing upon direct inspection. The path let out into a small courtyard area in front of the tower with a stable building off to one side. The tower itself was native stone, striated with reds and browns and quite tall, with an observatory type opening on the top that the party wasn’t sure about.
The Caretaker approached from the stable area and spoke with them in simple words and phrases. The party indicated that they wanted to meet with Jolus and sell him the scroll that they had. The simpleton took the scroll inside the stone door covered in glyphs of opalescent material and was gone a while. I rolled to see if and when the mage would see them and came up in only 1 day. I also rolled for his interest in the scroll which was none.
Some discussion was had about just camping there until the next day, but they weren’t really serious and eventually went back down the mountain. On the way down, the wind seemed to carry words that they could just barely hear. Loremastery indicated that phenomena like they’d experienced were usually tied to time or season stories in folklore.
The next day, they bought some pastries to bring to Jolus and a ridiculous candy apple for Galt and climbed the trail again. This time they had to pull a rope to summon Irrelevant, who insisted on getting a pastry when Gwendolyn showed him the box. He ate it in a childish manner and then happily led them into the tower.
The foyer was tiled in black and white and a staircase of unfamiliar pale wood wound far into the reaches above. There were several doors on this level but Irrelevant led them straight up the stairs and they followed to landing after landing, each flight of stairs to the next level seemingly twice as long as the last. Each landing had a balcony with doors leading deeper into the tower, but Irrelevant just plodded upward while the party wheezed and gasped in his wake.
The trip took its toll, with everyone making saves vs paralysis or growing fatigued and eventually falling out. Legany was left to languish on the stairs while the rest continued, sweating their way to the top which was a landing with only a single stone door covered in glyphs. Irrelevant scoffed at them but opened the door anyway and gestured for them to enter.
Inside was a massive golden throne of cogs and tubes and pistons and other bizarre machinery. Seated on it was a giant-sized desiccated figure in a seeming state of motionless, face pulled in a rictus snarl and eyes staring straight ahead. A figure appeared in each person’s mind of what they believed a magnificent wizard should look like and introduced himself as Jolus.
The group took it in stride and made introductions. Gwendolyn offered him pastries which he hated the idea of. He explained that his apparatus provided all the sustenance that he needed. Apparently Irrelevant predicted this and took the box off their hands, eating them greedily in the hallway after closing the door. She also offered a song which he was glad to hear, even allowing her to pin one of her felt goat pins to his immobile form.
Jolus told them of Ornaron’s Spear, an unholy weapon hurled against this plane by a vile god of another. He thwarted the attack, diverting it into the bay outside of Bellport. The Spear held within it a magical formula to affect the weather over vast distances. Jolus insisted that this could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands and suggested that the party retrieve it for him. On the heels of offending his senses with pastries that he couldn’t eat, they also demanded to know if there would be a reward. He grimaced and assured them there would be but there were no details discussed.
Settled on a mission, off they went to prepare. They learned from some local clammers that there was a forbidden cursed section of the ocean off the coast that no one would go to or dive at. The party secured the clammers as transport by paying them like 6 months of their wage. They also set up water breathing and light magic from the local practitioners.
I’m not a nautical guy. I get the basics but I tend to force the Navy guy at the table to provide plausible explanations for things they wanna do at sea. When he gets excited and starts talking faster I know he’s probably not full of shit and I just go with whatever he said that sounded reasonable. It was with this tactic that the party found themselves diving near Ornaron’s Spear, a large obsidian tower jammed into a crater in the sea floor about 50 ft from the surface.
They found the entrance on the top of it, referred to as the “tip”, and unzipped the flap that held it closed. Once inside, they realized there was some sort of pressurization or more likely magic that kept the place from completely flooding. Every surface was pock-marked pale stone, damp and humid and hiding scurrying little aquatic creatures. Despite the humidity, the air crackled with static tension and the hair raised on everyones’ arms.
There was a stairway leading immediately down, but the crew spent the session exploring the first level, finding a dead dude with a lightning bolt scar over one eye and a garnet ring. I was informed that this was Harry Potter and I was an asshole for killing him. Who knew? Despite spending tons of time searching for secret doors, the dice were kind and there were no random encounters to punish the PCs. Session time was running long so instead of starting the second level, they chose to exit and rest, considering this delve to be a recon mission of sorts.
Musings:
Lean on your players’ expertise. Whether it’s construction or naval or nuclear physics or whatever your players know that you don’t, let them help you build the world.
I’m not sure how Jolus turned into the God Emperor of Man from 40k, but there it is. I’ve been playing a power-armor wearing warrior in Rifts and a 40k PC game, so maybe that’s what spawned it.
I wrote this dungeon for Dubzaron on a whim as an adventure hook for Drakon to hand out as a Patron during Lamalla’s Curse last year. No one took a shot at it and when the group started discovering oceanic themed rumors and stuff I just ran with it. Never hurts to have something like this on hand if you’ve got the time, energy, or opportunity. Just don’t prep a dungeon and force your team into it.
See yall next time.
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