The Pantheon War Campaign/Session 8

In the town square:
*Tome tries to process the scene in the town square
**He keeps watching. This weird preacher keeps going.
*"We need a fucking buddy rule. There will be no more characters going off on their own and ruining things for everyone else." -Wes
*Logan's new PC appears!!! -- Matthis
**Been here for two months, doesn't speak the language, doesn't know anyone.
**Occasionally does distance trade with locals to obtain manufactured goods
**Arrived unwillingly two months ago. Just grateful to see someone who is not dancing, stabbing, or hanging.
**He carries a briefcase of old Valdosian contracts
*The ritual
**The preacher lifts up the cadavers one by one, and tosses them to villagers, who carry them back to their houses not like dead bodies but like injured friends
***Matthis has seen this ritual with different cadavers at different times
**The preacher stabbed each cadaver to make it go rigid, then hangs them. At the point of hanging, the bodies begin to move, and are somewhat ambulatory.
**He never works with more than three corpses at once (which are brought out from the villagers' houses for this ritual), and he does this once a week.
**It appears to be something like a lottery: preacher casts bones or ritual sticks to determine which houses the bodies will be drawn from
*The villagers:
**More than an average amount have prostheses
**They are quite feeble; only the preacher is strong
**Move as if they were severely fatigued or dehydrated; glazed faces
**Many bear signs of having their wrists slit. Injuries across all of them are very consistent -- perhaps ritual mass suicide
**Never attacked Matthis, but when he approached them, they did attempt to capture him, so he backed off. "Maybe they wouldn't try to do that to you." 
*The language is super old and strange. Tome was totally wrong about it being Elvish. It may not be related at all to the native tongue. (There is no evidence that the villagers understand it.)
*Haruspex doesn't get vibes from any of the villagers, but lots of zeal from the preacher. Elesett gets very evil vibes from the briefcase.
*This ritual is similar in form to the one Haruspex experienced, with a different purpose: his was a "fishing expedition over the abyss of eternity", while the villagers' souls have already gone where they are going
*When Matthis reproduces some sounds from the language the preacher has spoken, it's a human mouth trying to make sounds human mouths were not meant to make
**Haruspex doesn't understand it, but has heard it, or something like it, at the end of the universe. 
~~ The preacher ~~
*Haruspex & Elesett go to talk to the preacher. He has trouble looking at Elesett (just like the refugees did!!!! It's a CLUE) but no problem looking at Haruspex
*Haruspex greets him in Common; he responds in the "diminished Elvish" of Atarkia
*Claims the ritual is salvation
*"Even those who know they should not look up will eventually become suffused with it. To hear the birdsong is to know the coming of what is above."
*Says it's the soul that is affected by what is above, so separating the souls from the bodies ("saving their immortal souls") allows their minds to continue living
*Did learn the rituals from the followers of Zulkir, but he is not one… instead, he went where the city would be next. (He goes to where it will be next, which he learned from an angel or similar)
*It finds the gate that will allow it to claim the most people; it feeds, and leaves worlds like this in its wake
*He doesn't know who the local gods are, and doesn't really know whether he's definitely saving their souls from the City
*Are the villagers mindless? Well, let's chat… they are glassy-eyed, though not entirely inarticulate
*Amaranthian is distinct from Atarkian; Atarkians are primordial ancestors of the early elves, while Amaranthians descended from the void nomads
**Elves of this time are more like people who were chosen and elevated by the Triad
**Amaranthian folks speak a patois of Sallarilian, a trade empire who learned to navigate the ether (and then their civilization collapsed, because the gods could transport people much more efficiently)
***Basically imploded as soon as they made contact with divinities
*The conversation they have is basic -- offer food, and ask what we think of the preacher. 
*They're alive, in the sense that they're metabolizing (badly); they lack souls; the process of reanimation is curious -- perhaps the soul was excised and then used to reanimate the flesh. 
**His process was carefully done, but there are still clear signs of decay and excision of unrecoverable flesh
Zulkir doesn't take souls, but takes death, the cessation of life. (Doesn't feed off of souls the way gods do)
*The power of the City comes in waves, roughly once a week; he has lost some souls to it. If the City has no use for them, they are listless and wait for command
**(kind of like these villagers)
*When the City leaves, these people will still be here. For all others, a famine of the soul; depradations and cruelty
*What's your happiest memory? She's losing many pieces of it (her husband's face, the room of their home together) as her brain slowly decays, or perhaps from the initial brain damage during the transition, but still would rather exist than not, so she can continue feeling joy in this memory
*Preacher declines to comment on where the souls are in the meantime (post-mass suicide two months ago and the ongoing resurrections)
*Haruspex goes around to check on the farms. The villagers are maintaining them pretty well, for zombies.
*[...]
*Everyone contemplates OOC how their ancestors' professions led them to their in-game predilections.
Category:Session Summaries