The Pantheon War Campaign/Session 1

On the planet:
*Party has emerged from the eternal moving feast of Falamar onto a glaring world.
**Two riders advance beyond the Queen's party
***One, the Captain, is garishly dressed, with gilded armor
***Another looks nothing like the rest (face and hair are distinct from the rest), and is riding a horse that is world-sick – has moved from another world and is unaccustomed to the available diet, etc. The rider intentionally chose to ride this horse in particular. 
****Rider might be from another land on this world
***Riders look healthy
***The horse is not particularly occult… but Humboldt determines it's definitely not a horse. It doesn't move like one, and its eyes face front, like a predator's; hooves are twice the length of most horse hooves. 
*Tome approaches rider on otherworldly horse, rider speaks into Tome's mind — he doesn't know any languages that wouldn't be insulting to speak (because they're languages of our enemies)
**He is Amarak, chief diplomat in communication between the worlds
*Go kill a big wyrm in the black forest
**Tome determines in conference with his oracle that we will win, so agrees
**Some scattered houses near the edge of the forest, but nothing further in
**There's a well that has supplied water for a century, the only clean water in the woods, but it too has become infested.
**Wyrms came down from the mountain -- principal prey is fresh water and the wholesome life that emerges from it. They avoid the brackish rivers and went only to the well
**Fire has not worked against these creatures
**Containment and sealing off passes hasn't done it. Need a more direct approach
*Elesett is eight feet tall and probably too large for a horse. For some reason, horses don't like Humboldt; Amarak's mount stares him down. He seeks a sow to ride instead, determining to find a farm along the way
*Maestro Sunrose flies towards the well. His moronic followers boldly follow, with lots of musical accompaniment. 
**Screecher tells them the pauses in music matter… they misinterpret, using the silence to inspire more music
**Tome tells them to STFU; they obey, and he decides they will work as bait
*Super tall trees with emaciated branches (except the top canopies), and no undergrowth. Underneath them, a lichen-like fungus 
*We follow a track fashioned from petrified pine logs… the only thing besides the trees themselves not consumed by the lichenous fungus. 
*We come upon a farmhouse raised on rocks and built entirely from wood, half-surrounded by a crescent trench with pigs moving around inside it. No shelter because no rain can pass the canopy. Maestro Sunrose sings a charming hello; a little girl inside wants to follow "the death swan"
*Pigs strip the lichen, revealing six-inch pits containing a spongy substance that they eat. We do not investigate. 
*Humboldt attempts to communicate that he wants an animal mount to ride for a divine purpose. The false cognates in the language these folks speak imply another purpose. He pantomimes towards a very large pig, then to the sky, and waves his blue-smoke censer over the pig; it becomes entranced, likely ruining its meat forever. The people think he is a priest to the death swan. 
**Meanwhile, Humboldt argues that the pig has become a follower of Dalthad, and suspects it will follow him whether or not they want it to. 
*A few minutes away, Maestro Sunrose strips some bark from the trees. The trees are more like ferns -- densely-packed concentric layers of bark. The sap released as he cuts through the bark slowly drives back the lichen it falls upon. 
*Tome suggests that the farm family restrain the drugged pig as we leave. They do. 
*We make our way to a hamlet with a water mill. There was a bridge that led to this hamlet, which they have destroyed. Three women come to meet us (elders, who appear to be differentiated by the fact that they have children)
*What do they know about the wyrm, and the last party that came to stop it?
**There are several of them. They do not cross the brackish water, which is why they destroyed the bridge. Sometimes at night they see them shifting on the opposite side of the bank, or chewing on the roots of the great trees
**Up to four feet thick, and 10-20 feet long
*Do the wyrms have a leader?
**No evidence thereof. The elders say they're animated by the devil in the mountains.
*What do they eat?
**The trees.
**Also, people.
*Anything occult about them?
**They're probably not dragons. They might actually just be very large worms. 
**Not crossing the brackish waters
**It seems important that they settled where there was fresh water
*Prior parties have tried torches, stakes, shields, and ranged weapons -- tried to burn them out. Lichen and trees do not catch fire -- only the leaves do. 
*Tome looking for weapons & armor that are out of place (too high-quality); also wants to ask same questions of the millwright
**We did not do either of these things
*Screecher goes to chat with the hens. They haven't seen a rooster in a while. They're pretty happy to see him but not very informative. 
*Screecher flies over the well, above the canopy
**Seems placid, but the surface is black. Blackness is a ball of worms below the surface of the water. Around 20ft of wyrms.
**Rafters & eaves of the houses are sagging -- worms must be nesting there
*He also sees four people, each at the front door of one of the houses around the well, staring at it. They carry farm tools. 
*Screecher squawks at them. 
**The ball of worms convulses and settles. 
**After the splash, the people at the doors turn and stare at him.
*Languages in Falamar's court: Volundral, Elvish; Elesett speaks Kirvan; Humboldt speaks Dalthadi in some variant
*Fire arrow shot from across the river reveals that the worms have circles of teeth. They are very muscly: basically mouths on digestive tracts. They are teeth all the way down.
*Time arrow causes a worm to attack itself at its midsection… eventually disembowels itself, then splits into two smaller and newly autonomous worms. Yikes.
*Maestro Sunrose tries serenading the worms to soothe them… 
**Elesett shoots another fire arrow at them, to see if they're stupefied enough to attack more easily… 
**… and the one she hits responds by extending its body across the river and latching onto a rock on the near side! Oh no!
***Other worms immediately start crawling across its body towards the hamlet
**Elesett dashes forwards but is unneeded -- 
**Humboldt tries to slow the worms down by slashing at the bridging one with his ~~ time whip~~ –and the worm responds by writhing around so violently that it splits itself into pieces on the razor edge. Worms are all washed away down the river … victory! (out of sight, out of mind!!)
Category:Session Summaries