The Pantheon War Campaign/Session 9

Last Time in the Pantheon War
*The townspeople are zombies/"life-impaired persons" who have been resurrected by a travelling preacher
*Logan's new character, Matthis, has "Madlib" Valdosian soul contracts (just fill in a couple spots to complete the boilerplate)
**All soul contracts slightly rewrite your soul
**Burning a live document might actually attract the attention of an angel (unlike the one that brought Matthis here, which 
*Tome's men want to use Logan's character's expertise to create a complex network of last will and testaments
*Tome's men also want to set up a protection racket, but none of them speak zombie-ish
At the strange town
*Mathis deals mostly with acquisition and advising 
*Tome diffuses situation with mercenaries and persuades them not to set up incentives to kill each other.
*More on the preacher
**He's from a planet called Lemuria, unsure if it's the first, clearly not the last
***Matthis has heard of it; was listed in one of the boilerplates
**Not all the world was destroyed -- only one region was afflicted. The rest of the world went on not knowing what had happened. He was not from this region, but came in later, studied the region and sought to know what'd happened. Learned how to pursue the City 
**He's not just here to revive people, but to learn about the City itself
**How many jumps? Three (his fourth planet)
**How long does it last in any one place?
***In his homeworld, it hung in the sky for six months; in the next, it was there for three. He thinks is has to do with the population / "value" of souls being shocked; could also just be a natural pattern in the movements
***Of the two intervening worlds, one is in the Valdosian contracts, and one is not. (Perhaps these worlds are close to each other; gods/angels are mostly the only ones who know where worlds are in relation to each other)
**He's never seen the City take its initial effect, but if you look at the precipitous dropoff of shocked souls, it can't just be about ongoing power; it must be the number of souls that were shocked at the start that hold it there for longer
**Those who were shocked become extremely violent when the City leaves, trying to pursue the sensation it gave them
What's the ethical thing to do with the people who were already shocked? He thinks they shouldn't be killed immediately, because they derive satisfaction from life while the City is here. Ideal would be a slow-acting poison, but there's no way to time it, because he doesn't know when the City will leave. 
**Rate of decay of all biological systems is greatly reduced while the City is there
**Total ecological collapse also follows departure of the City. The plants look OK, but all animal life appears affected, and more so the more complex the life form – total collapse
**Is there intent behind the City's actions and movements? Those who were shocked and are reanimated say they saw a shining City, and believed that if they observed it for long enough, it would give them everything they desired. 
***He does believe there's a harvesting of the shocked souls by the City
***Souls who were shocked have substantive cognitive degradation after departure -- scrambling of the brain / soul, disrupted senses, … 
*Atarkia vs Amaranthia? River basin; Atarkia ~750k population; Amaranthia maybe 600k, but both pretty sparsely populated. (some clusters along main roads) planet probably had <5m residents total, pre-calamity. Planet's probably the size of Pluto, and this kingdom about 100mi in each dimension
Category:Session Summaries