2012 12 27 Harrowed Realm Part 1

At least a month of in-game time ago, the group of you were passengers on the elven caravel, Sammumaton Aruingon, bound for Lazziar's elven homeland, the continent of Kotime.

The Sammumaton Aruingon is crewed by an experienced group of elven adventurers and captained by the charming and distinctively eurotrash Joukah Hainen. They had brought Lazziar to the contient of Waritu so that he could quest for a lost elven treasure. In his search for the ancient artifact, Lazziar encountered a group of previously unheard of creatures called 'humans' that looked like a blend of the physical features of elves, orcs, dwarves and hobgoblins. While initially suspicious of them, Lazziar came to trust in the humans' good intentions and undeniable battle ability. With their help, he managed to find the artifact he had been sent to recover in the ruins of an ancient wizard's tower, a beautiful and intricately-carved mask made out of pure jade.

One of the humans, Greg, stayed behind at the wizard's tower to watch over the area and study with the Fey and Orc masters of the region. Lazziar could not understand why, but these humans were clearly cut from an otherworldly cloth.

He traveled many hundreds of miles overland with the rest of the humans, two married pairs: Maggey & Dave and Erin & Sam, and another male, Paul. Finally, they rendezvoused with Captain Joukah Hainen and the Sammumaton Aruingon.

Not many days after setting sail for Kotime, the ship was set upon by a vicious pack of sea drakes and had to put in for an island for repairs. After fighting off the giantish denizens of the island and making hasty repairs, the crew discovered that their ship was being hunted by a hobgoblin ironside ship, captained by a powerful battle shaman, the fearsome Trude Blauzunge.

The crew of the Sammumaton Aruingon, as well as Lazziar and his human friends, were working hard to prepare as many evasive tricks as possible, as everything the elves knew about Trude Blauzunge and her iron ship indicated a hopeless battle. Unfortunately, halfway through preparations, with the ironship looming on the horizon, one of the elves made a terrible mistake. She was putting together magical equipment when she dropped a magical deck of cards. Oddly, the wind swept the cards up into a circle, near where Lazziar and the humans where preparing their own tricks for the hobgoblins.

Odder still, the cards began to spin and glow, and turned into a shimmering portal. With a sizzling, sucking sound, the portal began to gulp in air, and anyone near it!

Desperately clinging to parts of the ship and one another, Lazziar, Paul, Sam, Erin, Maggey and Dave were sucked through the portal, along with the entire deck of cards! As the last card flew through, the portal closed with a snap and a bright flash. They found themselves in a wholly different world, a sort of pocket dimension known as the Harrowed Realm.

The band of heroes (?) learned that the Harrowed realm had been created many centuries ago by an extremely powerful elven bard named Sonnorae. It had originally been intended as a vacation realm to experience living fairy tales and storybook legends, acted out over and over by the magically-constructed denizens of the realm, known as 'storykin'. Unfortunately for Sonnorae - and the band of heroes from the real world - Sonnorae had given eight of the most powerful storykin something close to full sentience. They grew jealous of her power, conspired against her, and one fateful night, slew their maker in a frenzy of terrible violence. Each of the eight Conspirators stole away a piece of Sonnorae to make themselves more powerful, but now found themselves cursed with having to maintain the realm or perish with it!

In addition, each of the Conspirators took a token from Sonnorae's magical shawl that allowed her to hop between worlds. The heroes learned that by gathering eight of the tokens together they could find their way to the hidden Conspirator who now acted as the de facto ruler of the Harrowed Realm, a feared creature known as the Patchwork Lord. Said to be a dragon, this last conspirator lived in the walking, mechanical fortress that had once belonged to Sonnorae.

After overcoming six of the eight conspirators in battle or wit, the six friends from the real world had gathered seven of the Conspirator's tokens, and needed just one more token in order to find their way to the Pathwork Lord and the walking castle.

Leaving the married couples back at the circus wagons they had been using as home base since arriving in the crazy pocket dimension, Paul and Lazziar set out to acquire the last token of Sonnorae, said to be held in the ruins of Sonnorae's old garden by the unliving revenant of the old bard herself.

Sensibly, Paul send his familiar raven, Zach de la Crowcha, across the harrowed realm to send word to their various allies and acquaintances to meet him and Lazziar at Sonnorae's  old garden.

The irritating and confusing storykin who claimed paladinhood and insisted on being called "Algon the Everseeking" answered their summons swiftly, as did the troupe of former slaves they rescued from the desert camp of the Nightpeddler. At Sonnorae's garden, Paul asked the former slaves to help out by landscaping the unkempt and withered land within the ruins. Algon then accompanied Paul and Lazziar to resolve a dispute between a goblin and a unicorn over a particularly vigorous pear tree. The dispute was silly, and so where the disputing parties, but Algon managed to mess things up by attacking the goblin and then falling victim to a magical trap. Soon - mind overcome by the trap - the paladin was in berserker mode, attacking Paul, Lazziar and the unicorn with gusto.

Too strong to contain, and too well-armored to hurt, Algon was turning into a real problem before the Lazziar, Paul and the Unicorn opted to overbear the insufferable paladin and drown him in a nearby pond. Algon's armor was able to protect him from pretty much all harm, except two feet of murky water.

Paul and Lazziar felt a little bad - and more importantly, awkward - for several long minutes before venturing further into the garden to confront Sonnorae's revenant.

The revenant was hiding out in a vast, ruined amphitheater, and finally revealed itself when addressed directly a third time.

After some hissing and pantomime from the undead monstrosity, Lazziar and Paul realized that:

1. all of the conspirators had stolen pieces of Sonnorae's actual body and fused the pieces with themselves somehow.

2. Sonnorae's  creepy revenant wanted its heart, eyes and tongue back and would trade its token for them

3. They needed to go back and get the Tiktok Man's eyes from Marzalee, recover the Barrow King's heart from its blasted remains, and somehow talk Bernanditi the Rakshasa ringmaster into giving up his tongue.

The heart and eyes were easily accomplished. Bernanditi's tongue wold probably take a little work.

Eventually, it was Dave and Paul who waltzed into Bernandit's big-top tent. Bernanditi immediately suspected something was up (telepathy is neat that way), but thanks to a Glitterdust spell by Dave and a nasty combination of shadow teleport and electro-chain choke by Paul, they quickly got the upperhand on the cagey lizard. After much choking, yelling and gagging, they finally managed to separate Bernanditi and his tongue. Bernanditi is not in a position to argue anymore.