DFE 14 Notes (Laura)

Payoff episode! In this session, our intrepid heroes learned more about the Xendrik, tied up most (but not all) of the loose ends in the Giant's Rest Stop, acquired some cool new pets, and caught up with all the local bands.

1) The party appeared on a wooden platform in the trees above Namanda's castle, where they could see vampires and war machines guarding the ramparts and the group of bards circling a big black pentacle. There was no path from the trees to the castle, only a path leading in the opposite direction, and a large gap between the trees and the castle that would have been difficult to jump. The party decided to send Pandora flying to the castle, since she is a servant of Namanda's and the defenders might be less likely to attack her.

2) But first the bards, one of whom was indeed Suuri, performed a slightly altered version of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which had emotional effects on several party members. There was also the visual effect of the band playing on a parched desert, rather than the jungle. Pandora, when asked, said that "Bardis was summoning a Bardix." (Later, she identified the Bardix as the magic pentacle.)

3) Pandora flew to the castle, where the defenders indeed let her through. Deucalion used his telekinesis to fly down into the courtyard and talk to the bards, who were all speaking in Primal. The party climbed down the tree to approach the castle, but the defenders leveled missile weapons at them. Jaicinteleq asked Deucalion to ask the bards to let us in and we were then able to enter without incident.

3) Ademar, however, refused to ride down from the tree on Wakinyan's magic stretcher spell, instead walking off down the path in the opposite direction, stating a belief that the path would loop back and lead to the castle in the end. This assumption proved incorrect.

4) Pandora brought Namanda to the courtyard, where the party gave her her key. She immediately excused herself and hurried into the castle with it. Eekam wanted to sneak in after her and loot, and after a brief exchange Wakinyan and Loic went with him.

5) Jaicinteleq and Leonus stayed behind and talked to Suuri. Bardis is the lead bard, who we would later learn is also referred to as the "Lord of Song." He wears a red-gold ring (Namanda and Alasra were later observed wearing the same ring.) Jaicinteleq told Suuri about the weapons Ademar had found in the Fane of Night after listening to Suuri's previous song. Suuri was very interested and said he wished to see them, but that now his band needed to pack up and get down to the riverboat. Exeunt bards.

6) Meanwhile, Eekam, Wakinyan, and Loic sneaked through the castle after Namanda, with Eekam successfully opening several doors Namanda locked behind her. When they reached a pit of lava, Eekam used a magic coin to fly the group across the lava, where they saw Namanda using the key to open a crystal sepulcher in which lay the young form of Ananda Na'ama we had seen earlier. The crone exchanged places with her and was closed in the sepulcher, and the rejuvenated Namanda headed back out of the castle.

7) But of course, our heroes weren't content with just watching that happen! First, Eekam reopened the sepulcher and looted the crone's body. Namanda noticed him but not Wakinyan or Loic. She mildly scolded Eekam and stranded him on the wrong side of the lava, since he had only had one coin. Once she was gone Wakinyan reopened the sarcophagus and examined the crone. He determined that she was not really alive but was some kind of homunculous, made neither of animal, mineral, vegetable, or extraplanar materials. Wakinyan tried to take a sample of this material and was blasted by fire, luckily he had put his magic gloves on before that happened. Loic dragged him from the flaming sepulcher and the crone's body was consumed in the fire. Deucalion remotely used telekinesis to bridge the lava for them.

8) Meanwhile young Namanda emerged into the courtyard to greet the party. She asked where the rest of us were. Jaicinteleq said that Ademar had gone the other direction on the path and that Wakinyan and Loic were with Eekam. Namanda waited for them to return before conversing with the party. When we told her what had transpired with the Pharaoh and showed her the artifacts he wanted, she agreed with Thiel that we should not give them to him. We decided to leave those artifacts with Namanda.

9) Namanda thanked the party for restoring her, told us to bathe in the stream again and tell Willa "na'atl" to undo the curse binding us to the Xendrik, gave us green chain necklaces to protect us, and proceeded to answer our questions about the ways of affecting the world in the Xendrik.

--Clerical magic isn't working normally because "the divine is disconnected from the divinity" in the Xendrik. Only "She Who Rides Alone" can be contacted--the green moon Portryys. That is why Ardeth's workaround for Wakinyan involved routing prayers through the moon.
--Friendly Forest isn't working right because of the razor sharp boundaries between biomes and subregions in the Xendrik, which can be large or very small. Therefore Friendly Forest and other druidic powers work normally but can only provide information within the same bounded area.

--Jq showed her the amulet with the bug in it. Namanda was able to remove it safely, though it made her hand tremble. She named the type of bug, said it would not hurt Jq and recommended she continue to wear the amulet. Jq put it back on and asked whether the bug needed her help. Namanda said "time will tell."

--Ademar showed her the Primal weapons. She recoiled from them. She told him they were evil and dangerous, and had a life of their own, and would try to influence him to their own ends. In the Xendrik, everything goes in circles and the dagger can cut through the circles. However, she counseled that it could be deadly for him to give them up now that he has taken them.

--Loic showed her his moon amulet, and she said it was an amulet of Portryss and could be used by Wakinyan to route his spells.

--The Xendrik does not "countenance psionics." Psi is invisible to the Xendrik, which makes it both less effective in some ways and more effective in others.

--The Traveler's Curse is caused by interaction effects between the ways of affecting the world, even though they cannot affect each other directly outside the Xendrik. If the currents cross, they create turbulence, which causes time disturbances and variation in the effectiveness of people's powers which we have noticed.

--The Xen River is a zone of such turbulence.

--The Veil here has a will of its own, and is responsive to individuals and their wishes. That is probably why Wakinyan's spell unexpectedly resurrected Dan.

--We asked about the importance of music to the Xendrik and she said to ask the Lord of Song.

10) Thanking Namanda for this mother lode of information, the party decided to go back to free the doorman. First, however, a skaven unit arrived, upset and demanding payment for their king. We hadn't actually made a deal with the skaven king, nor had he given us anything, but Jaicinteleq gave them the other key she had found anyway. Their mood improved and they offered to reward us if we would use some magical pipes to lead the skaven under the fort up to join their community on Green Mountain. Rachel immediately accepted this deal, asking for control of the fort area (between Willa's stream and the river) in exchange. The skaven accepted. When we asked Rachel what gives, she said she and Dan would establish a base in the fort which we could return to if we needed it, and would stay there with Esther and the Greek children. Wakinyan objected and said Rachel should let him help her with her quest instead of pushing him away, but she was adamant. Exeunt Israelis and kids (except Aegeia, who chose to stay with us.)

11) We returned to tell the doorman his name, Menarthil. Freed from his servitude, he decided not to pass to the afterlife but rather to come with us and live his life out. He confirmed that Rachel and Dan's lost comrade had passed his door, heading for the Temple, carrying a box. They did not come back out that way. He also said That Which Came Down From The Mountain was neither a person nor a god, but had created the Xendrik.

12) Next we went to Wennowil's to give her back her owl, only to find that place was destroyed and burned out as if by a powerful fire attack. Shalanas was distraught, and Jaicinteleq dragged the party on a long loop trying to find Wennowil or at least learn what had happened to her. Tracking showed that she had gone down her hole into the first level of Green Mountain, the one with skaven in it. When we asked the skaven, they had not seen her there, though they are not constantly patrolling that space and wouldn't necessarily have seen her anyway. They had heard the noise of a disturbance there but didn't investigate it, just stood guard. The vampires at Namanda's castle reported having heard Wennowil scream, but did not investigate it either. Friendly Forest was only able to tell that something had burned it and confirm Wennowil went down the hole. The forest did not know who or what had attacked. Deucalion was not able to contact her psionically. When the party later encountered Willa and Namanda, both ladies disappeared again before Jq could ask about Wennowil. Discouraged, Jaicinteleq finally wrote Namanda a letter telling her about Wennowil's disappearance and gave it to the vampires to deliver to her.

13) Going to Willa's house, the party bathed in the stream as instructed by Namanda but were unable to find Willa. Friendly Forest told us that she had gone in a certain direction and then "went out," and told us to "call her." We tried calling her verbally and psionically, to no avail. Pandora eventually suggested that we call out the magic word we were supposed to tell Willa, and when we did this she reappeared and lifted the curse from us as Namanda asked, but then immediately disappeared.

14) Namanda then reappeared with two na'ama kittens which she presented to us. One of them played with Loic and tried to play with Wakinyan, but when he put on his bearskin gloves to tussle with it it freaked out and attacked his face with supernatural speed, which he only dodged by virtue of a natural 1. The other kitten jumped onto Ademar's back, at which point he dropped to the ground and tried to roll over on it. Jaicinteleq rescued it from being crushed. Namanda then disappeared again before we could say anything else.

15) Having expended all our ideas for finding Wennowil, Jaicinteleq decided to bring the forlorn looking owl with us. Rolling a 1 on her wild empathy, she managed to cheer the owl up and established a permanent link with her.

16) As we left the ruins, we encountered a party of giants preparing to go into the ruins and search for treasure themselves. Leonus spoke with them and Nick will decide later what Leonus told them about Namanda, the Israelis in the fort, etc.

17) Then we went back to the boat and headed off towards our destination. We tried to find Suuri on the boat, unsuccessfully, as the boats maintain strict privacy. We saw an advertisement for a bardic show and paid a visit to that, and saw Suuri performing the second song on Discord, "The Reach." An audience member identified Suuri as being a Reacher himself. The Reach is an area of the Xen River where much fishing is done.

18) Suuri took a look at Ademar's blades, copied down the inscriptions, and repeated Namanda's warning that Ademar should not sell or give away the weapons or it will go badly for him. When the attack on Wennowil was mentioned to him, he asked Anne about the blast patterns, became grim, and said we should stay off deck for a few days.

19) A 20-day travel montage passed. At one point during the journey, we saw a flying fire sorceress confront and threaten the captain in Primal and Xen. Jaicinteleq sneaked up onto the deck and let Deucalion psionically relay what she was hearing to Kakra, who translated. The woman, whose name was Alasra, was demanding that Bardis, the leader of the bards, be brought to her, and that our party be brought to her as well. When the captain refused she set parts of the boat on fire and then grabbed him by the throat and lifted him off the ground. Bardis eventually came out on deck and spoke to her, telling her that we were the ones who had freed Namanda. Then he sent for us to come up to the deck, but stated that we were under his protection as Lord of Song. The PCs all joined him on the deck, and told Alasra what had happened with Namanda. She was angry and said we had no right to free her prisoner, but the party was unapologetic. She and Bardis then sang an emotional duet of "Defying Gravity," after which Alasra concluded that she considered herself and Namanda even and would not pursue further violence if Namanda wouldn't, and flew off.

20) The party talked to Bardis, who explained part of the backstory: Namanda and Alasra had quarreled over a man and Namanda had done something to prevent Alasra from flying, which infuriated her into imprisoning Namanda in the sepulcher. Wakinyan wanted to know who had written the "Hallelujah" song the bards had sang earlier and Bardis said it was King David.

21) After the travel montage, the group stopped at port by the Nall River, at a station that used to be called Waka Station but had been renamed Macanny Station a few years ago after the Macannies arrived here, enslaved the Wakas, and took over the fort. Jaicinteleq remembered the Macannies in Stormreach, who were a strange, violent Christian cult who burned people alive. She recalled that after a confrontation, Ardeth's followers had killed one of their leaders in Stormreach, and recommended the PCs not talk about Ardeth here and also watch our step carefully. There was also a liquour company peddling booze in the settlement, and Wakinyan recalled hearing about a liquor company peddling alcohol to the natives while he was in Stormreach as well.

22) As we entered the settlement, the PCs noticed many native lying around on the ground. Most were just drunk, but a few appeared to be dead. Some cultists came out and collected the bodies of the dead. Jaicinteleq, suspicious of the alcohol, bought a drink and brought it to Gwen to analyze. It turned out to be regular alcohol, the dead people appeared to simply have drunk way too much of it.

23) The cultists burned the bodies on a funeral pyre. Wakinyan started doing a propitiation ritual for the dead, and the preacher started yelling at him that he was a blasphemer and to get out of town. The fort was looking pretty well defended, so Wakinyan backed off for now.

24) A local girl confided in Aegeia that "terrible things" were happening further up the Nall River, and the party resolved to go there and figure out what that might be.

And there we stopped for the day. Onward!

Laura