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Muddle in Middlesea

2024-03-02T05:36:13Z

Tirinian: /* From the visit with Alexa: */

A central location for the information we've collected on what happened at the Convocation, in the first run, and what the current status inside the time halt is.

Things we know so far (with information source listed if possible):

==Before It Went Awry==
* Pirate Queen Cara, her first mage Federico, William (maybe an organizer), other pirates like Gale, and servants like Nesh, showed up a few days early before the Conclave started. (Nesh and other servants were there before Cara/Federico/Gale arrived)
* Managaratha was at the Blue table, and chatted with a diplomat named Rickard from Melmane, also General Petrov and Mage Marek. (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
* Dinner was:
**A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
**30-40 from Orange including servants (and some Saurians)
**Similar from Purple and Yellow
**Only about 8 from Blue, including [[Mage Marek]] and one Saurian, [[General Petrov]].
**Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.

* Post Dinner, pre-Attack
** [[Luigi]] says [[Cult of Alan]] would be happy to see Managaratha again (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Federico spoke with Managaratha.
*** Managaratha spent two years before the Conclave strongly lobbying for all zones to be represented.
**** Federico expected Managaratha to tell him why.
*** Managaratha is more fragged than Federico has ever seen him.
*** Vidan was fragged, even worse than Managaratha.
**** Well, something closely akin to fragged, anyway.
** Their Majesty's representatives went to talk to the Pirate Queen's Table (Furoosh) and Orange (Silenalania). Silenalania chatted with all the Guild Masters, and the Saurien, and was surreptitiously passed notes from three of them, indicating a location and time: "South Stairs, 10pm", "Stables, 11:30", "Library, 11pm".

===The Purple Dinner===
====[[Ministries of Empire|Ministers]] (4th rank)====
*Win Dae (she/her) - Minister of Repercussions
*Han Cho - Minister of Grain
*Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade
*Az Julan - Minister of Lions
*Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions
*Li Karest - Minister of the Borders
*Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune

====Advisors and Liaisons====
*Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam
*Vesper - the Silent One, Priest of Tem
*Vidan - Priest of Navere
*Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion

====Others====
*3rd rank sub-minister of State / Foreign Affairs
*3rd rank sub-minister of War
*12-15 other 3rd rank bureaucrats, all mooks.
*An assortment of servants, etc.

===The Orange Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Guildmaster Lady Isabella Horenth from Vani
* Guildmaster Lady Marianna from Rin'yan
* Guildmaster Stefan - priest of Jord from Eaglofto
* Journeyman Victor - Saurian from Kor

==== Priests ====
* Stella - priestess of the Goddess from Rin'yan
* Luigi - Cult of Alan member from Rin'yan
* Astrid - priest of Rush from Vani
* Alfonz - priest of Tem from Vani
* Georgi - Saurian, itinerant priest of Tam

===The Yellow Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Prince Vishnarani
* Lady Hirana (Unreality Mage)
* Lord Vesalen (the guard)

====Others====
* Serafina and her centaurs
* Three priests
* A bunch of merchants

===The Green Dinner===
==== The Forest ====
* Astros Culleen (High Elf, head of the delegation)
* Vrok StoneSkin (Troll, bodyguard)
* Westly (Fox Pooka)
* Scout (Wild Elf, just this guy)
* Custard (Halfling, Astros' valet) - actually a redcap
* Cream (Halfling, Astros' cook) - actually a redcap

==== The Plains ====
* Furoosh (Sluagh, related to Their Majesty somehow)
* Silenalania (High Elf) - bad guy, stole Middlesea
* Sunbeam (Sylph, Silenalania's lady maid)

The status relationship between Furoosh and Silenalania is unclear; they could be jointly leading the delegation.

==== The Mountain ====
* Flint (Dwarf. Very Dwarfy.)

===The Pirate Captain Dinner===
====Principal Captains====
* Cara, Queen of the Pirates (Awesome!)
* Federico (the First Mage)
* Captain Jane (most adventurous of the greater Captains)
* Captain Brightwall, captain of the Silver Gull (worried about military matters)
* Captain Drake (generally an ass and who made him Captain anyway?)
* Gale, captain of the Kittiwake (most adventurous of the smaller Captains)

=== The Red Dinner ===
==== Rush Delegation ====
* Captain Daniel (rarely uses his rank; more of a diplomat though I'm he can chop it up if necessary)
** Captain Daniel's instructions: Our work is to put together a force to take the fight to the Breaker. You may think of yourselves as soldiers more than diplomats, but look for opportunities among all the delegations.
* Sergeant Susie
* Sergeant Susie's squad of Paladins (including Diomarch)
* '''Managaratha's voice, weirdly coming from nowhere (as Daniel was briefing on Lord Franklin):''' ''Hello Diomarche, this is Managaratha. Tell me I like carrots when you get this.''
==== Darstan Delegation ====
* Baron Volstak
** Daniel's briefing: Him being here means he and Zerbina sees this as an expansion opportunity. Expects he can be talked into being a solid part of the force, but he'll need a reward.
==== King Richard's Lands Delegation ====
* Lord Franklin
** Daniel's briefing: Advisor to the last 3 kings in King Richard's Land, over 50 years of service. Expect him to see the big picture, and recognize that an army is needed, but he will need reassurance that King Richard's Land won't be weakened. (Most likely to fall in line.)
** Appears to be a mostly-human-presenting half-elf
==== Victoria Delegation ====
* Lord Karsten
** Daniel's briefing: Sending him is a bit of a provocation by Queen Iona vs Purple, as he has led many successful offensives into the Empire over the last 15 years. He has also run many campaigns against the orcs, probably nobody has more experience against them. Would be a valuable member of a campaign all by himself regardless of what else Queen Iona might send, but the Empire might just refuse to cooperate with him at all.
==== Berana Delegation ====
* Lady Frigga
** Daniel's briefing: Don't know much about her, she's not one of the more important children. Her being here might mean King Olanson doesn't much care about the conference, or that she asked for the assignment as a way to raise her profile.
** (From another run: Her mother and brother think she's sensible enough to hide during a Muddle.)

== Things Remembered ==
* Vidan was involved in a combat-time ritual of several people-- probably Fivist priests and mages, not priests of other religions-- to counteract the amnesia spell.
* Vidan recalls: ''Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."''
* [[Gyvail]], a priest of Orellian, is with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. (Recalled by Vidan.)
* Nesh remembers that dinner went... fine. He served the Yellow delegation.
* Managaratha remembers having a conversation with the Blue delegation.
* Stella remembers being sent to talk to the Purple delegation and feel them out "since you can't actually commit the Guild to anything."
* Stella remembers that "Luigi volunteers to speak with the Priests from the Yellow delegation" after dinner.

== People By Faction ==
* Pirate Queen (Cara)
** First Mage Federico
** William (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Gale

* Blue
** Mage Marek (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** General Petrov, a Saurien (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Rickard (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
*** can cast spells
*** diplomat-without-portfolio for [[Melmaine]]
*** has spent time in [[Jabar]] and some of the Merfolk courts

* Cult of Alan
** Luigi (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])

= Current State =

== From memories and the first merge experiment ==
* The Pirate Queen is on the ground in (location), covered in blood. (Noted by Gale.)
* Sergeant Susie is badly injured; she is fighting an orc who is uninjured, and several fallen paladins lay around her. (Noted by Diomarch)
* A dwarf (Flint, with Federico) is chasing a redcap (Custard) who is running away. A green potted plant is spewing amnesia mist; the sigils on the plant include Silenalania. (Noted by Scout, embellished with Alexa.)
* Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. (Noted by Scout)
* Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell.
* There are several dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. (noted by Nesh)
* Luigi is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it; some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. (noted by Stella)
* There's a Yellow zone that's hard to see/changing even though time isn't passing; speculation is there's an Unreality effect going on there.
* A Blue mage performed an extra-effort Blue spell to make all of Middlesea one battlemap. They are probably/possibly in the midst of a Berserker rage, as a consequence. (Discovered in [[Second Run]] by Gale when she did her own wild-blue-spell on the battlemap.)
* An area of effect Green spell is spraying amnesia mist everywhere. (Noted by Lutenania, scout for Their Majesty of the Plains.)
* An Oasis miracle of isolation is in place. (Noted by Scout.)
* A Time miracle of some sort is in place. (Noted by Bordan, priest of Rush.)
* There are a whole bunch of orcs (Noted by flyover in [[First Run]].)
* There are lion prints on the outer wall. (Noted by Nesh.)
* There are slith tracks sneaking into the keep. (Noted by Vidan.)
* There are more than ten "sides" involved, but that might include factions within delegations; e.g., there are five separate delegations from Red, one for each kingdom and one for the Paladins of Rush. It's not clear whether those count as five different "sides".(From Bordan.)
* Baron Volstak took a lot of damage right before the timestop, which was shared with Duchess Zerbina over the lifelink (she has healed since). She is concerned that he be gotten to ASAP when the timestop breaks. (Shared by Duchess Zerbina. This is a secret.)

==From the visit with [[Alexa]]:==

"The Orc" is the Avatar of the Breaker. He gets to take actions while we are visiting. He has so far had four actions - one in our early experiment, three with Alexa.

* There is some sort of cheating effect to make the "army combat" be a large orc unit against a Middlesea unit, without other factions like the Yellow centaurs and the Pirate Defenders being units.
* Marek's effect broke the army combat into one battle in which everyone is all in some sense on the same hex.
* Baron Volstak was stabbed as a sacrifice in a four-priest ritual and is currently being healed not very professionally.
* In a different ritual room, now empty except for the dead redcap:
**Scout was unconscious on the floor over there
**Two redcaps (Cream and Custard, the halflings from Green, turned out to be redcaps) doing the ritual with Silenalania
**Flint and Federico and Vidan and Diomarche came in, and there was a fight. Flint and Federico killed one of the redcaps.
**Silenalania ran off with the Spirit of Middlesea.
**Flint and Fedrico chased the redcap
**Vidan and Diomarche dragged Scout in the other direction

Gale's battle diagnostics with Alexa:
*The orcs are winning.
*The <REDACTED> are losing
*The <OTHER REDACTED> are doing fairly well but they aren’t really in the battle.
*The cataurs have mostly lost.
*The goblins have left the field with their win.
*Orange Teams 2 and 3 are losing to <OTHER REDACTED>. (This is a different scoreboard; they are only in this battle because Marek put everyone on the same battlemap)
*Vidan’s allies are about breaking even.

What needs fixing?

* Bringing Middlesea back probably need fixing. The Goddess thinks that Spirits are iffy, but better than Demons.
* Don’t let Volstak die.
* Don’t let Cara die.
* Don’t let the Prince of ‘al Jabar die.
* Marek is not in immediate danger, but if he dies, this will turn back into an Army combat, and the orcs will crush everyone. So don’t let him die, or leave, because his magic effect is keeping us in personal combat.
* The Artifact for Breaking Orange probably shouldn’t be allowed to leave. (That’s fuzzy, something is defending that.)
* Cataurs are unlikely to successfully kidnap Nesh.
* There are slith here.
* There’s a goblin, but it will probably be handled.
* Catching the half-orc assassin would be good. It’s not clear if the assassin is a half-orc or just working for the half-orcs.

Pearly Whites

2024-03-02T05:24:18Z

Tirinian:

==In the Kingdom of the Sharks==
Managaratha fades out; Stella and Scout fade in. We’re still underwater. Fortunately the water breathing is still up.

The water starts getting colder, probably because we were here as companions of Managaratha. Nesh’s sword turns into the Buccaneer’s Blade, and he has some reputation, which stops the water from getting colder.

We discuss our current plan, or lack thereof. What can we do for the King of the Sharks? Well, we seem to have lost our Red mage.

Stella tires of our dithering, and brings down the Hammer of 13 successes and 10 DI.
Sharks are not actually anything that needs Fixing, they’re just inconvenient for us at present. Ideas for sending the Sharks elsewhere are decent, but we’re unlikely to have the EPs to pull off at present, so we’d need help. The small problem that could be fixed, potentially, is the dissension between Lani and Tia. There’s not an easy solution, as long as he remains King Shark and she remains Princess Crab; while there are things that might fix that, we don’t have a lot of angles on that. That could be ameliorated if Torsin was discredited, and the Goddess thinks that Torsin’s influence from Goblins is the highest on the list. Also there's the Kraken, but it's probably too big for us.

(Torsin is Lani's nephew, and in line to the throne after Tia).

Also, our Polite Merfolk is about to expire.

We go and talk to Tia - she's heard of goblins, and Torsin is visiting a lot, but he doesn't live here, and she doesn't know who he talks to when he's not here. Also she is surprised the Buccaneer doesn't have a petition. Well, perhaps the Buccaneer can petition to hunt goblins.

Does she know about the Kraken? It's not in the kingdom, but kraken territory is over there.

Vidan will learn mer overnight if Tia will teach him. That work.
Vidan learns 6 levels of Mer overnight.

[Dragon 13]

We go to petition the King in the morning, accompanied by sharks.. Nesh apologies for his interpreter, and that we are here on a mission from the Gods, and ask for permission to hunt Goblins in and around his lands.

Nesh and Vidan are quite charismatic, but they’re limited by Int/Mer, so they only get 7 successes. The King is happy to grant us 3 days to pursue the alleged intrusion into his lands, and he expects a report. We are escorted out of the throne room by sharks.

Outside the palace, the sharks don’t seem to attack us.

==Goblin Hunting==
We go to Torsin’s house. It’s an actual house with doors; we think that’s probably it.
(The Kingdom is generically magic

Vidan asks his aid in getting the kingdom's aid against our joint enemy, the slith.
He’s willing to talk about that, and we go in. He acknowledges that Slith are bad, but seems most interested when Vidan calls him the likely Heir.

They discuss the kingdoms and their Heirs. Mab’s heir is Venin, but he’s married. Fahl could marry.

Scout thinks there’s some Green magic in the back room. Gale can't hear anything, but does a bit of swim-foolery while Scout sneaks out. There's some seaweed next to his bed that has a green sigil on it - it matches one of the sigils on the plant spewing the amnesia-mist in Middlesea. It's some sort of communication spell. One wild spell later - the other end is off near where Middlesea (the spirit) is, in that Spiritbreaker Fortress.

Unclaimed perfect pearls are unclaimed, that's okay. He has suggestions where we might look.

Gale (and Vidan, when she remembers she doesn't speak Mer) eavesdrop. It's some other language that Vidan doesn't know, so he casts a Witnessing miracle and memorizes it perfectly. It's a woman speaking Goblin. It's a siren, Vidan thinks.

People are offering to potentially help him become king if he helps them go after the Slith. The goblin says well, maybe that's a reasonable plan given the failure of the other one to marry Tia off, but tell me more about them. He describes us reasonably well. Hmm. Well, working with them would be interesting, certainly. I'm not sure I recommend it - the last major political plan they were involved in, involved the death of King Olison. Try not to make them any promises. Probably the best thing they could do for you is go kill the Kraken, so see if you can get them to do that. We wonder if that's actually "go get them eaten by the Kraken".

Kraken are known to be in the Broken Seas - Vidan is sure there are broken Kraken and not confident there are unBroken ones. Hard to be sure.

Stella decides to indulge in her pyromania and do some experimentation with lighting fires underwater. Creating a campfire (Creation) makes the campfire appear, but it goes out immediately. Lighting a forge with a fireball spell (Forge) that does both damage and sets things on fire (difficulty 10 for a 7 hex 2x damage per successes plus Burning).

==Talking to the King Again==
Nesh makes a plan for talking to the King, and we see him that afternoon.

Nesh and Vidan team up again to tell the King about Thorsin. The persuasion is not as big as before, but Vidan’s Witnessing is enough to convince him to send us to destroy it with a squad of Sharks.

He sends a squad of sharks to help us destroy it. Thorsin doesn’t think he should resist when there’s a squad of sharks. The sharks eat it. No siren sharks are produced in the process.

The party goes up to the surface for reasons I forget.

In the distance there's a boat. It flies the flag of the Maharani. It has Lisatera on it. She did not get His Highness out - there's too much divine stuff going on, so she's going to get a priest. While we were mucking around in there, she could have some conversations. That was while we were talking to Mage Alexa. We warn her about the Avatar of the Breaker - the orc in the middle, fighting the paladin of Rush.

She calls Suvatra, the person we have the seagull feather from. Vidan introduces himself and says we have a feather - she does a double take. Vidan is suddenly wearing Navere's holy robes (it's a Navere thing), and that clearly convinces her of something.

She agrees that alliance is good, having people go there would be better but if we break the feather she can call, once. She does not speak directly for Her Majesty but can make a call when someone who can is available to discuss things.

Suvatra says she will let Her Majesty know that there will be Ambassadors coming, and will make arrangements. She asks for our names, and we tell her plus that we are known as the Middlesea Free Rangers (™).

Vidan notes that she takes note of Vidan’s name, particularly. She terminates the call.

==Pearl Hunting==
We ask Lisetera for help hunting Perfect Pearls. She thinks that underwater is inconvenient, but when Gale offers to deal with that, she says okay. The nearest one is two miles that way, in a chest. The boat sails off. Diomarche explains there are cataurs. His boyfriend, Lisatera wonders? Gale is totally shipping them now.

Lisetera sends a mer-Lisetera with us to go pearl-hunting. We swim for a while and find a shipwreck. We proceed, and combat begins!

The ship has been sunk for many years, it seems to have stuff growing on it.

Ghosts!

The ghosts appear, attempting to possess the people who walk onto the ship. They need to be hit with magic or enchanted weapons, and they do attacks with no resistance (except for Nesh). Diomarche charges through a bunch of them, and with the power of Rush, they are banished. One of the ghosts tries to possess Gale, but is punted by Stella. The ghosts seem to be 9 hit mooks, so the fighters manage to get rid of a bunch of them. Diomarche heads belowdecks to look for treasure, which causes him to be attacked by another ghost. He breaks through the door, which causes environmental splinters. Nesh and Scout head belowdecks to help, but Nesh sends them away because he can handle the ghosts. Diomarche and Scout go to check out the Captain’s room; Diomarche gets stuck in the debris, but Scout gets in. Scout gets rid of one ghost and loots for three rounds. As this is going on, we notice there is Blood in the Water, so now we’re on the clock before the Sharks arrive.

We clear up the last of the ghosts and loot the treasure chest belowdecks, and escape!

At the very end, Nesh considers the Buccaneer– he remembers that he was one of The Lady’s seconds in the last Comet.
==Loot==
* +7 EPs
* +9 SPs

===Belowdecks:===
1 Loot worth of random stuff + 1 Perfect Pearl

===Capt. Chamber:===
* 1 Loot of Gold
* 2 necklaces from the Time of the Lord and the Lady. 4 successes of Appraisal says they’re worth more for historical value than for their pure gold/gems value. Might be worth something to one of the Mages that was looking for something (Nimra).
* Scrolls in Melmani - orders to the ship directing the captain to carry the treasure to somewhere in Orange. Army logistics orders, so this was some kind of military vessel of some kind. The loot is to fund the Lady’s army on the mainland. There is a map to a hidden stash of stuff in Orange somewhere.

Terrain Type Shark

2024-03-02T05:14:08Z

Tirinian: /* The King's Daughter */

==The King's Daughter==

Stella and Scout vanish; Vidan reappears.

[Still Dragon 10]

Prince Venin takes us to Tia - she explains further that her father is marrying her off to disinherit her because she thinks his shark plan is stupid. She will become Venin's queen because of the contract, and because he is older. Queen Mag wants the dowry. It is a significant dowry - the equivalent of a couple of points of RES (though merfolk have a different mechanic).

Managaratha can probably talk to Quentin.
Can Quentin shark (with his red mage powers)? Does that help?

[[File:Shark.png|400px]]

He can make a good shark (he is currently a merman).

Killing Tia's dad seems an obvious solution but he doesn't seem to be bad enough to deserve it and we hesitate to go for regicide as a first option.

Managaratha scries the Queen's bedroom to look for the marriage contract.
It's a rolled up scroll in the desk.

When Nesh puts up his magic resistance, things look less Disney; the merfolk are more aquatic creatures.

Gale is all for stealing the contract but everyone else thinks that will make the mer rulers cranky. Venin seems to think that we can just make a new contract to have him marry Quentin and then it will all just work. Is everyone but Gale overthinking it?

Nesh grudgingly goes to steal the contract. It is obvious in a way that that makes it hard to sneak, but he gets back anyway.

Vidan thinks the contract is more prescriptive and less descriptive than Truespeak. "Like the Discipline version of TrueSpeak" he thinks. It also has the power of royalty behind it. The two signatures are like a royal seal. The contract is powered by the seals; the language is not magical.

1 DI later: it's in Kingstongue (mer). Merfolk country stats are the stats of the ruler.

Tia rewrites the contract to a marriage between Venin and Quentin, with an alliance.

Gale thinks the signatures are a lot like Loot Runes - moving them is pretty Blue, though on more contemplation there's more to it than that and a ritual with others would be good. (Mer magic does not break down cleanly into colors; Managaratha thinks there is Blue and Purple and a third thing; working with all three colors would be good.

===The plan [Dragon 11]: ===

We go with Venin and Tia to a good nearby Clandestine Wedding Location. Vidan sets up a teleport beacon. Managaratha teleports the Rangers to the cell, and Vidan teleports everyone to the beacon.

Venin leads us to a nice place. Rolling white sand floor, coral spires. Managaratha calls Quentin - is now a good time to get married? We teleport in - Gale notes that we're in combat time - and then Vidan takes us out.

We put together the ritual (yay!) and performing it takes a little longer than we would like, but they are married before Mag shows up. So we all leave towards Sharkland. Venin leaves a note for Mom.

Oh, we should get the cataur boat lest Mag take her vengeance on him. But we can't teleport Nesh. Managaratha calls them, and says in cataurese that Diomarche says to say for "sail north now now now"

We head for Sharkland after all, staying ahead of Her Majesty's wrath. Wait, we don't want King Shark to get rid of that marriage. Quentin (with their contract) will take Venin back to meet his relatives and arrange things.

Tia goes off and tells her dad that Venin married someone else so she came home. He's sulking and will talk to Managaratha tomorrow.

[Dragon 12]

Things are extra shark-infested the next day when we swim down. This castle doesn't have any of the other fish and sea creatures, just sharks. So many sharks.

So we're here to petition for his (sharky) aid in fighting the slith. He talks a lot about how cool sharks are. He's not really thinking strategically, just super shark-obsessed, and he isn't interested in sending his sharks anywhere else. Though Berana has red mages who can make sharks even better. Like larger or faster or able to shoot their teeth.

Managaratha doesn't want to fight the shark for blood, so Gale demonstrates lightning teeth. He has the shark fight another shark, which ends up in a whirlpool. Nesh suggests Managaratha reach in for some blood, which results in him being sucked into the whirlpool. The sharks go for him. Diomarche tries to pull him out, but it's a strong whirlpool. Gale waterspouts him out the rest of the way. Managaratha, now covered in blood, gives a shark echolocation.

Well, the King is amused by all this, and tells us to come back tomorrow. But we haven't convinced him to send his sharks elsewhere yet.

We go visit Tia. She thinks this all seems to be going as expected.

In order to send his sharks, he would need to have guaranteed that the other merfolk would not attack, or the slith. (If the other merfolk were sending forces that might count). A trusted communication network with the other allies with shared intelligence would help with that.

And maybe Mage Alexa is interested in shark units. (She bounces Managaratha's one success at calling her).

==Loot==
* +8 EPs
* +8 SPs

On His Majesty’s Secret Surface

2024-03-02T05:10:26Z

Tirinian:

==Splashing Around==

Vidan is still faded out. We decide we will go look for other Merfolk kings.
There is some discussion about cataurs and centaurs, and Diomarche tells the tale of how the cataurs in the boat could be considered his cousin, because back in the Comets of yore, the cataurs came over the mountains into Jabar and they un-Broke. Were Repaired? The terminology is perhaps confusing.

Managaratha thinks there might be a few more castles to the west, so we head off that way.
We sail for a day or so, and then [Dragon 8] Managaratha sends up a clairvoy point to see what he can see, but he’s not very successful. He drives around the clairvoy point and finds a more populated area, so we decide it’s a good place to go see if we can find a castle nearby.

Gayle gives us some Free Action and Breathe Water, and we swim down and find a house with some merfolk. One comes out and points a trident at us, asking us what we want.

We say we’re hoping to go to the court, to help fight the slith. Unless they want to fight the slith? No, we should go talk to the king.

The fast way is "swim that way", but we’ll probably run into the mephits (which Managaratha explains are water elementals).
The slow way is go that way until you find the giant clam, and then switch to north for three leagues, and then come back this way.

How many mephits? A lot, they’re a problem.

We swim to the giant clam, while Managaratha steers clairvoy around until he finds the water is boiling. So maybe they’re steam mephits. There also seem to be lava mephits.

Gale recalls that mephits are Broken elementals, they tend to be pairs of elements.

The clam is about the size of room, although flatter. Managaratha determines it has a quite large pearl, so we try to think about how to get the loot. Lacking a better plan, Scout casts a Speak to Animals spell, and chats with the clam, but it doesn’t seem to want much, and he’s not very persuasive. Nesh thinks it’s rude to attack the clam now that we’ve talked to it, so we wander off, with Gale grumbling about failing at being a pirate.

We travel a while to the castle, passing more habitations on the way. The castle is quite large, and Managaratha casts Rangers Talk Polite Mer. Nesh talks to the guards about wanting to see the King to fight the slith, but once they’re told it’s Managaratha, they say oh sure come on in.

There are lots of fish swimming around; we get to the Throne Room. There is a Mer with a crown on the throne. There seems to be a line of fish waiting to talk to the King. Huh. There is no obvious organization.

Scout looks around— everything here is Magical, but not spells, and not even Blue. It’s more coordinated than miscellaneous elf magic. It’s like the Queen under the Mountain with her Dwarves around her, and it would probably look like Magic for the room to be Hers.

The King talks to the fish, sometimes in schools, but not in Mer– except for one. That fish wants to know how long it will be before the seaweed won’t be destroyed by the mephits. “Soon”, says the King.

King Tabe greets Managaratha, welcoming him. Managaratha says we’re here to fight the slith. Oh good, the slith are a problem. His forces are tied up elsewhere. We offer to scout the mephits, which the King thinks would be helpful.

King Fahl is asleep. “Oh yes, he’s tied up.” “Well, I don’t know about tied up, but he’s asleep.”
He’s the one the witch got.

King Lani is busy with his shark breeding, Queen Mag they talk to occasionally, but the King doesn’t have a daughter, and she mostly seems to be looking for a marriage alliance.

Is there something we can help with? Scouting the mephits would help. If there’s a way in that doesn’t require going through air, that would be useful.

We get a map; the mephits are mostly south of the castle, with a big X for “don’t go here”. The map also has the Giant Clam, a coral bed to the NE, there are arrows to Queen Mag’s lands, Lani’s lands NW, and King Fahl’s land to the east.

In the castle, there's a guy who is planning to go and wrestle an octopus tomorrow.
He doesn’t need help, but if we wanted to watch and tell people how awesome he is, that would be good.

Managaratha thinks about Elemental Planes and Elementals.

We take Gayle’s boat back to the other boat. Managartha clairvoys down, it looks like there’s a place that is not water, mostly steam. No merfolk, no fish, no plants. The ground under that area is mostly lava rather than earth. There don’t seem to be obvious mephits. There do seem to be some kind of caves? if that’s what they’re called in the lava.

More clairvoy, looks like in the steam there’s a largeish cavern with air in it. Managaratha contemplates how this happens, it’s probably some kind of magic, to keep the ocean out? If it was just natural the King could probably deal with it if it’s in his realm.

Stella asks the Goddess what needs fixing here. There’s some defenses, but 13 successes 9 DI is enough to get past the 5 successes defense.

The underwater Broken lands (where the Slith live) are not as Broken as the Broken Lands. Underwater doesn’t have so coherent a Broken area. The cavern is an attempt to make a Broken underwater Kingdom; that should be stopped. There is something at the center of it that is making that happen. The thing at the center is probably not sentient, but is something that a Broken priest or a powerful goblin made. It needs to be sanctified away, preferably; physical destruction would make it easier to sanctify. It would take most of Stella’s DI for a day to sanctify it, it’s a powerful miracle. It might explode if we physically blow it up, though. The mephits are more like guardians.

Poking around via clairvoy during the night, Managaratha and Nesh find a glowing ruby in the center of a cavern with a squad of lava mephits standing around it. There doesn’t seem to be smoke, so there may not be air there.

[Dragon 9]

Gayle thinks a bubble of clean air is probably good for breathing, but we might want cold air, to prevent heat issues.

Thinking of spells that could help:
A generic Resist Environmental Heat is probably easier than Resist Fire Damage, unless it’s a Vast amount of heat. That’s probably difficulty 8.
Walking on Lava would probably help.

Nesh puts everything together into a plan.
* 6 successes Resist Environmental Heat.
* 3 successes 1 awryage Walk on Lava.
* Weapons are iced for 5 hits.
* Sotto Voce.
* 4 hours of Flying through Air.

We teleport! But it doesn’t get us all the way there. Huh. That’s weird. Managaratha thinks that maybe the Broken Landedness is in a different coordinate system. Thinking more, it seems like there are more hexes in each hex? Hmm. Managaratha thinks more.
Scout thinks there is definitely Magic fighting the DI, in a realm-fighting-realm way that Middlesea thinks is familiar. Managaratha clairvoys more, and thinks his clairvoy points are also bigger than usual. Huh. Well, we go down below the steam and into the hole.

We enter a big cavern filled with lava and mephits, with a gem in the center, with four mephits around the ruby in the center.

Gayle casts Battle Diagnostics, which starts the combat. Diomarche picks up Nesh and charges into the center of the room. Nesh chops a mephit, which takes 5 hits, and he ignores the “melt the weapon” schtick.

Managaratha teleports Stella to Diomarche, and she Sanctifies the gem. It works! The gem dissipates and the lava starts to vanish again. We flee again (courtesy Managaratha) and clairvoy as the steam bubble collapses.

We return to the castle, where there is a party in the throne room. A cute merman dances with Gayle. Even the fish are dancing! There is some concern about eating what’s offered– are fish friends or food? Apparently fish on the table are food. Okay then.

What other mer kings might be interested in coordination against the slith? Don't ask Fahl, because he's asleep. Mag is plausibly interestable. Lani would need convincing that it was not going to get all his sharks killed.

Scout asks after the Sea Witch; he’ll trade spells to do things like give you legs, or the voice of an angel, for weird prices. Sounds kind of like a sluagh to Scout.

Other things we learn:
* Clams don’t really want anything
* Managaratha helped move the Mer from the ancient homelands to the West of the main continent, two comets ago, to help fight the slith.
* The Tridents are good fighting weapons, but they also mostly seem to be part of the Armory, rather than items? Creation says they stop existing if you went too far away from the castle.
* The merfolk use the tridents as thrown weapons. They also use nets, and electric eels.

==Other Kingdoms==

[Dragon 10]

We decide to go talk to King Lani. There are definitely more sharks here, if not lots of merfolk. As we get close, however, Managaratha finds a note in his pocket, saying “Maybe do this one last.” Huh. Well, we decide to go talk to Queen Mag, and look for perfect pearls on the way.

We do some pearl harvesting. We collect about 5 pearls that are large and round. One of them might qualify as perfect. Throwing some Essence or some Red at it would help, but it’s plausible.

We get to Queen Mag’s court, and Managaratha goes in to talk to her, casting Sotto Voce. She has heard of him, and he is hoping to get the Kingdoms to work together to fight the slith.

The Queen frowns. “That is a… subject which is unlikely to receive a warm reception at this time.” And one of the guys’ swimming around faces lights up a bit. Managaratha says that the war with the Slith is coming, albeit perhaps not to this particular kingdom. She appreciates the information, but does not have immediate interest in his proposal.

Managaratha is dismissed, so goes to take a nap. The mer who looked interested finds him. “Are you from Berana?” “Oh. Um… I have been through Berana, yes. Have they been in touch?” “Yes! Perhaps you can convince Mother to let Prince Quentin out of the dungeon for allying with Berana. I would appreciate Prince Quentin being freed.”

He clarifies - Tia doesn’t want to be married either. Venin is Mag’s son. Quentin was prince of the old king of Berana! Oh. Right, him! Tia is the daughter of King Lani.

Okay, that’s probably why we want to deal with Lani last.

===Loot===
* +5 Pearls, one Plausibly Perfect
* +8 EPs
* +8 SPs

On The Sea 1

2024-03-02T01:34:54Z

Tirinian: /* Preparations */

==Preparations==

[Managaratha and Nesh fade out]
[Salamander 3]

Gale and Stella buy a combination of rations, supplies, and takeout for the trip to Melmane. How about presents? Melmane is pretty idiosyncratic. Merfolk could be excited about well-smithed stuff, or fancy pearls/shells. Lots of practical waterproof tools and some shells

Scout scouts some ingredients; Diomarche goes to the pub.

[Salamander 4]

The next day, Vidan goes to see the Queen! Or the Regent Queen.
Vidan says he believes, in light of recent events, that opposing the slith is important, and allying together to that purpose would be helpful. He offers that we are headed towards Blue, hoping to help arrange alliances between Red, Blue, and the merfolk, against the slith. Are there messages, if not promises, we can bring along?

The Regent says that she obviously cannot speak for Red, but she is willing to provide a letter indicating her willingness to coordinate against the slith, and open discussions.

The next day, we start out.

==Onto the Sea==
We decide to sail on the ocean rather than in the air, so that we have more chance of running into Merfolk.
Diomarche takes sailing lessons to distract himself from the unending, inescapable water that will surely swallow him whole…

[Salamander 5]

Vidan keeps poking at the ocean. He rolls a 17!
There's a Melmane ship sailing westward. We decide to hail it.
“Ahoy the ship!” they call. “Where do you hail from?”
“We’re from Middlesea. Have you heard what happened?”
“We thought they were all… trapped?”
“Most were; we escaped due to Complicated Magics.”

We find out that they haven’t had much news yet in Melmane, and they’d be interested in hearing more about either that or King Olafson’s court in Berana. Ah. Well, we counter that Queen Wendy’s court is in good stead. They decide we should talk in person.

It’s a military vessel– a man and woman in uniform fly over so we can talk. Captain [[Hector]] and a Blue mage, [[Apprentice Sephoni]].

Vidan leads the conversation.

Admiral Philippa should obviously be briefed on anything to do with slith matters. Any major port / vessel should have a way of contacting her.

The orc invasion is not likely to draw much attention to anyone unless Purple is offering significant concessions for assistance. Perhaps you could interest a Mage in going to help deal with it, but unlikely while the slith are invading Melmane.

There is an invasion underway?

There have been incursions, and assassinations of two Mages.

Stella offers that we were hoping that alliances could be made.
Well, speaking to the ruler of Berana was part of the remit of his mission.
Also in his mission is finding out what happened to Mage Marek, and bringing two Saurians who are interested in trying to free General Petrov.

We give him a Tarn Evidence Packet!

What news of the merfolk? They have definitely been engaged with the slith.
Anywhere in contact with them in particular? Not so much. They're... difficult. How so, Scout asks. Technically, they don’t count as people, but as “magical beasts”. They don’t think like people, which makes long-term interactions less productive.

They fly away back to their ship.

===Day 2 [Salamander 6]===

Stella rolls a 2! But adds her karma, instead getting a 6. Noticeably better…

Vidan, Stella, and Scout notice a squad of merfolk swimming across our path; they’re heading NW where we’re going east.

Gale casts Breathe Water and then hails the merfolk. But also only gets one success on Charisma, so they seem to notice but not change path. Gale passes out Breathe Water and Underwater Action runes.

Vidan tries, using his Oratory, invoking our mutual enemy the slith, and is mighty! 8 successes means they pay attention, and 3 Fortune means at least someone seems to understand it. Some of them break off and head in our direction, tridents out. (Where would they put the tridents, anyway…?) We await our doom.

“What you say slith.”<br>
“We fight slith. You fight slith.”<br>
“You fight slith where.”<br>
“Coast.”<br>
“Coast not our problem.”<br>
“You follow?”

We agree to follow.
After a day [Salamander 7], we run into the slith army combat! There are five mer units, and 3 slith units. We are also a small unit. Huh. Apparently we will engage.

* Stella heals a unit
* Gale coordinates some merfolk units
* Vidan makes it clear what we're doing
* Diomarche shatters the wounded slith unit
* Scout catches us up to the slith, and drops a recon miracle on the merfolk

The slith start retreating deeper, pursued by the merfolk.

At the end of the day, the speaker mer comes and finds us:
“Good work. We win, they lose. What you name? Tell King.”
“Conclave Free Rangers! What king name?”
“Pike.”

Gale wilds up a protect-paper-from-water spell, and we give them a Tarn Evidence Packet to give to the King. We tell them that the coast wants to help fight slith.

The slith had metal weapons and armors– swords and the like. The merfolk were using tridents but were using items of weaker materials, e.g., shells and stones, maybe?

===Day 4 [Salamander 8]===
Diomarche rolls 8.

We see a ship coming up from the stern, flying Rinyan’s flag. Stella recognizes it as a ship that Captain Anna Maria helms; she works with Stella’s uncle. Stella seems a bit dubious. They will overtake us momentarily. They hail us. Stella comes out and greets them; the Captain does a double-take. “Stella, what brings you out here in… that? Do you need assistance?”

“We’re good. Yes.” She is looking the ship up and down with a level of That Is Not an Ocean-Going Vessel. She reiterates that she could help.

What news?

She’s mostly carrying cargo for Stella’s uncle and Master Tivoli (Stella gives a little tsk). Master Sandra is focused more on internal Guild affairs right now. She hasn’t heard anything from Diane or Mereldi recently. Scout asks Stella what kind of business they’re in. Well… her uncle is a priest. Of Jord.

===Day 5 [Salamander 9]===
Scout rolls 16.

Stella notices that DI has become harder; Scout notices that we’re SAILING THROUGH A WATER SPIRIT. That’s cool. It’s big, if not as big as Middlesea (and nowhere as big as the Oasis). Stella thinks that it’s unusual for being near a spirit to make miracles harder. Spirits are often tied to places, but not to nowheres… and this seems to be a nowhere…

Scout looks at it more closely; it is mostly surface, it doesn’t go terribly deep. But it does have an Area to it. Maybe there’s a tie to something deeper? But it’s mostly surface– a couple of miles. Scout thinks that it mostly wouldn’t notice too much if we just wandered through.

Scout asks his spirit to talk to it a bit; it’s a spirit of Calm? Still waters, something like that. We warn it about the goblins trying to Break spirits; it thinks it would be hard to bring it to the Broken Lands.

Gale notices the waves are smaller than expected.

It’s been here a long-ish time, since the War Between the Lord and Lady. It used to be a lake, and then the land moved. It used to be bigger; it’s been shrinking for a long time. We can call it Celebration; it wouldn’t mind being a lake again, but it doesn’t seem to be wanting much. Maybe we could help restore its ecology? It’s fresh water so it doesn’t have much plants or fish as it used to. Okay, that’s something to put on Scout’s todo list.

===Day 6 [Salamander 10]===
Gale rolls… a 20! And a bonus one from karma.

We see a small ship coming in our direction– too small to be out this far— and not flying a flag. Everyone makes Per rolls:
* People with 5s see a small ship with Jabarans on it.
* People with 7s see a small ship with illusions of Jabarans and something hiding on it.
* People with 6 (Scout) see a small ship with illusions of Jabarans at least one of whom is a shaman.

It starts changing course to avoid us, so we chase!

It goes invisible and sends us after an illusionary boat, but Scout sees through it. We close; Vidan dispels all Yellow on one hex, which happens to be the hex with the Cataur in it. Who Diomarche recognizes. “You are totally cheating.” “Wait, you’re cheating!” “Do we need to fight about this? I don’t think we need to fight about this.”

WHAT IS HAPPENING. Everyone except Diomarche is confused.
They're just going to find some Saurian that people want to talk to.
Apparently they’re the key to getting into somewhere. Scout’s spirit says they have an Oasis shaman, and we probably don’t want them to sail through the Calm Spot.

(Darmok and Jelad on the Ocean...)

Are they… good… cataurs?

Diomarche says his herd is pretty close to the mountains, and sometimes there’s trade and communication.

“Heave to and prepare to be boarded.”

"Here's the thing. I went to go be a juggernaut of Rush."

We board the boat (except for Gale, who gets hit by "not your problem" but has made everyone fly). Scout can see the Oasis shaman, and shoots him; Diomarche chops him after that. Vidan fails his "don't hit me" spell.

Stella puts a bunch of people in time out, including Cataur Friend.

Someone is Witnessing this fight. (We are always on the battlemap with Oasis and Middlesea).

Battle diagnostics: 1 named guy, two semi-named guys, six mooks.

Defense against the Yellow Arts!

Scout talks Gale into showing enemies, but is shortly thereafter hit by the yellow mage for Not My Plot. Vidan dispels that.

Vidan: "I'm calling down lightning. SANCTIFY GALE!"

Gale zaps four of the cataurs as the boats pull closer together, as Scout flies above and holds his fire; Diomarche suggests the cataurs surrender.

"We definitely surrender. Can you give us a ride?"

Only Diomarche’s “friend” and two mook cataurs survive. Vidan notices there was a Yellow communications point; who was that to? Probably to the Pride leader? The remaining cataurs aren’t sure.

(20 was treasure, 21 is the cataur, so they have some loot; Charles will figure it out.)

Diomarche apologizes to his friend, but he’s not too put out by it. It was a fight, things happen in fights.

Diomarche’s friend gets a Name: [[Rashkar]].

==Loot==
* Magic compass, which is "busted" - it doesn't point at the guy any more.
* Yellow Mage has a ring which makes Yellow area of effect spells become easier. Probably counteracts the area-of-effect difficulty modifier, but you have to know the spell, and not out to miles of range.
* 1 Loot worth of loot in the hold– gold and random jewelry in the hold.
* Necklace of +1 Dodge pool. (Ooooooh. Aaaaaaaah.)
* +1 Recurring Frenemy and two cataur minions
* 7 EPs
* 10 SPs

A ritual and no Pearls

2024-02-17T05:19:09Z

Tirinian: /* To Sea, To Sea */

==Book Two Run Four==

[Dragon 2]

Scout materializes; Vidan fades out; Managaratha is asleep for a bit.

We explain what we have been up to with the three mages, and Nesh hands off the spider to Scout. Scout tells the spider he is in Blue, has more to report on the enemy’s plans at the conference, but will give details over a secure channel. The spider runs under the bed and vanishes.

We head to Mage Alexa’s tower. It’s made of ice. Warm ice.
We knock. There is thunder. Nothing happens. We knock again.
“Managaratha. You remembered. How nice.”<br>
“What did I remember?”

She invites us into her lair tower. She says she has a ritual chamber prepared, and flies us all up through the tower of ice (also furnished with ice). The tower is clearly Blue spells, rather than an Artifact, so it could be dispelled, but it would be quite hard.

==Ritual Take One==

The room is set up as a ritual room. She suggests to Nesh that he drop his defenses, which he does. We all stand in a hexagon around her. “This will probably take… well, a few minutes to start, since it’s a ritual rather than a stupid wild spell the way that Marek did. Once it starts, it shouldn’t be more than an hour.” Scout wonders if we’ll go to another time and space? No, we’ll be here.

The ritual begins. It’s heavily Battle flavored, so Managaratha is not super tuned in to what’s going on.

Scout notices that there’s a green spell on all of us– oh it’s the Amnesia Mist. Nesh thinks it’s an hour later. Well huh. Diomarche wonders if using his Focus schtick would help. Well, it might. He remembers that we were being moved around the Battlemap, maybe observing what was happening, and then we were in the space where Sargeant Susie and the Orc (Slayer, in plate and with a large sword) were fighting toe to toe. It was in tableau, but then the orc looked over at us, and said “Nice.” And then the time stop faded some, and we were back in the ritual room.

Okay, she will think about this and we can try again in a bit.

Gale goes outside to test some theories. She tries to zap the nearest orc. Nothing happens.
She makes all the Broken creatures on the battlemap visible/apparent. There’s lots of Broken creatures on the Battlemap. Huh. Normally rolling for 10s wouldn’t hit that Battlemap, but it’s… closer than it was…

Gale thinks she’s done with experiments, but Managaratha plays with water and the ice of the Tower.

“I do not understand why the Orc can break the time stop. The time stop is Purple and Divine, neither of those are my specialty. Given I do not understand that, while we can try again, I am inclined to avoid the orc and see what we can find out without interacting with it.”

Managartha offers to post-cog the ritual to see what we might have seen, but Alexa thinks it probably wouldn’t help if it weren’t Blue-Yellow. Alexa will give us air bubbles to protect against the amnesia mist.

==Ritual Take Two==
The ritual starts up again. We can see the room we’re in, and also another room. There are several people in it, a couple of whom are dead. Diomarche notices this is a room he broke out of– not through the walls, but the Thing that was trapping us here. The Breakout is notably bigger than Diomarche’s DI would support, however.

On the ground there is a sacrifice in the center of the square of the ritual. There is a Priest of the Nameless who is… tending to the sacrifice? They’re not moving, so it’s hard to say exactly what they’re doing. Managartha and Nesh remember that when they were in Red in Darstan, Managaratha pointed out a picture of Baron Volstack, and that’s definitely Baron Volstack on the floor. Stella thinks that the Priest of the Nameless is doing medicine.

There is a dead Priest of Navere on one of the corners of the ritual square. There’s an unconscious Priest of Orellian. (The battlemap seems to know the difference between dead and unconscious, and Volstack is not yet dead.) There don’t seem to be any priests of other religions

Scout looks around– there were definitely a bunch of people in this room who aren’t here now. Which probably includes us, but probably also includes the fourth priest, which by balance we’d expect to be a Priest of Jord. It looks like there was a stabbing, a round or two of combat time (maybe not combat here), and then there was a minute or two of non-combat time, before everyone froze.

The dagger is +10 damage, it’s well made, probably Orange craftsmanship.
Alexa says “Where can we go that’s not the Orc?” We think the orc is fighting in a courtyard, so… not outside?

Middlesea Ritual
We appear in a different ritual room. The ritual in here has been over for longer. There is a dead redcap on the floor, and Scout’s spirit says that this is where Middlesea was captured. It was definitely a big Green / Shamany ritual.

Stella makes a DI roll– the orc knows we’re here, we should NOT stay here long. She decides to throw the Hammer at it, and gets 14 successes with 8 DI on “What needs Fixing Here.”

The thing we should NOT do is let the Avatar of the Breaker out. The orc is not the Breaker, it’s the Avatar of the Breaker. We have a few more rounds before he will get to us. But each round we stay will let him Do a Thing. He will not escape unless he’s with us for more than an action.

What else would be good to fix? Here in particular:
* Bringing Middlesea back probably need fixing, Spirits are iffy, but better than Demons.
* Don’t let Volstack die.
* Don’t let Cara die.
* Don’t let the Prince of ‘al Jabar die.
* Marek is not in immediate danger, but if he dies, this will turn back into an Army combat, and the orcs will crush everyone. So don’t let him die, or leave, because his magic effect is keeping us in personal combat.
* The Artifact for Breaking Orange probably shouldn’t be allowed to leave. (That’s fuzzy, something is defending that.)
* Cataurs are unlikely to successfully kidnap Nesh.
* There are slith here.
* There’s a goblin, but it will probably be handled.
* Catching the half-orc assassin would be good. It’s not clear if the assassin is a half-orc or just working for the half-orcs.

Scout takes a Really Hard Look at the ritual that happened here, with DI buffed perception. 24 successes gets him:

Scout was unconscious on the floor over there
Two redcaps doing the ritual with Solania
Flint and Federico and Vidan and Diomarche came in, and there was a fight. Flint and Federico killed one of the redcaps.
Silenalania ran off with Middlesea.
F&F chased the redcap
Vidan and Diomarche dragged Scout in the other direction

Gale casts Battle Diagnostics, to get a sense of the scoreboard.
* The orcs are winning.
* The <REDACTED> are losing
* The <OTHER REDACTED> are doing fairly well but they aren’t really in the battle.
* The cataurs have mostly lost.
* The goblins have left the field with their win.
* Orange Teams 2 and 3 are losing to <OTHER REDACTED>. (This is a different scoreboard; the are only in this battle because Marek put everyone on the same battlemap)
* Vidan’s allies are about breaking even.
There are things Gale is missing, but that’s all she gets.

===Embassy Suites===
Alexa suggests we could go to the Breaker’s Avatar for one round, but we think that is a BAD IDEA. So we go elsewhere. We’re in His Majesty’s delegation

Federico and Flint are fighting a redcap; there is a potted plant spreading an Amnesia Mist everywhere. Scout takes a look at the sigil– there are several. It’s not anyone from His Majesty’s embassy. Oh, one of them is Silenalania’s. Okay. The redcap looks outgunned, to Diomarche’s eyes, unless he has another giant thing like the Amnesia Mist to trigger. The Amnesia Mist is mostly Alchemy, with some Essence. An air barrier would be helpful to blocking it.

Scout puts down a hammer– that’s definitely Custard, the other Redcap was probably Cream. Scout didn’t know that Custard was a Green Mage, but had definitely brought some plants with him, so… Scout sighs.

Managaratha gets coordinates for the three places we visited– he’s a little iffy on the first location.

(The Breaker’s Avatar had four actions.)
==Back at the Tower==
Alexa ends the ritual. She sees why Marek needed so much effort– it was breaking an army combat, which is probably extra effort in general, and also it had the side effect of us all being in the same hex. That probably affects the “getting far apart is fuzzy” effect, since how big an army combat hex is is fuzzy. There are interesting implications for the interface between army combat and non-army combat that are probably worth investigating.

It’s not unlikely that an assault on a keep will turn into an army combat. The fact that the different factions didn’t turn into different units is where someone probably cheated. It’s possible the attacker only had one big unit, but Alexa would have thought the Pirates should have had a unit, and the cataurs would have a unit, and… That’s where someone is cheating.

Bringing down the effects in a particular order is important.

It’s interesting to think about whether the army combat knew that the Oasis effect was going to happen. Because the Named character would have escaped from the keep even if the keep was taken, unless they knew the Oasis effect was happening. So there may have been some coordination there, or the Breaker’s Avatar just knew it was coming…?

The removal of Middlesea’s spirit probably did a lot to disable Middlesea as a defensive military unit.

Named characters are unlikely to instantiate as a military unit, but a Squad of Paladins of Rush should be an army unit, in the way that they don’t appear to have been. Possibly Marek and Petrov could have been an army unit. But they could have joined an army unit.

If it’s an army combat on a board you can escape from, Named characters in an army combat will get away. The mooks will be on the ground dead or dying, but the Named people will generally escape. Given that there was no escape, then it’s more likely that in an army combat that the named characters go down.

There are two possibilities for that part of the muddle:
The orcs are actually too big for individual squads to generate as a unit, and there was no single Leader to unite the Middlesea defenses (Cara was down).
Someone forced the orcs into a unit big enough to make that effect happen, by Cheating. Possibly because Slayer prevents the orcs from being broken into smaller groups? It wasn’t Blue; it could have been Discipline saying“we are One Unit”.

The time stop is the thing that most prevents a win for the Breaker.

Alexa thinks that none of the Delegations were big enough to be a Decisive Battle for the Comet. It would have been a First Strike, and an effective one. She’s unclear whether Middlesea’s effort would have been successful.

In the short term, we have earned a battle or two of Alexa’s support for the Admiralty. It’s unlikely that further investigation of Marek’s effect would be worth further battle, but she’d be willing to negotiate for more.

Marek’s effect is not smooth; we’re not on a single huge battlemap. It’s several battlemaps hooked together. Marek broke the army combat using Extra Effort by throwing Blue Magic at it without an actual Spell. The thwackback is probably a Berserker Rage, but maybe that wouldn’t be a problem with General Petrov standing right there to take him down if he got out of control.

We report on all our mage negotiations to Captain Latiras via Yellow spell.

The sluagh reappears to talk to Scout. Scout is disappointed that the spider didn't go all the way to Green, but no, it was just to summon the sluagh. Scout reports provides a brief summary to the sluagh and can report more over a secure channel.

"Do you know his Majesty's name?"<br>
"....no,"<br>
"Interesting."<br>
"I doubt he knows mine."

==To Sea, To Sea==
[Dragon 3]
Scout gets a call the next day on the boat, and climbs to the Crow’s Nest to take it. He speaks in Elvish. Lady Asanriel, of His Majesty’s Court. He gives her a fairly complete report of both the older stuff and the things we just learned about from our look at Middlesea. We’ll be heading to the merfolk and Yellow, and then returning to the mainland, we expect. She will see if there’s anything His Majesty wants Scout to keep an eye on in those areas.

We sail back up to Northport and pick up the Kittiwake, which now has a Hold of Holding.

Does the Admiralty have any information on nearby merfolk. Not a very good one.

[Dragon 4]

Can we shop for presents for the merfolk? They like tridents more than swords. We pick up some water-resistant tridents and head back into the ocean, to where the closest merfolk communities might be.

[Dragon 6]
Managaratha sends a clairvoy point to look around.

There's a small cave with a couple of merfolk - we go down and talk to them. Their castle is covered in coral and the king is asleep, under a curse, for the past couple of months. This seems like the sort of adventure we could do.

We are giving the merfolk a coral-cutting saw, and head back up to the surface. The cataur boat is still there. We sail towards the coral castle. Stella looks at it.

The king is here, under a curse. It's not an undeserved curse, but it's a bit overboard. Gather three perfect pearls and a gold goblet. Crush the pearls, mix with a drop of blood, and feed it to him. That will wake him up, and he can deal with the coral.

Managaratha determines the distance and direction to the nearest perfect pearl. It’s down there. We hypothesize about what to do with Giant Killer Clams, but then we go to look. It seems to be a clam farm, with nice rows. We discuss whether we should take the pearl, or try to buy it, or…?

Merfolk kings are the leaders of local areas, and are the focus for their magic.

==Loot==
* +8 EPs
* +8 SPs
* +0 perfect pearls

A ritual and no Pearls

2024-02-17T05:00:51Z

Tirinian: /* Book Two Run Four */

==Book Two Run Four==

[Dragon 2]

Scout materializes; Vidan fades out; Managaratha is asleep for a bit.

We explain what we have been up to with the three mages, and Nesh hands off the spider to Scout. Scout tells the spider he is in Blue, has more to report on the enemy’s plans at the conference, but will give details over a secure channel. The spider runs under the bed and vanishes.

We head to Mage Alexa’s tower. It’s made of ice. Warm ice.
We knock. There is thunder. Nothing happens. We knock again.
“Managaratha. You remembered. How nice.”<br>
“What did I remember?”

She invites us into her lair tower. She says she has a ritual chamber prepared, and flies us all up through the tower of ice (also furnished with ice). The tower is clearly Blue spells, rather than an Artifact, so it could be dispelled, but it would be quite hard.

==Ritual Take One==

The room is set up as a ritual room. She suggests to Nesh that he drop his defenses, which he does. We all stand in a hexagon around her. “This will probably take… well, a few minutes to start, since it’s a ritual rather than a stupid wild spell the way that Marek did. Once it starts, it shouldn’t be more than an hour.” Scout wonders if we’ll go to another time and space? No, we’ll be here.

The ritual begins. It’s heavily Battle flavored, so Managaratha is not super tuned in to what’s going on.

Scout notices that there’s a green spell on all of us– oh it’s the Amnesia Mist. Nesh thinks it’s an hour later. Well huh. Diomarche wonders if using his Focus schtick would help. Well, it might. He remembers that we were being moved around the Battlemap, maybe observing what was happening, and then we were in the space where Sargeant Susie and the Orc (Slayer, in plate and with a large sword) were fighting toe to toe. It was in tableau, but then the orc looked over at us, and said “Nice.” And then the time stop faded some, and we were back in the ritual room.

Okay, she will think about this and we can try again in a bit.

Gale goes outside to test some theories. She tries to zap the nearest orc. Nothing happens.
She makes all the Broken creatures on the battlemap visible/apparent. There’s lots of Broken creatures on the Battlemap. Huh. Normally rolling for 10s wouldn’t hit that Battlemap, but it’s… closer than it was…

Gale thinks she’s done with experiments, but Managaratha plays with water and the ice of the Tower.

“I do not understand why the Orc can break the time stop. The time stop is Purple and Divine, neither of those are my specialty. Given I do not understand that, while we can try again, I am inclined to avoid the orc and see what we can find out without interacting with it.”

Managartha offers to post-cog the ritual to see what we might have seen, but Alexa thinks it probably wouldn’t help if it weren’t Blue-Yellow. Alexa will give us air bubbles to protect against the amnesia mist.

==Ritual Take Two==
The ritual starts up again. We can see the room we’re in, and also another room. There are several people in it, a couple of whom are dead. Diomarche notices this is a room he broke out of– not through the walls, but the Thing that was trapping us here. The Breakout is notably bigger than Diomarche’s DI would support, however.

On the ground there is a sacrifice in the center of the square of the ritual. There is a Priest of the Nameless who is… tending to the sacrifice? They’re not moving, so it’s hard to say exactly what they’re doing. Managartha and Nesh remember that when they were in Red in Darstan, Managaratha pointed out a picture of Baron Volstack, and that’s definitely Baron Volstack on the floor. Stella thinks that the Priest of the Nameless is doing medicine.

There is a dead Priest of Navere on one of the corners of the ritual square. There’s an unconscious Priest of Orellian. (The battlemap seems to know the difference between dead and unconscious, and Volstack is not yet dead.) There don’t seem to be any priests of other religions

Scout looks around– there were definitely a bunch of people in this room who aren’t here now. Which probably includes us, but probably also includes the fourth priest, which by balance we’d expect to be a Priest of Jord. It looks like there was a stabbing, a round or two of combat time (maybe not combat here), and then there was a minute or two of non-combat time, before everyone froze.

The dagger is +10 damage, it’s well made, probably Orange craftsmanship.
Alexa says “Where can we go that’s not the Orc?” We think the orc is fighting in a courtyard, so… not outside?

Middlesea Ritual
We appear in a different ritual room. The ritual in here has been over for longer. There is a dead redcap on the floor, and Scout’s spirit says that this is where Middlesea was captured. It was definitely a big Green / Shamany ritual.

Stella makes a DI roll– the orc knows we’re here, we should NOT stay here long. She decides to throw the Hammer at it, and gets 14 successes with 8 DI on “What needs Fixing Here.”

The thing we should NOT do is let the Avatar of the Breaker out. The orc is not the Breaker, it’s the Avatar of the Breaker. We have a few more rounds before he will get to us. But each round we stay will let him Do a Thing. He will not escape unless he’s with us for more than an action.

What else would be good to fix? Here in particular:
* Bringing Middlesea back probably need fixing, Spirits are iffy, but better than Demons.
* Don’t let Volstack die.
* Don’t let Cara die.
* Don’t let the Prince of ‘al Jabar die.
* Marek is not in immediate danger, but if he dies, this will turn back into an Army combat, and the orcs will crush everyone. So don’t let him die, or leave, because his magic effect is keeping us in personal combat.
* The Artifact for Breaking Orange probably shouldn’t be allowed to leave. (That’s fuzzy, something is defending that.)
* Cataurs are unlikely to successfully kidnap Nesh.
* There are slith here.
* There’s a goblin, but it will probably be handled.
* Catching the half-orc assassin would be good. It’s not clear if the assassin is a half-orc or just working for the half-orcs.

Scout takes a Really Hard Look at the ritual that happened here, with DI buffed perception. 24 successes gets him:

Scout was unconscious on the floor over there
Two redcaps doing the ritual with Solania
Flint and Federico and Vidan and Diomarche came in, and there was a fight. Flint and Federico killed one of the redcaps.
Silenalania ran off with Middlesea.
F&F chased the redcap
Vidan and Diomarche dragged Scout in the other direction

Gale casts Battle Diagnostics, to get a sense of the scoreboard.
* The orcs are winning.
* The <REDACTED> are losing
* The <OTHER REDACTED> are doing fairly well but they aren’t really in the battle.
* The cataurs have mostly lost.
* The goblins have left the field with their win.
* Orange Teams 2 and 3 are losing to <OTHER REDACTED>. (This is a different scoreboard; the are only in this battle because Marek put everyone on the same battlemap)
* Vidan’s allies are about breaking even.
There are things Gale is missing, but that’s all she gets.

===Embassy Suites===
Alexa suggests we could go to the Breaker’s Avatar for one round, but we think that is a BAD IDEA. So we go elsewhere. We’re in His Majesty’s delegation

Federico and Flint are fighting a redcap; there is a potted plant spreading an Amnesia Mist everywhere. Scout takes a look at the sigil– there are several. It’s not anyone from His Majesty’s embassy. Oh, one of them is Silenalania’s. Okay. The redcap looks outgunned, to Diomarche’s eyes, unless he has another giant thing like the Amnesia Mist to trigger. The Amnesia Mist is mostly Alchemy, with some Essence. An air barrier would be helpful to blocking it.

Scout puts down a hammer– that’s definitely Custard, the other Redcap was probably Cream. Scout didn’t know that Custard was a Green Mage, but had definitely brought some plants with him, so… Scout sighs.

Managaratha gets coordinates for the three places we visited– he’s a little iffy on the first location.

(The Breaker’s Avatar had four actions.)
==Back at the Tower==
Alexa ends the ritual. She sees why Marek needed so much effort– it was breaking an army combat, which is probably extra effort in general, and also it had the side effect of us all being in the same hex. That probably affects the “getting far apart is fuzzy” effect, since how big an army combat hex is is fuzzy. There are interesting implications for the interface between army combat and non-army combat that are probably worth investigating.

It’s not unlikely that an assault on a keep will turn into an army combat. The fact that the different factions didn’t turn into different units is where someone probably cheated. It’s possible the attacker only had one big unit, but Alexa would have thought the Pirates should have had a unit, and the cataurs would have a unit, and… That’s where someone is cheating.

Bringing down the effects in a particular order is important.

It’s interesting to think about whether the army combat knew that the Oasis effect was going to happen. Because the Named character would have escaped from the keep even if the keep was taken, unless they knew the Oasis effect was happening. So there may have been some coordination there, or the Breaker’s Avatar just knew it was coming…?

The removal of Middlesea’s spirit probably did a lot to disable Middlesea as a defensive military unit.

Named characters are unlikely to instantiate as a military unit, but a Squad of Paladins of Rush should be an army unit, in the way that they don’t appear to have been. Possibly Marek and Petrov could have been an army unit. But they could have joined an army unit.

If it’s an army combat on a board you can escape from, Named characters in an army combat will get away. The mooks will be on the ground dead or dying, but the Named people will generally escape. Given that there was no escape, then it’s more likely that in an army combat that the named characters go down.

There are two possibilities for that part of the muddle:
The orcs are actually too big for individual squads to generate as a unit, and there was no single Leader to unite the Middlesea defenses (Cara was down).
Someone forced the orcs into a unit big enough to make that effect happen, by Cheating. Possibly because Slayer prevents the orcs from being broken into smaller groups? It wasn’t Blue; it could have been Discipline saying“we are One Unit”.

The time stop is the thing that most prevents a win for the Breaker.

Alexa thinks that none of the Delegations were big enough to be a Decisive Battle for the Comet. It would have been a First Strike, and an effective one. She’s unclear whether Middlesea’s effort would have been successful.

In the short term, we have earned a battle or two of Alexa’s support for the Admiralty. It’s unlikely that further investigation of Marek’s effect would be worth further battle, but she’d be willing to negotiate for more.

Marek’s effect is not smooth; we’re not on a single huge battlemap. It’s several battlemaps hooked together. Marek broke the army combat using Extra Effort by throwing Blue Magic at it without an actual Spell. The thwackback is probably a Berserker Rage, but maybe that wouldn’t be a problem with General Petrov standing right there to take him down if he got out of control.

We report on all our mage negotiations to Captain Latiras via Yellow spell.

The sluagh reappears to talk to Scout. Scout is disappointed that the spider didn't go all the way to Green, but no, it was just to summon the sluagh. Scout reports provides a brief summary to the sluagh and can report more over a secure channel.

"Do you know his Majesty's name?"<br>
"....no,"<br>
"Interesting."<br>
"I doubt he knows mine."

==To Sea, To Sea==
Scout gets a call the next day on the boat, and climbs to the Crow’s Nest to take it. He speaks in Elvish. Lady Asanriel, of His Majesty’s Court. He gives her a fairly complete report of both the older stuff and the things we just learned about from our look at Middlesea. We’ll be heading to the merfolk and Yellow, and then returning to the mainland, we expect. She will see if there’s anything His Majesty wants Scout to keep an eye on in those areas.

We sail back up to Northport and pick up the Kittiwake, which now has a Hold of Holding.

Does the Admiralty have any information on nearby merfolk. Not a very good one.

Can we shop for presents for the merfolk? They like tridents more than swords. We pick up some water-resistant tridents and head back into the ocean, to where the closest merfolk communities might be. Managaratha sends a clairvoy point to look around.

There'a s small cave with a couple of merfolk - we go down and talk to them. Their castle is covered in coral and the king is asleep, under a curse, for the past couple of months. This seems like the sort of adventure we could do.

We are giving the merfolk a coral-cutting saw, and head back up to the surface. The cataur boat is still there. We sail towards the coral castle. Stella looks at it.

The king is here, under a curse. It's not an undeserved curse, but it's a bit overboard. Gather three perfect pearls and a gold goblet. Crush the pearls, mix with a drop of blood, and feed it to him. That will wake him up, and he can deal with the coral.

Managaratha determines the distance and direction to the nearest perfect pearl. It’s down there. We hypothesize about what to do with Giant Killer Clams, but then we go to look. It seems to be a clam farm, with nice rows. We discuss whether we should take the pearl, or try to buy it, or…?

Merfolk kings are the leaders of local areas, and are the focus for their magic.

==Loot==
* +8 EPs
* +8 SPs
* +0 perfect pearls

Three Mages

2024-02-17T04:59:46Z

Tirinian:

===Bits and Bobs===
We provide Managaratha with a briefing on our arrival, the captured cataur prisoners, the feather from Suvatra, and other pertinent information. Following this, we spend the night at an inn.

[Salamander 26]

During breakfast, a sluagh approaches. They hear that someone is attempting to reach His Majesty, and should that person wish to contact the sluagh, we are handed a spider. Nesh takes the spider, and the sluagh disappears again.

We then meet the Northport captain, Latirias, at the Northport naval base.

Coordinating with Berana is deemed helpful, but difficult to set up mutual defense. Coordination on offense would work better, but an offensive against the Slith requires multiple mages cooperating to overcome anti-magic fields. The Slith have recently assassinated two mages, which has made the mages more interested in the Slith problem, but that can't be counted on longer term.

Stella spends a DI on us being a Useful Tool. The captain proceeds to identify three mages, deemed more likely to be convinced, who might aid "outsiders seeking assistance". The Navy provides a small list of people to approach if we are interested in helping.

Diomarche inquires about a pattern in the assassinations. Mage Deo Oro's partner, whom we encountered earlier, was one of the victims. The Slith may lack coordination among their factions, with separate Slith countries drawing in country turns against different targets. The Navy suggests putting the merfolk in contact with Northport, Southport, or the (more mobile) Admiral.

Mage Memnon, Mage Alexa (located near Southport), and Mage Nimra are identified as potential contacts. Any mage can give orders to anyone, and the Admiralty operates discreetly beneath the mages' radar.

(Merfolk have kings/queens who possess castles, until they don't).

We decide to gather information on Memnon and Nimra. Memnon's court is north of our current location, and Nimra was last seen in town a month ago talking to the local priest of Tem.

==Next Day [Salamander 27] ==
Diomarche seeks priests of Rush and talks to the temple priest outside the naval base. A recommendation for Alexa is provided as someone who might help once, as a battle research project.

Nesh acquires a map, which shows Northport, Southport (on the west coast), Eastport, the (Saurian) Citadel (in the north), and a central city called Indaton. Smaller towns are situated along the north coast.

==Third Day [Salamander 28]==

We set sail north, making intentional stops at villages along the way and engaging with the locals to gather any nuggets of information that might aid our mission. By nightfall, we finally reach the north coast, the cool breeze and the scent of the sea marking our arrival in a new territory and emphasizing the vastness of the challenges that lie ahead.

==Fourth Day [Salamander 29]==
We reach the village with Mage Memnon. Nesh successfully persuades Memnon to come and "bless the Admiralty with his mighty powers", and he assigns a Logistics Guy, Jerome, for further coordination. Jerome notes that Memnon doesn't do "trading favors" but will be pleased if he gets renown for earning a victory against the Slith. Stella talks to a local priest who suggests fancy jewelry and trade goods to trade with Nimra.

Returning south, Managaratha suggests that Nimra, from a trading house, makes deals if you have something she wants.

==Fifth Day [Salamander 30]==
We send a message through a local captain to Nimra, informing her of our stay in an inn in Southport in two days, and hoping for a meeting. Then we sail south, leaving the Kittiwake with the shipwrights Gale has found to make magical improvements.

==Sixth Day [Dragon 1]==
Nimra arrives, and we offer her the cataur Loot in exchange for assisting the Admiralty on an initial basis. The Loot exceeds her expectations, buying some of her time. We inquire about any other items of interest that she might be interested in - she says she would be interested in particularly old objects or those belonging to the Lady.

Diomarche checks in with the priest of Rush near the naval base.

Now, we head to Alexa's tower, and Managaratha introduces us. Alexa finds our party battle map with Middlesea interesting and suggests returning the next day for a more detailed examination, which would earn credit for the Admiralty.

Recording details of unusual battles is proposed as an idea, with Gale suggesting observing merfolk fights as interesting data. That might buy some more assistance if we're in the battle.

==Loot:==
+6 EPs, +10 SPs (?)

Three Mages

2024-02-17T04:57:07Z

Tirinian: /* Next Day */

===Bits and Bobs===
We provide Managaratha with a briefing on our arrival, the captured cataur prisoners, the feather from Suvatra, and other pertinent information. Following this, we spend the night at an inn.

[Salamander 26]

During breakfast, a sluagh approaches. They hear that someone is attempting to reach His Majesty, and should that person wish to contact the sluagh, we are handed a spider. Nesh takes the spider, and the sluagh disappears again.

We then meet the Northport captain, Latirias, at the Northport naval base.

Coordinating with Berana is deemed helpful, but difficult to set up mutual defense. Coordination on offense would work better, but an offensive against the Slith requires multiple mages cooperating to overcome anti-magic fields. The Slith have recently assassinated two mages, which has made the mages more interested in the Slith problem, but that can't be counted on longer term.

Stella spends a DI on us being a Useful Tool. The captain proceeds to identify three mages, deemed more likely to be convinced, who might aid "outsiders seeking assistance". The Navy provides a small list of people to approach if we are interested in helping.

Diomarche inquires about a pattern in the assassinations. Mage Deo Oro's partner, whom we encountered earlier, was one of the victims. The Slith may lack coordination among their factions, with separate Slith countries drawing in country turns against different targets. The Navy suggests putting the merfolk in contact with Northport, Southport, or the (more mobile) Admiral.

Mage Memnon, Mage Alexa (located near Southport), and Mage Nimra are identified as potential contacts. Any mage can give orders to anyone, and the Admiralty operates discreetly beneath the mages' radar.

(Merfolk have kings/queens who possess castles, until they don't).

We decide to gather information on Memnon and Nimra. Memnon's court is north of our current location, and Nimra was last seen in town a month ago talking to the local priest of Tem.

==Next Day [Salamander 27] ==
Diomarche seeks priests of Rush and talks to the temple priest outside the naval base. A recommendation for Alexa is provided as someone who might help once, as a battle research project.

Nesh acquires a map, which shows Northport, Southport (on the west coast), Eastport, the (Saurian) Citadel (in the north), and a central city called Indaton. Smaller towns are situated along the north coast.

==Third Day==

We set sail north, making intentional stops at villages along the way and engaging with the locals to gather any nuggets of information that might aid our mission. By nightfall, we finally reach the north coast, the cool breeze and the scent of the sea marking our arrival in a new territory and emphasizing the vastness of the challenges that lie ahead.

==Fourth Day==
We reach the village with Mage Memnon. Nesh successfully persuades Memnon to come and "bless the Admiralty with his mighty powers", and he assigns a Logistics Guy, Jerome, for further coordination. Jerome notes that Memnon doesn't do "trading favors" but will be pleased if he gets renown for earning a victory against the Slith. Stella talks to a local priest who suggests fancy jewelry and trade goods to trade with Nimra.

Returning south, Managaratha suggests that Nimra, from a trading house, makes deals if you have something she wants.

==Fifth Day==
We send a message through a local captain to Nimra, informing her of our stay in an inn in Southport in two days, and hoping for a meeting. Then we sail south, leaving the Kittiwake with the shipwrights Gale has found to make magical improvements.

==Sixth Day==
Nimra arrives, and we offer her the cataur Loot in exchange for assisting the Admiralty on an initial basis. The Loot exceeds her expectations, buying some of her time. We inquire about any other items of interest that she might be interested in - she says she would be interested in particularly old objects or those belonging to the Lady.

Diomarche checks in with the priest of Rush near the naval base.

Now, we head to Alexa's tower, and Managaratha introduces us. Alexa finds our party battle map with Middlesea interesting and suggests returning the next day for a more detailed examination, which would earn credit for the Admiralty.

Recording details of unusual battles is proposed as an idea, with Gale suggesting observing merfolk fights as interesting data. That might buy some more assistance if we're in the batte.

==Loot:==
+6 EPs, +10 SPs (?)

Three Mages

2024-02-17T04:56:15Z

Tirinian: /* Bits and Bobs */

===Bits and Bobs===
We provide Managaratha with a briefing on our arrival, the captured cataur prisoners, the feather from Suvatra, and other pertinent information. Following this, we spend the night at an inn.

[Salamander 26]

During breakfast, a sluagh approaches. They hear that someone is attempting to reach His Majesty, and should that person wish to contact the sluagh, we are handed a spider. Nesh takes the spider, and the sluagh disappears again.

We then meet the Northport captain, Latirias, at the Northport naval base.

Coordinating with Berana is deemed helpful, but difficult to set up mutual defense. Coordination on offense would work better, but an offensive against the Slith requires multiple mages cooperating to overcome anti-magic fields. The Slith have recently assassinated two mages, which has made the mages more interested in the Slith problem, but that can't be counted on longer term.

Stella spends a DI on us being a Useful Tool. The captain proceeds to identify three mages, deemed more likely to be convinced, who might aid "outsiders seeking assistance". The Navy provides a small list of people to approach if we are interested in helping.

Diomarche inquires about a pattern in the assassinations. Mage Deo Oro's partner, whom we encountered earlier, was one of the victims. The Slith may lack coordination among their factions, with separate Slith countries drawing in country turns against different targets. The Navy suggests putting the merfolk in contact with Northport, Southport, or the (more mobile) Admiral.

Mage Memnon, Mage Alexa (located near Southport), and Mage Nimra are identified as potential contacts. Any mage can give orders to anyone, and the Admiralty operates discreetly beneath the mages' radar.

(Merfolk have kings/queens who possess castles, until they don't).

We decide to gather information on Memnon and Nimra. Memnon's court is north of our current location, and Nimra was last seen in town a month ago talking to the local priest of Tem.

==Next Day==
Diomarche seeks priests of Rush and talks to the temple priest outside the naval base. A recommendation for Alexa is provided as someone who might help once, as a battle research project.

Nesh acquires a map, which shows Northport, Southport (on the west coast), Eastport, the (Saurian) Citadel (in the north), and a central city called Indaton. Smaller towns are situated along the north coast.

==Third Day==

We set sail north, making intentional stops at villages along the way and engaging with the locals to gather any nuggets of information that might aid our mission. By nightfall, we finally reach the north coast, the cool breeze and the scent of the sea marking our arrival in a new territory and emphasizing the vastness of the challenges that lie ahead.

==Fourth Day==
We reach the village with Mage Memnon. Nesh successfully persuades Memnon to come and "bless the Admiralty with his mighty powers", and he assigns a Logistics Guy, Jerome, for further coordination. Jerome notes that Memnon doesn't do "trading favors" but will be pleased if he gets renown for earning a victory against the Slith. Stella talks to a local priest who suggests fancy jewelry and trade goods to trade with Nimra.

Returning south, Managaratha suggests that Nimra, from a trading house, makes deals if you have something she wants.

==Fifth Day==
We send a message through a local captain to Nimra, informing her of our stay in an inn in Southport in two days, and hoping for a meeting. Then we sail south, leaving the Kittiwake with the shipwrights Gale has found to make magical improvements.

==Sixth Day==
Nimra arrives, and we offer her the cataur Loot in exchange for assisting the Admiralty on an initial basis. The Loot exceeds her expectations, buying some of her time. We inquire about any other items of interest that she might be interested in - she says she would be interested in particularly old objects or those belonging to the Lady.

Diomarche checks in with the priest of Rush near the naval base.

Now, we head to Alexa's tower, and Managaratha introduces us. Alexa finds our party battle map with Middlesea interesting and suggests returning the next day for a more detailed examination, which would earn credit for the Admiralty.

Recording details of unusual battles is proposed as an idea, with Gale suggesting observing merfolk fights as interesting data. That might buy some more assistance if we're in the batte.

==Loot:==
+6 EPs, +10 SPs (?)

On The Sea 2

2024-02-17T04:53:44Z

Tirinian:

===Still Day 6 [Salamander 10]===

The party debates how to divide the group of 8 or 9, including three cataurs, between two boats, and also what to do with the cataurs more generally.

Nesh appears, which is somewhat startling to cataurs. They comment in cataur, which none of us understand. Vidan tries to sum up to Nesh. Diomarche thinks if we let them go they’d probably go back towards Jabar rather than to Red, unless they don’t think they can sail at all. Three cataurs on the boat might not be able to sail very well.

Diomarche offers to Rashkar that we’ll let them go with their boat if they agree to answer a bunch of questions and swear a Purple-bound vow not to hunt our friend for any reason. He agrees.

What did they know of Middlesea? They’d heard everyone was trapped but not too much else.

When did they get the mission? A little over a month ago. (possibly around [[Promises Promises]])

What do they know about the Oasis’ plans? Well, the cataurs know the Oasis has plans. What about at Middlesea? They probably had a shaman and a yellow mage and some guys.

There’s been some grumblings from some of the shamans about goblins, being greedy, or something. And there was definitely a report of an orc attack that turned the whole thing into a fight rather than a kidnapping mission. But he has no details about either of those; he doesn’t think they were coordinated with the cataur/Oasis plan. The kidnapping was clearly the same Saurien the cataurs on the boat were after, but who he/she was is unclear. Nesh wants to know why, WHY?!? Because they’re the only one who can get into the cave? vault? something.

Are there any other crews after the Saurien? There will be soon; the Oasis will likely know its shaman is dead soon, if not already.

Anything else you think we should know? Rashkar hears Diomarche’s cousin had kids, he doesn’t know if they’re still in contact. He hadn’t heard.

Scout wonders if the powerful Yellow mages among the Prides would just be able to swat the Vow away? Probably, but Vidan would likely notice if the spell gets dispelled.

They don't think that they can sail all the way back, they make a vow to not hunt Nesh,

===Back on the Sea, Day 7 [Salamander 11]===
The party divides up– Vidan will captain the New Boat, with Diomarche, Stella, and three cataurs. Nesh and Scout will stay with Gale on the Kittiwake.

Nesh rolls a 5!

Scout notices someone swimming under the boat, and alerts the cap’n. Detect Enemies thinks maybe something unfriendly is down there. Rashkar thinks it's kind of octopus-ish. Person sized, rather than The K Word sized.

Scout thinks Gale should do some prep for battle. 4 Hours/speed of underwater breathing, 3 hours/speed of free action.

Nesh talks to the octopo-mer, in Slith, which they both have about 4 ranks.

Where slith, mer? Slith north, mer many places. How big his waters? About a day’s swim. Name? Name not for trade. Who do we give tribute to? Althazar.

What does it want? Boat. No. Eyes spirit. No. Gale offers a purse of gold. It seems to roll its eyes, but says “Gold”. We drop it the bag; it floats down to its hand. Huh, okay.

===Day 8 [Salamander 12]===
Stella rolls an 8, which we already had. Nothing happens!

===Day 9 [Salamander 13]===
Scout rolls an 11. Nothing happens.

===Day 10: “Good” Pirates [Salamander 14]===
Gale rolls a 14. We see a boat sailing in our direction on the horizon. Nesh uses the spyglass and says they’re pirates. It’s the boat that Gale was once a cabin boy on! The captain vaguely recognizes Gale. “Abbie?” “Yes!” “Oh, all right. I thought you were in the Inland Sea now?” “I am, but we’re headed to Melmane.” “Ah, fine. And you claim this boat as yours?” “This is my prize boat!” “Well done!” There is some relatively polite dissing of each other.

Anything they have encountered lately? There are other pirates that Gale may not know (if we rolled a 7). Any news out of Melmane? They’re definitely fighting the slith. We warn them about Althazar, three days west. Oh, the sea witch? Is that what it is.

===Day 11: “Bad” Pirates [Salamander 15]===
Gale wilds up some fog. Nesh coordinates the boats, using his Natural Leader schtick. (Who knew?) Vidan is sailing okay, but not following Gale any more, so she starts following him instead.

Everyone on Vidan’s boat make Per rolls. Rashkar mentions there’s a ship up ahead. Vidan tries to sail around it– Mind with Stealth.

===Day 12 [Salamander 16]===
Diomarche rolls a 9. We sail into a storm! Oops. Vidan sails for 7 successes, Gale for 6. No one’s in danger of foundering, but we’re drifting apart, which makes us uncomfortable. With the wind at our back, we get through the storm but haven’t made much progress today.

===Day 13 [Salamander 17]===
Vidan rolls a 10; nothing happens.

===Day 14 [Salamander 18]===
Nesh rolls a 12: good winds at our back! We make two days’ progress.

===Day 15 [Salamander 19]===
Stella rolls an 8 (the third 8). There’s a large boulder up ahead. Covered in… kelp? moss? green stuff.

Scout identifies it as the back of a giant's head. Giant! Giant! Giant what? Giant!

We kibitz.
Giants are the Blue Elder race (Dragons are Orange; Unicorns are Red)– they’re usually in the clouds rather than the Water. They’re not generally bad, but Broken giants are also giants.

Team Goof decides to go talk to it.

“Hello, Little Ones.”
“Hello, Great and Wondrous giant!”
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Yes!” “If we can!”
“I have dropped my spectacles, and I am afraid of moving, for I might step on them.”

We reconfigure– Vidan and the cataurs are on the Kittywake, and the prize boat is empty.
The rest of us swim down to the ocean floor. It’s about 60 hexes, but still fairly light (Thanks, Tam!) There are coral trees. We scout, and Scout tracks the glasses, they’re about 40 hexes away. Diomarche sees if they’re movable; Stella looks to see if they need any repairs. They’re in good shape; maybe slightly out of line. They’re clearly waterproof. They need about 10 successes to move.

“So how about that Middlesea?” asks Vidan.
“I am unaware.”
Vidan explains a bit about the Breaker’s attack on Middlesea.
“Ah, yes, the Comet is in the air.”
He asks if we’re the Heroes of the Comet. “Well, don’t tell anyone, but we think so.”
“I suppose it is still early, you might not know yet.”

(The elder races are giants (Blue), dragons (Orange), unicorns (Red), ents (Green), phantasms (Yellow), and xions (talking geometrical things; Purple).

With Stella’s mechanics, we’re able to all make Strength rolls, which helps us get them off the ground, and with some currents and swimming we get them up to the surface. The giant is grateful. We ask him where he’s headed; he’s going to visit a friend (he was walking South). He asks us our destination? Melmane. All right, get in your boats. He wishes us well, and BLOWS.

After some desperate sailing rolls, we are probably several days closer to Melmane now.

The prize ship is a bit battered, but Stella is able to help it out.
What was their ship’s name? Rashkar says it translates to “Night Cactus”.
Scout thinks that’s a terrible name, but doesn’t have great suggestion. It might translate to “Boaty McBoatFace”.

===Day 16 [Salamander 20]===
Scout rolls a 13.

There’s a ship with a Melmani flag (the Diving Hawk). Diomarche sends the cataurs below decks.
It’s larger than our ships; looks to be a trading ship rather than a Naval vessel.

We ahoy them! (Scout tries to remember not to Arr.) They acknowledge us.
“Good day.”
“We’ve hit a few storms; how many days out is Melmane?”
“About three to the north port; another day to south port.”
“What news?”
“The navy is looking for men and vessels; you might be able to sell that extra one of yours. It’s not really naval quality yet, but they do need supply ships.”
We warn them of the difficulties.

“What’s your trade?” Scout asks.
“Coral and silver, we’re looking for weapons.”

===Day 17 [Salamander 21]===

Gale rolls a 12; nothing happens.

===Day 18 [Salamander 22]===
Diomarche rolls and adds his Karma… and gets 14.
(It would have been the third 12, which means…)

We sail along, there’s a seagull that comes flying down to the Night Cactus (?) and says “Finally, there you are.” in Jabaran. An illusion of a woman dressed in Jabaran garb (Not Lisitera) appears and says “Lore is going to make a move soon; you should get here fast if we’re going to keep that under control. Her Majesty is distracted by the Slith invasion and not paying as much attention to Church politics as I fear she needs to. Send me a message if you’re not going to make it within a few weeks. [[Suvatra]] out.”

(There is much muttering about how long it would take us to get to Jabar.)

She was definitely dressed as Priest caste; she could be a Mage though, or someone else highly educated.

Vidan thinks about it, and he’s pretty clear that the illusion was talking to him.
Stella thinks it was talking to her, too.
Diomarche is a little less clear, though he (and the cataurs) were the ones that understood.

===Day 19 [Salamander 23]===
Vidan rolls… 22! (19+3)

We’re sailing along and the wind just stops dead. A woman flies down out of the sky. “State your business!”
“We are the Conclave Free Rangers of Middlesea! We go to Melmane with a briefing on what happened!"

“Give me the briefing.”
She reads the briefing.
“Yes, you do have a Marek spell on you.”
“Might we know your name?”
“Mage Dea Oro.”

“Is that all your business?”
“Berana also hopes to coordinate with Melmane.”
“Well good luck to them. I suppose Phillipa might be interested in talking to you about that.
"Nice boat.”
“Thank you. We also hope to coordinate with the Mer.”

Phillipa (the admiral) is the best chance; she supposes the Sauriens might be worth talking to.

“Is there anything we can help you with?”
“Yes, you can tell me why there are three cataurs on that ship.”
Diomarche explains that they are his prisoners and he accepted their surrender. Ah, priest of Rush. Fine. Dea Oro says if they cause trouble, she will find him.

(Vidan was not expecting mages on defense patrol. That really isn't likely. Maybe she lost a bet.)

===Day 20 [Salamander 24]===
Nesh rolls a 12, bumps it up to a 13 with Karma. He gets the option of arriving safely or having an encounter. We decide on an encounter.

We can see the island off in the distance, but there's another boat, about our size.
A saurien uses some kind of speaking tube calls out to us, first in Melmani, then in Common. “Sail around.”
“Is there a hazard?” we inquire, as we start to sail around.
“You should be fine.”

“I don’t believe in Saurien pirates.” – Gale<br>
“Hey!”

We look under the water; they have some Suppress up, so Scout’s DI buff doesn’t help, but Nesh sees a big metal globe being lowered. Maybe a bathysphere? A sea mine? Hard to say.

Having snooped as much as we dared, we arrive in port!

We take stock of our plots:
We need to make alliances between Berana, Melmane, and the Mer.
Middlesea.
Prisoners.
Jabar?
Stop the Swords.
Scout bemoans the lack of phones to call Green and tell His Majesty what he has learned.

We think talking to Philippa might be first.
Maybe Nesh wants to talk to the Sauriens?

Stella thinks that in Orange, the Sauriens are part of the citizenry, but there is definitely an extent to which they’re probably not treated as well as the humans are. And there are some cultural things which unite them as a race, but there’s no Saurien formal anything. It’s quite rare for Sauriens to become Masters, rather than Journeyman.

Before we sleep, Stella asks what needs fixing with the situation with the feather.
Suvatra’s not a priest, so she gets a briefing. Suvatra was sending a message to a priest of the Cult of Al’an, and they had a long discussion about how Love Life and Lore felt they were all the most important face. But Suvatra works for the Maharani, and the Maharani needs them all working together to fight the slith. The priest from the Cult of Al’an wanted to smooth it out. (Scout's theory is that we are the closest thing to Luigi that the spell could find).

The Goddess isn’t giving her opinion on what needs fixing here. She knows what Stella’s opinion is, which is that the Church should be evened out like it is in Orange, but the Goddess is not giving directions to work against any of Her Priests.

==Errands on Melmane==
[Salamander 25]
We go to the Naval base, and look for Admiral Phillipa. (We decide to make an appearance en masse, as the first appearance of Team Conclave Free Rangers.)

Admiral Phillipa is not actually in town, but a Captain will get the evidence packet to her quickly.

Vidan also notes that we're trying to coordinate between Berana and Melmane against the slith. The captain is not impressed by Olinson being likely to do that, but we point out that Olinson was just murdered by slith, so Berana being anti-slith is actually a lot more likely than it used to be.

We ask around for His Majesty’s embassy, but the local elves don’t seem to know much about the politics, but they think there is one… somewhere?

Nesh chats up some Sauriens– there’s definitely a military outpost near the Admiralty’s office, if he wants to sign up. He gets invited to a ball game if he wants. Does he need a job? No, but he’s interested in family histories? Oh, there’s a librarian, that might help?

He goes to see the Librarian, and mentions having been born in the Rainbow Isles, not knowing his parents, but something about the line of the Oldest? If the Librarian had eyebrows, they would have been raised.

“The line of the Oldest? That’s interesting. The Oldest died some time ago. How much history do you know?”
“None.”
Ah.

For most of 20,000 years, sauriens couldn’t have children. For that time, the ones left were under enchantment from the Goddess and the Nameless to never die of old age. The 100 or so left 4 comets ago died off, except for The Oldest, who made it another two comets. The Oldest was Nikolai. (DUN DUN DUN.) But as far as she knows, he didn’t leave a line. She has access to Northport birth and death records. Does the name Ilyana mean anything to her? It’s not an uncommon name, but she doesn’t know anything specific.

==Loot==
* A feather from Suvatra's seagull with a red/yellow spell on it.
* +8 EPs
* +8 SPs

On The Sea 2

2024-02-17T04:38:54Z

Tirinian: /* Back on the Sea, Day 6 */

===Still Day 6 [Salamander 10]===

The party debates how to divide the group of 8 or 9, including three cataurs, between two boats, and also what to do with the cataurs more generally.

Nesh appears, which is somewhat startling to cataurs. They comment in cataur, which none of us understand. Vidan tries to sum up to Nesh. Diomarche thinks if we let them go they’d probably go back towards Jabar rather than to Red, unless they don’t think they can sail at all. Three cataurs on the boat might not be able to sail very well.

Diomarche offers to Rashkar that we’ll let them go with their boat if they agree to answer a bunch of questions and swear a Purple-bound vow not to hunt our friend for any reason. He agrees.

What did they know of Middlesea? They’d heard everyone was trapped but not too much else.

When did they get the mission? A little over a month ago. (possibly around [[Promises Promises]])

What do they know about the Oasis’ plans? Well, the cataurs know the Oasis has plans. What about at Middlesea? They probably had a shaman and a yellow mage and some guys.

There’s been some grumblings from some of the shamans about goblins, being greedy, or something. And there was definitely a report of an orc attack that turned the whole thing into a fight rather than a kidnapping mission. But he has no details about either of those; he doesn’t think they were coordinated with the cataur/Oasis plan. The kidnapping was clearly the same Saurien the cataurs on the boat were after, but who he/she was is unclear. Nesh wants to know why, WHY?!? Because they’re the only one who can get into the cave? vault? something.

Are there any other crews after the Saurien? There will be soon; the Oasis will likely know its shaman is dead soon, if not already.

Anything else you think we should know? Rashkar hears Diomarche’s cousin had kids, he doesn’t know if they’re still in contact. He hadn’t heard.

Scout wonders if the powerful Yellow mages among the Prides would just be able to swat the Vow away? Probably, but Vidan would likely notice if the spell gets dispelled.

They don't think that they can sail all the way back, they make a vow to not hunt Nesh,

===Back on the Sea, Day 7 [Salamander 11]===
The party divides up– Vidan will captain the New Boat, with Diomarche, Stella, and three cataurs. Nesh and Scout will stay with Gale on the Kittiwake.

Nesh rolls a 5!

Scout notices someone swimming under the boat, and alerts the cap’n. Detect Enemies thinks maybe something unfriendly is down there. Rashkar thinks it's kind of octopus-ish. Person sized, rather than The K Word sized.

Scout thinks Gale should do some prep for battle. 4 Hours/speed of underwater breathing, 3 hours/speed of free action.

Nesh talks to the octopo-mer, in Slith, which they both have about 4 ranks.

Where slith, mer? Slith north, mer many places. How big his waters? About a day’s swim. Name? Name not for trade. Who do we give tribute to? Althazar.

What does it want? Boat. No. Eyes spirit. No. Gale offers a purse of gold. It seems to roll its eyes, but says “Gold”. We drop it the bag; it floats down to its hand. Huh, okay.

===Day 7===
Stella rolls an 8, which we already had. Nothing happens!

===Day 8===
Scout rolls an 11. Nothing happens.

===Day 9: “Good” Pirates===
Gale rolls a 14. We see a boat sailing in our direction on the horizon. Nesh uses the spyglass and says they’re pirates. It’s the boat that Gale was once a cabin boy on! The captain vaguely recognizes Gale. “Abbie?” “Yes!” “Oh, all right. I thought you were in the Inland Sea now?” “I am, but we’re headed to Melmane.” “Ah, fine. And you claim this boat as yours?” “This is my prize boat!” “Well done!” There is some relatively polite dissing of each other.

Anything they have encountered lately? There are other pirates that Gale may not know (if we rolled a 7). Any news out of Melmane? They’re definitely fighting the slith. We warn them about Althazar, three days west. Oh, the sea witch? Is that what it is.

===Day 10: “Bad” Pirates===
Gale wilds up some fog. Nesh coordinates the boats, using his Natural Leader schtick. (Who knew?) Vidan is sailing okay, but not following Gale any more, so she starts following himself instead.

Everyone on Vidan’s boat make Per rolls. Rashkar mentions there’s a ship up ahead. Vidan tries to sail around it– Mind with Stealth.

===Day 11===
Diomarche rolls a 9. We sail into a storm! Oops. Vidan sails for 7 successes, Gale for 6. No one’s in danger of foundering, but we’re drifting apart, which makes us uncomfortable. With the wind at our back, we get through the storm but haven’t made much progress today.

===Day 12===
Vidan rolls a 10; nothing happens.

===Day 13===
Nesh rolls a 12: good winds at our back! We make two days’ progress.

===Day 14===
Stella rolls an 8 (the third 8). There’s a large boulder up ahead. Covered in… kelp? moss? green stuff.

Scout identifies it as the back of a giant's head. Giant! Giant! Giant what? Giant!

We kibitz.
Giants are the Blue Elder race (Dragons are Orange; Unicorns are Red)– they’re usually in the clouds rather than the Water. They’re not generally bad, but Broken giants are also giants.

Team Goof decides to go talk to it.

“Hello, Little Ones.”
“Hello, Great and Wondrous giant!”
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Yes!” “If we can!”
“I have dropped my spectacles, and I am afraid of moving, for I might step on them.”

We reconfigure– Vidan and the cataurs are on the Kittywake, and the prize boat is empty.
The rest of us swim down to the ocean floor. It’s about 60 hexes, but still fairly light (Thanks, Tam!) There are coral trees. We scout, and Scout tracks the glasses, they’re about 40 hexes away. Diomarche sees if they’re movable; Stella looks to see if they need any repairs. They’re in good shape; maybe slightly out of line. They’re clearly waterproof. They need about 10 successes to move.

“So how about that Middlesea?” asks Vidan.
“I am unaware.”
Vidan explains a bit about the Breaker’s attack on Middlesea.
“Ah, yes, the Comet is in the air.”
He asks if we’re the Heroes of the Comet. “Well, don’t tell anyone, but we think so.”
“I suppose it is still early, you might not know yet.”

(The elder races are giants (Blue), dragons (Orange), unicorns (Red), ents (Green), phantasms (Yellow), and xions (talking geometrical things; Purple).

With Stella’s mechanics, we’re able to all make Strength rolls, which helps us get them off the ground, and with some currents and swimming we get them up to the surface. The giant is grateful. We ask him where he’s headed; he’s going to visit a friend (he was walking South). He asks us our destination? Melmane. All right, get in your boats. He wishes us well, and BLOWS.

After some desperate sailing rolls, we are probably several days closer to Melmane now.

The prize ship is a bit battered, but Stella is able to help it out.
What was their ship’s name? Rashkar says it translates to “Night Cactus”.
Scout thinks that’s a terrible name, but doesn’t have great suggestion. It might translate to “Boaty McBoatFace”.

===Day 15===
Scout rolls a 13.

There’s a ship with a Melmani flag (the Diving Hawk). Diomarche sends the cataurs below decks.
It’s larger than our ships; looks to be a trading ship rather than a Naval vessel.

We ahoy them! (Scout tries to remember not to Arr.) They acknowledge us.
“Good day.”
“We’ve hit a few storms; how many days out is Melmane?”
“About three to the north port; another day to south port.”
“What news?”
“The navy is looking for men and vessels; you might be able to sell that extra one of yours. It’s not really naval quality yet, but they do need supply ships.”
We warn them of the difficulties.

“What’s your trade?” Scout asks.
“Coral and silver, we’re looking for weapons.”

===Day 16===

Gale rolls a 12; nothing happens.

===Day 17===
Diomarche rolls and adds his Karma… and gets 14.
(It would have been the third 12, which means…)

We sail along, there’s a seagull that comes flying down to the Night Cactus (?) and says “Finally, there you are.” in Jabaran. An illusion of a woman dressed in Jabaran garb (Not Lisitera) appears and says “Lore is going to make a move soon; you should get here fast if we’re going to keep that under control. Her Majesty is distracted by the Slith invasion and not paying as much attention to Church politics as I fear she needs to. Send me a message if you’re not going to make it within a few weeks. [[Suvatra]] out.”

(There is much muttering about how long it would take us to get to Jabar.)

She was definitely dressed as Priest caste; she could be a Mage though, or someone else highly educated.

Vidan thinks about it, and he’s pretty clear that the illusion was talking to him.
Stella thinks it was talking to her, too.
Diomarche is a little less clear, though he (and the cataurs) were the ones that understood.

===Day 17===
Vidan rolls… 22! (19+3)

We’re sailing along and the wind just stops dead. A woman flies down out of the sky. “State your business!”
“We are the Conclave Free Rangers of Middlesea! We go to Melmane with

“Give me the briefing.”
She reads the briefing.
“Yes, you do have a Marek spell on you.”
“Might we know your name?”
“Mage Dea Oro.”

“Is that all your business?”
“Berana also hopes to coordinate with Melmane.”
“Well good luck to them. I suppose Phillipa might be interested in talking to you about that.
"Nice boat.”
“Thank you. We also hope to coordinate with the Mer.”

Phillipa (the admiral) is the best chance; she supposes the Sauriens might be worth talking to.

“Is there anything we can help you with?”
“Yes, you can tell me why there are three cataurs on that ship.”
Diomarche explains that they are his prisoners and he accepted their surrender. Ah, priest of Rush. Fine. Dea Oro says if they cause trouble, she will find him.

(Vidan was not expecting mages on defense patrol. That really isn't likely. Maybe she lost a bet.)

===Day 18===
Nesh rolls a 12, bumps it up to a 13 with Karma. He gets the option of arriving safely or having an encounter. We decide on an encounter.

We can see the island off in the distance, but there's another boat, about our size.
A saurien uses some kind of speaking tube calls out to us, first in Melmani, then in Common. “Sail around.”
“Is there a hazard?” we inquire, as we start to sail around.
“You should be fine.”

“I don’t believe in Saurien pirates.” – Gale<br>
“Hey!”

We look under the water; they have some Suppress up, so Scout’s DI buff doesn’t help, but Nesh sees a big metal globe being lowered. Maybe a bathysphere? A sea mine? Hard to say.

Having snooped as much as we dared, we arrive in port!

We take stock of our plots:
We need to make alliances between Berana, Melmane, and the Mer.
Middlesea.
Prisoners.
Jabar?
Stop the Swords.
Scout bemoans the lack of phones to call Green and tell His Majesty what he has learned.

We think talking to Philippa might be first.
Maybe Nesh wants to talk to the Sauriens?

Stella thinks that in Orange, the Sauriens are part of the citizenry, but there is definitely an extent to which they’re probably not treated as well as the humans are. And there are some cultural things which unite them as a race, but there’s no Saurien formal anything. It’s quite rare for Sauriens to become Masters, rather than Journeyman.

Before we sleep, Stella asks what needs fixing with the situation with the feather.
Suvatra’s not a priest, so she gets a briefing. Suvatra was sending a message to a priest of the Cult of Al’an, and they had a long discussion about how Love Life and Lore felt they were all the most important face. But Suvatra works for the Maharani, and the Maharani needs them all working together to fight the slith. The priest from the Cult of Al’an wanted to smooth it out. (Scout's theory is that we are the closest thing to Luigi that the spell could find).

The Goddess isn’t giving her opinion on what needs fixing here. She knows what Stella’s opinion is, which is that the Church should be evened out like it is in Orange, but the Goddess is not giving directions to work against any of Her Priests.

==Errands on Melmane==
We go to the Naval base, and look for Admiral Phillipa. (We decide to make an appearance en masse, as the first appearance of Team Conclave Free Rangers.)

Admiral Phillipa is not actually in town, but a Captain will get the evidence packet to her quickly.

Vidan also notes that we're trying to coordinate between Berana and Melmane against the slith. The captain is not impressed by Olinson being likely to do that, but we point out that Olinson was just murdered by slith, so Berana being anti-slith is actually a lot more likely than it used to be.

We ask around for His Majesty’s embassy, but the local elves don’t seem to know much about the politics, but they think there is one… somewhere?

Nesh chats up some Sauriens– there’s definitely a military outpost near the Admiralty’s office, if he wants to sign up. He gets invited to a ball game if he wants. Does he need a job? No, but he’s interested in family histories? Oh, there’s a librarian, that might help?

He goes to see the Librarian, and mentions having been born in the Rainbow Isles, not knowing his parents, but something about the line of the Oldest? If the Librarian had eyebrows, they would have been raised.

“The line of the Oldest? That’s interesting. The Oldest died some time ago. How much history do you know?”
“None.”
Ah.

For most of 20,000 years, sauriens couldn’t have children. For that time, the ones left were under enchantment from the Goddess and the Nameless to never die of old age. The 100 or so left 4 comets ago died off, except for The Oldest, who made it another two comets. The Oldest was Nikolai. (DUN DUN DUN.) But as far as she knows, he didn’t leave a line. She has access to Northport birth and death records. Does the name Ilyana mean anything to her? It’s not an uncommon name, but she doesn’t know anything specific.

==Loot==
* A feather from Suvatra's seagull with a red/yellow spell on it.
* +8 EPs
* +8 SPs

On The Sea 2

2024-02-17T04:37:45Z

Tirinian: /* Still Day 5 */

===Still Day 6 [Salamander 10]===

The party debates how to divide the group of 8 or 9, including three cataurs, between two boats, and also what to do with the cataurs more generally.

Nesh appears, which is somewhat startling to cataurs. They comment in cataur, which none of us understand. Vidan tries to sum up to Nesh. Diomarche thinks if we let them go they’d probably go back towards Jabar rather than to Red, unless they don’t think they can sail at all. Three cataurs on the boat might not be able to sail very well.

Diomarche offers to Rashkar that we’ll let them go with their boat if they agree to answer a bunch of questions and swear a Purple-bound vow not to hunt our friend for any reason. He agrees.

What did they know of Middlesea? They’d heard everyone was trapped but not too much else.

When did they get the mission? A little over a month ago. (possibly around [[Promises Promises]])

What do they know about the Oasis’ plans? Well, the cataurs know the Oasis has plans. What about at Middlesea? They probably had a shaman and a yellow mage and some guys.

There’s been some grumblings from some of the shamans about goblins, being greedy, or something. And there was definitely a report of an orc attack that turned the whole thing into a fight rather than a kidnapping mission. But he has no details about either of those; he doesn’t think they were coordinated with the cataur/Oasis plan. The kidnapping was clearly the same Saurien the cataurs on the boat were after, but who he/she was is unclear. Nesh wants to know why, WHY?!? Because they’re the only one who can get into the cave? vault? something.

Are there any other crews after the Saurien? There will be soon; the Oasis will likely know its shaman is dead soon, if not already.

Anything else you think we should know? Rashkar hears Diomarche’s cousin had kids, he doesn’t know if they’re still in contact. He hadn’t heard.

Scout wonders if the powerful Yellow mages among the Prides would just be able to swat the Vow away? Probably, but Vidan would likely notice if the spell gets dispelled.

They don't think that they can sail all the way back, they make a vow to not hunt Nesh,

===Back on the Sea, Day 6===
The party divides up– Vidan will captain the New Boat, with Diomarche, Stella, and three cataurs. Nesh and Scout will stay with Gale on the Kittiwake.

Nesh rolls a 5!

Scout notices someone swimming under the boat, and alerts the cap’n. Detect Enemies thinks maybe something unfriendly is down there. Rashkar thinks it's kind of octopus-ish. Person sized, rather than The K Word sized.

Scout thinks Gale should do some prep for battle. 4 Hours/speed of underwater breathing, 3 hours/speed of free action.

Nesh talks to the octopo-mer, in Slith, which they both have about 4 ranks.

Where slith, mer? Slith north, mer many places. How big his waters? About a day’s swim. Name? Name not for trade. Who do we give tribute to? Althazar.

What does it want? Boat. No. Eyes spirit. No. Gale offers a purse of gold. It seems to roll its eyes, but says “Gold”. We drop it the bag; it floats down to its hand. Huh, okay.

===Day 7===
Stella rolls an 8, which we already had. Nothing happens!

===Day 8===
Scout rolls an 11. Nothing happens.

===Day 9: “Good” Pirates===
Gale rolls a 14. We see a boat sailing in our direction on the horizon. Nesh uses the spyglass and says they’re pirates. It’s the boat that Gale was once a cabin boy on! The captain vaguely recognizes Gale. “Abbie?” “Yes!” “Oh, all right. I thought you were in the Inland Sea now?” “I am, but we’re headed to Melmane.” “Ah, fine. And you claim this boat as yours?” “This is my prize boat!” “Well done!” There is some relatively polite dissing of each other.

Anything they have encountered lately? There are other pirates that Gale may not know (if we rolled a 7). Any news out of Melmane? They’re definitely fighting the slith. We warn them about Althazar, three days west. Oh, the sea witch? Is that what it is.

===Day 10: “Bad” Pirates===
Gale wilds up some fog. Nesh coordinates the boats, using his Natural Leader schtick. (Who knew?) Vidan is sailing okay, but not following Gale any more, so she starts following himself instead.

Everyone on Vidan’s boat make Per rolls. Rashkar mentions there’s a ship up ahead. Vidan tries to sail around it– Mind with Stealth.

===Day 11===
Diomarche rolls a 9. We sail into a storm! Oops. Vidan sails for 7 successes, Gale for 6. No one’s in danger of foundering, but we’re drifting apart, which makes us uncomfortable. With the wind at our back, we get through the storm but haven’t made much progress today.

===Day 12===
Vidan rolls a 10; nothing happens.

===Day 13===
Nesh rolls a 12: good winds at our back! We make two days’ progress.

===Day 14===
Stella rolls an 8 (the third 8). There’s a large boulder up ahead. Covered in… kelp? moss? green stuff.

Scout identifies it as the back of a giant's head. Giant! Giant! Giant what? Giant!

We kibitz.
Giants are the Blue Elder race (Dragons are Orange; Unicorns are Red)– they’re usually in the clouds rather than the Water. They’re not generally bad, but Broken giants are also giants.

Team Goof decides to go talk to it.

“Hello, Little Ones.”
“Hello, Great and Wondrous giant!”
“Will you do me a favor?”
“Yes!” “If we can!”
“I have dropped my spectacles, and I am afraid of moving, for I might step on them.”

We reconfigure– Vidan and the cataurs are on the Kittywake, and the prize boat is empty.
The rest of us swim down to the ocean floor. It’s about 60 hexes, but still fairly light (Thanks, Tam!) There are coral trees. We scout, and Scout tracks the glasses, they’re about 40 hexes away. Diomarche sees if they’re movable; Stella looks to see if they need any repairs. They’re in good shape; maybe slightly out of line. They’re clearly waterproof. They need about 10 successes to move.

“So how about that Middlesea?” asks Vidan.
“I am unaware.”
Vidan explains a bit about the Breaker’s attack on Middlesea.
“Ah, yes, the Comet is in the air.”
He asks if we’re the Heroes of the Comet. “Well, don’t tell anyone, but we think so.”
“I suppose it is still early, you might not know yet.”

(The elder races are giants (Blue), dragons (Orange), unicorns (Red), ents (Green), phantasms (Yellow), and xions (talking geometrical things; Purple).

With Stella’s mechanics, we’re able to all make Strength rolls, which helps us get them off the ground, and with some currents and swimming we get them up to the surface. The giant is grateful. We ask him where he’s headed; he’s going to visit a friend (he was walking South). He asks us our destination? Melmane. All right, get in your boats. He wishes us well, and BLOWS.

After some desperate sailing rolls, we are probably several days closer to Melmane now.

The prize ship is a bit battered, but Stella is able to help it out.
What was their ship’s name? Rashkar says it translates to “Night Cactus”.
Scout thinks that’s a terrible name, but doesn’t have great suggestion. It might translate to “Boaty McBoatFace”.

===Day 15===
Scout rolls a 13.

There’s a ship with a Melmani flag (the Diving Hawk). Diomarche sends the cataurs below decks.
It’s larger than our ships; looks to be a trading ship rather than a Naval vessel.

We ahoy them! (Scout tries to remember not to Arr.) They acknowledge us.
“Good day.”
“We’ve hit a few storms; how many days out is Melmane?”
“About three to the north port; another day to south port.”
“What news?”
“The navy is looking for men and vessels; you might be able to sell that extra one of yours. It’s not really naval quality yet, but they do need supply ships.”
We warn them of the difficulties.

“What’s your trade?” Scout asks.
“Coral and silver, we’re looking for weapons.”

===Day 16===

Gale rolls a 12; nothing happens.

===Day 17===
Diomarche rolls and adds his Karma… and gets 14.
(It would have been the third 12, which means…)

We sail along, there’s a seagull that comes flying down to the Night Cactus (?) and says “Finally, there you are.” in Jabaran. An illusion of a woman dressed in Jabaran garb (Not Lisitera) appears and says “Lore is going to make a move soon; you should get here fast if we’re going to keep that under control. Her Majesty is distracted by the Slith invasion and not paying as much attention to Church politics as I fear she needs to. Send me a message if you’re not going to make it within a few weeks. [[Suvatra]] out.”

(There is much muttering about how long it would take us to get to Jabar.)

She was definitely dressed as Priest caste; she could be a Mage though, or someone else highly educated.

Vidan thinks about it, and he’s pretty clear that the illusion was talking to him.
Stella thinks it was talking to her, too.
Diomarche is a little less clear, though he (and the cataurs) were the ones that understood.

===Day 17===
Vidan rolls… 22! (19+3)

We’re sailing along and the wind just stops dead. A woman flies down out of the sky. “State your business!”
“We are the Conclave Free Rangers of Middlesea! We go to Melmane with

“Give me the briefing.”
She reads the briefing.
“Yes, you do have a Marek spell on you.”
“Might we know your name?”
“Mage Dea Oro.”

“Is that all your business?”
“Berana also hopes to coordinate with Melmane.”
“Well good luck to them. I suppose Phillipa might be interested in talking to you about that.
"Nice boat.”
“Thank you. We also hope to coordinate with the Mer.”

Phillipa (the admiral) is the best chance; she supposes the Sauriens might be worth talking to.

“Is there anything we can help you with?”
“Yes, you can tell me why there are three cataurs on that ship.”
Diomarche explains that they are his prisoners and he accepted their surrender. Ah, priest of Rush. Fine. Dea Oro says if they cause trouble, she will find him.

(Vidan was not expecting mages on defense patrol. That really isn't likely. Maybe she lost a bet.)

===Day 18===
Nesh rolls a 12, bumps it up to a 13 with Karma. He gets the option of arriving safely or having an encounter. We decide on an encounter.

We can see the island off in the distance, but there's another boat, about our size.
A saurien uses some kind of speaking tube calls out to us, first in Melmani, then in Common. “Sail around.”
“Is there a hazard?” we inquire, as we start to sail around.
“You should be fine.”

“I don’t believe in Saurien pirates.” – Gale<br>
“Hey!”

We look under the water; they have some Suppress up, so Scout’s DI buff doesn’t help, but Nesh sees a big metal globe being lowered. Maybe a bathysphere? A sea mine? Hard to say.

Having snooped as much as we dared, we arrive in port!

We take stock of our plots:
We need to make alliances between Berana, Melmane, and the Mer.
Middlesea.
Prisoners.
Jabar?
Stop the Swords.
Scout bemoans the lack of phones to call Green and tell His Majesty what he has learned.

We think talking to Philippa might be first.
Maybe Nesh wants to talk to the Sauriens?

Stella thinks that in Orange, the Sauriens are part of the citizenry, but there is definitely an extent to which they’re probably not treated as well as the humans are. And there are some cultural things which unite them as a race, but there’s no Saurien formal anything. It’s quite rare for Sauriens to become Masters, rather than Journeyman.

Before we sleep, Stella asks what needs fixing with the situation with the feather.
Suvatra’s not a priest, so she gets a briefing. Suvatra was sending a message to a priest of the Cult of Al’an, and they had a long discussion about how Love Life and Lore felt they were all the most important face. But Suvatra works for the Maharani, and the Maharani needs them all working together to fight the slith. The priest from the Cult of Al’an wanted to smooth it out. (Scout's theory is that we are the closest thing to Luigi that the spell could find).

The Goddess isn’t giving her opinion on what needs fixing here. She knows what Stella’s opinion is, which is that the Church should be evened out like it is in Orange, but the Goddess is not giving directions to work against any of Her Priests.

==Errands on Melmane==
We go to the Naval base, and look for Admiral Phillipa. (We decide to make an appearance en masse, as the first appearance of Team Conclave Free Rangers.)

Admiral Phillipa is not actually in town, but a Captain will get the evidence packet to her quickly.

Vidan also notes that we're trying to coordinate between Berana and Melmane against the slith. The captain is not impressed by Olinson being likely to do that, but we point out that Olinson was just murdered by slith, so Berana being anti-slith is actually a lot more likely than it used to be.

We ask around for His Majesty’s embassy, but the local elves don’t seem to know much about the politics, but they think there is one… somewhere?

Nesh chats up some Sauriens– there’s definitely a military outpost near the Admiralty’s office, if he wants to sign up. He gets invited to a ball game if he wants. Does he need a job? No, but he’s interested in family histories? Oh, there’s a librarian, that might help?

He goes to see the Librarian, and mentions having been born in the Rainbow Isles, not knowing his parents, but something about the line of the Oldest? If the Librarian had eyebrows, they would have been raised.

“The line of the Oldest? That’s interesting. The Oldest died some time ago. How much history do you know?”
“None.”
Ah.

For most of 20,000 years, sauriens couldn’t have children. For that time, the ones left were under enchantment from the Goddess and the Nameless to never die of old age. The 100 or so left 4 comets ago died off, except for The Oldest, who made it another two comets. The Oldest was Nikolai. (DUN DUN DUN.) But as far as she knows, he didn’t leave a line. She has access to Northport birth and death records. Does the name Ilyana mean anything to her? It’s not an uncommon name, but she doesn’t know anything specific.

==Loot==
* A feather from Suvatra's seagull with a red/yellow spell on it.
* +8 EPs
* +8 SPs

On The Sea 1

2024-02-17T04:34:16Z

Tirinian: /* Onto the Sea */

==Preparations==

[Salamander 3]

Gale and Stella buy a combination of rations, supplies, and takeout for the trip to Melmane. How about presents? Melmane is pretty idiosyncratic. Merfolk could be excited about well-smithed stuff, or fancy pearls/shells. Lots of practical waterproof tools and some shells

Scout scouts some ingredients; Diomarche goes to the pub.

[Salamander 4]

The next day, Vidan goes to see the Queen! Or the Regent Queen.
Vidan says he believes, in light of recent events, that opposing the slith is important, and allying together to that purpose would be helpful. He offers that we are headed towards Blue, hoping to help arrange alliances between Red, Blue, and the merfolk, against the slith. Are there messages, if not promises, we can bring along?

The Regent says that she obviously cannot speak for Red, but she is willing to provide a letter indicating her willingness to coordinate against the slith, and open discussions.

The next day, we start out.

==Onto the Sea==
We decide to sail on the ocean rather than in the air, so that we have more chance of running into Merfolk.
Diomarche takes sailing lessons to distract himself from the unending, inescapable water that will surely swallow him whole…

[Salamander 5]

Vidan keeps poking at the ocean. He rolls a 17!
There's a Melmane ship sailing westward. We decide to hail it.
“Ahoy the ship!” they call. “Where do you hail from?”
“We’re from Middlesea. Have you heard what happened?”
“We thought they were all… trapped?”
“Most were; we escaped due to Complicated Magics.”

We find out that they haven’t had much news yet in Melmane, and they’d be interested in hearing more about either that or King Olafson’s court in Berana. Ah. Well, we counter that Queen Wendy’s court is in good stead. They decide we should talk in person.

It’s a military vessel– a man and woman in uniform fly over so we can talk. Captain [[Hector]] and a Blue mage, [[Apprentice Sephoni]].

Vidan leads the conversation.

Admiral Philippa should obviously be briefed on anything to do with slith matters. Any major port / vessel should have a way of contacting her.

The orc invasion is not likely to draw much attention to anyone unless Purple is offering significant concessions for assistance. Perhaps you could interest a Mage in going to help deal with it, but unlikely while the slith are invading Melmane.

There is an invasion underway?

There have been incursions, and assassinations of two Mages.

Stella offers that we were hoping that alliances could be made.
Well, speaking to the ruler of Berana was part of the remit of his mission.
Also in his mission is finding out what happened to Mage Marek, and bringing two Saurians who are interested in trying to free General Petrov.

We give him a Tarn Evidence Packet!

What news of the merfolk? They have definitely been engaged with the slith.
Anywhere in contact with them in particular? Not so much. They're... difficult. How so, Scout asks. Technically, they don’t count as people, but as “magical beasts”. They don’t think like people, which makes long-term interactions less productive.

They fly away back to their ship.

===Day 2 [Salamander 6]===

Stella rolls a 2! But adds her karma, instead getting a 6. Noticeably better…

Vidan, Stella, and Scout notice a squad of merfolk swimming across our path; they’re heading NW where we’re going east.

Gale casts Breathe Water and then hails the merfolk. But also only gets one success on Charisma, so they seem to notice but not change path. Gale passes out Breathe Water and Underwater Action runes.

Vidan tries, using his Oratory, invoking our mutual enemy the slith, and is mighty! 8 successes means they pay attention, and 3 Fortune means at least someone seems to understand it. Some of them break off and head in our direction, tridents out. (Where would they put the tridents, anyway…?) We await our doom.

“What you say slith.”<br>
“We fight slith. You fight slith.”<br>
“You fight slith where.”<br>
“Coast.”<br>
“Coast not our problem.”<br>
“You follow?”

We agree to follow.
After a day [Salamander 7], we run into the slith army combat! There are five mer units, and 3 slith units. We are also a small unit. Huh. Apparently we will engage.

* Stella heals a unit
* Gale coordinates some merfolk units
* Vidan makes it clear what we're doing
* Diomarche shatters the wounded slith unit
* Scout catches us up to the slith, and drops a recon miracle on the merfolk

The slith start retreating deeper, pursued by the merfolk.

At the end of the day, the speaker mer comes and finds us:
“Good work. We win, they lose. What you name? Tell King.”
“Conclave Free Rangers! What king name?”
“Pike.”

Gale wilds up a protect-paper-from-water spell, and we give them a Tarn Evidence Packet to give to the King. We tell them that the coast wants to help fight slith.

The slith had metal weapons and armors– swords and the like. The merfolk were using tridents but were using items of weaker materials, e.g., shells and stones, maybe?

===Day 4 [Salamander 8]===
Diomarche rolls 8.

We see a ship coming up from the stern, flying Rinyan’s flag. Stella recognizes it as a ship that Captain Anna Maria helms; she works with Stella’s uncle. Stella seems a bit dubious. They will overtake us momentarily. They hail us. Stella comes out and greets them; the Captain does a double-take. “Stella, what brings you out here in… that? Do you need assistance?”

“We’re good. Yes.” She is looking the ship up and down with a level of That Is Not an Ocean-Going Vessel. She reiterates that she could help.

What news?

She’s mostly carrying cargo for Stella’s uncle and Master Tivoli (Stella gives a little tsk). Master Sandra is focused more on internal Guild affairs right now. She hasn’t heard anything from Diane or Mereldi recently. Scout asks Stella what kind of business they’re in. Well… her uncle is a priest. Of Jord.

===Day 5 [Salamander 9]===
Scout rolls 16.

Stella notices that DI has become harder; Scout notices that we’re SAILING THROUGH A WATER SPIRIT. That’s cool. It’s big, if not as big as Middlesea (and nowhere as big as the Oasis). Stella thinks that it’s unusual for being near a spirit to make miracles harder. Spirits are often tied to places, but not to nowheres… and this seems to be a nowhere…

Scout looks at it more closely; it is mostly surface, it doesn’t go terribly deep. But it does have an Area to it. Maybe there’s a tie to something deeper? But it’s mostly surface– a couple of miles. Scout thinks that it mostly wouldn’t notice too much if we just wandered through.

Scout asks his spirit to talk to it a bit; it’s a spirit of Calm? Still waters, something like that. We warn it about the goblins trying to Break spirits; it thinks it would be hard to bring it to the Broken Lands.

Gale notices the waves are smaller than expected.

It’s been here a long-ish time, since the War Between the Lord and Lady. It used to be a lake, and then the land moved. It used to be bigger; it’s been shrinking for a long time. We can call it Celebration; it wouldn’t mind being a lake again, but it doesn’t seem to be wanting much. Maybe we could help restore its ecology? It’s fresh water so it doesn’t have much plants or fish as it used to. Okay, that’s something to put on Scout’s todo list.

===Day 6 [Salamander 10]===
Gale rolls… a 20! And a bonus one from karma.

We see a small ship coming in our direction– too small to be out this far— and not flying a flag. Everyone makes Per rolls:
* People with 5s see a small ship with Jabarans on it.
* People with 7s see a small ship with illusions of Jabarans and something hiding on it.
* People with 6 (Scout) see a small ship with illusions of Jabarans at least one of whom is a shaman.

It starts changing course to avoid us, so we chase!

It goes invisible and sends us after an illusionary boat, but Scout sees through it. We close; Vidan dispels all Yellow on one hex, which happens to be the hex with the Cataur in it. Who Diomarche recognizes. “You are totally cheating.” “Wait, you’re cheating!” “Do we need to fight about this? I don’t think we need to fight about this.”

WHAT IS HAPPENING. Everyone except Diomarche is confused.
They're just going to find some Saurian that people want to talk to.
Apparently they’re the key to getting into somewhere. Scout’s spirit says they have an Oasis shaman, and we probably don’t want them to sail through the Calm Spot.

(Darmok and Jelad on the Ocean...)

Are they… good… cataurs?

Diomarche says his herd is pretty close to the mountains, and sometimes there’s trade and communication.

“Heave to and prepare to be boarded.”

"Here's the thing. I went to go be a juggernaut of Rush."

We board the boat (except for Gale, who gets hit by "not your problem" but has made everyone fly). Scout can see the Oasis shaman, and shoots him; Diomarche chops him after that. Vidan fails his "don't hit me" spell.

Stella puts a bunch of people in time out, including Cataur Friend.

Someone is Witnessing this fight. (We are always on the battlemap with Oasis and Middlesea).

Battle diagnostics: 1 named guy, two semi-named guys, six mooks.

Defense against the Yellow Arts!

Scout talks Gale into showing enemies, but is shortly thereafter hit by the yellow mage for Not My Plot. Vidan dispels that.

Vidan: "I'm calling down lightning. SANCTIFY GALE!"

Gale zaps four of the cataurs as the boats pull closer together, as Scout flies above and holds his fire; Diomarche suggests the cataurs surrender.

"We definitely surrender. Can you give us a ride?"

Only Diomarche’s “friend” and two mook cataurs survive. Vidan notices there was a Yellow communications point; who was that to? Probably to the Pride leader? The remaining cataurs aren’t sure.

(20 was treasure, 21 is the cataur, so they have some loot; Charles will figure it out.)

Diomarche apologizes to his friend, but he’s not too put out by it. It was a fight, things happen in fights.

Diomarche’s friend gets a Name: [[Rashkar]].

==Loot==
* Magic compass, which is "busted" - it doesn't point at the guy any more.
* Yellow Mage has a ring which makes Yellow area of effect spells become easier. Probably counteracts the area-of-effect difficulty modifier, but you have to know the spell, and not out to miles of range.
* 1 Loot worth of loot in the hold– gold and random jewelry in the hold.
* Necklace of +1 Dodge pool. (Ooooooh. Aaaaaaaah.)
* +1 Recurring Frenemy and two cataur minions
* 7 EPs
* 10 SPs

On The Sea 1

2024-02-17T04:25:22Z

Tirinian: /* Preparations */

==Preparations==

[Salamander 3]

Gale and Stella buy a combination of rations, supplies, and takeout for the trip to Melmane. How about presents? Melmane is pretty idiosyncratic. Merfolk could be excited about well-smithed stuff, or fancy pearls/shells. Lots of practical waterproof tools and some shells

Scout scouts some ingredients; Diomarche goes to the pub.

[Salamander 4]

The next day, Vidan goes to see the Queen! Or the Regent Queen.
Vidan says he believes, in light of recent events, that opposing the slith is important, and allying together to that purpose would be helpful. He offers that we are headed towards Blue, hoping to help arrange alliances between Red, Blue, and the merfolk, against the slith. Are there messages, if not promises, we can bring along?

The Regent says that she obviously cannot speak for Red, but she is willing to provide a letter indicating her willingness to coordinate against the slith, and open discussions.

The next day, we start out.

==Onto the Sea==
We decide to sail on the ocean rather than in the air, so that we have more chance of running into Merfolk.
Diomarche takes sailing lessons to distract himself from the unending, inescapable water that will surely swallow him whole…

Vidan keeps poking at the ocean. He rolls a 17!
There's a Melmane ship sailing westward. We decide to hail it.
“Ahoy the ship!” they call. “Where do you hail from?”
“We’re from Middlesea. Have you heard what happened?”
“We thought they were all… trapped?”
“Most were; we escaped due to Complicated Magics.”

We find out that they haven’t had much news yet in Melmane, and they’d be interested in hearing more about either that or King Olafson’s court in Berana. Ah. Well, we counter that Queen Wendy’s court is in good stead. They decide we should talk in person.

It’s a military vessel– a man and woman in uniform fly over so we can talk. Captain [[Hector]] and a Blue mage, [[Apprentice Sephoni]].

Vidan leads the conversation.

Admiral Philippa should obviously be briefed on anything to do with slith matters. Any major port / vessel should have a way of contacting her.

The orc invasion is not likely to draw much attention to anyone unless Purple is offering significant concessions for assistance. Perhaps you could interest a Mage in going to help deal with it, but unlikely while the slith are invading Melmane.

There is an invasion underway?

There have been incursions, and assassinations of two Mages.

Stella offers that we were hoping that alliances could be made.
Well, speaking to the ruler of Berana was part of the remit of his mission.
Also in his mission is finding out what happened to Mage Marek, and bringing two Saurians who are interested in trying to free General Petrov.

We give him a Tarn Evidence Packet!

What news of the merfolk? They have definitely been engaged with the slith.
Anywhere in contact with them in particular? Not so much. They're... difficult. How so, Scout asks. Technically, they don’t count as people, but as “magical beasts”. They don’t think like people, which makes long-term interactions less productive.

They fly away back to their ship.

===Day 2===

Stella rolls a 2! But adds her karma, instead getting a 6. Noticeably better…

Vidan, Stella, and Scout notice a squad of merfolk swimming across our path; they’re heading NW where we’re going east.

Gale casts Breathe Water and then hails the merfolk. But also only gets one success on Charisma, so they seem to notice but not change path. Gale passes out Breathe Water and Underwater Action runes.

Vidan tries, using his Oratory, invoking our mutual enemy the slith, and is mighty! 8 successes means they pay attention, and 3 Fortune means at least someone seems to understand it. Some of them break off and head in our direction, tridents out. (Where would they put the tridents, anyway…?) We await our doom.

“What you say slith.”<br>
“We fight slith. You fight slith.”<br>
“You fight slith where.”<br>
“Coast.”<br>
“Coast not our problem.”<br>
“You follow?”

We agree to follow.
After a day, we run into the slith army combat! There are five mer units, and 3 slith units. We are also a small unit. Huh. Apparently we will engage.

* Stella heals a unit
* Gale coordinates some merfolk units
* Vidan makes it clear what we're doing
* Diomarche shatters the wounded slith unit
* Scout catches us up to the slith, and drops a recon miracle on the merfolk

The slith start retreating deeper, pursued by the merfolk.

At the end of the day, the speaker mer comes and finds us:
“Good work. We win, they lose. What you name? Tell King.”
“Conclave Free Rangers! What king name?”
“Pike.”

Gale wilds up a protect-paper-from-water spell, and we give them a Tarn Evidence Packet to give to the King. We tell them that the coast wants to help fight slith.

The slith had metal weapons and armors– swords and the like. The merfolk were using tridents but were using items of weaker materials, e.g., shells and stones, maybe?

===Day 3===
Diomarche rolls 8.

We see a ship coming up from the stern, flying Rinyan’s flag. Stella recognizes it as a ship that Captain Anna Maria helms; she works with Stella’s uncle. Stella seems a bit dubious. They will overtake us momentarily. They hail us. Stella comes out and greets them; the Captain does a double-take. “Stella, what brings you out here in… that? Do you need assistance?”

“We’re good. Yes.” She is looking the ship up and down with a level of That Is Not an Ocean-Going Vessel. She reiterates that she could

What news?

She’s mostly carrying cargo for Stella’s uncle and Master Tivoli (Stella gives a little tsk). Master Sandra is focused more on internal Guild affairs right now. She hasn’t heard anything from Diane or Mereldi recently. Scout asks Stella what kind of business they’re in. Well… her uncle is a priest. Of Jord.

===Day 4===
Scout rolls 16.

Stella notices that DI has become harder; Scout notices that we’re SAILING THROUGH A WATER SPIRIT. That’s cool. It’s big, if not as big as Middlesea (and nowhere as big as the Oasis). Stella thinks that it’s unusual for being near a spirit to make miracles harder. Spirits are often tied to places, but not to nowheres… and this seems to be a nowhere…

Scout looks at it more closely; it is mostly surface, it doesn’t go terribly deep. But it does have an Area to it. Maybe there’s a tie to something deeper? But it’s mostly surface– a couple of miles. Scout thinks that it mostly wouldn’t notice too much if we just wandered through.

Scout asks his spirit to talk to it a bit; it’s a spirit of Calm? Still waters, something like that. We warn it about the goblins trying to Break spirits; it thinks it would be hard to bring it to the Broken Lands.

Gale notices the waves are smaller than expected.

It’s been here a long-ish time, since the War Between the Lord and Lady. It used to be a lake, and then the land moved. It used to be bigger; it’s been shrinking for a long time. We can call it Celebration; it wouldn’t mind being a lake again, but it doesn’t seem to be wanting much. Maybe we could help restore its ecology? It’s fresh water so it doesn’t have much plants or fish as it used to. Okay, that’s something to put on Scout’s todo list.

===Day 5===
Gale rolls… a 20! And a bonus one from karma.

We see a small ship coming in our direction– too small to be out this far— and not flying a flag. Everyone makes Per rolls:
* People with 5s see a small ship with Jabarans on it.
* People with 7s see a small ship with illusions of Jabarans and something hiding on it.
* People with 6 (Scout) see a small ship with illusions of Jabarans at least one of whom is a shaman.

It starts changing course to avoid us, so we chase!

It goes invisible and sends us after an illusionary boat, but Scout sees through it. We close; Vidan dispels all Yellow on one hex, which happens to be the hex with the Cataur in it. Who Diomarche recognizes. “You are totally cheating.” “Wait, you’re cheating!” “Do we need to fight about this? I don’t think we need to fight about this.”

WHAT IS HAPPENING. Everyone except Diomarche is confused.
They're just going to find some Saurian that people want to talk to.
Apparently they’re the key to getting into somewhere. Scout’s spirit says they have an Oasis shaman, and we probably don’t want them to sail through the

(Darmok and Jelad on the Ocean...)

Are they… good… cataurs?

Diomarche says his herd is pretty close to the mountains, and sometimes there’s trade and communication.

“Heave to and prepare to be boarded.”

"Here's the thing. I went to go be a juggernaut of Rush."

We board the boat (except for Gale, who gets hit by "not your problem" but has made everyone fly). Scout can see the Oasis shaman, and shoots him; Diomarche chops him after that. Vidan fails his "don't hit me" spell.

Stella puts a bunch of people in time out, including Cataur Friend.

Someone is Witnessing this fight. (We are always on the battlemap with Oasis and Middlesea).

Battle diagnostics: 1 named guy, two semi-named guys, six mooks.

Defense against the Yellow Arts!

Scout talks Gale into showing enemies, but is shortly thereafter hit by the yellow mage for Not My Plot. Vidan dispels that.

Vidan: "I'm calling down lightning. SANCTIFY GALE!"

Gale zaps four of the cataurs as the boats pull closer together, as Scout flies above and holds his fire; Diomarche suggests the cataurs surrender.

"We definitely surrender. Can you give us a ride?"

Only Diomarche’s “friend” and two mook cataurs survive. Vidan notices there was a Yellow communications point; who was that to? Probably to the Pride leader? The remaining cataurs aren’t sure.

(20 was treasure, 21 is the cataur, so they have some loot; Charles will figure it out.)

Diomarche apologizes to his friend, but he’s not too put out by it. It was a fight, things happen in fights.

Diomarche’s friend gets a Name: [[Rashkar]].

==Loot==
* Magic compass, which is "busted" - it doesn't point at the guy any more.
* Yellow Mage has a ring which makes Yellow area of effect spells become easier. Probably counteracts the area-of-effect difficulty modifier, but you have to know the spell, and not out to miles of range.
* 1 Loot worth of loot in the hold– gold and random jewelry in the hold.
* Necklace of +1 Dodge pool. (Ooooooh. Aaaaaaaah.)
* +1 Recurring Frenemy and two cataur minions
* 7 EPs
* 10 SPs

Forging the Free Rangers

2024-02-17T04:23:26Z

Tirinian:

[Still Salamander 2]

We start with the call of “Incoming!” by a voice that is next to Scout, from something that is vaguely visible.

Our featureless plain seems to have some features– there’s two rings of Large Hexes around Vidan, and then a plain of small hexes. Far off in one direction there is a Desert, with five cataurs. In the other direction is a drow, and a spirit next to her.

Combat starts. In 15, the drow puts up a green wall blocking off the corner she’s in.
The drow's (captive?) spirit takes away two of our Greater Hexes, and the desert Greater Hex advances. We realize that’s the Oasis. Oh dear. The cataurs also advance. Scout identifies the drow's spirit as the Spirit of Middlesea, and Scout's friend identifies the drow as "the elf we were following." ([[Silenalania]])

The spirit of Middlesea also drops a tied-up guy (Nesh says he's [[William]], the head butler from Middlesea) into Nesh's hex.

Gale gets thornbushed, gagging her, but between Managaratha, Nesh's knife, and her own Airstep (wild magic) she gets out enough to swear.

The party swears the Oath, using the following names:
* Nesh, son of Ilyana, last of the line of the Oldest.
* Stella, the Goddess's Hammer.
* Managaratha (that's all he says)
* Scout: the Eyes of the Forest
* Gale: Storm’s Queen.
* Vidan: Rolls for 8s, but also knows that it will be less bound to the ritual than he might like. Then he decides that he’ll say the Thing, swearing the oath as “We, now Vidan…”
* Diomarche: Rush’s Hammer

Nesh frees William enough to say "Captured North", and that moves the spirit of Middlesea two towards us, and our hexes towards it.

"I think we should delay the end of this ritual." -Managaratha

The cataurs and Oasis keep closing to grab Nesh, and our large hexes keep melting.

Scout's friend tells him: Middlesea is bound by a green shamanism ritual. Hitting it with a sanctuary or a dispel green should help. It is being held in the Broken Lands; it would have Broken to a demon by now but it is protected by time not passing.

Fifth action, the Oasis is stuck against the red circle.

Next turn - the cataurs have grabbed Nesh; he and Gale and Diomarche are now floating off of the Greater Hexes near the Oasis, as people chop Middlesea's bonds.

Scout's friend notes that we are always on a battlefield with the Oasis demon and the Middlesea spirit.

Stella hammers Middlesea's bonds. It's mostly broken.

Middlesea tells us that he is being held about [a spot on the Mappe now labeled as Spiritbreaker Fortress]. There is a fortress with several goblins - he's seen at least four. They take turns holding him captive. They are all broad green mages. There are a lot of other demons here that used to be spirits that they have kidnapped and done this to. He doesn't know their long term goal but assumes this is bad. He would greatly appreciate it if we could get him out before the timestop ends.

Scout drops a shaman miracle of connecting him to Middlesea. 7 successes, 12 DI. "Are you sure?" He says yes. There is a fast marriage montage between Middlesea and Scout's spirit friend.

Scout realizes (or is told by one of the spirits?) that his eyes are in the same fortress as the goblins.

Vidan tries to get us out again. Managaratha finishes the ritual.

==Back in the Real World==

People who are on the Greater Hexes are in a ritual room. Everyone else is "somewhere in the castle", including four cataurs holding Nesh. Diomarche ends up in the stables; Nesh and the cataurs are outside the castle.

Gale reappears right outside the ritual room, and drops everyone into a battle location spell, and unfolds the boat. Diomarche runs towards Nesh. Vidan tries to climb out the window, and Stella pushes. "He was going out the window, so I assumed the boat was there."

Diomarche tramples the cataurs. Nesh is pretty badly wounded.

The guards find and take care of the last cataur. The captain of the guards is not pleased by the cataurs.

==Post Combat==

There’s some talking to the Regent, who, rather dubiously, wants to know why were there cataurs in our ritual? We explain that they took exception to our plans to thwart the Breaker. Ah. Vidan thanks the Regent for the guards' timely assistance. The Regent offers Vidan the ability to stay if he wants, but he’d probably have to learn some Red.

Scout relays some details about what he found out in Middlesea. He wonders about contacting His Majesty to update him about what’s going on. Hmm.

We decide to stay overnight, look for Broken priests in the morning, and then head towards Melmane.

[Salamander 3]

DI in hand, Scout scouts, with Nesh, Gale, and Diomarche. With DI in Sensing Broken Miracles, some scouting, and 2 successes on a Karma check, they find a place where there was a miracle a while ago. On the edge of how long ago that can be noticed, so probably a week or two. But that means it was fairly large. Close to Berenson’s death, which was about 8 days ago, so probably a little before? But maybe the day of, or shortly after. Only a taste of it left. It was probably subtle, so might have been Bent, rather than Broken. It’s in a tavern, not far from Temple Square.

So there’s definitely some evidence of a Broken or Bent priest that’s been around recently. Gale chats up the bartender ( [[Doyle]], who runs [[The Crimson Flagon]]), who is happy to chat and flirt. It’s a reasonably upper-class bar– not where nobles stay, they stay with other nobles, but if you have money but not connections it’s a good place to stay. He doesn’t gossip about his clientele, so we don’t get specifics, but he does note that business spiked after the King’s death, as there were many travelers coming to pay respects, etc. The High Priest of the Nameless did come through that week, although not that evening.

Thinking about it further, Scout’s pretty sure it was on the first floor, which has the bar and the dining room and the kitchen and a couple of bedrooms. It wasn’t the kitchen, it probably wasn’t the bar. Probably the private dining room or bedrooms. It was targeting the people in the room, not the room itself.

Stella Brings It, asking What Broke Here? It was a foreign miracle; a bunch of DI was spent, but it’s indirect enough that it’s not going up against their full defenses. Nothing explicitly Broke, but it was part of a Breaking of the Church of the Five.

Vidan gathers information about meetings of priests that happened in the Tavern. The local priest of Jord ([[Bert]]) was in for a meeting a week and a half ago, with [[Greg]], and traveling priests of Orellian and Navere. [[Stephen]] was the priest of Navere from out of town, [[Lily]] was the priest of Orellian.

Vidan feels compelled to tell Violet what we have gleaned; he says that we think the meeting was targeted by a Broken miracle, it’s not clear if the miracle was cast by one of them or someone outside. Violet says she will keep an eye open; she had met Stephen and Lily but didn’t think they were Bent or Broken.

==Loot==
* We are members of the Middlesea Free Rangers.
* We each get a Creation Schtick, which Charles will tell us about.
* +10 EPs, +30 SPs
* Cake!

Coronation and Investigation

2024-02-17T04:15:45Z

Tirinian: /* Visiting the Sword */

==Setting the Stage==
[Phoenix 28]
Scout phases in. The gang’s all here! That’s strange. But since everyone is here, Vidan explains the mechanic for the "forming the party, Purple style" ritual, but we cannot do it today because while everyone is here, not everyone has a spare EP.

# First Vidan (with help from Managaratha) will use purple magic to create a place outside of time and space where rules and names can be changed.
# Everyone will pledge their loyalty to the Conclave Freerangers.
# Everyone will pledge their loyalty to the Conclave Freerangers in Truespeech.
# Everyone spends an EP to build the structure for future group shticks.

Vidan cautions that speaking the oath in Truespeech might reveal/assert one’s “true designator” if you’re not careful. There is some discussion about what that means– if someone tries to assert that they are They Who Shall Be King, will it happen? Only if that’s true. Hmm.

Scout tries to get caught up on what happened.

Vidan goes to talk to [[Violet]] regarding security details for Wendy’s coronation. One of the details under discussion is whether it will be in the Temple or at the Castle. Security concerns are different in each location. What is Vidan worried about, that might factor into discussions with [[Mary]].

Vidan thinks the other Houses are sufficiently in line, so that they’re not so much the problem, but slith attacks and Breaker priests that got away are more concerning. Violet agrees that none of the siblings are a serious concern. Vidan thinks that there might be more issues with the party in the Temple? But maybe not, this whole country is Holy to Rush. Though the alarms would have to be dealt with.

Maybe Vidan should talk to the Castellan about security? Or just talk to Mary. A first Succession is a notable event, and fragile in a way that a second Succession won’t be. Violet thinks she doesn’t need bonus DI for the Coronation– a point or two for a blessing should be sufficient.

([[Greg]] is the priest of the Nameless that we are suspicious might be a Broken priest.)

For reasons unclear to the party, hearing this inspires Managaratha to recall some memories, and mumbles them aloud. For reasons more clear to the party, they are somewhat hard to follow:

* Managaratha remembers that Mage Marek, who is Blue, was talking to a Sylph. “Of course I’ve been told Veracci doesn’t have any magic”

* “Of course my Lady can help with that, Victor…” She has a favor to ask in return, she wants to track down a Saurien who left Jabar 25 years ago, a woman.

* A priest of the Goddess, Ghadara: "it would be difficult to arrange Blessings for the Empire." Minister Cho discusses providing purple magic assistance in exchange for crop blessings.

Vidan goes to visit Mary. He’s interested in helping prepare the Coronation security arrangements, and wants to ensure access to his team. Mary is happy to provide invitations to the Coronation, but is less happy with a blanket “you can always be in Wendy’s presence”. But she will have Vidan talk to the captain of the Guard. They have taken some steps against assassins since the King’s death.

Mary is curious if our group or any of its members feel themselves authorized to make deals under the aegis of the Conclave. Despite the unfortunate occurrence at the Conclave, the goals are still important. Vidan says we’re probably leaving after the Coronation. (Gale mutters that no one remembers we’re supposed to be creating alliances between countries and the merfolk.)

Vidan brings Diomarche and Managaratha to talk to the captain of the guard, [[Sebastian]]. He doesn’t go into detail but is happy to have our insight. Vidan allows as we have some... revelatory abilities that could be useful. A priest of the Goddess, for instance, who can see things that need fixing. Sebastian will keep that in mind. He hopes the Coronation will be at the Castle, as then both the Coronation and Transfer of Office will occur– the high priest of Rush will be transferring the Generalship to Her Majesty. The Temples have their own security, if that’s where the coronation happens. Vidan is offended by the "transfer of the Generalship" part - that's not appropriate for a kid!

Diomarche goes to talk to [[Earnest]] at the Temple of Rush, to get more information about the Generalship versus the Kingship, and how that works elsewhere. In Darstan, she is the General, and he is the Ruler. But Iona and Richard III are both General and Ruler of their Kingdoms.

Diomarche briefs Earnest that there are potential threats; Earnest hopes the Confirmation will occur in the Temple, where they can provide the most security. [[Karen]] will be conducting the ceremony/ritual. He would be surprised if anyone makes a frontal assault on either ceremony. Another assassin is certainly a possibility, and one they are less well... assassins are less their area of expertise, than a more frontal assault. But they will do what they can. Diomarche is also concerned about a Broken priest in the area; Earnest hadn’t heard about that. What’s his approximate confidence level that there is such a person? Hmm. Gale had had an Unreality Dream about adventures; an unlikely but possible option involved a Broken priest, but there was also something in the Succession mechanic, maybe?

The coronation is Phoenix 30, two days from now.

[Phoenix 29]

Stella will go see what needs fixing at the castle; the rest of the group comes with. 9 successes, 8 DI tells her: no holes, but things could get past their security. The country turn draw went well for the Slith, they drew Wheel of Fortune, Berana drew 7 or 8 of Rods, but there’s not much to be done about that. We’re not going to buff the Country-level defenses any time soon. But on the other hand the Goddess thinks that’s not a terrible use of Slith country moves. The castle can probably see anyone who is 10 or 12 successes hidden. It would take a reasonable-sized army unit to beat them. They’re not a big army unit, but they could probably hold off long enough to get reinforcements from the Rushians or the Town Guard or something. And there’s no attacking them as an army unit in any sort of stealthy way. Their biggest vulnerability is potential loyalty issues to one of the other candidates. That’s not currently a thing that can really be fixed much; it’s in about as good shape as it could be, but it could deteriorate and requires monitoring. That’s more of a long-term issue for the country. She won, she’ll be Queen with a Regent, but the rest of them have not necessarily given up. Maybe they want the Generalship, maybe they want something else to build their own power. Or maybe they think they’ll be King/Queen again, if something happened. And there are definitely people in the Guard who might get pushed to help one way or the other. So building up personal loyalty in the Guard to Mary and Wendy would be a solid long-term project. But it’s not necessary between now and the Coronation. You could try to work it into the Coronation or Transfer of Power, some more direct oaths from the Guards to those people, maybe as a group? That could help; it’s unlikely to be a huge thing one way or the other. That’s the single biggest threat area, and one that the Captain of the Guard is probably not going to be happy about.

Gale thinks spinning that as "the oaths of the Guard are important" is the way to sell it, rather than "the Guard could have loyalty issues".

Vidan goes to talk to Violet again about his PERSONAL PLOT. He’s from the Empire, so he’s unused to the rituals here. (She is curious about that.) What is her take on the whole Transfer of Generalship thing? What’s the deal? Violet is careful when she answers; it’s a fairly well established custom in Red, at this point. The temples of Rush and the Five are separate, he will have noticed. Sometimes the priests of Rush fail to remember that Rush is Navere’s General, not The General. It is a thing one gets used to eventually. There is of course a shrine to Rush in the Temple of the Five, but it is rarely visited. Vidan allows as to how he would be interested in speaking more of this, if she is interested. She clearly has something else she considered telling him, but rolled well enough to not reveal it, but does say that some do take longer to come to the understanding than others. Vidan does mention his powers of Ecumenicity.

Gale, still worrying about the high priest of the Nameless, tries to figure out where he lives. All four of the high priests (not Rush) live in the Temple of the Five. We clarify that Broken Priests are orcs and Bent Priests are human. Bent priests are the hard ones to find. The priest of the Nameless is probably not a Broken priest.

Nesh scavenges. Scout scouts the Castle, looking for Broken priests or other people other casing the joint. The guards notice him casing the joint, but don’t do anything beyond talk to the Captain and keep an eye on them. Scout does notice there’s a Ritual Room in the top of that Tower. Scout also pokes about for elves– there aren’t any Green ex-pats, but there’s a Troll and a few sea creature Pooka, etc. who had come through the Rainbow Isles. They’ve heard of Gale. The Troll is a freelance bodyguard, born and bred in Berana. There is a Mage with Yellow as well as Red that can be hired, but they’re expensive ([[Liza]]).

Vidan asks the Priest of Orellian about ritual rooms– Olanson’s Red mage probably had a space in the castle. It wouldn’t be tuned for Purple– he doesn’t really know anything about Purple– but that’s probably the best shot in the city. There’s a room tuned for holy rituals in the Temple; there are a few other mages in town that might have such a thing, but you’d probably have to do them a favor.

Stella wanted to look at a sword. It was a wedding present. Made in Orange. One of the events in the last run was a Betrothal Party for Princess Volga and this guy from Orange. Might be related to the people selling swords plot? Not like the Stabby Dagger of Stabbing, because that had active magic on it. Stella thinks it was like a sword at the Plains of Gedden, and another she saw somewhere but can't place.

Princess Volga blows off the delegation of Stella, Managaratha, and Scout concerned about the sword. She'll look into it and if she finds reason to be concerned, she may get back in touch with them.

==Coronation Day==

[Phoenix 30]

The Coronation mostly goes off without incident. Wendy gets oaths of loyalty from all of the other contenders, and from her mother. Not from all of her siblings. Violet puts a DI or two of Blessing into the ritual, not a schtick of You Are Queen. Then there’s a half hour break, for snacks, and then the Transfer of Office happens. Princess Volga and her fiance say that Stella can come tomorrow to look at the sword.

Karen gets up to conduct the Transfer of Office. Many of the people are the same, although it’s fewer Nobles, and there are also some Captains of Mercenary groups that give loyalty. The Lord Captain Commander’s Men don’t, but some paladins that serve in her armies do. (Karen does not; Violet does not.) Karen doesn’t spend any DI on the ritual.

Scout keeps an eye on DI; Karen, Violet, and Greg (Nameless) are the three biggest priests; 12 DI give or take. Earnest has 8 or 9. Everyone else is smaller than the priests in the party.

Gale keeps an eye on the High Priest of the Nameless - he seems to be rolling his eyes about as much as Vidan does in the Transfer of Office, but he is not doing anything obviously suspicious.

Gale flirts at the party and meets a charming young man who does not get mugged overnight when she goes home with him. ([[Frederick]])

==Visiting the Sword==

[Salamander 1]

The party takes up Volga's offer to look at the sword, and Investigates it:
* Scout thinks it was probably made with Magic, but it’s a sword now.
* Stella thinks something needs fixing about it, but she still can't put her finger on it.
* Gale thinks it’s a nice sword, but thinks something with Battle might help. So she wilds up a Battle diagnostic spell for 8s that might help figure out what’s going on, and she goes into a Frenzy while attacking the target dummy. Scout thinks she’s been hit harder with the Battle magic consequence than she should have been, which shouldn’t have been an issue…

Stella throws her DI at it. That sword is like a sword made in the Broken Lands. It is trying to Break people. You’d have to wield the sword for a year or more before it had that effect. Fixing things by Cleansing would probably do it.

Stella explains, but won’t be able to fix it until tomorrow.

Diomarche remembers that a sergeant in the [[Keep in the Broken Lands]] run wondered how Queen Ionia of Victoria got so many berserkers. Stella thinks Captain Jones at the Paladins’ camp at the Plains of Gedden had one. And maybe others?

Vidan visits and chats with Greg - what was up with the whole Rush ceremony? Is that how things are here? Greg thinks that is Absolutely Disgraceful, and is willing to be drawn out more than Violet was. The Church of Rush is totally overstepping its bounds - rituals for the fallen, rituals for the new ruler. They might not have stepped on Orellian's toes yet, but they have priests of logistics that are kind of Jordian...

Are people happy with this? He doesn't think so - some people think things should be different, others think this is just how they are, but nobody *likes* it specifically. Vidan says, let me know if you figure out anything to do - Greg suggests that maybe when [[Middlesea]] gets loose something will happen.

Thinking about it, Vidan thinks that the Twins are pretty split now too. Day and Night don't talk to each other, and Balance is in the Bureaucracy and not anywhere else.

Nesh says that they’ll be at Middlesea when it comes down, is there someone they should be looking for? The priest of Jord who went with [[Princess Friga]] is named [[Dora]], and [[Westrack]] is a priest of the Nameless from [[Victoria]].

[Salamander 2]

[[Vidan]] gets [[Earnest]] and ? to be convinced about the strange non-Broken swords. Stella purifies it (9 successes 8 DI blows it away).

Diomarche passes this along to [[Bran]] via a previously set up spell.

Time to do the ritual. After some tossing different names around, we settle on Conclave Free Rangers as the name, to suggest alliance / against-the-Breaker / freedom / scouting.

It's 8 successes rather than 7...

The room fades away, we're on a featureless plain, someone near Scout says "Incoming!", and...

TO BE CONTINUED

== Loot ==
* 5 EPs
* 7 SPs

Coronation and Investigation

2024-02-17T04:10:15Z

Tirinian: /* Coronation Day */

==Setting the Stage==
[Phoenix 28]
Scout phases in. The gang’s all here! That’s strange. But since everyone is here, Vidan explains the mechanic for the "forming the party, Purple style" ritual, but we cannot do it today because while everyone is here, not everyone has a spare EP.

# First Vidan (with help from Managaratha) will use purple magic to create a place outside of time and space where rules and names can be changed.
# Everyone will pledge their loyalty to the Conclave Freerangers.
# Everyone will pledge their loyalty to the Conclave Freerangers in Truespeech.
# Everyone spends an EP to build the structure for future group shticks.

Vidan cautions that speaking the oath in Truespeech might reveal/assert one’s “true designator” if you’re not careful. There is some discussion about what that means– if someone tries to assert that they are They Who Shall Be King, will it happen? Only if that’s true. Hmm.

Scout tries to get caught up on what happened.

Vidan goes to talk to [[Violet]] regarding security details for Wendy’s coronation. One of the details under discussion is whether it will be in the Temple or at the Castle. Security concerns are different in each location. What is Vidan worried about, that might factor into discussions with [[Mary]].

Vidan thinks the other Houses are sufficiently in line, so that they’re not so much the problem, but slith attacks and Breaker priests that got away are more concerning. Violet agrees that none of the siblings are a serious concern. Vidan thinks that there might be more issues with the party in the Temple? But maybe not, this whole country is Holy to Rush. Though the alarms would have to be dealt with.

Maybe Vidan should talk to the Castellan about security? Or just talk to Mary. A first Succession is a notable event, and fragile in a way that a second Succession won’t be. Violet thinks she doesn’t need bonus DI for the Coronation– a point or two for a blessing should be sufficient.

([[Greg]] is the priest of the Nameless that we are suspicious might be a Broken priest.)

For reasons unclear to the party, hearing this inspires Managaratha to recall some memories, and mumbles them aloud. For reasons more clear to the party, they are somewhat hard to follow:

* Managaratha remembers that Mage Marek, who is Blue, was talking to a Sylph. “Of course I’ve been told Veracci doesn’t have any magic”

* “Of course my Lady can help with that, Victor…” She has a favor to ask in return, she wants to track down a Saurien who left Jabar 25 years ago, a woman.

* A priest of the Goddess, Ghadara: "it would be difficult to arrange Blessings for the Empire." Minister Cho discusses providing purple magic assistance in exchange for crop blessings.

Vidan goes to visit Mary. He’s interested in helping prepare the Coronation security arrangements, and wants to ensure access to his team. Mary is happy to provide invitations to the Coronation, but is less happy with a blanket “you can always be in Wendy’s presence”. But she will have Vidan talk to the captain of the Guard. They have taken some steps against assassins since the King’s death.

Mary is curious if our group or any of its members feel themselves authorized to make deals under the aegis of the Conclave. Despite the unfortunate occurrence at the Conclave, the goals are still important. Vidan says we’re probably leaving after the Coronation. (Gale mutters that no one remembers we’re supposed to be creating alliances between countries and the merfolk.)

Vidan brings Diomarche and Managaratha to talk to the captain of the guard, [[Sebastian]]. He doesn’t go into detail but is happy to have our insight. Vidan allows as we have some... revelatory abilities that could be useful. A priest of the Goddess, for instance, who can see things that need fixing. Sebastian will keep that in mind. He hopes the Coronation will be at the Castle, as then both the Coronation and Transfer of Office will occur– the high priest of Rush will be transferring the Generalship to Her Majesty. The Temples have their own security, if that’s where the coronation happens. Vidan is offended by the "transfer of the Generalship" part - that's not appropriate for a kid!

Diomarche goes to talk to [[Earnest]] at the Temple of Rush, to get more information about the Generalship versus the Kingship, and how that works elsewhere. In Darstan, she is the General, and he is the Ruler. But Iona and Richard III are both General and Ruler of their Kingdoms.

Diomarche briefs Earnest that there are potential threats; Earnest hopes the Confirmation will occur in the Temple, where they can provide the most security. [[Karen]] will be conducting the ceremony/ritual. He would be surprised if anyone makes a frontal assault on either ceremony. Another assassin is certainly a possibility, and one they are less well... assassins are less their area of expertise, than a more frontal assault. But they will do what they can. Diomarche is also concerned about a Broken priest in the area; Earnest hadn’t heard about that. What’s his approximate confidence level that there is such a person? Hmm. Gale had had an Unreality Dream about adventures; an unlikely but possible option involved a Broken priest, but there was also something in the Succession mechanic, maybe?

The coronation is Phoenix 30, two days from now.

[Phoenix 29]

Stella will go see what needs fixing at the castle; the rest of the group comes with. 9 successes, 8 DI tells her: no holes, but things could get past their security. The country turn draw went well for the Slith, they drew Wheel of Fortune, Berana drew 7 or 8 of Rods, but there’s not much to be done about that. We’re not going to buff the Country-level defenses any time soon. But on the other hand the Goddess thinks that’s not a terrible use of Slith country moves. The castle can probably see anyone who is 10 or 12 successes hidden. It would take a reasonable-sized army unit to beat them. They’re not a big army unit, but they could probably hold off long enough to get reinforcements from the Rushians or the Town Guard or something. And there’s no attacking them as an army unit in any sort of stealthy way. Their biggest vulnerability is potential loyalty issues to one of the other candidates. That’s not currently a thing that can really be fixed much; it’s in about as good shape as it could be, but it could deteriorate and requires monitoring. That’s more of a long-term issue for the country. She won, she’ll be Queen with a Regent, but the rest of them have not necessarily given up. Maybe they want the Generalship, maybe they want something else to build their own power. Or maybe they think they’ll be King/Queen again, if something happened. And there are definitely people in the Guard who might get pushed to help one way or the other. So building up personal loyalty in the Guard to Mary and Wendy would be a solid long-term project. But it’s not necessary between now and the Coronation. You could try to work it into the Coronation or Transfer of Power, some more direct oaths from the Guards to those people, maybe as a group? That could help; it’s unlikely to be a huge thing one way or the other. That’s the single biggest threat area, and one that the Captain of the Guard is probably not going to be happy about.

Gale thinks spinning that as "the oaths of the Guard are important" is the way to sell it, rather than "the Guard could have loyalty issues".

Vidan goes to talk to Violet again about his PERSONAL PLOT. He’s from the Empire, so he’s unused to the rituals here. (She is curious about that.) What is her take on the whole Transfer of Generalship thing? What’s the deal? Violet is careful when she answers; it’s a fairly well established custom in Red, at this point. The temples of Rush and the Five are separate, he will have noticed. Sometimes the priests of Rush fail to remember that Rush is Navere’s General, not The General. It is a thing one gets used to eventually. There is of course a shrine to Rush in the Temple of the Five, but it is rarely visited. Vidan allows as to how he would be interested in speaking more of this, if she is interested. She clearly has something else she considered telling him, but rolled well enough to not reveal it, but does say that some do take longer to come to the understanding than others. Vidan does mention his powers of Ecumenicity.

Gale, still worrying about the high priest of the Nameless, tries to figure out where he lives. All four of the high priests (not Rush) live in the Temple of the Five. We clarify that Broken Priests are orcs and Bent Priests are human. Bent priests are the hard ones to find. The priest of the Nameless is probably not a Broken priest.

Nesh scavenges. Scout scouts the Castle, looking for Broken priests or other people other casing the joint. The guards notice him casing the joint, but don’t do anything beyond talk to the Captain and keep an eye on them. Scout does notice there’s a Ritual Room in the top of that Tower. Scout also pokes about for elves– there aren’t any Green ex-pats, but there’s a Troll and a few sea creature Pooka, etc. who had come through the Rainbow Isles. They’ve heard of Gale. The Troll is a freelance bodyguard, born and bred in Berana. There is a Mage with Yellow as well as Red that can be hired, but they’re expensive ([[Liza]]).

Vidan asks the Priest of Orellian about ritual rooms– Olanson’s Red mage probably had a space in the castle. It wouldn’t be tuned for Purple– he doesn’t really know anything about Purple– but that’s probably the best shot in the city. There’s a room tuned for holy rituals in the Temple; there are a few other mages in town that might have such a thing, but you’d probably have to do them a favor.

Stella wanted to look at a sword. It was a wedding present. Made in Orange. One of the events in the last run was a Betrothal Party for Princess Volga and this guy from Orange. Might be related to the people selling swords plot? Not like the Stabby Dagger of Stabbing, because that had active magic on it. Stella thinks it was like a sword at the Plains of Gedden, and another she saw somewhere but can't place.

Princess Volga blows off the delegation of Stella, Managaratha, and Scout concerned about the sword. She'll look into it and if she finds reason to be concerned, she may get back in touch with them.

==Coronation Day==

[Phoenix 30]

The Coronation mostly goes off without incident. Wendy gets oaths of loyalty from all of the other contenders, and from her mother. Not from all of her siblings. Violet puts a DI or two of Blessing into the ritual, not a schtick of You Are Queen. Then there’s a half hour break, for snacks, and then the Transfer of Office happens. Princess Volga and her fiance say that Stella can come tomorrow to look at the sword.

Karen gets up to conduct the Transfer of Office. Many of the people are the same, although it’s fewer Nobles, and there are also some Captains of Mercenary groups that give loyalty. The Lord Captain Commander’s Men don’t, but some paladins that serve in her armies do. (Karen does not; Violet does not.) Karen doesn’t spend any DI on the ritual.

Scout keeps an eye on DI; Karen, Violet, and Greg (Nameless) are the three biggest priests; 12 DI give or take. Earnest has 8 or 9. Everyone else is smaller than the priests in the party.

Gale keeps an eye on the High Priest of the Nameless - he seems to be rolling his eyes about as much as Vidan does in the Transfer of Office, but he is not doing anything obviously suspicious.

Gale flirts at the party and meets a charming young man who does not get mugged overnight when she goes home with him. ([[Frederick]])

==Visiting the Sword==

The party takes up Volga's offer to look at the sword, and Investigates it:
* Scout thinks it was probably made with Magic, but it’s a sword now.
* Stella thinks something needs fixing about it, but she still can't put her finger on it.
* Gale thinks it’s a nice sword, but thinks something with Battle might help. So she wilds up a Battle diagnostic spell for 8s that might help figure out what’s going on, and she goes into a Frenzy while attacking the target dummy. Scout thinks she’s been hit harder with the Battle magic consequence than she should have been, which shouldn’t have been an issue…

Stella throws her DI at it. That sword is like a sword made in the Broken Lands. It is trying to Break people. You’d have to wield the sword for a year or more before it had that effect. Fixing things by Cleansing would probably do it.

Stella explains, but won’t be able to fix it until tomorrow.

Diomarche remembers that a sergeant in the [[Keep in the Broken Lands]] run wondered how Queen Ionia of Victoria got so many berserkers. Stella thinks Captain Jones at the Paladins’ camp at the Plains of Gedden had one. And maybe others?

Vidan visits and chats with Greg - what was up with the whole Rush ceremony? Is that how things are here? Greg thinks that as Absolutely Disgraceful, and is willing to be drawn out more than Violet was. The Church of Rush is totally overstepping its bounds - rituals for the fallen, rituals for the new ruler. They might not have stepped on Orellian's toes yet, but they have priests of logistics that are kind of Jordian...

Are people happy with this? He doesn't think so - some people think things should be different, others think this is just how they are, but nobody *likes* it specifically. Vidan says, let me know if you figure out anything to do - Greg suggests that maybe when [[Middlesea]] gets loose something will happen.

Thinking about it, Vidan thinks that the Twins are pretty split now too. Day and Night don't talk to each other, and Balance is in the Bureaucracy and not anywhere else.

Nesh says that they’ll be at Middlesea when it comes down, is there someone they should be looking for? The priest of Jord who went with [[Princess Friga]] is named [[Dora]], and [[Westrack]] is a priest of the Nameless from [[Victoria]].

[[Vidan]] gets [[Earnest]] and ? to be convinced about the strange non-Broken swords. Stella purifies it (9 successes 8 DI blows it away).

Diomarche passes this along to [[Bran]] via a previously set up spell.

Time to do the ritual. After some tossing different names around, we settle on Conclave Free Rangers as the name, to suggest alliance / against-the-Breaker / freedom / scouting.

It's 8 successes rather than 7...

The room fades away, we're on a featureless plain, someone near Scout says "Incoming!", and...

TO BE CONTINUED

== Loot ==
* 5 EPs
* 7 SPs

Coronation and Investigation

2024-02-17T04:08:27Z

Tirinian: /* Setting the Stage */

==Setting the Stage==
[Phoenix 28]
Scout phases in. The gang’s all here! That’s strange. But since everyone is here, Vidan explains the mechanic for the "forming the party, Purple style" ritual, but we cannot do it today because while everyone is here, not everyone has a spare EP.

# First Vidan (with help from Managaratha) will use purple magic to create a place outside of time and space where rules and names can be changed.
# Everyone will pledge their loyalty to the Conclave Freerangers.
# Everyone will pledge their loyalty to the Conclave Freerangers in Truespeech.
# Everyone spends an EP to build the structure for future group shticks.

Vidan cautions that speaking the oath in Truespeech might reveal/assert one’s “true designator” if you’re not careful. There is some discussion about what that means– if someone tries to assert that they are They Who Shall Be King, will it happen? Only if that’s true. Hmm.

Scout tries to get caught up on what happened.

Vidan goes to talk to [[Violet]] regarding security details for Wendy’s coronation. One of the details under discussion is whether it will be in the Temple or at the Castle. Security concerns are different in each location. What is Vidan worried about, that might factor into discussions with [[Mary]].

Vidan thinks the other Houses are sufficiently in line, so that they’re not so much the problem, but slith attacks and Breaker priests that got away are more concerning. Violet agrees that none of the siblings are a serious concern. Vidan thinks that there might be more issues with the party in the Temple? But maybe not, this whole country is Holy to Rush. Though the alarms would have to be dealt with.

Maybe Vidan should talk to the Castellan about security? Or just talk to Mary. A first Succession is a notable event, and fragile in a way that a second Succession won’t be. Violet thinks she doesn’t need bonus DI for the Coronation– a point or two for a blessing should be sufficient.

([[Greg]] is the priest of the Nameless that we are suspicious might be a Broken priest.)

For reasons unclear to the party, hearing this inspires Managaratha to recall some memories, and mumbles them aloud. For reasons more clear to the party, they are somewhat hard to follow:

* Managaratha remembers that Mage Marek, who is Blue, was talking to a Sylph. “Of course I’ve been told Veracci doesn’t have any magic”

* “Of course my Lady can help with that, Victor…” She has a favor to ask in return, she wants to track down a Saurien who left Jabar 25 years ago, a woman.

* A priest of the Goddess, Ghadara: "it would be difficult to arrange Blessings for the Empire." Minister Cho discusses providing purple magic assistance in exchange for crop blessings.

Vidan goes to visit Mary. He’s interested in helping prepare the Coronation security arrangements, and wants to ensure access to his team. Mary is happy to provide invitations to the Coronation, but is less happy with a blanket “you can always be in Wendy’s presence”. But she will have Vidan talk to the captain of the Guard. They have taken some steps against assassins since the King’s death.

Mary is curious if our group or any of its members feel themselves authorized to make deals under the aegis of the Conclave. Despite the unfortunate occurrence at the Conclave, the goals are still important. Vidan says we’re probably leaving after the Coronation. (Gale mutters that no one remembers we’re supposed to be creating alliances between countries and the merfolk.)

Vidan brings Diomarche and Managaratha to talk to the captain of the guard, [[Sebastian]]. He doesn’t go into detail but is happy to have our insight. Vidan allows as we have some... revelatory abilities that could be useful. A priest of the Goddess, for instance, who can see things that need fixing. Sebastian will keep that in mind. He hopes the Coronation will be at the Castle, as then both the Coronation and Transfer of Office will occur– the high priest of Rush will be transferring the Generalship to Her Majesty. The Temples have their own security, if that’s where the coronation happens. Vidan is offended by the "transfer of the Generalship" part - that's not appropriate for a kid!

Diomarche goes to talk to [[Earnest]] at the Temple of Rush, to get more information about the Generalship versus the Kingship, and how that works elsewhere. In Darstan, she is the General, and he is the Ruler. But Iona and Richard III are both General and Ruler of their Kingdoms.

Diomarche briefs Earnest that there are potential threats; Earnest hopes the Confirmation will occur in the Temple, where they can provide the most security. [[Karen]] will be conducting the ceremony/ritual. He would be surprised if anyone makes a frontal assault on either ceremony. Another assassin is certainly a possibility, and one they are less well... assassins are less their area of expertise, than a more frontal assault. But they will do what they can. Diomarche is also concerned about a Broken priest in the area; Earnest hadn’t heard about that. What’s his approximate confidence level that there is such a person? Hmm. Gale had had an Unreality Dream about adventures; an unlikely but possible option involved a Broken priest, but there was also something in the Succession mechanic, maybe?

The coronation is Phoenix 30, two days from now.

[Phoenix 29]

Stella will go see what needs fixing at the castle; the rest of the group comes with. 9 successes, 8 DI tells her: no holes, but things could get past their security. The country turn draw went well for the Slith, they drew Wheel of Fortune, Berana drew 7 or 8 of Rods, but there’s not much to be done about that. We’re not going to buff the Country-level defenses any time soon. But on the other hand the Goddess thinks that’s not a terrible use of Slith country moves. The castle can probably see anyone who is 10 or 12 successes hidden. It would take a reasonable-sized army unit to beat them. They’re not a big army unit, but they could probably hold off long enough to get reinforcements from the Rushians or the Town Guard or something. And there’s no attacking them as an army unit in any sort of stealthy way. Their biggest vulnerability is potential loyalty issues to one of the other candidates. That’s not currently a thing that can really be fixed much; it’s in about as good shape as it could be, but it could deteriorate and requires monitoring. That’s more of a long-term issue for the country. She won, she’ll be Queen with a Regent, but the rest of them have not necessarily given up. Maybe they want the Generalship, maybe they want something else to build their own power. Or maybe they think they’ll be King/Queen again, if something happened. And there are definitely people in the Guard who might get pushed to help one way or the other. So building up personal loyalty in the Guard to Mary and Wendy would be a solid long-term project. But it’s not necessary between now and the Coronation. You could try to work it into the Coronation or Transfer of Power, some more direct oaths from the Guards to those people, maybe as a group? That could help; it’s unlikely to be a huge thing one way or the other. That’s the single biggest threat area, and one that the Captain of the Guard is probably not going to be happy about.

Gale thinks spinning that as "the oaths of the Guard are important" is the way to sell it, rather than "the Guard could have loyalty issues".

Vidan goes to talk to Violet again about his PERSONAL PLOT. He’s from the Empire, so he’s unused to the rituals here. (She is curious about that.) What is her take on the whole Transfer of Generalship thing? What’s the deal? Violet is careful when she answers; it’s a fairly well established custom in Red, at this point. The temples of Rush and the Five are separate, he will have noticed. Sometimes the priests of Rush fail to remember that Rush is Navere’s General, not The General. It is a thing one gets used to eventually. There is of course a shrine to Rush in the Temple of the Five, but it is rarely visited. Vidan allows as to how he would be interested in speaking more of this, if she is interested. She clearly has something else she considered telling him, but rolled well enough to not reveal it, but does say that some do take longer to come to the understanding than others. Vidan does mention his powers of Ecumenicity.

Gale, still worrying about the high priest of the Nameless, tries to figure out where he lives. All four of the high priests (not Rush) live in the Temple of the Five. We clarify that Broken Priests are orcs and Bent Priests are human. Bent priests are the hard ones to find. The priest of the Nameless is probably not a Broken priest.

Nesh scavenges. Scout scouts the Castle, looking for Broken priests or other people other casing the joint. The guards notice him casing the joint, but don’t do anything beyond talk to the Captain and keep an eye on them. Scout does notice there’s a Ritual Room in the top of that Tower. Scout also pokes about for elves– there aren’t any Green ex-pats, but there’s a Troll and a few sea creature Pooka, etc. who had come through the Rainbow Isles. They’ve heard of Gale. The Troll is a freelance bodyguard, born and bred in Berana. There is a Mage with Yellow as well as Red that can be hired, but they’re expensive ([[Liza]]).

Vidan asks the Priest of Orellian about ritual rooms– Olanson’s Red mage probably had a space in the castle. It wouldn’t be tuned for Purple– he doesn’t really know anything about Purple– but that’s probably the best shot in the city. There’s a room tuned for holy rituals in the Temple; there are a few other mages in town that might have such a thing, but you’d probably have to do them a favor.

Stella wanted to look at a sword. It was a wedding present. Made in Orange. One of the events in the last run was a Betrothal Party for Princess Volga and this guy from Orange. Might be related to the people selling swords plot? Not like the Stabby Dagger of Stabbing, because that had active magic on it. Stella thinks it was like a sword at the Plains of Gedden, and another she saw somewhere but can't place.

Princess Volga blows off the delegation of Stella, Managaratha, and Scout concerned about the sword. She'll look into it and if she finds reason to be concerned, she may get back in touch with them.

==Coronation Day==

The Coronation mostly goes off without incident. Wendy gets oaths of loyalty from all of the other contenders, and from her mother. Not from all of her siblings. Violet puts a DI or two of Blessing into the ritual, not a schtick of You Are Queen. Then there’s a half hour break, for snacks, and then the Transfer of Office happens. Princess Volga and her fiance say that Stella can come tomorrow to look at the sword.

Karen gets up to conduct the Transfer of Office. Many of the people are the same, although it’s fewer Nobles, and there are also some Captains of Mercenary groups that give loyalty. The Lord Captain Commander’s Men don’t, but some paladins that serve in her armies do. (Karen does not; Violet does not.) Karen doesn’t spend any DI on the ritual.

Scout keeps an eye on DI; Karen, Violet, and Greg (Nameless) are the three biggest priests; 12 DI give or take. Earnest has 8 or 9. Everyone else is smaller than the priests in the party.

Gale keeps an eye on the High Priest of the Nameless - he seems to be rolling his eyes about as much as Vidan does in the Transfer of Office, but he is not doing anything obviously suspicious.

Gale flirts at the party and meets a charming young man who does not get mugged overnight when she goes home with him. ([[Frederick]])

==Visiting the Sword==

The party takes up Volga's offer to look at the sword, and Investigates it:
* Scout thinks it was probably made with Magic, but it’s a sword now.
* Stella thinks something needs fixing about it, but she still can't put her finger on it.
* Gale thinks it’s a nice sword, but thinks something with Battle might help. So she wilds up a Battle diagnostic spell for 8s that might help figure out what’s going on, and she goes into a Frenzy while attacking the target dummy. Scout thinks she’s been hit harder with the Battle magic consequence than she should have been, which shouldn’t have been an issue…

Stella throws her DI at it. That sword is like a sword made in the Broken Lands. It is trying to Break people. You’d have to wield the sword for a year or more before it had that effect. Fixing things by Cleansing would probably do it.

Stella explains, but won’t be able to fix it until tomorrow.

Diomarche remembers that a sergeant in the [[Keep in the Broken Lands]] run wondered how Queen Ionia of Victoria got so many berserkers. Stella thinks Captain Jones at the Paladins’ camp at the Plains of Gedden had one. And maybe others?

Vidan visits and chats with Greg - what was up with the whole Rush ceremony? Is that how things are here? Greg thinks that as Absolutely Disgraceful, and is willing to be drawn out more than Violet was. The Church of Rush is totally overstepping its bounds - rituals for the fallen, rituals for the new ruler. They might not have stepped on Orellian's toes yet, but they have priests of logistics that are kind of Jordian...

Are people happy with this? He doesn't think so - some people think things should be different, others think this is just how they are, but nobody *likes* it specifically. Vidan says, let me know if you figure out anything to do - Greg suggests that maybe when [[Middlesea]] gets loose something will happen.

Thinking about it, Vidan thinks that the Twins are pretty split now too. Day and Night don't talk to each other, and Balance is in the Bureaucracy and not anywhere else.

Nesh says that they’ll be at Middlesea when it comes down, is there someone they should be looking for? The priest of Jord who went with [[Princess Friga]] is named [[Dora]], and [[Westrack]] is a priest of the Nameless from [[Victoria]].

[[Vidan]] gets [[Earnest]] and ? to be convinced about the strange non-Broken swords. Stella purifies it (9 successes 8 DI blows it away).

Diomarche passes this along to [[Bran]] via a previously set up spell.

Time to do the ritual. After some tossing different names around, we settle on Conclave Free Rangers as the name, to suggest alliance / against-the-Breaker / freedom / scouting.

It's 8 successes rather than 7...

The room fades away, we're on a featureless plain, someone near Scout says "Incoming!", and...

TO BE CONTINUED

== Loot ==
* 5 EPs
* 7 SPs

Bear and Frog

2024-02-17T03:54:39Z

Tirinian:

[Still evening Phoenix 3]

We begin the run standing over the post-exploded (but still identifiable) body of Marsha (except Nesh who is still with Thistle in Marsha's rooms).

Diomarche could inform the Rush temple. There's less hue and cry than we would expect. He heads that way at a fast canter. A crowd (but not guards) starts to gather. Vidan tells everyone to move along.

Nesh stays hidden on the roof at Marsha's, and spots Joseph showing up. Nesh goes down to talk to him (not yet knowing she is dead or Broken). "You have anything to say for yourself?" "She stole something she *really* shouldn't have." "That is not an acceptable reason to take advantage of the god's wishes." "I suspect I'm working for a different god...?" Nesh clarifies: she took the Duchess's signet ring. Hmm. He goes off in the direction Nesh says Marsha went.

A guy wanders up and gets briefed by the (intentionally remaining) crowd. (Probably Joseph, but we don't recognize him).

Back at the dead body, the priest of Rush shows up. He says "I'll take care of it" and meets the guy's eyes.

We walk back by the scene of the crime and collect Nesh. Vidan writes a report, clearly blaming Marsha and dropping hints about the unnamed confidential sources who recovered the ring being hopeful of the Duchess's generosity.

Vidan thinks we are being slotted into the "can be usefully hired" category rather than a "friend/ally" category. Vidan tries to slant it into "heroes against the breaker" rather than "mercenaries" but we also aren't Darstan-in-particular-against-King-Richard allies.

We find Thistle at dinnertime, and hand over the (about two loot) reward.

Joseph starts to steal Nesh, which wakes Vidan (but not Managaratha).
"Joseph, priest of Jord, meet Vidan, priest of Navere."
"That explains the midnight meeting."

You have offended Jord's rules in service of a cause I admit was worthy. I am pleased to see that has been revealed and dealt with. I would recommend that you do not attempt to make contact with the underworld in the rest of Red, because they will be aware of the actions you have taken.

Vidan: rather than effective communal expulsion, is there some rite or trial to cleanse the stain?

If he chooses to petition for such a thing, he might be able to. But it would require a commitment that I think he is unwilling to make at this time. He approached us with the posture of one who wished to contract for a time - he would have to follow through on that request. Nesh offers to carry things around, but that isn't sufficient.

If there is a Breaker-related problem with the underworld in Red, should Nesh bring it to his door? Certainly.

Anyway, Nesh apologizes for stepping on the underworld's toes and will try to avoid that in future. No official retribution. (Probably not friends of Marsha planning to retaliate unless they are also Bent).

Vidan puts an ecumenical blessing on him for following his organization's rules.

We otherwise make it to morning.

[Phoenix 4]

Off to the [[Plains of Geddon]]!
We boat northward. There are some weird birds. One starts swooping in - hey, that's not a bird. That's a centaur that's half pegasus instead of half horse. Huh.

"Managaratha, you old rascal! This close and you didn't stop to say hi?" (He also has a tiny horn). He says there was a note left in his house. He introduces himself as Christafenios and invites everyone to tea. We follow him to his house, which is not far from the road between Darstan and the Plains.

He has a nice centaur-flavored house, and a monkey who makes us tea.

Eventually Vidan asks about the note.

<blockquote>
All right. Things should have started by now, and that means that hopefully you saved the queen in Green and you might have met [[Lisetera]] by now. She's exciting. You will have to go with her eventually, but probably not first. If you haven't met her yet, probably soon - middle of Phoenix at the latest. The Slith are going to start moving shortly. Those are the wars - the Slith and the orcs. Getting some word to the merfolk and trying to coordinate them with at least Melmane is on the agenda. Might be before Lisetera, maybe after. They're selling the swords - watch that. And if you didn't deal with the ring, go to Darstan.
</blockquote>

"So, I have been farther forward and expected myself to be fragged, but not as fragged as I am. (Middlesea is super-fraggy). Good good."

"Oh, <i>worse</i> than precog." -Vidan

(Slith are established in the Broken Seas, which stretch to al Jabar. There are probably fewer than four Slith countries underwater, and they've been pushed north, since Original Comet. Also there's a merfolk country underwater.)

He's still looking for a unicorn. (that's an elder race, like dragons). They can probably heal red magic damage.

We stop at an inn for the night.

[Phoenix 5]

Things seem more defensive and less prosperous than traveling across Orange. (Orange is Italian renaissance, and more vulnerable to sacking by Goths; this is medieval Europe.

Another uneventful day of sailing, another inn.

Stella notices: that wall was just repaired yesterday. The innkeeper reassures her - surely no more bears will be back. There was the flying bear, and the giant bear came through the wall. Something hit the bears in the area and they all got a little weird. Stella goes off to heal people who were hurt in the bear attack. (Kathy got badly mauled).

There are three: the flying bear, the sharp bear, and the giant bear. These are more aggressive than normal bears, too.

Kathy hasn't really heard of the Three-Faced Goddess, but grudgingly says thank you.

We follow the giant bear tracks backwards. We find a cave. No bears in residence, though there are feathers.

We are heading back to the village as the owlbear jumps us.

We chop the owl bear a while - then it gets big and roars and stands up. Navere thinks it might be time to run. Stella puts the giant bear in time-out and Gale coordinates some attacks, so we're still making progress.

Vidan dubs Nesh "Bearslayer". We drag it back into town. "Bear's Head Inn" gets true named by Vidan. (Marta and Jack are the innkeepers).

[Phoenix 6]

A little more flying, and then the Plains.

Diomarch briefs the Lord Commander, including that "the kid" is being hunted by cataurs.

After a bit, someone comes to take Nesh away for questions about his past and the sword. (Nesh remembers that a Blue saurian said he probably couldn't take the sword away).

Vidan walks around the camp - the non-Paladin side is more temporary, and there is some dismissiveness towards a priest of Navere, though no hostility,

Gale wanders around the camp. The inner section is strangely non-walled, but clearly aware of Gale scoping things out. Are there sad/disgruntled people who didn't get their petition heard? Those could be adventures! One man says he was looking for help for his missing (17yo) daughter who left home two weeks ago and has not come back. His house is between King Richard's Lands and Berana. Stella thinks that what needs fixing is that his daughter got hit with a red spell - she is a frog in a stream near her house, and a noble has to kiss her. Hmm.

Diomarch gets a six-day pass. We get there in four without anything. Gale and Diomarche do not successfully kiss the frog, but Nesh turns her back into a girl. He starts to get an existential crisis, but then decides it was his saurian resistance.

[Phoenix 12] Vidan just manages to get us back in time after some boat travel to get closer.

== Loot ==
* 5 EPs
* 5 SPs

Muddle in Middlesea

2024-02-03T04:07:46Z

Tirinian: /* From the visit with Alexa: */

A central location for the information we've collected on what happened at the Convocation, in the first run, and what the current status inside the time halt is.

Things we know so far (with information source listed if possible):

==Before It Went Awry==
* Pirate Queen Cara, her first mage Federico, William (maybe an organizer), other pirates like Gale, and servants like Nesh, showed up a few days early before the Conclave started. (Nesh and other servants were there before Cara/Federico/Gale arrived)
* Managaratha was at the Blue table, and chatted with a diplomat named Rickard from Melmane, also General Petrov and Mage Marek. (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
* Dinner was:
**A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
**30-40 from Orange including servants (and some Saurians)
**Similar from Purple and Yellow
**Only about 8 from Blue, including [[Mage Marek]] and one Saurian, [[General Petrov]].
**Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.

* Post Dinner, pre-Attack
** [[Luigi]] says [[Cult of Alan]] would be happy to see Managaratha again (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Federico spoke with Managaratha.
*** Managaratha spent two years before the Conclave strongly lobbying for all zones to be represented.
**** Federico expected Managaratha to tell him why.
*** Managaratha is more fragged than Federico has ever seen him.
*** Vidan was fragged, even worse than Managaratha.
**** Well, something closely akin to fragged, anyway.
** Their Majesty's representatives went to talk to the Pirate Queen's Table (Furoosh) and Orange (Silenalania). Silenalania chatted with all the Guild Masters, and the Saurien, and was surreptitiously passed notes from three of them, indicating a location and time: "South Stairs, 10pm", "Stables, 11:30", "Library, 11pm".

===The Purple Dinner===
====[[Ministries of Empire|Ministers]] (4th rank)====
*Win Dae (she/her) - Minister of Repercussions
*Han Cho - Minister of Grain
*Kachest - Minister of Naval Trade
*Az Julan - Minister of Lions
*Foran Zakar - Minister of Redactions
*Li Karest - Minister of the Borders
*Jun Chang - Minister of Fortune

====Advisors and Liaisons====
*Za - Lord of Light, Priest of Tam
*Vesper - the Silent One, Priest of Tem
*Vidan - Priest of Navere
*Edev Guran - Representative of the Head Stallion

====Others====
*3rd rank sub-minister of State / Foreign Affairs
*3rd rank sub-minister of War
*12-15 other 3rd rank bureaucrats, all mooks.
*An assortment of servants, etc.

===The Orange Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Guildmaster Lady Isabella Horenth from Vani
* Guildmaster Lady Marianna from Rin'yan
* Guildmaster Stefan - priest of Jord from Eaglofto
* Journeyman Victor - Saurian from Kor

==== Priests ====
* Stella - priestess of the Goddess from Rin'yan
* Luigi - Cult of Alan member from Rin'yan
* Astrid - priest of Rush from Vani
* Alfonz - priest of Tem from Vani
* Georgi - Saurian, itinerant priest of Tam

===The Yellow Dinner===
====The principal delegates====
* Prince Vishnarani
* Lady Hirana (Unreality Mage)
* Lord Vesalen (the guard)

====Others====
* Serafina and her centaurs
* Three priests
* A bunch of merchants

===The Green Dinner===
==== The Forest ====
* Astros Culleen (High Elf, head of the delegation)
* Vrok StoneSkin (Troll, bodyguard)
* Westly (Fox Pooka)
* Scout (Wild Elf, just this guy)
* Custard (Halfling, Astros' valet) - actually a redcap
* Cream (Halfling, Astros' cook) - actually a redcap

==== The Plains ====
* Furoosh (Sluagh, related to Their Majesty somehow)
* Silenalania (High Elf) - bad guy, stole Middlesea
* Sunbeam (Sylph, Silenalania's lady maid)

The status relationship between Furoosh and Silenalania is unclear; they could be jointly leading the delegation.

==== The Mountain ====
* Flint (Dwarf. Very Dwarfy.)

===The Pirate Captain Dinner===
====Principal Captains====
* Cara, Queen of the Pirates (Awesome!)
* Federico (the First Mage)
* Captain Jane (most adventurous of the greater Captains)
* Captain Brightwall, captain of the Silver Gull (worried about military matters)
* Captain Drake (generally an ass and who made him Captain anyway?)
* Gale, captain of the Kittiwake (most adventurous of the smaller Captains)

=== The Red Dinner ===
==== Rush Delegation ====
* Captain Daniel (rarely uses his rank; more of a diplomat though I'm he can chop it up if necessary)
** Captain Daniel's instructions: Our work is to put together a force to take the fight to the Breaker. You may think of yourselves as soldiers more than diplomats, but look for opportunities among all the delegations.
* Sergeant Susie
* Sergeant Susie's squad of Paladins (including Diomarch)
* '''Managaratha's voice, weirdly coming from nowhere (as Daniel was briefing on Lord Franklin):''' ''Hello Diomarche, this is Managaratha. Tell me I like carrots when you get this.''
==== Darstan Delegation ====
* Baron Volstak
** Daniel's briefing: Him being here means he and Zerbina sees this as an expansion opportunity. Expects he can be talked into being a solid part of the force, but he'll need a reward.
==== King Richard's Lands Delegation ====
* Lord Franklin
** Daniel's briefing: Advisor to the last 3 kings in King Richard's Land, over 50 years of service. Expect him to see the big picture, and recognize that an army is needed, but he will need reassurance that King Richard's Land won't be weakened. (Most likely to fall in line.)
** Appears to be a mostly-human-presenting half-elf
==== Victoria Delegation ====
* Lord Karsten
** Daniel's briefing: Sending him is a bit of a provocation by Queen Iona vs Purple, as he has led many successful offensives into the Empire over the last 15 years. He has also run many campaigns against the orcs, probably nobody has more experience against them. Would be a valuable member of a campaign all by himself regardless of what else Queen Iona might send, but the Empire might just refuse to cooperate with him at all.
==== Berana Delegation ====
* Lady Frigga
** Daniel's briefing: Don't know much about her, she's not one of the more important children. Her being here might mean King Olanson doesn't much care about the conference, or that she asked for the assignment as a way to raise her profile.
** (From another run: Her mother and brother think she's sensible enough to hide during a Muddle.)

== Things Remembered ==
* Vidan was involved in a combat-time ritual of several people-- probably Fivist priests and mages, not priests of other religions-- to counteract the amnesia spell.
* Vidan recalls: ''Flint looks from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout. "Federico, with me. The rest of you, see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor."''
* [[Gyvail]], a priest of Orellian, is with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. (Recalled by Vidan.)
* Nesh remembers that dinner went... fine. He served the Yellow delegation.
* Managaratha remembers having a conversation with the Blue delegation.
* Stella remembers being sent to talk to the Purple delegation and feel them out "since you can't actually commit the Guild to anything."
* Stella remembers that "Luigi volunteers to speak with the Priests from the Yellow delegation" after dinner.

== People By Faction ==
* Pirate Queen (Cara)
** First Mage Federico
** William (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Gale

* Blue
** Mage Marek (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** General Petrov, a Saurien (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
** Rickard (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])
*** can cast spells
*** diplomat-without-portfolio for [[Melmaine]]
*** has spent time in [[Jabar]] and some of the Merfolk courts

* Cult of Alan
** Luigi (Recalled by [[Managaratha]])

= Current State =

== From memories and the first merge experiment ==
* The Pirate Queen is on the ground in (location), covered in blood. (Noted by Gale.)
* Sergeant Susie is badly injured; she is fighting an orc who is uninjured, and several fallen paladins lay around her. (Noted by Diomarch)
* A dwarf (Flint, with Federico) is chasing a redcap (Custard) who is running away. A green potted plant is spewing amnesia mist; the sigils on the plant include Silenalania. (Noted by Scout, embellished with Alexa.)
* Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. (Noted by Scout)
* Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell.
* There are several dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. (noted by Nesh)
* Luigi is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it; some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. (noted by Stella)
* There's a Yellow zone that's hard to see/changing even though time isn't passing; speculation is there's an Unreality effect going on there.
* A Blue mage performed an extra-effort Blue spell to make all of Middlesea one battlemap. They are probably/possibly in the midst of a Berserker rage, as a consequence. (Discovered in [[Second Run]] by Gale when she did her own wild-blue-spell on the battlemap.)
* An area of effect Green spell is spraying amnesia mist everywhere. (Noted by Lutenania, scout for Their Majesty of the Plains.)
* An Oasis miracle of isolation is in place. (Noted by Scout.)
* A Time miracle of some sort is in place. (Noted by Bordan, priest of Rush.)
* There are a whole bunch of orcs (Noted by flyover in [[First Run]].)
* There are lion prints on the outer wall. (Noted by Nesh.)
* There are slith tracks sneaking into the keep. (Noted by Vidan.)
* There are more than ten "sides" involved, but that might include factions within delegations; e.g., there are five separate delegations from Red, one for each kingdom and one for the Paladins of Rush. It's not clear whether those count as five different "sides".(From Bordan.)
* Baron Volstak took a lot of damage right before the timestop, which was shared with Duchess Zerbina over the lifelink (she has healed since). She is concerned that he be gotten to ASAP when the timestop breaks. (Shared by Duchess Zerbina. This is a secret.)

==From the visit with [[Alexa]]:==

"The Orc" is the Avatar of the Breaker. He gets to take actions while we are visiting. He has so far had four actions - one in our early experiment, three with Alexa.

* There is some sort of cheating effect to make the "army combat" be a large orc unit against a Middlesea unit, without other factions like the Yellow centaurs and the Pirate Defenders being units.
* Marek's effect broke the army combat into one battle in which everyone is all in some sense on the same hex.
* Baron Volstak was stabbed as a sacrifice in a four-priest ritual and is currently being healed not very professionally.
* In a different ritual room, now empty except for the dead redcap:
**Scout was unconscious on the floor over there
**Two redcaps (Cream and Custard, the halflings from Green, turned out to be redcaps) doing the ritual with Solania
**Flint and Federico and Vidan and Diomarche came in, and there was a fight. Flint and Federico killed one of the redcaps.
**Silenalania ran off with the Spirit of Middlesea.
**Flint and Fedrico chased the redcap
**Vidan and Diomarche dragged Scout in the other direction

Gale's battle diagnostics with Alexa:
*The orcs are winning.
*The <REDACTED> are losing
*The <OTHER REDACTED> are doing fairly well but they aren’t really in the battle.
*The cataurs have mostly lost.
*The goblins have left the field with their win.
*Orange Teams 2 and 3 are losing to <OTHER REDACTED>. (This is a different scoreboard; the are only in this battle because Marek put everyone on the same battlemap)
*Vidan’s allies are about breaking even.

What needs fixing?

* Bringing Middlesea back probably need fixing. The Goddess thinks that Spirits are iffy, but better than Demons.
* Don’t let Volstak die.
* Don’t let Cara die.
* Don’t let the Prince of ‘al Jabar die.
* Marek is not in immediate danger, but if he dies, this will turn back into an Army combat, and the orcs will crush everyone. So don’t let him die, or leave, because his magic effect is keeping us in personal combat.
* The Artifact for Breaking Orange probably shouldn’t be allowed to leave. (That’s fuzzy, something is defending that.)
* Cataurs are unlikely to successfully kidnap Nesh.
* There are slith here.
* There’s a goblin, but it will probably be handled.
* Catching the half-orc assassin would be good. It’s not clear if the assassin is a half-orc or just working for the half-orcs.

Keep in the Broken Lands

2023-07-22T04:11:18Z

Tirinian:

==Setting the Scene==

[Phoenix 12]
Scout bamfs in and Diomarche and Gayle bamf out.

Scout is a bit baffled by where we are. Then he notices the incredibly bright glow of the Fields of Gedden, which is scary. He asks many questions.

Vidan gets orders from the Sergeant in the Paladin camp that we're in.

“The Lord Captain says that it’s unlikely that his particular orders will be relevant by the time he reappears, but… if those of you who are not under our orders are available, you could be helpful in convincing Queen Iona’s forces to fight the orcs rather than Purple.”

“Oh, that seems reasonable.”

“Go stand with them.”

Their job is to assist the forces attacking the orcs, not kidnap the Queen or anything.

We go talk to the soldiers to tell them we are going “to provide diplomatic and other support.” “As requested by the Captain and Lord Sergeant.” “Okay, we will need five more horses.”

We go look at the Plains of Gedden. Scout sees a glowing wall. Other people think there are maybe soldiers over there. Managaratha recalls that the Plains have probably been here since the War of the Lord and Lady; they rarely instantiate for more than one Comet. It probably showed up when Red become holy to Rush. The Five are always anchored here, geographically; the Twins around their tower; the Goddess over the sea.

Vidan ponders whether it costs Rush divine power to keep it there; it probably doesn’t actively <i>cost</i> him something, but does put him more at risk. Because it’s right there. (A God’s Realm is different than a God’s Land.)

Managaratha ponders the effects of a Realm on magic; it’s quite possible it only counts as one hex for Purple if you set it up right.

==To Victoria==
We set off! The horses are boring riding horses.

Vidan ponders the strength of the claim of Queen Iona. She is the granddaughter of the founder of Victoria; her claim is pretty solid. Note taht Victoria is named for being Victorious, not for a person. Baroness G-something was the founder.

En route, Managaratha tries to call Diomarche. “Hi Diomarche! It’s Managaratha. Tell me ‘I like carrots’ when you get this.” He gets no immediate response.

The squad we’re with has about 20 soldiers, which seems small to Vidan and Stella, large for Nesh, and about right for Scout. We’re riding at a reasonable clip, but not pushing. After a day we make it to close to the southern border of Victoria. Stella casts a tent, which the soldiers are impressed by. The soldiers make camp, have a fire, set a watch schedule. Nesh offers to take a watch; they tell the kid to get some sleep, we’re going to be riding all day tomorrow.

Scout scouts around, but doesn’t see anything interesting.

The sergeant is named Arik; the rest are mooks.

==An Unexpected Visitor==

[Phoenix 13]
On day two, we travel, and Nesh notices a woman on horseback is following us. She’s wearing nice clothes, and has a sword. Nobody else notices her– after being elbowed, Scout thinks there’s a Yellow effect behind us. We alert the sergeant, and Nesh drops back to talk to her.

When Nesh gets close, he realizes that she’s kind of translucent– it’s more than a 9 success spell, so his Per roll let him see her. “Can I help you?” “Maybe– I’m looking for the people who escaped Middlesea.” “Oh, then I think we can help.” He convinces her to come join us.

“Oh hi Managaratha.”

“Have we met?”

“He asks everyone that.”

“Yes. Or if not you, then an unreal copy of you.”

“I just don’t want to frag you. Who are you?”

“I’m Lissa Tera. You taught me a Detect Frag spell.”

The sergeant listens to this.

“I’m going to need to look at you people some more before I go to Middlesea.”

“Are you going to Middlesea?”

“I can’t get the Prince out without going to Middlesea.”

“The Goddess says don’t bring it down.”

“I won’t be taking it down. If something is there, and you don’t want it there, that’s Unreality.”

“Or Creation.”

“That’s different. You don’t want..."

“Which Prince?” – Scout

“Prince Visharani.“

“From… Yellow?”

“Yes. A prince of Jabar, definitely.”

She talks about the different kinds of Unreality, a bit, and how you have to use the right kind.

“If the Prince weren’t trapped, and you ran into me, what would we talk about?”

“Yellow Magic, probably? You don’t know unreality, so you consult with me sometimes.”

<Managaratha checks in with the note from Run Eight>

She’s apparently the best Unreality mage in Jabar, so here she is. Unless she’s deluded, but she doesn’t think so. Apparently Diomarche has potential to learn Unreality; Nesh asks if he does, but she doesn’t think so. She makes lots of Unreal copies of Nesh. Scout thinks they’re definitely Yellow magic rather than people, but it takes thinking about. “That’s not right. But cool!” “That’s

We make camp that night; we’re about one day’s ride from Queen Iona’s forces, and then we’ll be in the Broken Lands. Whoa.

Lissa Tara does some experiments.

“The thing I need to do is find out the kind of Unreality you’re… not stuck in, connected to is probably closer.”

“Aren’t those two <Diomarche and Gayle> unreal?”

“Yes, but they’re not the right Unreal versions.”

Lissa Tara gets us to stand in a circle, turn away from each other, and run. Stella and Vidan opt to observe rather than run. After about 10 minutes, it’s definitely harder to run in that direction. The people in the camp have the impulse to go towards one of those directions.

“What would have happened if they’d kept running?”

“They probably couldn’t have. They’d have gotten to the edge of the map.”

“We’re all on a battlemap.”

“You’re all connected to the Oasis’ unreality miracle. Or the Oasis’ miracle, which is like an Unreality. So whatever you’re doing to be here, will only get you so much… you can only push so much. It’s probably not, but, it’s mostly not a map right now. I mean we’re on a country map. We don’t have an instantiated map right now. Do you want to fight some Paladins of Rush?”

“No.” – universal acclaim

Lissa Tara does a frag check, at Managaratha’s request. She thinks Vidan is interesting, so Scout takes a look at him, spending some DI. There’s a big Purple spell in his past that created his current future. Neat! Lissa Tara makes a whole bunch of copies and looks.

“You’ll probably have to look into that, but not until he’s further along this one.”

“This future?”

“Yeah.”

“How many does he have?”

“This is… two? Three?”

Vidan remains stoically uninterested in any of this, and mutters darkly about being taught not to trust the Yellow Mages.

The oasis miracle she thinks she can deal with; the Time-stop is giving her some trouble. It won’t help to bring the Prince out if he’s still time-stopped.

The Oasis miracle is what makes it hard to look at. She

Nesh remembers the Yellow dinner– Sarasani was kind of a butt. Well, not a butt, but insistent on protocol. Vishnarani, Lady Hirana. Lord Vesalen was very clearly the guard. And three priests, and a bunch of merchants. Serafina and her centaurs were guards. Lady Hirana was the best Unreality Mage, says Lissa Tara. It’s probably her work that the Unreality field.

What does she know about the Oasis?

Not her specialty, but a giant demon that lives across the Mountains, the cataurs live there. It’s not as bad as the Broken Lands, but they’re a problem. The Queen is more worried about the slith invasion right now, but they’re probably up to something, they’re normally up to something. Managaratha thinks there will be two big wars, slith and orcs. Maybe the cataurs aren’t doing war things. They have a lot of good mages, and priests… well, not priests, but… miracle people… They’re not united, they have Prides, and the Prides fight a lot. So they’re less threatening to Yellow. But they all listen to the Oasis when it has something it wants. Usually that’s to get bigger.

==Into the Broken Lands==

[Phoenix 14]

On Day 3 we enter the Broken Lands. The paladins put us in the middle now, since none of us have Survival:Broken Lands. We get to a camp with a bunch of soldiers who are not paladins, who don’t seem excited about the arrival of paladins.

Scout looks at the Broken Lands; he doesn’t see the background radiation, but his friend is more aware of that, in the “don’t stay here too long so I don’t become a demon”, but the timeframe is weeks not hours before it starts taking damage.

Captain Brian, of Queen Iona’s forces, is in charge of the camp. They’re on the border with …

There are some second sons of nobility here, but no one actually titled. Vidan invites himself along to talk to the Captain. There’s a keep with a bunch of orcs in it, it’s heavily enough walled that it’s tough to get through the walls; Arik rolls his eyes on that. There’s a tunnel that they were working on, but it collapsed. Vidan asks about the tunnel; Captain Brian thinks getting past will be tough.

Stella looks at the tunnel; it was not collapsed by Orange, might have been engineering or a miracle. It was a well-crafted tunnel that has been collapsed, but not cleverly sabotaged, so it could be repaired. It’s the equivalent of someone taking a knife and shredding the clothing; it’s easier to sew it up then to make it in the first place.

==Raiding the Keep==

[Phoenix 15]

Just before Dawn, Stella Repairs the tunnel all the way to under the keep, Scout gives everyone (except the paladins) a Per buff, and Vidan gives everyone a miracle of Witness.

Lissa Tara makes the floor one-way invisible, we see into a corridor. There’s an orc wandering through. After it leaves, Lissa Tara casts silence as the paladins break through the floor. Stella patches the hole. We’re invisible, and sneak through the keep. Scout notes a Broken chapel that is Unholy Ground. We note it, and proceed to the courtyard with the portcullis. There are four orcs on the ground, and four on the walls above. There are two wheels that need to be moved at the same time to raise the portcullis.

We start the combat. The first set of orcs drop quickly, and the paladins get to the wheels and start moving them, although one takes a hit in the process. Stella puts the remaining nearby orcs in timeout, and then prepares a wild Orange spell to turn the portcullis chains to rods to prevent it from being closed, and Vidan gets ready to teleport us all back to the tunnel, when Scout asks Lissa Tara to show us where the orc priest is. “He’s right there, in the courtyard.” The orc priest drops a miracle which makes everyone visible and drops a few other small spells, as the paladins finish turning the wheels and Stella turns the chains to rods.

Scout shoots the orc in the Agility, hampering his ability to dodge, but he’s big and wearing armor. More orcs arrive and start firing arrows from the window above. One of the paladins goes down to 0 hits– surprisingly, he’s unconscious but not dead. Managaratha buffs the paladins, and one of them charges the orc priest, using his DI to increase his sword multiplier to 5. Even with the strength buff letting him get 11 successes, the orc is only brought to 0 hit points. The archer orcs take down the paladin, before Managaratha can get enough wind going to mostly deflect the arrows. Scout tries to keep the priest using his dodge pool, but no one can get damage through the priest’s armor. The priest sets off another terrible Broken miracle to destroy all our weapons, but Vidan had been holding a sanctify to counter it– only Nesh’s slingshot was affected. Stella medicines the second paladin, who charges the orc, and also drops his DI into extra multipliers. The combination of that and the extra strength from Managaratha mean the orc takes 45 more points of damage– and he goes down, fails his death check, and explodes.

Everyone in the courtyard has 10 - their DI successes of bones broken, causing almost everyone to be in vast amounts of pain and several unable to move. (Lissa Tara’s Unreal duplicate pops.) But in order to teleport to safety we all need to be in physical contact. Managaratha manages to cast a spell to drag one of the paladins closer, Stella medicines herself, and then Stella and Scout stumble into the right hexes, and Vidan teleports us to the relative safety of the end of the tunnel under the keep, where he had left the beacon.

==Loot==
* +5 EPs +8 SPs
* Many broken bones

Adventures are Everywhere

2023-04-15T04:39:47Z

Tirinian:

In which our heroes discover that a drop of water from the sky may indeed signify rain, and that a party may involve more than wine and cheese.

[Still Gazelle 29]

=A Stabbing Averted=
[[Gale]] goes boldly to the house!
She tries to knock the door down.
“Who is it?”
“No stabbing!”
“Why not?”
“That would be bad!”
“But knives are for stabbing.”
Oh dear.
Gale opens the door on the second attempt, and eventually lures the woman outside.
Stefan: “Is this lady bothering you, Violetta?”
“Knives are for stabbing!”
“Um…”
“I think the knife is cursed.”

Gale wilds up a “closest person is now blown up into the air out of melee range.”
2 successes 2 awryage means the woman is floating up and spinning her around.

Gale warns that she’s going to try to get the knife, and if she starts acting stabby, bystanders should go to [[Stella]]’s temple and get her friends. “Okay…”

Gale succeeds in knocking the knife out of the woman’s hand, which makes her decidedly less stabby. Gale asks where she got the knife– Baran (her husband) bought it for her? Probably from [[Kristof]]. Gale stands guard over the knife and says go get her friends anyway.

== Back at the Ritual ==
The party brings Vidan up to speed. The party is kind of a mess.
Stella is out of DI, so can’t do much.
Vidan has DI, but Sanctify probably isn’t helpful for fixing all the effects that are on Diomarch, Scout, and Nesh... wait where did Nesh go? Oh he must have phased out.

Vidan: I apparently have missed a lot.

Dispel Yellow might work on the Yellow effects.

Vidan tries to dispel the blindness on Managaratha, 6 successes is probably only halfway there.

A guy shows up “The pirate lady says you all should come help with the cursed dagger?”

Vidan thinks the knife isn't important but it's part of an important thing. Scout spends some DI, and conveys through charades that it's a Dagger of Destruction and very powerful.

Gale picks up tongs from Violetta's house, and wakes up her husband Baran.

Vidan talks to the Bureaucrat that shows up saying that the Minister of War wants him to come back and report. He says he’d be happy to after he deals with this nonsense. Vidan tells the party that the Minister is probably a powerful Purple mage that could deal with all the Yellow things. He’d need to write a report…

Diomarch starts to get big again.

Vidan says he can report tomorrow, but he’d need there to be a Beacon. He files the Tarn Evidence Packet as a Supplemental Filing to his previous report.

We go looking for Kristof! Diomarch is big enough that alleys could be a problem.
In the store, Kristof is persuaded to go and look at his records after being told that it caused someone to want to stab people.
Stella thinks the style of the dagger is from House Fandal. They’re probably allied with Cassandra Livoca.
x4 damage, will go away after 6 months, made by Lisidor of House Fandal.

Kristof looks at his other records. He sold another knife about a week ago also made by Lisidor. He won’t tell them who he sold it to, but tells us where Lisador’s shop is.

We get to the shop, to discover it burned down. Two days ago, apparently.
Stella notes that it was limited to the building, which implies it was a magical fire.

Stella ponders whether Lisidor had any rivals.

Scout scouts. It’s definitely a workshop not a house; a workshop for more than one person. Lisidor may have been a journeyman, but had a few people working for her. The fire seems to have happened Everywhere All at Once. That means it was probably bigger than a random Orange effect. Which means someone was probably doing Orange. Whoever was in the building when it happened probably didn’t survive, but others may have…

Leonardo brings us to a Yellow mage, in a reasonably well-appointed row house. The door is answered by a man in servant-y/butlery clothes. “Hello, I’m Leonardo from the Church of Al’an, I was hoping Karina was available.”

Karina comes down to the sitting room. “I was hoping to impose on you to find the woman I asked you about the other week.” He pays her something.
“She’s a good distance; North, probably into Red. I’d want to look at a map, but I think Darstan.”
They are taken into a library, well-appointed, where there are lots of maps.

Karina is fascinated by the Yellow effects, like the Unreal Eyes (Managaratha has taken one of Scout’s eyes.) “Yes, capital of Darstan, definitely.”

Karina looks at the eyes without charging, which she thinks will go away at dawn. The “What should I say” is an illusion that’s converting Scout’s words into “What should I say?” Managaratha tries casting “Sotto Voce”, which Scout tries to say. He’s definitely targeted by the spell.

Karina takes a stab at dispelling the Growth effect. (She does charge for that.) She’s unsuccessful; it’s about 10 successes, which is harder than she rates to get in any reasonable amount of time.

Gale asks if she has any Analyze Magic Item, or See What Happens.
Gale takes out the dagger with the tongs that she seems to have pirated.
It’s a well-made dagger, it cuts well. It’s kind of trying to replicate a Forge effect with Creation? It’s somewhere in the middle of the two.

The song on Diomarch will probably disappear at sunset.

Karina offers to do the post-cog, but once she realizes it’s a Guild place, she wants some Authorization to Meddle before poking into the Guild business.

We return to Stella’s church! Only a few hours later than expected. Meraldi is there, and has taken the “Out to Lunch” sign down.

Stella talks to Meraldi about the fire; she confirms that it was Lisidor who died in the blaze. The word is that she was working late and something went awry and the place burned down. Lisidor was an Orange mage, after all.

Meraldi goes to check out the workshop fire, assuming that Stella will make sure we get ready for the party. (There is a note of skepticism in her voice…)

=A Tale of Two Parties=
Vidan didn’t realize there were two parties.
Master Cassandra Livoca. Master Tivoli Dianori.
The two leading members of the Guild in the city given the absence of the Delegate to Middlesea.

Given that Stella is a local with some reputation, she weighs more as far as Party Influence, so Stella will go with one, and the rest to the other.

Vidan tries to get more of a briefing on Thistle. Meraldi realizes he has 8 Charisma, and turns on the charm. Vidan considers party-hopping with Meraldi rather than being assigned a team…

The party divides! After some bickering, Gale throws Scout at Stella to go to the Tivoli party, and goes with Managaratha and Diomarch to the Cassandra party. (She brings Giaconni as the replacement for Nesh.)

There is a brief digression concerning licenses for Piracy from Purple, and the Ministry of Lions, and the True Nature of Purple Magic as opposed to this Vow nonsense, but it is surely not important enough to concern you, gentle reader.

Those at Tivoli's party:
Scout speaks only Elvish, as a ploy to get out of talking to lots of people saying “What should I say?” (The Elvish comes out as “What should I say?”)

Master Tivoli speaks with Stella, after quickly writing off Scout as a lost cause, and proceeds to go through what he read in the Tarn Evidence Packet to validate the briefing he received is the same as the briefing she is giving. He inquires as to the status of the delegates, and seems to know in detail the members of the delegation. He does inquire as to whether Stella believes the lack of a priest of the Twins in the party is significant.

The Sauriens are not as stand-offish here as they were in Kor, but still somewhat segregated. There are a few elves, and very few centaurs– who are mostly segregated from the rest of the party as they are out on the patio.

==At the Cassandra Party==
Meraldi is the epitome of grace and charm, and is well-matched by the stylish Vidan (who opts not to hold forth on the glories of Navere). Diomarch and Gale make do, and Managaratha makes some wary with his waving around of an eye.

Meraldi and Vidan avoid Master Cassandra to speak with others. Some discussion of the Fire happens; it is more “ah, what a tragedy that she was so careless”, as opposed to “that is suspicious.” Meraldi deliberately crosses the Saurian-human divide; Vidan apologizes on behalf of Nesh, who surely would have liked to attend if he had not been called away by unforseen circumstances. This inspires them to push as to what the circumstances are. I’faith, they have not heard of the dire circumstances of the party’s plight– or much at all of the materials the party has been distributing hither and yon. Zounds!

Vidan gives the Saurians a Tarn evidence packet - there is much sage nodding - see what happens when you get mixed up in foolishness like weird shit?

Cassandra has heard of Managaratha and is disappointed that he is less knowledgeable about orange magic than she had heard.
Managaratha asks about the magic of Creation vs. Uncreation. She says there was one long ago who could do such a thing– create pits and the like. Gale offers her the knife to look.

“If she starts stabbing us, this is a different party.” – Mike/Vidan

“There are things in this I am not completely clear how this is done. I could probably learn more if you left it a few days, I don’t know what your plans are…”

Managaratha holds forth about the knife and what we’ve learned about it and the workshop and Lisidor. Master Cassandra does not react to any of this, but confirms that it was a spell gone wrong that caused the workshop fire, not just a Surge. She confirms it is Lisidor’s work, and that Lisidor was the only one who perished. She was working on…. something unusual. “Sometimes experiments do not go the way one would hope.”

Managaratha discusses Orange magic with Cassandra; she is interested in knowing how it used to work. Managaratha recalls– after the Surges, the Rainbow River disappeared. When the Rainbow River disappeared, people started building the Zones. People, Orellian… the Zones were deliberate in some sense, in response to the Rainbow River disappearing.

Cassandra speaks with the party for 20-30 minutes before wandering off.

==Tivoli==
Scout Scouts! Backstage is definitely agitated. Servants and guards are definitely doing things. An anthill has been disturbed. He traces the disturbance upstream, and overhears: Yes, she's recovering. She should be fine, but we don't know exactly what started everything. Get the word to Master Dianori (Tivoli) that there are no long-term issues.

==Cassandra==
Managaratha finds Diomarch to renew the shrinking spell.

Gale tries to track down leads on Lisidor. This seems to bring out the “Ah, you’re calling out the House, interesting” results. Lisidor was a theorist rather than a practitioner, she’d happily spend all day theorizing rather than creating things. Which is probably how she blew herself up, honestly. There’s been a bunch of interest in “What can Orange do?” recently that she was probably part of / allied with. Obviously that’s less important than making good product, and good product doesn’t get you blown up, so personally I don’t put much priority on that. She was working for a time on whether you can use Creation to do some of the Saurien tricks, in which you need to not have Orange around to make it work. Can you de-Orangeify your black powder creation to make black powder with Creation? How do you separate the Fire from the Creation.

Was she working alone, or as part of a Mad Scientist Cabal?
There are other Mad Scientists, not clear they’re actually a Cabal. The consequence of Creation is wanting to Make things. i.e., Yes, I Paint in addition to casting Orange magic. Sometimes that Making turns into a desire to make things that are… more theoretical, or don’t actually exist, so you have to spend a while figuring it out… In the way that Battle runs to wanting to attack people.

Diomarch talks to the centaurs; the Yellow delegation did come through here on the way to Middlesea. It did include a group of centaurs, so they’re interested in how centaurs work in Yellow. Orange and Green don’t have Herds, in the way that Yellow or Red do. (Purple has the One Giant Herd led by the Head Stallion.) Centaurs are kind of a separate social stratum in Yellow, Red and Purple. Yellow they have more ties into the human polity; Yellow herds organize more similarly to the humans, in terms of castes, etc. Red has less of a united polity overall, but a single Herd might ally with a single Kingdom. (The Centaurs here speak Common, even with each other, in a way that the Centaurs in Red or Yellow might talk to each other in Centaur. The Saurians all talk Saurian with each other, but will speak Common when others are around.) The Centaurs here are all in the Guild, and that is in some way taking the place of being in a Herd.

Managaratha takes a nap.

==Tivoli==
Meraldi and Vidan arrive. Stella says that Scout had found something but it wasn't clear. After a bit of trying to parse Scout's monosyntactical dialogue, Meraldi rolls her eyes and hits him with "Tell me your secrets!" and he can speak normally for a minute, and he explains what he found in the back rooms.

Meraldi thinks that the likely "she" Scout heard about is Tivoli's daughter Ashley, as she is not in evidence at the party, and Stella thinks that an offer of healing should be made. Meraldi smooths bringing this up with Tivoli (who is impressed that Meraldi figured this all out after barely setting foot in the house), and the group is shown to the bedroom where the girl is, with a bloodstained bandage.

Stella gets 9 successes of Medicine, enough to say that it was probably a kitchen knife.
Vidan gets her to tell what happened. She was getting ready for bed, Janine came in and was making her dinner bed snack as she always does, and then stabbed her. And then Phillipe knocked Janine out. Ashley does think the stabbing hurt, but also that this is a kind of adventure.

==Cassandra==
Gale looks for plot hooks. In a conversation where Lord Fandal is being gently taunted - such a pity that he lost a promising journeyman. Yes, they did manage to rescue her final piece, the candelabra, that he gifted to Lady Cassandra. Gale (and Giaconni) head over to Cassandra, and Gale badgers her into looking for the candelabra, which she has not yet taken notice of. Yes, in fact, when Gale holds the candelabra, setting fires seems kind of fun. Giaconni blows the candles out, and the feeling fades. Gale impresses on Cassandra the importance of being cautious about the candelabra, though as she is giggling a little creepily (0 successes on charisma) it is unclear whether Cassandra will take the warning to heart.

==Tivoli==
They track down Philipe; he has put the knife in the master’s study. Stella confirms it’s the same sigil. Vidan initiates a miracle of Witness– this is a small part of a larger problem. He writes up a formal affidavit - legal anywhere - that the wielder was essentially innocent.

Scout analyzes the dagger with a lot of DI– he thinks the dagger is wrong, but not Unholy. It could be Broken? How would he know? Hmm. Vidan chats up Meraldi, admits that he investigates royal genealogy in his spare time. Vidan mentions his discussion with Luigi, and she has a moment of realization– “If you asked for what you needed to know now, and you came here to do this, why did you need to know now who the traitor is?” He hadn’t considered that…

=Aftermath=

In the morning [Gazelle 30], Vidan talks to Scout, recalling more of what happened in Middlesea: "Flint looked from the dead redcap to the unconscious Scout, and said ‘Federico, with me; the rest of you see what you can do for him. If anything unfortunate happens, tell Her Majesty that Futeau is the traitor.’”
“What? What should I say…”

(All effects from the ritual have worn off by this time.)

Vidan and Gale go talk to Fandal. He is warned about the stabby stabby items. He seems to have not known about it, and is glad that Cassandra’s house didn’t burn down, say, but seems to think that magic items of extra stabbing aren’t necessarily bad…

The bureaucrat shows up, and we head to the capital of the Empire in Purple!

=Loot=
* A Stabby stabby x4 Orange knife. (Gale has this)
* +5 EPs
* +5 SPs

To The Heart

2023-03-09T05:43:56Z

Tirinian:

==Overview==
Being the events of the third run. In which our heroes venture into [[Orange]], to meet with the [[Cult of Al'an]] and see what they know about the Breaker's plans, and are recruited to assist in a ritual to repair a fraying ancient-yet-familiar-sounding spell, which leaves many with strange new characteristics and behaviors. With diversions for parties and possible adventures.

==Leaving the Islands==

[Early Morning, Gazelle 21]
We return to our Heroes having just thrown a dead goblin through a tree, where he went to Green, at the border between the Plains and Forest.

Vidan starts fading out, while Managaratha shows up. Scout says the passplant spell will fade at dawn - can Managaratha tell anything? Managaratha looks, but doesn't discover much. He wants us to go to Green to get ingredients. Everyone else is dubious about the wisdom of this plan.

Nesh discovers that his sword has become lighter, and sneaks off to investigate. Scout sneaks after him. It's lighter but duller and rolls with agility (but is now x3 instead of x4)!

Diomarch finishes chopping the tree by sunrise, so the spell is no longer active.

We head back to the keep, where Managaratha wants to use his sigil-getting spell to look at the [[Muddle in Middlesea]]. Gale unfolds the boat and we go up. The Purple and Blue spells are visible from outside the keep area.

The spells in effect include:
* Blue extra effort battle thing
* Purple stasis
* Yellow unreality
* Can't see the green fog

7 Detect Magic: many small spells on people. There’s a Red spell that stretches out of the region, that’s the most interesting thing. Probably Life rather than Blood, which means it's likely the one that was being supported by the Darstan mage in [[Second Run]]. There are three sigil-ish things on that, which Managaratha more or less got.

Scout boldly proclaims his theory that the Duke and the Baroness merged their lives at their wedding, and weird things will happen if the Life connection breaks.

Our investigations done, we decide to head off to Rinyin, via Kor. It's about three days sailing; Managaratha makes vegetables to keep us fed. Nothing too eventful happens - as we approach Kor we see the Golden Falcon leaving, but manage to evade before they spot us.

[Gazelle 24]

We find an inn and begin puttering. Gale and Nesh and Stella stock up on some provisions. Managaratha wanders off, overseen by Diomarch.

Gale badgers Scout into reporting to the ambassador. "Hey, den mother! Where is an elvish ambassador?" Stella points out the Elvish quarter.

Managaratha: "Oh, I have a spell for splitting the party. I forgot to cast it."

Scout goes to the Elf Quarter, and scouts the area, finding a Forest Trade Delegation. There's not an active Green spell, but there's definitely some magic going on. He goes in and is greeted by a halfling, and Scout says he's new in town and was hoping to send a message to the King. There's a courier service, or for something more discreet, talk to the Master Trader.

While waiting for the Master Trader, Scout talks to the halfling-- what should he know about Kor? The halfling says things are more expensive than you’d expect, and that it requires money to deal with the Guild in most instances.

About half an hour later, someone leaves from a back room, and then the Master Trader, a troll named [[Rekar]], comes out. Rekar asks why he needs to send a message to the King-- Scout says he was in the delegation to the Conclave at Middlesea, and was the only one to escape, and he needs to report back. The Master Trader seems to think this is enough to merit a secure message. He takes out a sheet of paper, does some green magic, and asks Scout what he wants to say.

Scout goes through a copy of the Tarn Evidence packet, also adding that the miracle is from the cataur Oasis, and pointing out the elf things in particular (status of the delegations, Flint saying who the traitor was), and leaving out the bit about Nesh.

Is there any assistance? We're heading to Rin'yan, could they help us with horses? Yes, those can be provided tomorrow.

Afterwards, everyone reconvenes at the inn. While hanging out in the common room, a guy in fancy robes comes in.
"Do I have the honor of addressing the remainder of the delegations? Guildmaster Vincenzo wishes to extend an invitation to after dinner drinks and a party - he'd like to speak to everyone. [Looks over the party's attire.] It's a... formal affair."

"We lost a lot of our luggage in the transformation event" -Stella

The messenger says that can be dealt with. Nesh hands him a Tarn Evidence packet to bring to the Guildmaster. Later on some tailors arrive. We get redressed in +1 charisma clothes. There's some orange Creation going on in making them quickly, but they're not still magic when they're finished, just well done.

==Party==

The overall shape of the party - Guildmaster [[Vincenzo]] meets us and thanks us for the information (he has read the packet). People tell the story multiple times. Not much of note happens, but we do gather some information.

We hear Vincenzo was smart to send his journeyman. If people are going to be stuck there for a while, who is looking after what interests? 20 important guild members are stuck in a time halt!

Gale looks for adventure hooks because that's what she does. There's a journeyman who is talking about a line on some old stuff that is going to get dug up soon. He's looking for people to go run his dungeon when he finishes digging it up.

Scout scouts; there’s lots of Orange magic, and a moderately large priest of Jord, a priest of Tam, a priest of the Goddess. No spirits. Some orange magic has been thrown around actively at the party, but no miracles are being thrown around.

Nesh is Lucky but not Karmic; he notes that the tension is present but subtle between the humans and the Saurians. The one Saurian Guildmaster gets the story from Nesh, and offers him a job if he wants to apprentice. Nesh demurs, saying we’re stuck, something to do with a Blue spell. The fact that Nesh does not speak Saurian gets one of the other Saurians interested– a noble, not a merchant. The poor dear. She sends him a book at the inn.

== Rin'yan ==

Off we go towards Rin'yan. The main road is nice. We travel for four days and head to the temple of the Goddess that [[Stella]] belongs to. Scout turns the horses over to a trade contact of Rekar's.

[Gazelle 28]

We are greeted by [[Diana]], another priest. "Oh finally, you're back. [[Meraldi]] is off talking to people, and I need to leave for a few days, so can you take care of things for a while?" Stella admits as to how we're only here temporarily. Diana seems a bit annoyed by this but will deal. She offers to put us all up at the temple; which we accept. Stella sets up a nicer space for Diomarch than the standard stable.

Time to go to visit the Cult of Alan? We head across the city. The cult have an actual large compound - fifty priests rather than three. Stella recalls that [[Ritasi]] is the head of the order, but doesn't talk to people any more, as he's largely retiredish. [[Leonardo]] is the one that mostly deals.

When we start to come in, alarms seem to go off-- bells are ringing and people start coming to the entry. We start to back away, and Stella invites Leonardo back to her temple, where she briefs him about the Broken miracle on us.

Leonardo looks to Managaratha - you didn't explain?
"How is Alan?"
"Long dead."
"Oh. :("

Leonardo says there is a person who has an old enchantment, which is in need of some repair. Managaratha has repaired it before. A rainbow mage with skill in Purple and Yellow, usually. Hmm. Stella might be able to repair magic. The person with the spell is drawn to the Breaker's plans. It often transfers on their death. (We suspect the last of Tirinian's Mark!) The cult keeps track of it and keeps it in repair as best as possible, and the information should not be spread around.

Gale runs into [[Giaconni]]! He's doing better here than he was in [[Kor]]. Anything worth doing right now? How much trouble you want to get in? Well, I don't want to get dead...

Leonardo comes in with a young woman, [[Thistle]] and an older man (well, thirties, to Thistle's 20-ish) who happens to be Giocanni. Thistle is told that Stella might be able to get the spell under control. Thistle seems a bit skeptical of her being the chosen one.

What Needs Fixing?

Managaratha examines the spell, and notes his own sigil among the various ones on it.

Probably the best is to do a ritual with [[Risto]] and some others. It would be wise to have friends around because there will likely be consequences. Stella doesn't know who Risto is, but Leonardo does. Let's not just turn him loose on it - he has a shtick in attacking magic, but working with Stella they could make it more surgery.

How are things going awry? Since Thistle got the spell, she'll have unpleasant visions or wind up in a different part of the city - it's not very useful. Moving it to someone else would be fine. Visions of things like orcs and goblins. It's supposed to be less random, she hears.

We leave the temple (which is Goddess holy ground) for Scout to take a look at the spell. It's on par with the Middlesea stuff, it's yellow/purple. Has been patched multiple times; refilled in power and restructured. It's close to full though could be topped up, but it's frayed - 50 to 100 years since it was patched. There's a major sigil and many patch sigils, several of which were Managaratha.

A plan is made-- three priests of the Goddess will do the ritual tomorrow to let people work on the spell.

While we are waiting, we receive invitations to both Master Cassandra's party tomorrow and Master Divoli's party, which are at the same time. Stella asks for information on the politics of the situation. Meraldi says they are the two most able to step into [[Mariana]]'s shoes (she is in the Conclave bubble). The Masters have been given reports from [[Vincenzo]], so this is more about leveraging her or us into conferring Mariana's blessing. Better to split the party or go to both, don't snub both of them. She suggests splitting 2:4 with Stella in the 2, and Meraldi will party hop and convince both parties that it's Not Throwing Influence.

A guy with a dog ([[Bran]]) shows up to the temple, looking for Diomarch. The Commander got Diomarch's message two weeks ago, and has sent him to get more details. Nesh gives him a Tarn Evidence Packet. Diomarch also briefs him on the Rush priest insights. (We still don't know who the Fourists are.)

Apparently, tensions are rising in Red with Darstan missing half its leadership. Looking at war. Victoria is taking advantage of orcs invading Purple to try to make headway there. Richard and Baranna are both eying Darstan since the Baron is gone. The Lord Commander is not willing to actively ally with Darstan - he's not so great at *preventing* wars. Can we get the Baron out sooner? Diomarch doesn't have any sense in which that can be done soon. There's the red life thing too.

If he can get the Baron back without destroying everything else, do that. But the most likely looking result is everything else explodes.

The next day [Gazelle 29], we perform the ritual. It involves the priests making rolls while standing around a hexagon of dominoes, two per side, representing the spell, while people draw dominoes from a hat to replace the dominoes to try to repair the spell. Minimal repairing of the spell would involve there being no blanks, and all the corners adding to 7. Repairing the spell perfectly would also have each side be all evens or all odds, and alternating evens/odds/evens... around the hexagon. Replacing dominoes comes with side effects, small/medium/large in either Yellow or Purple flavors, depending on the largest number of the tile that's removed from the hexagon. A domino could also be placed perpendicular to the normal edges, by turning an existing tile perpendicular, but only if the two numbers that would be in the hexagon matched. [This was easier to explain visually...] If we took that option, it would make the spell decay faster, based on the total number of pips that were outside the hexagon.

Different people had different bonuses in drawing tiles. The side effects were one level smaller on Nesh. Scout could declare he was looking for a number and draw up to 5 dominoes, stopping the first time he ran into that number. Managaratha could roll a wild magic effect to draw more than one and pick. Diomarch had a way of blowing up a tile, but was told not to do that because it would be a miracle of [[Rush]], and would cause the priests some burnout. Gale didn't have any special power, but as it turns out, her plucky adventurousness was benefit enough!

Nesh drew many of the tiles. The small side effects were bounced, but the larger side effects involved things like being stuck in a Purple force cage; gravity reversing; a hrulgin being teleported in; smelling roses. Diomarch drew one and now has a song playing in his head constantly. Gale got a vision of a woman murdering her husband, who she could stop, but she would have to leave RIGHT NOW. She fled into the afternoon, calling out that she had to stop her from killing him! Ominous.

After about 20 turns, we complete the ritual!

End results:
* The spell is repaired perfectly, with 4 extruding non-blank tiles, for a total of... 19? pips.
* Gale has run off to find a woman about to stab her husband.
* Nesh is in a force cage and floating up, speed drained, smells roses, can't lie, sees in black and white.
* Managaratha is blind.
* Diomarch is extra big and hears a song.
* Scout can only say "What should I say?" and his eyes return! (probably an illusion...)

And then, before we can deal with any of the effects, [[Thistle]] teleports out.

== Loot ==
* 5 EPs
* 5 SPs
* +1 Charisma clothes for everyone except Vidan (Nesh's and Managaratha's at least have lost that buff 'cause they wore them constantly on horseback for a week. Other people who claim they took better care of them might still have a set.)
* +1 TiRinian's Heart
* Lots of side effects

Second Run

2023-03-04T03:37:38Z

Tirinian:

Managaratha vanishes and Vidan reappears.

Note: we have a few weeks of travel money until we work or pirate or something.

Vidan's briefing:
<blockquote>
I'm not sure "where" I was, if anywhere, but I did start to recover some of the memories of the conference we've lost.
Apparently, I was involved in a giant Ritual near the end there. The purpose of the ritual was to later restore the memories we would all lose after the spell to remove them. I'm not sure why or whose spell, but that seemed to be a plan.
Sadly, things did not go so smoothly. I've a bunch of memories of people I clearly met at the first dinner, but don't remember now.
Does anyone know a [[Luigi]]?
Perhaps from the Orange delegation?

I remember he told me that the Cult had secret and unusual ways of tracking what actions the Breaker was taking. He was saying he might share them with me if the conference went well, but given the circumstances we might wish to pay the Cult a visit and ask about them.
I also remember someone called Flint looking up from a dead redcap. He says that if something happens to him, people should tell the queen that Futeau is the traitor.
There were a couple of other things, but it's hard to piece it together.
Flint's a dwarf.
</blockquote>

[Still Gazelle 18] Nesh is hungry, so we get dinner. Perhaps "intel on what the Breaker is doing" should be next - Stella has contacts in the Cult of Alan. Boat in the direction of Orange. We can stop by Middlesea along the way.

A bureaucrat appears and looks around. They want to talk about the invading orcs.
Orcs are invading?
Yes, yes they are, in the northern parts of Purple. Since the start of the conference, in fact. Is there something that happened at the conference?

Vidan promises to have a report by tomorrow morning, and writes up a very dry recap. (6 successes). The guy appears again in the morning. He skims the report and says he notes the report doesn't say where Vidan ''was'' while they couldn't teleport to him (that is, while he was vanished). Maybe at the conference - but he's not sure.

[Gazelle 20] There are noticeably more people in Middlesea's harbor than there were a few days ago. Curious.
Vidan thinks about teleport wards, because this could become unfortunate.
He realizes that they probably don’t have “teleport to Vidan” as a spell, and Bureaucrats don’t like wild magic, so maybe they have his true name written down? Teleport to the person this form is for? That would be harder but not impossible.

We decide to head back to Middlesea. We get close to the clearing and there are a few people in uniform saying Halt who goes there. Gale recognizes them as Darstan uniforms. Gale says she’s here investigating on behalf of the Pirate Queen.

Hey, there's an army unit of Darstan here! They’re kind of spread out in an odd way, maybe because we can’t see the same clearing they do.

“I understand you work for the Pirate Queen?”
“Yes.”
“And when did you last speak with her?”
“5 days ago.”

“Who are you? For my report.”-- Vidan

Lord Denis, Bordan (priest of Rush), and Hiraz. In service to [[Duchess Zerbina]] trying to figure out what happened to her husband [[Baron Volstack]].

When her husband vanished the night of the conference, Her Grace dispatched them.

Vidan explains. Stella ends the conversation saying let’s stay in touch, more or less.

Hiraz follows us as we leave. Hiraz is a Red mage, as it turns out.
Diomarch stays behind to give a more complete report. to Bordan. Bordan says he’s in the service of the Baron/Duchess, rather than working for the Church directly.

(Bordan says that there's a Broken miracle and a Time miracle which are different miracles. He doesn't know who the Fourists are.)

An elf - [[Lutenania]] - wanders up and wants to know what we're up to and what happened to Scout's eyes and so on. (He knows Hiraz). Their Majesty of the Plains sent him to see what happened to the delegation.

That's not a blue spell, that's a blue extra effort, so whoever cast it is in the middle of a berserker rage, probably. (Dice plus skill >100, epic something!)

People see:<br>
Vidan + Detective: the most crucial Clew. 6. No one else has noticed the Slith tracks yet, sneaking into the keep. <br>
Diomarch 4 looking for [[Sergeant Susie]] - badly injured, fighting an orc who is uninjured, several paladins around her. <br>
Gale: 3 looking for the Queen. On the ground covered in blood. <br>
Scout: 6 looking for the King's delegation. Not all in the same place. There's a dead redcap, a running redcap fleeing a dwarf. Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell. <br>
Nesh (6) sees a couple of dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. <br>
Stella looks for Luigi - he is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it, some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. <br>

Scout offers non-privileged information for non-privileged, with Lutenania. He says he’ll think about what might be considered non-privileged and will talk later.

We need a Tarn evidence packet. Vidan will make copies overnight. It includes most of what we know but not, for example, "Nesh is the kid the cataurs want to kill" or "tell the Queen X is the traitor". Also it doesn't say it was the Oasis because we forgot to tell Vidan.

Before dinner, Scout checks for nearby spirits. Where the cliffs meet the sea seems like a place that could/would have them but doesn't. Hmm. Maybe they’re in the big mess? Unclear. Lutenania is a shaman; he doesn't have a spirit with him but he has shaman miracles on him.

There’s some kind of Life connection that Hiraz is strengthening periodically, from inside the keep to off to the northeast (Darstan lands, plausibly). Also there’s a Yellow scry point wandering around looking at interesting things.

At dinner: Lutenania says there is a Green amnesia mist spreading/covering inside. Some green forgetting effect, anyway. (We recall Managaratha saying we were under a green effect that was fading when we first woke up.). We tell him that it's all one battlefield, and all the area effects are hitting everything (like the mist).

Most of what Lord Denis has gotten came from Bordan & Rush, so he knows about the invisible battle. More than ten sides.
Red sent 5 delegations - one from each major kingdom one from paladins of Rush.

A half-elven woman (Linda) comes up. Have we any news on her husband, [[Gyvail]]? Vidan says he was with [[Caitlyn]] and [[Westrack]], and was holding. Linda rolls poorly and doesn't recognize the names. When the orcs attacked, the delegations were working together. Linda says Gyvail is a priest of Orellian.

There are some watches overnight, though we are staying in a smallish house (local renting out space).

(Information from investigations is being cross-posted to the [[Muddle in Middlesea]] page.)

<h2>Combat</h2>
Scout's spirit pokes him and says "Do something about the goblin" as the goblin tries to bonk him in the head.

Vidan DIs everyone into waking up, and thinks there is someone outside.

Diomarch charges outside, trampling the goblin and causing it to lose actions, but the unseelie outside has DI defenses.

Nesh, Gale, and Scout all stabble the goblin.

Vidan heals Scout, while Stella and Diomarch pursue the unseelie. They lose him, and come back.

"Where are you, stupid backup!" - the Goblin

He runs, pursued by everyone and the occasional ineffective lightning fzz.

Vidan bursts of speed, catching up to be in front of him. "SUBMIT." A curse - we will always know where he is and vice versa.

After much chasing, and just as he gets to the tree he was going to, Gale takes him down with a wild through-toughness lightning fizz.
(Goblin Scoreboard: Gale: 1, Everyone Else: 0)

Stella stabilizes him, and Scout grabs the blackjack.

His tracks start at this tree and go into town and come back. The other set of tracks goes into town and has not come back yet. There's a green spell on the tree.

Nesh spots the unseelie - a coordinated attack (Gale helps with the coordination; Scout and Diomarch provide the damage) takes him out, and he explodes. Both Gale and Nesh are pretty hurt, but Stella drops a party heal.

We could go somewhere if we press this knoll. We could throw the Vidan-cursed dead guy at the trigger. Scout strips him and throws him. It's more trees than the Plains but fewer than the Forest. Maybe on the border between them.

[Next run starts the morning of the 21st]

<h2>Loot</h2>
5 EPs/5 SPs
BlackJack: +10 damage non-lethal
A ring of holding 3 DI for spirit/demonic DI, could be re-tuned.

<h2>Epilogue</h2>
Vidan says he can create a Name the Party ritual using Purple, which would be helpful for use in targeting. (All the documentation says "the Band". Gale suggests "The Wayward Delegates") He'd have to arrange to do it in the interstitial moments when everyone is present.

First Run

2023-03-04T03:23:13Z

Tirinian:

Middlesea is an island in the middle of the Inland Sea. There's a fishing village and you can walk up to the compound on the top of the cliff.

Day the First [15th Gazelle], people are arriving for what is expected to be a week or so of discussions. There's a dinner in the main hall where [[Cara]] gives a little speech.

* A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
* 30-40 from Orange including servants (and some Saurians)
* Similar from Purple and Yellow
* Only about 8 from Blue, including the Mage (and one Saurian)
* Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.

A couple of delegations with centaurs.

A walled compound surrounding a walled keep. Outside the keep is an interesting (but successful) mishmosh of styles - a Victorian manor house, an open Roman palisade, some fancy gardens. It dates back to the war of the Lord and the Lady (hundreds of years) at least and has been used periodically as a meeting place, but is not usually someone's residence until Cara laid claim to it when she established herself as the Pirate Queen.

(Con roll! Alert! Alert!)

[16th Gazelle]
Those with the most con start to hear "I think this one is coming around!"

Nesh sees he is on the road outside the gates, with the other six PCs. People are a little cut up. There are some fisherfolk from the fishing village. Where has the keep/compound gone? [[Nesh]] can see it, but the fishers can't. He heads to the gates, but they don't open. Nesh and the fishers mutually vanish when they go that way. [[Diomarch]] starts waking up (next in line with Con). It's the next morning, apparently. Diomarch and [[Managaratha]] can also see the keep.

Managaratha walks over to the doors holding on to one of the fishermen, but they both stop - doesn't make sense to keep going. Letting go, he can keep going forwards but when they do, the other guy vanishes.

''Det Magic: some sort of purple + DI ritual'' - that's the thing in the walls, like a dome, but the stopping effect is not magic. Managaratha thinks that may have been a warning to prevent arms being ripped off.

[[Vidan]] wakes up, and wonders if that was him. [[Stella]] wakes up and does some actual medicine, cleaning cuts. Vidan helps with first aid. ([[Scout]] has no eyes, under a blindfold.)

The last thing Vidan remembers is that he was at dinner and Navere spent all his DI. He is wearing sliced clothes. Dioramic thinks everyone just ran through a wall.

''Also a green spell, fading away''

Everyone heads to the doors to investigate, creeping out the fishermen.

Vidan:
''Everyone is under a Navere-flavored Witnessing miracle (Rush + everyone else)''
''Everyone is under a Broken miracle (where the Keep is) - covering the keep and environments''
''Twins miracle / purple around the keep too''

Scout:
''Giant demon miracle''

[[Gale]] tries to go over the wall and finds a couple of hexes that she can travel, but then there's a purple something. Some people are in stasis not moving.

Scout does some scouting. At the edge down the road, there is a wound/hole/break in the demon miracle which is probably caused by people getting out (i.e. us). Someone much smaller than the miracle hit it and did... something. Probably Diomache's miracle, short circuited through Navere.

Vidan thinks the miracle should be wearing off but it's caught in the stasis field (!).

Is the Queen still in there? (one of the fisherfolk, who introduces himself as [[Trell]] wonders). Probably?

The other priests had more DI than this, so why are we the ones out? Vidan thinks the miracle on us is bigger than he could have cast.

Stella:
''What needs Fixing here? It's a big messy mess. There are at least three effects reinforcing each other.
# ''Demon miracle: putting the whole thing in a bubble that no one can get in or out of
# ''Purple + twins stasis bubble with a specific key to turn it off. Get the person with the key into the bubble.
# ''Both of those should be smaller area, but there's a big Blue spell making it all one battlefield.
''Once all that is fixed, a '''lot''' of things inside will need fixing really quick. One of the things in there is targeting Nesh, and it would be bad.

Gale:
''We are all on the battlefield with a big hanging blue spell. (not Gale's) There's a battle going on in there, though it's on hold. There were multiple battles in multiple battlefields going on when the Blue spell hit and unified everything. We cannot split up *too* far but we are still on the battlefield even if we leave. There are other things that aren't Blue interacting with that.''

Maybe we have to go on a lot of quests to solve the individual bits and then finally drop it.

Trell thinks there's a trail that goes up to a house, on the other side of where Middlesea would have been. That's Managaratha's house. He didn't remember it was there. Time for tea! The fishermen will go down. Can they tell [[Captain Valgrand]] (from the [[Golden Falcon]] ship) to hold for a bit? Captain Velgrand is annoying and grumpy but Trell can carry a note.

(Vidan remembers the name Managaratha from a magic history class - that's what happens when you frag yourself. He has reportedly been present for several Comets.)

More introductions. Gale works for the Pirate Queen. Scout works for the King of the Forest. Stella is a priest of the Goddess and came with Orange. Diomarch is with the paladins of Rush who came from Red. Vidan is from Purple.

Most of the magic-capable kingdoms probably know something's wrong already since they won't have gotten reports back. And the ships would have seen the keep vanished this morning.

The purple key is probably a key in Truespeak. Maybe it needs the right person instead/too.

Back to Middlesea. Guys in orange livery arguing with a bureaucrat (not from the delegation).

Gale heads up to look around. Seems to be a sphere of stasis.
# Hey, there are a bunch of orcs.
# A section of the keep looks really wonky - hard to look at and eye-shatteringly moving (Yellow?)
# Stormclouds over that section

Things seem to be centered on the keep, though fights with orcs are on the grounds.

The bureaucrat was sent to see what happened to the morning report, and Vidan should come home with him. Vidan convinces him that he doesn't have the authority and also as part of the delegation he should be here. ("I should go work on the official report")

The no-Middlesea space is a lot smaller - just a clearing. The orange guys go a lot faster going *around* it. They think it's about twenty-five hexes across.

Nesh wanders around a bit and spots lion pawprints on the outer wall in one section.

Vidan:
''Given these events, what do we need to see next?'' He vanishes.

Er, where did he go? Scout thinks his "get me out of there" wavered and he will be back eventually.

"I guess Team Serious is down one."

Is there a demon hanging around here? Scout tries to figure it out. The Oasis demon did the miracle. That's the biggest demon in the world, though it doesn't necessarily work for the Breaker. It isn't standing around here.

This seems pretty fast for a new Comet. Managaratha thinks that's not unheard of, but less common. Nine Comets ago, the Winter was fast. The Centaur/Cataur war started with the war. When the Rainbow River disappeared (the comet after the last run), that was a bang. The expedition to the Citadel was also early in the Comet.

We head down - about halfway down, we run into the Captain and his crew. Stella tries to explain. The captain really wants someone to come with him.

We divert to a tavern to write notes to everyone's delegation. Gale thinks we can escape out the back to her skiff if needed.

Managaratha has us all linked in a talking spell. Sneak and bluffery for Gale, Nesh, and Scout to get out first. Gale unfolds the boat.

"Thank you for your diligence. We'll be going now." Stella goes to get on the centaur, but the captain tries to grab her. We escape!

We fly over the keep. Nesh spots Beauregard, frozen and heading away from the keep.

This is about a stopping place, but we really don't know where to go yet. The Golden Falcon has in fact left.

The pirate fleet is on a nearby island. We go there. Gale haphazardly explains, and complains about the Golden Falcon, he's fair game to pirate. Nobody has a yellow mage. Alas.

There are a lot of Jord temples around. Temple of Rush less common. Temple of Navere about a day to the north.

Next day, [Gazelle 17] we head to a nearby temple of Rush. The priest here ([[Fred]]) is keen to put together an attack force, or at least to get that ball rolling. He might be able to figure out something about the battle we're in. He tries, and... stops moving. It wears off after a couple of minutes, at least. Oops. It was harder because Diomarch is under the influence of a Broken miracle. We might want to be careful about that. We are scouts rather than combatants right now, though we might become combatants first.

There have already been deaths in the battle. A number could happen fairly soon, in an odd definition of "soon".

The priest at the church of Navere is [[Dalarin]]. He can write a letter of introduction to send in if we are worried about setting off their Broken detection.

Temple of Navere next, another day North. [Gazelle 18] Nesh finds an urchin to send in Fred's note. The priest of Navere does not approve of completely loose cannons, which we seem to want to be.

She is willing to find out what someone's commanders orders are. Maybe she can do what their orders would be, if they knew the stuff the party knows? She can try. Diomarch has the clearest chain of command ([[Sergeant Susie]]), and is Fiveist to boot. Dalarin speaks in Sgt. Susie's voice. "Don't let the orc out. Keep the kid safe from the cataurs. Find out what the [[Fourists]] are doing."

Managalatha ponders the Oasis-- it has factored prominently in three Comets. The first was the centaur/cataur war; the second was the last run; the third was the Comet when the Rainbow River disappeared, when the Oasis moved to the desert beyond the Mountains of the east, and took it over.

<h2> Loot </h2>
* 5 EPs
* 5 SPs

Muddle in Middlesea

2023-03-03T01:36:25Z

Tirinian: /* Current State */

Muddle in Middlesea

2023-03-03T01:32:45Z

Tirinian: /* Current State */

Second Run

2023-02-19T18:20:44Z

Tirinian:

Managaratha vanishes and Vidan reappears.

Note: we have a few weeks of travel money until we work or pirate or something.

Vidan's briefing:
<blockquote>
I'm not sure "where" I was, if anywhere, but I did start to recover some of the memories of the conference we've lost.
Apparently, I was involved in a giant Ritual near the end there. The purpose of the ritual was to later restore the memories we would all lose after the spell to remove them. I'm not sure why or whose spell, but that seemed to be a plan.
Sadly, things did not go so smoothly. I've a bunch of memories of people I clearly met at the first dinner, but don't remember now.
Does anyone know a [[Luigi]]?
Perhaps from the Orange delegation?

I remember he told me that the Cult had secret and unusual ways of tracking what actions the Breaker was taking. He was saying he might share them with me if the conference went well, but given the circumstances we might wish to pay the Cult a visit and ask about them.
I also remember someone called Flint looking up from a dead redcap. He says that if something happens to him, people should tell the queen that Futeau is the traitor.
There were a couple of other things, but it's hard to piece it together.
Flint's a dwarf.
</blockquote>

Nesh is hungry, so we get dinner. Perhaps "intel on what the Breaker is doing" should be next - Stella has contacts in the Cult of Alan. Boat in the direction of Orange. We can stop by Middlesea along the way.

A bureaucrat appears and looks around. They want to talk about the invading orcs.
Orcs are invading?
Yes, yes they are. Since the start of the conference, in fact. Is there something that happened at the conference?

Vidan promises to have a report by tomorrow morning, and writes up a very dry recap. (6 successes). The guy appears again in the morning. He skims the report and says he notes the report doesn't say where Vidan ''was'' while they couldn't teleport to him (that is, while he was vanished). Maybe at the conference - but he's not sure.

There are noticeably more people in Middlesea than there were a few days ago. Curious.
Vidan thinks about teleport wards, because this could become unfortunate.
He realizes that they probably don’t have “teleport to Vidan” as a spell, and Bureaucrats don’t like wild magic, so maybe they have his true name written down? Teleport to the person this form is for? That would be harder but not impossible.

We decide to head back to Middlesea. We get close to the clearing and there are a few people in uniform saying Halt who goes there. Gale recognizes them as Darstan uniforms. Gale says she’s here investigating on behalf of the Pirate Queen.

Hey, there's an army unit of Darstan here! They’re kind of spread out in an odd way, maybe because we can’t see the same clearing they do.

“I understand you work for the Pirate Queen?”
“Yes.”
“And when did you last speak with her?”
“N days ago.”

“Who are you? For my report.”-- Vidan

Lord Denis, Bordan (priest of Rush), and Hiraz. In service to Duchess Zerbina trying to figure out what happened to her husband Baron Volstack.

When her husband vanished the night of the conference, Her Grace dispatched them.

Vidan explains. Stella ends the conversation saying let’s stay in touch, more or less.

Hiraz follows us as we leave. Hiraz is a Red mage, as it turns out.
Diomarch stays behind to give a more complete report. to Bordan. Bordan says he’s in the service of the Baron/Duchess, rather than working for the Church directly.

(Bordan says that there's a Broken miracle and a Time miracle which are different miracles. He doesn't know who the Fourists are.)

An elf - Lutenania - wanders up and wants to know what we're up to and what happened to Scout's eyes and so on. (He knows Hiraz). Their Majesty of the Plains sent him to see what happened to the delegation.

That's not a blue spell, that's a blue extra effort, so whoever cast it is in the middle of a berserker rage, probably. (Dice plus skill >100, epic something!)

People see:<br>
Vidan + Detective: the most crucial Clew. 6. No one else has noticed the Slith tracks yet, sneaking into the keep. <br>
Diomarch 4 looking for Sgt. Suzy - badly injured, fighting an orc who is uninjured, several paladins around her. <br>
Gale: 3 looking for the Queen. On the ground covered in blood. <br>
Scout: 6 looking for the King's delegation. Not all in the same place. There's a dead redcap, a running redcap fleeing a dwarf. Westly (fox pooka) is in the Yellow zone somewhere but is hard to see. Vrok (troll) and Astros (high elf) are together - Vrok is guarding Astros while Astros does some sort of green counterspell. <br>
Nesh (6) sees a couple of dead cataurs in a room with several dead saurians, and a couple more cataurs running through the keep. <br>
Stella looks for Luigi - he is barricaded in a room with a wall blocking it, some other non-named Orange delegates are also there. <br>

Scout offers non-privileged information for non-privileged, with Lutenania. He says he’ll think about what might be considered non-privileged and will talk later.

We need a Tarn evidence packet. Vidan will make copies overnight. It includes most of what we know but not, for example, "Nesh is the kid the cataurs want to kill" or "tell the Queen X is the traitor". Also it doesn't say it was the Oasis because we forgot to tell Vidan.

Before dinner, Scout checks for nearby spirits. Where the cliffs meet the sea seems like a place that could/would have them but doesn't. Hmm. Maybe they’re in the big mess? Unclear. Lutenania is a shaman; he doesn't have a spirit with him but he has shaman miracles on him.

There’s some kind of Life connection that Hiraz is strengthening periodically, from inside the keep to off to the northeast (Darstan lands, plausibly). Also there’s a Yellow scry point wandering around looking at interesting things.

At dinner: Lutenania says there is a Green amnesia mist spreading/covering inside. Some green forgetting effect, anyway. (We recall Managaratha saying we were under a green effect that was fading.). We tell him that it's all one battlefield, and all the area effects are hitting everything (like the mist).

Most of what Lord Denis has gotten came from Bordan & Rush, so he knows about the invisible battle. More than ten sides.
Red sent 5 delegations - one from each major kingdom one from paladins of Rush.

A half-elven woman (Linda) comes up. Have we any news on her husband, Gyvail? Vidan says he was with Caitlyn and Westrack, and was holding. When the orcs attacked, the delegations were working together. Linda says Gyvail is a priest of Orellian.

There are some watches overnight, though we are staying in a smallish house (local renting out space).
<h2>Combat</h2>
Scout's spirit pokes him and says "Do something about the goblin" as the goblin tries to bonk him in the head.

Vidan DIs everyone into waking up, and thinks there is someone outside.

Diomarch charges outside, trampling the goblin and causing it to lose actions, but the unseelie outside has DI defenses.

Nesh, Gale, and Scout all stabble the goblin.

Vidan heals Scout, while Stella and Diomarch pursue the unseelie. They lose him, and come back.

"Where are you, stupid backup!" - the Goblin

He runs, pursued by everyone and the occasional ineffective lightning fzz.

Vidan bursts of speed, catching up to be in front of him. "SUBMIT." A curse - we will always know where he is and vice versa.

After much chasing, and just as he gets to the tree he was going to, Gale takes him down with a wild through-toughness lightning fizz.
(Goblin Scoreboard: Gale: 1, Everyone Else: 0)

Stella stabilizes him, and Scout grabs the blackjack.

His tracks start at this tree and go into town and come back. The other set of tracks goes into town and has not come back yet. There's a green spell on the tree.

Nesh spots the unseelie - a coordinated attack (Gale helps with the coordination; Scout and Diomarch provide the damage) takes him out, and he explodes. Both Gale and Nesh are pretty hurt, but Stella drops a party heal.

We could go somewhere if we press this knoll. We could throw the Vidan-cursed dead guy at the trigger. Scout strips him and throws him. It's more trees than the Plains but fewer than the Forest. Maybe on the border between them.

<h2>Loot</h2>
5 EPs/5 SPs
BlackJack: +10 damage non-lethal
A ring of holding 3 DI for spirit/demonic DI, could be re-tuned.

<h2>Epilogue</h2>
Vidan says he can create a Name the Party ritual using Purple, which would be helpful for use in targeting. (All the documentation says "the Band". Gale suggests "The Wayward Delegates") He'd have to arrange to do it in the interstitial moments when everyone is present.

History

2023-02-17T04:27:02Z

Tirinian: /* Ancient History */

=World History=
Notes on what happened when, as we discover it. For now, this will mostly be notes from things we discovered in the last run. Information on events more recent than that will be added as we stumble upon it.

<b>By convention, Comets will be referred to by the number of Comets ago they happened; e.g., "three Comets ago", or C-3.</b>

==Recent Events==
Things that have happened since the last Comet / during this Comet.

==The War of the Lord and Lady (C-1)==

* The Land Bridge between Kor and Kern is created, sealing the Inland Sea.
* Melmaine becomes a single large island, instead of an archipelago.

==??? (C-2)==

==Rainbow River Disappears (C-3)==
The Oasis takes over the desert east of 'al Jabar.

About half of the cataurs are Unbroken in 'al Jabar and become centaurs. (This may have happened in the interstitial time.)

==[https://stuff.mit.edu/~boojum/CometWeb/ Previous Run] (C-4)==
Lots happens:
* Centaurs and cataurs come back into the world; the Valley moves from VaKels to ShuMash, the Oasis moves from Avan to 'al Jabar.
* Slith reappear, invading everywhere from under the sea.
* Sauriens reappear, start to have children again.
* Male priests of the Goddess come into the world.
* 'al Jabar becomes a place where beings are Unbroken.
* Avan becomes a homeland of the Twins; ShuMash becomes a homeland for Spirits; the whole eastern subcontinent becomes a homeland for the Nameless.
* Possibly: Ratha becomes a homeland for the Goddess; Trelmane becomes holy to the Five.
* The Orcslayer becomes the first King of the West, where he is Overlord of the five countries, each of which is somewhat weakened.
* In Elfheim, the Arba-Sol is defeated and the Tree is destroyed, freeing many many elf souls from having been bound to it.

==Rebellion Against Avan (C-5)==
About 700 years before C-4.

Tureen and her band of heroes rise up against the oppressive Avani Empire, and it fractures into many countries.

==Founding of Avan (C-6)==

The Avani empire was founded 1683 years before C-4, uniting the east and west subcontinents of the mainland.

==Marriage Comet (C-7)==

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aDO7r-bCrrL40JuJIQW7FuY76qzRUqeVj8Q1CNTLNLg/ Heroes of Kern] happens a few hundred years after this Comet.

==Centaur/Cataur War (C-8)==

==Neverending Winter (C-9)==
The Last Warlock sheds his tears, converts to the Five, and men stop being able to learn witchcraft.

==The Great War (C-10)==
The orcs are unified under a Chieftan and march south; Kor and Kern lead the defense against them, and come to political dominance for several comets.

==Magic Goes Haywire (C-11)==

==Ancient History==
* There have been about 40 comets total (maybe 45 now).
* Many comets ago, the Inland Sea is created when the mainland sinks.
* Poisoning of the air causes Sauriens and slith to become "extinct"; Sauriens lose the ability to produce young, slith are driven under the sea to escape the poison. The Goddess and the Nameless provide a miracle giving some Sauriens incredibly long life, against the day they are able to have children again.

History

2023-02-17T04:24:08Z

Tirinian: /* The War of the Lord and Lady (C-1) */

=World History=
Notes on what happened when, as we discover it. For now, this will mostly be notes from things we discovered in the last run. Information on events more recent than that will be added as we stumble upon it.

<b>By convention, Comets will be referred to by the number of Comets ago they happened; e.g., "three Comets ago", or C-3.</b>

==Recent Events==
Things that have happened since the last Comet / during this Comet.

==The War of the Lord and Lady (C-1)==

* The Land Bridge between Kor and Kern is created, sealing the Inland Sea.
* Melmaine becomes a single large island, instead of an archipelago.

==??? (C-2)==

==Rainbow River Disappears (C-3)==
The Oasis takes over the desert east of 'al Jabar.

About half of the cataurs are Unbroken in 'al Jabar and become centaurs. (This may have happened in the interstitial time.)

==[https://stuff.mit.edu/~boojum/CometWeb/ Previous Run] (C-4)==
Lots happens:
* Centaurs and cataurs come back into the world; the Valley moves from VaKels to ShuMash, the Oasis moves from Avan to 'al Jabar.
* Slith reappear, invading everywhere from under the sea.
* Sauriens reappear, start to have children again.
* Male priests of the Goddess come into the world.
* 'al Jabar becomes a place where beings are Unbroken.
* Avan becomes a homeland of the Twins; ShuMash becomes a homeland for Spirits; the whole eastern subcontinent becomes a homeland for the Nameless.
* Possibly: Ratha becomes a homeland for the Goddess; Trelmane becomes holy to the Five.
* The Orcslayer becomes the first King of the West, where he is Overlord of the five countries, each of which is somewhat weakened.
* In Elfheim, the Arba-Sol is defeated and the Tree is destroyed, freeing many many elf souls from having been bound to it.

==Rebellion Against Avan (C-5)==
About 700 years before C-4.

Tureen and her band of heroes rise up against the oppressive Avani Empire, and it fractures into many countries.

==Founding of Avan (C-6)==

The Avani empire was founded 1683 years before C-4, uniting the east and west subcontinents of the mainland.

==Marriage Comet (C-7)==

[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aDO7r-bCrrL40JuJIQW7FuY76qzRUqeVj8Q1CNTLNLg/ Heroes of Kern] happens a few hundred years after this Comet.

==Centaur/Cataur War (C-8)==

==Neverending Winter (C-9)==
The Last Warlock sheds his tears, converts to the Five, and men stop being able to learn witchcraft.

==The Great War (C-10)==
The orcs are unified under a Chieftan and march south; Kor and Kern lead the defense against them, and come to political dominance for several comets.

==Magic Goes Haywire (C-11)==

==Ancient History==
* There have been about 40 comets total (maybe 45 now).
* Many comets ago, the Inland Sea is created when the mainland sinks.
* Poisoning of the air causes Sauriens and slith to become "extinct"; Sauriens lose the ability to produce young, slith are driven under the sea to escape the poison. The Goddess provides a miracle giving the Sauriens incredibly long life, against the day they are able to have children again.

First Run

2023-01-10T18:59:08Z

Tirinian:

Middlesea is an island in the middle of the Inland Sea. There's a fishing village and you can walk up to the compound on the top of the cliff.

Day the First, people are arriving for what is expected to be a week or so of discussions. There's a dinner in the main hall where [[Cara]] gives a little speech.

* A ton of people from Red - they sent five delegations instead of one.
* 30-40 from Orange including servants (and some Saurians)
* Similar from Purple and Yellow
* Only about 8 from Blue, including the Mage (and one Saurian)
* Green has multiple delegations, once from each of the three Kingdoms, but they are all small. All named Elves.

A couple of delegations with centaurs.

A walled compound surrounding a walled keep. Outside the keep is an interesting (but successful) mishmosh of styles - a Victorian manor house, an open Roman palisade, some fancy gardens. It dates back to the war of the Lord and the Lady (hundreds of years) at least and has been used periodically as a meeting place, but is not usually someone's residence until Cara laid claim to it when she established herself as the Pirate Queen.

(Con roll! Alert! Alert!)

Those with the most con start to hear "I think this one is coming around!"

Nesh sees he is on the road outside the gates, with the other six PCs. People are a little cut up. There are some fisherfolk from the fishing village. Where has the keep/compound gone? [[Nesh]] can see it, but the fishers can't. He heads to the gates, but they don't open. Nesh and the fishers mutually vanish when they go that way. [[Diomarch]] starts waking up (next in line with Con). It's the next morning, apparently. Diomarch and [[Managaratha]] can also see the keep.

Managaratha walks over to the doors holding on to one of the fishermen, but they both stop - doesn't make sense to keep going. Letting go, he can keep going forwards but when they do, the other guy vanishes.

''Det Magic: some sort of purple + DI ritual'' - that's the thing in the walls, like a dome, but the stopping effect is not magic. Managaratha thinks that may have been a warning to prevent arms being ripped off.

[[Vidan]] wakes up, and wonders if that was him. [[Stella]] wakes up and does some actual medicine, cleaning cuts. Vidan helps with first aid. ([[Scout]] has no eyes, under a blindfold.)

The last thing Vidan remembers is that he was at dinner and Navere spent all his DI. He is wearing sliced clothes. Dioramic thinks everyone just ran through a wall.

''Also a green spell, fading away''

Everyone heads to the doors to investigate, creeping out the fishermen.

Vidan:
''Everyone is under a Navere-flavored Witnessing miracle (Rush + everyone else)''
''Everyone is under a Broken miracle (where the Keep is) - covering the keep and environments''
''Twins miracle / purple around the keep too''

Scout:
''Giant demon miracle''

[[Gale]] tries to go over the wall and finds a couple of hexes that she can travel, but then there's a purple something. Some people are in stasis not moving.

Scout does some scouting. At the edge down the road, there is a wound/hole/break in the demon miracle which is probably caused by people getting out (i.e. us). Someone much smaller than the miracle hit it and did... something. Probably Diomache's miracle, short circuited through Navere.

Vidan thinks the miracle should be wearing off but it's caught in the stasis field (!).

Is the Queen still in there? (one of the fisherfolk, who introduces himself as [[Trell]] wonders). Probably?

The other priests had more DI than this, so why are we the ones out? Vidan thinks the miracle on us is bigger than he could have cast.

Stella:
''What needs Fixing here? It's a big messy mess. There are at least three effects reinforcing each other.
# ''Demon miracle: putting the whole thing in a bubble that no one can get in or out of
# ''Purple + twins stasis bubble with a specific key to turn it off. Get the person with the key into the bubble.
# ''Both of those should be smaller area, but there's a big Blue spell making it all one battlefield.
''Once all that is fixed, a '''lot''' of things inside will need fixing really quick. One of the things in there is targeting Nesh, and it would be bad.

Gale:
''We are all on the battlefield with a big hanging blue spell. (not Gale's) There's a battle going on in there, though it's on hold. There were multiple battles in multiple battlefields going on when the Blue spell hit and unified everything. We cannot split up *too* far but we are still on the battlefield even if we leave. There are other things that aren't Blue interacting with that.''

Maybe we have to go on a lot of quests to solve the individual bits and then finally drop it.

Trell thinks there's a trail that goes up to a house, on the other side of where Middlesea would have been. That's Managaratha's house. He didn't remember it was there. Time for tea! The fishermen will go down. Can they tell Captain Valgrand (from the Golden Falcon ship) to hold for a bit? Captain Velgard is annoying and grumpy but Trell can carry a note.

(Vidan remembers the name Managaratha from a magic history class - that's what happens when you frag yourself. He has reportedly been present for several Comets.)

More introductions. Gale works for the Pirate Queen. Scout works for the King of the Forest. Stella is a priest of the Goddess and came with Orange. Diomarch is with the paladins of Rush who came from Red. Vidan is from Purple.

Most of the magic-capable kingdoms probably know something's wrong already since they won't have gotten reports back. And the ships would have seen the keep vanished this morning.

The purple key ia probably a key in Truespeak. Maybe it needs the right person.

Back to Middlesea. Guys in orange livery arguing with a bureaucrat (not from the delegation).

Gale heads up to look around. Seems to be a sphere of stasis.
# Hey, there are a bunch of orcs.
# A section of the keep looks really wonky - hard to look at and eye-shatteringly moving (Yellow?)
# Stormclouds over that section

Things seem to be centered on the keep, though fights with orcs are on the grounds.

The bureaucrat was sent to see what happened to the morning report, and Vidan should come home with him. Vidan convinces him that he doesn't have the authority and also as part of the delegation he should be here. ("I should go work on the official report")

The no-Middlesea space is a lot smaller - just a clearing. The orange guys go a lot faster going *around* it. They think it's about twenty-five hexes across.

Nesh wanders around a bit and spots lion pawprints on the outer wall in one section.

Vidan:
''Given these events, what do we need to see next?. He vanishes.''
Er, where did he go? Scout thinks his "get me out of there" wavered and he will be back eventually.

"I guess Team Serious is down one."

Is there a demon hanging around here? Scout tries to figure it out. The Oasis demon did the miracle. That's the biggest demon in the world, though it doesn't necessarily work for the Breaker. It isn't standing around here.

This seems pretty fast for a new Comet. Managaratha thinks that's not unheard of, but less common. Nine Comets ago, the Winter was fast. The Centaur/Cataur war started with the war. When the Rainbow River disappeared (the comet after the last run), that was a bang. The expedition to the Citadel was also early in the Comet.

We head down - about halfway down, we run into the Captain and his crew. Stella tries to explain. The captain really wants someone to come with him.

We divert to a tavern to write notes to everyone's delegation. Gale thinks we can escape out the back to her skiff if needed.

Managaratha has us all linked in a talking spell. Sneak and bluffery for Gale, Nesh, and Scout to get out first. Gale unfolds the boat.

"Thank you for your diligence. We'll be going now." Stella goes to get on the centaur, but the captain tries to grab her. We escape!

We fly over the keep. Nesh spots Beauregard, frozen and heading away from the keep.

This is about a stopping place, but we really don't know where to go yet. The Golden Falcon has in fact left.

The pirate fleet is on a nearby island. We go there. Gale haphazardly explains, and complains about the Golden Falcon, he's fair game to pirate. Nobody has a yellow mage. Alas.

There are a lot of Jord temples around. Temple of Rush less common. Temple of Navere about a day to the north.

Next day, we head to a nearby temple of Rush. The priest here (Fred) is keen to put together an attack force, or at least to get that ball rolling. He might be able to figure out something about the battle we're in. He tries, and... stops moving. It wears off after a couple of minutes, at least. Oops. It was harder because Diomarch is under the influence of a Broken miracle. We might want to be careful about that. We are scouts rather than combatants right now, though we might become combatants first.

There have already been deaths in the battle. A number could happen fairly soon, in an odd definition of "soon".

The priest at the church of Navere is Dalarin. He can write a letter of introduction to send in if we are worried about setting off their Broken detection.

Temple of Navere next. Nesh finds an urchin to send in Fred's note. The priest of Navere does not approve of completely loose cannons, which we seem to want to be.

She is willing to find out what someone's commanders orders are. Maybe she can do what their orders would be, if they knew the stuff the party knows? She can try. Diomarch has the clearest chain of command (Sgt. Susie), and is Fiveist to boot. Dalarin speaks in Sgt. Susie's voice. "Don't let the orc out. Keep the kid safe from the cataurs. Find out what the [[Fourists]] are doing."

Managalatha ponders the Oasis-- it has factored prominently in three Comets. The first was the centaur/cataur war; the second was the last run; the third was the Comet when the Rainbow River disappeared, when the Oasis moved to the desert beyond the Mountains of the east, and took it over.

<h2> Loot </h2>
* 5 EPs
* 5 SPs