Dead Man Continues To Haunt Genest
The mysterious and sinister figure of Pan Woodstock was seen lurching around Genest again. The Militia are still desperately seeking to bring him Peace and Oblivion.
Village News
Village Mourns Pan Woodstock
Genest, Sea 2 / 1622 - The village of Genest has been celebrating .. er.... commemorating the recent demise of one of its more respected citizens and, some say, most successful militia leader ever since records began. However, despite their good intentions the village elders appear to have made a terrible social gaffe as the deceased, one Paniteles Woodstock, was in fact refused admittance to the knees-up in his honour as inadvertently his name had been omitted from the guest list . Unable to attend his own party, Mr Woodstock was forced to cool his heels in the village duck pond while all those in the Saint Maria's Arms Tavern (reasonable rates available on request) partied until the early hours. Upon being asked to comment later upon the unfortunate error arising from this minor misadministration by the otherwise excellent village council, Mr Woodstock said "You're all a bunch of bastards..... I hate the lot of you.... I never liked you anyway..... it's not fair......boo-hoo!" The grieving widow, struggling on bravely despite her recent loss, danced the night away accompanied by Marcus Woodsman .
Church News
The Church welcomes Gelert Thatcher as a newly-confirmed Initiate of the Seven Mothers. Gelert is the first member of his family to leave their Ancient Pagan Customs of Spirit Worship and obscure cults such as Droods and Yolande, and join the Progressive Reformed Church of Death, Moon and Fertility. All Praise the Reaching Moon!
Foreign News
Horrific Murder in Thule
Thule, Sea 48 / 1622 - Experienced soldiers fainted whilst investigating the brutal slaying of much-loved Teelo Norri Acolyte "Norri" Lacia. Lacia, who was in charge of the Poor Fund, Shelter, Hospice and other charities in Thule went missing 2 days before she was found hanging upside down on a meathook. News of the tragedy sparked a near-riot as many of the area's citizens gathered in town to pay their respects, and feelings ran high. Spokesmen for the crowd demanded that the Baron "do something!". A Thuleshire-wide hunt has been launched for anyone who could have been in Thule at that time and it is understood over a hundred Thule citizens have already been interrogated. The penalty for even harming a Teelo Norri acolyte is a minimum of 5 years' hard labour, and the Baron has vowed that whoever is responsible will suffer a minimum punishment of crucifixion. Asked whether the murder was connected with the doing-in of "Saint" Maria exactly a year ago, Lord Rennol declined to comment.
Entire Village Disappears
Aquapor, Sea 12 / 1622 - A logging settlement in Rathorela has disappeared, along with almost a hundred people (loggers and their families). A lone survivor has apparently escaped his companions mysterious fate, appearing in a temple to Dee'Zola after, it is thought, calling upon her aid. He is quite mad and simply babbles: "The Trees! The Trees!". The Knights Viarum have mounted a rescue mission and are investigating reports of a sizeable Rathori / Elf presence sighted in the area at about the same time.
Summary
Gelert became an initiate of Seven Mothers. The PCs went to Northmarch to find old Erath shrines and contact some newtlings who might be able to find the missing hand off an Erath statue, lost underwater. Near Alyswood, they spotted two men and a boy, all heavily armed. The boy was known to Marcus as a vampire (and he has the marks on his neck to prove it!). He trailed them to Moranus where a large group of people seemed to be holed up in the castle. The others caught up in the morning and the PCs made contact with the Newtlings of the lake.
Details
Dramatis Personae: Pan (Charlie); Marcus (Lynne); Ammerdale (Alan); Gelert (MarkB); Bart (MarkLD).
Marcus & Pan had arranged for masons in Thule to make a very large stone table for the Black Dryad of the Rathori Hourglaston Ruins. The PCs had it transported to the edge of the forest and then struggling carried it by hand into the woods. There was a little trouble with an animated tree, and a disturbance when some boisterous giants and a minotaur had a scrap nearby, but the stonework was successfully transported to the appointed place for collection by the Dark Elves.
Travelling North (see map)
The PCs proceeded north to the Blasted Rock clan's territory, just south of the swamp where newtlings had been seen.
Soon they found a tribal camp. Ammerdale wished to greet them in Rathori and Pan helpfully provided what he said was a basic friendly Rathori greeting ("I'm gay - try me!"). Despite Ammerdale's good intentions this did not seem to go down too well, the tribesmen seeming neither amused nor welcoming. But eventually they were persuaded to show the PCs how to contact the swamp newtlings, by slapping the water. A newtling appeared and advised that the PCs must negotiate with Sark, a leader who lives in Meltwater Lake.
The PCs travelled East to the Magister's house before heading to Meltwater Lake, where they found he was having a bit of a funny turn and had barricaded himself into a room because Everyone Was Trying To Get Him. But he emerged a day later to greet them, cautiously.
The Erath statue that Bart, Ammerdale and Gelert had moved from Redflood Lake has been set up in a shrine but, lacking a hand, the enchantment which allows it to function as a shrine seems broken. The Magister agreed that the Newtlings were a good idea for retrieving the hand, but warned that their people had bad experiences with Lunars in the past and might be responsible for a Stilton fisherman's recent disappearance. He advised that a Newtling leader should come to Arin House (which is after all right by the swamp) to negotiate with his grandson. (Note his innate assumptions that the Newtlings should come to the Lunars, and that only nobles are qualified to diplome.)
The PCs were ferried over the swamp by a Stilton marshman in the Magister's employ. They were not landed directly across the swamp as they wished to avoid Odgar... for some reason.
There was a bit of a problem at Boar's Hill, so re-named because the ever over-ambitious Ammerdale got gored in the leg by a boar here before the party polished it off for him.
Travelling north again, they reached their first objective - Alyston.
As they poked around to find an Erath Shrine, the PCs noticed that last time they were here, there was an inscription on the large monument at the centre of the village.... but now, it was gone! - not chiselled off or otherwise defaced, but replaced by smooth, weathered rock, covered with moss and lichen and exactly the same in appearance as the other three sides of the monument.
Investigation of the Lunar temple here showed that it had six niches for subshrines. Most were filled with images of Dee'Zola, Kalikos, etc. but one stood empty, and apparently had been for some time. Scratches on the floor of the alcove - one marked with some kind of red residue - showed that a heavy statue or rock had been dragged out at some time. It was Marcus who found it, in a garden surrounded by flowers: undeniably a statue of Erath, in the traditional red sandstone, but cracked across the middle where some vandal had smashed it in two long ago. It seemed to have been adapted as garden statuary by a villager and been forgotten. It did not accept worship.
It was here that it struck Pan, Gelert and Bart that it would be mightily difficult to reconsecrate the statue, or start a new shrine, without an Erath Priest. Perhaps the Wyldwood Droods had one? Or in the Eastern Drood Forest? How does any cult start? Whatever they thought of, though, it seemed that Marcus had already checked it out and got negative results. Marcus reported that his researches indicated that the most promising idea seemed to be the links between Erath and Oramis and thus Crom Serpos: so maybe some kind of sideways link could be utilised.
Wilowsfen and the Serpos Shrine
The party continued north along the road towards Travail, then cut East to avoid being seen from there by the guards at the prison quarry there. This brought them to the derelict remains of Willowsfen-by-the-Marsh, where they noticed a large rock shaped like a snake or lizard's head poking out of the marsh. Gelert and Ammerdale hopped onto it and discovered an earth/snake shrine to.... Crom (?) Serpos???.... and a copper axe - but they decided to leave it as there was a very big snake there.
Travelling West along the New Road to Alliswood, the PCs bumped into a Telmori shaman (Osk Sees-Like-Owl). "Gerroff our land!" he demanded.
The PCs tried to explain it was actually part of the Lunar Empire but he wasn't having any of it. When they mentioned they were going to see Sark, though, he got mightily amused and let them pass. This worried and confused the party ("So who should we sacrifice when we meet this Sark?").
The next thing the PCs spotted was the tracks of three civilised persons, obviously heavily laden, and one being a child. Suspecting the child to be the vampire they had encountered in this area before, they armed themselves with Boar stakes...um...steaks and wrote GARLIC in big letters on a sack, and proceeded cautiously. (Hmmm!)
Shortly thereafter they met another Telmori, this one an aggressive young man (Draegar) accompanied by a wolf. Threats failing to drive them back, he transformed into a wolf himself and attacked! The PCs lost SAN but grappled him down and, finding normal weapons useless, used fire to subdue him. He promised not to attack them again and they continued on.
Coming to a ruined village (Alliswood), the PCs had just about decided to follow the classic B-movie tactic of going into the suspected vampire nest just as night falls, when three figures emerged from a house: two armoured men and a lad. They headed off West along the New Road and Marcus, the best scout, followed telling Ammerdale to tell the others (who had fallen a little behind) to follow at a distance. Ammerdale misheard and told them to stay away until morning.
Marcus followed the three for several hours (wondering what had happened to the others). [Incidentally, if he had failed any of his sneaking rolls at this point, his only hope would have been D.I.] He saw the three suspects arrive at the castle where Antigonus Periledes had holed up before. It was obviously manned, and there was some kind of large flying lizard on top of the tower.
As he watched, a strange sparkling began around the castle and there was some commotion and indistinct shouting which eventually died down. Later, a force of perhaps a hundred people left the castle and headed south.
Marcus hid up a tree until daybreak.
When the others arrived in the morning, he told them what he'd seen and everyone did a big detour to reach Meltwater Lake and avoid the castle.
There was a brief spar with a ghoul, which jumped their line but was despatched so quickly by Pan that Marcus, at point, didn't even realise they'd been attacked.
At one point they felt they were being watched or, perhaps, some kind of Fear spell was upon them; however, they did reach the lake and used the slapping technique to summon Newtlings.
Sark appeared and with him, several other newtling warriors and a war-turtle. He is impressive, for a newtling: missing his left eye, he is large (for this race) and has a distinctive red-edged crest. He bears no armour but has a 1 handed spear (transparent: glass?) and a curious, streamlined medium shield; a net; some transparent darts and some pouches. Like all newtlings he moves in a creepy lizardlike, jerky fashion.
After checking them out with Detect spells he reluctantly invited them to the Newtling island (upon the turtle).
The PCs gathered that the Newtlings hated the people who had just left the castle, whom they described as 'Dead Men' and 'Yolandeans'. Apparently the Dead Men had moved in only a couple of days before. On further questioning it transpired that the Yolandeans were vampires .... which gave Gelert pause for thought as his own father had mentioned that he was in Yolande......
Items aquired this game: a few clacks and a bronze ring off a ghoul ...
Predictions for next game: Avoiding vampires; Persuading newtlings to let you go; and, what would they be interested in trading for to get the statue's hand for you? Fun & games trying to retrieve the statue's hand? Scouting around to find more Erath shrines..? (Myra sells Marilyn whilst Pan is "dead" )
Appendix A: see The Newtlings of Meltwater Lake
