 |
| Khut's feeling... |
CARDS
Chinua & Dust
Human Relationship Series: Truth vs. Exageration
Ganbaatar
The battle with the Old Empire was won…
We are on the move…heading north…a week has passed…
There is a strange sense of waiting from the tribe…
The earth seems to move and shift underfoot…
When we wake there appear to be hills where there were none previously…
The land becomes more lush as we go north…
For the first time in ages we are not starving…
Our scouts have run into merchants, travelers, and things…
Strange people who travel up and down the rivers on floating platforms…
Strange, strange, boats that can go UP-RIVER…
The people keep their distance from us…call the land the Hronrad…
We piece together some maps
The woods to the east are crawling with “Nihil Blight”…
We start with a scene of utter chaos and panic…
We are clearly under attack…there are sounds of gunpowder explosions…
Our staunch, clear-headed veterans, panic and go to ground…
Rattled by the whole ghost-town and one-in-seven dying thing…
Clearly ready to shoot at anything that pokes its head up…
Ganbaatar goes berserk and the Holy Mountain Beasts start stampeding…
Khut sends a shrieker arrow right past a HMB’s nose…
Turning the herd…a little…
Khadagan wheels his beast and rides full-bore at the unseen foes…
There is a cheer from the troops…followed by a loud banging sound…
Cresting the ridge he sees the long line of a river snaking away…
Vadim tries to invoke friendship in Littlefoot…
And almost gets himself stomped…Littlefoot is hardcore panicked…
Ellen-Dear raises a cloud of fog in front of the beasts…
They shy from the East (for the scary sound)…
The West from the shrieker arrow…
The North from the fog…
Turning them due south back into the camp…
Iron-Dear, Ithunn, and Sorq dive out of the way…
Iron-Deer recognizes the weird gunshot sound as ice cracking on the river…
Breaks Like Wind calls up a giant light-show…
A huge golem of ice heaves itself up out of the center of camp…
Hands like slabs, face blank as a slate, gouts of steam…
It bows…in time with the cracking of the ice…
Breaks bellows: “The spirits of this land greet Drowned River”
Ado leaps for Littlefoots reins…misses…spooks them…
And the Holy Mountain Beasts run hell-for-leather to the north…
Through the wall of mist…and they are gone…
Towards the “Blight”…
Ganbaatar starts floating around in the air inexplicably…
…probably Sorq’s doing…
Breaks, Khut, Ithunn, Ado, and Sorq go running after the loose HMBs at full throttle…
Khut tracks them in short order to…the edge of a blighted forest…SUPLIES!
Barren pines…no fire, no borers, good soil…twisted from the inside…
Obligatorily creepy…
With a giant jagged hole in the forest where the HMBs entered…
Vadim, Khadagan, Ellen, and Iron-Deer catch up on some herdbeasts…
Ithunn reminds us that the HMB’s feel safe in the forest…graze there as babies…
Ellen-Dear points out that the forest is clearly nec-romanticized…
No spirits involved…some creepy elven magecraft nonsense…
Khut pulls his second-most-prized-possession and head in…
We all head in…it’s foggy…obligatorily creepy you might say…
Vadim points out some things that are indistinguishable from normal plants…
But clearly are not…
So we get jumped, at five to one odds…they die…
There is some fire…and Iron-Dead turns into a bear…
Khadagan checks out the plants to see if they can be home-grown…
We find a body in the rubble, a centaur, swathed in Empty Circle finery…
Tattoos cover its skin…prison tattoo style (charcoal in a wound)…
a steppefolk death prayer…
yaghuth anagram for amnesia…
old empire sigil of the portal to Hades…
Sorq burns the warbler symbol for death into his skin as an addition…
Iron-Dear says he was clearly collecting…
and thus must be a member of the Nihil Sept…
Ellen-Dear says the tattoos match the death-magic infusing the wood…
possibly a self-sacrifice…
Not gaunt, well-fed when he died, came in from the north-east…
Vadim finds some loot in his pack:
* 1,100 old-imperial copper pieces
* 7,000 yaghuthan silver pieces of exchange
* 2,700 gaav-shaharan rose nobles
* Skull-carved mug (250gp)
* Opal Statuette of a Yaghuth w/ defaced trunk (250gp)
* Glass birdcage of warbler manufacture (250gp)
* Steppefolk fur tapestry (250gp)
* Wool rug of Naiman-tribe manufacture (250gp)
* Old empire Jade ring set w/ small gems (250gp)
* Empty Circle Cloth of Gold Sacrificial Robe (250gp)
* Tattoo (Scroll of Cloudkill)
* Potion of Fire Giant Strength
* Elixer of Health
* Potion of Superior Healing
We get back on the trail of the Mountain Beasts…
The ground becomes uneven as we head north…
Ravines…once stands of mountain laurel…
Snow covered with a thin layer of blackened leaves and needles…
Iron-Dear notices a heat-shimmer in the distance…
a well hidden campfire or kiln…no smoke, but plenty of heat…
Dead-north, Khut sees that something else has taken up pursuit of the HMBs…
Enormouse five-toed hoof-tracks, with signs of vestigial claws…
Scoring marks on the trees, like tusks…pointed the wrong way…
We head after the HMBs at full speed…
Khut runs up a tree and ninja-runs through the tree-tops…
He hits a branch, its wet and slippery, and falls into Ithunn’s arms…
Except its not a branch…its a bone…twenty-feet long…
Like a massive, massive femir…
From an animal that would have to be at least two-hundred feet long…
We hear the high-pitched rage-scream from Littlefoot and Thumper…
We start to feel sick…like a low vibration felt in the bones…
And then there is a full hunting pack of beasts…
Like tapirs with tusks and claws…about nine feet long…
Two already hanging from Littlefoot’s flank…
AND there are thirty or fourty Holy Mountain Beasts in the valley…
AND Holy Mountain Beast bones as far as we can see…
Both a breeding ground and a hunting ground…
Khut plants an arrow in one…it twists insanely fast…but still gets hit…
and two giant ones (4x the size of the others) turn and charge…
and eighteen or so little ones trying to bring down the HMBs…
Breaks Like Wind screams, berating the frost spirits into caring for once…
Creating a dome of mirror-like ice covering all the baby HMBs…
One of the big ones charges Khadagan and catches him in its mouth…
It swings its tail at Sorq…Ado jumps on for a very distracting ride…
The little ones bring down one very old Holy Mountain Beast…
Ithunn looks at the HMB go down…and becomes sooooo happy…because MEAT!
She punts a small one into the air…and Littlefoot sends it flying…
Then lands on it and crushes it with a double-footed axe-kick…
Khut sends another arrow flying and knocks the second one off Littlefoot…
Khadagan, in the big ones jaws, stands up, pries its jaw open and holds it…
Vadim runs in with a wave of cackles…and they climb all over it…
Ellen-Dear rolls out his bedroll, dumping a small army of microbots…
Shaped like little figurines of the party…
And the big ol’ spear-tusk is aggressively dead…
Sorq walks into the middle of the smaller ones and calls in the pixies…
Ado steps into the middle of the the elderly HMBs and drops a Beacon of Hope…
Iron-Dear knifes the living daylights out of the second big one…
Then Breaks sprays some grease right under its feet…
And it skids out, slides down the hill, and falls prone…
It tries to stand, but Ellen-Dear just laughs and it falls down again…
Then Vadim dominates it…
The little beasts pile over the HMBs, bringing down five…
But only kill one thanks to Ado’s beacon…
Ithunn and Khut wade in together, finishing off one and stabbing a second…
Khadagan follows and tears the lungs out of the second…
Sorq runs up a downed beast and blows a pack of them off of it…
Ado drops some healing and the four wounded HMBs stand up…
AND they stand with much shaking of the ground…
The cackles and microbots pull down two more…
Ellen-Dear shoves one into the elevator with a Banish…
Breaks drops a fireball into a curve of the hill…
scorching several of the spear-tusks…killing one…
The remaining spear-tusks bring down four more and two dying…
The ground heaves…Khut goes sliding down the hill, and lands in Ithunn’s arms…
Littlewing gives them a lift…
and, from above, they see a REAL Mountain Beast…an ancient one…
The size of a ridgeline…slow…covered with moss…
Like its been sleeping for decades (and we call it Morva)
Ithunn drops on them and kills two with a couple swift blows…
Khut drops an arrow, skewering one…
pinning it to a tree…
over the fire from the fireball…
and shakes some aromatic leaves from the tree…
And the lovely aroma of cooking meat wafts through the air…
Khadagan tears into another…and Sorq finishes it off with the flames…
And Ellen-Dear cooks the last one with a fire blast…
Ado heals the two downed Holy Mountain Beasts, bringing them back up…
Vadim makes friendly with the dominated giant one…
And Iron-Dear gets all cuddly with the weird elephant-tiger-thing…
Ellen lets the last one out of the elevator…
Khut and Ithunn disappear behind a tree for a half-hour…
And come back with an unconcious spear-tusk…
“We were only beating it unconcious, honest…”
That fight ends…then a house-sized head swings down…
There is a giant blast from the nose…sounding like a volcano…
With a sound reminiscent of a mother HMB defending her calf…
The oldest Holy Mountain Beast ever…and its male…
Because apparently they don’t die of old age…
and they keep growing perpetually…
We move the camp to the valley of HMB bones…
Ithunn takes the Amazons out to go collect the massive, massive amounts of
dead Holy Mountain Beast and spear-tusk meat…
While Ithunn is thus distracted, Khut climbs up the spire…
Climbs up a floating tentacle horror…
Seeks out the Achillobator chief…
And has a long talk with him to ask for Ithunn’s hand…
Khadagan seeks out Hundreds and Ruven to make him some fancy chitin armor…
Hundreds goes white-eyed and does some very careful stitching…
Weaving strange, undulating sigils into the weft of the harness…
Sorq rounds up the would-be mage-cadets and some old steppefolk midwife teachers…
Tough, scary, old biddies start beating the children into shape…
Ado joins the Yaghuth in their meditations…
They keep hearing a ringing gong and feeling the flicker of candlelight…
Vadim scales the Holiest of Mountain Beasts…and starts collecting semen…
Invoking both Dust and Drowned River…violence and fertility in action…
He brings along Fletcher, Kitty, and Chinua…
And our females are now pregnant with Morva’s brood…
Dust and Drowned River tell us in no uncertain terms that the world has changed..
There is only fire where once there was light…
Ormazhd Bay’s light is flickering…
Odqan Talaqan’s fire is burning out…
Breaks chats with the Gray Lady and convinces her to be headmistress of the school…
Ellen-Dear meets the Yaghuth and asks them to help Iron-Dear go deep and remember…
As Khut comes out of his hut in the morning, there is a sliver of bone…
Like a knife, but no difference between blade and haft…
No signs of work…just worn into shape, like millenia of moving water…
And it cuts effortlessly through anything…
Khadagan wakes up choking to find Hundred’s hand on the side of her face…
Her eyes still trance-white, but burning red…
The suit is nearly complete, with runes covering the entire surface…
The breastplate reinforced with bronze-like ribs…
The chitin nearly alive, shifting and moving…
Then the scouts let us know that a massive Nihil-Sept army comes in from the east&##8230;
And the author said, “This is good, this thing I have done.” And he went for lunch and a drink. And it was good!
Chinua & Dust
Human Relationship Series: Truth vs. Exageration
Ganbaatar
The battle with the Old Empire was won…
We are on the move…heading north…a week has passed…
There is a strange sense of waiting from the tribe…
The earth seems to move and shift underfoot…
When we wake there appear to be hills where there were none previously…
The land becomes more lush as we go north…
For the first time in ages we are not starving…
Our scouts have run into merchants, travelers, and things…
Strange people who travel up and down the rivers on floating platforms…
Strange, strange, boats that can go UP-RIVER…
The people keep their distance from us…call the land the Hronrad…
We piece together some maps
The woods to the east are crawling with “Nihil Blight”…
We start with a scene of utter chaos and panic…
We are clearly under attack…there are sounds of gunpowder explosions…
Our staunch, clear-headed veterans, panic and go to ground…
Rattled by the whole ghost-town and one-in-seven dying thing…
Clearly ready to shoot at anything that pokes its head up…
Ganbaatar goes berserk and the Holy Mountain Beasts start stampeding…
Khut sends a shrieker arrow right past a HMB’s nose…
Turning the herd…a little…
Khadagan wheels his beast and rides full-bore at the unseen foes…
There is a cheer from the troops…followed by a loud banging sound…
Cresting the ridge he sees the long line of a river snaking away…
Vadim tries to invoke friendship in Littlefoot…
And almost gets himself stomped…Littlefoot is hardcore panicked…
Ellen-Dear raises a cloud of fog in front of the beasts…
They shy from the East (for the scary sound)…
The West from the shrieker arrow…
The North from the fog…
Turning them due south back into the camp…
Iron-Dear, Ithunn, and Sorq dive out of the way…
Iron-Deer recognizes the weird gunshot sound as ice cracking on the river…
Breaks Like Wind calls up a giant light-show…
A huge golem of ice heaves itself up out of the center of camp…
Hands like slabs, face blank as a slate, gouts of steam…
It bows…in time with the cracking of the ice…
Breaks bellows: “The spirits of this land greet Drowned River”
Ado leaps for Littlefoots reins…misses…spooks them…
And the Holy Mountain Beasts run hell-for-leather to the north…
Through the wall of mist…and they are gone…
Towards the “Blight”…
Ganbaatar starts floating around in the air inexplicably…
…probably Sorq’s doing…
Breaks, Khut, Ithunn, Ado, and Sorq go running after the loose HMBs at full throttle…
Khut tracks them in short order to…the edge of a blighted forest…SUPLIES!
Barren pines…no fire, no borers, good soil…twisted from the inside…
Obligatorily creepy…
With a giant jagged hole in the forest where the HMBs entered…
Vadim, Khadagan, Ellen, and Iron-Deer catch up on some herdbeasts…
Ithunn reminds us that the HMB’s feel safe in the forest…graze there as babies…
Ellen-Dear points out that the forest is clearly nec-romanticized…
No spirits involved…some creepy elven magecraft nonsense…
Khut pulls his second-most-prized-possession and head in…
We all head in…it’s foggy…obligatorily creepy you might say…
Vadim points out some things that are indistinguishable from normal plants…
But clearly are not…
So we get jumped, at five to one odds…they die…
There is some fire…and Iron-Dead turns into a bear…
Khadagan checks out the plants to see if they can be home-grown…
We find a body in the rubble, a centaur, swathed in Empty Circle finery…
Tattoos cover its skin…prison tattoo style (charcoal in a wound)…
a steppefolk death prayer…
yaghuth anagram for amnesia…
old empire sigil of the portal to Hades…
Sorq burns the warbler symbol for death into his skin as an addition…
Iron-Dear says he was clearly collecting…
and thus must be a member of the Nihil Sept…
Ellen-Dear says the tattoos match the death-magic infusing the wood…
possibly a self-sacrifice…
Not gaunt, well-fed when he died, came in from the north-east…
Vadim finds some loot in his pack:
* 1,100 old-imperial copper pieces
* 7,000 yaghuthan silver pieces of exchange
* 2,700 gaav-shaharan rose nobles
* Skull-carved mug (250gp)
* Opal Statuette of a Yaghuth w/ defaced trunk (250gp)
* Glass birdcage of warbler manufacture (250gp)
* Steppefolk fur tapestry (250gp)
* Wool rug of Naiman-tribe manufacture (250gp)
* Old empire Jade ring set w/ small gems (250gp)
* Empty Circle Cloth of Gold Sacrificial Robe (250gp)
* Tattoo (Scroll of Cloudkill)
* Potion of Fire Giant Strength
* Elixer of Health
* Potion of Superior Healing
We get back on the trail of the Mountain Beasts…
The ground becomes uneven as we head north…
Ravines…once stands of mountain laurel…
Snow covered with a thin layer of blackened leaves and needles…
Iron-Dear notices a heat-shimmer in the distance…
a well hidden campfire or kiln…no smoke, but plenty of heat…
Dead-north, Khut sees that something else has taken up pursuit of the HMBs…
Enormouse five-toed hoof-tracks, with signs of vestigial claws…
Scoring marks on the trees, like tusks…pointed the wrong way…
We head after the HMBs at full speed…
Khut runs up a tree and ninja-runs through the tree-tops…
He hits a branch, its wet and slippery, and falls into Ithunn’s arms…
Except its not a branch…its a bone…twenty-feet long…
Like a massive, massive femir…
From an animal that would have to be at least two-hundred feet long…
We hear the high-pitched rage-scream from Littlefoot and Thumper…
We start to feel sick…like a low vibration felt in the bones…
And then there is a full hunting pack of beasts…
Like tapirs with tusks and claws…about nine feet long…
Two already hanging from Littlefoot’s flank…
AND there are thirty or fourty Holy Mountain Beasts in the valley…
AND Holy Mountain Beast bones as far as we can see…
Both a breeding ground and a hunting ground…
Khut plants an arrow in one…it twists insanely fast…but still gets hit…
and two giant ones (4x the size of the others) turn and charge…
and eighteen or so little ones trying to bring down the HMBs…
Breaks Like Wind screams, berating the frost spirits into caring for once…
Creating a dome of mirror-like ice covering all the baby HMBs…
One of the big ones charges Khadagan and catches him in its mouth…
It swings its tail at Sorq…Ado jumps on for a very distracting ride…
The little ones bring down one very old Holy Mountain Beast…
Ithunn looks at the HMB go down…and becomes sooooo happy…because MEAT!
She punts a small one into the air…and Littlefoot sends it flying…
Then lands on it and crushes it with a double-footed axe-kick…
Khut sends another arrow flying and knocks the second one off Littlefoot…
Khadagan, in the big ones jaws, stands up, pries its jaw open and holds it…
Vadim runs in with a wave of cackles…and they climb all over it…
Ellen-Dear rolls out his bedroll, dumping a small army of microbots…
Shaped like little figurines of the party…
And the big ol’ spear-tusk is aggressively dead…
Sorq walks into the middle of the smaller ones and calls in the pixies…
Ado steps into the middle of the the elderly HMBs and drops a Beacon of Hope…
Iron-Dear knifes the living daylights out of the second big one…
Then Breaks sprays some grease right under its feet…
And it skids out, slides down the hill, and falls prone…
It tries to stand, but Ellen-Dear just laughs and it falls down again…
Then Vadim dominates it…
The little beasts pile over the HMBs, bringing down five…
But only kill one thanks to Ado’s beacon…
Ithunn and Khut wade in together, finishing off one and stabbing a second…
Khadagan follows and tears the lungs out of the second…
Sorq runs up a downed beast and blows a pack of them off of it…
Ado drops some healing and the four wounded HMBs stand up…
AND they stand with much shaking of the ground…
The cackles and microbots pull down two more…
Ellen-Dear shoves one into the elevator with a Banish…
Breaks drops a fireball into a curve of the hill…
scorching several of the spear-tusks…killing one…
The remaining spear-tusks bring down four more and two dying…
The ground heaves…Khut goes sliding down the hill, and lands in Ithunn’s arms…
Littlewing gives them a lift…
and, from above, they see a REAL Mountain Beast…an ancient one…
The size of a ridgeline…slow…covered with moss…
Like its been sleeping for decades (and we call it Morva)
Ithunn drops on them and kills two with a couple swift blows…
Khut drops an arrow, skewering one…
pinning it to a tree…
over the fire from the fireball…
and shakes some aromatic leaves from the tree…
And the lovely aroma of cooking meat wafts through the air…
Khadagan tears into another…and Sorq finishes it off with the flames…
And Ellen-Dear cooks the last one with a fire blast…
Ado heals the two downed Holy Mountain Beasts, bringing them back up…
Vadim makes friendly with the dominated giant one…
And Iron-Dear gets all cuddly with the weird elephant-tiger-thing…
Ellen lets the last one out of the elevator…
Khut and Ithunn disappear behind a tree for a half-hour…
And come back with an unconcious spear-tusk…
“We were only beating it unconcious, honest…”
That fight ends…then a house-sized head swings down…
There is a giant blast from the nose…sounding like a volcano…
With a sound reminiscent of a mother HMB defending her calf…
The oldest Holy Mountain Beast ever…and its male…
Because apparently they don’t die of old age…
and they keep growing perpetually…
We move the camp to the valley of HMB bones…
Ithunn takes the Amazons out to go collect the massive, massive amounts of
dead Holy Mountain Beast and spear-tusk meat…
While Ithunn is thus distracted, Khut climbs up the spire…
Climbs up a floating tentacle horror…
Seeks out the Achillobator chief…
And has a long talk with him to ask for Ithunn’s hand…
Khadagan seeks out Hundreds and Ruven to make him some fancy chitin armor…
Hundreds goes white-eyed and does some very careful stitching…
Weaving strange, undulating sigils into the weft of the harness…
Sorq rounds up the would-be mage-cadets and some old steppefolk midwife teachers…
Tough, scary, old biddies start beating the children into shape…
Ado joins the Yaghuth in their meditations…
They keep hearing a ringing gong and feeling the flicker of candlelight…
Vadim scales the Holiest of Mountain Beasts…and starts collecting semen…
Invoking both Dust and Drowned River…violence and fertility in action…
He brings along Fletcher, Kitty, and Chinua…
And our females are now pregnant with Morva’s brood…
Dust and Drowned River tell us in no uncertain terms that the world has changed..
There is only fire where once there was light…
Ormazhd Bay’s light is flickering…
Odqan Talaqan’s fire is burning out…
Breaks chats with the Gray Lady and convinces her to be headmistress of the school…
Ellen-Dear meets the Yaghuth and asks them to help Iron-Dear go deep and remember…
As Khut comes out of his hut in the morning, there is a sliver of bone…
Like a knife, but no difference between blade and haft…
No signs of work…just worn into shape, like millenia of moving water…
And it cuts effortlessly through anything…
Khadagan wakes up choking to find Hundred’s hand on the side of her face…
Her eyes still trance-white, but burning red…
The suit is nearly complete, with runes covering the entire surface…
The breastplate reinforced with bronze-like ribs…
The chitin nearly alive, shifting and moving…
Then the scouts let us know that a massive Nihil-Sept army comes in from the east&##8230;
And the author said, “This is good, this thing I have done.” And he went for lunch and a drink. And it was good!
- From the ramblings of Khut
No comments:
Post a Comment