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Page Revision: 10/10/2013 07:18

Cast

Character	Title	Player
Bower	The Knave of Shadows	Ed Douglas
Suhoi	Master of the Waters	Denis Matveev
Robin	The Lady of Forests	Heather
Domino	The Master of Riddles	Jason Stevens

Contents

• Overview
• Session 1 - The World Riddle
• Session 2 - Fingerprints
• Session 3 - The Masquerade
• Notes
• Questions

Overview

Employer

Mark, Death's Champion.

Mission

The Angels of the Seal have returned to the Known Realms at the speed of death, and have much to reveal of what they have seen.

Session 1 - The World Riddle

Domino writes...

The Summons

We meet in Alusia. A tinker outside Novadom is waiting for us and gives us directions to Sumaldi, where Mark is. We travel there without incident to find some seriously hard-working goblins rebuilding the place. A Death wanders out to meet us, who seems to inspire the goblins, and in a bone-dry voice says, FOLLOW ME.

He leads us to an audience chamber where Mark is seated. The pleasantries are brief and we learn that the Seal Angels have returned and are currently resurrecting. Mark said he spoke with them and tells us the much anticipated news: what it was these staunch Immortals encountered in the Outer Darkness and what was it that killed them so swiftly. What they found is that the World Riddle is about to be answered. This, Mark explains, is not good. The question, "Is there a God?" will be answered which will complete the universe, ending change. It will be like ice-crystals seeding in sub-zero water - the universe will cease.

We discus some options:

• Go to House Kerberoth, speak with Lord Tirwh and try to increase the uncertainty there.
• Go to the Library of Leng and speak with the Elder Ones.
• Go to Ys in Hell, an outcome of which might require the release of the Devil.
• Get some Time Flies from the Pit.
• Attack Berith, who is currently travelling through the Abyss as a little girl.

Mark is particularly keen for us to attack Berith, so we wittingly agree. So the first stop is the Abyss; via House Kerberoth and any other place we might venture before hand.

As we leave, we find an odd house nearby. It's like the House of Many Rooms but a younger horror. We poke around and discover it has five connections, two of which are unreal:

• Victoria, Bedlum
• New Terra, Kammet
• Perfidious Albion
• The Outer Darkness
• The Imagination

The house is drawing madness from Bedlum. The guardian of the house is a Sybarite (Cenobite) - a tough creature with a tetrahedral torso.

Road to Kerberoth

Mark lets us travel through the Valley of Death to Jiroth in the Lands of Chaos. We visit Theothrastis for some supplies. During conversation he mentions that there are some singing bees that produce some unusual honey. I'm curious so I head off there and meet with Kreyten nel Vethra, keeper of the singing bees. He starts explaining that their honey and wax have magical properties when I notice a hidden rune of control on his forehead. I suggest that he might want to have that looked at, and he quickly agrees while cursing Blackrod. I remove it for him and we trade. Of particular interest to me is the wax, which can be used to create seals - to hold onto Substance without Form, for example.

We head off over the mountains where the griffons are. The prides see us, take to the skies in v-formation and accelerate to attack speed.

Now, it's well known that "griffon" stems from the Latin griphos meaning riddle, so I briefly consider charming them. But I quickly decide that griffons probably don't care about their etymology so much as lunch. So instead I raise my defences.

Three griffins peel off and come in fast on Robin. She drops one immediately with a well placed arrow and dodges the other two as they scream past. Two target Bower, who jumps to one side and wings one with a good swing. Suhoi cuts one clean in half, while three fall to my spells.

Then Suhoi summons devastating ice shards, centred on us. He's been trained well. Bower sees this and leaps off the cliff. The rest of us brace for impact behind a wall of thorns that Robin thankfully casts. The ice shards hit and kill all the griffons in the area of effect. We finish off most of the stragglers and check that Bower's okay.

We find that the griffons also have control runes on them. Bower casts Shadow Play to reveal who's involved in this, and he sees a beautiful black man with oiled skin, wearing armour with tubes in it.

We harvest the griffins for body parts and track down their nests. Their nests are spun gold, so we walk away richer.

Session 2 - Fingerprints

Domino writes...

House Kerberoth

We make our way to House Kerberoth and into its great fortifications. They have a higher military presence than normal but we aren't stopped by the guards. We request an audience with Lord Tirwh and are entertained while we wait. Robin charms one of the male dancers who gives her a parting rose.

We inform Lord Tirwh that Damien and the rest of the Seal Angels have returned, albeit still resurrecting. He is pleased. We go on to mention that the answer to the World Riddle is imminent and that we've been tasked by Mark to see what we can do. Our first challenge being to attack Berith. Lord Tirwh explains that we are no match for him, even in his current form. However, he is travelling through the Abyss slowly and secretly. We know this because otherwise the Lady of the Abyss would have already detected him and it would have been all over. So we determine that our best chance is to reveal him rather than fight him.

We thank Lord Tirwh and depart for the Certain Shore in the Land of Fable. As we travel, Robin notices how the borders with the forest realms are very abrupt - we're in grasslands and then suddenly, literally in a step, we're in forrest. Suhoi and myself see a more gradual change.

Entropy Poles

We travel through to the Certain Shore. Suhoi divines the water. It's certain because each wave is of the same period. This is not obvious when looking at the water casually because it's a complicated formation of wave-upon-wave. The waves keep the same level of certainty, so they contain no information. Robin jumps in and splashes around a bit to see what a bit of disorder will do.

Briefly, information is generated until higher-order certainty overcomes this and it settles back to zero information once more. Perhaps this locus for certainty is capable of generating, into fable, the information we don't want. We decide not to chaos the area.

Robin senses and Ent nearby (Brightleaf) and wanders off to investigate. Again she notices how the borders between the forest realms are very abrupt, and with a pressure of sorts as the boundary is crossed. I divine the boundary this time and discover that these micro-planes are like a deck of cards. They're trump-worlds placed together, some end-on-end, some connected with another medium, some without astrals. Clearly this is the Lord of Similarities doing. We suspect this is the multiverse he will flee to when certainty comes. Perhaps the multiverse the Biolurgen comes from, in turn perhaps the living trump of the Gene Genie.

We go through a window to the tower, though to the Paths of Sheol, through to a white tower, through to the Uncertain Shore. Again Suhoi divines the water and again we introduce its opposite to see what will happen. Suhoi creates some periodic waves and briefly witnesses something wonderful. But he has no idea what it is and the moment passes.

We head back to the Certain Shore and towards Perfidious Albion which has the tower that can take us back to House Kerberoth, but find the tower occupied.

Occupied Tower

We stake out the tower for a few days and see a bronze griffin ornithopter arrive. Half a dozen men in wolf masks unload boxes and canisters. We see a couple of scientists with snake masks fussing about, who we notice are women.

We wait until night. The ornothopter leaves and guards patrol. Suhoi turns to mist and drifts towards to tower past some guards. They don't seem to pay much attention. That is, however, until undead hands push through the earth and grope at Suhoi. The alarm is raised.

The door to the tower swings open revealing a scientist and necromancer. The scientist has some ocular device which she uses to peer around. She seems to sense Suhoi, has a word to the necromancer and dives out of the way as his chest erupts in a gore attack. This passes harmlessly through Suhoi. There are more mutterings and this time the necro summons a fire ifrit. We see guards coming around from both sides of the tower and movement on top of the tower as a plasma cannon is brought to bear. I scream over the mind link that this is bad for Suhoi in mist form, he starts to change back while Robin releases an arrow and I race forward to get into spell range.

A desperate fight ensues as we're caught in the tower's killing grounds. With myself providing artillery and Robin providing canon fodder, Suhoi manages to spear-head his way through the ifrit and necro into the tower. Outside, Robin and I fight our way forward to the tower, taking some serious wounds. I'm about to follow through to Suhoi when I realised that Robin isn't going to make it. I race back and try to drag her to the tower. I used my power word "rise" on the turret and the first shot fires clear of us overhead. Under rifle fire we make some more ground, but the next shot from the plasma cannon incinerated us both, several hundred times over. I had an extra life so reformed, picked up the briquette and high-tailed it into the tower. Seeing this the rest of the guards flee.

Suhoi manages to bottleneck a number of soldiers on a single-file stairwell, and fights his way to the first door but then starts to get pushed back. We managed to drop a number of them, but they continue to pour out, jumping off the stairwell. Falling back Suhoi does something to the briquette I know not what and suddenly Robin's back. We become almost surrounded but now push back hard. The decisive blow comes from Robin's powerful swarm spell, for which they have no answer to. The fight is won.

We loot well and secure the tower. They have an alchemy lab in place, with light and darkness essences. They're experimenting with shadow apparently. They also have a large canister of phlogiston, rifles, armour and other items.

Session 3 - The Masquerade

Domino writes...

Father Yig

After a few days recovering in the tower, we hear a griffin ornothopter approach. We race upstairs and bring the plasma cannon to bear. None of us are artillerists but we hope to scare it off. It climbs and moves out of range to land in the forest nearby. Not in any state to engage in another fight we decide to leave through one of the windows.

Suhoi decides he'd rather not go through to the Paths of Sheol because it's a desert and his spell's are much weaker. There's a window depicting an ocean which looks more his speed, so he casts water breathing all-round and we go through.

We descend through layers of water to an underwater river. It's fairly dark but we follow the current and after a while see a dome off in the distance. Around this time we feel the pressure of something very large moving nearby. I get the sense that it's otherworldly and express concern to Suhoi that he might want to have a look around. Suhoi decides that moving is better than seeing, so we move towards the dome with bated breath.

As we get closer to the dome we notice it's an underwater city. We start to make out people moving about, they appear to be dressed in hooded robes. When we're upon the dome, some of the figures notice us and begin to usher us towards some bulk-head doors. We go through them and are greeted by half a dozen. Others seem interested in us, but most appear busy and move on.

It doesn't take long for our Gift of Pentecost to kick in. They speak freely under question and explain that their city was sunken many hundreds of years ago. It was known as the Keep of the Four Lands, surrounded by a pine forest with a tower to the west, an ocean to the east, a desert in the south, and, on the opposing corner, a place they describe to us. We're not able to form a concept of this place however and our impression slips away. When their city was sunk, their priests use the Father's magic to create a dome to protect the city.

They live for some 700 years and have elders resting, awaiting the for the return of a Father Yig. Their city can support about a million people but is currently 10%. The large entities in the deep are serpents.

They have some dealings with the Medianites but we get the impression they're not allies. The have recently asked a Medianite Witch whether the Big U has woven any threads of unlight into the Lands of Chaos. She said no, which they know was not a lie, but they do wonder if she's been given false information. A trick, they say, they do themselves.

We hear that two aggressors came in recently causing carnage and damaging a library. One was robed in white, with golden epaulets, ties and clap for a cape. He had wild hair and a woven beard cut flat at the bottom. The other figure wore iron armour and rode an obsidian dragon. They killed many and forced their way into a library, did some damage there and left. They did not find any evidence that they had taken anything, although it was possible they ripped some pages from a book.

We asked to be taken to the library. It had since been repaired but the librarian showed us which section they had ransacked. They used some arcane category system so we asked the librarian and he said it was a section on herbs and poisons. My miracle pool discharged at that, and I learned the librarian was lying.

I had a closer look at the section of books using my lore of the occult. The section they were looking at was to do with the Outer Darkness, in particular Corner Dogs.

In a loud voice in earshot of the librarian, I explained to our hosts that we believe the two were after information on Corner Dogs and that we need to retire to our quarters immediately. We broke line of sight, walked unseen and returned to keep an eye on the librarian.

The librarian wasted no time scuttling off. We followed him to the temple, around a corner, through a door, through some hanging beads, down a corridor where he disappeared into another room. We eves dropped. He was speaking with another about our knowing of the Corner Dogs, but responded to a question that we probably don't know why they took them. We heard the other voice say that if Duke Toromon gets his hands on some Corner Dogs then it will be very bad. We heard the librarian say that he thinks he already has.

At that we reveal ourselves indicating we're peaceful and quickly explaining that we're on their side. We're surprised to see their hoods lowered revealing snake heads. They're just as startled and quickly cowl themselves.

We tell them that the spinners have been weaving unlight through twilight.

Notes

Fable

• Un/certain shores - coherent and white water
• Some interesting forests

House Tintagel

• Borders on the Sands of Time, which has Invisible Water
• The Klepsydra is the House Artifact
• May have information on the Calculus of Change
• May have the Gift Box

Black Figure from the Shadow Play

There is a set of orichalcum scale that was commissioned by the Death Knight Kamuel, that had tubing running through it. Apparently it is used to supply the wearer with Iophiel's blood, presumably making the wearer beautiful as a side effect. Blackrod held Iophiel captive and also took his eyes. Blackrod's a cambian at the moment so may look different now.

House Tintagel

• Borders on the Sands of Time, which has Invisible Water
• The Klepsydra was the House Artifact
• Should have information about the Calculus of Change
• May have the Gift Box

Jade Rain's Riddle

As hounds answer the hunter's call,
This strange beast, its time come again,
As devils rise and angels fall,
Will shatter stars and scatter chessmen,
And stalk the lands with an asses thighbone.
While, certes, at the other end of time,
Feet bound in quaking stone,
Is raised to the power of the least prime.

Berith, the Savage Duke

Berith is a false god (pseudo theoi) who gets power from idolatrous worship. His worshippers are the Shechem, the Sons of Hamor ("ass"). They are people who enter into a covenant sealed by the sacrifice of an ass.

He tells things of the past, present and future with true answers; he can also turn all metals into gold, give dignities to men and confirm them. He speaks with a clear and subtle voice, and is a liar when not answering questions. He has power over covenants, enjoys a good torture and circumcision, so a devil not to be bargained with.

To speak with him the conjurer must wear a silver ring in the middle finger of the left hand against his face.

In Alchemy Berith was the element with which all metals could be transmuted into gold.

Berith created a game which when played opens a doorway out of hell. This is to Beirut in Nualis, where there's a cache of souls at Tophet. Berith cannot be banished at the moment. He's resident and currently in the body of a 10 year old girl (from the Biologian).

The Biologian

The Biologian is from another multiverse, where positives are negative. He gets benefit from acknowledgment or awareness by others. He cannot give life to things that aren't alive and things that have never been alive but he can give life or sentience to other pseudo-sentient creatures/entities/formations such as storms etc. The Biologian wears long dark robes, a broad black brimmed hat hiding his face with a white plain collar at his throat.

Ius

Ius, Uriel's sword which fell in the fight with the Devil, was auctioned off by Judecca's pattern ghost to an as yet unknown party. But it's known that Seir, Berith and Murmur were not at the auction.

Powers of the sword include, the reporting of crimes and talking to Uriel.

Questions

Why is Berith taking the risk of crossing the Abyss when he's resident and his avatar's a little girl?

• Is he a friendly?

What is Grimes' plan?

• Bring about the certaint answer to the question, "is there a God?"

What is Grimes' escape plan?

• Create a new multiverse?
• Flee to the Biologian's multiverse?

What law are the writing that will bring about the certainty of the question "is there a God?"

• The Law of Similarity itself?

What can we do?

• Stop the multiverse becoming certain, perhaps by stopping them writing a law into the universe.
• Get leverage on Grimes so he takes us with him.
• Verify the multiverse the Biologian comes from is a negative world. If so, explore merging and entangling with it so uncertainty is permanent.