Page History: The Perfidy of Albion
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Page Revision: 02/02/2013 05:50
Cast
Uriah - Lord of Circles(played by George)
Nereus - Caster of Bones (played by Ed)
Endgame - Walker in Shadow (cameo at some point)
Suhoi - Master of the Waters (played by Denis)
Puck - The Goblin King (played by Jason)
Domino - Master of Riddles (played by Jason)
*
S1Session 1 - Name
Session 1
Nereus writes...
Background
Suhoi the Master of Water was contacted by one of
Aquilon's (Mistress of Winds) swanmays and directed to the Twilight Gardens in Edwardia, to there meet with other doughty immortals. From there they would be required to complete a duty impressed upon Aquilon by
Serifin, the Lord of Patterns.
Once there, Suhoi was greeted by three other immortals. Puck, a weasely fellow who proclaimed himself to be the Goblin King(which no one had any problems believing, except for the king part), Uriah the Lord of Circles and Nereus the Caster of Bones. The swanmay then proceeded to outline the mission objectives. The Twilight Gardens is home to the
Sir Jerome Hasdrubal Barca - Master of Gardens.
A recent Alusian adventure set on the plane of Tanuel had run across a number of agents of various evil immortals. Given the combination of these immortals and the events which followed, Serafin determined to know more. Nereus was partially involved in the latter parts of the aforementioned events and so was able to shed some light on the situation. The scribe notes for the events can be found at:
DQ Scribe Notes: The Middle WayThe Sybarites mentioned in the notes were agents of the Lord of Minds, who has always seemed to have a penchant for triangles (of which there were a few mentioned in the notes). The Eye of Discord was also mentioned, more in relation to one of his agents though. A number of Devils (of the 72) were also mentioned. And last but not least were the references to Unlight and therefore the big spider from the Silmarillion who is more commonly know of as "the Big U".
Are we there yet?
The group bid farewell to the Master of Gardens and pass on their well-wishes via the Swan Maid to Aquillon and depart via the astral gate. Once in the astral we notice geometric shapes (angular/lines - no curves) that seem to be watching/following us. Upon confronting them they flee. We decide not to pursue but rather to continue on our way (very unusual for us not to get distracted). The shapes return, but keep their distance and finally disperse as we near the edge of the plane.
Everyone but Uriah fly down to the abyss. Uriah seems somewhat hesitant to use his magic carpet and instead chooses to jump and use his Ring of Feather falling. Once this kicks in, he realises it will take him many hours to get to the bottom and notices some flying demons about. Rather than wait to acertain the demons intentions, he removes the ring and attempts to speed his decent by removing the ring for some time and then putting it back on. Unfortunately he is unable to see very well in the darkness that is the Abyss and misjudges the distance to the bottom, resulting in an entertaining landing in which he breaks both of his legs.
The rest of the party has a good laugh at this and in typical Immortals fashion put their own interests in self-preservation (hoarding power just in case) before Uriah's healing. Instead we bundle him up in as uncomfortable position as we can and carry him along, making sure to walk over the roughest terrain along the way. As we all know, it is important to learn from your mistakes, and we felt that the more he suffered, the more he would learn. I'm sure he learnt a great deal from the experience.
House Kerberoth
Eventually, Nereus teleported the party to a bone-circle near House Kerberoth and we were admitted. After talking to Henry the Toy maker, we discovered there were two ways to get to Tanuel from House Kerberoth - both involved travelling through the Lands of Chaos; by Caravan or by via a skilled ranger. Puck, eventually, accidentally let slip that he was a ranger of some skill so we decided to head out immediately, as the next Caravan was not for two weeks.
You can imagine the party's amazement when Puck turned out to be as good as his word and managed to guide us through to Tanuel unscathed. Someones miracle-pool must have kicked in methinks.
Tanuel
See
DQ Wiki: Tanuel for information about Tanuel.
The party crossed a pass from the Lands of Chaos into Tanuel and moved down to the city of Jiroth. After introducing themselves to the local priesthood, Nereus teleported them all to his House.
Clues
Puck did a bit of divining and discovered that the big U had somehow woven unlight through a point with Nereus's house (before it had been built) and could see the main thread heading off to the east. The party moved to Makhatu and decided to head to the east to investigate. Puck was visited by a vision, in which he saw a woman with a witches hat talking to a couple of Sepent folk, in the desert to the east. This reaffirmed the party's commitment to investigate.
Travelling at night and resting during the day in a portable abode, the party headed into the desert for 5 days, and eventually found the spot that Puck had seen in his vision. It was a small hollow next to an ancient, apparently untravelled road. Nereus divined it, and discovered the road leads to Hell. After some investigation we have determined that this is a part of the Path of Sheol.
Being the non-evil sort that we are, we decided that heading to Hell right now was not a useful plan and instead chose to track the road back, AWAY from Hell. After a few days travel, we sighted a circular stone tower with a peaked roof. What we first took to be arrow slits were discovered to be curved windows. I suspect these are curved to maintain the circular nature of the tower as I have heard mention of a mage "Shireth of Darktree Tower" whose signature is circles who apprently is a lich currently bound in service to a Midiante Sorceress.
Session 2
Nereus writes...
The party decided to investigate the tower, after hearing a commotion coming from it. As we neared, we could hear an alarm and thus decided we had better take a quick look in case anyone was in trouble or the like. Nothing seemed to be amiss so we waited for a bit to see if anyone would turn up. After some time a a group of charioteers turned up to investigate whereup we introduced ourselves. After some discussion we decided we should continue with our investigation, whilst the charioteers returned from whence they came (Cynthrax).
The first level of the tower was quite spartan, with a fire blackened area in the middle and 4 windows at cardinal points. Out of the north window we could see a Savannah, East the sea, South a red desert and west an arctic environment. The party moved on to the next floor which contained a carpet with geometric designs. The next floor held a corridor with 3 small doors on either side along the corridor. On the top of the tower was 4 dimentional rotating cuboid. We didn't fiddle with it and decided to leave and head to Cynthax.
From Cynthax we took a week long passage on a boat heading south to Lathoria and from there an 11 day ride to Karthary where we met with Anathel. After a number of fruitless discussions we decided to investigate the remnants of the Serpent folk who were defeated by a group of Allusians. We found the remnants of their settlements in cresent shaped clearings in an unnaturally think jungle. A stream flowed through the clearings and was determined to be a portal to another realm. Someone (Puck - of course) mentioned the name of a horror after which we were attacked by a Beyaki. It proved troublesome but was not an overly difficult challenge.
After we defeat the Beyaki, Endgame turned up to lend a helping hand. We determined a few key facts regarding the portal and with Anathels help were able to figure out the key for opening the portal.
About this time, Endgame noticed that there were threads of unlight attached to Puck. It seems that everytime he was letting others draw from the gift-box, that he was attracting a twilight point in an unsual way. Instead of the twilight point adhering to him, it was strengthening a labyrinth made of unlight that was attached to him. This seemed to have been some sort of plot by Ungoliant to allow her access to the known realms. Puck decided that maybe the pattern ghost of Artemis might help him detach the labyrinth so we decided to seek his help. Not wanting to put him in danger by taking Puck to his house, we agreed to meet him outside House Kerberoth.
This was not such a good idea, as we were ambushed by Grimes who wanted Artemis. A long fight ensued and we managed to drive him off (he ran like the coward he is), but as a by-product of the fight, the Labyrinth became physically manifest in the abyss! Puck dispatched a number of goblins to look after it and we convinced the Chaos Lord (Knight) Tepaclese to keep an eye on them for us.
About this time, the party needed to rest, recuperate and research a number of things and we agreed to meet back at Nereus's house in Tanuel in a years time.
Session 3
Nereus writes...
From Nereus's house, we decided to go talk with Lady Suneth (House Kerberoth). After Puck caused a heap of trouble for himself we finally got back on track and met with Lady Suneth, who directed us to search in Perfidious Albion for answers (specifically the Greater Londra Metroplex).
We headed back to Jiroth, with a short flying adventure and griffon killing. From there we went north to Sura where we met the Alchemist Theophrastus and did a bit of trading, headed north through the pass and are currentling heading north to Jezurea.
Session 4
Nereus writes...
Puck took his leave at this point, having urgent business to attend to. Elsewhere. Domino, the Master of Riddles came to fill in for him.
Nine days later we arrive at Jezurea, passing a few of the administrative towns (towns set up to deal with a specific product - or set thereof), having followed the road. At Jezurea, we take a look at the wards on the walls - not entirely sure but we suspect they are slam-dunk wards. The walls are 5m high with towers which are 7m high. The two most notable buildings that we can see from outside are the Palace and the Citadel.
We poke around a bit and end up meeting the king - Therol whom quickly becomes an agent for Nereus. He informs us that there are bands of evil cultists within the city serving the Earl of Justice and some serving the Valiant Marquis - named devils.
After reviewing some of the Alusian scribe notes, we decide there is a quicker way to get to Perfidious Albion, so we teleport back to Jiroth and head east into the Heights of Chaos and from there to House Kerberoth! 2 more days down. From there we head into a middlemarch which leads to the Lands of Fable where we run afoul of a Greater Jabberwocky. It was brachiating through the trees in some weird 2 dimensional form, bending the trees towards itself.
It quickly latched on to Endgame who did not enjoy the experience as evidenced by the speed with which he disengaged (by turning into a shadow). Once he was a shadow, and 2 dimensional, he could percieve its true form not that it helped the rest of us much. Domino threw a force bolt at it, but it didn't seem to affect it at all, neither did Uriah's Razor orb.
Suhoi, thinking quickly threw it to the ground where Nereus engaged it. Whenever Nereus tried to hit it, it somehow managed to avoid the blow - a normal hit became a miss, a critical would become a hit etc. Endgame dropped to the ground and hit it, Suhoi tried to engage it with his swords and Uriah stopped to think about what he would do next. Meanwhile, the Jabberwocky took a vicious swipe at Nereus who managed to avoid the blow somehow while Domino dropped a fireball on top of it (and Nereus), destroying the Jabberwocky and slightly singeing Nereus.
After this, all the wildlife seemed to give us a wide berth.
We continued on, through the forest until we reached Village One, followed the ring road and became story threads to arrive at a Certain Shore (all of the waves at the beach shared the same frequency). From here, we entered a White Keep and went through one of the windows to another shore where all of the waves we out of sync (uncertain shore?). Nereus placed a bone circle here and we proceeded west until we ran across another white tower which a young Alusian party had cleaned of Flesh crafters. There were a number of graves of different animals which we cleaned up before heading west to Perfidious Albion.
We emerged from the forest beside a road which we ended up following to the Greater Londra Metroplex (3 days travel). The city looks a lot like Victorian London and is about 40miles across. Domino had a quick look into the astral and noticed it was very corrupt. There are a lot of restless dead here and a lot of substantial undead (very dense sentient undead - apparently raised by Jack the Ripper). Everyone seems to wear masks and there is a lot of powered machinery (including armour and ornithopters), all powered by SOULS.
We had masks made and stayed in accommodation in Thread Needle street. After a months worth of spying by Endgame and Domino, we discovered that Duke Toromon (wears a clock mask) has a house further out within the metroplex and that the king is undying but has a twisted and unnatural mind which attracts other twisted minds. Duke Toromon seems to be keeping him alive and has a lot of influence. He gets about in a royal coach and is occasionally seen heading to his house or visiting the docks.
Seeking more information, we head to his house and Endgame sneaks in.
Session 5
Domino writes...
Perfidious Albion - Greenwich / The Greater Londra Metroplex
Previously we were investigating Duke Toromon's house at Greenwich. The Walker in Shadow had a poke-around inside, picked up an cleanliness OCD and had to leave on an urgent cleaning errand.
There were a few spells we wanted to learn before we continued, so we went back to Thread Needle St where we were staying and did that.
Nereus divined the mist while he was waiting and found that it conceals undead and lengthens night for them (the time they can operate outdoors after dawn and before dusk) by allowing them to come out before dusk and stay out after dawn a bit longer.
We learned that Duke Toromon had returned to the Palace of Clocks.
Suhoi, Master of the Waters, divined the Serpentine river. He found it was very powerful and a shadow of Victoria's Serpentine. So close in fact, that if you were the right sort (presumably Set or Grimes), you could move between planes there. Suhoi was down on power after the divination, so we rested.
Just before dusk, on the second day, they attacked.
The doors were ripped off and in poured substantial undead. Nereus turned most of them, but seeing our loot run off I cast a fireball at the door. The room was shaped like a cone, with the door at the apex, so I knew it would get warm and I warned everyone. Despite their protests I continued with my cunning plan. Several undead died in the blast and the rest were not left in great shape. Unfortunately for Suhoi, he overestimated his defences and was seriously burned. His fat was on fire, so he quickly turned to into water to cool off. Uriah summoned a Spectral Warrior.
Nereus cast in and hit one, I fired magic missile killing a few more, Uriah threw a razor orb at one of them and Suhoi leaked a little.
A solid battle ensued, with serious injuries on both sides. Suhoi was wish-boned and then cut in half, but this was only a flesh-wound for the stout Immortal. We were being attacked by very strong and dense undead, who were wielding swords which were ordinarily far to heave to move, but had magic that curved space allowing them to "fall" in the direction the attacker wanted.
We were also under attack by a Succubi, a Despair Angel and a fire devil of sorts. Duke Toroman watched the fight from the back, directing the spell-casters (actually casting via the spell-casters) and taking notes. When he saw we were winning he used the Named spell Wal lof Sword so put a wall up to protect himself and ran away.
Uriah was ambushed by a shadow cat, which left him seriously wounded. He proceeded to apply Stim patches to alleviate the problem. The cat later gave into despair itself. Uriah seemed to enjoy those stim patches a little too much - we may need a visit to an isolation ward at some point.
Deciding that leaving quickly was a good idea, we did a quick combat loot and left.
We then trekked back to Feralie and rested in the House of Redes.
Session 6
Nereus writes...
While Suhoi was recovering in the house of Redes, he read the scrolls there and took some advice regarding how we could deal with Duke Toromon. There were two options:
1) the easy, less useful way - talk to Jade Rain,
2) the hard, useful way - talk to Serafin.
I paid a quick visit to Aquilon to give her an update on the current situation and returned a few days later. Uriah laid low, hoping to avoid the attentions of Mrs Fang. Domino had some dealings with Artemus.
Once Suhoi was recovered we headed into the Worldspan mountains and along the path along the peaks until we came to a break in the path (caused by the Ravens of Dissolution in the hands of the unscrupulous Lord of Shades). The pass continued on, filled with fractured rubble until it became very dark and we arrived at Nightshades house.
There the young party members (Suhoi and Uriah) were introduced and various exchanges were made. Suhoi entertained one of Nightshades daughters while we rested until we all headed off the next day, travelling the Silver peaks and entering a tunnel which eventually turned into a tunnel with train tracks leading into London Station on Victoria. Suhoi and Uriah attracted a lot of attention in their strange garb so Domino cast a spell to make people pay less attention to them. Uriah changed into his mortician's clothes and we cause a broom (horse and open-carriage) to Regency street where we employed the services of some reputable tailors.
Domino and I made some small purchases (as one is want to do) to ensure we had a minimal wardrobe. Suhoi found himself playing the role of a plaything and rumours now abound! The tailors seemed to be happy that less reputable Uriah was left outside. Once we were adequately attired we left, steamer trunks in tow, to visit Serafin in his townhouses next to Hyde park.
Serafin was a most courteous host and provided us with some extremely useful intel. I won't go into detail as to his generosity and nobility, suffice to say both are without peer. Herein I list the information relevant to our quest:
- Duke Toromon's power works by making events more likely to be the result of cause and effect
- The King seems to be living the same life multiple times and is very old
- The King is a focal point for the stuff that is wrong within Perfidious Albion, and killing him would be akin to lancing a boil - all the bad stuff would spill out. This sounds very bad. Serifin indicated that it could easily be outside of our ability to deal with
- The Lord of Serpents returned around 2 years ago and has been VERY quiet
- Serifin thinks involving the Lady of Souls would not be a good idea, but could not say exactly why
Taking our leave, we headed to Vanity's house in Rounce and discovered she was entertaining Mrs Haversham at the time so declined to visit. Instead, we headed on to Venice and visited Vitri the Lord of Glass to ask his advice regarding some of the glass weaponry we had seen in PA. He thinks that the weapons we saw are a super-cooled liquid which when empowered become liquid. Once someone stuck one into you, they would empower it so the liquid spread, and then pull the whole thing back out (along with a fair sized chunk of your flesh!). As we left he gave myself and Suhoi a miniaturised crystal radio each (they receive but can be used to send, when put under pressure).
Suhoi wanted to turn his articulated bone platemail into hard water so it was more within his realm of power so we visited Comte de Versillac. He managed to turn it to White (instead of Bone) but now its about as useful as Suhoi on the surface of the sun. Presumably if we get a Mill of Water, he could use that to change it to Water.
Having finished all of the errands we needed we headed back to Perfidious Albion picking up Suhoi's Gryphon feather clock on the way. Once we arrived back at the location cleared by the young Alusian party, we headed west and followed the road north. On the way we ran into a lone Ent and he mentioned that the Huorns were active.
We headed on and ended up running into a flying truncated pyramid being run by six Flesh Crafters (we found this out later). It was innocently abusing the countryside as we wandered past but noticed us despite Domino's efforts. They immediately dispatched a message using a bound spirit. I threw myself into the messengers path and trapped it in a amulet made from the shard of a great diamond. Meanwhile, the Flesh Crafters were busily focusing their efforts on our spell-caster, Uriah. Uriah took a serious pounding, but remained erect.
Myself, Suhoi and Domino proceeded to take advantage of their fascination with Uriah and started running down the road towards the pyramid. Uriah again took a pounding, but seemed none the worse for wear, as we closed. The Flesh Crafters released another messenger which I again intercepted in a similar manner (tho, it was getting rather crowded in the amulet) after which I threw myself onto the pyramid. Suhoi sped down the road like a flash flood, and Domino was looking rather winded trying to keep up (and failing miserably).
Uriah, seeing they were quite happy nailing him dragged his carpet out while desperately dodging and avoiding most of their attacks. I began appling my Oil of Etherealness, while Suhoi bought out his Swanmay and Domino continued to wheeze along the road.
Just before the Flesh Crafters began firing again, Uriah made a flying leap onto his carpet and began to weave and dodge erratically to avoid further pain. His masterful flying confused and confounded the crafters as most of their shots went where he was not. I sank down into the pyramid, triggering a Slamdunk ward and was promptly teleported a mile into the air with a column of vacuum between myself and the group - luckily I was in Ethereal form and not subject to gravity and the like. Instead, I began descending as fast as I could. Suhoi mounted his Swanmay and sped to the top of the pyramid.
While I continued to fall, Uriah landed on the pyramid and was also slamdunked! I cast him out of the column of Vacuum whereupon he began trying to get control of his carpet at high speed. Suhoi leaped from his Swanmay to land atop the pyramid and tripped another Slamdunk ward. I cast him out of the column as well and Uriah began trying to intercept him. Domino DDoored onto the side of the pyramid and promptly fell off while in his stunned state.
Again, Domino DDoored onto one of the sides of the pyramid, avoiding being stunned somehow and inflicted it with Siege venom. The rest of us continued to fall, with Uriah managing to rescue Suhoi with some dazzling flying. The pyramid began to rotate and Domino moved with it to avoid falling. He did notice some Silver Spray wards however! Thinking quickly, he moved onto the bottom of the pyramid and disintegrated a large hole into the interior!
While quite surprised by this, the Flesh Crafters reacted quickly and unleashed all manner of evil magics upon him, most of which he dexterously avoided with little harm. Before they could react further Domino dropped a fireball upon them, killing them all! Hah!
About this time, the rest of us landed, and some swift looting was done before the pyramid completely disintegrated from the Siege Venom Domino had infected it with.
Session 6, Foul Times
Domino writes...
It was a simple plan, sneak into the Palace of Clocks via the sewers. Their defences wouldn't be very difficult to get past. I mean, who would post a guard in a latrine? Moreover, who would be mad enough go through the sewers of Perfidious Albion, riddled with undead, when life has so many other things on offer? Well, we were right. Life does have so many other things on offer.
The Approach
Uriah decided not to join us, so he stayed back at the tower (which the young Alusians had cleaned) while the rest of us head for Perfidious Albion.
We delayed our journey to recovered some power, and stayed at XXXX. There were a lot of artisans, performers and foreigners. We took in some shows but otherwise kept a low profile. We saw an unusually high number of murders (seven in a month).
During this time we intercepted a communications on a crystal radio given to us by Vitri, the Lord of Glass. They were in secret, cult languages but Nerius was able to penetrate it after a while. It was mostly to do with troop movements, so potentially quite valuable information in the right hands.
We continued into Perfidious Albion, with the intention of going to Shepherd's