If you are interested, the previous game reports (all by Hervé, like this one) are available here.
Chern Durel Campaign - Session 16
GM: Gianni. 6 players:
Hervé / Kro Tal the Invincible, Ignorant Champion of the Arena,
Valentina / Belia the (former) God Learner soldier,
Patrick / Xu the Ignorant Darkness mystic,
Teva / Skull-Sucker the uzko berserker,
Jean-Paul / Furfur the enlo bush alchemist,
Cédric / Kim Tyi the Ignorant scout.
9-hour game (14:30 to 23:30)
It began simply enough. Can Ta [GM’s note: Can Shu’s rebellious daughter] had told us to go to Karaköse and put Blackstone’s Eyes back on his statue. He’d then wake up and start killing dragons and Kralori, a mighty ally to our eternal battle against them dragon-lickers. So we sailed down the Black Dragon River, past Jangi-Shar and Hali, until the fogs got so thick the rivermen wouldn’t go further. We walked south, up to some village close to Karaköse, where we had to meet Old Kim, a story-teller and agent of Can Ta. He was supposed to tell us all about the eyes and statue of Blackstone.
The village had an inn and we noticed its keeper was counting a lot of silver coins. Kralori silver coins. By the time we understood what it meant, some runt kid of his had run away to warn the Kralori garrison of Karaköse, so we had little time before they came: the ruined city was a half-day away. Yet we had to wait for the old man to show up and give his show. His daughter (Kim Tyi) took us all in a ruined shrine when we found out Old Kim didn’t know much, except many Kralori soldiers were digging up in Karaköse looking for something. He had no idea where the statue or the eyes were… some help. Then a flying dragon-thing (1) began circling above our shrine. It was huge but I drew it away while the others opened fire with bow and sling. Kim Tyi shot it through the heart with a poisoned arrow, slowing it down. It fell to the ground and we slaughtered it. It had two paws and a long tail ending in a huge sting dripping with poison.
As we celebrated our victory, a SECOND wyvern (I learned later how they’re called) appeared from nowhere and stabbed Old Kim through, lifting his corpse impaled on its sting. Later, someone said them wyverns are intelligent and this one had used Invisibility sorcery. It began to fly away but again Kim Tyi shot it through the heart (2), killing it with one arrow, but only after I had roused her from her grief at losing her father. He was a good man and we buried him; I killed the innkeeper traitor and burned down his inn as sacrifices to help the old man’s spirit along.
Kim Tyi led us to the cliffs above Karaköse. We could see the ruined city along the Black Dragon River and a very old mighty temple with five towers, one for each element. Kralori soldiers did camp around it. I called upon Blackstone and asked him where his eyes could be found (3); he said “under his tower, but beware of imitations.”
At night, we scaled down the cliff; Kim Tyi ran ahead and killed two strange lizard-frog men (4) standing guard, but one of them had time to blow its conch. We all ran and got into the Darkness tower as planned. We explored its galleries and did find strange things, such as a magic chariot locked away in a vault, but were running from the Kralori rushing from everywhere. Tired of hiding, I lashed at three small dragon men (5), killing one while my allies dispatched the others. Then we ran again to Sekever’s cave, because Sekever is the Kralori’s name for “devil” and we figured their enemy would perhaps help us.
Inside, more tunnels, galleries, empty temples – at least the Kralori didn’t follow us – until we found a black magic door. I cast my power at it and passed through. And was once again in Perfect Darkness. Bliss. Succour. Well, not for Belia, her being much a Fire-type, but all the others liked it. Then I “felt” our way to the eyes. I could see them in a vault, as if I were one of the characters sculpted on its inner wall – in fact, I was stuck to the wall. I tried to free myself calling on Disorder and Revolt, but was blasted back after glimpsing a HUGE Spider Web and a Great White Spider weaving… everything together. I stayed out for a while (6).
When I came to, we were still floating in Darkness and it cleared my mind. We decided to go in the Dream World where the Eyes were instead of having to fight our way through the Kralori. It worked, but not as planned: we were back at the time of the Six Suns in the Sky, in the temple as it was new, filled with hundreds of monks. We asked our way around and were led to the statue of Blackstone. Except they called him “Sekever” here, and it was a Black Dragon. A cursed dragon and not a titan as we thought!!
Yet we had come too far to back down and I talked to this dragon-god (7), telling him we came from the future [GM’s note: Not really, there’s no time-travel in Glorantha] and needed its Eyes to help our brethren. It hissed that I had moved it, and it gave me two of its tears, which shaped up as Eyes. I begged him to tell me why he was a dragon and it said there were many kinds of dragons, that we were ALL dragons!!! Yet the job still had to be done.
So we went back to our world and stood where Sekever’s statue had been (after killing some huge spider lurking there). Xu also called on Sekever (8) and it told him to “dive deep, without fear, holding your breath” to find its statue. So he waded into the pool nearby and got his arm half eaten away by some green slime growing in the room. I excised the skin but it didn’t seem to help.
Then we waded into the underground river close and found a submerged temple with the statue in it. We had to pull it out, it took many hours of hard work but we did it, brought it back on its pedestal, put the Tears/Eyes on it and recited the chant we had learned.
Then hell broke out.
The whole cliffs began to shake and the temple near-collapsed on our heads, while we heard a gigantic laughter, the kind I never want to hear again. We ran like hell and climbed back the cliffs; up there we watched. We watched as the river swelled immensely and a tidal wave swallowed the whole city, drowning all Kralori and dragon men. It was fun to watch their corpses bobble around, but we then realised the giant wave surged up north, towards the sea. It would then destroy all cities in its paths, killing many Kralori, which is fine, but also many Ignorants. It would eventually drown Tzu Ling and its huge Ignorant district. What had we done???(9)
So now, we need to find a way to warn off our brothers. The Giant Wave Black Dragon will need a few days to reach Tzu Ling. Maybe at the Blood Sun shrine…”
1. A SIZ 31 wyvern, riderless, sent by the garrison in Karaköse when the kid reached them. No idea how it found us hidden away in the ruined shrine. [GM’s note: Well, the wyverns were stationed much closer than Karaköse]
2. This character rolled awesomely, always hitting the chest/abdomen, impaling the second wyvern in its belly and killing it in one shot! All the characters had prepared Speedart spells and put poison (supplied by the enlo alchemist) on their arrowheads before I ran out to bait the first wyvern.
3. One-point Divination, using a Rune Point from Blackstone acquired earlier.
4. Newtlings
5. Crested dragonewts. There were traces of their bigger, meaner brethren around but we never met them.
6. As always, we use our Runes actively. I tried to used Disorder augmented by Movement to break inside the vault, to cross through the “dark wall”. I fumbled and Saw the All, the Spider weaving everything together, the full force of the Compromise, rejecting me from this impossible act. Yet it did free me from the dark wall. I demanded Illumination but only got 2% for my character [GM’s note: That was generous enough].
7. Using Worship Blackstone / Sekever at base 9%, augmented by massive gift of magic points and sacrifice of a few drops of Hell Water.
8. Again, Divination. He also had one Rune Point from Blackstone from the same earlier adventure as me.
9. Gianni told us that this event coincided with the Dragonrise in faraway Dragon Pass…
This is supposed to be the end of the Chern Durel campaign. We begged Gianni for more but he now wants to play the other side: Kralori officials bent on stopping / hindering the Great Wave, using the Kralori rules and background written by David Millians. And why not?
