"How reassuring."
Fill out the form.
Name: Zavirius En-Drani Haver, Painter
Appearance: A girl of unknown but apparently foreign descent. She claims to be the last surviving member of a long-dead ancient race, kept preserved in some kind of magical stasis, but this is likely untrue. Though her skin is a strange shade not normally seen on the continent, and her hair is bleached white with a slight green reflective tint. She is not very tall but stout like a dwarf and startlingly strong. The clothing that she wears is very minimal.
Mana: 56
Method: Flesh-Inscribed Channel
Materials: Lightweight, Explosion
Strength: d10+1
Speed: d6+1
Endurance: d6+2
Knowledge: d8+1
Will: d8+1
Senses: d6+1
Ongoing effects: Okay?
Inventory:
Wooden Arm-Guards (d4 armor)
Hemp sack
Paints and brushes
Kukri (d6 weapon)
Square-tip machete
Box of painting-golem
Needlessly ornate painting guardian sword
Jewelry box
You fill out the form as best you can, scribbling little pictures of scary demon men where it seems necessary. You turn it back in and the automaton thanks you and tells you to take a seat.
Do the waiting.
"So you got abducted? Sounds like a rough day."
Japanese girl with a long black braid and a white and red fitted robe with long gloves. Clothing is slightly dull in colour and made of metallic thread. Slight sparkle in eyes. Burnt off eyebrows from spell failure. Missing fingernails on right hand.
Currently ~10 days until next full moon.
Invoking Empath
Str d6
Speed d8
Endurance d10+1
Knowledge d6+1
Will d10+1
Senses d8
Materials: d12 Ape, d12 Grow, d12 Strengthen, d12 Expand, d8 View, d10 Steel, and d10 Speed.
Location: Lunare
Status: Fine. Burn scars on arms. Missing fingernails on right hand.
Temporary Effects: None.
Items:
12 mana
61 gold
d8 armour: The outfit, naturally. Weighs as if it were d6
Backpack
100ft Rope
Waterskin
Compass
Goggles
Surgical Tools
Jade tablets with d8 View, d10 Steel, and d10 Speed.
Familiar. "Benedict" Cougar/red-tailed hawk, adequate flyer, elephant-sized with 60+ foot wingspan.
Natural weapons d6, d8 with swooooop.
Str D12
Spd D8
End D12
Kno D4
Will D8
Sen D6
Notes: Improving physical stats with strengthen, d4->d6 is d6, d6->d8 is d12, d8->d10 is d20 or more.
Mental stats are possible, but harder or more complicated.
A few minutes later a Mage Breaker lumbers into the room from the back. He looks over the two of you and then asks "Which one had the ghouls, which one had the bugmen?"
You both tell him your individual issues and he nods, addressing you each individually.
"We have these things occasionally; big wigs from the old days returning and causing trouble. This one sounds well dug in an established though; we'll have to do some real work to get him out. Those hostages don't help much either, we could just collapse the cavern on him otherwise. We've got mind control countermeasures though, so we have a plan. You came here on some sort of " He checks the paper "Griffin? Hmm. Well I doubt you can carry a group of us back. You grab it, fly it in to the roof here; we'll have some men and transport set up when you get here."
"The Ghouls are something we've been tracking a while. Crime syndicate and cannibals. Sounds like one of their lackies tried to get you to do some work for them and you ended up annoying them. Good job with that. Even better job with the cleansing afterwards. Ever thought of joining up? Considering your skills, it would be good to have you on their case officially"
Climb out and feel up the obstruction. If it's a natural reef or other stationary barrier, i'll have to be rather careful in navigating to shore from here, after all.
The Ascetic Ghost Shepherd
A thin, wiry guy. Hazel eyes. Black hair. Long fingers.
current status: fine
Stats
6 str
6 spd
10 End
8 Know
10 Will
4 sense
Mana: 15
Materials: Porcelain, Black Flux, Force
Inventory:
Inhabited by a Spirit - a little shepherdess girl. Likes dolls. Adventurous. (Current request: cute and furry)
Currently hosting a Scarab ghost in muh brains. (Currently wants a religious relic that has been buried with the dead for some time)
One catamaran sailboat
Ghost Charm
Doctor's Kit
Lantern, Rope, Backpack
(1) rolling horse toy
shiny orb from the ruins on the lake
0 gold
You lower yourself carefully into the flux and swim (Keeping your head up and above the goo constantly) over to the thing you hit. Its not natural you think...it feels geometric...you move around and find that you can stand on it. You're pretty sure its a roof, sunk maybe 3 feet under the surface. You find an opening on the top by total accident and nearly fall straight in, but manage to catch yourself in time.
Grab the vampire's healthy arm by the wrist and drain it's strenght. Then break it's elbow with a well-aimed club strike. Don't let it get away: it won't attack Nina as long as it's focused on me, and I can endure the damage.
Name: Randolf Osborn
Appearance: Ugly as hell. Smells like rotten fish. Very brutish.
Magic path: Channeler Ascetic
Mana: 0...
Strength: D6
Speed: D6
Endurance: D12
Knowledge: D4
Will: D12
Senses: D4
Ongoing effects:
Inventory:
Sealer Suit D4
White Robes
Shield
Wooden Club D6
Backpack
Lantern
100 feet of rope
29 gold coins
2 silver coins
Air bladder
Aqua Vitae (Currently being held by Nina)
Ferry ticket
Recruitment Leaflet
[5][7][4v5][+7 mana]
You grab the creature by the arm and drain it. The essence of the beast comes into you a rush of freezing water and the shock of it makes you recoil in agony, your whole arm numb.
[2v8, 4+1]
The vampire, apparently both terrified and enraged by your action, does not recoil. It capitalizes on your momentary weakness and lunges in, claws flashing back and forth in spurts of blood as it carves randomly into you. In the span of a few moments the creature carves open a dozen or more deep gashes, including several across your face. You're not sure if it caught your left eye or there's just blood flowing into it but your vision on that side is a blurry red mess.
There is a scream and you see the Mage Breaker pin the other vampire to the ground under one boot and hack off its other arm and one leg before turning to sever its other. That one is as good as finished, if you can just hold on a bit longer, the Mage Breaker can come assist you.
Nina Looks ready to help but you wave her off again; fighting mid heal would be difficult and she could easily be caught by a blow or become the focus of the thing. Better to hold out a little longer.
"Well, looks like this place is a bust, too. Not too bad, the crowd is acceptable, but no gold today either. Come on, folks, see Grim, dancing bear, do a backflip! Grim, smile, people are watching."
Keep up the act while moving, juggling the pins idly while looking for a good crowd. Whenever the opportunity presents itself, do a more complex act involving handstands, cartwheels, and juggling with my feet or my face. People love to see a clown get hurt by pins falling on his face.
By the way, shouldn't I start with a material?
Appearance: Bearded man, tall. Has a goofy and young looking face under the hair, which is distracting to those who look at it - perhaps it was some form of trauma, but his mouth is permanently affixed in a grin, his nose is lopsided, and one eye opens much wider than the other, and indeed wider than it probably should. Somehow it's not disturbing, just comical. His limbs are likewise lopsided, with his right arm and left leg being shorter than his left arm and right leg, giving him a funny gait.
He is dressed in oversized colorful clothes, the patterns not matching, the colors clashing against the eyes, sleeves flapping and shoes flopping on the ground, a clown's gettup. Hanging at his side are a collection of items for juggling, or bonking someone (including himself) on the head with. His skin has been painted white, with colorful marks that might represent his internal struggle, or might be his magical material marks showing through the cracked and peeling paint.
He's followed around by a small brown bear cub standing on it's hind legs, wearing a pink tutu. According to the bear, it once had to travel by riding on an impractical unicycle everywhere, but the unicycle and it's previous "trainer" both went mysteriously missing one day. Despite offers, it will not give up the tutu.
Magic path: Alchemist Flesh Scroll
Mana: 0
Strength: d12
Speed: d8
Endurance: d8
Knowledge: d4
Will: d8
Senses: d4
Ongoing Effects: None known
Inventory:
Backpack
small or rudimentary weapon (Juggling Pins D4)
Box of Glass Vials
Alchemist's Gear
Tatoo Kit
Familiar (Trained Bear cub, d8: Senses, Speed. d6: Strength, Endurance. d4: Knowledge, Will)
Ah yes, been a while since we had someone new. Let me roll it.....Lava! You get lava. d12 if that matters for your type.
[4v2]
You pack up and guide your bear off to another section of the city, eventually finding a sort of mini town square with a lot of merchants. Here you have more room and and a larger audience; should be a better spot.
[8v1]
You're absolutely on fire today, performing perfectly and really entertaining the crowds with your signature mix of skill and clowning. By the time sunset comes you've netted a full 20 gold pieces worth, albeit mostly in silver and bronze coins. Your bag jingles and has quite a pleasant weight to it.
Action (also for Ecalir in case pan can't post in time, though he is free to overrule):
- Use our bug-debilitating poison to fully knock out one of the sleeping bugmen (pick one in easy reach) so it won't wake up (Have Ecalir do this since it probably uses dex or str)
- Lift that bug out of his sleeping spot and try to use him to resummon/open the door. Maybe have him touch the wall where the door was, or go for where the doorknob was before? Or whatever seems most likely to recall the door, based on what we know of magic of this type.
- Should it work, start making our way up the tower, take the bugman with us (and close the door behind us to avoid being noticed).
- Should it not work (door doesn't reappear or fails to open) try to carefully tap our glass orb against the wall near the area where the door used to be (the glass orb previously managed to extract magic from thaum and imp flame and could pull the necromancy from a resurrected fish, so perhaps it can remove the spell that made the door disappear).
- If we still haven't made any progress then just have Ecalir climb to another window and, if that works, hoist Darwin up there.
Name: Darwin Zeppeli
Appearance: An old medicine man.
Magic path: alchemist gut-reader
Strength: d4
Speed: d6->d8
Endurance: d6->d8
Knowledge: d10
Will: d8
Senses: d10
Mana: 10
Ongoing effects: None
Magical materialsVacuum!
Reanimate
Sharpen
Viscera
Diamond
Rope
Inventory6 mercenaries:
1 ranged and 1 melee merc, stay with Ecalir and watch his back
3 melee mercs and 1 ranged merc stay with Darwin, 2 of the melee mercs stick close to him at all times and act as bodyguards
dissection knife: d4
Springy metal knive: d6
Springy metal sword: d6
Springy metal halberd: d8
Curved blade: d6
Icepick: d4
gun: d8 [50 rounds left]
9 smokebombs
Thaumic bomb (currently empty)
Ecalir's old armor: d8 (in use)
shield (+1 to protective rolls from armor)
Sealer Suit: d4 (vs magic)
Alchemist’s Gear
1139 gold
5 silver
Octopus core
A glass slab with a topographical map of the kingdom carved into it
a bottle of glowing blue sea water, inside protective box with lock
a glass orb with barely visible lotus inside of it, inside staff assembly.
magic coin
Small book
magic compass + map
book on normal plants and animals
book on magical plants and animals/creatures
handbook on making weapons&armor, including a list of known types
a detailed account of the Artifacter war
map of the old world
good quality book&pen
good history book
Paradox snail (inside jar) and things to keep them happy and fed
Doctor's bag
set of ingredients (plants, chemicals and the like) for making poisons or antidotes (24 uses left)
High quality backpack
donkey named Yvonne for carrying
Zomboraptor head
Lantern
several hundred feet of rope
climbing crampons
a grappling hook
iron stakes
net made of rope
several vials with imp fat
20 vials
2x Collapsible rod
20 oil flasks
300 feet of really big, thick, strong rope
100 feet of metal chain
box of metal spikes
pair of binoculars
5 boxes of rags
Medium armor: d6 (not in use)
[9v2]
Eclair dumps some poison on a sleeping bug's face to make sure it remains sleeping and then proceeds to drag it up and to the door. He presses it on the stone and the door reappears and slides open all within a few seconds. It happens so quick that Eclair almost drops the body into the hall, catching it at the last moment. He shoulders it and the two of you start moving.
The interior of the tower is annoyingly organic, almost like an insect hive crossed with a normal building. Its all smooth, ovoid tunnels winding around in squiggly paths with occasional doors. After some quick searching you run across the way up to the next level; its a shaft. There are no stairs, no handholds, no elevator, just a slightly sloping shaft heading up and down. Looks like it might go straight to the top with exits on each level.