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AAR: [6H] A House Divided 2020-09-16 2300 GMT

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 6:41 pm
by bronzemountain
LFG: A House Divided
Time: 2020-09-16 2300 GMT
GM: Dvarim
Circle: 6
Difficulty: Hard

Rumor: The brothers Daicar have indicated that they would be happy to contribute staff and resources toward the rebuilding of the Tower of B'shon if only Thorkell will secure a nearby pre-scourge living crystal mine for them.

Requested by: Thorkell
Reward: 50% off Living Crystal (material, armor, blood charms)
Benefit: Advances restoration of the Tower of B'shon

Notes:
- Adventure runs at 7:00pm EDT on Wednesday, September 16th
- As always, I run groups of 5 players.

Sign up format:

Code: Select all

[b]Name:[/b] Character name
[b]Date of Last Game Played:[/b]
[b]Circle:[/b] Circle of your character
[b]Discipline:[/b] Your character's Discipline(s)
[b]Unique:[/b] What your character is bringing to the table.
[b]Downtime:[/b] Talents and Skills that other characters can use over downtime: [Talent] [Step including +Karma Step if appropriate] ([Rank]) ([Further Details])

Re: LFG: [6H] A House Divided 2020-09-16 2300 GMT

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 6:45 pm
by verse86
Name: Thorkell Gulbrandsen
Date of Last Game Played: 8/30/2020 Not in My Neighborhood
ECR: 7
Discipline: Weaponsmith 7
Unique: Thorkell brings the downtime activities. Besides that he is a perceptive and tanky troll.
Downtime:
[Forge Weapon] Rank 8 / 19
[Forge Armor] Rank 7 / 18
[Item History] Rank 4 / 19
[Craftsman] Rank 7 / 22 can make mundane items, weapons, and armor
[Research] Rank 3 / 14

Re: LFG: [6H] A House Divided 2020-09-16 2300 GMT

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 6:53 pm
by Xzandrate
Name: Lazulin
Date of Last Game Played: 2020-09-13
ECR: 6
Discipline: Raider (5)
Unique: Combat and combat related accessories, and the guiding light of the sun.
Downtime:

Secondary Character

Re: LFG: [6H] A House Divided 2020-09-16 2300 GMT

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 6:56 pm
by sigfriedmcwild
This is a secondary character
Name: Elisen
Last played on: 2020-09-13
ECR: 5 (31080lp)
Discipline: Cavalryman 5
Quote/Unique: Deliverance flies on silent wind
Notable Abilities: Zoak power! (and a last chance salve)
Downtime: Animal training step 14 (10 + karma)

Re: LFG: [6H] A House Divided 2020-09-16 2300 GMT

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 7:09 pm
by Serespar
Image

Name: Nib
Date of Last Game Played: Sunday, September 11, 2020 [The Book Lover]
Circle: ECR 5
Discipline: Windling Wizard ( Journeyman Rank )
Unique: A friendly flying astral sensitive and spell slinger
Perma Party Chain Cast Buffs: Mage Armor ( PA +3 ) and Dodge Boost ( Avoid Blow +2 )
Downtime: Talents and Skills that other characters can use over downtime;
- Research Talent (Rank 2, Step 21, Step 24 with Library access for a cost of 20 SP)
- Item History Talent (Rank 3, Step 14)

Primary character

Re: LFG: [6H] A House Divided 2020-09-16 2300 GMT

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 7:25 pm
by Lashana
Name: LaShana Tumblesprout
Date of Last Game Played: 9/13/2020 6H The Breach of Iron Head
ECR: 7
Discipline: Thief
Unique: Enthusiasm and an ability to fumble/stumble into trouble. Can also open...and close doors - possibly even if they are locked. ;)
Downtime: drinking and rabble rousing...will buy drinks for friends

Primary character

Re: LFG: [6H] A House Divided 2020-09-16 2300 GMT

Posted: Wed Sep 16, 2020 10:28 pm
by verse86
There are only 5, but I'll lock it in:
Lazulin, Elisen, Nib, and LaShana: Thank you for helping me start my greatest task.

AAR: [6H] A House Divided 2020-09-16 2300 GMT

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2020 2:29 pm
by bronzemountain
AAR: A House Divided
GM: Dvarim
ECR: 6
Difficulty: Hard

Player Rewards:
Elisen: 11000LP 975SP 5TIP
Lazulin: 11000 LP 725 SP 5 TIPS - 1 Horror Fend
Thorkell: 11000 LP, 15 SP, 5 TIPs, 1920 (sp) Living Crystal
Nib: 11,000 LP, 975 SP, 5 TIPs, alt reward options TBD
LaShana: 11000 LP, 25 SP, 5 TIPS, 5 absorb blow charms/2 death cheat charms/1 horror fend

Alternate Rewards:
50% off: Living Crystal (material, armor, shield, blood charms)

GM Reward: A'horangi (13,000 LP, 750 SP, 3 TIPs)

Downtime:
Nib: Research 2/21 (24 with 20sp/library access), Item HIstory 3/14
Elisen: Animal Training 14
Thorkell: Forge Weapon 8/19, Forge Armor 7/18, Item History 4/19, Craftsman 7/22, Research 3/14

Summary:
The town of Dviel has been discovered (52.12). The Daicar brothers are provisionally managing the living crystal mine while the Haftilds and the Mokois work out their differences. A Questor of Vestrial remains at large.

Re: AAR: [6H] A House Divided 2020-09-16 2300 GMT

Posted: Thu Sep 17, 2020 11:47 pm
by Xzandrate
***The intricately covered ice blue journal contains a single blue crystal on the centre, with the simple gold lettering below it 'Lazulin' ***

Page 9

The brothers Daicar act once again to secure the upper hand. They have agreed to assist in the repair of the Tower of B'shon at Thorkell's request, if he will act as a consul on their behalf to claim a crystal mine near the tower. The Daicar's are studious men who I feel keep notes on the most profitable expeditions. As such they are familiar to most of the adepts hired to take this journey. Elisen of clan Adorjan, LaShana Tumblesprout, and Nib, joined myself and Thorkell on this expedition. Elisen's dyre allowed the windlings to save stamina not having to fly, and Nib's wizardry assisted in expediting our pace. The decision was made to skirt south of the Throalic mountains.

The journey was long, and half of it was relatively unmapped. After a week or so we approached the location of a possible kaer by the name of Dviel. However as we crested some of the lowland hills, we discovered it was a kaer no more. Instead we stood before the reclaimed ruins of the city of Dviel. As we approached we could see two guards manning the gates, asleep at their posts. This was insulting to themselves and the people they protected. If not for the rumble of Isidoros we could have stole right by them and raided the place with ease. This place did not inspire confidence to me. The men, who's names I noted as Borg and Lurm, indicated we were the first travellers they had encountered. They seemed less interested in our motives and what we might be doing to those living inside than they were at performing the Rights of Introduction so that they may put on a talent show. Understandably, this deteriorated into a de factor town fair, with everyone wanting to demonstrate their lack of taint. Eventually an older gentlemen came through the crowd and escorted us into the city. He seemed to be some sort of councillor, a master Mokoi.

Master Mokoi granted us a residence to stay the night and invited us for dinner, on the way to these residences we were intercepted by another councilor, a madame Haftild. She seemed offended that travellers weeks on the road accpetted the first offer of hospitality they were given and did not seek out a person they were unaware of. My confidence in this place was diminished further. As were bore the brunt of her offense another traveller who seemingly followed us from Throal came along. He seemed suspicious, but as madame Haftild became focused on him, I thanked the passions for his sacrifice and made my way to bathe and rest.

It took little time for us to determine the status of the mine, and my confidence in this town was well and truly abandoned. It seems that the Mokoi and Haftild families were vying for control of the mine after centuries in a kaer together. This was madness, this was presenting weakness for the outside world to observe and take advantage of. My first instinct was to leave and return in a months time and deal with the new owners of the mine, be they raiders or skorchers. However, the significance of this location to Thorkell and his devotion to Upandal bulwarked my patience. I deferred to his lead and provided insight where possible.

After a great deal of child tending the families of this town, and attempting to appeal to the neutral faction, we went to investigate the offending mine. Even in the unknown wilds next to a mind these people bickered and showed weakness and dishonour. Guards from both families guarded the mine, and both decried our claims to investigate as false. I put forth my will and seperrated the guards as you would toddlers. Runners were sent to verify our claims, and we were eventually allowed access to the mines. We ventured in slowly, a deep rumbling was felt by some in the party. As we approached where we felt the source of the rumblings emanated, LaShana indicated that she felt we were being followed. Others confirmed they felt this suspicion as well.

We laid in wait and laid eyes upon our would be assassins quite shortly, no surprise it was adepts from one of the families. Thorkell reminded that we wanted to try and keep them alive. Unfortunate, because in that moment I started to understand the meaning of the Or'zet word gahad. These people were not strong enough or tactical enough to lead the city, so instead of using the strength of their allies they attempted to belittle and backstab to take it all for themselves. The battle was quick and decisive, luckily we managed to only subdue each of the adepts. We left them tied up for our own safety, and descended deeper to investigate the increasing rumbling.

On the lowest level we met fleeing basilisks, they mostly ignored us, though we did get caught in their visage briefly. Beyond them was a swirling cloud of rock and debris, some sort of wild spirit. It was tearing through the mine, and acted quickly to stop it. Then to ensure the safety of our would be assassins, we finished the basalisks and searched the remainder of the mine. We returned to the city with the mine cleared for safety and brokered a deal for the Daicars to negotiate access and oversight of the mine.

The group performed admirably, our abilities meshed together like the fine links in a chainmail. Unfortunately, not every Namegiver in Barsaive can be so tempered. The city of Dviel teeters on the very brink, we must be vigilant on it's behest, as the peoples of this city have a great way to grow.


***A great Iced Claw adorns the bottom of the page ***
Image

Re: AAR: [6H] A House Divided 2020-09-16 2300 GMT

Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2020 6:25 am
by Serespar
<Throalic date equivalent to September 26, 2020>

Re: Questor of Mad Passion Activity Threatening Strategic Resources Near Throal.


To Whom It May Concern at the Great Library

Elisen, the windling cavalryman I helped to find the last song of Rikka, asked me to join her as she helped another friend of hers, a Troll Weaponsmith Named Thorkell, with a project he is working on. When we met at the Wolly Aardvark in Throal to discuss the matter (great fried foods, btw), I was so happy to see two other friends were helping too; Lazulin the Troll Sky Raider and LaShanna the Windling Thief, er, acquisition specialist.

It seems that Thorkell is a Questor of Upandal and as a great act of devotion he is restoring a shrine to the passion. The shrine is in the form of an ancient tower Named the Tower of B’Shon (hex 53.11). The Tower was used before the Scourge to test the worthiness of those seeking to become Questors of Upandal. Thorkell has made a deal with a building supply company run by the Daicar brothers, who will underwrite some of the re-construction if he helps them reclaim and open a PreScourge Living Crystal mine that’s near the Tower.

As we made preparations to go the mine (it’s about a ten days away and is across the Serpent from the Tower, hex 52.12), I did some checking in the Great Library. Seems the Earthdawn flew over the area about six years ago and reported that everything was quiet. There was no sign of the reopening of a local kaer, Dviel, though the ruins of the old town were spotted from the air. The Earthdawn did not land to investigate. (Sooo cool to be going somewhere the Earthdawn has been, btw, happy geek moment 😊). Later documents mentioned that Highland trolls from the Broken Spear tribe had been spotted nearby, and that they were also living crystal miners. Might be some claim issues ahead, hmmm. [Wonder if they hired the Questor of Vestrial maybe?]

Travel from Throal to the valley where the mine had been located before the Scourge was uneventful. We were a little shocked to see a large and thriving town where we expected an empty valley however. It speaks well to the hard work and resiliency of the folks from the kaer that Dviel was rebuilt so quickly. Extensive town walls, well made homes, and some larger buildings housed between 1,000 and 2,000 namegivers. Folks there were surprised to see us, and we got to make what was apparently first contact!

The community is quite diverse. We saw folks from all races with a nice sprinkling of adepts. They all were very excited to see outsiders, and had all sorts of questions about what was happening in the larger world which we were happy to answer as best we could.

In the oh what a coincident department, the town had another visitor shortly after we arrived, an aged ork who called himself Siako Udrot, and had books of ancient history he said he was doing follow up research on (or so he said, more about HIM later…)

We quickly realized the town was divided into two factions, the Haftlid’s and the Mokoi’s, and they didn’t get along very well. We were first approached by Iwicko Mokoi and taken to a lovely dinner with a large number of his family members, where he explained that the Mokoi’s and the Haftlid’s lived and worked well together inside the kaer for centuries. Once they left the kaer and began to reopen the living crystal mine their ancestors had worked, the tussel over control started. The Mokoi’s are a cautious group, and sent an engineer into the mine to make sure it was sound, evaluate the veins, and so forth, and she was found murdered with a Haftlid sash nearby! Things degenerated from there, and he wanted to hire us to help the family safely reopen the mine over those aggressive make money at all costs murderin Haftlids!

The next night we had dinner with Erka Haftlid and her family, and found out that those lily livered no brain cowardly Mokoi’s didn’t have what it took to balance risk and reward in the mine and were always delaying everything way past anything reasonable. The Mokoi’s didn’t even have clean rights to the mine proceeds (as she waved a book of old contract records and journals provided by the visiting ork). Haftlid’s were ready to work the mine, and when they sent in a couple of family members to check out the veins, the two of them were murdered! And no good Mokoi badges were found nearby, why, one of the victims even took the time to write out the word Mokoi in their own blood in the dirt!

We had noticed as we tried to untangle the threads of the feud that whenever we would begin to make headway, the person we spoke with would look a little fogged out then go back to blamin n hatin. Interesting.

We all just looked at each other, then around for whoever the real murderer was who was splitting the town apart. We got a copy of the records book for later analysis, then headed up to the mine.

At the mine entrance, there were some hot heads from both families glaring at each other and saying no one could go in. We talked to them, then convinced each side to send a runner to Iwicko and Erka to confirm we were there to look things over independently. None of em seemed to like it, but they allowed us to pass after our credentials were vetted.

After we entered the mine, we realized we were being followed. LaShanna found us a defensible side cavern, and we tucked in to ambush our ambushers. There were five powerful Mokoi adepts;
• Ukronuy Mokoi, a male Troll with a powerful two handed sword and throwing axes
• Klaut Rope Mokoi, a male human wielding a war hammer forged from some sort of dark iron
• Ubi Mokoi, a male ork armed with a gleaming pickaxe
• Gihi Mokoi, a female elf armed with a bow laced with living crystal
• and Lalu Mokoi, a dwarven thief armed with bandoliers filled with daggers

The battle was a tough one, but we were victorious and able to subdue the mind tampered with family members without killing anyone *relief*. When questioned, they said they had bullied their way past the guards at the entrance after speaking with the Brevoi Mokoi, the Mokoi guard captain, who convinced them that we (the party) were really dirty Haftlid spies. We made a note to speak with said guard captain at the earliest opportunity.

We heard a terrible noise coming from further in the mine and went to investigate, leaving the Mokoi adepts tied up. We found a berserk earth elemental called a Hasapic destroying mine supports and two basilisks fleeing ahead of the collapse. We also spotted a large elemental ward ready to trap the party. We dispelled the ward, dodged the basilisk cone attacks (mostly) and Elison was magnificent as she dodged the vortex of elemental shrapnel surrounding the earth elemental and struck the creature with her charge. Given the imminent danger of mine collapse for everyone inside the mine, we went after the elemental first and allowed the frightened basilisks to flee past us.

The elemental was tough, very tough, but in the end we triumphed. We then chased down the basilisks before they could kill the Mokois we had left tied up in the cavern above us. As we worked down the shaft the elemental had come from, we discovered a powerful Haftlid elven Elementalist adept slain after being stabbed in the back. We could find no trace of his attacker and recovered the body to return him to his kin. We later learned his name was Ehifu Dest Haftlid.

Back in town, we confronted the guard captain, Brevoi Mokoi, only to find out he hadn’t been anywhere near the adepts when they said he had told them the party were spies. We also detected something off about some amulets "Brevoi" had given the adepts who ambushed us. An Illusionist impersonator with Vestrial’s cursed gift devotion, perhaps?

Given all the evidence, we were able to partially pierce the veil of distorted hatred and trickery fogging the minds of the two families. We forged a temporary compromise peace deal to open the mine under independent third party administration, with proceeds shared between he two families and the administrator, the contract for which we routed to the Daicar brothers to fulfill Thorkell’s quest.

All that being said, this had the feel of an opening gambit in a larger ploy. The group behind hiring the questor of Vestrial as well as the questor himself are still at large. I have attached additional research and tentative conclusions on this topic for later follow up.

Yours in service,


Nib



Strategic and Metaphysical Commentary

From the evidence in front of us we have one party with a resource claim conflict of interest with the rebuilt town (the Broken Spear tribe), who would benefit greatly from taking control of the mine. This provides motive to hire someone like Siako, but why would Siako agree to be hired and stir things up?

Image
Sketch of presenting appearance of ork calling himself Siako Udrot

Since Thorkell is rebuilding a shrine to the passion Upandal, it is shifting the metaphysics and balance of power between the passions in the area. Changes of this sort are theorized to create disturbances that draw the passion of change in his horror-touched form (see references in Appendix A). Siako may or may not even be aware of what has drawn him to the area, but it would seem to add a layer of incentive that may dovetail with other motivations or goals he is pursuing. At the very least, creating a rift and causing a town full of name givers to destroy each other during what is likely the most hopeful and opportunity filled time in their lives would be a great act of devotion to Vestrial, again paralleling Thorkell’s efforts on behalf of Upandal.

On the level of metaphysics, Vestrial’s core history and nature are that of the trickster who teaches lessons as he deflates egos. This has been observed consistently, though with a much darker side, since Vestrial’s corruption by the horrors (see references in Appendix B). It is possible that the most effective route forward will be to work with the mystic energy Vestrial’s questor has released to divide the townsfolk; We may be able to complete the transformation from hubris, greed and conflict to wisdom, humility and peace in a way that would satisfy the insane passion’s sense of balance and story while entertaining him. By all accounts he grows bored easily if his “toys” finish the story in a way that echoes the corrupted memories of his own past. After experiencing the passion’s corrupted touch, towns and other groups that establish a small shrine to honor Vestrial along with an annual trickster holiday centered on a learn your lesson fable have been spared the worst of the future attentions the Trickster tends to bring to bear (see Appendix C). We should keep this layer of any solution in mind as events unfold in Dveil.

Back to the practical, the ploy by the Broken Spear (or another interested party with or without the local troll mining interests) to weaken Dveil is likely not a simple one move play on the board. If Dveil implodes, the supply of living crystal for the repair of the Tower of B’Shon will be shut off or the valuable natural resources contracts re-routed to another interested party (directly or indirectly). Time will reveal the other player’s hand and their pawns.

A strong Barsiave with reliable access to natural resources is in both Throal's strategic and mercantile interests.