AAR [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

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bronzemountain
Posts:606
Joined:Fri Feb 21, 2020 10:02 pm
AAR [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

Post by bronzemountain » Tue Mar 10, 2020 8:26 pm

LFG: The Cloister of Silence
Time: 2020-03-12@2200GMT
GM: Dvarim Bolg
Rating: 3
Eligible Characters: 600 - 16,500 Lifetime Legend
Number of Characters: 3-5
Difficulty: Medium

Rumor: A consortium of historians has requested help surveying and clearing the path to a nearly forgotten caer - the Cloister of Silence. Please contact Semyon Targalig

Please post your character as follows:

Name:
Circle:
Discipline:
Quote/Unique:
Notable Abilities:
Downtime:

Note: This game starts at 6:00 PM Eastern (daylight time).
Last edited by bronzemountain on Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

Aegharan
Posts:439
Joined:Sat Oct 14, 2017 2:58 pm

Re: LFG [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

Post by Aegharan » Tue Mar 10, 2020 8:29 pm

Name: Karl Tomsson
ECR: 3
Discipline: Archer
Quote/Unique: My inner clock runs rampant. I miss Rusty.
Notable Abilities: If I can see you...
Downtime:
Animal Training (rank 2 Step 7)
Forge Weapon (rank 3 Step 10)

ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm

Re: LFG [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

Post by ChrisDDickey » Tue Mar 10, 2020 9:00 pm

Name: Zil
ECR:[/b] 3
Discipline: Elementalist 3rd circle / Windling
Quote/Unique: Travel in style with a party Elementalist! Heat Food! Plant Feast! Shelter! Purify Water! Air Mattress! All the comforts of home upon the road.
Notable Abilities: Physician.
Downtime: Research rank 3, step 10 (step 13 if pay 20 sp for library access).
Item History Rank 3 (step 14 with karma).

Montaugh
Posts:203
Joined:Thu Dec 19, 2019 1:49 pm

Re: LFG [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

Post by Montaugh » Tue Mar 10, 2020 9:44 pm

Name: William Carver
Circle: 3/3
Discipline: Scout
Race: Human
Quote/Unique: I'll get you there and back again... for the most part sorry rusty.
Notable Abilities: Talented in locks, stealth, navigation, scouting, tracking. Skilled in swimming, and traps. Has a Pure Water Pot. Rides on a Huttawa named Charlie.
Downtime: Forge Weapons (2) (step 8)

sigfriedmcwild
Posts:335
Joined:Wed Nov 13, 2019 6:59 am

Re: LFG [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

Post by sigfriedmcwild » Tue Mar 10, 2020 10:28 pm

Name: Norg
ECR: 2 (1890LP, Gauntlet 2)
Discipline: Gauntlet
Quote/Unique: Power is nothing without control
Notable Abilities: PUNCH!, some wilderness survival
Downtime: none

ottdmk
Posts:462
Joined:Mon Dec 12, 2016 10:25 pm

Re: LFG [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

Post by ottdmk » Tue Mar 10, 2020 11:46 pm

Name: Dubhan Goronich
Circle: 2 (1780 LP)
Discipline: Wizard
Quote/Unique: "Really? That happened? Wow, hope I get to see something like that!"
Notable Abilities: Spells! Alchemy, Medicine
Downtime: Research (Step 19 + Library Access if needed)

bronzemountain
Posts:606
Joined:Fri Feb 21, 2020 10:02 pm

AAR [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

Post by bronzemountain » Fri Mar 13, 2020 3:41 am

Cloister of Silence
Time: 2020-03-12@22:00 GMT
GM: Dvarim Bolg / bronzemountain
Circle: 3
Difficulty: Medium

Player Rewards:
Dubhan: 3 TIP, 1,400 Legend, 275 Silver
Karl: 3 TIP, 1,400 Legend, 275 Silver, Thread Item (bow; purchased with TIPs)
Norg: 3 TIP, 1,400 Legend, 275 Silver
William: 3 TIP, 1,400 Legend, 275 Silver
Zil: 3 TIP, 1,400 Legend, 275 Silver

GM Reward:
Dvarim Bolg: 1 TIP, 800 Legend, 138 Silver

Downtime Actions Available:
Dubhan Goronich: Research / Step 19 / 20sp for Library Access if needed
William Carver: Forge Weapon / Step 8 (Rank 2)
Zil: Research / Step 10 (Rank 3) / 20sp for Library Access if needed
Zil: Item History / Step 14 (Rank 3)
Karl Tomsson: Animal Training / Step 7 (Rank 2)
Karl Tomsson: Forge Weapon / Step 10 (Rank 3)

Further Information:
Party cleared the path to the first gate of the Cloister of Silence, a caer/monastery devoted to the Passion Rashomon before madness turned him into Raggok. The Caer is at hex 40.07 on the world map. Researchers, led by Semyon Targalig, will now set out to ascertain whether the caer's defenses are intact (they seem to be) and whether it is safe to open the first gate. There seems to be some force, likely a Horror, still actively working to break through the caer's defenses. Many potential future adventure threads and rumors.

Aegharan
Posts:439
Joined:Sat Oct 14, 2017 2:58 pm

Re: AAR [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

Post by Aegharan » Fri Mar 13, 2020 6:59 am

A Semyon Targalig requested our help finding a monastery, called "the cloister of silence", that served as a Kaer during the scourge. The monastery is inhabitated mostly by Questors to Rashomon and followers of his virtues.

Our group consisted of Zil the Windling Elementalist, William them Human Scout, Dubhan the Dwarven Wizard, Norg the Troll Gauntlet, and myself, Karl Tomsson the Human Archer. We head out on the road to Sosanopa, and dip into the mountains a little over a day before reaching the fisher's town.

We notice that all sounds from nature disappeared and hear basically no sound that we didn't cause ourselves, no wind, no birds, nothing. Except for some kids laughing. Zil and Dubhan see the dancing Spirits of two children in the Astral. William steps up and lures one spirit, an orcish child, to play by throwing a rock. In return he is invited to dance and follows this invitation. Dubhan shouts out about some sort of astral connection forming between William and the Spirit, so we attack the spirit. It in turn lashes out at William, severely wounding him. I get in a good shot and am targeted soon after, also getting wounded badly.
Zil understands what's going on and steps into the path of the second spirit approaching us, starting to dance with it. We have severe problems hitting the child, but manage to finish it off eventually.
Afterwards we gather around Zil and the second child and try to rhythmically support Zil by clacking carving-wood or clapping our hands. Zil was severely hurt but told us to stay calm. Sweating, starting to bleed from his nose, he seemed to fall into some kind of trance, when it suddenly all stopped. The child seems to have been ecstatic about Zil's performance. It took Zil's hand and showed him the path that leads to the monastery, shook its head, and showed us a second, hidden path. And just like that it disappeared. We rested a little and followed the path shown to us by the child.
While resting I spotted a gap in a huge rock. Upon inspection I found that some poor soul seems to have died here, but has already rotted over the last couple hundred years. Except for a very finely crafted bow, that didn't show any signs of deterioration. It was made of pale golden wood with some blue enamel inlays and had a very strong pull. Dubhan quickly took a glance in Astral Space to confirm the suspicion of it being a Thread Item. He also offered to help me Research its knowledges, which I will gladly take him up on.

After waking up we notice the silence being pierced every couple of minutes by a terrifying screech. We didn't find a source for this, until we're getting jumped by a creature looking like it has once been a namegiver, with distinctive bat- or birdlike features. It glided down with ultimate precision and tried to take a bite out of William, stumbling slightly and missing William in a spectacular fashion, actually biting a piece of rock.
All in all we are attacked by 4 creatures, 2 male and 2 women, races mixed between Elves, T'Skrang, Troll. They all had in common that they looked horribly mutated and were flying at us with their wings. And they liked screaming...
The women flew down towards Dubhan screaching and we skirmished a little. They were relatively easy to fight off. The male creatures on the contrary let out a different kind of shriek. Just by shouting at our Troll Gauntlet, they were able to fell him. We made good works of these creatures after Norg took a severe beating. Both William and I were very happy about the setup of our group. Between strenghtening our armor and providing cover and holding the enemies at range, Dubhan got a not spell to aide us in striking our enemies at range. This gave us an excellent strategic advantage focussing on the enemies one by one.

After we were victorious, Dubhan did some investigating. He concluded that some kind of Horror fashioned namegivers and formed their flesh to fashion them after Harpies and Shrieker Bats. He especially found it remarkable that we're heading to the Cloister of Silence and a Horror created constructs relying heavily on extremely strong vocal attacks.

After half a day travel and another night's rest we reached the Cloister. There was absolutely no sound, barring the occasional horrid scream. We even had some slight trouble to talk to each other.
In front of the Monastery's gate sat nine monks, cross-legged in a meditative hands. In their hands they each held a kind of glass-looking orb. Zil reports that the monks are alive, but barely. Also they seem to be connected to the orbs they hold. He further reports that the Astral Space has not been corrupted, but also that some kind of force seems to be hammering against the borders of the Cloister.
While Dubhan tries to get a look and analyze the connection, Zil steps into the house near the gate. He is immediately attacked by 3 more monks. One of these monks seems distorted in the same way as the creatures we found the previous day. He looked like the same horror formed his flesh to elongate his throat and made his face into a beak-like form.
Of course the other Monks also were horror-touched. After I wounded the first one, they started attacking us with an immense Fury. The Beak-Monk then jumped out of a window, also shouts at Norg, and runs a bit toward, some more Monks emerged from a cave, one more who is also sporting a beak.

The first Beaker rushed towards the meditating, peaceful monks and started shrieking, seemingly concentrating on a glass orb, which in return gets some cracks. With our combined effort and excellent tactics we take care of these constructs quickly.

The Cavern besides the entrance looks as if something tired to dig a tunnel into the Cloister. Several Cave-Ins and some more dead shrieking Beaker-Creatures. Dubhan and Zil did some more analyzing into the meditating Monks. As Questors of Rashomon, who is not existing anymore, they entered a kind of stasis from which we do not want to wake them up just yet. So we returned to Throal and informed the Scholars at the library regarding what we found. They seem to plan a return to the Cloister.
Last edited by Aegharan on Sat Mar 14, 2020 10:38 am, edited 1 time in total.

Montaugh
Posts:203
Joined:Thu Dec 19, 2019 1:49 pm

Re: AAR [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

Post by Montaugh » Fri Mar 13, 2020 10:49 am

My name is William Carver and I'm a third circle Scout.

Our adventure began with meeting Semyon Targalig a dwarven scholar. He along his the rest of his group were looking into a kaer called the Cloister of Silence, it was built up in the mountain nearby and they dedicated them to the passion Rashomon before he was driven mad and became Raggok. He wanted us to clear a way to the first gate, we decided to travel to the Cloister by way of the hills. I had asked about scouting a way through the mountains but the others did not seem as interested in I was in that idea, I suppose it was for he best as Semyon and his group did not look the traveling type.

Our group consisting of Karl human archer, Zil windling Elementalist, Norg Troll Gauntlet, Dubban dwarven wizard and myself set out. The trip there was mostly uneventful as we took the road to Sosanopa for most of the way. It was good to see the path clear and the signs of civilization spread out more and more now that Throal had opened it gates. Slowly we are taking back the world.

The Kaer is located at 40.07. The mountain paths up there though are not as safe as the main road.

Our first encounter were with some ghostly children. They were leaping, dancing and playing in the surrounding rocks. They were kids and I thought they were mostly harmless or they were perhaps some sort of magical guardians for the Kaer. I was wrong on both accounts, those little bastards. I tried to play catch with one of them and naturally that didn't work and then this one child wanted to dance, so I took her up on her offer and started to dance with her. DO NOT DANCE WITH DEAD CHILDREN. I can not stress that enough after this experience. Something like that seems like it would go without saying, well no one said anything and I frankly didn't know any better. Learn from my mistakes and know better. These dancing children when you stopped dancing with them grew very angry and in their anger they do serious harm to you. One of these children took three of us to bring down, Zil kept the other occupied by dancing with it at great cost to himself. The one good thing was that Karl found a warbow on the body of a dead man. He seemed quite happy with his find. I honestly thought we were going to die here.. to dead children of all things.

Our second encounter dealt with namegivers mixed with creatures, experiments for some horror. These creatures used sound and had batlike wings on which they flew around. Norg took a great beating from them as the creatures kept swarming him. To give an idea of how horrible these creatures were in appearance there was a T'srang with hair. That is not a sight that can not be unseen. The creatures themselves swarm attacked Norg, but this let the others of us deal with them. It was a hard battle but not has hard as the dancing children.

Our final encounter was at the gate of the Kaer. We met some shriekers and cadavermen that were once monks that lived here. There were also a group of monks that were in a state of living death is the best way to describe it. They are acting as some sort of lock perhaps. Something was trying to get into the Kaer, and we knew these shrieker creatures were attacking the monks and trying to destroy the orbs that they held.

I don't have much else to report about this adventure other than that the area up there is unusually quiet. The closer you get to the Cloister of Silence the more the sound seems to dampen.

William Carver

ChrisDDickey
Posts:1011
Joined:Sun Nov 27, 2016 10:02 pm

Re: AAR [3]: Cloister of Silence (2020-03-12@2200GMT)

Post by ChrisDDickey » Fri Mar 13, 2020 12:07 pm

From the journal of Zil, windling Elementalist. 
A consortium of historians requested help surveying and clearing the path to a nearly forgotten caer - the Cloister of Silence. Norg, Dubham, William Carver, Karl Tommson, and myself met with Semyon Targalig at the Great Library. He told us about the interesting history of the location, and that many residents of the area (mostly monks, their families, and goat herders) took refuge in the monastery for the scourge. The monastery was dedicated to Rashomon (who has since become the Mad Passion Raggok). The protections for the monastery was an unusual True Air and True Earth weave. 


We took the first part of the increasingly familiar path to Sossanopa, then turned into the mountains of hex 40,07. The area is called the Cloister of Silence, and when we were still dozens of miles from the place we noticed a strange hush upon the land. Animal noise and even the sounds of wind and rain were strangely hushed. Even the animals of the area rarely gave voice, and when they did, it was muted and hushed. This condition persisted and became stronger the closer we got to the cloister. Eventually, at the cloister itself it became so strong that we had to yell to be understood a dozen feet away.

At one point we heard the sound of laughing children. We could not see them until we looked in Astral Space. They appeared to be a young Orc girl and a Dwarf boy. Once they saw us looking at them in astral space they appeared to our normal sight. William Carver went forward to interact with one, and they started dancing. However William decided to stop, which enraged the spirit, who lashed out at William, doing grievous damage. The others all started to attack the spirit, which did much damage back at them. I felt that fighting both spirits at the same time would be suicidal, so I told the other spirit, who had offered to dance with somebody else, but who was starting to look very displeased, that I would dance with it. 

I am not a good dancer, but I did my best, and at times seemed to please the small dancer. it took all the others working together a very long time to destroy the angry spirit, during which time I kept the other spirit occupied with our dance By the time the others had finished, several were very beaten up. I was glad we were not fighting both at the same time. When they had finished, I asked the others to gather around and assist in my dance. Most clapped their hands or somehow made crude music. It helped my dancing a bit, and I was more often able to please the spirit I was dancing with. The longer the dance went on, the wilder the dance became, and the more it hurt to continue. By the end of the dance I had strained something, but the spirit seemed very satisfied. It showed us a hidden path that seemed much safer than the main path. 

The next morning at sunrise, a scream of rage shook the unnatural stillness. We were attacked by 4 constructs that had clearly once been name-givers of various races and sexes, but were now hiddiously mutated. The two males seemed to have been given the abilities of a shrieker bat, and when it worked, it was devastating, twice causing Norg, our only melee fighter to curl up in a ball on the ground with his hands over his ears (note, lying on the ground with your hands over your ears makes your ears feel better, but is not recommended when surrounded by vicious things with claws). The two females seemed to be attempts to recreate harpies. It was a rough fight, but we finally killed all 4 of the abominations. 

Because of our wounds, we took an extra day to rest before making the final half-day march to the cloister. There we saw 9 monks sitting out in the open in a pose of meditation. Each held a crystal orb. The monks were sitting in a pattern, but the pattern seemed incomplete, as if some monks were missing. I did an astral sense spell, and could instantly tell that the area the monks guarded was astrally "safe", but this "safe" area was being assaulted by a strong wave of corruption pressing in against it. 

There was a nearby structure that we decided to check out, and there we found another horror construct, and two monks that were awake, but clearly mad. A few seconds later another monk and another shrieking construct came out of a tunnel. During the fight, the two shriekers stood in front of monks and shrieked at them, sometimes doing damage their crystal orbs. We fought the 5, and vanquished them.

There is clearly a horror actively attacking the cloister. However we could not locate the horror, and we are unsure how to safely revive the monks that are the keirs protection. The monks seem to be holding out more or less OK, and having removed many of the horrors latest batch of constructs, we hope it is safe for us to return to  Throal to report our findings. There will clearly have to be additional expeditions here. 

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