Session 016 ❖ July 19, 2020
| Name | Title | Class | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aeris | Knight of No House | Fighter | Has no memory of their past. |
| Caenn | the Mage | Wizard | Well-educated and curious. |
| Espi | Novitiate of Mitra | Cleric | A living statue, learning to be a person. |
| Gallows | Herald of the Wheel | Bard | Betrayed by one he loved. |
| Garviel | of House Ibis | Cleric | Cast out for breaking his vows. |
| Rhea | the Small | Thief | Grew up on the streets. |
The Festival begins with a procession of wooden effigies, some satirical or folkloric, others depicting the Martydom of the Ulimite Saints. An old man whose skeletal feet are repeatedly dipped into a smoking green cauldron, a shrouded woman cradling two dead infants.
Espi has been learning the tales of the city, and points them out to Aeris, "that's St Albachus - they lowered him into acid. St Balix, they buried her alive, to give birth to her twin daughters in the dark of the tomb." Espi looks haunted, "imagine, to be buried even before you were born. It's so awful. They say the followers of Mitra did this."
She pauses, "but I've heard Mitra's voice. I can't imagine she'd be so cruel."
The parade reaches the docks of Lake Wooling, and its centerpiece - a ship in the form of a great fish with Bishop's mitre - is launched into the oily waters, where wait pleasure-barges bedecked with lanterns, and boats to take revellers out to celebrate upon the lake.
It is spoken that somewhere beneath this unseemly lake lies a lost city of impossible purity, though it is not to be discovered by any of the heroes of this story, or any story yet to be told, and nothing more will be said here of it.
The following day the festivities continue, with debauchery at the Ulimite temples, and in the streets, a celebration of misrule; children play pranks on parents, teachers, and even the feared Scarlet Censors, enforcers of Ulimite orthodoxy in the city, who are chased around the city while children lurk in upper windows with giant hooks. Any who loses his hat to his tormentors ends up pilloried, or in the ducking stool, to the great amusement of the crowds.
And then, come evening, the gates are opened and the people swarm onto the - normally forbidden - Greensward of the Chatelaine's pleasure grounds.
But another feast is held, for the Chatelaine's private guests. Caenn, Gallows, Garviel and Rhea receive invitations. The Chateliane has announced the celebrations will be masked, in honour of the delegation from Zyan, and that they are to join her for drinks in the palace while the bowers are made ready. They all dress in their finest clothing, which for Garviel - with his growing array of splendid finery made from the creatures of the White Jungle - is saying something.
Garviel takes Ser Enceladus along has his squire, while Espi prefers to remain behind and mingle with the common folk on the Greensward.
Unused to such functions, they all try to smuggle weapons inside with varying degrees of success - Rhea and Aeris bring knives, Garviel awkwardly attempts to bribe the guards, while Gallows gets into an argument over whether the Sabre of Jurra Surashari is a weapon or a guest.
Caenn is soon surrounded by the Chatelaine's first, fourth and fifth apprentices - Albimus, Balsheba and Spaldiv. They are keen to discuss the magical artifacts he has recovered from Zyan, including the Heart of Haldicar and the Carnal Star. As they talk, he observes a mysterious, purple-masked figure watching him from the shadows.
Other guests arrive - Garviel's treacherous brother, Aximund the Just, of House Ibis, and his mysterious bodyguard, Zwei, who never removes their full plate armour and helm. Garviel tenses and tries to avoid them.
Theo, a burly fellow, and the halfling Burkle, both mercenaries of the Bloody Hand and formerly of Rifflik's Raiders. Rhea freezes, for she has heard that name, and on Theo's hand he wears her mother's wedding ring, stolen when she was murdered, many long and lonely years ago.
She asks the Chatelaine about him, as casually as she can bear; she explains that he represents the seaward caravansaries, controlling trade between here and the sea-town of Wolsdag, and has proven himself very useful.
Aximund summons Garviel to a private drawing room, and offers to put aside old differences - they are men of Mitra, in the court of a heretic-queen of Ulim, and he hopes to enlist his brother's aid in depositing the Chatelaine and driving the Ulimite faith from the city. Garviel is having none of it, and with Aximund firmly rebuffed he returns to the party with renewed confidence.
The Xyanese delegation includes Manishaneeru and the bird-masked Passeridande. The Chatelaine notes that Aeris is growing close with Manishaneeru, and takes them aside to assert that Aeris's Bar Saturn, as an enterprise taking place through Ultan's Door, operates at her sufferance.
Having in this way established dominance, she charges Aeris with reporting to her on conditions in Zyan Above - does Lathanon still rule from the Orchid Throne? Does the decline of the realm continue?
Aeris speaks with Manishaneeru, who tells her of Zyan's monarchy - how each of the 'Visible' or 'Incandescent' kings of Zyan is crowned with a crown forged anew, and how each forging spawns in some hidden place a dark mirror of the crown, and whoever dons it becomes the Invisible King, a malevolent shadow monarch devoted to the downfall of the city.
When the invisible crown is found before it is worn, and locked away, there is great rejoicing, for the city will have peace and prosperity. But the latest such crown was never found, and though the works of the hidden king have not yet become apparent, and it may yet lie forgotten in some dusty corner of the city, the possibility of that dark coronation hangs over the island like a pall.
Meanwhile, Gallows accompanies Passeridande as she explores the palace, eagerly tugging him along by his sleeve. On a balcony, she peels off her mask, revealing the face of his love, his captain, and his betrayer. Her voice sounds different, eerie, flat.
"Collazo's ritual worked, just like he promised. The lives of the Wheel, to be healed, to be what I once was. Except... I wasn't complete. My voice no longer commanded, or inspired men. Like this, I'll never lead again."
Her face twists into a cruel smile, "but he told me what I had to do. The ritual isn't complete - not while one of the Wheel lives. I'm sorry, Gallows - I did truly care about you."
With that she draws her blade - and Gallows leaps from the balcony, catching onto some vines on his way down, crying out her name - "SPARROW!"
Aeris and Manishaneeru, on another balcony, help Gallows up. They head to the banquet, while he slinks off, to find a chicken he can gut to augur whether confronting Sparrow is wise at this time.
Rhea makes seductive overtures toward Theo, seething inwardly. She waits her moment; it comes after the private service given by the High Voluptuary, when the priestesses distribute the Eucharist of Ulim, a euphoric paste made from ground leaves of the red lotus, and many of the guests pair off and wander into the depths of the pleasure gardens to enjoy one another's company.
Garviel wants no part of this, and leaves. Aeris learns what Manishaneeru looks like beneath her mask that night. Rhea has darker designs. She takes Theo to a secluded bower, brings him into her embrace - and guts him with her newly enchanted Shiv of Hideous Demise. Before her eyes his flesh is shot through with black veins, turns grey, cracks, and crumbles while he endures for a few last horrible moments of life.
She takes her mother's ring from the ashen dust, and departs without regret.
The next day, once all are sufficiently recovered, contests are held upon the Greensward - lifting a bench of laughing guests (which Aeris accomplishes, Manishaneeru among them), shooting an apple from the head of a beautiful and nervous slave, drinking contests with potent daemonic liquor, scavenger hunts, tale-telling and a poetry contest with the Poetic Apes, who have become the talk of the town since their arrival from the White Jungle.
Aeris struggles at poetic recital, Caenn acquits himself well without resorting to the use of Shirishanu's Fabulous Verse, and Gallows wins hands down, reciting a tale of the Wheel of Gehenna.
Erebos is present, and converses with Moldrovo, Master of Chromatic Vapours, the most wretched of the Chatelaine's apprentices, a pitiable man to whom Erebos bears a certain resemblance.
Albinus Valoris, the First Apprentice, a bearded sorcerer of wicked countenance, rides into the courtyard on a twisted unicorn with black eyes and a golden horn. His dead-eyed, tatterwinged fairy familiar stalks through the air behind him. At his bidding, she reverses gravity, all the guests grab hold of their seats to keep from falling into the air, and a boulder rises into the air.
Albinus stands calmly beneath it and announces that his death will set the fairy free.
The boulder falls, and as he closes his eyes the fairy transforms it into a cloud of black butterflies. "As you can see, this once carefree creature's spirit is utterly broken. You have her sisters to thank for the salt in your meal last night, for she can no longer shed tears."
Mercurio, Second Apprentice, sets up four huge mirrors around the audience. He steps into each one in turn, taking on a different form in each - once inside he banishes and reshapes the palace grounds, turning one into a great temple to Ulim, another into a fortress ready for war, a third into a wizard's tower floating in the sky, and a fourth into a terrible prison full of wailing wretches.
But, as he attempts to leave he finds himself chained in his own prison, and the Sixth Apprentice, Adriana the Eery Child Witch, skips over playfully and shatters the mirror with a tap of her finger. She bows and her manservant Valtropos says "thank you for your appreciation of my mistress's performance, and the final sorcery of Mercurio, once Master of Illusions, now mastered by them."
Then, a rumbling can be heard in the distance. A stampede of wild aurochs barrels through the grounds, flowing like water around the audience, not a hair harmed.
Almurek, muscular, bare-chested Third Apprentice, rides in on his lion, flanked by creatures great and small, displacer beasts and field mice, to much admiration. He waves graciously, blows kisses, throws flowers to swooning fans.
He summons a dramatic storm and the beasts scatter, and he stands atop his lion amid the wind and rain, blonde hair whipping in the wind.
Bathsheba, Fourth Apprentice, summons up waves of prismatic magic and unleashes them on the crowd. Briefly everyone's nature is reversed; the foolish become wise, the gross subtle, the weak and wretched strong and dashing. The guests admire themselves and one another.
Spaldiv, Fifth Apprentice, a spindly man with the scent of the grave upon him, summons his spectral familiar Athanasius, who calls on an echo of the light of the necromantic moon, stunning all present and filling them with a melancholy yearning.
Caenn, having saved Shirishanu's Fabulous Verse for this moment, awes the crowd with the sublime beauty of his important Zyanese sorcery. The Chatelaine names him Third Apprentice on the spot, earning him the instant enmity of all the lower ranked Apprentices.
As evening approaches, the High Voluptuary pronounces the blessing of Ulim over the assembled, and the people of Rastindrung return to their dreary and oppressive routine for another year.
But inside the palace, the Chatelaine has business to attend to. She debriefs Aeris, explaining demurely that her interest in the succession of Zyan is merely personal curiousity, connected to the disappearance of her lover Sir Garanax many years ago, and the enduring allure of Zyan’s wealth and decadence.
She names Aeris Ambassador to Zyan Above; Leander, Captain of the Parapraxis, and Caenn, the new Navigator.
She announces that the rebuilt Parapraxis will bear an aviary for her Storm Ravens, and grants Garviel, Gallows and Rhea each one of the great birds to ride: Caladrius (who will one day die gloriously in battle, striking a blow against an unbeatable foe), Duke, and Graculus.
I was actually really nervous about this one! Something about every game I'd run prior to Whispers had left me disappointed, and suddenly everything was coming together just right - since all we'd done so far was dungeon crawls, I honestly didn't know if I could make a social session work as well yet!
Ben L had thoroughly detailed the festival with very colourful imagery, which gave a structure and tone for the day, and I just had to interleave that with the desired intrigues. The players had given me backgrounds the week before, so I just had every antagonist show up at once!
In the end it was a great session with plenty to do and did a lot to flesh out the PCs and drive the plot forward. This might have been the moment I realised this was the campaign I had always wanted to run.