13A:Play/15 Ask Three Elven Philosophers and You Will Get Five Answers

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Starring: 📜Elistheren, 🌲 Qistis, 📚 Annalana, Steinar
Guest Starring: below
Challenge: Avoiding combat
Location: Beyond the Vault and into the Dark Wood
Date Played: 2017 July 11

NPCs

Kelsi

Leader of the Diablolist cult (slain by Steiner)

Sinapis

Head scout. Took party to camp.

Brassica

Soldier. Shared stories with Annalana.

Allium

Cook. Poisoned food?

Ixora

High elf emissary from the inner court.

Carex

Shaman, leader of this band. 7.5' tall.

Salvia

Philosopher. Talked to Steiner, asked about rulers' qualifications.

Doorway through the Vault

📚 Annalana: Annalana is the first one through. The portal on the other side are two trees that have shaped themselves into a perfect square. The ground is mossy and slick, making footing treacherous. Shooting over her shoulder a giant mosquito flies directly towards Qistis, who promptly kills it with her dagger. True to form, Elis immediately inspects the corpse, identifying it.

Qistis goes pale, “I know where we are”. “We are in the Dark Wood, home of the Drow.”

Elis and Qistis wish to conduct a ritual and Annalana insists on finding a safe place. She manages to find a hillock that is often used for this purpose. Steinar promptly insists on telling an inebriated story. The ritual fails.

Qistis casts Faerie Fire and has better luck and her ritual works, with the lights guiding us through the forest. We follow along a moat.

Spontaneous Goddess

📚 Annalana: Elis notices that there is a tree with a stairway leading up. Everyone debates whether to go up the ladder and to discourage that, Annalana starts to cut the rungs with her sword. Qistis shouts that this might draw the attention of a powerful local, so Annalana stops. At the top of the ladder, which Elis climbed, there is a platform with a table, perhaps an altar, naturally grown. Written in Elven on the table is a goddess that Elis doesn’t know, a goddess of mornings and breezes named Winsay. (A spontaneously created goddess.)

Bug hunter

📚 Annalana: Elis points out that there is an archer in the forest. Annalana sneaks out into the forest to avoid the archer. As she gets closer, she learns that the creature is a giant preying mantis that has disguised itself as a drow.

Diabolist Camp

📚 Annalana: As we continue to follow the moat there is a camp, with a circle of oil skinned tents and small fire. The fog has slightly cleared in this area. Annalana stakes out the folks there, a motley crew of 8 people of mixed race (but not Elven). One tiny little thing I notice vanishes immediately. They appear to be a mix of adventurers.

After introducing ourselves we learn that they are followers of the Diabolist. They want to use Elis’ corpse as part of a ritual spell to find their way out of here. Instead, Elis is going to perform a ritual to destroy a bunch of trees uses a variation of Turn Undead. The man trying to convince us to let Elis die, actually dies during Elis’ ritual due to Steinar.

At the end of the ritual a quarter mile radius worth of trees turns to sawdust.

Drow Village

📚 Annalana: We are halted by drow, named Sinapis. He asks that Qistis to pull back her hair, which earns us an escort. Qistis has to vouch that we are all for “the cause” of the Elf Queen.

In the distance we hear the screams of the camp as drow descend on the camp. There are 13 in total.

We are told that the queen’s rabbit escaped and if we encounter it, we should not encounter it. We are led through the woods, seemingly at random, until we come across a drow village, which looks on the edge of collapse. Mud huts. No permanent structures. We are given stay for three meals.

Elis plays a game of spiders

📚 Annalana: Elis sticks his hand in a jar of spiders in an attempt to create more converts.

Steinar talks with the drow

📚 Annalana: He speaks with a drow about why they are moving around instead of being lords of the underdark. They say that they serve the whim of the Elf Queen.

Qistis talks with the shaman about Steinar

📚 Annalana: A huge elf, Caracas, with a scimitar the size of a great sword. He asks about Steinar, inquiring if he is a threat. She fills him in on Steinar playing with a bug and getting scratched by a preying mantis archer. He then dons glasses and casts an incantation of some sort. ‘His aura is unlike anyone I have ever met, it is completely unique.”

One the drow talks to Annalana

📚 Annalana: Brassica, part of a campaign as the court was in the path of the Coru. The battles were strange. Never before have a found while climbing a huge moving beast that had a whole village on it. It moved itself out the queen’s path at the last minute.

Annalana shares the story of the Strangle Sea. She also spends her Icon roll of a 6 to incite rebellion among the drow.

The death of an High Elf Cordoval

📚 Annalana: A high elf announces this death and there is now a vacant position in the queen’s inner court, in the castle at Thronewood.

There is chaos in the village for a while until a meal is called, where everyone sits separately. We spend the night in a fenced off area near Caracas' tent.

Shortly before dawn, Brassica lifts the edge of the tent and whispers, “ready in five minutes”. Brassica has a squad that is attacking another squad. Annalana starts to climb a tree, hearing a voice, “I wouldn’t do that if were you…”

Icon Relationships

• Kaelon: Owes 5 to Druid (book!!!)
• Elistheren 6 GGW -
• Quistis 6 Diabloist -
• Annalana 6 EQ - -> Spend for rebellion?
• Steiner 6 Priestess +
• Steiner 1 Archmage ? (5; 6 spent for knowledges)