Yesterday, we played another session of Farland DnD. Please read my previous posts to see where we left off.
The adventurers decided to register themselves at the mayor's house. Keeping their heads low and avoiding the taxes didn't seem right for them. The mayor Arnulf Von Gerhan gladly welcomed these new heroes to Northwood. There were many problems that needed solving.
The Squints. This group of bandits and thugs called the Squints is giving the people of Northwood a hard life. Once in a week, just before Tax-day, they inflict some serious organized crime so they can pay the ridiculous high taxes themselves while innocent civilians are put to flogging and slavery on a weekly basis. Their main hideout is the Dalton estate, reachable trough the empty well at the town-square. This last piece of information, is of course hidden to the player characters for now.
The Vargouille queen. Although the Kingdom of Kelerak is plagued by evil, the town of Northwood was mostly spared from this suffering because of its location. Near the edge of a large forest, away from major roads and trade routes, the town has been largely unmolested. The past two months, however, have been dark times for the folk of Northwood. Recently there have been grizzly discoveries of headless corpses and strange disappearances, mainly at night. The truth behind the murders and disappearances was initially due to a strange extra-planar beast trapped upon the material realm. This queen, a strange warped monstrosity, reproduces by infecting unfortunate humanoids, thereby mutating its victims’ heads into Vargouilles.
Adding to this turn of events, a local nobleman Marnak Morgenstein and his family have been corrupted by the dark mysteries of Grlarshh and have seen these attacks and disappearances as an unholy sign from their dark god. The Old man Morgenstein and his evil cult have abandoned their secret shrine in the basement of his manor house and currently reside within an old orcish burial ground with the ‘Vargouille Queen’ whom they feed, provide victims, worship, and study with disturbing curiosity. Will a band of brave adventurers uncover the evil and dark truth surrounding this small village? That remains to be seen....
The foul Ghouls. Timothy Ack-Turpin ("Ack" is Kelerite for "son of") has a problem and the heroes have presented themselves as the obvious solution. After all, it isn't every day that well-armed individuals come to Northwood, especially not people who seem to know how to use those weapons. Recently there have been some very dangerous and troubling attacks in the village. They seem to emanate from the local cemetery and occur only at night, but they have happened several times. Worse, the victims of the attacks are never seen again-- except for grisly pieces and shards of bone. Whatever is attacking them seems to be rending them limb from limb. Timothy went himself to investigate the other night and got a glimpse of several skeletons and worse, some feral, wicked, gray-skinned creatures-- possibly ghouls. He witnessed them emerging from the old Percy Family mausoleum but was forced to flee because he was outnumbered. What the PCs don't know: Timothy did indeed attempt to flee from the ghouls, but he didn't make it. Paralyzed by their touch, he was brought before their fell ghast master, who saw an opportunity to feed his warren. He promised Timothy gold if he would supply the warren periodically with fresh "meat." If Timothy refused, the ghouls would hunt and slay both him and his family. Overcome by fear and greed, the Sheriff agreed. He has since felt guilty about betraying his own fold to a foul end, but the heroes--being-strangers-- cause him to have no such compunctions. He figures if they die he will get paid, and if they succeed, he will be out of a tough bind.
First things first. Nicolas heard that his house got locked down. Townsfolk say it is haunted. The adventurers wanted to put this to the test. On their own responsibility, the mayor gave them the key to Nicolas' house, and in they went. Everything was looted, the rooms were empty. There was one thing out of place however. A hedge in the basement that had 9 steel locks, all broken. The hedge is open and when looking into it, it seemed endlessly deep and dark.
The Hole of Fear. If opened, the adventurers find that it is empty inside, yet impenetrable darkness cover the seeming endless space in this hole. One who has looked inside the darkness, will awake the fear inside of him. The next night, he will experience a nightmare, awakening him all sweaty and tired, giving him no long rest benefits as well as one exhaustion level. This exhaustion can only be cured if the fear inside the hole is vanquished. If one jumps in, he will be confronted with his up most fear and has to fight it.
Engaging the hole of fear came up with some great roleplay. I haven't had so much D&D fun in such a long time. The fear for the hole was so real that it became real on table. The players didn't want to lose their characters and had no clue what to do with the hole. They made ropes and climbed down into the hole, only to find out the place is endlessly large. They shouted down insults, they slept next to the hole, only to awaken again in fright. Eventually, they discovered that the best way to confront your fear is with courage. They had to jump down.
Falling into the hole of Fear. The fall into the shadows is a long and deep fall. After reaching maximum velocity, the character feels it's falling even faster as if someone or something is pulling you even further down. A character with darkvision sees an endless sea of shadows. Nonmagical light fails, magical light shows that all these black spots are actually creatures who hastily move away from the magical light. The fall is taking so long that the character falls asleep, however he does not realize this, for a dream takes over his consciousness, continuing the fall. At some point, the character takes a huge impact on what feels to be a water substantial surface. The dragging continues, pulling the character deeper. The water is of frigid cold temperature. The character eventually suffocates from the water and the cold, paralyzing his body. When the character experiences that he is dying, it suddenly realizes it doesn't need to breath. The cold instantly vanishes at that point, and the character can open his eyes. He is now somewhere else, in another realm. A shadowy echo of the world, an ominous realm of dusk.
The Penumbra, also known as the Place of Shadow, is literally the shadow cast by the shining light of the Maelstrom being partially blocked by the Ethereal Barrier's translucence. The strange powers of the Maelstrom actually turned this shadow into a navigable place, a place of fear, darkness and gloom, of strangely skewed vistas similar to places in Núrion yet somehow nightmarishly different. Gazing at the Penumbra is indeed like looking through a glass darkly. The Penumbra is the first stop of the souls of the dead before they continue their journey... elsewhere. The shades of death wander the Penumbra at will.
Trait of the Penumbra: Gloom
Gloom: The Penumbra mutes light sources, reducing the radius illuminated by 50 percent. Magical light sources are unaffected.
Ruins Reborn: A strange feature of the Penumbra is that the inhabited cities and settlements of Núrion are crumbling ruins in the Place of Shadows, while ancient ruins and lost cities in Núrion are thriving Metropolises. For example, the ancient Fortress-City of Stor-gris still crawls with evil, shadowy creatures.
The Penumbra is the shadow cast by the light of the Maelstrom shining through the cloud of the Barrier Plane; this magical shadow is an actual plane of existence.
The Penumbra touches the Material Plane and the Ethereal Barrier.
Here you can read some of the player characters fears:
The Fear of Lo'Gosh. Guilt. You find yourself in a burned down environment. Everything is burned to crisps. Thick layers of black and grey ash cover the ground. Several tree stumps rise up above the dead and abandoned environment. Some footsteps of a strong half-orc mark the surface to where Lo'Gosh finds himself sitting down, with his head bowed down. Guilty Lo'Gosh is depressed and without hope, for he is the one who indirectly killed his brother Ram'Zi. He decided to run away, while he should have been there instead. It's Lo'Gosh his goal to tell himself that Ram'zi sacrificed himself so he could live. If Lo'Gosh searches the scorched field, he can find the corpse of Ram'zi. When he closely looks, he doesn't think this blackened corpse belongs to Ram'zi, but someone else! This means that Ram'zi must still be alive!
Guilty Lo'Gosh. I killed him. I killed my brother Ram'zi! I ran away, I am a coward, not worthy to live. I am guilty of murder, and not worthy of Lo'Gosh anymore. I am no one, I am nothing.
The fear of Nicolas. In a dusty and huge library, filled with endless piles of papers and notes, you hear a repetitive squeaking sound and the crisps of a warm fire. Around the corner of a huge bookshelf, you find yourself sitting on a chair, staring in the distance. It's an exact replica of yourself, except there is this emptiness inside your own eyes, as if all wits has been drawn out. You have grown old and demented, and all riddles of life, all mysterious formula's have past beyond your grasp of comprehension. To 'defeat' the demented Nicolas, he must search the library for research notes about Timaeus. There, he will read his own conclusion that the Transmuter stone is impossible to craft. The solution lies that Nicolas must conclude that the twelve-sided die, the dodecahedron, is the answer and solution to Timaeus problem. If Nicolas shares this with demented Nicolas, a spark of life and curiosity shines in his eyes, saying: I think I'm quite ready for another mystery!
Demented Nicolas. Interaction with demented Nicolas is hard, for he suffers on short memory loss. He can remember one sentence, and will vaguely repeat that sentence in a desperate way. If Nicolas convinces Demented Nicolas to remember himself, he will say something about Timeaus. That could lead Nicolas to the following research notes:
Timeaus' claims. Timaeus claims that the minute particle of each element had a special geometric shape: tetrahedron (fire), octahedron (air), icosahedron (water), and cube (earth). The Timaeus makes conjectures on the composition of the four elements that constituted the physical universe: earth, water, air, and fire. Timaeus links each of these elements to a certain Platonic solid: the element of earth would be a cube, of air an octahedron, of water an icosahedron, and of fire a tetrahedron. Each of these perfect polyhedra would be in turn composed of triangular faces the 30-60-90 and the 45-45-90 triangles. The faces of each element could be broken down into its component right-angled triangles, either isosceles or scalene, which could then be put together to form all of physical matter. Particular characteristics of matter, such as water's capacity to extinguish fire, was then related to shape and size of the constituent triangles. The fifth element (i.e. Platonic solid), whose faces are not triangular, and which was taken to represent the shape of the Universe as a whole, possibly because of all the elements it most approximates a sphere, which Timaeus has already noted was the shape into which God had formed the Universe. The extensive final part of the dialog addresses the creation of humans, including the soul, anatomy, perception, and transmigration of the soul. To solidify the fifth element like the primarily four elements, the form must consist out of faces not triangular and not square. All laws of geometry are bound to this conscience and therefor the fifth element cannot be reproduced. Hereby ends my research with the sad declamation that the Alchemist's Stone is a fable.
The fear of Dovarax. Defeat. Everything is burned to crisps. Thick layers of black and grey ash cover the ground. Several tree stumps rise up above the dead and abandoned environment. Some footsteps of a Dragonborn mark the surface to where Dovarax finds himself sitting down, with his head bowed down. He is ritually preparing himself for Seppuku. His goal is to convince himself to find hope and purpose. If the real Dovarax is looking in the defeated Dovarax' eyes, he sees that he is a descendant of Firefight, the greedy destroyer of hopelessness. There is evil and thus imperfection running trough Dovarax' vains, so how can he ever pursue that what he trained for? If Dovarax is searching trough the ashes, he suddenly finds a blackened egg beneath the ashes. It's a green Dragonborn egg, and it's in tact still. If he brings the egg to the defeated Dovarax and convince him to watch over it, he has destroyed his fear.
Defeated Dovarax. What is there to live for? I have been send out into the world, to return to my clan with dignity and honor. The Ragkris legacy is over. Our reputation is burned to ashes. The luminescence of the Moonscale clan is covered in darkness. For all this years, I have been trained to find perfection. All I have found, is illusion. There is no honor in me, for when I found out the truth, the world got turned upside down. The truth Dovarax. Look into my eyes, and you know. Now... Honor demands that I kill myself. Let me be.
The fear of Alucarda. Inside her castle chamber, Alucarda sees herself sitting down on a chair in a room full of pillows. Beneath every pillow, there lies a dead child, similair to her baby brother. Powerless Alucarda is saying to herself that no matter how many little brother she kills, if a new child is born, she will always be second in line, second in rank, stripped away from any birthright. At that point, she hears the screams of her mother who is conceiving another child. It's Alucarda's goal to search the chamber to look for a book with ancient history about the first Opferblut Lord. His might and power came from his loyalty to Vornoth by sacrificing his weak family members. Only with this lore, Alucarda can convice Powerless Alucarda that in the end, Vornoth is the true lord who will decide the faith of the Opferblut family.
The fear of Oscar Drok. If the players manage to convince Oscar Drok to enter the hole of fear and confront it, he will lose against his own fears. This results in a shadow-elemental creature skulking out of the hole of fear, which needs to be destroyed.
The fear of Seymore. Seymore can be found at a busy tavern. As Seymore is walking trough the crowd, he gets ignored and shoved aside, like he is not seen nor heard by the feasting townsfolk. Then, when he looks around, some people are dancing and praising to some folk that seem to be cheering at some performance. Two human musicians are playing their lute and bagpipe in full glory, to the joy of the crowd. In the far far empty corner, a lone halfling Seymore can be found. This poor and depressed Seymore is chewing some tabaco. He is deafened and therefore scarred for life. He sees no joy in music anymore, so he is just drinking himself to death. A large and fat and ugly version of Seymore can be seen. To communicate, Seymore must either use his hands or write something down. In order to get rid of the deafness, Seymore must persuade himself to clear his ears real good.
So far, only Alucarda has beaten her fear. Next Wednesday, more Farland D&D.