Harmony -- City of [B]Light

Prior to the Maw, the planetoid of Harmony had been a bright & well interconnected node in the constellations, illustrating that a Society is made up of diversity of peoples with an equally diverse set of interests & passions that can touch any of the senses: of music, of art, food, smell, or touch the soul. Without these aspects of culture, society stops and becomes quite empty and dead. Any resemblance to Paris was purely intentional.

Run #1: “Impaled!”

PCs

Tabaxi Monk Chester "PeaceBringer" Lucian Gael Lambert Elf Ranger Johnnie Walker Eric Eisenbeis Human Bard Liam George McBride Tiefling Warlock Morgan Keith Eisenbeis Half Elf Bard Severen Lighteyes Kelly West Human Cleric Siderius Noxx Ron Seidel Human Wizard Visen Nightstar Alan Zitomer

On the Run

The intrepid party prepares their journey and soon they find their Aether transport ship tied off near the top of impossibly tall, black iron spire, whose tip penetrates the layer of grey, almost oozy sludge of a foggy/cloudy atmosphere below them and the ground. Disembarking above the clouds, they debate what the maximum safe height is for a Monk to fall and Chester’s reply is “MAX of FIVE FEET”.

They find a parlor-like room on the spire, with drawn heavy curtains over its many windows and that their vision has morphed to be monochromatic. Likewise, they cannot smell anything distinct, nor even perceive differences in audio tonality/pitch (melody), nor even generate a rhythm. After finding a glass and brass door to this room locked and no Rogue in the party, they batter the door down.

Within the room, they find a mural map of the city which they copy, a ledger, and one resident, who is still alive but extremely lethargic. It is the city’s mayor, Phillipe TrueTone, who is in a dark fugue: he is nearly spent from resisting the Maw. Eventually, Phillipe is willing to talk in Elvish to just the Bards and reveals that his five Vice-Mayors have each fallen victim of what the Con will learn is “Maw Touched”, so their mission is to break each out of their ‘Inner Dungeon’. They learn each of their likely locations in the city: Champ, the luxuries district was first to fall, resulting in a loss of smell. Osay was next, the art museum, as the sense of sight went from color to black and white. Next was Op’ra (music/sound), then RueCler (taste). The last to fall was Dom (feelings/emotions). The meta clue here was that the locations’ sequence of failure correlated to how difficult the vignette was; for this First Run party, they logically chose to go to the Dom.

Navigating down the Spire, they found spiderwebs and spiders … increasing in size & hit points as they descended & fought their way down through the darkening, grey misty gloom. While en route, the party found that only one individual didn’t have Darkvision and Siderius Noxx had an obnoxious 300ft detection range, which would prove decisive later, despite mucky fogs that limited visibility to merely 120ft. Dang!

900 feet lower and finally at street level, they found the streets to be void of human life, but scattered with trash, debris, and spoor signs of even worse arachnids – Phase Spiders, for one. Bare ashen-looking branches of the Liden trees along the boulevards had overgrown and were now interwoven overhead, forming eerie tunnels (with ample spider ambush opportunities).

Moving cautiously yet expeditiously, the group arrives uneventfully at the front of the Dom, for which they proceed in with hardly a pause to overthink the unlocked main door. Despite the great distance to the front of the chuch, Ron’s character ‘Siderius Noxx’, is able to see a stone statue at the dias which, oddly, is wearing clerical garb and cradling a lizardish-bird-thing, and that a large pile of cloth is on the dias…and this is when we all discover that ‘Siderius Noxx’ doesn’t speak Common to be able to communicate easily with the rest of the group, so Ron is coerced into playing Charades to describe to the others what his character is seeing. George quips: “…and this is why Orcs never win at Charades!” Without much consultation, a range spell attack is directed at the lizardish-bird-thing, as it was deducted to be a Cockatrice … but that attack is intercepted by the statue, which apparently is a Gargoyle. They are gestured to come forward, and after brief exchange, they receive the cloth (my first Item Card of the ‘Con) and the unnaturally(?) calm Cockatrice is presented for them to step forward to touch, with the statement of “Have Faith”. Touch it they did, each becoming magically petrified as the others watched, although not without reservations and not without roleplaying excellence from Johnnie Walker and Chester "PeaceBringer" Lucian, who were torn between their Character motivations to not be petrified by a monster versus their players’ meta-knowledge that the scenario design happened to have this linear trip-point. A final assurance from the Gargoyle priest of: “Defend. Hunt.” was what finally was the convincing moment, yet even so Chester "PeaceBringer" Lucian the Monk had to resist against his own will to not punch the (“meep!”) peaceful cockatrice, and likewise to deliberately drop his saving throw to embrace the monster’s petrification.

As each took their leap of faith, they found themselves in the same place, but in a different time/dimension: the Maw’s Inner Dungeon of Pentamoto, Priest of the Dom. Now, the grand cathedral was in ruins about them, with the ceiling having collapsed into the Nave. As each individual ‘popped’ in, once again Ron’s Siderius Noxx’ had to Charade that he saw multiple Ghouls and Shadows approaching from the front entranceway, along with a dwarf. Thus we enter rounds of withering ranged attacks from the far-visioned players as the undead moves to approach and the dwarf vanishes. Several rounds & three ice-based attacks on the party later, we finally almost get to hand-to-hand engagement ranges, whereupon ‘Siderius Noxx’ obliterated the remaining shadows with a ZOE/self, and one ghoul gets one swing in before being taken down. But the dwarf is finally revealed and is quickly dispatched … at which this Inner Dungeon is dispelled and all are back in the undamaged church, with the Gargoyle & cockatrice, no longer petrified and everyone surrounding the dias. Pentomoto, this dwarven druid of Daglir, apologized for the troubles his despair & mind prison [Inner Dungeon] caused, explaining that the last straw for him was the unraveling of the Tapestry (the cloth on the dais) which was the Dom’s link to Beauex and pull chord to ring the church’s wooden bell: this needs to be restored with a new Tapestry woven at Beauex, to be returned here to perform a conjunction ritual, but also requiring the bell’s lost clapper: a giant wooden hammer/club with a hole in its handle.

Thus successful, the party retraced their way back to the spire, climbed up its 1665 steps, and returned across the Aether back to Beverly and Hireling Hall.

Run #2: “A Twilight At The Opera”

PCs

Tortle Druid Gell Teresa Ruby Tortle Paladin MFDOOMfan446 Austin Lyman Tortle Cleric Marcel Yianni Yessios Tortle Druid Michelangelo Christo Yessios Tortle Wizard Sualdit Will Torpey Hibschman Tortle Ranger Tukka Johann Hibschman Tortle Rogue noxcorp Eddit Lyman

On the run

The intrepid party of ALL Tortles(!) takes off. After a brief exploration en route of some space debris (a clay tablet written in Babylonian – See Dennis), they soon find their Aether transport ship tied off near the top of the black iron spire again. They also talk briefly with Phillipe True Tone, the lethargic mayor of the city, who seems slightly less bad off. After a confirmational consult, they decide to make their way to the city Opera House to confront the next vice/sub-Mayor, Perrin of the Pools (“Poodle”).

The color spectrum is still shades of grey, but some of the oozy roiled gloom of the clouds has lifted some. Meantime, the other senses are still deadened into flat nothingness. The party makes their way down the spire, combatting some Spiders of Unusually Sizeable Sizes similar to the first party without event.

Skulking through the alleys and shadows of the city streets, they make their way towards the Opera, and with the assistance of Michelangelo’s animal companion (“Who”, the owl), they gain a bit greater tactical awareness, finding a procession of undead couples (Zombies in top hats & tuxedos, Skeletons in evening gowns) entering the city from across the island’s north bridge. They investigate to find that the river isn’t quite a river at present, but a queasy, bubbly mass of various monstrous jellies, oozes, slimes (and probably worse) which might discourage swimming. Fortunately, they find that if the undead cannot be curtailed at their source (where ever that may be, north of the city), at least their entry into the city can be curtailed by lowering the north bridge’s portcullis. They accomplish this through a bit of finesse, and a magical hand cast by Sualdit to throw the portcullis lever to close the city gate.

With the zombie apocalypse temporarily denied, the city streets start to clear some as the remaining undead continue to make their way into the Opera house. The party scouts the perimeter of the building looking for an alternate entrance, where they of course find. Entering, noxcorp the Rogue scouts the back-of-house areas, finding them empty of hostiles, so the party joins back up.

Continuing to search through the back-of-house, they find empty musical instrument cases, as all of the brass instruments are missing. Continuing to search further out, they find various passages & catwalks in the structure for running curtains, lights, backdrops, etc, plus staff back passageways to theater patron areas. Meantime, the front-of-house has a large audience gathered tonight. Why yes, it is the zombies & skeletons that they had observed coming this way, and undead is the perfect audience: they’re seated silently with the tuxedo zombies on the main floor and the evening gown skeletons in the balcony, with no talking, coughing, cellphone use, camera flashes, etc.

And on the stage, they find a Tortle, in Shakespearian garb, holding a skull and performing the soliloquy from Hamlet.

But he is repeating that set of lines … over and over and over, like a stuck record.

They conclude that this is Poogle, so they carefully gather by the Stage Left curtain to prepare to drop the curtain to cut off the undead audience (smart!) to engage him in conversation. They do so, but Poodle screams “Noooo! You’ve ruined it!”, drops the skull of Yorik, and sprints off Stage Right. Oops, forgot to cut off the other exit! A chase briefly follows, but they lose track of where Poodle has disappeared to. They regroup and as they’ve gathered up Yorik’s skull, debating how to proceed, and reading the Item Card, they become inspired. They decide to invoke Speak with Dead with the skull Yorik. An …interesting… conversation results in them realizing that they missed a secret door in the back-of-house which leads down to the underground catacombs. It also resulted in some animated discussions when they realize that Yorik was volunteering additional information on Poodle’s personal life – was he listening in on them while they were debating what questions to ask? Later, they’ll also ask themselves: “Wait! Was Yorik lying to us?”.

They find the hidden door and proceed down, into Poodle’s Maw-invoked ‘Inner Dungeon’ which is a large freshwater cistern. Seems that the party didn’t know that the Phantom of the Opera play was based on the actual cistern under Palais Garnier (true!). They find a few canoe-like boats and with the druid ‘Gell’ transformed into a crocodile form to be their in-water scout, did a circle around the place. They were unconcerned about wearing armor in the small boats, as they bragged that as Tortles, they can hold their breath for an hour underwater.

On their reconnaissance, they find a water entry & exit (both too small to escape through), plus they paddle past two beaches, neither of which had any fresh tracks, but noticed an odd bubbling in the water just offshore. Off the second beach, they decide to approach the ‘bubbly’ thing and Gell dove down to engage .. to find a Water Weird now attacking them. The party range-attacked while Gell acted as hit point sponge, dying near the end and reverting (alive) back to humanoid form. Realizing that the other ‘bubbly’ spot was probably another Water Weird, they came to realize that Poodle, like them, is a Tortle and could hold his breath for an hour, so they changed their tactics and did a more systematic search of the rest of the cistern, eventually finding & retrieving Poodle for a little chat. This broke up the Inner Dungeon, where they learned that that brass instruments had been taken away to the brass quarry to the north of the city, after which the undead started to trickle in; a potential summoning circle?

As they’ve done a rescue and gotten some leads on what’s required next to perform the ceremony to reconnect music, the party debates how to go about cleaning up the undead in the city who are residing in the opera house. After debating some back-of-house passages which could ambush various balconies of skeletons equipped with bows, they settle on a rapid Piñata-drop of their cleric “Marcel” into the center of the theater audience, suspended from above, to maximize the 30’R coverage of his Dispell Undead prayer. This goes off without a hitch, and with a large swath thus reduced, they beat a rapid retreat as the undead respond and give chase. Down, down, down the grand staircase the Tortles race, out the Grand Entrance and into the streets of Harmony, where the chasing crowd is bunched up with a wizardly Slow .. whereupon the party discovers a pair of large “Bouncer” sized bodyguard undead Minotaur skeletons which had previously gone undetected. A few more spells including a pair of fireballs is able to reduce the undead rabble into mop-up combat, leaving the street filled with bones, and fancy garb - - a few silk tophats are taken home as trophies. Thus successful, the party retraces their way back to the spire, climbed up its 1665 steps, and returned across the Aether back to Beverly and Hireling Hall.

Run #3: “Waiter, there’s a Cockatrice in my Soup”

PCs

Tortle Wizard Cordsen Star Issac Lunar Tortle Druid Quora Svetlana Johnson Tabaxi Rogue Fingers-of-Argyle (Fin) Andrew Duke Hill Dwarf Druid Kvasir Anne Marie Quint Human Fighter Sgt. Fury Bob Peterson Loxodon Paladin Beru Bob Cook

On the run

The intrepid party travels via their Aether transport ship and are soon tied off near the top of the black iron spire again. They also consult briefly with Phillipe True Tone, the lethargic mayor of the city…and repair his broken front door. They decide to descend the tower and make their way to the RueCler district of fine dining (“46 Stars!”), to seek out the chef/sub-Mayor, Ratatoulle (‘the Rat’). Instead of dropping down to the main boulevard that others have used before, this intrepid group decides to take a slight back street detour to a suspiciously unlabeled building on the map, which they find is the headquarters of the Town Guard…and occupied! They converse with a highly paranoid & fatigued ‘Captain Tigre’, a Tabaxi Urban Ranger who is concerned that they could be undead – or shapeshifters. In exchange for news (and some rations), he provides a Tourism Board pamphlet which has a good map of the city’s layout, and details on the various shops and stores in the fine dining district of RueCler.

Thus prepared, they head to the nearby RueCler neighborhood without sidequests of random undead encounters. They find the street itself similar to other (and better) sidestreets – no undead, no people, some debris and trash .. oh wait, that big old trashpile has a Trash Panda on it .. and he’s trash-talking to defend his turf, threatening the party to back off with a pair of hand crossbows. Party chooses combat and closes in to attack … well, that big old trashpile just took a swing at Sgt. Fury – that trash talking racoon is riding on a Shambling Mound! The Paladin Beru closes in too, playing a smart game by choosing to do non-lethal damage, and in pretty short order, they have a dead & decomposing Shambler and an unconcious new friend to interrogate .. er, converse with once they awake. The party quickly learn two things. First, this street has other Trash-competitors in it, which will be circumvented by the sharing of some rations with a “capture & release”, and they also receive directions to the Rat’s café they’re looking for.

Upon arrival at the café (or is it a Brasserie?), it appears deserted, so they start searching and make their way into the back. A horn blows, and giant rats start to appear and attack the party. Rats keep appearing from the horn .. its actually a Cornucopia of ever-flowing Giant Rats. As the party works to destroy the Cornucopia (and Rats), there’s a scurry of ‘someone else’, who flees. Sgt Fury gives chase, and when this rat-like creature leaps into a large fireplace to escape, he follows into the flames. The others follow too, in quick succession … and in doing so, enter into the Place of Madness of Vice-Mayor/Warlock Ratatouille.

Scene Change.

Each party member awakens to find themselves neatly seated at a large dinner table. The table is covered in a very fine and very white tablecloth, and the table is to the nines for a formal dinner. In addition to the fine china and crystal, each place seems to have no less than forty-six pieces of silverware, indicating a full & classical seven course meal is ahead of them. Within the room and behind each of the party members, there’s a pair of floating white gloves of the invisible stalker-esque waitstaff attendants – they gesture and with a flourish, deploy the napkin for each of tonight’s diners.

APERTIF: the first course arrives. The floating white gloves carry small plates out to each diner, and with a flourishing gesture, silently indicate that it is theirs to enjoy. The party has a bit of a challenge to identify (isn’t Avant-guard stuff usually like this?) .. it kind of looks a little “beak”-ish. All choose to imbibe, and only Sgt Rock fails his Constitution save, becoming petrified from the cockatrice beaks in béarnaise sauce. His petrification roils the party, but after two minutes, Sgt Rock de-petrifies and comes to.

ENTRÉE: the second course is a soup of ‘Gulag gruel’, with zombie eyeballs. Again, delivered silently on floating white gloves. The Druids Quora and Kvasir become a bit nervous and seek out poison and food purification spells. Thanks to that, has no one fails their STR save.

MAIN: the primary plate is Blowfish livers sauteed in barracuda brains (for the ciguatera). The purification spells continue to do their thing, but some of the party is starting to wonder what the point is..casting spells to counteract the dishes seems to be cheating on the experience. DEX save for brain paralysis.

CHEESE COURSE: an exotic import this time, of Casgiu Merzu, which is a Sardinian sheep mile cheese which contains live insect larvae (maggots) crawling through it. It was about here where it started to get more interesting for the Party, since they actually recognized this actually quite real food. Kvasir bows out; she will be ignored for the rest of the meal’s courses. Quora feigns that she is allergic to maggots(?), which is eventually accepted and an alternative cheese is brought out for her, which contains phase beetles. WIS save or be frozen with nausea. Sgt. Fury and Beru start to quickly scarf down their courses before Quora can cast purification … and from here on out get paralyzed several more times.

LE DESSERT: a choice is offered: Way Too Sticky Buns -or- Chocolate Coated Sugar Bombs. The now-reduced party continues .. and struggles with the stickiness .. but makes their way through. A few of the diners become frozen with bliss of the sweetness overload (INT save). Fury and Beru ask for both, of course, and are accommodated.

LE CAFÉ: another reality based exotic import this time, of Kopi Luwak, which gets a strong reaction (and wonderful roleplay) from Fingers-of-Argyle (Fin), the Tabaxi Rogue. Fin explained that this world’s version of Kopi Luwak doesn’t use a civit … but Tabaxi. Fin is struggling with if he, as a Tabaxi can thus imbibe. Does he make his self-imposed WIL save? In the end (get it?), those who can imbibe get called upon for a CHA save vs rectal pucker freeze.

DIGESTIF: the final course is a quaff of distilled spirits, and another choice is offered: Delirium Absinthe or a Zombie. Fury and Beru ask for both, of course, and are accommodated, and chug them down before any meddling purification spells ruin the fun. They both fail their {Weakest Save} and become a paralyzed Zombie for a bit again, which also means that every remaining diner has failed at least one course’s saving throw.

But by failing, they succeeded: the chef, Ratatouille, appears, quite shaken but now smiling. He thanks the group for their participation in his indulgence of the highest level of non-fine dining as a perversion (& Inner Dungeon): it was their belief that dining should be a real experience is what broke the spell and set him free. The party goes on their way .. and Ratatouille forgot to hit them up with the bill. Collectors will be along, eventually!

Run #4: “The Trojan Nickle Board”

PCs

Dwarf Fighter Brummuki of the [Clan] Jan Skowranek Human Bard Liam George McBride Tiefling Wizard Morgan Keith Eienbeis ½ Orc Barbarian Nargulur Katerina Kanevche ½ Elf Bard Severen Lighteyes Kelly West Human Cleric Siderius Noxx Ron Seidel Human Wizard Visen Nightstar Alan Zitomer

On the run

Sunday morning and it’s the final run .. lots of work still to do, so the Party moves quickly to the Spire, then down into the City. They bring with them a huge wooden club, which they take to Pentamoto at the DOM – the church’s wooden bell’s clapper has been found and returned, enabling a Constellation Ceremony.

Next, they’re off to Champs, to see a Dullahan named Machi about restoring the City’s sense of Smell. They see & avoid the district’s High Society crowd, out parading the boulevard in this season’s finest cotton wrappings that any mummy would die to wear, and make their way safely to the Perfumery. Upon entering, they find a few humans behind the counter, offering service. Of just what is not clear, as there are no products on the shelves. After a few words and more heightened insistences to see the owner (Machi) which are being stonewalled, Brummuki pushes his way past them and into the back of the shop, where he sees a path leading down, which he takes. The rest quickly follow. The path becomes darker and steeper until Brummuki loses his footing and rides a slide to the bottom. The rest of the group will arrive sequentially, in dribs and drabs.

Within this Inner Dungeon is what appears to be an alchemist’s workshop. Shelves ahead filled with bottles of stuff, books, body parts floating in jars, some poor soul’s head, etc. To the side, there’s some light from gas burners and the chemistry bench proper, where there stands a humanoid of sorts - - white lab coat, black rubber gloves and boots - - working at the bench with their back to them. As they try to engage with the alchemist, they’re hit by a flying blade .. thrown blind by the alchemist! And a sneak attack! A more proper fight happens as more party members arrive in a tumble to contribute, and in fairly short order, the alchemist goes down .. and their head rolls over into the corner. Yet another sneak attack of a dagger. The party starts to look for invisible creatures (nope!). But then they spy that ‘poor soul’s head’ on the shelf and they realize that the clue was indeed of a Dullahan. The head is attacked and dispatched … and everyone appears back in the storefront upstairs; another Inner Dungeon jailbreak.

Machi appears and thanks them for their attention, and offers small talk on what next season’s perfume scents should be .. perhaps Ode d’Mummy .. if they could perhaps arrange to have the Mayor clear the street of undead soon? Thus resolved expeditiously (and avoiding extensive runarounds of the staff minions), the group makes their way to their next appointed round, namely the Orsay, a museum of fine arts and artifacts. When they left Hireling Hall, they were given a large hollow stone ‘coin’ that they could use with subterfuge as a “new exhibit” with the party’s Rogue hidden inside to gain undetected entrance to the currently closed building.

Before pursuing this route, they conduct a detailed reconnoiter of the building, and find a loose latch on a roof skylight that can be exploited. They spend a great deal of time using the various skylights to map out the building and identifying what makes this ‘heist’ problematic. The catch is that this Vice-Mayor .. Carillon of {…}, a Minotaur, has made the entire museum into his Inner Dungeon and the place is filled with mysterious mirrors which emanate magic – seem to be something “final run” type, perhaps of Opposition .. but there’s dozens of them. The party does find a ‘landing’ spot where they can put two down without causing any reflections (invisibility helps) and they start to break mirrors, making a tortuous and slow path through the exhibit halls and clearing a ‘safe’ space as they go which enables the rest of the party to join as a konga line.

As they wind through the exhibits, they help themselves to some magical artifacts on display, because you know, just in case they might be handy later on. Two thirds of the way through, they find a closed door, and mapping suggests an unknown space, rather than a door to the building’s exterior. They bypass it for now and finish clearing the mirrors trap. With this tedious work now done, the party deploys tactically for a door opening. It opens towards them and as it does, a wall of black puddling-like tarry ooze flows quickly forth, threatening to envelope them. Everyone retreats, a few get nearly trapped, and as the ooze flow spreads, it becomes less deep … and from within the ooze a large head - - then shoulders – then sword - - appears, as Carillon advances to attack. A swirl of actions of dodging ooze, avoiding (or making) melee attacks, trying to missile, then move to escape the flowing ooze results in a few players surfing on a flying carpet over the ooze to get close enough to attack, while also trying to not fall in. Eventually, they succeed and Carillon’s body drops face-down into the ooze. Pulling back, the ooze shifts from black as does Carillon too, into a more human form. He sits up and introduces himself as ‘Adam’. He gets filled in on what all has happened in the City and how he had apparently made his Inner Dungeon a Minotaur’s maze. Adam does not know what the mirrors themselves manifested, but the GM does .. and will use it again in the future.

The party is released, but has one more task assigned: take out the undead gate that was created using the Opera’s brass instruments. They proceed to develop a plan, which employs some of the artifacts of the museum, to carpet-fly over to the brass quarry to avoid the slimed river hazards. They apply a very liberal dose of magical area spells to ‘soften up’ the undead before they risk melee, which works quite well for an encounter designed for a second run group. With ground zero cleared of higher level undead, they make short work of breaking the brass gate and again of the undead zombies & skeletons which had made it to this plane, were quickly mopped up. Thus the heroes, they head back to the Spire to return to Hireling Hall, with only a few forgotten minor details (like returning the borrowed artifacts, or clearing mummies from Champs), but well done, and expeditiously so, thirty minutes before the Con’s end time.

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