RPG Campaigns

Giraine Summaries

Hiya,

You sipped your Giranois tea, which was remarkably simple and chunk-free, and began slipping into a trance as Cjaek incanted ancient Seshnegi words that made no sense to you. Aym seemed to say something about meeting you at the right time and place; he was not coming and you were too far entranced to discuss it. The Baronet resisted long enough to follow the other two out of the grotto, still carrying their teacups, and into the surf that washed over the Arvonesse reefs. But then the trance overcame him, and you all slipped into a deeper dream-state. You felt you had fallen into your teacups, floating about like flotsam and jetsam. In this dream, you were engulfed by a great dark mouth that came from below you, and you floated inside this mouth for a timeless, euphoric period.

Each of you had to fight back a torrent of visions, most of which were too horrible for the mind to bear, but some came through clearly: the Baronet dreamed of a tall, tattooed, hairy, bearded Wareran man lying in chains, sobbing as he drew patterns in the dust, the Captain dreamed of waves of blood lapping at a shore of bones that had begun to stir as if of their own volition, and Boamund dreamed of a plant with flowers opening and skulls dropping like ripe fruit from its stem.

Soon enough, though, you were flushed out of the mouth as it opened on the surface of the daylit ocean. You were washed up on a mudflat amidst a wide swath of wreckage and dead bodies that pterodactyls had begun to alight on and pick at. And you were not yourselves! You were some sort of Giranois- taller, less pale and ugly, but still with unmistakable Giranois features like short scraggly dark hair and wide mouths. And you had nothing but rags. It became clear that you were in the time of the Shattering or its immediate aftermath– you were on the southern shore of Giraine, somewhere in the middle of the island, and the volcano of St Granno's Mountain was in full eruption to the east, leaving the northern horizon blotted out with thick dark smoke. To the south, into the open ocean, there was nothing but horrible storms and whirlpools and waterspouts. Far to the west, there was a violet glow as if at sunset, but it was still afternoon.

You checked for living amongst the dead and were lucky to be alert enough to spot that the second body you checked was not alive, but undead! Coughing up seaweed, it lurched for you with clawlike fingers frozen in rigor mortis, sensing you but unseeing through milky white, unblinking eyes of the drowned. You crippled it with a few punches and an improvised wooden stake that the Baronet picked up, and it wailed as you left it behind. You headed inland and Boamund improvised two sturdy spears from driftwood– just in time, as two more zombie Giranois came wailing and howling from the inland swamps and flooded lands, seeking your flesh. You dispatched them easily, but it was clear there were more of them in the thick, cataclysmically devastated vegetation of the tropical swamps. So you hurried north, hoping to find higher ground and perhaps seek Burnt Priest's Hill where in legend (according to Wendel the wizard) St Granno might have confronted Yomil the necromancer/sorcerer.

You found high ground in time to defend yourselves against a rush of four zombies that had converged on your location; the Baronet lagged behind in climbing up some boulders to reach it, but Boamund pulled him up. You then prepared to defend yourselves from behind Boamund's ring of fire magic, and the zombies eventually found their way up and rushed in, even though two were blinded by darkness magic and they all were burned by the flames. Again, the zombies were cut down with your crude weaponry, aided by the Captain's enhancing sorcery. But again, more were coming. You hurried into the swampy badlands as twilight approached. Soon you spotted some giant sandalled tracks made by a person of at least thrice normal size, and reasoned that it might be a Luathan: a demigod from lands near the Gates of Dusk, who had supposedly enacted the Shattering of western lands to help end the Godlearners' empire and the Second Age. You wisely decided to avoid going in the direction it had (east).

A bit later, just before nightfall, you encountered a Mud Hag that rose from the swamps on a gangly neck and introduced herself as Sesgallah (Boamund thought, perhaps similar to Seshnela and hence an earth spirit of the original lands???). She wished to help you destroy Yomil but claimed there were “formalities” that needed to be observed, and she posed a difficult old riddle whose answer you struggled with, and Boamund sacrificed his blood for, until the Baronet blurted out the answer: a key. She rambled about gates and keys and then told you the way to “Yomilstor”, which she described as a location hidden inside a bunch of tangled trees to the north. She urged you to destroy everything there and then take a trophy so that justice could be done.

Then Sesgallah offered a “favour”– a blessing of magic in return for your blood to slake her thirst. You all complied, and it came at a baleful cost (permanent CON loss). The charm, called Breath of the Dead, would enable you to hold your breath for many minutes and thereby to sneak past mindless undead without being recognized as living; or also to feign death if you remain motionless. But the magic was difficult to invoke and costly, so you deemed it a prize ill worth the cost– especially as it came with a geas to never leave human bodies alone, they must be disposed of completely in some way or the blessing would depart you forever.

In a foul temper, you left the bad deals of the Mud Hag behind and followed its directions into the swamps, where you began to see odd pale turquoise flowers in bloom, releasing a rotten odour, and Boamund recollected his dream of these things. Somehow they must be linked to the necromantic powers bringing this terrible zombie horde upon the land of Giraine. Although night had come, the strange violet glow from the west and a few stars meekly shining through cloud and volcanic smoke lit your way. You snuck past a throng of increasingly decayed undead without needing your Breath of the Dead magic. And soon, navigating the lands with expertise, you found your destination: a tunnel of sorts, formed by interwoven mangrove trees. But outside this tunnel, another horde of zombies were lurking, and this time you had to use your magics (at much cost to the Baronet after repeated failures) to be able to walk through them without incident, and gain entrance to the tunnel of Yomilstor.

The tunnel soon was revealed to be flooded so you had to wade in, and could see only by the light of some distant orange glow. You followed this light into a dead-end chamber that was a slight widening of the tunnel. In it, there was a great bronze brazier on a dry raised shore at the far end of the room that was the source of infernal light, and behind it there was a sinister framework of metal bars and hooks from which uncouth offerings dangled. You approached, and the waters boiled with a thrashing monster that rose from the murky depths– a Walktapus: tall humanoid, orange with blue spots and rings, and a huge octopus-thing in place of a head. It rushed you but was hit by blinding darkness and cursing Arkati sorcery, left almost helplessly enfeebled. As your Breath of the Dead magic was still active, you suffered no risk from the dark poison gas cloud it sprayed out as it reached you. With a few quick blows of your weapons, you hewed it into submission, and kept hacking at it because you remembered tales (and could see!) that it was regenerating even its most terrible wounds.

Rushing to ensure your breath-magics did not end, you pulled the body onto the shore and dumped some of the brazier's coals on the Walktapus to char it, and then you found that the gate-like framework was made of fairly weak, rune-carved aluminium that the brazier was able to set alight. You bashed the frame apart, burnt the grim offerings, and made brands to set the tree-walls alight. It all happened very easily and quickly. Then as you ran out of the tunnel, a great roaring wave came to meet you, swept you up and out of the tunnel as it simultaneously tore the mangroves apart (and carried a small island of burning wreckage further inland), and then carried you out to sea as it drew back from the land. You re-entered your trance, bobbing about in dark waters, and then once again were flushed out– onto a more familiar land, in more familiar bodies and gear.

Back home in your time and place, but where? And what was this great horror that rose thunderously from the swamps before you, bellowing and convulsing?

-John

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