RPG Campaigns

Giraine Summaries

Hi all,

Ahappi came sloshing back in to town the morning after you arrived back, just before the Night Channel sealed shut. He had a retinue of Ouori with him and his drunken fisherman boat pilot, and Omen was there too, but they soon left the Captain with you.

Ahappi was grimly determined now, for some reason, to retrieve The Shadow any way he could. He reminded you that you were due a question of the Sage Scarabs in 2 days; you'd forgotten amidst all the Arvonesse adventuring! Ahappi forcefully argued that he was due this question, to ask where the Shadow was, and none of you argued that point. You then went about your business for the day, or rested.

That night, at the tavern, story-telling time got interesting. A somewhat mundane story was interrupted by a deranged, bedraggled peasant stumbling in and raving about how he'd been cursed by a treasure. His bleeding forehead was branded with a Heretic rune (solid triangle), and the sight of that rune made all onlookers uneasy, questioning his words. He did seem mad and terrified.

This man was known to you, too, as a troublemaker: Safiz al Zapar, the one whose farmhouse had collapsed into a sinkhole (killing his family), involving a little mechanical soldier-thing in some way. So you did not trust him, but sought to extract information from him anyway. He was not forthcoming, repeating his vague story, but Maugis and Boamund coaxed more out of him eventually, with gentle words, religious faith, and eventual imprisonment.

Safiz had heard of a pirate treasure buried at the base of a tree in the swamp nearby. Word of it had come to him via a usurer, the Brown Vadeli named Skrimton Nodeal, after Safiz had fallen deeply into debt with that miscreant. Safiz had come into money over the past year, leaving poverty somehow, but it seemed he had lost it all and needed to repay the Vadeli. The treasure was a way, but it was his undoing.

As Safiz told it, the Vadeli breathed a curse (the Heretic rune) on him at the treasure-tree (which was marked as the Shaven family's teak tree, but the Vadeli said was his), and that scared Safiz off to the tavern. Boamund had Safiz locked up safely under guard while you rested the night (or, in the case of Fraud and Ahappi, drank)- except for Maugis, who investigated around town. Miguel pursued some dead-end leads with his scouts.

Maugis learned that al Zapar had gained a replacement wife (Kintridd) recently, and she was quite a handful. Their neighbours heard many an argument between the two. The one thing they had in common seemed to be greed; and miserliness. One night recently, a neighbour saw the wife ride into the swamps on the family's horse (which, with the wife, had since gone missing), and she'd been holding a large, clanking sack. Hmm…

Soon Safiz al Zapar divulged where that tree was and you headed there. Pathetic al Zapar had fainted after begging Maugis for mercy from his sin; Boamund was contemplating his fate. It was a twisted old teak tree as described, and a pale, bare skull sat at its base. There was an old stone Giranois axe embedded in the skull's forehead. A fly-ridden sack hung from a branch, atop which a pterodactyl perched. You drove off the reptile and found a rotting heart and liver inside; of wife, horse or otherwise you could not tell. Maugis could see old sorceries around all this; with Vadeli and Giranois essences; but he could not fathom their nature. They were weak, at best.

Nearby there was an old Giranois ruin; fragmentary drystone walls. Inside you heard many toads peeping from within gaps in the walls, and found a spot between the walls where the dead horse had been buried upside-down, rotting unusually quickly. You excavated it and burned it as night approached.

Ahappi espied another recent dig site under the tree, and found therein the remnants of an old wooden chest containing newer silver coins and silverware (all covered in black mold). [he also got a necklace out but you didn't see that] Maugis cleansed the mold with a spell. So that was the treasure, and you soon learned that the “treasure” was al Zapar's own silvers… as far as most of you knew.

You left the site but were assaulted on your way home through the swamps as twilight fell. A spectral horse came galloping upside-down through the gloom, and it charged over you, striking Ahappi unconscious (he still had a nasty head-wound from the troll lich). You'd dealt it a few good spirit-blows before Maugis finally banished it- and before he'd fallen, Ahappi had (just barely, out of respect) convinced Maugis to banish it into the iron circlet he wore. And so the unconscious, crazed sailor gained a bizarre, crazed equine ghost to keep him company– nothing could go wrong there! :)

Maugis thought this whole tale would be a great morality play to tell the other castes about: the dangers of drifting from faith into sin and greed. Boamund liked the idea of a parable but didn't want this one told. He'd think over what to do.

But the next day, as Ahappi regained consciousness and you calmed down the anxiously inquisitive populace, it was time at nightfall to talk to the Sage Scarabs. Riftoyz had set up a chat with Syrr Kogag before and you'd learned interesting things from him, like that he was a descendant of “Saint” Karkovoch's lineage, as were the corrupted Uzelu, and this was “a source of great shame” for the stoic troll hero. He'd been unsure what to do about your Arvonesse quest so he'd stayed out of it. Legends had drawn him here to Giraine, and to you. He wants to help. He knows that the power of darkness; Black Arkat; is needed here, where his ancestor failed. The Night Dragon has power here, too, but he does not know where to find it.

But first, the Poets against Twilight must be confronted… they are the foe he'd tracked to Giraine, too. And now you knew from his prior Sage Scarab question that they were in Gothalos, northern island harbour town of the old Godlearner archipelago of Jrustela. Ahappi knew it as a lair of the infamous Wolf Pirates, who'd been ravaging the seas worldwide lately. It was also an important trade stop from Seshnela to the south, e.g. the continent of Pamaltela.

[side note: episode 149: on the Dripping Beards' ship the All-Swallower: “One of the crewmen said that he remembered some talk about selling you onwards to “the prophets” in Gothalos, a port on the northern edge of Jrustela that was an ill-reputed haunt of pirates and other scum. That port must not be far off, but in the current state of the ship, stores and crew it seemed even too far for this season's infamously static ocean currents”]

This information became all the more relevant when you had Riftoyz ask your next Sage Scarab question, from Ahappi: “Where is my ship The Shadow?”

The answer involved a familiar port's name! “Your vessel is in the hands of a grim foe who stalks the docks at night in Gothalos, preparing for a great quest by gathering souls. If you confront them, a quest awaits you as well. But come bristling with power, for the struggle is weighted in your challenger's favour and the prize of the dark vessel is greatly coveted.” –So now your path was clear; indeed, paths were converging. Syrr Kogag would return with you to his home of “Jruztela” to find these Purple Prophets and strike them hard, and in the same fell swoop Ahappi, ideally with your support to be “bristling with power”, would defeat the foe there (Wolf Pirates? Purple Prophets? Remnants of the Dripping Beards who'd taken The Shadow initially?). It sounded like a grand adventure!

The trip would take at least a week each way, with Syrr Kogag eager to go this Dark Season when his aeropod flew best. Your next; third and final; turn at querying the Sage Scarabs would be in 3 weeks. So in case you missed that query (Riftoyz would still be here for it), you needed to decide on your 3rd question, which you agreed(?) should pertain to the Giranois/Granno. So what would that be? And, any final judgements by Boamund/Maugis on Safiz al Zapar's fate should be delivered.

[The weird mystery from this episode comes from the attached short story, which is a great read. You'll see why I chose it and stole certain bits… It was a nice coincidence that “Tom Walker” and “al Zapar” matched well!]

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