RPG Campaigns

Giraine Summaries

You had exited the temple at dawn, which struck all of you but Fraud as odd, as there was no way you'd been in there all night; but such is the way of the places of gods and goddesses.

You stay at the same camp area to rest. All of you think about what you know of Fraud's first experiences becoming the New Froalar after his death- Reminder of old email: But the light of day revealed the end of your quest magics, and your identities returned to normal. All of you could not help but stare at Baronet Shaven. While his face still bore a semblance of Baronets Shaven (Fraud and Darilios both!), it was not human. It was a python-like serpent's head! The quest had wrought another great change: the noble Shaven lineage's ties back to King Froalar's line had been enhanced, and like King Froalar experienced, the serpentine power of the land had been imposed upon his body!

Relevant myth parts (Xemela and Froalar):

As they first saw the broken, tormented, groaning body of Froalar, Xemela wept and knew she would suffer the most for this, but they retrieved him and brought him to the Font of Life where his health would be restored and his body renewed.

             Xemela and the family then spoke with the distraught, disoriented Froalar and had to remind him of his duties and dreams back in the land of the living, to draw him back from wanting death more than life. But they succeeded, and began to leave the Underworld together as a family renewed.
             But Malia had plotted her vengeance, and they felt its power then; the Black Swelling was unleashed. However, the wise woman spoke calming words to Froalar, and he did not turn back to live in the shadows evermore, but strode forward with divine inspiration, albeit a heavy heart.
             Departing through the Gates of Dusk, the family felt the first rays of Dawn strike them, and the full glory of the Invisible God struck them dumb with awe. Froalar had been chosen and blessed to lead his family forward, and he sought new paths to do so. In time, Xemela's sacrifice became legend to all the land. And although her body vanished and Froalar wept many a tear, hissing a pledge of eternal hatred for Malia, the power of her spirit lingered and would protect Froalar's homeland evermore, watching over them from Solace.
             King Froalar, following the old woman guide's wise words, courted and won a new wife, Seshna Likita. Some back at home missed their former Queen Xemela and said they had heard foul rumours, that Froalar had been bitten by a snake which ensorcelled him to love this new wife and murder the old. Unshaken, Froalar spoke profound words in his castle to them that proved his love and honour to be true, and that the quest and sacrifice that had brought him back to the world was Righteous. The people cheered him and welcomed their new Queen. Froalar and Seshna then founded a dynasty that shook off the throes of the Greater Darkness. Together, with their loyal family ever by their side, they boldly led their land into the Dawn, with a powerful legacy whose echoes resound today. But that is another story.

Broader myths of Froalar that you'd all know and be talking about:

Froalar- Father of Hrestol and Ylream, the king of Seshneg at the Dawning; married the pagan earth goddess Seshna Likita and was transformed into an immortal prophetic serpent with a human head.

The Serpent Kings were descended from King Froalar and Seshna Likita, pagan high priestess of the land of Seshneg. The first of their dynasty was Prince Ylream, who had serpents' tails in place of his legs; his successors were similarly and variously malformed. With overt assistance from their powerful ancestress, said by some to be a goddess, they took possession of all the lands where her power was recognised. After a hundred and fifty years of steady expansion, the whole peninsula of Seshnela was within their grasp; at this triumphant point the dynasty died out.

In the next half-century, the Hrestoli Church, to some degree behind the end of the Serpent King dynasty via their leader Hrestol, established itself in the Kingdom of Seshneg. A revisionist movement called the True Hrestol Way was predominant; angered by Seshna's treatment of their founder, they condemned the corrupting pagan ways of the Serpent Kings, whose temple-tombs were sealed over.

There are plenty of parallels there between your experiences and Fraud's, and current history.

Later that day/night, you all have similar dreams: In each dream, you see a verdant landscape with fields, woods, streams and low hills; crisscrossed by roads that connect to various buildings, some of which are magnificent; recognisable as Second Age Old Seshnelan architecture. Pleasant as the scene is to behold as you pass through it as if gliding just above ground, your dream is anxious and tense. Then you spot a great figure striding across the landscape. It is a giant purple being in strange garb, surely a Luathan, bearing a huge iron spike over its shoulder as if the burden were light even though the spike dwarfs the bearer. Fog trails in streamers behind the spike, seeming to be dragged along by the pinnacle of the spike. Winds whip around the figure and the fog, curling that mist into frightening shapes. The earth quivers as the being strides across it. Here and there, smaller figures, likely to be humans, approach and confront the Luathan but it casually wipes them out in many terrible ways, with a mere note of song or a small gesture or just a glance. Then the Luathan, and its trailing cloud of fog, come to a low hill with familiar copper gates set into one side. The Luathan climbs the hill in a few easy strides and the doors swing open, greeting the immortal being with a chorus of song. It walks within, stooping low to fit, and soon the sounds of tremendous clanging and booming echo from within. As the cacophony proceeds, the fog drapes the hill more and more, obscuring your view, and cracks spread and grow from the hill, rending the lovely landscape. As the hammering reaches almost intolerable volume, the landscape itself tilts violently upwards toward one side, flattening forests and causing buildings to collapse into dust, and from the other side frothing waves come howling in across the land, carrying flailing bodies and debris. As your view retreats and your dream fades, you feel a strange peace. You know that the Temple of Seshna endured, and indeed it welcomed the destruction, which it had summoned. And you awaken trembling, greatly unnerved to have witnessed the fury of the Shattering and the cloaking of Good Toad Food in Iphara's mist. But you know that the mist hides and protects Her in Her slumber, preserving what survived the Shattering, or shadows of it. And this is what she intended-you recall the frescoes in the chamber outside her main basement “tomb” chamber, where Seshna Likita was depicted calling to Worlath and Ssramak (air and water), bringing the Luathans to her aid. Air and water is what Iphara is about.

             The captive Snake Woman of the Snake War (Martial Beast) Society of Seshnela says she didn't have any dreams, and Fraud regales her with stories of his rebirth, how Seshnela is like his traitorous brother, the dream, and so forth. She listens with respect, but expresses scepticism that this has any bearing on her duties to the Kingdom. She asks if she might have a weapon to defend herself with as you journey, and you give her a dagger. You soon leave camp.

Before nightfall, you're hiking through muddy ground between GTF and the Spider Swamps. Then creatures rush you from hiding spots, springing an ambush! Four are the humanoid spider-monsters, and one is a giant monster-spider, all of which you've had challenging conflicts plenty of times before. The captive and Orsattus are quickly ensnared, caught surprised. Bog rushes to help Orsattus but is engaged by the ravenous monster-spider and grabbed on his arm; it then proceeds to bite at his head, trying to strip his armour, but that holds up. Meanwhile, Fraud very quickly slays his foe, rushing to aid Bog, and he kills the spider-monster there, then wounds the monster-spider. Boamund trades blows with his foe and eventually kills it. Orsattus cuts himself free from the bolas and defends himself with his dagger until he can draw his sword, holding off his foe until help comes. The captive, too, does her best. Finally, Fraud, Bog and Boamund come to the others' help and so the spider-things are quickly dispatched. Fraud skilfully extracts the venom from ?Boamund's wound and you're back on your way.

Two uneventful nights pass, and as the next draws near, you come along the southern border of the Bad Place, but find that here a very low-hanging mist creeps in from the swamps to the south. It's no more than ankle-deep but is thick and clammy, smelling of foetid swamp rot. Most uncanny is its colour-it is a faint cyanotic blue, with darker lines of mist threading through it like veins. Amidst it in places, black leeches slither about the ground in surprising numbers. The mist moves inland slowly but as a front that extends east-west as far as the eye can see. Boamund calls up a fire-wall and this burns the leeches and keeps the mist mostly at bay. Fraud keeps the Sword of Menekeyil handy, suspecting undead. Bog casts Detect Enemy and finds none just yet…

Further along, you see four forms coming through the mist toward you, as Fraud's sword glows and Bog senses danger from them. They were once human, but now have the bluish-grey tint of the undead, and have been terribly transformed. The big black leeches of the mist swarm on and around them, and they wear bones of people with crude tatters of clothing. But worst of all, they have fins here and there, dense dead matted black hair covering much of their face, and a terrible vertical slit of a many-fanged mouth that drools black ooze. They come hungrily through the fire-wall and get burned; their leeches are scorched off. Orsattus casts Bypass Armour on all but the captive's weapons, and you prepare other magics. Then they come in and engage all but Bog. The captive is soon bitten; her success impaling a foe with her dagger ultimately in vain; and falls unconscious. Yet the rest of you fend off and slay your foes in rapid succession; Boamund burns them all. Fraud finds that her wound is infected with venom, which keeps her bleeding, and he succeeds again to remove the foul toxin. As you head forth, you worry that this mist will bring forth more such horrors.

That worry is confirmed, in a way. The land remains in the clutches of the thick mist and a humid, stagnant chill that is disturbingly unlike Fire Season. Wind does not blow across the island as it normally may. And now, you begin to notice plant life speckled throughout the landscape, which you'd heard rumours of before. These are obscenely large flowers, like foxgloves in shape but as tall and broad as a man, and sickly blue in colour, like the mist you'd seen, and with those same veins through them. The stalks are the dull grey of old bone, even textured like weathered bone, and what leaves exist are withered stumps. At the base of the stalk there is a little heap of bones or rotting meat. Worst of all is the inner part of the bloated flower. There is no recognisable stamen or pistil. Instead, there is a thick, wide, fleshy thing shaped like a lolling parody of a tongue. It is darker blue in colour than the rest of the flower and silently drips with viscous black fluid like a trickle of drool. You can sense its stink from here. The fluid bubbles where it drips onto the landscape, leaving scars of acid. These are the infamous Blue Corpse-Flowers. They only bloomed before in the Greater Darkness of the West, when the Blue Vadeli fought to destroy the world. You see few of them at any one time, but in and around the Bad Place there are plenty of them now. This was not the case when you passed this way but days ago, but you'd heard they'd been spotted earlier on Giraine. This can only mean the return of the Blue Vadeli to Giraine, and the expansion of their domain.

But you find Jett's scouts soon, and come to his camp, where he confirms that the boundaries of the Bad Place have extended via the mist and the flowers and undead have come with it. He is upbeat nonetheless about other matters, as he takes your captive into custody for further interrogation. The war along the western border of Ralios intensifies and Seshnela has called in more troops from afar, so Giraine's have been reduced. Knowing this, the colonists see it is the time to strike. Plans are under way to first retake Humbertsville, and Jett says you are needed to aid in commanding and bolstering those forces. (So don't stray too far!) He hopes that this captive might give useful intelligence to that end; and Orsattus agrees to stick around to aid with her. You receive a message from Shrett, that he is hunting something that Barond Raduard (head Talar of the Seshnelan invasion here) and needs to find you. Jett seeks him out through the Sottogh and, as you rest at the camp for 2 days, Shrett arrives and tells his tale. He hunts his father, he says sadly to kill him as he can no longer control the beast (Penjang/Penzharn; lion-lycanthrope) within him. But he also seeks those who hunt his father-these are the famed/infamous Fabulous Hunting Troupe, an entourage of a Talar and some Horali and supporting Dronari, who are pompous and pampered but competent in hunting fantastic creatures of legend to prove their mettle and gain tropies. They do so for fun and for hire, too. Fraud knows well of them and Boamund has heard of them, too. There are ways to deal with them, which you debate-do you ambush, poison, bribe/intimidate, duel/hunting challenge, or otherwise deny them their prize, perhaps by finding the lion-man first? (This would be hard, as Shrett admits, as the creature is said to roam widely around the frontier and is cunning and elusive) The FHT, in contrast, does not seek to hide and will be easy to find, as they bring “Big Buff”, a giant, stuffed, fantastic bull (Bonnacon) on a wheeled cart. It serves as their essence that grants them magical support (thru Saint Rendoir; patron of hunters), it seems. They also are numerous. And wealthy and well-connected political people. A bad outcome for them, in some way, could cause more problems for Baron Raduard.

Of the FHT you know that they are led by Sir Herik Vinder, exiled by the king but then learning to put his skills to use across Genertela, forming the FHT's enterprise. They are also known as the Big Buff Beast Bashers, and are a hunting fraternity of sorts. Their top members stand out for using huge crossbows like arbalests to take down their quarry. Of their heraldic beast, the Bonnacon, Shrett knows best-these are mythical cows with long shaggy manes and ram-like horns, russet in hue and usually placid. Myth says that their creation was a warning from Zzabur of the true nature of cowardice; its foulness and contamination in such Error. They are indeed foul, attended by a flatulence that sickens all in a wide area around them, and able to fling burning, poisonous dung from their rear.

So your debate continues, with Fraud and Boamund drawing boundaries of what is right and honourable to do vs. what must be be done to resolve this urgent matter. Between the Sottogh and Jett's people, the FHT might be found quickly, and should be to your west near the frontier/Humbertsville, where the Penjang last struck.

A little added info on Iphara, “Fog Girl”, and what you???ve learned in GTF???She's daughter of Vadrus, the (now dead) “ill wind” (bad brother of Orlantha) and Blue Lady (female aspect of rain god Heler) . She was the first thing to move on the seas. <a href=“https://wellofdaliath.chaosium.com/home/gloranthan-documents/prosopaedia/deities/i/iphara/” target=“_blank”>Iphara</a> for more

Fraud has now learned, via practice w/the Fan, that for 1 action and 2 MP he can temporarily push away her fog in GTF, removing its penalties (and Stealth bonus) within a small area, and improving line-of-sight. This only lasts for a short duration such as a combat, and he must have the fan ready or it takes 1 more action. This would also help foes that do not belong in/are not somehow native to GTF (you don???t know how that works), but would not help those “natives” (most things you meet).

You go to the site of the Perindens tree (loc. 12) on your first day of travel. There, you see the great tree beside the meadow. Its bark and leaves are of various hues of gold. No dead leaves, branches or fruit litter the ground. (Bog had hoped for a dead branch for an axe-haft; no luck) Seshna had said that such trees did not normally die. Bog stayed well back with your captive, having been warned sternly to not kill her. In return, you later went back to the Arkat castle and he gained a new miracle from Zorak Zoran, to Consume Anything. But as for the tree, you found it indeed to be guarded. A magical beast called a Manzarian; a mountain lion made of living molten gold, holy to Malkion and sometimes still used by Zzaburi as guardians; was there, but it calmly watched you pass to the tree, acting in a most feline attitude of casual interest, and you chose and picked your one piece of the Perindens each.

You knew the truth of the awesome power of those holy vegetables at once as you held them:

The fruit and leaves have effects as follows: if touching a Chaotic or Underworld creature, they emit a golden glow, requiring a Willpower roll vs. 200% or cause 2d8 MP loss and a Demoralize effect. The fruit/leaves then fade (back into the essence of the Invisible God. Otherwise the fruit and leaves preserve forever and can only be damaged by great powers.

A little more about that meadow of Seshna and its place (e.g. the Pendali lion-people) along with Hrestol <a href=“http://glorantha.wikia.com/wiki/Pendali” target=“_blank”>Pendali</a>

The history of Seshnela begins in the land of Brithos during the Great Darkness. To forestall civil war between himself and his brother, Talar Froalar sailed across the Neliomi Sea with a band of settlers to found the colony of Frowal. Although the land was thinly populated by bands of lion-worshiping Pendali, the settlement survived thanks to the self-sacrifice of Queen Xemela and through the worship of various local gods, including Seshna, Worlath, Ehilm, and others. The remaining sorcerers of Seshnela joined with Zzabur's immortal sorcerers to complete the long and complicated ritual that ended the Ice Age and released the Sun from Vit???s grip.

When the Sun rose, the Malkioni found themselves surrounded by vengeful Pendali, the lion people who had hated them in the Darkness, and hated them now. The Malkioni were outnumbered, but they had walled cities and horses.

Prince Hrestol broke the stalemate, but at a price not truly realized for centuries. He and his companions cast off the restraints of caste and they taught each other their secrets. Then Hrestol went into the heart of the land and crippled the goddess of the Pendali (Seshna). He would not have succeeded if he had obeyed the taboos of his Talar caste, and his deeds awakened the ambitions of the Malkioni. Hrestol himself travelled to the Malkioni colonies in Akem and then to Brithos itself.

Because of the lack of consensus on what formed the Book of Hrestol, there was great diversity concerning Hrestoli philosophy and belief. In Seshnela, many Hrestoli communities combined veneration of the Invisible God with sacrifices to Pendali gods (whose worship had been widely adopted by the Seshnelan colonies). But amongst his followers and still today in much of the West, Hrestol broke the Seshnegi caste system and instituted the new order of wizard-knights/Men of All in order to combat the Pendali barbarians at the gates of his land. He promoted the idea of <a href=“https://glorantha.fandom.com/wiki/Joy_of_the_Heart” target=“_blank”>Joy of the Heart</a>

***Hopefully I am not retconning anything, just clarifying, but Hrestolism remains popular in the now-defeated lands of the Quinpolic League, including Pithdaros, competing with Rokarism, and Boamund would be of Hrestoli faith via the Church of St Vangolodru. He follows the caste system as a cultural/social issue (imposed by Rokari who have dominated the Seshnelan region for centuries). But as a Rokari in name, but secret heretic, Fraud follows the caste system as a religious (and cultural) issue.

Until Friday! -John

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