Forgot to mention it earlier, but that Fiendish Presence Sirim noticed on Oka is a bit worrisome. Hopefully it's just the residue of his patron rather than something more insidious.
Would that be possible, @DragonParadox, based on what Sirim, Mina, and Pepper know?
Forgot to mention it earlier, but that Fiendish Presence Sirim noticed on Oka is a bit worrisome. Hopefully it's just the residue of his patron rather than something more insidious.
Would that be possible, @DragonParadox, based on what Sirim, Mina, and Pepper know?
Yes, keep in mind this is a cantrip, the least of spells, he most easily fooled, that said what the spell does is detect the magical mark of the Lower Planes of the subject. Technically you could do that with the Chaotic Planes, the Lawful or the Good, but for obvious reasons must people including Nidalese mages are concerned with the Evil ones. You can be marked by being of that plane, a literal fiend or fiendish animal or plant... But also by being a devout cleric who partakes of that power. Heck someone who narrowly survived being sacrificed to one of those gods after some magical dedication would register for the spell at least for a few days. Oka with his wind calling is... marginal, simply because they do not know what mechanism he is using to do the magic.
Depends on what the particular fae might want. Highly advanced technology like that found in Numeria is powerful. And they might just be after it for powers sake.
Or novelty.
I suspect you are right about there being more to this situation though.
[X] Speak to the local priest of Erastil. Has he seen any signs of demons?
The Azlanti survivors probably aren't demonic, and likely no more infernal than normal population distribution for Teiflings. There are, however, probably demonic entities on the hunt for Azlanti survivors, and the boss is trying to tie up loose ends. He might know our plan, after all, being a more powerful psychic than our Oracle level, I think. Even more, he's working for a company with chronic backstabbing disorder, so he's probably clinically paranoid.
I've been reading up on Pathfinder stuff, and it's not really relevant to the thread, but you have to see the cutest little Mythic Monster ever:
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[X] The villagers are pretty tightlipped about the circumstances under which they got the artifacts they are trying to sell. Surely someone at the local tavern will let things slip if you lubricate them a little
That's what happens when Simba decides to bargain with dark powers to help deal with Scar instead of taking it slow, singing Hakuna Matata until he grows up.
The Three Brothers tavern is a sprawling stone edifice half-in-half-out of the smaller southern hill in the village like some kind of wyrm emerging from its cave, its rounded iron doors open to the light of lamps and torches even in daytime. One can only assume, passing under the heavy stone arches like furrowed brows above the heads of the patrons, that one of the brothers for which it had been named after was either a dwarf or a halfling, though neither kindred is in evidence among the score or so faces that turn to see your odd company enter...
"Is that a goblin Mort, or am I seein' things...?"
"Don't be staring now, it's one of the Good Folk playing a prank I'll bet."
"Oh yeah, how much are you betting?"
"The lass looks pretty as a penny, bet she's a witch..."
"A witch it be..."
A woman with steel-grey hair and a spotlessly clean apron finally cuts out the furor and asks in an accent as heavy as any of the locals, but with the cadence of someone who's used to talking to strangers: "What wind blows you to this door, travelers?"
"Southwest," Gorok hisses, earning a few dark looks and a gasp, followed by some kind of warding gesture from a girl in the back sitting unsteadily on her seat. Something tells you it's not the mention of the River Road that's the problem.
"You're with the fancy-boots fellow?" The words are barely a question. After all, where else could you have come from? You aren't fey. "Don't be making any trouble, and you won't be finding none here."
You nod along with the others, beside Sirim hiding in the folds of Mina's cloak, looking for a likely mark. The good thing about showing up to a tavern before noon is that the patrons are more likely to be the sort who take their drinking seriously, though with the general air of expectation for the auction this evening it's no wonder that some of the younger Fusili folk are here instead of at their appointed labors. In fact, if you are any judge of people... Yep, there's a boy. He's looking proud, nervous, and altogether tied in knots beside the girl who'd taken ill to the sight of Gorok, and the barkeep is keeping half an eye on them.
A courting couple.
Granted, you never tried jumping through that hoop yourself, on account not having a prayer of a chance, but you've seen plenty of others have a go at it, and if there's one thing that not even the light of the sun is liable to change, it's boys with a new knife at their belt strutting.
You motion to Gorok to take a seat one table over from the pair, to which he gives you a curious look, then snaps his jaw resignedly at more warm-blood foolishness. Just as you hoped, the boy, Avys, wants to impress his fiancée about how unafraid he is of the saurian warrior with the great man-cleaving sword on his back, so he's eager to chat, handing out sage advice about the local woods like he's seen three score winters and not the less than one score you'd judge him at: 'No cutting trees for any reasons, no skipping stones in the river after dark, that draws water snakes, no singing after dark, that gets the Red Jester on your trail...'
There's a burst of laughter from the opposite corner of the tavern at that last proclamation. "You still think the Jester's real, do you? Heh, d'you also think that pixies are going to steal the teeth right out of your head if you take a sweetie from the bowl without mumsy's say-so?"
Jesters you're not so sure about, but Avys definitely turns a telling shade of red at the heckling. "I'll have you know, Tymmy Tanner, that us Lofsons know more about what's going on in these parts than your whole kin, right back to the founding, ever learned."
"I heard a star fell from the sky or the like," you interject with an air of half-interested disbelief. "To my ears that's stranger than spirits in a forest, no matter their shape."
"Aye, there was. A star but not a star, like a boat cast adrift on the river of black above. There were people in it too. My da talked to 'em he did, and I met them too, three of 'em. They talked funny, and not one of them had a swooshing fairy light around his head that could make him talk proper. They asked all sorts of questions about history and gods and lands far away I never heard the name of, but they were clean-spoken as they came and they knew the mark of Ol' Dead-Eye when they saw it. Ma took them for elves at first, but they weren't elves, 'cause they don't have the ears, see, and..."
They're alive, the people in your vision, the thought sends a jolt of warmth through you, like you'd just downed a glass of dwarven spirits. They 'might' be alive, a more weary instinct cautions. A chance at least is more than none.
Thus you look around the room and realize that the other patrons are listening almost as intently as you are. Some of this isn't common knowledge in the village. The boy's likely to get an earful when he gets home because of it, but for now no one's likely to interrupt him. With the help of a few more prodding questions it comes out that a trio of 'silver folk', two men and a woman, came out of the woods looking for shelter and information. They had a map on them, but it wasn't parchment, some kind of glass or pottery, but no one could make out what any of the names on it meant, so they fell to talking about gods, seeming very glad to hear the villagers worship 'sensible gods', though they didn't have the good sense not to bad-talk the Good Neighbors. Farmer Loftson had even been worried that they had a fight with some of the fey out of ignorance, seeing as they were armed with all manner of strange devices and were willing to trade more of them for a guide and some coin they could spend.
What the Alderman had seen in their strange devices the boy couldn't say, but he'd traded more than gold to them. 'Three seasons worth of gems,' is the sum bandied about. By now most of the locals had given up on secrecy and were back to what you suspect had been the subject of months of speculation. More interestingly... and if you are being honest about it, worryingly, the survivors, if survivors they be and not just demons in human flesh, had headed straight south down the Legion Road, where Gavhaul had worried about meeting ogres and a rumored fey giant.
What do you do next?
[] Ask more questions, maybe someone else in the crowd knows something useful now that the floodgates have opened
-[] Write in
[] Head to the auction
[] Leave one of your more stealthy companions in the tavern after you leave, maybe the locals will say more when they think no foreign sellswords are listening
-[] Cob
-[] Sirim
Do we think that there might be demons about the village?
This tavern, and the auction, might be good places for Sirim to cast his cantrip, and a detect magic to see the aura of an invisibility spell, just in case.
(Though now I think on it the fey here probably would have noticed demons, unless one was particularly sneaky and lucky, so if Gavhaul was telling the truth, the demons are probably not here, so either scattered or hunting the escapees.)
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Head's too hungover to think about what to ask for here at the tavern; and I'm drawing a blank on how we might get the goods for ourselves. There's no way that we can steal a bunch of stuff from this village without the fey hinting to everyone that they know that it might be worth attacking us/the villagers might attack to get their stuff, and then we'd have their blood on our hands.
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...What I'd like to know in general: Did they trade a lot of stuff to the village or just a bit (i.e. how big is the auction)? What has been done with the pods?
My thinking is that any survivors would be claiming all their stuff, but if there weren't any then their stuff is loot for the taking.
I think, based on him being part of the Aspis, Gavhaul would prefer them dead as that would make things simpler. It's why I think he might be lying about demons pretending to be Alzanti soldiers.
Nice! We didn't even have to liquor the kid up any before he started spilling the beans.
So now we know there were at least three survivors and that they were sufficiently well equipped to feel comfortable trading away some of their surplus gear for local currency and information. It also sounds like they were using an Ioun Stone to provide a Tongues spell effect for communication. Nothing in their behavior points toward any sort of Demonic possession or impersonation, though that's not a guarantee it didn't happen.
@DragonParadox, I'm assuming Sirim has been running his Detect Fiendish Presence cantrip pretty much nonstop? Has he seen any traces of them in the town so far?
I don't think we're going to get much better information here and leaving someone behind probably won't help, either. The more curious we seem, the more attention we're going to call to both ourselves and to what we're apparently interested in. We already got some really good information, and that's enough for now, IMO.
...What I'd like to know in general: Did they trade a lot of stuff to the village or just a bit (i.e. how big is the auction)? What has been done with the pods?
On one has mentioned the pods so far, but from how Urgor described them they would be rather hard to move, they are made of adamat and quite a ways from any road on broken ground, mostly broken by their descent.
@DragonParadox, I'm assuming Sirim has been running his Detect Fiendish Presence cantrip pretty much nonstop? Has he seen any traces of them in the town so far?
It very much is though it is worth keeping in mind that the terror of a monster and thus stories about it can long outlive the thing itself, especially when it comes to things that are immortal or deathless from the perspective of the ordinary human.
It very much is though it is worth keeping in mind that the terror of a monster and thus stories about it can long outlive the thing itself, especially when it comes to things that are immortal or deathless from the perspective of the ordinary human.
I am glad they are obscure and not well known. Meeting one of these would be horrifying.
Edit:...
Or not maybe????
"Though it is dead (or undead) now, it still delights in entertaining living creatures through its humor and obviously cannot do that if it resides far away in unsettled lands. Some red jesters, in an effort to disguise their undead nature don masks or wear makeup."
I am glad they are obscure and not well known. Meeting one of these would be horrifying.
Edit:...
Or not maybe????
"Though it is dead (or undead) now, it still delights in entertaining living creatures through its humor and obviously cannot do that if it resides far away in unsettled lands. Some red jesters, in an effort to disguise their undead nature don masks or wear makeup."
So the legend goes, though on Golation the deck used is the Harrow and it is said that the first Red Jester served in the court of the last King of Ustalav and was made such at the whim of the Whispering Tyrant with Cultists of the Whispering Way continuing his fel work. Sirim would suggest that if there is any truth to the Harrow story it probably only applies to the first of the Jesters. The world is a strange, cruel and often mad place, but not quite so strange, mad and cruel as all that.
So the legend goes, though on Golation the deck used is the Harrow and it is said that the first Red Jester served in the court of the last King of Ustalav and was made such at the whim of the Whispering Tyrant with Cultists of the Whispering Way continuing his fel work. Sirim would suggest that if there is any truth to the Harrow story it probably only applies to the first of the Jesters. The world is a strange, cruel and often mad place, but not quite so strange, mad and cruel as all that.
Putting the breaks on a monster that could so easily cast "derail campaign" strikes me as wise.
And practical from a world building perspective. The decks contain some serious fate and reality warping powers. Stuff beyond the usual of even miracle or wish.
Also interestingly. They made an entire campaign set around the Harrow.
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