Beyond Fomalhaut

This post continues the series of brief play reports I have been posting on Discord. This does not cover every single session (sometimes, recon and setup is what happens), but it covers our ongoing games.

The Subterranean Preserve
30/05/2026 FOMALHAUT

News from Fomalhaut! Seeking further answers below the city of Diomira, the company descended to the underground tunnels, and sought out the pit where they discovered two hoverpods, one operational. Entering the vessel, Pausanias, the man of Mung, worked the controls, and sent the metallic sphere sinking. Deep they went even below the underground city, into the darkness, but then it was light again, and bright daylight streaming through the orb’s single porthole. They descended from the ceiling of a massive cavern some 8 miles across, green forests, rivers, and a clear lake a mile and a half below them. In the centre stood a massive white crystal prism, some 3000’ high, radiating bright light all around. The hoverpod descended to an overgrown landing field on the western edge of the woods, disturbing a flock of large flightless birds.

They disembarked, and the forward team went off to explore. In two nearby buildings, they found only parts of old mosaics depicting elegantly attired men and women hunting various beasts – birds, great lizards, large piglike grey things with a horn on the forehead – with strange spears and bows. Climbing on higher ground to the south, they made a survey of the daylit cavern: some massive reptilian beast in the lake, and two cave entrances, one close to the tarmac. This they visited, and met a group of hunters here: five in simpler clothing, and a fighting-man in clean white plate mail, carrying a magical sword. Miru Vyltt, as he called himself, was amazed by the visitors from the sky, for he has heard of cavern worlds above this, but thought them long depopulated. Him and the others were exiles from a place called Grandiose Shield, and now living in a smaller, poor village named Redoubt. He spoke of northern caverns called Nightside, in perpetual gloom, and a land of waters where lived the Thundering Mountain, he who is called Godzylly. They parted amicably, and the expedition continued.

They travelled to the other cavern, an elegant marble entrance leading to a great hall. Oddly symbolic alabaster statues stood by the walls, and steps rose to a pool of silver-light, which spoke to Lilith: “BY WHOSE COMMAND SHALL I CARRY THOSE WHO STEP WITHIN MY CIRCUMFERENCE?” Questioning it suggested the transportation it offered was one-way, so they chose not to experiment. They headed to the southern side of the clear lake, where stood odd, abandoned buildings in conical, spherical, and hemispherical shapes, long emptied of all of interest. Following the river to the south, they met a hunting party coming from Redoubt, and joining them, followed to a tiny, poor village on a plateau, among older megalithic structures. The leader, Lycan Darl, and his companions treated them graciously but warily, particularly as Lilith and her amazons reminded them of Lady Yvin Lar of Grandiose Shield and her fighting-woman followers – the citadel was amazon-ruled, and the exile wore heavily on Redoubt’s mostly male inhabitants. They were hard pressed by the beasts and the monsters of Nightside, raiding by night: the non-men and even worse things, although the great purple worms did not come over at last. There lived also Ysfaud the Sorcerer, in a flying citadel, who worked various tricks and sought to enlist Redoubt in his schemes. Lycan Darl suggested a venture which would be of much help in hunting and scouting: Grandiose Shield held an operational hoverpod on top of one of its towers, easily stolen from before the amazons’ eyes.

Giving a noncommittal answer, they slept, and the next day, continued their expeditions. They inspected a mysterious monolith with saurian bones trapped in its translucence, and unreadable magical glyphs on its surface. Then, through a windy gap, they travelled east to a cavern even greater. Opposite, on plateaus sticking to cliffs, was a small marble temple, identified as belonging to a goddess abandoned by the people of these lands. They visited the site in an overgrown garden grazed on by seven enormous dinosaurs. It was clean but stripped of all valuables, including the cavity of the altar, and many small gems removed from the gown of its beautiful goddess. A crystal surrounded by a starburst was the only symbol, and clearly, this was not Ishtar: but they could not identify her.

From here, they journeyed across forests rich in game and fowl, to a small arena where stood two large statues of stern fighting-women. And beyond rose Grandiose Shield: white stone towers and cupolas, reinforced with connecting walls. The plateau was cultivated land, and the amazon sentries, seeing the approach of Lilith and her entourage, let them inside, through streets and plazas opening to workshops and gathering-places (all the inhabitants armed, although the men more lightly), to an assembly hall. Here stood two women from the citadel’s leadership: the Lady Yvin Lar, troubled but gracious; and one of her helpers, Dyastis Vyltt, tough and severe. As the company spoke of their origins and presented their mission – finding the masked Uttermost Masters – the amazons did not recognise them, but noted that two groups were known to be masked here: the non-men, living on Nightside, and raiding in the dark to kidnap and kill; and the agents and spies of Ysfaud the Sorcerer, whose schemes seemed to concern everything, including this citadel. They were, in turn, most curious to hear of Ishtar, a fighting goddess: they had once worshipped one whose main concern was beauty, but mostly abandoned her as she could offer no good help in fighting the encroaching dangers of this cavern world (although they still sought her for gifts of beauty, which she was known to grant).

Of the exiles, she noted that they abandoned the common good and joint decision-making of Grandiose Shield, striving to follow their own caprices – justly punished by their exile to the harsh wilderness and their village of hovels. (Dyastis Viltt suggested harsher means might have been in order, but deferred to Lady Yvin’s judgement.) After the audience, they were escorted to clean and comfortable quarters. The next morning, there was a knock on the door, and they were sought by two young men, Uljen Dyst and Amynax Ast. These two, and some others, were seeking a way out of the stifling rules of their society, and asked to be permitted to leave with the company when it came to that. Lilith slyly mentioned the flying sphere as the means of transfer, and they all saw Amynax Ast’s gaze stray to the top of the nearby tower: the spherical metallic cupola was no cupola at all, but another hoverpod – and seemingly unguarded in its tethers. Considering the possibilities, they made a noncommittal answer, and prepared for the day’s expedition – towards the monster-haunted, unlit caverns of Nightside!

A Bad Night for Chuck
04/06/2026 FOMALHAUT 

News from Fomalhaut! Two adventurers, Brad’Och, a Fighter-Cleric of Dornak, and The Hound, a Fighter-Thief; as well as  their six hired men descended into the Vaults of the Stone Men, a repository of strange, wondrous and dangerous things beneath the city of Pentastadion. On moonless nights, living statues walk the deserted streets of Hightown, and behind one’s place, a secret entrance is revealed. Following the advice of the magic-user Ctesiphon to retrieve a magical orb, they descended rubble-strewn stairs (the remnants of broken statues), and opened a heavy stone door to a gallery surrounding a bottomless pit. They were swarmed by flying eyes shooting magical rays, a battle which went quite badly for the group, who were weakened in the fight – and also discovered they had only brought 4 hours’ worth of lamp oil and nothing else. Looting the mouldering bodies of earlier adventures of some coin, they studied the inscriptions above further doors, when one opened and out came 4 crude living statues, killing Orastes the hoplite (Fighter 3). The most fruitful way to defeat the guardians was to lasso them and drag them into the bottomless pit, losing their rope.

Investigating this room, they found broken glassware and a floating, rotating six-sided pyramid over a pedestal, which almost hypnotised Brad’Och, after which they chose to retreat. Westwards, they entered into a larger chamber with a pulsing sphere of light which pulled light and matter towards it, and they skirted the room’s edges. To the south was a chamber with many more of the crude stone statues, for now motionless. To its west, they found a throne room with frescoes of beast-headed men burning down a city and bringing bowls of weaponry towards the throne. They could make little sense of the place, so they turned their attention north of the light chamber.

Here was another vault filled with statues, and a secret nook with broken law tablets. The next room was a steep stairway. Frescoes depicted blue-robed skeletal pilgrims climbing towards an icy summit. On a landing was a great bowl of electrum coins and a golden helmet, and at the end of the stairs, an enthroned stone colossus looking down on them, with a stone rooster by its side. They quickly noted a portcullis trap midway up the stairs too. Through a western door, they found a chamber with two exits. One broke the Hound’s lockpicks, and proved henceforth unopenable (to their great misfortune, as this was where Ctesiphon’s magic orb was to be found), and the other led to another bottomless pit gallery with mounds of earth and glowing mushrooms – not to their liking.

Returning to the stairway, two of them held up their shields, and the Hound and Raon the hoplite tried to steal the bowl of coins. The stone rooster screeched and attacked, blowing a gust of flame and striking with a petrifying beak (but to no luck). They dashed the bowl’s coins through the portcullis, where it was quickly collected, while the two at the front clambered through a gap over it, fending off the rooster’s attacks. They fled back to the light sphere chamber. Investigating the southern chamber of stone statues, they ran into two which were animated. Brad’Och (Fighter 3/Cleric 2) tried a trick to help his companions retreat, but was cornered by the statues and crushed like a rag doll. The survivors fled west, into a northwards corridor. In niches stood bloated brazen idols with terrible insect heads and mantis claws.

One claw was triggered as a trap, but it struck badly, and was bent out of alignment. Climbing behind the idol, a backplate was found, but the treasure was gone – as it was for the others. But there was a secret door to the west. Opening it up, they came to the edge of another bottomless pit, with cobwebs on the ceiling, and two bloated, sea-green spiders lit by an inner amber phosphorescence quietly stalking towards them on the ceiling. They fought bravely, but this fight with the weavers in the vault proved most unfortunate. Alcaios the hoplite (Fighter 3), Thorog Shul the barbarian (Fighter 2), Raon the bowman (Fighter 2) and the Hound (Fighter/Thief 2/3) himself all succumbed to deadly poison. The two victors stood bloody and weakened: Dio the hoplite (Fighter 3) and Tier the peltast (Fighter 2), both their masters dead or dying. But they found a cocoon on the ceiling, and splitting it open, found a corpse with more coins, as well as a filigreed opium pipe. And there were only two of them for all the treasure. Seizing all the coins they could carry with difficulty, by the last light of their diminishing lantern, they made for the exit and the lower streets of Pentastadion, richer in both coin and experience. Neither would return to the Vault of the Stone Men, which kept its secrets and treasures as it had over the centuries.

(“Even Chuck Norris had bad luck – once.”)

The Cultists of the Seal

06/07/2026 FOMALHAUT

News from Fomalhaut! Glory and death in the wastes of the Batrakasz, in the accursed city of Vermath, destroyed for its ancient blasphemies! Recovering from the previous adventure, the company once again sailed up the Xemartes, spying riders watching them from the wastelands, and deciding to take an alternate approach into the ruins under the cover of the night. This they did, but by the ancient city walls, Gendarme, Purple Rien’s elite bodyguard, fell under the sway of a malign influence, and he stumbled as if sleepwalking, repeating ”I am a servant of the Seal... I am a servant of the Seal...”

Snatching his weapons, they decided to follow where he went. Gendarme headed for the centre of the accursed place, where rose a strange flat-topped pyramid, older even than ruined Vermath. Up spiralling stairs he proceeded, until they were on the top under a canopy of stars. A large broken dais bore the sign of the Seal with the crescent moon superimposed on a hand. Gendarme suddenly lunged for a companion’s weapons, and had to be subdued to prevent him from offering himself in sacrifice. They felt a Presence here, and Ozmund, Cleric of Yol decided to step on the dais to read the stars. He was almost seized himself by another will, but he persevered, and he heard a voice speaking in his head! It was Pnakosek, the ancient high priest of the city, impressed by his strength. He invited them to his burial chamber underneath, promising the great powers of the stars. They descended to the ground, but found no entrance here – could the pyramid reach deeper, and could its foundations have been buried by time? Now that it was dawn, they headed for the city’s agora, and a building there whose stone gates bore the Seal, and which was magically locked the last time. With a knockspell, they gained entrance, and descended by spiral stairs to the underground passages.

They were in a large hall dominated by a badly defaced statue of a priest, and many more in bas-relief. As they were investigating, crossbow bolts came from hidden arrow slits, to which Purple Rien responded with a fireball that killed the nomad guards positioned in a secret chamber. They despoiled a smaller shrine nearby, then explored to the east through a network of catacombs. Using their mapping skills, they pinpointed the location of a secret entrance, leading into a small tomb. Frescoes of war and burning cities were still vivid on the walls, showing a fearsome warrior with a whip and mace in the slaughter. A slab in the ground bore the man’s image also, and cracking the resin around it, his apparition rose in varicoloured smoke. Diogenes the Thief quickly lifted an amulet of the Seal they had taken on their previous expedition, and commanded him to obey. Seeing them as fellow Servants, the spectre was friendlier; and agreed to let the visitors take his weapons, including a magical mace, into „new battles of conquest”.

They proceeded through the catacombs, emerging in the great, dry cistern. Agreeing that they were still fresh and in large numbers, they decided it was time to descend deeper and bring the battle to the Servants of the Seal. Retracing their way to a set of wide descending stairs, they triggered a tripwire trap that ran a great gong below – but they pressed on, meeting the screaming fanatics, their lieutenants, and their war dogs in battle. Only one was spared, a warrior named Bernax. Him, they interrogated about the whereabouts of the high priestess Velasca. The fellow agreed to lead them, although he was much afraid of her fiery eyes, which could burn a man to ashes with a glance. Of the pyramid, he knew little: Velasca and the high priest, Kushamesh had visited it, but alone. The man led them west, along a passage lined with the frescoes of penitents, and the statues of robed magi, their faces destroyed and their hands broken off. They walked by a decaying balustrade over a yawning great cavern, spanned by a stone bridge. But they continued, and through a tomb and a room with a tepid pool, they arrived at a chamber, bronze doors guarded by two well-armed guards.

They decided to try and lure out the priestess with a trick, and the guards entered in seeming agreement, losing them their element of surprise. Clamour rose beyond, and it was clear the cultists inside were readying themselves for battle. They decided to rush in and fight, Bloody Tusk leading the assault. They entered a makeshift dormitory in some abandoned hall; robed men drawing scimitars from below their robes, and more noises coming from doorways leading to a torchlit columned hall. The battle was furious, and the characters were trapped in a vise from both sides by armed fanatics, magi, and the lieutenants of the Seal. They could stand this onslaught, and a fireball and a wand of lightning did good work, but as they pressed inwards, they were confronted by the furious Velasca, stepping from behind a row of columns. Wearing very little beyond a very revealing outfit and a necklace of fiery rubies around her ample bosoms, the temptress’s eyes burned with terrible fire, and Ozmund fell on the ground, almost dead, while her personal guards rushed in to slay the others. Here, Mirnex the bowman (Fighter 2) was beheaded by a cultist; Claudius (Fighter 3) was slain by an elite guard, and Yusuf (Thief 5) was almost burned to ashes by Velasca’s gaze. But it was Purple Rien’s other bodyguard, Ronald, who proved his doom, slaying the unconscious thief under Velasca’s hypnotic gaze, and who was then himself slain by Bloody Tusk!

Still, the tide was turned, and Velasca fled through a secret passage under the effects of poison (at 1 Hp no less!), leaving her men to die. But Diogenes and Bloody Tusk’s Amazon companion, Iphigenia followed her relentlessly through dark corridors, and before she could turn back and destroy them, Diogenes sent a lightning arc from his electrum sceptre and ended her evil life. The Servants of the Seal slain to the last or fleeing where they could, they took Velasca’s head and jewellery, and ransacked her sumptuous quarters, freeing Zarrono the thief (a replacement PC), who had enjoyed her „hospitality” in her gem-encrusted bed. They found much gold, and documents detailing the gathering of the Servants, her pilgrimage to the city, ecstatic rites on top of the pyramid, meeting the ancient high-priest Pnakosek, and odd references to the „Benevolent Teachers”, reposing in the darkness beneath! They used speak with dead to make Velasca’s head speak, and gained the secrets of a magical command word used to open certain portals in the undercity, but not the secrets to enter the pyramid. But this was good enough. Reducing Velasca’s bed by magic (I rolled for its value, and got an absurd sum), they transported it, and their other findings, back through the dark corridors, and into the ruined city. Down the wide Xemartes, they returned by barge to the city-state of Glourm to spend their wealth (the bed bought by none other than the wizard-tyrant Tyraxus Tharg, Purple Rien’s player’s old character from the original campaign!), recuperate, and plan their new expedition against the Servants of the Seal!

The Anabasis

19/07/2026 ARDEN VUL

Death and miraculous escape in the depths of Arden Vul! Our company, descending to the crypt level, was teleported by a magical pyramid to another level, and unfortunately to a familiar area, which was ruled by dangerous and aggressive giant baboons. As low-level adventurers, we would have had little chance against them. The staircase that would lead to the exit was close, and yet so far away. However, lost in the labyrinth, we found a secret door and arrived at the Oracle of Thoth, where Johann, a follower of Thoth, risked his sanity to receive divine guidance. Even wise Thoth himself did not know of a way out that we could safely follow, only a side route that promised escape through secret passages, other levels, and great dangers. But at least there was hope, so we set off.

Almost running into the baboons, we opened the secret door revealed by the deity, through which we entered dusty connecting passages. Here came caves, then a grotto where we fought flying manta rays beside a sarcophagus. We reached the uppermost tract of the Great Chasm, which connects several levels of Arden Vul and plunges into the depths above an underground river (we had previously found other hidden passages and gone deeper, but even there we had not reached the roaring waters). A narrow bridge arched over the rift, and we reached another grotto, a crypt of the priesthood of Thoth. Here, death overtook my follower, Thaumas the halberdier, who fell to the venom of giant centipedes. But we found valuable treasures and magic items, and, more importantly, a holy symbol that would later be key to our escape.

Another secret exit led into cavernous passages, then into ornate halls, in which frescoes depicted Thoth’s heroes defeating the enemies of the faith – wizards, warriors, and giant frogs. Another secret door led to the god’s sanctuary, where two golems with gemstone eyes and ibis heads blocked our path, but they bowed to Thoth’s sign and let us go. Here was the spiral staircase the god had mentioned, leading down, where we found valuables next to the body of an adventurer, including a magical purse, which would later gain us a fortune. As the god had said, the stairs led to his “administrative chambers”, that is, to the level of the crypts from which our expedition had started! But we were still in uncharted territory, and we knew that the middle of the level was controlled by hobbit bandits who were collecting a heavy toll from the explorers of Arden Vul, with whom we were already on bad terms.

Hobbits, demons, elementals... and a band of plucky heroes!
In the passages we plundered the tomb of a champion of Set, obtaining magical weapons and armour, as well as the champion’s loot, the bones of a saint. We returned to the Great Chasm, with hobbits camped on the other side, a statue of Thoth, and a narrow bridge. We tricked the little freaks into believing that we were slinking back into the passages, but we returned to the scene by a side passage, covering our lights. We knew about the statues of Thoth, and that by moving their jointed limbs, secret passages would be revealed. Perhaps a way out could be reached this way? There was indeed a secret door, but from the other side a terrible Ibis demon emerged, stunning the party and hobbits alike with its screech. We made a desperate escape, dashing across the bridge, menaced by the demon. Fortunately, the hobbit slingers also fell under its influence, and could not fire upon our ranks. We ended up in a dusty and undisturbed room... but it soon became clear why hobbits don’t come here. An air elemental (?) emerged from the dust, attacking the company. We ran on, because the fight proved hopeless, but the bold and reckless Devara (I think) snatched a magical halberd from the wall, which became our valuable treasure.

Escaping from here, there was a one-way secret door, but beyond that, a real ray of hope: familiar rooms near a spiral staircase leading upwards! Returning to one of the entrance levels, we crossed over to the surface (again avoiding the giant snake lurking there), and entering the ruined city, we could make our way towards the Inn of the Broken Head – losing only one follower where we could all have easily perished! And we didn’t do badly: the magic purse alone brought us 30,000 gp in the town of Gosterwick, and we also gained other treasures and good magic tools.

I’m now starting to get a deeper appreciation for the Anabasis.

Exiled to Fomalhaut
27/07/2026 EMERALD SEAS 

News from the Seas of Fomalhaut! Feted in the city of Thisium, and exiled to another world by the jealous gods for the crime of saving it, a group of adventurers found themselves on an island coast, under a foreign sun. Nearby, another group was clambering out of the broken wreckage of a large glass sphere, transported here from distant lands. Banding together, these survivors sought shelter and an indication of their whereabouts. They were on the bottom of a wide flowering valley, and up there were the ruins of a megalithic settlement, apparently uninhabited. To the north and south lay mountains, and they headed N to climb the tallest peak they saw. Through an oak forest, they climbed to a ridge, where a paved stone path led to the wind-caressed summit. Flowers grew around an old altar, and a dazzling panorama opened around them: wine-dark seas below, a distant shore to the NE, and a mountainous isle around them. Two landmarks stood out: a crater on a nearby mountaintop, and a distant tower to the SW. The altar bore the symbol of a disk with swirling protrusion, identified as a possible symbol of Derceto, and left well alone.

They descended to the abandoned village, where they made camp and shared sparse rations. The next day, they got to exploring. Up the valley was an old, walled orchard, where they picked abundant fruit; and a ruined little shrine with no symbol to identify it. Eriberto Barrella heard something skittering inside, and by the webs, suspected spiders. As the interior was empty save for a defaced altar and a looted treasure-pit, and Ser Narvi’s magic sword indicated no treasure, they did not search further. They travelled west through a pass, overlooking another valley. Forests of oak covered its terrain; they could make out the tower across, a vineyard with a tiny hut, a star-shaped mound in the middle of the woods, a grassy northern mountain valley with small mounds northwards, and to the south, an inhabited little settlement with a port!

They decided the small hut in the vineyard was less risky than the settlement, and headed across the woods to reach it. The grapes were badly tended and overgrown; a decrepit old man snored in drunken stupor by the entrance, cradling an empty jug. They roused him, and he introduced himself as Proxenos, who has been tending these vines for most of his life. They were on The Isle of the Intangibility, just southwest of the town of fair Thellas, and far northeast of Arthedon. The little settlement was new, and Proxenos did not much like its rich inhabitants, who chased him off and did not buy his wine. As for the tower, it was now inhabited by a hydra (the drunk vintner’s account was not completely reliable about its number of heads). He also told of graves in the northern valley, and this became the company’s target. The burial mounds bore memorial columns and the names of heroes; wild sheep grazed on the slopes. They made their way to a set of double stone doors in the mountainside, bearing letters: “ADRASTUS OF ARTHEDON: BY HIS HAND, EVIL WAS UNDONE”. The doors were heavy, but Giacomo and Clotilde, who had both won 18 STR in their adventures around Thisium, threw it open. They found the tomb of a hero; Brunello seized a magic sword that unsuccessfully tried to control him, and the rest carried off electrum, gold, and gemstones from brass cauldrons.

The Tower of the Labrys
(artwork by Dreadlord)
Fighting off three mountain lions trying to attack from an ambush, they headed for the tower they had spied from the pass. It was a round megalithic structure, bearing the sign of the labrys above its open gate. Large tracks and scattered bones indicated the presence of the hydra mentioned by Proxenos. The beast was devouring its prey inside, and a stratagem was hatched. The thieves carefully climbed up on the sides, and occupied firing positions on the top, while the rest approached carefully. Out came the lumbering hydra, its nine heads sitting on long, slender necks. It charged through a web spell, and would have mauled Giacomo if not for rolling 1+1+1 on a damage roll of 3d6! But surrounded from all sides, it was defeated, although Rembault the hoplite was only saved by his shield, and others by magical shields also. The tower held no apparent treasure, but Ser Narvi’s sword indicated a hoard down below. Clearing away bones and rubble, they discovered a stone plug, and pivoting it outwards, a hole leading to the top of a domed chamber in the tower’s foundations. Dhazmadar the Dastard slid down boldly on a rope, and lit a torch. Behind a locked portcullis was a short passage, then a small chamber where glittered sizeable brass amphoras, a large gold plate, and piles of silver ingots. He called to his companions and set to work on the lock. Something clicked in that cursed mechanism, and counterweights creaked in the wall. A massive stone piston slammed down, inflicting a possibly mortal wound on the thief, and sealing the treasure-chamber with its tremendous mass. The victors of the battle considered their next move in the ruined Tower of the Labrys...

Another Place of Exile

28/07/2026 EMERALD SEAS

News from the Seas of Fomalhaut! Banished by the vengeful gods into a strange world, Aufidia Corvina and her bodyguard Dorvo found themselves on a wooded island shore. A minute later, they saw another group appear out of thin air: a group of adventurers caught while trying to plunder the villa of Flandor the Glyphic, and banished here as a form of punishment. With united forces, the adventurers explored the nearby shores, and discovered a wrecked fishing boat, seagulls feasting on its rotting catch. There were no people here, but they found a pair of sandaled tracks climbing to the wooded plateau on the northern end of the island. They followed them. To the south rose mountains too hard to climb, and nearby were cliffs with several birds’ nests. Egeria used her speak with animals spell to seek information from a songbird, who reported that beyond the mountains was a valley where lived many „big eats”, no friends to the birds. A nearby building was inhabited by a man who was no bird-friend either, and the same man also lived inside the valley, but there, he was friendlier (these, they took for twins or clones). With this knowledge, they headed for a thin plume of smoke in the centre of the plateau. They discovered a conical hut inhabited by a wretched castaway, Crabmeat, complaining of getting stranded from a ship. There were bad signs around this man: a symbol on the cottage lintel was suspiciously similar to that of Shakkur, God of Beggars, and something about his demeanour was quite off-putting. Nevertheless, they learned of a village to the south, and after resting the night, set out to learn more of this island.

On the western shores, they fought off two mountain lions, but found no path up to the mountaintops – although they spotted strange geometric structures on a tall peak. By noon, they reached a wooded plateau at the island’s southern tip. In a large clearing, they came across a pack of wild dogs around four circular pits. Half the animals were slept and half fled from their presence. The pits were deep, constructed from a dull, grey seamless stone, partially filled with rainwater, and overgrown with vegetation. „Fishing” with two coils of rope and a stone with a light revealed two pits to have carnivorous vines of some sort, and tossing in sleeping dogs confirmed the suspicion. For now, they left the place well alone. To the north, in a saddle among the mountains, they spotted what they sought: a village of crude stone huts. They marched up, and were greeted by a group of frightened villagers, who suspected pirates or slavers. These simpletons no longer went to hunt and gather food in their valley, as a year before, its patron deity, the God of Red Effigies disappeared, and strange things started appearing down there: weird red trees, and things that took those going down there. The company offered to investigate in exchange for food and shelter, and the yokels almost kissed their feet in gratitude.

There was time for a short foray that day, and they descended towards a group of red trees. They were red-leafed and spongy-trunked, with twisting roots: clearly alien in their looks. Among the trees were wailing and moaning sounds, and they saw light phenomena – fractures of space, and some great lumbering beast prowling at some distance. They crossed the area to a graven monolith. A kaleidoscopic stampede of alien animals rushed towards them out of thin air, and they stood their ground to what they believed an illusion. Alas, the things were real, or nearly so, and Skiluros the hoplite and Hara Kusunhr, Champion of Jeng were trod underfoot, never to rise again. The stone bore an inscription commemorating a beast-slaying hero, Pintias. Investigating the nearby ground, they found a patch of loose ground, and digging, a large, carved stone leg of red stone buried in the ground! On the way back to the village, Aufidia peered into the weird fractures of light, and seemed to glimpse elsewhere, a savannah of strange lights and unknown vegetation.

Among the villagers, they feasted and slept, and the next day, summoned their foreman to ask of the stone leg. The man seemed guilty as hell, dissembling and repeating only that the god disappeared from his shrine a year ago, before the strange events started. Now they grew suspicious. Examining the stone limb, it seemed relatively recently buried, and its colour was similar in colour to the patches of red trees in the valley. They descended anew, avoiding the woods, and heading for a white limestone pyramid. Peering inside through a portico entrance, they spotted a group of 8 hovering, fungus-like creatures prodding around with weird metal objects in their appendages – as they were not noticed, they withdrew quietly. They continued to a large metal gate standing near another patch of red forest. Through it, they saw a barren landscape of shar light and shadow pockmarked with craters and boulders. Shaggy grey vegetation grew on top of the horizontal beam, which Dorvo prodded with his fiery sword; it in turn moved, unfurling into a massive, flapping fungal creature with long masses of filaments. In this battle, Kron the Hard was grabbed and drained of his bodily fluids, which healed the terrible fungal thing. At last, it was defeated with concerted effort; and the survivors carried the body of their fallen comrade back to the primitive village. In two days, the valley has claimed three victims. The adventurers considered their next course of action...

An Expedition to Nightside
02/08/2026 FOMALHAUT 

News from Fomalhaut! Far beneath Diomira, in the giant cavern system lit by pillars of artificial light, the company enjoyed the hospitality of the amazons of Grandiose Shield. They were summoned by one of the citadel’s military commanders, Orlane Damas, who would speak to them at a private audience. She shared that Lady Yvin Lar’s younger sister, Auwyn Lar, had led a force of amazons into the lightless caverns of Nightside, and never returned. Orlane told them Lady Yvin was privately very worried, but had to forbid a followup expedition to preserve Grandiose Shield’s strength, and out of her sense of duty – but they could be of help in finding her, alive or dead.

Thus they set out from the citadel, travelling across plains and woods to the massive gap that led to Nightside’s barren expanses. Fungus forests grew in this realm, and nameless, formless creatures skittered about. They headed westwards, eventually coming to a place with hundreds upon hundreds of statues, depicting humans but odd in their appearance. All were of white, crystal-veined marble, looking NE. Some looked intriguing, and Murat the Etunian approached one with a conical body and tapering head. As he did so, 12 more of the same statue appeared all around the company, as unmoving  as before. Creeped out, they departed quickly, and followed the way the silent sentinels were looking. After more travel, they came to one of the grand pillars of light seen in these caverns, but the crystal and metal structure was dead and lightless. They went west and rested (although there was neither day nor night), avoiding eating the nearby mushrooms.

The next day, they continued, and found a marble pavilion, the nearby fungi patches hiding decaying corpses – some of weird, pale, sickly-looking men, one of a dark-clad fellow in a fancy hat, and others with flabby, doughlike bodies and weird stumpy legs. In the pavilion stood a golden statue with two faces on its head, set with four red ruby eyes. Upon approach, it let loose arrows at an incredible rate; they rushed in and destroyed it, only protected somewhat by their good armour. They took magical arrows, and some equipment from the dark-clad man’s corpse. West of this site, they came across a river which disappeared into yet deeper Underworlds. North they continued. The earth shook; there were tremors, and a massive purple worm emerged from the ground as they ran towards a patch of fungus forest, disregarded by the tremendous creature. Now they followed upstream, steering clear of the worm’s suspected domain. Beyond a fork in the river rose a crude ring of 50’ monoliths engraved with whorl-patterns of astounding, fractal-like complexity. Approaching, they spotted a stone altar too, and observed a group of the weird, flabby creatures coming from another side, bearing baskets of roots and stoneware jars of paste. Unnoticed, they watched them conduct some sort of ritual and depart, but finding nothing to do here, left on their way as well. To the west, they saw the illumination of Lightside, and headed that way, camping by night on the boundary of the two domains. From the shore of a clear lake, they heard roaring sounds, splashing, and saw flashes of light – but they were unbothered. The next day, they ventured a bit inwards, encountering a hunting party of amazons from Grandiose Shield, who had lost half their number to the flabby creatures whose corpses they saw. After exchanging news, they returned to Nightside. They trekked east now, across a land of rivers and fungus forests, lucky with the random encounters.

The fungi grew sparse, and they were on barren open plains. Far away, they spotted something: a citadel floating 600’ above the surface, its bold towers lit here and there by lights above its complicated parapets. Underneath, a garden of unknown leafy plants covered the land. The garden was a place of winding paths, short stairways, fountains, and sundials standing in this place without light. Enigmatic statues with the bodies of birds and the faces of men watched them without speech or movement – Bocephus detected them as magical. As they found no way of reaching the flying citadel, they decided to circumnavigate the general area. As they did so, winged beings descended from the parapets, circling above them at distance, and returning to their roosts. Something else approached – a hoverpod, this one of transparent crystal, bearing two figures! One was an elegantly dressed man, the other a white-armoured amazon – Ysfaud the Sorcerer and Auwyn Lar!

Ysfaud spoke to them in a sonorous, amplified voice from above, and welcomed them to his lightless lands – he knew they were from beyond the sky, and even Diomira, and he knew their names and of their coming through his channels, but not their purpose. Now they spoke of the conflict outside, and the plans of the Uttermost Masters to subjugate the surface cities. Ysfaud was visibly surprised by their mention. He had met them previously, not on entirely friendly terms, and had knowledge of them and where they resided – potentially very valuable information to the company! It turned out Ysfaud also had something he was seeking. He explained how, although he was the master of Nightside, he was trying to figure out a way to turn back on the pillars of light in his domain. While his knowledge seemed incomplete, he explained the pillars were connected by some sort of waves, unlike those of the sea, or that other sea beyond the skies of the surface world, but the unseen forces of the Underearth. There could be some way of linking back the dead pillars to the lit ones through tripod-like amplification devices. However, these were kept by the obstinate amazons of Grandiose Shield, who did not treat with one whom they deeply distrusted.

Ion suggested a stable future alliance might eventually emerge if Nightside was lit up. Here, Auwyn Lar could play a key role by convincing her sister and the war council that they could gain security as well. Lady Auwyn, previously quiet, agreed to write a letter and send her gem helmet as further proof of her identity, but warned that some around Yvin Lar were sure to reject any offer, while her sister was duty-bound to Grandiose Shield and consumed by pride. She herself only came to trust Ysfaud after her war party was massacred by the flabby creatures, and the sorcerer eventually rescued her with his hoverpod. This was not going to be easy. Still, they accepted this basic plan. Ysfaud and Lady Auwyn boarded their hoverpod, which rose towards the flying citadel, settling on the top of its tallest tower.

Embarking on the journey back towards Lightside and Grandiose Shield, the company discussed the implications. Ysfaud knew much, but it seemed his control of Nightside was far not as firm as it might be thought. The amazons would probably believe something was off – and was it? Was Lady Auwyn charmed? There were no obvious signs, but it could not be ruled out. Or did the sorcerer plan the ambush on her amazons, and mount a rescue precisely to gain her hand as his queen? Would the amazons really reject an opportunity to bring light to Nightside? However, one thing was clear: Ysfaud’s information seemed well worth it, and their primary loyalties were to the city-state of Pentastadion, and the security of the coastal cities!

The Pleasure Resort
03/08/2026 EMERALD SEAS 

News from Emerald Seas! In the Tower of the Labrys, the slayers of the hydra looked glumly upon the badly wounded Dhazmadar the Dastard, and the massive stone block that had sealed off the treasure chamber. The thief needed healing. They took him down to Proxenos’s cottage, where he hung between life and death during the night. The next day, seeing no other way, they chose to head for the small settlement they saw from higher ground. On the way through the woods, they visited a star-shaped mound they also saw from afar. It was overgrown with vivid flowers, and topped by an eroded stone patterned with several small interlocking circles. They continued east, emerging on the boundaries of a neat little colony where liveried servants were busying themselves around recently built houses.

Hoplites stopped them to inquire of their purpose, but they were convinced of good intentions, and as they sought a healer, they were escorted to Uzalton, a severe, tall man skilled in such arts. Dhazmadar survived the surgery he had to undergo, and did not even require anything more than a few hours of rest. Now, with wine from Terlank and fine food, they were introduced to the colony’s other masters, potentates enjoying the reclusive pleasures of their own retirement community. Here was Androtion of Akrasia, a gruff magnate who had just sold his shipping business (and gave them startup advice to invest in a penteconter and get hustling – they could retire like him in 10-15 years!); Lorkhan Varx, a suave fellow temporarily retired from business „but still in the business”; and Hethak of Propyla, the inheritor of a grain fortune, a regular Adonis playing a begemmed harp in the company of four tanned beauties. As for Uzalthon, he suggested that if Dhazmadar wanted to thank him, he could do so in the town of Thellas by retrieving an enchanted mask once owned by Ouvoreon the Sensualist, whose walled-up palace stood there still.

To begin their business career as Androtion suggested, they advanced a proposal to hire some of the servants and borrow tools (abundant from when the colony was constructed) to dig up the star-shaped mound. Lorkhan Varx, driving an expert bargain, agreed on terms of 2 gp per worker per day, and 15% of treasure if any were found. The work crew set out at once through the woods, excited about the possibilities. At the mound, Ser Narvi produced his sword and to the others’ astonishment, surveyed the mound for treasure, detecting none in range. Nevertheless, the crew started digging, while half the party snuck off „for some wine”, but secretly stealing mattocks and picks to head for the Tower of the Labrys. The rest of the crew worked into the evening, and finally hit a wall – there was something under the flowering earth mound! The other crew climbed up to the tower, shooing off some pterodactyls feasting on the hydra’s corpse. All but Eriberto descended, getting to work on the stone slab. Eriberto, trying to keep the pterodactyls at bay, hurled them some meat, but the evil things saw him a better morsel, and chased the old nobleman, who, wounded, had to flee to safety with his boots of speed. They worked late into the night, and broke the stone. Now able to access the tower’s treasure chamber, they found amphoras overflowing with gold; amphoras, jewels, 100 silver ingots (very heavy), and a magic ring. Content, they went to sleep among their hard-won treasures.

At the mound, after the night, the other crew broke through the wall, and Maglor cast light through the opening. There was something horrible in that well-buried chamber, a dark, tentacled monstrosity with a great maw that came charging, battering down the wall with its sheer bulk. The workers fled in panic. The partial company met the horror in battle, and slew it with some difficulty. The way in was now open. There was no treasure in there, only a dais bearing the tentacled disk seen on the altar on the mountaintop, and ancient glyphs: „THE GREAT MOTHER BURIED HER CHILDREN. IN HER GREAT VAULT THEY HAUNT STILL”. This came with interesting implications. Was another such horror buried beneath the weird red tree they saw on the mountain slopes? A dungeon beneath the place? They found nothing more here.

However, they had the workers’ discarded tools, and now they took wheelbarrows and burlap sacks to plunder the tower treasury at leisure. They brought brass amphoras with much gold down the mountainside, and buried it at the edge of the forest where the tomb treasure was hidden previously. The silver ingots, a more modest find, they took back to the hedonists’ colony in triumph, earning much fame and praise (indeed, the impressed beauties around Hethak immediately swarmed the newly arrived fighting-men), and netting the magnates a small bonus and a tale worth telling. Conferring with Uzalthon, they came to the conclusion the site was sacred to Derceto, the Dark Mother, dweller of deep underearths. This caused some disquiet among the rich residents, and except from Hethak, they got cold feet about further exploration, fearing something worse might be disturbed. But the adventurers were thinking of something else. In a few days, a supply ship would come to the colony, and they would sail with it and some of their loose funds, to buy their penteconter in the town of Thellas!

The Mysterious Valley
03/08/2026 EMERALD SEAS 

News from Emerald Seas! Heading back from the valley to the primitive ridge village, reality fractured before the adventurers, and disoriented people appeared – new companions who joineds them at once. „They have changed in the valley”, the superstitious villagers muttered as they saw them return with these unknown people, and without those slain. From the village, they climbed to a nearby peak, where they investigated a dolmen graven with constellations, and saw a panorama of the nearby islands. Large pteranodons were also spotted on a roost on the valley’s eastern cliffs, safely distant. Now they descended to the valley, and headed to the lunar gate where they fought the weird fungal creature. They entered the nearby patch of red forest. Reality was crisscrossed by fault lines, and space divided into pools of intense light and deep shadow. They found a large, gnarled red tree, and seeking among its roots, dug up a red stone leg, buried in disturbed ground. This they took with them. Back in the normal oak forest, they encountered 5 weird plant creatures, peering at them with several googly eyes from clusters of tendrils. They were not hostile, and they withdrew without issue. Returning to the village and hiding the leg from the locals, they spent the afternoon building rafts for their eventual visit to the lake.

The next day, they embarked on another foray. They were barely back in the valley when they met four weird creatures, tall humanoid moths clad in leather harness and brandishing exotic halberds. Communicating with gestures, the adventurers indicated peaceful intent, and so did the mothmen. The sides parleyed as the mothmen inched closer, then sprung to attack, shaking their winds of choking dust to immobilise much of the company. A sleep spell took care of two, and two more were killed in melee. They took their weird halberds and other odd items – bags of yellow-green crumbles and tiny brass tubes.

They made a return visit to the white pyramid in the valley centre. The floating fungus creatures exploring it were gone, leaving no trace of their visitation. The place was an auditorium, and checking the flagstones, Aufidia found loose ones, beneath which was buried treasure with gold plates, a gold-headed mace, and a block of meteorite iron, known to be useful in manufacturing magic armour and weapons. Beyond the pyramid, the old road led to an area paved with limestone blocks, demarcated by broken columns, which Aufidia believed to be a forum. There were slight tricks of light in the air, but hardly visible in intense sunlight – perhaps better for a night outing. They proceeded along the road, passing a bronze statue, then halting on the precipice of a deep chasm. The gloomy pit dropped 180’; 120’ down, a solid stone bridge crossed it between two large tunnel entrances. Ezor the Eel rappelled down, and saw that the SE one had collapsed, while the other was blocked by a pair of massive metal portals that looked immovable. He returned to his companions. Investigating a cave to the NW, they found a looted tomb with animal bones, but not more. From here, they proceeded to the northern parts of the valley. One section to the west was heavily overgrown with a mixture of the red trees and some sort of purple, clublike growths, which also clustered in a group of their own. Leaving them well alone, they headed for the eastern patch of red trees, where they had seen ruins.

In these woods, the red trees followed their movements with peering, sinister eyes, and as Dorvo waved, he heard an ominous voice in his head: „Do not interfere. You saw nothing.” Here was also one of the giant trees, but they checked the ruins first. The walls were overgrown and dilapidated, but this seemed a shrine indeed. A central chamber had an altar, an empty dais where a large statue might have sat, and walls marred by ugly graffiti depicting a rag-wrapped hand – the sign of Shakkur! The theories started to develop. Perhaps the statue would need to be reconstructed on the dais, and perhaps it was broken apart by the villagers, who were given evil advice by the hermit they had met. For now, they returned to the forest with watching trees, and dug up the roots of the largest, finding a torso and a crude, ugly head. These they hid in the ruins.

It was dusk, and they followed the road back towards the forum where there had only been figments of light before. Now there were 22 apparitions there, men and women clad in elegant if old-fashioned garb, engaged in silent debate they could not understand. The warrior Delo Phazerus stepped forward, introducing himself, and the apparitions looked back at him. Finally, one of the women stepped forward, and spoke in a sonorous voice they could hear clearly: “The God of Red Effigies, the God that shall be after us, rules the island still in your time, though he is not one, nor does he sit in his shrine, as he will after us.” Then the transparent shapes from beyond time were gone, and there was only the silence of the moonlit agora and the whispering trees. The adventurers headed back along the path, and through woods into the primitive village.

The Riders of Doom
09/08/2026 FOMALHAUT

News from Fomalhaut! Glory and death in the wastes of the Batrakasz, in the accursed city of Vermath, destroyed for its ancient blasphemies! After previous victories, 4 adventurers and 8 followers boarded Bargemaster Mulk’s vessel to sail up the Xemartes. Three days they travelled, and at night, they sailed by the ruins to lay anchor near a ford. Sneaking into the city under cover of darkness, they were beset by shadows, which left some in the company drained. Nevertheless, they descended underground, and chose to descend to the lowest level to seek the sword of Prince Philosir, lost in a lightless lake. They followed known stairs, dispatching random encounters, and on the middle level, they crossed a stone bridge above a yawning dark cavern. Shadowy priests and a spectral figure appeared to demand a token of their faith; producing an amulet of the Seal pacified them, and they passed. Beyond a sequence of meditation chambers, stairs led up to abandoned passages; some connected back to know parts, and some led to a maze of rooms, and the lair of a hermit who sought holy inspiration in this place of evil. Taking some advice, they decided not to investigate these areas further, but return to a known stairway down to the lowest level. The way led to the bottom of the cavern, and before something surprising: a smaller replica of the pyramid in the middle of the ruined city, but built of white alabaster, stairs spiralling up to its flat top. Climbing it, an invisible force attacked, hurling some off the sides, but producing an amulet and speaking the word of command learned from the high priestess’s shade let them pass. On the top, an altar was found before a bas-relief of the Seal. Ozmund sacrificed some incense, and a Presence tried to possess him, but he fought it off. Now the darkness and roof of the cavern parted before his mind, letting him view a myriad stars as if in divination: and he asked for a sign leading to Philosir’s sword. The insight pointed southeast, and there they proceeded.

The eastern end of the cavern was carved into a massive columned entrance, bas-reliefs of warriors shown sacking cities under a comet on its friezes. They entered into a great, empty hall, where stairs led up to a throne room, the desiccated husk of a cultist enthroned in the seat. Carelessly, they did not notice the fuliginous black thing lurking above them, which stunned some with a resonant moan, and tried to paralyse and dissolve others with its cilia. Putting it down, they examined the throne more closely, finding a catch to lower it to an under-chamber. This was a looted treasury. Everything was gone, except pieces of scrap armour, two stone warriors, and an empty pedestal. Yet detect magic found a snake-haired woman’s stone head, and this they carefully bagged.

From the throne room, they now went south, entering a natural cavern filled with fungi. A dark, placid lake had a small isle with a pyramidion rising in its middle, and a 15’ bronze hoplite standing before as its guardian. This was the place indicated by their treasure map! In a side-cavern, they had to fight a giant slug, which almost dissolved Ozmund with acidic spittle, and nearly crushed Bloody Tusk’s companions. The coast clear, they used detect magic to seek for the blade. There was magic down the pool, but not even a light spell could let them see anything. Iphigenia the Amazon agreed to swim down. She felt around on the bottom, seizing STRIKER, Philosir’s previously invisible sword, which burned with magical light and possessed her. She swam up, but by then, the bronze hoplite animated, wading ashore while blasting its opponents with magic rays. Fortunately, its attacks were poor rolls, and it was destroyed. Iphigenia emerged with the sword, commanding the company to obey her. A hold person held her fast, and they removed the chaotic sword from her hand, for now wrapping it in cloth. They turned to the pyramidion; a knockspell opened its secret door. The interior was the grave of an armoured warrior and a storehouse of treasure. Removing the warrior’s plate, the shade of Prince Philosir rose, pronouncing a terrible curse on Diogenes the Thief to be pursued by enemies.

They pressed on westwards from the caves, through stairs and passages, to a water channel from a waterfall. Diogenes was almost swept off, but he was saved with rope. Further on, they entered a large columned hall. Enormous, muscular marble torsos stood in deep water. Diogenes dived with the help of Purple Rien’s levitate spell. He saw the dark shape of a 8-headed hydra swimming up towards him, which surprised the unlucky thief and tore him limb from limb. Low on resources, they retreated to the throne room’s treasury to rest. Renewed, they returned to the hydra, which they lured to shore with a light spell, and then killed in combat. Diogenes’s henchman, Diomedes, who had decided to carry STRIKER, sought to impress by diving into the water after the sinking corpse, and hurling the blade into the beast’s heart, as the blade had spoken to him. The sword turned into a lightning bolt, which caught the submerged thief in a deadly electric discharge, then turned back into a sword and sunk to the very bottom, temporarily depleted of magic. The survivors retrieved what treasures there were in the pool – STRIKER, Diogenes’s kit, a magical horn, a medallion, a suit of plate, and a massive golden sun mask of incredible value. These treasures were good enough to return to town with. On the way back, they fought a weird mist monster, fireballed fanatics, but returned to the ruins without much trouble. They travelled to the ford to rendezvous with Bargemaster Mulk’s crew. They found the ship on shore, its men massacred, the bottom hacked with axes.

They began the arduous trip back home through the wastelands, but the boatmens’ slayers were there waiting. The RIDERS OF DOOM galloped across the plain with 80 nomad riders, led by the great warrior Almorik Tharg in dark plate and a horned helmet, and the Evil High Priest Kushamesh behind him. A lightning bolt fried some warriors, while their crossbow bolts did miraculously little damage. Even so, the company would have been surrounded and massacred. In a desperate bid, Bloody Tusk raised the unknown magic horn and blew. Waves blasted the front ranks of the charging horsemen, throwing mounts under each other, and blew Kushames’s head right off! A terrible melee ensued where no quarter was asked and none given. Almorik Tharg was caught by Ozmund’s hold person, fell from his horse, and was trampled underfoot. Abdul the Faceless was ridden down in the charge, while the horn blasted another column. Octavio and Horatio, veteran bowmen, were hacked down by the fury of the nomad warriors. And fair Iphigenia, Bloody Tusk’s fighting companion on so many adventures from mighty Velkos Vel to the City of the Ape-Men, was beheaded, and the barbarian took terrible revenge on her slayer. To the last, the 82 men were slain, but of the group that once numbered 12, only five now lived. They buried their own dead, building a pyre for fair Iphigenia. They took the 16 surviving horses, and rode back towards Glourm. In the wastes, they were attacked by a terrible chimera, whose breath killed Lightning the war dog, who had survived so many delves. The four survivors rode on. At night, they camped, but Bloody Tusk heard flapping wings and clucking noises at night – a group of 6 cockatrices! Leaving the horses to their fate, they quietly escaped with four mounts. Bloodied, dusty, and much decimated, they rode the whole day, until in triumph, they rode through the gates of the city of Glourm to sell their loot and be wreathed in immortal glory!

Thellas

10/08/2026 EMERALD SEAS

News from Emerald Seas! From the Isle of Intangibility, a group of adventures sailed to the city-state of Thellas on board a merchant ship. They disembarked along the long waterfront of an antique, elegant town of ancient beauty but crumbling appearance. They headed to Mighty Ellag’s Tavern, a port eatery, where they bought a round for all, and inquired about where they might buy a ship. The closest they heard was Macarias, a local shipping magnate; and they also heard some rumours – of precious musical instruments kept in Thellas’s Symposion, and the Palace of the Eternal Autocrat, found in the archipelago, from where adventurers have brough back a rich bounty. Meanwhile, the party’s thieves decided to follow a rich foreigner and his two elegantly dressed daughters through the streets, and to the agora, where a blind poet was reciting The Lay of the Nikareids, a classical epic. They made a large circle in the evening streets, observing a wealthy palace, but also buildings that looked ramshackle, and had their windows and doorways walled up. They also found a large building with no windows at all, immured portico entrances, and glass domes high up on its flat rooftop. Porters passing by indicated this was no place to bother, and they returned to their companions to have a night’s sleep.

The next day, they noticed a commotion in the harbour. One of the elegant pleasure barges, belonging to Phartasmos a venerable old man from Pentastadion, was stolen in the night, and his secretary was raising hell with the guards. After talking with the irate secretary, they visited Macarias in his warehouse. He was a jovial fellow, happy to have heard of his old business partner Androthion of Akrasia, and would help arrange the purchase of a penteconter from Eranthos the Archaist, one of the local notabilties. He was incensed by the ship theft – not local work by his estimate – and offered to waive his intermediary fee for finding the stolen vessel. They visited the port’s harbourmaster (while Giacomo was called from a high window by two beautiful women calling themselves the captives of one Meles the Mummifier). Harbourmaster Chilon proved a friendly and sharp old man. Apparently, the ship had sailed out in the darkest night, without lanterns. It was not a very fast craft, and might still be found if it was hidden on the island. He indicated three possible hiding places along the shores, and the company set out at once to the eastern one.

Beyond cart roads and a small village, they entered rough terrain, and came to windy cliffs with narrow bays. Stairs led down to a boulder with old writing, deciphered as commemorating “the Lost God Neusthyas”, and something about his funeral. A cave entrance led inside, and they descended to a grotto with large, suffering stone faces. The faces turned to be meat-hungry giant brutes embedded in the walls, emerging as flesh and blood creatures. They were fought in the tunnel, and as one was slain, they got all cowardly, babbling that they were innocent, and didn’t eat the dead god, or if they did, only a bite. They gave up a cauldron of gold, and were chased back to their rest. This was not the ship, though, and they quickly retraced their route to the island’s southwestern shores. In an oak forest, they discovered a campsite where a ship had been dragged ashore and then put back on water; but the ashes were cold, and there were no other signs. It was already dusk as they returned to Thellas to hire a ship for the third locale. They found the Cuttlefish, a swift, shifty merchant ship which Hormouz the Thief recognised as colleagues of a sort. The captain, Darak Shul, quickly understood what they were seeking, and offered to join the hunt for a cut or (on a failure) a modest excursion fee. But this excursion was in vain too, and they found no trace of the missing ship in the night. The trail was cold – but new plans were emerging for their next foray…

Echoes From Fomalhaut #15

I am pleased to announce the publication of the fifteenth issue of my fanzine, Echoes From Fomalhaut. This is a 64-page zine dedicated to adventures and GM-friendly campaign materials for OSRIC and other old-school systems. The cover art was provided by Graphite Prime, and the interiors by Ferenc Fabian, Cameron Hawkey, Jason Blasso, and the Dead Victorians. The current issue features a larger wilderness scenario, a port town, two  smaller articles, and plenty of gardening advice! The following materials are included:

The Hanging Gardens of Pasquino Babilonio (levels 4–6, 32 keyed areas), a large wilderness scenario set in a mysterious hanging garden left behind from the late days of the Empire. A masterwork of garden design, this place is more than it seems, and hides a long-lost secret which reveals Pasquino Babilonio’s true design.

Pellagris, Port of Plenty (35 keyed areas). A pleasant coastal town on the borders of fair Frabotia, Pellagris has survived centuries of turmoil without much destruction. An orderly mafia town and noble resort, it is a fine place to rest and plan new adventures – but there is enough local intrigue to keep a group occupied or send them on far-flung adventures.

Significant Ships: A collection of 20 ships to be encountered in port, or on the high seas.

The Garden of Punches (levels 2–4, 9+18 keyed areas), a fighting school which has taken over an abandoned village. What conflict lurks among the school’s pugilists? What is the secret of the old lighthouse? And what can we learn about gardening in this place? Find out HERE!

The Illustrious Index of Incline: A catalogue of Echoes #01 to #15, also available here.

Two foldout map sheets with player and GM maps.

* * *

The print version of the zine is available from my Bigcartel store; the PDF edition will be published through DriveThruRPG with a few months’ delay. As always, customers who buy the print edition will receive the PDF version free of charge.

US Shipping Options

Freedom is Coming!
(But Freedom Ain't Free)I am happy to report that US shipping is once again available through my storefront. I am less happy to report that these shipping options are not yet a return to the normal shipping possibilities that were available previously. What we have for now are substandard solutions and workarounds.

Option #01 – Postal Shipping: Currently, due to the elimination of postal De Minimis exceptions last August, commercial mail, which was a cheap and reliable shipping option, is not yet available, and after a year, it is doubtful if it will be. I can currently ship to the US through commercial EMS packages. These start at a high threshold at the equivalent of $75. They scale up well, so a very large box containing most of my books is not much more expensive than one containing a single zine. Therefore, all US orders will ship for $75. I will make up the difference as a form of discount, but I cannot charge less. This is not a good way to order a single zine (for that, I may recommend Option #02), but it may make sense for a larger batch. On the upside, EMS packages ship fast, usually arriving within a week of postal dispatch.

I will keep investigating alternate shipping options; unfortunately, those I have found on the Hungarian market have not been better than the Post.

Option #02 – Ordering Through Dark Future PDX: As a shipping alternative, I can recommend checking out Dark Future PDX, where this product will be available in a few weeks. Dark Future are a small store, so they may not have everything in my catalogue all the time, but they restock regularly, and they have amassed a good reputation. They will also be carrying the forthcoming Gamemaster’s Guidelines Beyond Fomalhaut. Orders through Dark Future are also eligible for free PDFs.

The Perfidious Port of Pellagris

Worlds of High Adventure
(Non-Final Mockup Using Cameron Hawkey's Cover Art)
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown! In role-playing games, the position of the gamemaster carries the most responsibility, as it is a formidable task to entertain and challenge an entire group of players from session to session while preserving the game’s continuing appeal and mystery. Fortunately, the tricks and techniques required for gamemastering are easily learned with a little practice, and perfected through continuous play. All it takes is a lively imagination, sound judgement, and a pinch of ambition.
This volume provides guidance and time-tested techniques emphasizing the practical side of gamemastering to assist in fulfilling these ambitions. Building on the philosophy of classic adventure gaming, and focusing on player agency, gamemaster creativity, and fast, open gameplay, it offers comprehensive guidance for running old-school games, and designing adventures, campaigns, and game worlds. The book provides not only advice, but also a rich toolset to help both during preparation and at the table: procedures of play to facilitate a smooth game experience, a broad selection of monsters and magic items, as well as a large set of random generation tables to inspire gamemastering creativity.”
After all kinds of delays that took a year and then some, I am happy to announce the forthcoming release of my book, Gamemaster’s Guidelines Beyond Fomalhaut. This is going to be a large, comprehensive guidebook focused on providing practical advice on designing and running old-school adventures and campaigns, from basic philosophy to tested design methods and a whole lot of supplemental material (including optional rules, monsters, treasure, and random generation tables). You may have seen some of the book’s contents on this blog in less polished form; this volume has a lot of that, but most of it would qualify as new for the international reader.
The book will be a 292-page, illustrated hardcover retailing for $60. We are currently at the point where final proofreading is coming in, the cover design is being finalised (what you see above is my sorry mockup superimposed on Cameron Hawkey’s outstanding cover art), and we are gearing up for printing and binding. It is expected that copies will be available in mid-October, and if things go well, as a debut release at Cauldron Con 2026.
Antique Mysteries and Dark Magic
What it isIn modern old-school gaming, despite a generous supply of solid materials, there is a conspicuous absence of reference books to help people learn gamemastering from the ground up, or pick up additional techniques beyond the basic level. There is solid guidance out there, but an accessible, detailed how-to is mostly missing. The main game systems in circulation are rather laconic on this matter, focusing on rules and “stuff” rather than guidance in their GM sections. The reasons for this are partly historical: when this thing started in the 2000s, the people involved were assumed to be old hands who knew the AD&D DMG and the B/X rulebooks inside out, and didn’t really need more than what those works and some forum discussion couldn’t provide. Over 20 years later, this is no longer the case – there is a lot of information out there, but much of it is disorganised or tucked away on obscure sites; likewise, as old-school gaming lost its focus, a lot of its assumed knowledge base became muddled and uncertain. OSRIC 3 is an excellent game aid where explaining the rules are concerned, but it is not a book focused on telling you how to be a GM, or how to improve your skills.
Gamemaster’s Guidelines, whose first version was released in 2008 as the GM’s booklet for my old-school RPG, Sword and Magic, seeks to fill this gap. It is intended to supplement your ruleset of choice (OSRIC by default, but easily applicable for other old-school systems), and focus on the practical side of gamemastering – the nuts and bolts of running a game, creating various types of adventures, managing a larger campaign, and designing fantastic settings. It gives readers the basic and advanced techniques, as well as a complex view of how the pieces fit together, and how to make it your own (which is the natural and really fun part of it). It follows the philosophy of Classic Adventure Gaming with its focus on campaign-level play and high player agency, and the Judges Guild tradition of sandbox campaigns and sword & sorcery-flavoured adventure gaming with a hint of weirdness. It is not exhaustive, but it is intended to provide a full picture.
As all good things, it is also something with a personal stamp – not entirely the D&D of Gary Gygax and Bob Bledsaw, although indebted to both and standing on these giants’ shoulders. It is what we have made of it over years of play. Therefore, the book also presents optional rules that have stood the test of time in our campaigns, discussions on world design the way we have enjoyed them, and creatures and magic items that came from these games too, along with a bunch of random tables which served me and my friends in numerous campaigns. Ultimately, your game is yours, and it is up to you where you take it. This is where we did.
"A-ha! I knew it had a section on
summoning the Colour Invisible to Man!"
What’s in itGamemaster’s Guidelines is organised into nine chapters as follows:
I. Guiding principles: A primer for CAG-style play, thoughts on sword & sorcery as a distinct style of fantasy, and sources of inspiration (calling it “Chapter I” is a bit less mysterious than “Appendix N”, but we will live).
II. Gamemastering: This chapter offers an introduction to basic and advanced GMing techniques. It discusses “invisible” issues such as effective descriptions, questions of time management at the table, improvisation, and so on. It offers advice on common problems cropping up in a game, as well as different game styles and how individual player preferences can impact the campaign. It considers issues of simulation and verisimilitude (along with their limits), how to run NPCs, and matters of game balance and the level of challenges. Finally, it offers simple, robust tools for harnessing randomness for creativity.
"Now was that Blade Venom, Type III, or Purple Worm Extract?"
III. Optional rules: The chapter is a collection of rules drawn from our games. These are fairly small, modular rules that can be adopted piecemeal into your own game. The section adds simple combat options including abstract positioning and pursuit rules, and a simple mass combat system (with naval and siege options). It offers options for experience and magic, including notes discussing the interpretation and extension of common spells, the role of divinations and illusions (both prominent in our campaigns), as well as magic item creation. Survival rules, poisons, disease, and a bunch of traps round out the chapter.
IV. Adventures and campaigns: The book’s largest section, encompassing the adventure styles you can find in classic adventure gaming. It offers a general discussion on open—ended scenario design and player agency. It offers guidance and procedures for location-based adventures including dungeons, wilderness exploration (with a variety of approaches from journeys to point-crawls and hex-crawls, and procedures which interface with them), and cities. In all cases, it focuses on what is gameable, and how to focus design work on actual play. It also delves into the conundrum of situation-based adventures, which tend to have an often justifiable bad rep in old-school circles, and discusses how they can be used well in our paradigm. The chapter closes with an in-depth discussion on constructing and running larger-scale campaigns, and how to do so without being overwhelmed. This section thus discusses issues like the information economy, why you need STRICT TIME RECORDS, and bottom-up sandbox design.
V. Fantastic worlds: This chapter delves into creating game-friendly settings, the implications of fantastic societies, with a discussion of level demographics, civilisation vs. wilderness, the role of magic in a fantastic society, the dreaded magic shop issue (something the book supports), and so on. A larger section deals with religion, and how characters can sacrifice to, defeat, and perhaps become gods. A shorter section rounds out the chapter with a discussion of variant fantasy settings, from prehistoric milieus to the weirder end of the post-apocalypse.
VI. Taxes & death: This is a slightly more complex rules module offering basic domain management guidelines. It comes with procedures for taxation, regional development, construction, and army upkeep. It is not a “deep” system (as they say, “ACKS already does that”), but it is one which can be run in a reasonably pain-free way if your players happen to become the lords of a small city-state or satrapy.
The Floating Fungus is Introduced
to a Company of AdventurersVII. Monsters: Again, one of the book’s larger chapter. It offers a large section of 255 monsters, about half familiar, and half new. Some of the new monsters have appeared in my zines and modules; others are bound to be new to anyone who did not play in all my campaigns, and I don’t think any of you have. The chapter duplicates some entries from OSRIC and Monsters of Myth (so there are stats here for orcs, mothmeres and gelatinous cubes, although it takes liberties with common monsters like ghosts or dragons, and introduces variants for others).
The reason for this duplication (which I ruminated over a lot during development) is to offer a complete on-hand resource, but particularly because the book also includes a very large, complex set of random encounter tables which use this particular monster selection. In the proud tradition of AD&D’s Appendix C, it includes tables for wilderness encounters for various climates and terrain types, as well as ruins, seas, cities, and the Underworld (as in the kind of massive megadungeons which stretch deep downwards into the depths of the earth). We have played the hell out of these tables over some 20 years (and they have developed gradually), and this together forms the “implied setting” of the campaign.
The chapter also includes a large section of typical NPC stats for human encounters, a fun one-page section for generating adventurer parties (which I am incredibly happy with), and notes on monster customisation.
VIII. Treasure: As the name implies, this is a whole bunch of magic items, again mixing old and new, and rounded out by a bunch of random tables. These items are usually on the lower and middle part of the power scale, with an emphasis on “tricky” items with odd powers and interesting drawbacks – even some cursed items which can be fun and useful! There is a lot here, from the sword of lions (which rusts in the hands of a cowardly user, but is restored in the hands of the bold) to the figurines of the lesser lords (tribal fetishes offering their own idiosyncratic advice) and the pendulum of graves (which divines a grave’s contents when swung above it). Of course, this book would not be an EMDT production without a selection of technological devices, so those are here, with rules for laser pistols, but also the weirder edge of sinister future technologies such as reversal, a horrible serum inducing rapid reverse evolution, and the doctrinator, a device implanted in the skull to compel correct behaviour. The chapter includes its own treasure generation system, and tables for jewellery and exotic goods.
What is Over here?IX. The omniscient oracle: The book’s final chapter is a selection of random inspiration tables, all of them thoroughly tested. There are tables for adventure locations (e.g. “Desolate Crypt of the Damned City”), dungeons (both subsections like “the Hiding Place of the Gloomy Horror” and individual rooms like “the Grandiose Garden”), and wilderness sites (such as “the Scintillating Ravine” and “the Hidden Grove”).
Tables are offered for exotic ruins (such as a ruined step-pyramid once used as a garden, and now as a refuge), islands (such as an island with a lake and several streams, covered by strange mists, and hiding plantations and lost statues, as well as a garrison), and weird civilisations (such as a depopulating, militaristic society striving to achieve a bucolic utopia, plagued by mysterious disappearances and ruled by a cadre of philosophers).
Tables for curiosities include some usable to stock places like laboratories or temples (e.g. with drapes, an orb, and braziers), some to generate archaeological rubbish (going from broken pottery to the wreckage of great machines), and some to discern the functions of magical things (e.g. a benevolent oracle), or random teleporters and gateways (e.g. to a similar, but subtly different reality).
There is a table of 100 curses (including the Curse of the Fire-Worshippers, which draws the character towards all manners of fire, and compels their worship), carousing complications (e.g. gaining an influential, but very temporary friend), and downtime events for missing characters (e.g. being challenged to a duel, or finding a trail to a treasure).
How it can be orderedThere are simple answers and, regrettably, complicated answers.
Outside the US, the book will just be available from my Bigcartel store, as well as partnered stores. If you are in the EU, there is a small but non-zero chance that the EU has effectively destroyed its single market and all small, independent webshops therein with a retarded environmental regulation a few days ago. If this is the case, and the regulation gets enforced instead of withdrawn, then EMDT is a dead company walking, and so are most small RPG publishers in Europe, along with all other small creators selling custom jewellery, art prints, or handmade baby clothes. I sincerely hope it is not enforced. It is some insane shit, the kind that defines modern Europoor politics, and makes you wish for the return of the Habsburgs.
No! Don't Do It!
There Will Be Ways to Buy the Book!Inside the US, things are a bit more complicated. As you might be aware, the US introduced postal tariffs on foreign countries late last August, which, as a side-effect, basically eliminated commercial mail from Europe in a way that has not been restored in the one year since. My working assumption is that it is gone for good. Commercial packages became available again earlier this year, but the only affordable shipping option in this category is EMS, which has a lower threshold of $75. I will be opening up my store to US orders with the publication of Echoes From Fomalhaut #15 in late August, but it will be a flat $75 whether you buy this book, you buy one zine, or you buy every damn thing I have for sale. (I’ll cover the difference if it is higher – EMS scales up decently well, and arrives quickly). That’s not great, but what can you do.
Furthermore, the book will be available from Dark Future PDX in Portland, OR. They are a small, friendly old-school game store who have accumulated a good rep, and I am happy to note that they carry my stuff. So buy with confidence – if you buy from them, you are eligible for free PDFs as always. There may be other distribution partners too in the future.
If you come to Cauldron Con, I may have advance copies available through the organisers. See you there!Preview – Dungeon adventuresFinally, after all this long talk, here is a 12-page preview of Chapter IV’s section on dungeon adventures, discussing mapping, encounters, and gamemastering procedures. Enjoy!
Gamemaster’s Guidelines Beyond Fomalhaut – PREVIEW (11 MB PDF)
"I ain't afraid of no Level V encounter table!"

This post continues the series of brief play reports I have been posting on Discord. This does not cover every single session (sometimes, recon and setup is what happens), but it covers our ongoing games.

The Gates of Castrum Rapax

20/04/2026 THISIUM

News from the doomed city of Thisium! After the raid on Castrum Rapax, the adventurers met their army up in the valley, and devised a daring, if stupid plan to march down to the gates and demand the orcs’ surrender while their previous blow was still hurting, and sending in a strike team to cause trouble from inside if the move failed. As they approached the castle, they heard the sounds of horns signalling messages, and saw a group of orcs ride towards the southern mines on swift mounts. There were many orcs on the parapets now, the whole fortress on full alert. As their main force with the legionaries of the Imperator, the cavalry and ragtag light footmen of Sir Egmont Mouseburg, and the crack team from Ramondo Montefeltro’s fighting school gathered below the parapets, a team slipped down the ravine to the back entrance. Finding it deserted, they entered quietly, and met four trolls, who were placed here to stand guard. This was a tough fight where Flea the bowman fell, but fire and magic weapons (including a sword +1/+3 vs. regenerating creatures) proved useful, and Varanthus the Legionary and two men recruited from former prisoners proved their mettle. Going up the stairs, they found that their trap had burned out the orcs’ oil reserves – but also that the gatehouse was well defended by several of them at the ready, with even more within earshot. Narvi came up with an odd plan: take the statue with the bucket on its head from the cellars, carry it upstairs, and remove its bucket before the orcs, hoping for it to animate like the jester in the dungeons. Meanwhile...

...before the gates, the army stood ready. Maglor and Don Arduino Spezzaferro stepped forth under the white flag of truce, and called on the orcs to surrender and give up the fortress, as they have killed their leader. An orc, apparently of rank, laughed at this pitiful scheme, and pointed out that two orc lords lived still, including Trogfult, directing the defences from the parapets. Maglor raised the scroll of the most terrible doom, promising to use it if the orcs did not agree to settle their differences in single combat. Trogfult wavered, thought, but the repute of the four dooms were such, and the previous raid damaging enough that he did not risk a fifth and – barely – failed his morale check. Spezzaferro was chosen as the company’s champion, while on the other side, out came a nasty, large troll named Gront. Terms were negotiated: if the orcs’ champion won, the humans would leave the mountains, and Trogfult promised they would meet yet on the field of battle at Thisium. If Spezzafero did, the orcs would forfeit the castle and abandon their campaign against the doomed city. To sweeten the deal, Maglor suggested they redirect their assembled army against the island-republic of Arak Brannia. The two sides agreed. Trogfult called, „Let the WAR begin!” while Ramondo Montefeltro slipped a small black object to Spezzaferro, won on an adventure to the alien world of distant Fomalhaut. Gront the troll came forward, and Spezzaferro swept it with the fiery beam of the device. In the melee, the troll was ferocious, and wore down the fighting-man with its cunning attacks. Spezzaferro feigned to retreat, and blasted the troll’s head clear off with a precisely aimed shot. A great clamour rose among the ranks, and the duel was won! While evil, Trogfult followed a god whose ethics were not dissimilar to the Empire’s, and held to his word.

He agreed that the orcs would demobilise in the Thisium area, and give up Castrum Rapax to the united human forces, departing with their accumulated treasure. Troghalt, the third orc lord overseeing the mines, would join the campaign against Arak Brannia. Impressed by their bravery, Trogfult called on the men to join the orcish cause as worthy auxiliaries, and share in the rewards of the campaign – to which they, for now, gave a friendly but noncommittal answer. Among themselves, they discussed that the Imperator, Sir Egmont, and Ramondo would occupy the mountain areas, and make sure there was no further mischief against the truce on either side while the orcs passed through the countryside and lifted the siege of Thisium. The company would head back to town to prepare for tackling the final doom. Ramondo gifted the laser to Spezzaferro, although no more than three charges were left in it – but this was a worthy reward to the man who turned back an army! So passed the Doom from the Mountains. At this time, the city had 13 days left...

(Expected mass battle or a terrible massacre, got something entirely different. Damn, D&D is great for this stuff!)

Mapping the Passages
26/04/2026 FOMALHAUT 

News from Fomalhaut! Four adventurers (Vornak Wolf-Slayer, a Fighter-Thief and an of-world mutant calling himself a „half-orc”; Yorick the Magic-User; Harald the Northman Fighter; and Hiva Sati, a Cleric of demon-slaying Karttekeza) and ten followers sought treasure and adventure in the ruins of Vermath, a ruined city destroyed for its inhabitants’ blasphemies. News of strange pilgrims heading to the place, and raids by horsemen calling themselves the Riders of Doom had spread to the city-state of Glourm, and it was clear some old evil was stirring among the desolate walls. The adventurers hired a river barge and Bargemaster Mulk, who transported them up the Xemartes. They passed burned and plundered villages over the journey, finding evidence of attacks from both the land and water, but no living survivors. One night, locusts swarmed over them, but they were stopped by a wind wall spell. Finally nearing the ruins, they parted from the boatmen, agreeing to meet a few days hence, and proceeded on foot through open plains. Vermath’s ruins were mostly fallen walls, but they spotted a central pyramid, a ruined aqueduct, some intact buildings on the southern side, and, to the north, a watchtower with sentries. As they came closer, a swarm of pterodactyls attacked. Yorick blasted them with a fireball, killing many and driving away the rest, but alerting the city’s inhabitants to their presence. Yet luck was on their side: just close by, among the massive walls of an abandoned bathhouse, they discovered a recently removed stone disk revealing a hole opening to a great subterranean cistern, and a rope ladder leading down. The cistern was dry, and recent supplies were on the bottom – they would have company underground! After descending, they found a higher ledge on the cistern’s W side, leading to passages. Vornak hung back, listening to a group of riders who came to investigate. They spoke of their leader, Almorik Tharg, and of seeking the intruders.

They went westwards, and pursued a stray torchlight through the passages, then down some stairs to a lower level, hoping to catch a few „tongues”, but lost the trail. The passages were ancient and dry, although they came upon a large columned hall with a hot pool, apparently being used as a bathhouse by the new inhabitants. To the west, a chamber led to a balustrade overlooking a vast, dark cavern stretching below them. Descending a bit with ropes, they learned they were on parapets above a great portico structure, with a frieze on the pediment depicting chariots sacking cities below the sign of a comet. Exploring more of their current level, they came before a monstrous stone idol sitting in a massive throne, which called on them to come closer and learn their fate – he was a servant of the mighty Priest-King Pnakosek! Alas, Harald unwisely let it slip they were not of the faith, and at that, the enraged statue attacked. In the fracas, Hiva Sati’s follower Vashid (Fighter 3) was struck down and killed as they withdrew. They investigated passages to the S, finding stairs up and hearing a distant howl of pain from some direction. Vornak snuck upstairs, discovering a guarded prison; then returned to his companions. They went W, finding another guarded room complex – the city’s mysterious pilgrims were apparently well established here. For now, they withdrew. To the S, they found crypts leading to side-tombs guarding the disciples of Pnakosek, and an impenetrable force-wall between two sphinxes of black quartz. This, too, they avoided for the time being. Eastwards, a small room held a pedestal with an immovable, glowing crystal ball and frescoes of magi levitating similar orbs. Following a mysterious inscription, Harald placed abundant treasure on the pedestal, which sunk into the floor with the loot, fireworks erupted from the crystal (which remained immobile in the air), but nothing more happened. Was it a scam or an unsolved puzzle? They could not tell.

Eastwards, the passages led to a decaying hall of once-splendid mosaics crumbling from damp walls. Large crystals glittered on the opposite wall, and Vornak was almost buried under an avalanche of loose stone as he tried to pry them out. They also found a hidden chamber holding chests of rotting scrolls carrying disease – but deciphering the lettering on a scroll on a wall mosaic gave Yorick +1 WIS! Following the tunnels further, they found a chamber with a dark, bottomless pit. A powerful but badly tortured barbarian was tied to a T-shaped cross on the surrounding ledge. Freeing and healing the near-death figure, Aderbaal, they learned that he was also a treasure-seeker, ambushed in the ruins and brought here to be tormented by Velasca, a woman as beautiful as she was cruel! Swearing revenge, Aderbaal joined the company, outfitted with Vashid’s equipment. From here, they returned near the stairs they entered this level from, and went north. In a plundered crypt, they found a secret door in a sarcophagus, leading to natural caverns. In a grotto, Vornak was ambushed by carrion crawlers, but was saved by his companions. The grotto held a dais overgrown with fungi; scraping them off, they could pry off the beaten golden plating underneath – decorated with barbarous ornaments depicting evil rites. In a hidden cavity, they also found an unknown wand. Venturing deeper into the caverns, they discovered a chamber with a deep pit descending into a lower level. Northwards, they found more caverns dotted with a dozen varieties of fungi, but were attacked by a strange mist-creature. Once again, the *wind wall* spell proved useful to hold it at bay while they escaped. They searched some more of the cave system, and collected valuable crystals from inside a giant geode, but it was time to end the foray: thus, they returned to the surface, beholding dusk falling over the ruins. They left Vermath to make camp in the wasteland, plotting a new expedition...

Alcazar
29/04/2026–01/05/2026 OSR CAMP 2026

News from OSR Camp 2026, in the Land of Bears! I played in three games, although there were many more, from White Box Cyclopedia to Don’t Give Up the Ship (a pitched naval battle lasting late into the night), and much drink and oven-made meat. 

Four expeditions were conducted under the streets of shadowy Glourm, seeking entrance to the tomb of Alcazar, whose sarcophagus can be seen through a grille-covered pit in a quiet plaza. Gaining entrance through a cistern, the adventurers descended downwards until they found a chamber of strange one-eyed gargoyles. Opening a secret door, they fought a massive spider with skeletal limbs and a hypnotic gaze, which proved incredibly dangerous, but a magic shield was found. Bandits, following them from the surface, came to take their hard-won loot, but killing some drove them off. Retreating and resting, the group returned with a bunch of followers. Dodsword the Northman was soon taken over by his Chaotic magic sword after a quarrel, and spent the expedition as a bloodthirsty maniac. Continuing from the spider chamber, they entered an old bath, defeating a frog-crocodile hybrid. A secret door in the back led to caverns with stairs leading down to a purple mausoleum belonging to the Haruspex-Women. Opening the stone portals sealed with lead and wax, the mummified, goat-legged women awoke, but Xena the sexy Amazon Thief used the unholy symbol of Derceto given to her by the mansonesque Imperial Magic-User, Calaban, and commanded them to surrender their gold-headed maces and gemstones. Closing the mausoleum, they found a secret door in the further reaches of the cavern, stairs leading up to a chamber with an ancient brass pyramidion. Stepping into the surrounding circle of light, Dua the sexy cultist chick and Kryton the servant were struck down by magic missiles. The company retreated to the surface to rest and recover.

Deeper Below the City...
The third expedition was led by Xena the sexy Amazon Thief, as the others were resting. With newly gathered companions, they investigated the upper passages. Behind a new door, they found an underground storeroom, where a blind old slave Velothen was preparing opium-laced spice mixtures for the Spheroid Fish, an upscale restaurant. They gave him some food and took the pricy spices and drugs. They now went downwards, beyond the mausoleum cavern. A side-passage led to a chamber with architextural displays made by Diogoras the Architect. The strange, modernist eccentric told them a few things of the dungeons, and also spoke of the ancient past, which was the future, and how, in the future, this past would be brought back as Men returned to the stars once more, He also offered a reward for the trade secrets of his dead rival, Palbras, buried somewhere in the area. Departing, they went deeper still, climbing down into a cavern with a well. Diving down, they stole a pearl from a giant clam, but were attacked by a random group of 4 cockatrices. Miraculously, at least 5 saves vs. stone were made, and the monsters defeated. One was taken and sold at the night market. As they were running low, they made their way back to the surface, and splurged at the Spheroid Fish before their next adventure. The fourth expedition was a large and powerful group assembled from the people of the first three, plus new hires. Returning to the well chamber, they went W, entering a multi-level burial vault through a broken wall. Drawn by their loud speech, the spectre of the undead King Yadamnes appeared, and once they angered him, drained Barnabas the Fighting-Man of two levels before they fled. Choosing another way from the well, they emerged on the parapets of an underground palace, whose halls led back to King Yadamnes, a direction they chose not to investigate again. To the east, they went up stairs through plundered burial chambers, and finally saw firelight.

Where Are We?Four muscular pinheads were roasting a goat below spiral stairs, and drinking wine. They ambushed and slew them. Following the stairs up, they entered a hall of giant columns, bisected by dark water. A skiff was on the other side, which they cleverly pulled towards them, and crossed in multiple groups, ultimately avoiding a ghoul lurking underwater. Stairs went further up. Through a trapdoor, they emerged in a small auditorium with an extinguished fire-cage, a wooden screen, and poles surmounted with silhouettes of various objects. In the adjacent room, they found cells with crazed prisoners raving about the „shadows on the wall” and seeing „the shapes and the Ideals”. They freed them, but they did not understand the concept of freedom, remaining in the comfort of their dark prison. The way up was an impeccably built spiral staircase, going past an entrance to the tomb of Palbras the Architect. Snooping around a bit higher, they saw this was a way up to the cellar of a nearby tavern, and even found a wine cellar. Alcazar’s tomb must have been nearby. They decided to see if the way was through the architect’s tomb. Opening the front door triggered a crossbow trap, which killed Hauler the porter. A trick stairway turned into a slide, depositing them between four columns, which turned into column monsters, and killed Theseus and Leon Ydas the hoplites. They looted the tomb, or what seemed like it, retrieving a wealth in false gemstones and gilded lead. Yet Alcazar’s tomb was also elusive, despite its direction being pinpointed with locate object. They dug through a collapse and turned a gang of ghouls with the symbol of Fedafuce, God of Commerce (“Begone, in the name of Profit!”) They climbed a vertical shaft, entering a chamber of columns with several small, many-eyed frog-gargoyles. The things animated, and were barely kept back with a web while they escaped through a secret door to a set of spiral stairs.

The stairs led up to a tenement building, and down to a secret door, and then... the storeroom where poor Velothen Was still grinding spice mixtures. Girding their loins, they returned to the gargoyle chamber, attacking them with fire and weapons, and eventually driving them fleeing with a blood-curdling battle cry. They descended the shaft, and followed a passage they thought unfamiliar, opening a wooden door... finding themselves once again in Velothen’s storeroom. The passages were hopelessly confused. Wounded, low on Hp and out of spells, they returned to the exit in the cistern. While Alcazar was long dead in his sepulchre, so near yet so far, it was as if they could hear him laughing in the distance.

(The last session, a late-night game stretching way beyond midnight, was a rather surreal experience. Everyone was dead tired at the last day of the con, and the players confused directions, hallucinated details that weren’t there, resulting in a properly weird fantasy conclusion. Maybe it was the opium-laced spice. While Alcazar was very close indeed, and they triangulated his tomb-chamber really well, his treasures remained undiscovered.)

The Underground Tower

03/05/2026 FOMALHAUT 

News from Fomalhaut! A new expedition descended beneath Diomira to crack open the secrets of the mysterious underground tower. They approached the massive, echoing chamber, the metal cylinder in the centre rising from unfathomable depths. They crossed a metal bridge to the southern double gates, then, using the mirror pattern, entered. They stepped into a hall of black marble, a translucent dark stele on its opposite side holding complex patterns suspended within. Ion examined them carefully, failing to notice the weird, fuliginous creature creeping above him, then dropping on him like a supple rug, and paralysing him with its cilia. The shadow-thing’s resonant moan stunned some others, but it was eventually defeated. Moving to the NE, they found another similar hall by the eastern exit. Impossibly white marble statues of distinguished men and women stood here, holding instruments of various types. The central one, a heroically proportioned bearded man, was identified as SOLON, the legendary founder figure of Fomalhaut, who took men to the stars in lost millennia. One statue was missing entirely from its place, identified as DORAXES.

They moved on, marvelling at a dark chamber with moving star systems on its domed ceiling, then found a different columned hall with geometric patterns swirling on its ceiling, and abstract geometric forms being displayed in large cubes which seemed like amber-coloured display cases. One was the hiding place of a starfish-like entity they found and defeated with ease, after which it was slowly sucked into itself, disappearing into nilspace. A side-chamber here hid devices of an unknown purpose, which they avoided. To the NE, a door led to a humid garden, its benches and tables overgrown with vegetation. Water cascaded into a small pool with yellow flowers – and Lilith identified them at once as a yellow musk creeper! Indeed, 8 zombies had to be fought, and the garden burned with flaming oil.

The zombified citizens of Diomira had some jewellery, but the price was found down the pool – a diamond-edged dagger of incredible keenness! Although there were two spiral stairs down they have discovered, they meticulously investigated the last room, filled with dusty display cases holding odd artefacts – disks of unknown material, avant-garde statuettes, papyri, a badly dissolved skeleton, and some alien-looking vases that somehow made their skin crawl. Here, the diamond dagger proved invaluable in freeing the valuable pieces and stowing them in the portable hole. Nevertheless, their activities attracted six mechanical men, metallic guardians attacking without fear and mercy. Kleombrotos had his helmet split, but eventually, the guardians were defeated.

They descended to the next level, into a marble hall shrouded in unnatural darkness. Abstract, translucent statues stood by the walls, but they spotted the two shadow-creatures lurking among them, and killed them with relative ease, followed by two more mechanical men arriving in. One of the statues in the hall had glowing nodules within it, and seeing that it was made of dark glass, it was cut up with the diamond dagger, retrieving valuable gemstones. A side-room held a muscular, faceless statue bearing a metal box on its shoulder. Kallimedon climbed up, discovering it had a hinged lid, and contained silver coinage. Further experimentation revealed it rendered whatever was placed in as weightless – despite its size (5’ edges), a valuable container. With these finds, they retreated... to find 5 mechanical men barring their way in the garden. This fight was a brutal combat of attrition, where Kleombrotos lost another helmet, multiple characters were close to death, and all their resources got depleted. Barely surviving, they dragged themselves out of the tower, and left the tunnels while they could – returning exhausted to their hideout in Diomira’s back street...

Last Call at the Isle of Horrors

11/05/2026 THISIUM

News from the coastal city of Thisium! The Amazon Prime, the swift-sailed magical ship stolen from the amazons, sailed out of Thisium, heading towards the eastern edge of the surrounding archipelago, and the Isle of Horrors. Here was a magical flask craved by the wizard Pantomorphus, who might help them with the Doom from the Seas. Approaching the volcano-topped island which had claimed so many of them, they climbed a sequence of antique stairs to the plateau beneath the volcanic cone. This time, there were signs of seismic activity, fumes above the cone, and ominous rumbles. They avoided the odd altar for now, and climbed a treacherous path to the top. Alas, the quakes increased, and they were caught in a rockslide. Varanthus the legionary (Fighting-Man 1) was lost along with his magical spear, and so were Giovanni the halberdier, Cosimo the rider, and Belvedere the war dog. The survivors proceeded, seeing lava in the crater, and a broken obelisk erected in the name of Teuthranes, a name entirely unfamiliar. Finding nothing more, they descended back to the altar. The split stone had no flask on it, but Maglor, figuring it might be in the crack, used phantasmal hand to rummage around. As the hand touched the stone, a great spirit of smoke and fire appeared, offering a bargain: capture the life of a mighty wizard in his enchanted flask within the week, and receive a boon and the location of a great treasure – but be turned to stone if it was not done within time! This offer aligned well with the company’s plans, and the bargain was struck.

They sailed through deep blue seas to the Isle of the Black Dogs, and rested on the ship. The following day, a smaller delegation was sent to the tower of Pantomorphus to work a trick. Pantomorphus emerged on his balcony with a retinue of his disciples and berserker bodyguards, and Maglor showed him the flask, inquiring of the Sea Doom in exchange for the enchanted item. Pantomorphus gleefully explained that there was no saving Thisium: on the appointed day, gasses from the dormant volcano of the Isle of the Black Dogs would flood the archipelago and coastlands with their maddening poison, and all not on higher ground would perish. (Indeed, wise Pantomorphus built his tower for this very purpose.) He theorised that a sufficiently powerful storm could blow the gas towards the open seas, but the weather was too calm this season, and only powers such as the distant elemental lords could produce something of this sort – but alas, not in time! Disregarding the adventurers excitedly talking among themselves, the wizard gloated of the hated city’s doom which had spurned and exiled him. Maglor offered up the flask, and with the phantasmal hand, floated it to the wizard’s balcony, carefully unstoppering it. With a shriek, Pantomorphus was sucked inside, and Maglor yanked back the restoppered flask, throwing it into the grip of Eriberto Barrella. They escaped under a barrage of spells, arrows, and maledictions, but, having a running start, shook off their pursuers.

A Musical Resolution

Boarding the Amazon Prime, they sailed to the nearby isle with a firm plan. Here rose the villa of the musician Falumfano, another Thisian exile. Above the balustrades and terraces rose the trumpets, turrets and drums of his mighty musical machine. Falumfano received them gladly, offering wine and appetisers, and inquiring of the northern campaign. He was less hostile to Thisium than Pantomorphus, and was presented with a plan: his musical machine, which could sink ships, could generate a windstorm strong enough to blow off the volcanic poison on the appointed day. To appeal to his self-interest, the adventurers also noted that his villa was not on high ground, and he would die like the citizens of Thisium. After more incentives, Falumfano gave his assent, and hinted that once this was all done, the Lyceum might be refounded somewhere outside the city.

Biding adieu to the disgraced genius, already working on retuning his colossal machine, they sailed to the Isle of Horrors. The tremors were stronger, and the cone belched clouds of sparks and dark smoke. They hurried up to the plateau, and presented the flask to the spirit of the altar. The dark entity took the flask containing the hapless magic-user, and made good on the deal, raising one ability score of all present adventurers to 18. In glowing patterns of light, he also drew a treasure map, identifying a site in the Cyclopean Hills, right in the middle of a circle formed by ancient roads, and marked by a lone cedar. The company departed quickly, and sailed away through the coast, just as the volcano erupted, and the Isle of Horrors was destroyed in the fiery inferno.

 Their ship laid anchor at the Wailwind, on the coast of the Bay of Pearls. News of large-scale orcish troop movements circulated among the patrons, while excited rumours interpreted the volcanic eruption as a sign of Thisium’s impending doom, not knowing that the last such doom had just been averted. The following day, the company bought horses, and headed into the Cyclopean Hills. They stopped at Villa Cardone, informing Ottilia Cardone of the good news about the orcish war and the Doom from the Sea – indeed, her hard-won manor could now grow and flourish with new tenants and skilled armsmen. They rode on, borrowing excavation tools, and eventually found the lone cedar among the hills. The tree was ancient, a thousand years or more old. Digging revealed a vault, then a buried secret room, filled with abundant treasure – 40,000 in both gold and silver! The saddlebags of the pack animals were filled to capacity, and they rode back to Villa Cardone in triumph, earning the hurrahs of the assembled armsmen.

There was not much else to be done. On Day 90, the originally projected date of Thisium’s destruction, they returned to a city gripped in the fears of the impending doom. When the Isle of Horrors was destroyed, there had been an earthquake, destroying the proud towers and cupolas of the noble palaces, and many other buildings also: but the city lived, and would live! News of the dooms’ passing spread like wildfire, to general cheer and celebration. A week of parades, plays, music and partying ensued, until Day 97, when the fate of the city would be decided. The scheme with Falumfano’s machine worked, and as the massive, long-dormant volcano on the Isle of the Black Dogs exhaled its poisonous clouds, they were blown away in a safe northern direction. Those who were close heard a rich symphony, composed by Falumfano, driving the clouds.

The assembled adventurers were hailed as the saviours of Thisium and heroes worthy of the highest honours. Wreaths of flowers were hung around their necks, and crowns of laurels, in the tradition of the old Empire, were placed on their heads. ..... They were floating among clouds, no longer in the midst of the adoring Thisians. Two splendidly armoured, familiar figures stood before them: Sir Drago, whom they had met in the Forest of Verrilli, and Kadorto, whom they had encountered on the Isle of Daphne di Leonti. They congratulated the adventurers also for their worthy deeds, on behalf of their own masters, distant but ever-watching. There was only a small problem... Indeed, the gods had decided thatwhile they were once heroes, they were now potential troublemakers, and very powerful ones at that. Therefore, it was time to say farewell, and never see each other again.

 Once again, they were somewhere else. They stood upon a desolate seacoast, not unlike the one where they have gone through so many adventures, with white rocks, hardy scrubs, and wine-dark waves. Yet something was off. The sun, shining above, was larger and perhaps of a different, more ominous hue. There was something in the minor details that was subtly different. The adventurers looked around their new environment, considering their next move...

THUS ENDED THE FOUR DOOMS of THISIUM

Beyond Thisium
The City-Machine

10/06/2026 FOMALHAUT

News from Fomalhaut! Returning to their occupied apartment wounded and tired, the company laid down to rest, but they were soon interrupted. The clamour of the crowd outside in the side-street grew and grew. A woman screamed something about the Anti-Prophet’s agents. Peering outside, careful not to be seen, Kallimedon saw surging multitudes looking for them with murder in their eyes. They quickly packed up and fled up to the rooftops to make their escape. The now familiar crossbow bolts came from behind them and the opposing building’s crumbling balustrades, the city’s brainwashed assassins closing in for the kill. Half of these were slain and two left paralysed as they escaped north, descending into an abandoned backyard as the crowds streamed inside the house to kill whoever they could, and burn the building. But the way was also blocked northwards, with a large, hysterical mob assembling before one of Diomira’s omnipresent black mirrors. They hid in a different building while these people moved south to participate in the arson, then, sneaking slowly through multiple buildings to avoid detection, they shook off the heat and went north to hide out in the Eternal Gardens. The place was mostly deserted in the evening, even the few picknickers heading home. They slept rough in one of the pavilions, narrowly escaping detection by a group of prowling Underdwellers sallying out to the city to capture live prey. “The enemy of my enemy”, someone remarked.

Before next sunrise, somewhat rested and healed, they descended into the tunnels to find the Uttermost Masters in the underground tower. The structure stood where it did, in the middle of the bottomless pit. The city’s assassins were there too, attacking from ambush with their crossbows. Aenara barely survived with the help of her shield before the cloaked men were swept away by a fireball that filled the echoing, cavernous hall with its detonation. But at last, they were in. Having explored the first level before, they went deeper, finding themselves in a hall with its walls hung with large dark mirrors. Kleombrotos stepped forward, through a barely perceptible red light beam, making two metal hemispheres descend from the ceiling, blasting them with laser fire before they were disabled. Bocephus studied the mirrors, and was almost overcome by intense feelings of despair and sadness, if not for his mind-shielding amulet. Another one transmitted feelings of joy and togetherness. Were these the mirrors to manipulate those in the city outside? They found minute controls in the mirrors’ rims, but could not make sense of their mode of operation.

A nearby room held tanks radiating terrible cold, and a side-room a golden disk engraved with strange patterns, a glass capsule holding green filaments they took for some form of projectile, and a liquid-filled machine. Another one was more interesting. It was unnaturally dark, barely illuminated by their light sources, except strange red lights in the ceiling. Metal trays on tables held glass sheets with depictions of skeletons and ghostly entities. To the south, a high-ceilinged, octagonal room way yet stranger. Above, in the light of a rotating spiral of light, dead bodies spun slowly in their strangely cut clothes and glittering jewellery, fine-featured and healthy-looking. Lilith tried to pull one closer with rope and hook, but was pulled upwards herself, and felt herself quickly fading before getting pulled back. Noticing a small dome on the ceiling, they started blasting at it, destroying two bodies with their valuables before hitting and destroying it. The bodies fell to the ground at once, and a secret door slid open. Four mechanical men came out, one with a laser sword in its hands that cut through metal as it did flesh. Defeating the guardians with relative ease, they gathered several valuables, the sword included.

Claiming this bounty, they investigated one more room on this level, but quickly retreated from a storeroom with corroded tanks overgrown with fungi that seemed to try and reach into their mind. They descended yet deeper into the tower, finding themselves in a sequence of passages. More mechanical men were defeated, and a room of strange mirrors with a purple glow avoided. However, the other way led to a hall decked with plates of iridescent metal, and lined with rows of crystalline display cases holding curious oddities. At the end, a stele blinked with several tiny lights. Diomira’s agents were here, attacking as the company split up, but this time, fate was on the intruders’ side, and the seven men were killed with ease. Examining the stele, they saw a myriad pinpoints of light in the vague form of a spiralling wheel within its smoke-crystal mass. Powerful twin gates lay closed to the east. The items in the display cases ranged from strange fossils to alien and unsettling glassware to a primitive bowl of beaten gold, an ominously glinting metal eye, a mechanical hand with a ring on it, a fine-looking belt, and more. A knockspell opened them along with the gates, and the treasures were collected. Aenara, who had lost her hand in a much earlier adventure, tried the mechanical hand, and found it the equivalent of a strong magical weapon.

A heavy door to the west opened into a lead-lined room with a pedestal holding an enormous gemstone, and glowing slimes crawling towards them – this was closed very, very quickly. The gates to the east opened into a chamber even more fantastic. Polished dark walls held massive black mirrors, blinking with an endless succession of glyphs and numerals. Hexagonal crystal columns rose from the centre, flashing with pulsing light. And there were bodies – human remains, charred and broken, still holding weapons and wearing bearded masks. They had found the Uttermost Masters they were seeking after all.

Ion stepped inside invisibly to investigate, and noticed three open secret doors, no longer hiding the massive, motionless war machines waiting behind them. „YOUR PREDECESSORS ARE DEAD. ARE YOU AFRAID?” The calm, even voice came from everywhere at once. The City-Machine was speaking to them directly. Surprised, Ion nevertheless spoke quickly by noting that they were seeking the dead men, who were also the enemies of the city, and inquired what had been known of them. The voice responded: they came to seize control of the Polis, which could not be allowed; furthermore, a different group was destroyed in a different section of the undercity, near a Uranomatafora gateway. Ion continued by suggesting that they were bringing news of disorder up in the city. The answer was calm as before: Diomira was in an optimal state for a population of 132,300 with respect to balancing comfort and internal tensions. When queried about potential mirror overexposure, the City-Machine suggested that there was a strong preference from the Polis average for comfort and easy living. Concerning long-term risks, it noted that downwards population trends due to environmental breakdown would reach a level of „ZERO – ZERO” in 621 years by current projections. The company withdrew a little to deliberate. Was the machine irrevocably hostile? Could it be readjusted? Would it keep sending assassins? Could it be destroyed, and with what consequences? They returned before its presence, making a case that they posed no threat to its mission, and requesting to retrieve the Uttermost Masters’ remains, and investigate the signs of their common enemies. To this, the City-Machine assented, imposing a grace period of 48 hours to depart Diomira as long as they caused no public disorder. The bodies they removed from the chamber held a mysterious letter in a scroll case – a clue, if faint. They left the tower, and climbed back to the surface to behold a new morning above the great city.

 The Gateway

17/05/2026 FOMALHAUT

News from Fomalhaut! Using the 48-hour grace period offered by Diomira’s ARKHOCENTRON system, the company descended to the underground to find the other team of the Uttermost Masters, wiped out in a reconnaissance mission. They proceeded beyond the underground tower, and found themselves in a large, empty chamber with a bottomless abyss on one side, and a bearded statue pointing towards it on the other, an inscription reading “THE OVERSEERS SEE BELOW”. That’s when two inky monstrosities dropped down from the ceiling, stunning half the company with their weird sonic moaning, and paralysing Aenara and Meurios Andromakhos with their cilia. The monsters were defeated, but the two companions took time to snap out of it.

In the mean time, they tried the strange anti-gravity belt they found during the previous adventure, descending into the dark pit to explore what might be hidden there. A good 160’ below, they found two large metal spheres hovering midair, with inset doors that would not open. Bocephus descended, and cast his knockspell to throw them open. The first sphere was hollow, containing seats arranged in a circular manner, ancient skeletons in decayed garments, and a few odd items. Investigating the other sphere, he was glad he was not standing near its door when the spell went off: the interior was filled with yellow mould! Leaving it well alone, Pausanias was called on to descend by rope, as he was at least cursorily familiar with ancient technologies as a man of Mung. He surmised that the spheres were vehicles of some sort, and found controls too. Among the skeletons, he found a backpack which projected oddly shifting, chaotic images when worn, as well as a metal canister stamped with a simplified human face. He operated the controls, and after some experimentation, lifted the sphere and landed it next to the statue. Now that the paralysis had worn off too, they could move on.

In the passages to the south, they saw a group of floating amoeba-like creatures, but could pass them by without a confrontation. The way led into a chamber of ancient machinery crackling with lightning bolts, still working and humming under Diomira. Sticking to the walls, they moved south, ending up in a massive hall. Wide, collapsed stairs led up from an antechamber, while to the west was a great circular pit ringed by a ledge and massive columns. A broken bridge led to an opposing platform, where stood a large metal frame in the shape of an inverted trapezoid –  the gateway they were seeking!

Proceeding along the ledge, they found the corpses of the Uttermost Masters as well, lying as decaying corpses. But the place was not unguarded. From the abyss rose fist-sized eyes, many-many of them, moving in a massive swarm! A fireball from Bocephus swept away two thirds, but the eyes also started blasting, firing off magic missiles, hypnotic rays, and life-draining rays as well. One by one, they were whittled down, but the fight was a difficult one. Finally, they could examine the bodies, finding two swords that looked nice (Ion drew one, and found it both Chaotic and cursed), three potions, a stoppered jug that looked fancy, and some sort of weirdly notched metal bit. There was nothing more to find, and they didn’t want to test the gateway for now. Returning the way towards the exit, they explored some more: they found a domed room with a pool rich with algae and plant life, and another chamber with a pit. Here, corpses slumbered in crystal-topped sarcophagi, wearing golden „Σ” amulets. From a gas tank above descended a swirling pink mist, trying to engulf them. They ran, but were outpaced, so it came to a battle wherein a lucky laser shot by Ion shattered the solid core hidden in the vaporous thing. Collecting the amulets, they returned to the surface to consider their future course of action...

The Temple Massacre
23/05/2026 FOMALHAUT

News from Fomalhaut! Glory and death in the wastes of the Batrakasz, in the accursed city of Vermath, destroyed for its ancient blasphemies! After their previous expedition, the company camped along the river, and saw dark dreams in the night, of distant stars speaking to them in unintelligible tongues. Aderbaal the barbarian, whom they rescued last time from the underpassages, screamed, and only Rolo the Northman could calm him. Moreover, Harald the Northman started showing signs of the slimy doom disease, acquired while searching through junk.

The next morning, they met new travellers heading to the ruins: Diogenes, a Thief; and Bloody Tusk, the renowned barbarian, followed by his Amazon companion, Iphigenia. Joining forces, they returned to the ruins. Alert to the possibility the Servants of the Seal may be watching the entrance they descended through last time, they investigated other sections of the city. To the north, they spotted caveman slaves driven by grim, whip-wielding nomad riders to dig in the desolation. They descended into a ruin howling with winds, defeating a pack of desert ghouls and claiming a magic bow. Near the city’s ruined agora, they found intact but magically sealed buildings (although one showing frequent traffic). Eventually, they discovered a ruined little pyramid at the end of the processional from the city’s oddly built black pyramid. Here, in wreckage and rubble, they found a stone-choked entrance they could excavate to uncover a deep natural cleft. They used a rope ladder and ropes to descend 70’, being swarmed by moaning spirits who, however, could do them no harm. They found the source of these soon enough on the bottom: a great bone-pit, filled with countless skeletons. Here they found an expensive amulet depicting the Seal – a hand superimposed with a crescent moon and a star. Eastwards, stairs ascended to a secret door. They threw it open, and that was a big mistake to do so carelessly.

The door opened into a great columned hall lit by flaming braziers. Several cultists, armed men, lieutenants and magi, the Servants of the Seal, worshipped at the foot of a great green marble hand grasping a large golden crescent; the grossly fat high priest Kushamesh, preaching from a pulpit behind a line of four evil priests. Kushamesh commanded the Servants to slay the unbelievers, and hurled a lightning bolt through the door opening, zigzagging to catch everyone coming in. Thus died Wolfgang and Rolo, Northman warriors, and Yorick (Imperial Magic-User 5), who was just about to cast his fireball. In the following massacre, an evil priest killed Titan the war dog, and the lieutenants killed Valdin and Guzman, Yorick’s elite bodyguards. Kushamesh escaped through a secret door, wounded and poisoned from missile fire, and the bulk of worshippers fled as Diogenes held up the freshly found Seal amulet, proclaiming himself the true holder of the faith!

Harald (Northman Fighter 5), who had lost consciousness in the battle, was for now carried back to the bone-pit, to be pulled up after dealing with Kushamesh. But in their haste, his companions forgot about the evil spirits, which swarmed the stalwart hero after he was left alone in the dark, and smothered him. Proceeding beyond the secret door, they found Kushamesh’s quarters and treasures, and a laboratory where lived Trog, his simple-minded caveman servant, who obeyed the Seal amulet at once. Kushamesh had been here, drinking his healing potions (some miscibility issues there!) and making his escape. They pursued him north through a secret passage, then through wider halls leading to a columned chamber lit by a bonfire. Servants of the Seal lay here in waiting, and were killed, but the trail was lost with multiple ways out, and stairs down. They bode Trog to come with them to carry the high priest’s gold, and contrived to lift it to the surface through the cleft with lots of rope.

Retreating through the ruins, they were beset by a great swarm of pterodactyls near Vermath’s ruined library, too many to fight off at once in their wounded state. Vornak Wolf-Slayer (half-orc Fighter-Thief) fled into the library interior, coming face to face with the stone golem guarding it, which crumpled him like a rag doll. The other relinquished their treasure and fled, their escape covered by the heroic Aderbaal (Fighter 10), the barbarian they had rescued half-dead from Vermath’s dark pits, who perished in this fight along with poor Trog the caveman. Hours later, they crept back, sneaking from ruin to ruin to recover the chest of treasures, and did so successfully.

They returned to the great river Xemartes, and waited for Bargemaster Mulk’s craft to pick them up and return to the city of Glourm. Here, they squandered a lot of their loot, but also purchased magic items, a treasure map promising an enchanted sword once held by Prince Philosir, and recruited new companions: Yusuf, a nomad Fighter, and Purple Rien, a Magic-User. Returning to Vermath by barge, they decided on a quick nighttime raid to the city. Descending through the cleft into the bone-pit, they listened at the secret door, and heard voices. Now well prepared, they slew them by surprise. Purple Rien used a reduce spell to shrink the golden crescent in the green hand-idol’s grasp to manageable size, which was transported up and hidden at their camp. Next dawn, they set out again, this time descending through the open bathhouse entrance. This was done carelessly. While descending, evilly laughing nomads appeared above them, cutting the rope ladders, and sending them on the floor of the great cistern. They were trapped unless they found a different exit, or – as Purple Rien remarked – they made good care to keep him alive so he could levitate up with a rope.

They continued exploring rooms to the south, at one point hearing distant conversation. In a storeroom, they discovered a small idol on a pedestal. Reaching for it, the idol disappeared, a portcullis fell to block the exit, and an invisible gong sounded with a deep boom. Heroically, Yusuf lifted the gate, and they could prepare for the onslaught of the fanatical Servants of the Seal, whom they put to the sword. To the west, the passages led to a long, torchlit corridor lined with cell doors, at the end of which four evil-looking nomads were playing dice in the company of a brutish jailer. A lightning bolt killed two nomads, as well as Orastes, an NPC thief waiting for rescue. The jailer, while tough, was killed, and the prisoners freed. They were local wretches for the most part, captured for sacrifice by the Riders of Doom. Among them was Eioneus, a fat merchant suffering from terrible stomach cramps (“He must have swallowed his valuables”, Yusuf suggested, in which he was not mistaken – he later gifted them a respectably-sized gemstone); Gleies, a thief shaken by what he has seen in this city; and Thaumastus, a blacksmith from Pentastadion who promised them a future reward. West of the jail, they found that the passages connected to the temple they had despoiled – now dark and empty. In the bone-pit, Purple Rien levitated up with ropes, allowing the adventurers with the rescued prisoners to make their escape. Thus they returned again to Glourm with the golden crescent and other treasures, to plan for further adventures that would once again bring them to Vermath the accursed, where death stalked in labyrinthine passages, and dark wills dreamed far below the wrecked surface!

(This play report was composed to the tunes of Basil Poledouris.)

This post continues the series of brief play reports I have been posting on Discord. This does not cover every single session (sometimes, recon and setup is what happens), but it covers our ongoing games.

They Also Visited the Iudex

18/02/2026 THISIUM

News from the doomed city of Thisium! A small group of adventurers hatched a plan to kidnap the city’s most powerful nobleman, Mornalt Tamburello, and deliver him to his sister, Lucia, the bringer of the Doom Beneath the City. At this time, Mornalt was throwing a grand garden party and masquerade, just the night after his last rival, Gordisio Pamfile was mysteriously assassinated. The company spent the day in preparation. The stealthy characters secured an escape route from the palace gardens from an abandoned apartment, while Giacomo went and bought costumes. More than that, he ordered an extra set from an expensive tailor, to closely resemble the crow costume Mornalt had bought. At night, with Giacomo leading the company as a balrog, followed by a cuckoo, a dryad, a skunk, and a rabbit (Septimus only wearing his chameleon armour), they entered the lamplit gardens of Villa Tamburello. The city’s nobility and hedonists were engaged in decadent partying centred on a stage offering risque and blasphemous comedy, while others snuck off on twisting paths for amorous trysts and intrigue. Aufidia started looking if any masked assassins were to be found, and spotted a masked person dressed in form-fitting black, stalking into the garden. Septimus followed in his camouflage, and saw that the person was a woman, looking down a round pit leading to the thermal pool below, and smiling. Following in her tracks, she was seen to converse with a man wearing a vulture costume. Septimus and Eriberto Barrella followed the vulture-man into the palace banquet. They found him in the kitchen ordering a large quantity of the finest wines for the underground revellers for his personal care. As he was leaving, they ambushed him in the torchlit corridor and dragged him into a side-room. The man proved to be Puccio Malatesta, a minor noble and gadfly they had met before, and he was found to be in the possession of a pouch of powdered poison.

In interrogation, Puccio spilled the beans rather than be exposed publicly. He acted on behalf of the dark-clad lady, Iacynthe Tamburello, Mornalt’s wife, with whom he was madly in love with, but did not know her reasons for wanting the partygoers poisoned. The hapless fellow was left tied up in a cupboard, while Eriberto took on his buzzard costume. Heading out to the garden, Giacomo found his love, the maiden Hestia Tamburello, who, being disgusted with the assembled guests, had only agreed to come down to the fête to dance with him. In doing so, she could pinpoint her father, Mornalt, a dark bird of prey standing aside in the company of four loosely dressed ladies wearing mice costumes. He approached, and invited him for a garden walk to reveal a deadly danger – where the head of the house was slept and black-bagged. A random, charmed partygoer was given the copy of his costume to serve as the impromptu master of Villa Tamburello for the night, which the fellow gladly accepted. Carrying the sleeping malefactor to the Pickled Carp, they donned adventuring gear and descended deep into the Underworld with their unconscious baggage. At last, deep beneath the city, they entered the mighty volcanic cavern spanned by a dark basalt bridge above roaring fires. Lucia Tamburello was there, and Mornalt, who had instigated her murder with poisoned words among the city’s mobs, was given over to her. Mornalt tried fleeing, and as Lucia advanced on him, fell over the bridge into the fiery depths. With this, Lucia agreed to forgive the city, her revenge satisfied, and departed this world. Thus passed the Doom from Beneath the City, the second of the four.

The company chose to return to the surface, but their adventure was not yet over. They took a wrong turn in the passages, and were well and truly lost. They encountered a group of adventuring barbarians, who were impressed by Giacomo’s fire sword, a group of sackcloth-robed undead, who were turned, and four minotards, who were blasted by Aufidia’s fireball. Their way finally led to a great columned hall decorated with inky drapes, and furnished with bare wooden benches. A group of skeletal lictors in the garments of the old Empire and the helmets of Legion III demanded their purpose in petitioning the Iudex, the Judge of the Underworld. They said they brought a case, and, in keeping with the court’s rules, had brought petitioners’ masks to ensure the court’s impartiality, as well as a donation to pay the court costs. The Iudex received them on his bench, a dark-cloaked, masked figure. The Judge confirmed that the Doom From Beneath the City – brought on by Mornalt’s act of fratricide, – and the Doom From the Forests – brought on by the city’s godlessness, and failure to perform their annual sacrifices to honour the gods, had been made right and lifted. Two more remained. As the Iudex explained the cases, the Doom From the Seas was caused by the breaking of divine commandments not to build on certain sacred islands, and would be punished by a flood of poisonous gasses from the volcano on the Isle of the Black Dogs. As for the Doom From the Mountains, its cause was Thisium’s treachery to break the bonds of love between the knight Sir Rapax and the forest fairy Niabex, whose split caused the downfall of their tiny mountain kingdom. For this reason were the invincible orc armies allowed to march on the city. Hearing the Judge’s words, the company returned to the surface, to plan their actions against the remaining dooms. At this time, the city had 18 days left.

A Pleasant Excursion

19/02/2026 KASSADIA

News from the fallen empire of Kassadia! Returning from a deadly but lucrative adventure, the Lion Pack delivered the healing herbs to Senator Porfirio Holden, who gratefully offered to instruct Martus the Opiate in the magical arts, and to owe them a favour in the future. Selling off their loot at the jewellers and trying to buy pearls for identify, they learned that all in town were bought up by Messer Barcello Cadorna for an expensive dress for his daughter, Gundelinda. First contemplating burglary, they remembered the name of Guetto the Leech, an underworld figure who was supposedly able to get „anything” in town. Inquiring at Renaldo’s delight, the proprietor’s eyes darkened, and he warned them Guetto was an assassin, a blackguard, and a dangerous man to deal with. At their dinner, they were also approached by Septimus Regulus, a cheerful old gnome, who sought travelling companions to take a trip to scenic Wailing Lake, located among Sormadium’s mountains, and known for its picturesque cypresses and antique grave obelisks. The next day, they decided to visit Penitents’ Plaza, where Guetto owned a restaurant/brothel. Jovial Faustulus went on horseback befitting a great lord, drawing impressed and fearful looks (rumours in town took him for a pirate captain travelling incognito). The plaza was a small round place, its sides lined with cages serving as Sormadium’s jail, a scenic view from the brothel’s upper balcony. It turned out Guetto was a prisoner himself for now, after insulting Messer Verenzio Altieri, the lord of Fiolaga. They discussed the matter of the pearls, and he agreed to try his best by evening. Returning after sundown, Guetto was now indoors, enjoying dinner in his establishment next to a company of his own jailers. He had the pearls, and in his upstairs office, bought the party’s supplies of refined purple poppies, also offering exclusive poisons for sale.

Declining this offer, they left satisfied, although not before Faustulus bumped into Charming Valentino Viselli, a haughty young rake who was just about to challenge him right there and then. For now, it did not come to blows, and they retired to Renaldo’s Delight. Fearing Valentino’s assassins, they set a watch, but what came instead was a cat-burglar descending from the rooftop on their balcony. Publius Varro, on watch, fired his crossbow and missed, upon which the thief retreated, the affair resolved reasonably amicably between two professionals.

The following day was heavy with late autumn rains, but Septimus Regulus was enthusiastic about the trip. They mounted horses, and – after scaring off a band of mercenaries trying to rob them on the bad side of town – headed for the mountains. In dark rainfall, they followed the old imperial road, then a mountain trail from the Monastery of Kurlakum of the Seven Misfortunes. Beyond a pass, at dusk, they found Wailing Lake with its sinister grave obelisks and gloomy cypresses. Entering the neglected graveyard, shadows rose from the burial mounds, which were mostly turned, and a few killed. Septimus Regulus loved the atmosphere, and went skinny-dipping. It was dark, and they feared more undead were about, so they urged the gnome to be done with it and leave while they could. In constant rain, they retreated a little to set up camp. Alas, the shadows followed them, and it was only Jovial Faustulus’ alertness which saved them from a nasty surprise. They quickly mounted their horses and rode off in the darkness... getting lost in the mountains. Below a rocky ledge, they heard the woosh of large wings, and 11 griffins descended on them to feast on their horses and themselves! Martus the Opiate threw his fireball, catching four and scattering the rest. In blind panic, they fled on horseback, cold and soaked by rain, among the dark peaks of Sormadium.

Cisterns of Death

22/02/2026 KASSADIA

News from the fallen Empire of Kassadia! I, Valerius Artorius, messenger of the God Apelles; and my companions, Cymbrix the Druid, Ilvar Goron the Grave-Robber, Bartavir the Fighter, Gaunt Gerald the Illusionist, and Petronius the Fighter, gathered at the call of Collino the Vulture, who had a lucrative tip for us. He wanted us to venture into the Cisterns of Death, and retrieve a set of building plans from the tomb of its architect, Gaius Licinius Profundus – in particular, a map of the podesta’s palace. I had adventured in the area before: on the outskirts of Cassidum, still within the old walls, but within the modern city, among the ruins of the old empire now used for pasture and orchards.

We set out with five hired men and an empty purse, until we found the broken aqueduct which led to the site we were seeking. What were once splendid baths were only outer walls now, with hovels and shacks built among them, and ruled by Old Bertoni, a local crime boss whose son I and my companions slew an adventure earlier. Thus, we persuaded a local urchin to lead us in safely; and he mentioned an old trapdoor in his mother’s cottage which dropped into the depths. Sneaking into the ruins, we descended by rope into a vast, lightless columned hall. Dark, brackish water was found 80’ below, shallow enough to wade in. Orienting ourselves, we saw a tall tower rising to the ceiling to our NW, stairs climbing around it to double gates. We checked this first, and behind, discovered an abandoned shrine to Cloacina, Goddess of Sewers. A tangle of skeletons in rotted togas were prodded and slain in battle. Here, alas, we lost my spearman, Vinicio, whom I accidentally shot in his back (he had 1 Hp, and I did the same in damage), and I myself almost died. The shrine had metal rungs behind the statue leading to another trapdoor, from beyond which we heard heavy footsteps. Instead, we made a sacrifice to Cloacina in Vinicio’s memory, and were rewarded with her favour.

We returned down into the cistern. On its southern side, frescoes depicted the bathhouse’s construction, and we found a secret door next to the depiction of Gaius Profundus. Stairs led up to a chamber with three walled arches and three secret buttons. Only one was hollow, however, and this proved the correct way into a splendid hall. We were in an under-temple of Gladuor, God of Aqueducts, with golden treasures heaped on his altar, a side-treasury with locked chests, and further ways out. Nearby, we found the body of a thief clutching a sack, and he came back as a spectre whom Petronius slew single-handedly, winning a sack’s worth of small jewellery. We now turned to plunder the treasury, whose chests were laden with coinage, gems, and more jewels. We took as much as we could carry, happy to return outside. However, as we would depart the temple, the statue of the god spoke, and we were crushed by the weights of invisible pillars, killing Gaunt Gerard, Baldo the Porter, Roderigo the Porter, and August the Legionary. We survivors dragged out the treasure chests, and took them to the shrine of Cloacina, making another sacrifice of the coins we could take no further. Alas, trying to climb out, we were greeted by Old Bertoni and his men, who demanded our treasures for letting us leave. Cymbrix hid in a mostly empty chest, while some of us snuck off for the shrine exit. The druid could make terrible havoc upstairs by conjuring thick fog, and using a heat metal spell on Bertoni, who ended up grilled in his banded mail as his men fled. Those left down fared less well, as we were attacked by ghasts, and poor Bartavir was dragged off as we fled. Three of us made our way out, finding ourselves in Bertoni’s gaudy hut, and taking his treasures for our own. Alas, the vagrants’ settlement burned due to Bertoni’s heated armour, and its inhabitants fled to the four winds as we returned to the city to sell off our loot, rest, and prepare for a return trip.

Now better outfitted, we headed back. The entrances had been sealed and guarded on the podesta’s orders, and Captain Barduccio Blackeagle saw through our ruse to present ourselves as official exorcists. However, he smiled as he did, and allowed us in for a cut to „the Podesta” (widely known as “Signor 10%”). We descended, and now headed east. Stairs lead up to a long balcony above the cistern, and more splendid rooms. In one with two fonts (one offering water making us get recognised as undead, and another detected as poison). Behind a secret door, we found the survivor of another expedition sponsored by Collino the Vulture, the thief Giordano. We headed east, into a large underground forum, and down some stairs into a room with a gold-covered fountain and a statue of a maiden with her cat. The latter proved a mimic, and was slain (revealing a treasure-pit); the fountain’s golden sheen yellow mould, which fortunately killed none of us. Westwards and even further down, we found a dressing room with curiously intact togas, and – after checking for cloakers – we donned them, remembering Giordano’s words about getting attacked by patricians’ spirits for dressing as a plebeian. We found the patricians fairly close, in a steam bath, and could converse with them as equals, learning some more of the dungeon. Following their leads, we pressed on; encountering the ghost of a poet, a dead member of Giordano’s expedition, and another who was alive, just about to be drained of blood by six deranged „vampiric” cultists. These we slew, and headed back to the exit, satisfied with our take. We paid off the captain (concealing some smaller gems and jewellery), and headed back from the field of ruins to the centre of Cassidum.

No Privaet Entrie

23/02/2026 THISIUM

News from the doomed city of Thisium! A reconnaissance party set out towards the northern mountains to spy on the orcs, and learn of the fate of the knight Sir Rapax and the faerie Niabex, separated by Thisian intrigue. But first – following a treasure map, they halted in Mouseshire, and took sledgehammers to a secret chamber in the crumbling old belltower, gaining 12,000 gp in old Imperial coinage. ¼ was given over to the Majordomo to use in the war effort, while the rest was to be transported to Thisium. The company rode north, reaching the mountain pass above the fortress of Castrum Rapax by dusk. They observed the orcish forces carefully, taking stock of the castle’s strength and weaknesses. They also noted a hidden trail descending from the pass, and seemingly going around the castle. This piqued their curiosity, and next dawn, Amedeo, Poucas Trancas, and Don Arduino Spezzaferro made a three-man detour. The route led above a deep ravine next to the castle walls. The two thieves descended by rope, spotting a mighty wooden gate under a rock overhang. An enormous and very ugly troll was slumbering next to it with a massive mace, and a large wooden sign read in bad lettering: „NO PRIVAET ENTRIE!” Noting this way in, they returned to the rest of the party. Travelling north along a desolate seacoast, and returning to the mountain-cradled valley where the castle stood, they rode up to a saddle on the valley’s western side. This was a garden long gone wild. Statues of courtiers stood in the tall grass in dated finery, with expressions of sadness and sorrow. There was nothing else here, and no person like Niabex was found. Now they travelled back south along the peninsula’s western coast, reaching the swamps by dusk. They were surrounded by a group of bedraggled men, who turned out to be escapees from the orcish mines producing iron for Castrum Rapax’s forges – some 150 slaves, many of them halflings, under the yoke of 80 orcs and Troglont, one of the orc lords.

The next day, they escorted the escapees back to Mouseshire. They stopped at a clearing south of a lone mountain peak, where, in the middle of nowhere, stood the statue of the Philanthropus, Thisium’s mysterious and much-hated benefactor. The statue kept its secrets, and they marched on, arriving in the evening, where 22 men of the 40 immediately signed up as recruits to fight the orcs. The next day, they explored the northern areas of the Forest of Verrilli. First they found a garden where the spirits of nymphs were taunting the statue of a particularly sinister-looking satyr. Its gaze was terrifying, but Amedeo stood his ground, which the figure seemed to like. He could tell of Niabex, whom he named a trollop (and more foul things) for leaving the faerie court and marrying a human – as the satyr added gleefully, things ended badly for her, and she died of a broken heart after Sir Rapax cheated on her. They rode on, finding a different garden with the statues of animals, a votive column with a mysterious inscription, and the bodies of people turned into flowering earth on marble benches. The road continued, leading to the ruins of a small barbaric village on the edge of the woods, destroyed in some old battle. The sole standing structure was a crumbling garanary, where wild wheat grew on piles of earth. Bregor stepped in to search for treasure, and did not watch out for two giant crab spiders, which injected him with deadly poison. In the fight, the campaign’s unluckiest Fighting-Man was hit twice by his own company’s slingers firing into meelee, suffering organ failure, and finally dying of spider venom. Some coins were recovered, however, from buried clay pots under the pile of rotted grain. Some more exploration in the forest found a sinister-looking dead area, but the hour was late, and they needed to ride back to Thisium, so this place they skipped, riding across the land to reach the gates at night. At this time, the city had 16 days left...

Against the Flying Gods

02/03/2026 THISIUM

News from the doomed city of Thisium! The Comely Lass sailed out from port to explore the Isle of the Black Dogs. However, before making landfall, the company took a look at the smaller island to its south, and decided to explore it more thoroughly. The place was covered in thick jungles not found in this clime. They followed a river to one of the cliffs rising from the wilderness when they found themselves greeted by 6 lizardmen – unexpectedly friendly, and asking the assistance of mighty heroes! In broken speech, the lizards explained they were being regularly preyed on by two „flying demi-gods”, which the company soon guessed to be the two black dragons they have known to lair in this part of the isles. They followed the warriors to their primitive village, located among crumbling ruins. Consulting with the chief, they agreed to help out, and decided on setting a trap. With the lizards’ aid, they headed for the island’s central group of cliffs, where rose „the Hand”, a plateau ringed by stone outcroppings. They ordered their allies to build a great beacon, and smoke much of their rotting meat supplies to draw in the beasts. The women and young fashioned large nets from lianas, and they also prepared a big pot of glue wrapped up in the juiciest strips of meat. The lizards were ordered to dance around the fire, while they hid themselves in an ambush among the stones. After nightfall, the dragons came, swooping down on the campsite, and blasting the lizardmen with their breath. Many were killed, and the battle was on! Arrows and javelins just bounced off of the beasts’ hardened scales, and both nets missed. The lizardman warriors were decimated and ran for shelter, along with the chief. The battle was the company’s to win or lose! Lemmy the heavy footman charged, and died heroically in a dragon’s jaws. The other dragon was (very luckily) entrapped in a web, and brought down.

The other met the charging attackers with a stream of acid, and Quayin Torchbearer, the southern prince seeking his inheritance, as well as Opiter Torchbearer (both named for light-casting magic swords), died, while Racha Ducka barely survived with 2 Hp. It was finally Maglor the Elf who saved the day, snatching the cowardly chieftain’s magic spear with a spectral hand [my SVoZ version], and attacked the dragon, killing it with a critical hit. The battle was won! The lizardmen saw what was well and truly a miracle, and from now on, the characters were considered demi-gods, or at least divine messengers. A great feast commenced on the clifftop, and one brave lizardman, Hisss, endeavoured to join the group. In the morning, before parting, the lizards brought their treasures to gift their liberators; gold, a few gems, potions, and the magic spear. Now it was time to plunder the dragon lair! They sailed for the neighbouring island, a place of mangrove swamps and water channels leading to a dark lake in the centre. A cave mouth opened to a network of foetid passages with deep pools of brackish water. Strange, eerie string music came from the depths. This would have been a nasty place for a dragon fight, but they were already dead. Thus, the entrance trap and the giant frogs lurking in the passages were no match for the adventurers. In the depths of the lair, they found the source of the music: an old, chained man playing a golden harp on a massive pile of treasure. He introduced himself as Nicanor Philocrates, who was imprisoned here by the evil wizard Prospero, known to dwell deep beneath Thisium. Liberating Nikanor (who joined the company), they could now load the dragon hoard on their ship – 30,000 gp, a wealth of 46 gems, and a cache of magic items, including a staff of healing! Thus they sailed back to Thisium. At this time, the city had 17 days left...

The Kidnapping

12/03/2026 KASSADIA

News from the fallen empire of Kassadia! Separated from his companions in the mountains of Sormadium, and fleeing from Death Griffon Doom, Martus the Opiate finally found a campfire in the wilderness – it was not his previous party, but Aristeo Guarini, Arden Oakbark, and their follower Albred the Grey, just as lost in the wilds as they were. They spent the night in the storm, and on the next rainy late Autumn day, followed a valley westwards. Travelling through untamed wilderness, they finally found an overgrown stone path leading to the town of Sambuci, and Villa Bonnacorsi. They received hospitality from the landlord, Quirino Bonnacorsi, as well as his son Alvaro and daughter Mercede, telling of their adventure in Ucria, where they destroyed the drug plantation and found the body of the slain Paolo Viglione. True to his word, Quirino gave them his heirloom magical seal, and they spent a nice evening dining and drinking wine. Then, disaster struck. There was a crash of splintering glass from Mercede’s room, and arrived just in time to see her abducted by four gargoyles – no doubt the minions of her obstinate suitor, the sculptor and impoverished nobleman Edoardo Memmoli!

Edoardo lived on the isle of Fiolaga to the south of Sormadium, and the next morning, they sailed out on the Lydia, the family’s pleasure ship. Alvaro brought his arms, and four guards: Ugo, Clodoveo, Asterio and Adalfredo. They reached the shores of Fiolaga by mid-afternoon with fortunate winds. Deciding not to land next to Villa Memmoli, they instead found a little bay close by... and a recently landed ship! A mountain trail led up to a rock formation resembling a hand with broken-off fingers, and a scene of horror. 20 axe-wielding cultists in rag-masks, 4 bodyguards, and a cowled figure had just finished sacrificing four goats, a youth, a maiden, and a chest of treasure to Titus Malformatus, the evil god whose cultists the Lion Pack had already fought previously! The cult leader called on the god for help, but as the cultists rushed forward to slay the interlopers, Martus threw his fireball, scoring a lucky 28 Hp on 5d6, killing the leader, his bodyguards, and half the cultists. The rest were killed without mercy, and Alvaro Bonnacorsi proved his skill with the blade. 

Looting the bodies, they continued to Villa Memmoli, reaching the estate’s crumbling walls by a moonless night. They entered through a gap, near a glass-topped greenhouse. Westwards, they saw a very large statue and an obelisk crowned by a recently lit flame, but decided to move towards the dark villa. The overgrown grounds held statues: the first, a guardsman, issued a cryptic warning, while a stone dog rushed them before turning into an armoured knight who slew Clodoveo with a single strike, before being himself dispatched by the vengeful Alvaro. They crept closer. They found a small back entrance, and after confirming the building was dark and silent, entered. Avoiding an open central courtyard, they entered the main hall, dusty and cobwebbed, with ragged tapestries and strange statues... the statues animated! A troll, a faceless man, and a demon marched on them, striking Aristeo before they could flee, but did not pursue outside. Choosing the villa’s eastern side, they now approached a terrace overgrown with vines which, contrary to their expectation, did not attack. The body of an adventurer rested before a door, badly burned. As it was inspected, there was the sound of wings, and 4 gargoyles descended from the rooftops, avoiding Martus the Opiate’s web spell. The horrid creatures fell on the party and slew Albred the Grey, while taking little damage from the party, which lacked magic weapons in its current composition save for Arden’s slave in stone spell. They fled the house, sustaining wounds from the pursuing gargoyles, and seeing more of them circling above the sagging roof. They contemplated their plans, lost in the moonless night.

The Spiralling Temple

15/03/2026 FOMALHAUT

News from Fomalhaut! Lost in the massive city of Diomira, the company chose to hit up Eldoxos, an old acquaintance, and one of the merchants/smugglers operating out of the Plaza of the Gloomy Wells, dealing in goods and foodstuff from the outside world. The plaza was also one of the places in Diomira where the faceless statue had its head missing, and only the rim remained of the dark metal mirror on the facade next to it. Eldoxos was not in his store, and as they were informed by his protégé, Polemon, who was specialised in outside liquors and narcotics, he has moved up in society thanks to their previous visit. They hit him up in the House of Broken Locks, a warehouse complex to the SE, guarding the entrance to the monorail station, and thereby controlling Diomira’s illicit trade. Eldoxos was happy to see them – he had greatly expanded business after his predecessor, Boss Twand, met an „unfortunate accident” at the characters’ hand – but grew a bit concerned when he was told of the Uttermost Masters, and their plans which would disrupt his lucrative smuggling operation. The men had been seen twice in the city: once emerging from a nearby cistern shaft, and once lurking near the Spiralling Temple, a sealed building north of Diomira’s central plazas. He also told them of the great stone face they had seen in a back alley – he had once followed one of the „False Men”, the brainwashed servants of the powers ruling Diomira, and heard him receiving spoken instructions from the visage.

They enjoyed an evening of fine food and drink, and early next morning, set out for the Spiralling Temple. Off the main plaza, at the foot of the octagonal spire of the Radiant Pyramid, they were approached by an elegant young woman, Alkithoë. She came at the behest of Eldoxos, her lover, to bring news that he had seen something interesting at a nearby location. While the others were conversing with her, Bocephus furtively cast true seeing to check her out. There was something very wrong with Alkithoë, a gaping piece of emptiness in her personality, and a strange tic around the eyes; and Bocephus saw that she was deadly with the concealed dagger and mini-crossbow she was carrying. They told her they would follow her suggestions, then quickly went the exact opposite way towards the temple.

The great front doors, bearing a massive disk embossed with a spiral, were sealed, and dark mirrors were mounted on the front facade. But the side had open windows, and as the area was deserted this early, they quickly climbed inside with ropes. The abandoned interior was a massive columned space with suspended glass prisms, openings to side-chambers, and a great stone face. As they advanced, the face spoke one word: „KILL!” The prisms started to rotate, hypnotising Lilith, Ion, and Itestra. With clanging steps, six mechanical men bearing battleaxes came from the side-chambers. A fight ensued, in which the city’s crossbow-wielding assassins also made an appearance through the windows on the other side, but a judicious application of spells and violence defeated them. The place was empty, but narrow spiral stairs led down. They descended into a chamber of strange, defunct machines (Pausanias identifying them as devices for complex calculations and decision-making), and found a cabinet with a spare energy cartridge and a handful of healing dermal patches. From the south came sounds, belonging to 17 of the shaggy, brutish Underdwellers, with murderous intent. They fought bitterly, but Bocephus’s wand of paralysation proved useful, and they were killed off. To the south, they came to a small monorail terminal with a crashed vehicle, a massive gong (which the Underdwellers were too stubborn to ring), and a passage from which came an even rumbling. They chose to follow the westwards monorail passage instead, through the crashed metal gates.

The tunnel brought them to a station, and a SW passage, through which they entered a familiar place: a massive circular hall, with a tall towering structure standing in the middle of deep shaft. Bridges connected from the outer rim to the central building. Remembering how they had run into formidable opponents here the last time, and knowing they did not have a way to get in yet, they withdrew. The next objective was to find an alternate exit. They followed the monorail tunnel a long way NW, finding a station, and stairs up. Stepping out through a secret door, they saw daylight, and emerged in verdant gardens on the edge of the city, with Diomira’s people engaged in picnics and enjoyment at various spots. An inscription running along the small structure they came from read: : : KEEP US SAFE : : KEEP US NOURISHED : : KEEP US VALUED : : It was still early in the day, but they knew Eldoxos must be in danger, as the city’s masters must have known of their contact if they used Alkithoë’s lure like that. They followed side-streets back to the warehouse, but even so, they ran into a group of people looking at them suspiciously. „It is them!”, screamed a colourfully dressed man, and the mob grew into a size of 40. Pausanias colour spayed five of them, upon which they got cold feet. „Someone’s got to doooo something!”, whined the man, but didn’t dare to mess with a group of well-armed killers. They quickly got lost in the alleyways, and made their way back to Eldoxos. The news of the discovery were bad, and the master of the smugglers was in danger. They suggested he should skip town through the monorail system, and gave him a few identifiers to let him meet Tyraxus Tharg, the wizard-tyrant of Glourm, and establish even stronger trade deals with the outside world. Their next aim was to find a special mirror, somewhere in the city, which contained a passcode of sorts to the underground tower... and courtesy of Eldoxos, they now had a few leads to follow!

Plateau of the Amazons

18/03/2026 THISIUM

News from the doomed city of Thisium! On Day 81, the Comely Lass sailed out to sea, carrying the heads of two black dragons. They headed for the island ruled by a terrible demon who had long ago ordered them to slay these creatures – and now that the deed was done, they went to claim their reward. They landed near a ruined, archaic village, whose inhabitants had gone feral, but were overawed by the adventurers’ display of power. They climbed massive old stairs to the plateau, then even further up to the island’s peak where stood a massive marble dome. Inside, in a wild garden, the winged demon awaited. Giacomo offered the heads, and the demon agreed to let them to pick as much as they could carry of its treasure – a magical axe, a potion and a scroll, and about a tenth of its 100,000 sp. Afterwards, it ordered them to leave him to contemplate the dooms of men, which were sure to come!

Returning to ship, they sailed north, finding a mostly sunken island where suntanning mermaids lounged on the rocks remaining above water, above beautiful coral forests. Hiss dived down to take a sample, then they approached the beauties, ears plugged for most and Giacomo tied to the ship’s mast. The beauties were cheerful and inviting, remarking that the dooms were not so bad – after all, the city of Wiorak had already sunk, yet there was life after that too! When Giacomo asked them of the corals, they noted some of them were horribly poisonous. This was a good time to take their farewell without bothering the underwater formations.

Now they headed for the Isle of the Black Dogs. Sailing along its northern coast, they discovered the entrance of a sea cave among the cliffs, wide enough for a small ship. The sounds of revelry and music came from beyond a bend, and after some recon by Hisss, they sailed inside, into a large limestone cavern occupied by a lake. Dining tables stood on the shore laden with food, drink, and precious silverware, but the dining guests were not to be seen. Introductions were made, and the apparitions – who turned out to be invisible fairy-folk – turned out to be welcoming hosts. Giacomo challenged one of them, Fern to a dance-off and lost his wager, but won the fairies’ admiration (the 18 CHA helped). The fairies thought the doom a minor and insignificant issue but told them the cavern below the wizard’s tower on the island was the lair of what they figured was a red dragon. As they much disliked Pantomorphus, the master of the tower, they agreed to a future prank if the company came up with a good plan. They parted on amicable terms, and as it was getting late, spent a night on their ship.

The next day, they investigated the island’s northern tip, spotting the ruins of a primitive village, and finding three half-submerged colossi in the sea. Further in the forests, they also discovered a massive stone gate next to an altar of burning fire. Something gleamed in the flames, but it reeked of being a trap, and they decided not to risk it. They headed to the ruined village on the northern slopes of the broken volcano, finding it long deserted. However, somewhat further, they discovered something more interesting: a narrow, barely visible trail heading for the steep cliffs below the inaccessible mountain plateau, and a treacherous way leading up. They climbed up in single file, and emerged on the top, a grassy land of small glades and a bronze-age village. Large herds of sheep grazed on the grass. Assuming danger, Kaeso scouted ahead, camouflaged in his chameleon armour. The shepherd he spotted was a girl-child of thirteen, and the village was populated solely by women, many well-armed. A crude idol of an owl decorated with golden plates stood in the middle of the settlement. He returned to the group, and they chose to announce themselves. The shepherd girl gave a cry and fled. Out of the village came a host of 60 women with bows and spears. Belloza the Archer was picked as the company’s spokeswoman as the only female member. In an archaic dialect, the amazons demanded their purpose, obviously displeased by their arrival. They were faithful followers of the gods, and of the Wise Owl, their messenger, who had come to them in ages past. They outright refused to help unless the adventurers would bring news of their lost leader Thisbe, who had gone missing while hunting with her precious armaments, and a light-casting magic sword.

This was familiar, as the party owned two such weapons, one of which was found on this very island in a clearing with some bones, the prey of a spotted smilodon. Thus, they left, and decided to return the remains to the amazons along with the sword. They descended from the plateau, and investigated its other end. Here they discovered a very well-hidden little bay, and a splendid longship with golden sails bearing the mark of an owl, as well as a golden figurehead depicting a mermaid. Deciding to leave it be for now, they headed back to their own vessel, and rounded the island to find the clearing with Thisbe’s remains. Three owlbears were fought and killed in the isle’s forests, but the bones were found, and after resting on the ship again, they made their way back to the plateau again. The amazons were now slightly more friendly. What they could offer as help was to suggest that the company find Kadorto, another messenger of the gods, who was known to carry messages from mortals to their presence, and had once had a fondness for the island of the sorceress Daphne di Leonti. They outright refused an alliance against the red dragon, proving once again that in SVoZ, women roll their WIS on 3d6, not 2d6 like men.

Unfortunately, men do truly roll it on 2d6. For the adventurers, overcome by greed, decided to steal the amazons’ enchanted ship on their way back, and doing so, sleep overcame them. They awakened in the morning, but what day? Trying his beard, Giacomo thought it was longer than it had been. With these doubts, they sailed back to Thisium, and arrived on the noon of Day 86, having slept three whole days. While they were out, the orcish armies had advanced across the Thisian plateau, slowly encircling the doomed city. A rain of blood had fallen the preceding day, and the previous night, some 1/20 of the citizens had been turned into lycanthropes, massacring many innocents before they could be cut down at great cost. At this time, the city had 11 days left...

The Eye of the Pyramid

21/03/2026 FOMALHAUT

News from Fomalhaut! The company continued exploring the massive city of Diomira to find the special mirror containing the code glyph to the underground tower. The first one they heard of was close to their present location, in an alleyway off of the main avenues. A large statue stood there, its face replaced with a mirror, and the inscription „THE MYSTERY OF MAN” chiselled on the plinth. A group of fancily-dressed poets admired their own reflections on the surface. Ion gazed inside, and was fascinated by himself, having to be dragged away by the others. They decided to try their next known option. They moved through the massive crowds, which seemed to be on edge this day. NW of the main plaza, in a run-down area with a lake, they ran into a mob gathered below one of the city’s omnipresent black mirrors. A young woman called out: „It is them from the outer darkness! They who bring want and the spirit of strife!” They ran back into the maze of streets as the mob gave pursuit, but ran into another mob coming from another direction, closing in. They escaped to a side-street, and found themselves in a plaza surrounded with old houses and a lake. They found refuge in a house, waiting for the murderous crowds to disperse. They decided to check one of their three sites, the Radiant Pyramid, but the way was blocked by surging masses of thousands. The colourfully dressed citizens gathered before the Spiralling Temple, on the edge of a nervous breakdown, weeping and shouting in a weird collective ritual. After some thinking, they made a wide detour to the north, through less populated areas, until they arrived at the base of the pyramid.

The eight-sided structure rose to 90’ with multiple balconies near the top, and a purple-robed figure standing on one. Entering from the base, they found themselves in a mirror maze with private rooms occupied by people enjoying drugs, gossip, or amorous pursuits. Murat expertly navigated the maze, finding a secret door near the middle. There were steep stairs, and a 10’×10’ room with buttons on its metal walls that did not work no matter which button they tried. They climbed, emerging in a comfortable suite near the top. Pleuron, the master of they pyramid and a contact of Eldoxos and the Handymen, was friendly in receiving them, although behaving a bit oddly as if coming down from his own drugs.

They decided to go with the open strategy and explain it all about there being some great danger to the city, now working from an underground tower, a cabal of evil infiltrators from the outside! Pleuron was surprised by the revelations (he only knew of the Cannibalistic Human Underdwellers prowling the underground areas), but agreed to assist them. He didn’t have the magic mirror, but suggested Akrasios, who ran an atelier for avantgarde art close by, had recently acquired one that was said to be special. He also mentioned a previous encounter with a mirror which created a hostile duplicate of whoever looked inside it several years before, but didn’t know what had happened to it. They took their leave from their helpful host, and walked over to the atelier, a white marble building in the side of the eastern cliffs. The guards admitted them at once when they told they were from Eldoxos, and, passing through a collection of modern art, entered Akrasios’s suite on the top. A group of scantily dressed, tipsy ladies were enjoying drinks and drugs in the company of price cats (no doubt imported from the outer world, as there were none others in Diomira). Akrasios was in a side-room, and was quite taken aback when the mirror was brought up, claiming he didn’t have any such thing. As the adventurers’ interrogation grew more insistent („You are not in trouble, but...”), he started to panic, insisting on his innocence and appearing more and more guilty, offering to show his safe to demonstrate there was no mirror in there in a growing panic. That’s when things went sideways.

A barrage of crossbow bolts came from behind them, and an invisible spellcaster covered their room in sticky white webs, trapping them all. The voice was familiar – Pleuron, the man on top of the pyramid! It was a desperate struggle at first. Akrasios’s doxies fled in panic, and the atelier’s master was in complete shock. Through superhuman effort, Kleombrotos freed himself enough to chug a potion of giant strength, allowing him to escape the webs. Pleuron cast more spells, remaining invisible. „You shall not prevail over the City-Machine!”, he spoke evenly, as his assassins attacked in an oddly mechanical fashion. Finally, as Kleombrotos fended off the men, Ion could set the webs on fire, and let them escape with some burns. The assassins were cut down, Pleuron remaining invisible for a while. On his person, they found a poisoned dagger, bracers, some edible cubes and colourful candy, as well as half a pouch of dust of disappearance. Akrasios was still shocked at the assassination attempt, as he had known Pleuron, but he noted he had started behaving oddly in the recent months. He helped the company as he could in saving his city, providing them with a rare vial of imported potion of spider climbing.

They returned to the top suite of the Radiant Pyramid, liberating Pleuron’s spellbooks, valuables, and a round mirror similar to, but also different from the dark disks on the streets of Diomira. They returned through the now dark and deserted streets to their apartment hideout – now luckily meeting nobody – and having Bocephus, who was immune to mind-control, gaze into the mirror. He did so, and he saw flashing patterns, geometric forms, and finally, a complicated and intricate glyph which sunk into his mind as an exact memory. The way to the underground tower lie open, but the masters of the city were aware of their presence, and had taken steps to destroy them. The game was on!

The Underground Tower

11/04/2026 FOMALHAUT

News from Fomalhaut! Having found the mirror with the weird glyph displayed therein, the company decided to strike the underground tower immediately. They followed through the dark, deserted streets of Diomira, passing by a handful of corpses beaten to death recently. At the entrance to the Eternal Gardens, they found a young man looking over the bridge, contemplating a leap, but Lilith talked him out of it. They proceeded to the „doorless” marble pavilion, and entered through the secret entrance. Following a side-passage, they heard approaching Underdwellers, and drew back, while the bestial men were also reluctant to engage. Following the monorail tunnel, they made their way to the great circular hall of the underground tower. A dark abyss opened before them, the central metal cylinder connected to the surrounding ledge with metal bridges. On its northern side, they discovered double gates with no opening mechanism but a round mirror to the side. Bocephus recalled the glyph from Pleuron’s mirror; and as he did so, the mirror by the entrance also flashed with its pattern. The door hissed open, and from a dusty corridor came a barrage of crossbow bolts – they were awaited! The green-cloaked, oddly mechanically moving False Men were defeated, each falling without hesitation to defend the tower. Beyond the entrance hall, they found a chamber with a small rock garden, lit from above by dull grey ceiling panels, and surrounded with colourful benches. All was dusty and abandoned. In a nearby passage was a metal door. Opening it up revealed a ransacked room with badly damaged panelling, and a half-collapsed ceiling exposing intricate pipework. Disregarding marks of corrosion on the panels, Lilith stepped in, and two ochre jellies dropped on her from the pipes. These gelatinous horrors were only divided up by weapons, but eventually, fire proved useful, although wounds were also sustained.

A side-room proved to be a former storeroom, most of its crates emptied of all contents, but one still bolted shut. For now, they just pushed it into the portable hole for later opening. They continued exploring a side-corridor. Rhythmic, heavy metal footsteps came from ahead. Bocephus crept forward invisibly, looking into a dimly lit, marble-covered hallway decked with large mirrors displaying odd landscapes. A massive metal guardian covered in riveted yellow plates lumbered along, much like a sentry. As they were discussing how to ambush it, it heard the conversation, and came at them, firing off its laser, and then pummelling with its fists. It was brought down, Bocephus using his ring of the ram* well. Prying off the destroyed automaton’s chest plate, they extracted an intact energy cartridge.

They now returned to the rock garden. Kleombrotos, who has been increasingly fascinated by this strange location, dug through the mineral samples to find something good. He did find the sharp-edged rock sample containing deadly poison, made his saving throw, and wrapped up the deadly rock in a piece of cloth, satisfied. As they were wounded [and a player had to leave early], they decided to return to their apartment before going deeper. Back in the city, the metal crate brought along in the portable hole was opened up with a knockspell. The container offered up a good amount of valuables: electrum sheets, gold coils for an unknown purpose, two large industrial diamonds – a total value of some 30 thousand altogether – and a mysterious bakelite box stamped with the inscription „HYPERVORTEX”. „I am feeling a lot better about those ochre jellies!”, said Lilith.

Infiltration

23/03/2026 THISIUM

News from the doomed city of Thisium! A large company rode out of Thisium to destroy the orcs’ military operations in the Northern Wilderness. Messengers were sent out previously to Mouseshire, the Imperator, and the military school of Ramondo Montefeltro to mobilise their forces for a campaign, and make a landing on the western shores of the mountainous peninsula. The adventurers themselves followed wilderness roads: there were signs of large-scale orc troop movements all around the Thisian Plateau, and they encountered a smaller force of 30, blasting them with a fireball. At the gateway of the mountain valley where rose Castrum Rapax, they found a small glade with the overgrown statue of a stone knight, identified by an inscription: „A GALLANT KNIGHT WAS SIR RAPAX / AND A WOOD NYMPH EVER-FAIR NIABEX / THEIR CASTLE’S WITNESS TO THEIR LOVE / AND TO THEIR SPLIT STONES WORDLESS”. There was a recently used campsite nearby, and on a hunch, Aufidia Corvina looked around to see if there were any tracks to pick up. They led to a nearby stone, and underneath, they discovered a rich cache of recently hidden treasures! Happy with their discovery, they rode along the eastern seacoast, and climbed up the hidden path to the pass above Castrum Rapax.

After establishing camp, they descended the mountain trail, surprising and killing a group of orc special forces. Next to the castle, they entered the ravine leading to the side-gate they had found previously, guarded by Hellafinet the troll. Clotilde advanced, using her potion of giant control, to no success. Hellafinet was thus slain in combat and his remains torched. The gate was wizard-locked, but Maglor dispelled the magic with his wand, and a knockspell threw it open. They entered an abandoned old cellar, overgrown with moss. At the end, an ancient old tuatara lizard stirred, chained to the wall. Failing to succumb to poisoned food, it, too, was killed in combat. At the end of the cellar, spiral stairs ascended upwards. A door led to a throne room, where sat a mummified king wearing a golden crown. He spoke, introducing himself as Strozza Bragadin, offering his boon if they defeated his hated rival, Cipriano Barbani. For now, they gave a non-committal answer, and quickly filed out.

Up the stairs, they found a secret door. It led to a prison cell whose only occupants were petrified courtiers wearing antiquated attires. Beyond bars, a torture chamber was lit by flames, a minotaur torturer preparing a glowing iron for his work. They killed him, and freed the prisoners in the other cell: a badly wounded legionary named Varanthus, and a merchant named Iblogan. As they were too weak, they were pointed to the exit and told to wait there. The captives’ cell hid a secret exit behind a loose stone block, with a crawlway leading to a small grotto. The statue of a hunched jester studied his own features in a silver mirror. Narvi removed the mirror, animating Arlecchino the Clown, who attacked him in a crying, laughing fury. The horrifying entity was put down and his gemstone tears collected. Beyond the grotto, a vertical cavern shaft dropped into darkness. They climbed up with ropes, eventually emerging in a dusty secret corridor. This led to the more regularly used passages. The first chamber was a council room, where five tromes were defeated, and a magic shield they were talking over taken. A set of stairs led to a kitchen operated by ogre cooks and several orcs, but they left this one alone. Now orcs were coming down the stairs, and using the cover of darkness, they made their exit from the dungeons. Varanthus was there, with Iblogan’s bloody corpse: the merchant, a spy from Arak Brannia, had tried to assassinate the young legionary, but failed in his treacherous work! With their new ally, they returned to the mountain pass to develop new plans. At this time, the city had 14 days left...

Confrontation

15/04/2026 THISIUM

News from the doomed city of Thisium! The day after a successful recon expedition, the time came for an assault on Castrum Rapax. Varanthus the legionary, freshly rescued from the dungeons, was chosen to deliver a message to the assembled forces on the other side of the valley. Varanthus swigged a potion of polymorphisation, transformed into a majestic imperial eagle, and flew off. The adventurers descended towards the castle to wreak havoc, and open the gates from the inside. In the forest on the mountain slopes, however, they heard flapping wings, and a manticore attacked from the air. The beast killed Toecutter the bowman and Ozzy the light foot with its tail spikes. Maglor cast darkness 15’ radius on the company to provide cover; the beast came down, and was cut down as it charged into the darkness.

They continued to the castle, and the lower side-entrance in the ravine. With Hellafinet gone, a small group of orcs served as a guard, and were quickly dispatched. They entered the underground passages, fighting a giant tuatara, then climbed upstairs. A secret door led to another set of spiral stairs, and a cellar well stocked with foodstuffs, as well as animated frescoes depicting a harvest. The supplies, it seems, were mainly from the island republic of Arak Brannia. Going higher up, they heard snoring from a side-room, opened it, and killed a sleeping goblin. This was another storeroom, filled with casks of lamp oil, again with Arak Brannia’s seal. Poucas quickly rigged a simple trap so opening the door from the outside would combust the whole place, then they headed up. The stairs emerged in the castle’s gatehouse. The outer gates were partially open, guarded on the outside by a group of orcs, while stairs led up to a locked iron door to the bastion, where the orc archers were in wait. As the adventurers were discussing their options, five from the outside guard came in. They were slept, but not soon enough to prevent an alarm.

Orcs started pouring in through the front gates, and more came from the tower. Orders were being shouted and horns blown. A vicious melee developed in the wide gatehouse corridor. Maglor read a scroll of monster summoning III, and at once, two shriekers appeared, hooting loudly. Now even the orcs drinking in a nearby dining room heard the commotion, and came up from the back, followed by 7 tromes from deeper in the dungeons. Some of the orcs ran upstairs to bring further reinforcements. As the orcs came down from the bastion, Aufidia cast pyrotechnics inside their stairwell, flooding it with smoke. The characters in the gatehouse fought valiantly, holding back the orcish foe. Aufidia’s fireball blew up the orcs advancing from behind, but this was only temporary relief. From beyond them came a great orc in plate mail, with two ogre bodyguards, announcing himself as Troglont, one of the orc lords leading the campaign against Thisium! He was upon the back guard, destroying Maglor’s animated spear. Aufidia threw another fireball from her wand. Dead were the orcs and tromes, dead was Dio the light foot, and dead was Septimus (Fighter 3), Aufidia’s faithful companion! Troglont, wounded but strong, went for Aufidia, swinging his magic longsword. Aufidia stood her ground, swung her staff, and with a critical hit and 10 Hp damage, killed the surprised orc lord in one stroke! The remaining orcs ran where they could, and those in the bastion kept dead quiet not to be noticed. They killed off the remaining shrieker, picked up what they could, and marched out of the castle gates. Gargoyles dove down from the parapets, but were killed. Through the drawbridge, they headed to the wilderness to meet their army on the valley road, led by the Imperator, Sir Egmont Mouseburg, and Ramondo Montefeltro. They were hailed as victors by the assembled host, and started to plan their next stratagem against the orcish foe. At this time, the city had 13 days left...