%% date:: [[2024-07-16]] %% # [[138_20240716 Sunlash has a theory]] ![[138_20240716.svg]] ## Session Summary > [!tldr] [[138_20240716 Sunlash has a theory]] > We went to the Vellum Steeple Archive to talk to Archivist Demid Sunlash from the Cobalt Soul, who told us that he had changed research focus recently from the eclipse and celestial bodies to a darker topic. He told us about his theory that Asmodeus had hidden nine shards of himself in the nine Luxon Beacons (six of which the Kryn have). He believes that Asmodeus may be trying to use the dunamantic magic of the beacons to become whole again. Sunlash is also researching Ruidus. > > Wally cast Telepathy to talk to his mother to ask her to try to get his father to come home and out of danger from the war front. She told him she didn't think there was anything she could really do to convince her father. She told Wally she was dying of a lung disease. She also confirmed that Wally is not her biological son. > > Sage showed up, having just teleported in to the Vellum Steeple Archive herself that day. She told the party the results of her investigation: Sydnock Truscan had been apprehended and was being interrogated by the Augen Trust, and he'd been confirmed to have been the one to launch the assassination attempts at the castle. She also revealed that Olivia Winterborne, who had bought the Asmodeus ring, was doing so on behalf of Amandina Darkflame. > > The party decided to go back to the Archive so that Xenia could memorize the teleportation circle runes at Uthodurn, but before they got there, a gigantic purple worm erupted from the ground, with five shadowy figures riding it. The Kryn are attacking! ^summary %% ## Video [Private Video](https://youtu.be/4jp9AfBNxLw) [TWC Video](https://youtu.be/XjVZeq6Cqzw) 00:00:00 Banter and recap 00:06:58 Start of game, what's the plan? 00:13:20 Xenia goes to The Vellum Steeple Archive 00:23:25 Talking to Demid Sunlash 00:33:28 This campaign has been going on way too long 00:43:37 Why we need Nicole 01:00:38 Nicole joins 01:09:34 Milla buys Sending Stones 01:15:01 Spending the night at the Broken Stool 01:20:18 Wally talks to his mother 01:34:39 Sage returns 01:46:59 Andy is cute - making my way 01:47:34 The Kryn attack 01:52:40 End of game ⭐ The impromptu description of the shrine of Raei as having a magical light above it like a sun. ⭐ Wally telling Sunlash we went to "Pork Salami". I LOLed. 🪄 I'd been there when talking to Sunlash. I really like the throwback to the early campaign. I would have liked to have been there to tie off some loose threads. ⭐ The idea of the Luxon being a fake religion that is secretly a way to protect the shards of Asmodeus. Whether it's true or not, that's a brilliant deviation from CR lore that has internal consistency for our campaign. Really clever. ⭐ The little detail of Sunlash having a spatial memory and knowing where everything is in all the chaos. ⭐ Wally investigating the bed to see which bed is more comfortable. 😅 ⭐ Wally getting some news from home. :O The whole conversation with his mother was so nice to hear! 🪄 I had been there for that. It broke my heart to learn about how unloved Wally has felt from being sent away. ⭐ What an amazing end to the game! So many questions. Can't wait to see what happens next. %% --- ## Recap ![[137_20240709 City of the attalwen#^summary]] --- ## Log %% > [!NOTE] From the DM > Here's what Sage discovered about Prime Arbiter Sydnock Truscan. > > - Olivia Winterbourne bought Asmodeus artefacts on behalf of him for Amandina Darkflame - Archduchess of Necromancy at the Exalted Collection Auction House. > - Truscan arranged for the assassin's in King Dwendal's castle to kill the TWC. > - He's now being interrogated by the Augen Trust in Rexxentrum. > - It's a big scandal, since he's meant to be the religious freak persecuting all unapproved religions. > > I think of the Ninth Rev as MAGA conspiracists for real. Pretending to be pious, actually evil plans. My comments from the last two games: - Using the resilient sphere was awesome, Tyler!! Andy, a condom, really? - Andy: Poliarchy as polyamorous monarchy, really? - Sjoerd: If I could pick one spell to cast IRL, it would be Detect Thoughts - Murthi: do you need help with Calendarium? - In 137, it was funny to note that there was almost no RP when Lulu and I are both gone. Even when Andy prompted everyone for any conversations to be had over the long rest, everyone was like "Here's my new feature" and "What time is it?" - Hilarious to see Andy spend five minutes trying to remember who has a compass and why. - Wally has Hypnotic Pattern now?? All the spells! - Good thing Lulu and I weren't there to watch you help separate a mated pair of mammoths and slaughter one of them. - Nika should have rolled Deception not Persuasion for the female mammoth! - Andy, you got THREE nat 20s on the cloud dice? Also I saw what you did. - Andy, you forgot how to grapple again??? - Wally speared the mammoth in the butt and no jokes were made? No snickers? - Sjoerd: Brigannock summoning is so cool. I love the use of their abilities too, even though the animal friendship didn't work. It would have been clutch! - The mammoth thing could have been a great skill challenge instead of combat/initiative-based rounds - Is Eldin a Pallid Elf? - Nobody asked if anyone was hot. Wtf. - Andy: You recycled the name Lyari for another elf?? Are you out of fantasy names already or something? Ever heard of a random table? - Andy: Did you get the jagged blades and the hidden hunters from Dune? - Lulu: do you want to ask Sage to Send to your brother to make sure they're okay? %% We're in [[Uthodurn]]. There are temples here: - Moradin's Mantle, to [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Moradin|Moradin]] - Light Above sanctum, to [[Pelor|Dawnfather]] - shrine to [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Melora|Melora]] - shrine to [[Raei]] We're outside of [[The Dwendalian Empire|The Empire]], so there are no forbidden gods. There's no sunlight here, especially as it gets dark. There are magical lights to match the day during the day, and lanterns at night. The shrine of Raei has a little orb like sunlight over it. [[The Broken Stool]], despite its name, is a good tavern to spend the night at, according to an elven worshipper of Raei that Wally came across. It's at [[The Volition Disc]] on the upper levels. Xenia goes to [[The Vellum Steeple Archive]] to deliver books given to him by [[The Sylvian Monastery]]. It's on [[The Deliberation Disc]] but on the cusp between that and [[The Grand Disc]]. - tower built into the rock - stained glass windows, reds and yellows against the blue of the building - around it, there's a subterranean garden even though this is right at the bottom of Uthodurn. - elven woman: tall, pale, platinum blonde hair in a pompadour, piercing blue eyes: her name is [[Ressia Uvesic]]. - Xenia says he wants to deliver books to [[Archivist Demid Sunlash]]. He says that he's not "with" the Cobalt Soul; he *works* with them. - There is a fee associated for researching in this archive, except for [[The Cobalt Soul]]. - Demid's working here and has been collaborating with some auditors in one of the towers for some time. We go to the top of the tower. - It's chaos. Books strewn everywhere. There's a raven there. - Sunlash is a small, male gnome with red hair and blue eyes. Looks tired. Cobalt Soul gear. Tiny and hunched. He's got a spatial memory and supposedly knows where everything is. - Xenia "borrows" a book about arcane gems that was from [[Library of the Cobalt Soul - Rexxentrum]]. He says he'll return it for Sunlash. - He recognises that Wally and Milla are followers of the Everlight and [[Sehanine|Moonweaver]]. He's been studying them for some time. He mentions [[Nihana Chist]]. He corresponded with her and she'd told him she'd discovered some sort of cathedral/temple/shrine to Raei and was doing some observatory research. He hasn't heard from her in some time... Wally tells him she's died. He had given her some books (that Scura still has!) - We give him the orrery prototype - He has a new avenue of research that is much darker: he's uncovered a bit of Obsidian from [[Molaesmyr]] that he thinks are ruins from [[Ruidus]]. He thinks there's stuff written on it that's in an ancient hellish language. - He has heard of [[Gelidon]], the Nightmare in Ivory. - He has a piece of tusk - one of [[The Glassblades]] got a lucky shot at Gelidon. He gives it to Nika! - Wally tells him about how we have seen a [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Luxon Beacon|Luxon Beacon]]. He says that is how [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Kryn Dynasty|The Kryn]] live forever. What if the Luxon is an entirely fake religion? He has a theory: there are nine beacons. The Kryn have six of them. What if [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Asmodeus|Asmodeus]] splintered himself into nine-- into the beacons? What if the religion of dunamancy and the manipulation of time is really a masquerade, a disguise, to get these shards to exist under the noses of everyone? He may want to use the dunamancy inherent in the beacons to become whole. - There's a way to "enter" into a beacon meditatively, to join consciousness with it somehow. - The beacons have real power though. There is some way to harness that power. - The way to find out is in the Frozen North, from pre-Calamity artifacts. - There are magical yetis in [[The Allowak Sanctuary]]. - Milla asks him for (and receives) a map. - He has hunches and then finds evidence for them. He wouldn't want to publish all these theories just yet, and especially he wouldn't want to be thought of as a worshipper of Asmodeus or a heretic of The Luxon. - The books that Sunlash wanted from Rexxentrum are about Ruidus. - The raven is definitely not a celestial, fiend, or undead. (Wally's *Divine Sense*) In [[The Deliberation Disc|The Liber Disc]], Milla buys sending stones from [[Diamond in the Rough]] – [[Ruby Stonehorn]], a red-headed woman. 400 gp. - Slogan: `All of the finer things in life, with none of the markup.` Going to [[The Broken Stool]]. - proprietor: woman who has heard of us already and is expecting us. The Diarchy is paying for us. Two to a room. - Xenia reads one of the books. - Wally finds a little pagoda, kind of like a zen garden, to meditate. He casts *Telepathy* to his mother, [[Vitana Damurag]]. [[Candid Gardens]] is the name of the park. - She's in the family home in [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/Rexxentrum|Rexxentrum]]. - He tells her he's alive. She thought he was dead. She said her father had told her he was in [[Vergessen Sanatorium]] for his own safety, and she hasn't heard from him in many years. - He asks if [[Crown Marshal Hayden Damurag]] really is his father. He said he thought he'd been sent to the Sanatorium because he was a bastard. She said that was a dreadful argument. She considers him her son and raised him and treated him like her son. But she's not his blood mother. When the truth came out, his father was so ashamed and Wally was sent away. Out of sight, out of mind. It was easier to say that Wally was insane than to tell the truth. - Wally says he doesn't hold it against her. He tells her that Hayden should come home because he's in danger. That's why he contacted her. Maybe she can think of something to get him to come home. She can't contact him unless he contacts her though, and he won't shirk from danger. - She tells him she's dying. She probably doesn't have long. He won't come back even for her. Her lungs are failing. - Wally promises that he'll come home soon. She says she'll hold on for that. She tells him she's always loved him. She apologises for not being able to protect him from his father's temper and strong will. She cried for days after Etherion was sent away. Sage returns with information! - [[Olivia Winterbourne]] bought Asmodeus artefacts on behalf of him for Amandina Darkflame at the Exalted Collection Auction House. - [[ttrpgs/Temporary White Circle/The Cerberus Assembly|The Cerberus Assembly]] are pushing very hard to investigate Sydnock Truscan. - Truscan arranged for the assassin's in King Dwendal's castle to kill the TWC. - He's now being interrogated by the Augen Trust in Rexxentrum. - It's a big scandal, since he's meant to be the religious freak persecuting all unapproved religions. Sage asks to accompany the TWC until the two missions are completed - Find [[Amandina Darkflame]] - Keep [[Crown Marshal Hayden Damurag]] safe Wally does NOT want to talk about "Hayden". We start to go to the Vellum Steeple Archive in The Liber Disc. The Kryn attack! A huge purple worm erupts from the ground. - Glassblades soldiers run past us. - Ground trembles. - Swarm of people are piling out of the buildings thinking it's an earthquake. - Huge gate just on the other side of the Vellum Steeple slams down like a portcullis. On the other side of the gate from us, the maw of a huge purple worm emerges. - Five black-clothed figures are riding the worm. Two jump off and they split into a bunch of other figures. - Glassblades made a mistake-- they trapped the purple worm along with the king and queen. %% # Text Elements # Drawing ```json {"type":"excalidraw","version":2,"source":"https://github.com/zsviczian/obsidian-excalidraw-plugin/releases/tag/2.0.25","elements":[],"appState":{"theme":"dark","gridSize":null,"viewBackgroundColor":"#ffffff"}} ``` %%