Thug Muggers in the Tunnels 6/16/24
Table Talk:
With Brooke’s help, i’ve now finished editing and formatting all the old summaries (ones from before i/we were doing any editing) and have put those freshly edited ones up on the site. If anyone is like me and interested in random statistics, here they are, and bear in mind these come from compiling the blogs into a standard Microsoft Word .docx document with default settings. All together i’ve written 71 session summaries (before this one) and 5 additional lore posts which total 725 pages at 374,629 words. There are 660 pages (337,466 words) of narrative and 63 pages (374,629 words) of before & after table talk. So that’s roughly 500 words or almost a page a day (700 words, 1.3 pages only counting weekdays) for the last 2+ years, plus editing and notes. That would be roughly 8-18 newspapers full, a bit over half of the Lord of the Rings books, or almost two copies of Dune by Frank Herbert. As a single line of text, it would be roughly 7,804 feet long, or about 1.5 miles in strand typeface. Then, If you cut that strip up by words and burned each word as a single candle (12.7 lm) it would be roughly as bright as the stadium lights used at a small high school football game (for, 6 seconds).
While we’re talking about numbers, I made a mistake in some calculations. So we need to add 1,200 XP. Then add 350 for the Zombie Gazers & Septactor, plus 175 for the Zombie Zombie Gazers & Septactor. Then add 1025 for the Zombie Hag. Then 513 For the Zombie Zombie Hag, and 256 for the Zombie Zombie Zombie Hag, and 88 for the Zombie Zombie Gazers & Septactor. So that's 1200 and 2407 or 3607 total. Got all that?
Back to the subject of past summaries, and past Table talk in particular, we had a brief discussion about where to put it all to make it easy to search through for previous judgments on tougher rules and homebrew things. Sarah asked what’s easiest for me, so instead of copying and pasting it all in pieces to the discord, I am going to be making a pinned post with a link to the combined master file that i update with each finished summary, and we can just ctrl+f that.
I did tell the Players ahead of time that all the Gazers are in fact dead, and that each re-zombie-incartate-ification halves the HP of the creatures that get re-zombie-incartate-ification-anized until they are completely destroyed. What i didn’t mention, was that i did get some things per-rolled this time to make it easier. In particular i pre-rolled how many Eyestalks survived on each of the Gazers/Spectators by rolling Con for each of the 12 Gazer eyes, and each of the 4 spectator eyes, then taking only the ones that were over 15 and giving 1 HP to the Gazer Eyestalks, and 2 HP to the Spectator Eyestalks.
Béhémoth, démon lourd et stupide, malgré ses dignités. Sa force est dans ses reins ; ses domaines sont la gourmandise et les plaisirs du ventre. Quelques démonomanes disent qu'il est aux enfers sommelier et grand échanson. Bodin croit ' que Béhémolh n'est autre chose que le Pharaon d'Egypte qui persécuta les Hébreux. Il est parlé de Béhémoth dans Job comme d'une créature monstrueuse. Des commentateurs prétendent que'c'est la baleine, et d'autres que c'est l'éléphant; mais il y eut d'autres monstres dont les races ont disparu. On voit dans le procès d'Urbain Grandier que Béhémoth est bien un démon. Delancre dit qu'on l'a pris pour un animal monstrueux, parce qu'il se donne la forme de toutes les grosses bêles. Il ajoute que Béhémolh se déguise aussi avec.peiTeclion en chien, en éléphant, en renard et en loup.
Translated from French.
Behemoth, heavy and stupid demon, despite its dignities.His strength is in his loins; its domains are gluttony and the pleasures of the stomach. Some demoniacs say that he is a sommelier and great cupbearer in hell. Bodin believes that Behemolh is nothing other than the Pharaoh of Egypt who persecuted the Hebrews. He Behemoth is spoken of in Job as a monstrous creature. Some commentators claim that it is the whale, and others that it is the elephant; but there were other monsters whose races disappeared. We see in the trial of Urbain Grandier that Behemoth is indeed a demon. Delancre says that he was taken for a monstrous animal, because he takes the shape of all the big beasts. He adds that Béhémolh also disguises himself with. Perceived as a dog, an elephant, a fox and a wolf.
—Jacques-Albin-Simon, “Dictionnaire Infernal” (1844)
🐁☣️☣️☣️☢️🧟♂️🛡️🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Chapter 18: Ding dong the Witch is Undead (cont.)
🐁☣️☣️☣️☢️🧟♂️🛡️🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Chapter 18: Ding dong the Witch is Undead (cont.)
Somewhere up above in the city, a man is walking. His eyes are dripping with frustrated tears, and he’s trying hard not to let his fists clench so tightly that it draws blood.
Six days. Six days of work. Finding a clerk, doing the sums, finding a building, contacting The Post, sending the letters, addressing The Crown, and then talking to probably every single banker in the city.
And now all that money is gone.
The future is falling away from him, out of sight behind a dark horizon. It was six days of work just to get the money, sure, but it was built on months of careful planning and philosophical testing. Sitting in cheap rooms on dirty cots and journaling with every problem he could think of, then at least two solutions for each of the problems. And all that was in turn built up and predicated on an idea he’d had for more than two years now.
He can change the future! He knows it! He could bring about a new age, and help civilization advance and… and… AND THEY STOLE HIS ONLY SHOT! All the money is gone!
He stops and straightens his clothes. Civilization. That one word means so much to this man. It represents the acts of people to be good and true to the whole. It is the opposite of words like tyranny or barbarism, or even self-indulgence. It’s the shining gleam of polish — against the blood and spit of dirt. He looks up at the shield over the door, taking courage in its civilized crest divided into neat lines and sections. He thinks for a breath about the history here of routing our internal thieves and crooks.
The money isn’t gone, not truly GONE. It’s not a finite supply, disappeared forever like a burned candle wick. It’s just been stolen.
He walks into the door and sags. The lines are long. The people are angry, and the constables are worn, tired, and depressed.
Ding dong the witch is dead – or i guess re-re-dead… again… OR IS SHE! Honestly, it’s hard for us to care at this stage. We’re trudging back through the oddly angled Thug Tunnels from the Cultist’s Poison Manufactory. Cypress is dragging a sack full of poison bottles, Rae keeps touching her face to see if it stings – then touching it again because it stings. Ari is forming up a kind of report in her mind to tell Bostra, and in the back Sorin keeps rubbing his hand over the nobbly skull in his pocket.
Rae may be tired, but she’s still cautious and remembers the last time we came through this hallway (Dex roll 13 over trap DC 12). She steps over the trap on the floor… then hesitates and stops. A trap. (Insight 19 over DC 12) That’s it. As thick as she’s been, she needs to pay attention! Every time they’ve been fighting the Hag and her zombie beasts, they’ve been in the trap – she touched the circle on accident and they were all caught unawares; but if they arranged themselves first and then she touched the circle when everyone is prepared with their teeth bared, then the Hag would be the one caught in the unawares! With that, Raelle-the-Scarred can kill her, and the Gazer’s too, AHAHAHA! Stick with this plan, and they’ll never get injured again! Oh, i love the plan! It may sound sordid but then the Thug Muggers will be rewarded when at last they can look through the loot! They need to prepare for the trap of the century. All it takes is meticulous planning.
Behind the scared elf, Ari is having some of her own thoughts about the room, and (Insight 1 against DC12) considering going back. In her head she can see Bostra’s face and hear his questions. “So she’s dead right? You put a stop to her? You killed her? Completely? You’re sure she can’t come back again? She won’t Zombify again in a day and poison more innocent people?”
Cypress is lugging the bag and it catches on the teeth of the trap. He tugs (Dex 5 under DC12) and he can hear one of the bottles break. “Ah, bulbiferum!” They swear and pinch the bridge of their nose. Sheela, they’ve been so tired they grabbed a sack. A sack! When they had to move one of those divided bottle crates just to get to the sack in the first place. He turns around.
Sorin is in his own little bubble when Cypress turns around. He’s puzzling something out. The magic circle brought the beasts and then the Hag back to life when Rae stepped on it. When her foot was on top of it. How far does that extend? How far up – or down for that matter – does the magic circle extend? What buildings are we underneath? If Rae walks into some shop, will the witch come back to life and crawl up through the floorboards!? Could they be further on in their quest, setting up camp and the Hag comes tunneling down from the ceiling!? (Arcana 10 under DC 12) He doesn’t know, and he’s instantly afraid. He looks at the others. “We have to go back!”
Everyone is looking at him and Sorin swallows. “Look I…” He swallows, and before letting them agree with him, says, “I can do the fighting. I’m less hurt than you all are. I won’t make or even ask you all to help… except, I guess, I do need Rae, to activate the circle. We just don’t know the extent of the spell… What if the Hag comes back a day from now. We need to stomp her out completely. She may be dead, but we need her dead-dead!”
Cypress sighs, “Sorin, WE are almost dead-dead.”
“I know. And that’s why I said I can do it. I just need Rae to step on the circle.”
Ari nods, thinking about Bostra, “I’m in.”
“Great, thank you!” Sorin sounds so sincere that Ari doesn’t even hit him when he adds, “Just don’t rush in, be sneaky and we can do this, I believe in you!”
“Well, I need to go back in there to get a crate, anyways. This bag won’t work.” Cypress sighs and adds, “so let's at least go take a look and think it over.”
Rae sighs. She was about to groan in protest, but she felt the warm healing glow pulse through her body from her ring. So she sighs and nods, “Okay fine. I’ll at least check it out, but I'm not stepping on anything until we have a solid plan.” (Reader if this seems at odds with the whole trap paragraph earlier, that’s because i, the DM, revealed the trap idea to her in a dice roll – and took some fun liberties in writing it out, but Rae is still very very bloodied and apprehensive to do this.)
First things first, once we’re back in the room, Cypress is ignoring the chatter over head and going to find that crate. It only takes a moment to find under some soggy bags with “D-M arket” stamped on them. He moves the crate he needs out of the pile and there is a small cascade of boxes, followed by a metallic clangy clunk. He tilts his eyes up to the heavens and groans, he’ll have to dig around and see what that was…
Over by the entrance, Sorin is getting frustrated at repeating himself. “The point is, we don’t know. Each time they’ve come back, they’ve been weaker and weaker, now the Gazers are pretty much gone. Maybe we can just cut her up, but maybe the spell will keep bringing back bits of her until we do enough damage to her overall lifeforce that she can’t return.”
Cypress goes digging through the heap of rotten supplies (DC 12, but an Investigation roll of 10), well… nothing metal and clangy so far, but at least he’s looked through a big chunk of it now.
“Isn’t it worth a try though?”
“Okay fine.” Sorin grabs the Cultist’s axe off the table, and walks over the currently-dead Hag. “But I suspect it’s the lifeforce.” He swings the axe.
There is an almighty stretch and a spray of yellow and brown droplets then a puff of green and gray mist as the axe gets wedged right in the center of the rings where Ari cut off the witch's gross hunchback.
While Sorin is gagging, Cypress keeps looking around. (Okay, so that lowered the DC to 8, but the roll was a 5) After a moment of just zoning out, Cypress shakes himself. He’s just been looking over the same things again and again, like reading the same page. He sighs and pulls his attention together.
Ari is dry heaving at the smell of aerosolized puss, then steadies herself and asks. “Why not just toss her down the hole?”
Rae brightens up, “Hey yeah, you got a good look, what’s down there?”
Red mist. Crawling hands. Creeping and clawing. Pulling itself up the –
Ari shudders. “Uh, nevermind, bad idea, not down the hole.”
Cypress pulls away the last crate with white ooze leaking out between its slats. He’s rewarded with a nice looking shield. It’s a simple crest shape with iron banding around the edge and in a crossways reinforcement over the front. There's also some decorative flat braids of gold and silver wired into the banding that hint a more magical nature hidden inside the shield. He picks it up and carries it back to the entrance, then he looks up to the others. “So, do we have a plan?”
“Humm… Humm… Everyone prepared?”
We’re all arranged as Rae prepares to touch the magic ring. Ari is standing next to the mostly-broken body of the spectator, while Cypress and Sorin are standing on either side of the Hag with Sorin in between her and Rae.
Ari and Sorin nod, “Yes our spells and our weapons are bared, we’re pre-paaaaared!”
Rae bares her teeth and tiptoes nearer, into the ring of eldritch symbols.
Cypress stands ready with their Mushroom Mace in hand!
The Zombie Spectator rises up in a slow bobbing spin, dripping and snarling at Ari. It tries to shoot a Wounding Ray at the elf but can’t get a clear shot around Ari, and the beam goes wide, striking and wounding one of the tables for 19 damage.
The Gazers are dead, their bowling-ball heads smashed or exploded apart, but three of the Eyestalks remain. They swing from where they hang on the bars of their cages. Both Dazing eyes miss Rae, but the last remaining malicious essence of the brown Gazer strikes home. The Telekinetic Ray pushes Cypress from the room.
Nymbus, incensed: “Are you SERIOUS!”
AHAHA, hey at least you’re in a different hallway this time.
Nymbus, harrumphing back in his stool with crossed arms, mumbling: “I hate this game.”
I’m teary eyed from laughing, i love this game so much! I think this is my favorite room and fight we’ve ever had.
Rae runs over to the two Dazing Eye Stalks that shot at her. She grabs each by the tail and like a sticky hand toy from a coin vending machine, splats them into the wall, ending those Gazers for good.
Ari thrusts and stabs deep into the hollow dripping flash cave of the Spectator’s eye socket. Then with an angry cry, she twists her blade, and sweeps it to the side – cutting through the mangled flesh and leaving the ghastly thing sliced from the middle out. Unfolded on the floor like a dead, bloody pacman.
Cypress, you’re-
Nymbus, slowly putting one hand then the other on the table before leaning in close: “I come, BACK INTO THE ROOM!”
The last remaining Eyestalk tries to push Cypress out of the room one last time, but fails as he readies his mace over the Hag. Dang, now i’m sad…
Sorin, you’re up. Oh wait. Crap, i completely missed you in the last round! I got so busy laughing at Nymbus/Cypress that i accidentally skipped your turn, i’m sorry.
Sorin bares his hand and readies Chill Touch for the Hag when she re-re-re-reanimates.
Rae splats the last Eyestalk and we stand there waiting.
When i rolled all the initiatives, the Hag got a nat’ 20.
Sister is careful now, and cautious. She comes to life (or something almost like life) again, and waits. She hears the one standing over her ask what’s taking so long. Then like a runner sprinting up from the starting line, she’s up! She charges at the impudent little elfling before the others can react, swiping at her atack and laughing as she bleeds.
Cypress is first to react, and charges after the Hag for… really only 2 damage… she only had 4 HP, you could have killed her…
Sorin’s Chill Touch flies out again and the Hag falls back dead-again-again-again-again to the floor.
“Ready to go again?”
Everyone gets into position. Rae is about to start things off when Cypress remembers something. “Wait!”
“What?”
“My Inspiring Leadership! I can give a speech and grant you all 10 more HP!”
Everyone looks at each other, “I mean… you can try, man, but I think we’re too tired to be inspired at this point.” (We looked it up and Cypress can use the feat whenever, but any creature that he targets can only receive the effects once per rest).
Rae reaches down and touches the circle, then runs off to stand by the entrance and out of harm’s way after just taking another big hit from that Zomzomzomzombiebiebiebie Hag just now.
The Spectator is dead and destroyed, but just like the Gazers a couple Eyestalks remain. The Paralyzing eye squirms up and shoots a beam at Rae, but it misses as Ari skewers it on the end of her blade.
The Confusing Eyestalk wiggles on the ground, but it can’t jerk itself up and the ray only confuses some gravel on the ground before Ari’s pocket covered boot squashes it with a wet squelchy pop. (Brooke wanted to swipe at both in one swing, but i decided she can’t while Exhausted, but she could use up her movement to stomp on one and they only had 2 HP)
The Hag isn’t so lucky this time, and she shuffles up to her feet, panting and barely standing. She turns towards the feeling of Rae in her head, only to find Cypress standing in the way. With a fit of outraged laughter, she strikes the cleric down, “Not *cough* even your *cough vine* god could stop *cough* Sister from her…” She stands there hacking.
Nymbus: “Yeah, I’m downed. I only had 8 health, what was the damage?”
Well one of the dice was an 8, so let’s just call it downed.
While she’s bent over coughing on top of Cypress, Sorin unleashes three Magic Missiles. The first enters the top of her head and explodes, sending bits of Hag-brain everywhere. The second follows the same path, but with no head, it just enters her open neck hole and burns through her to the gaping gash where Cypress sliced open her guts. When she falls, the final Missile hits hard against the back of the axe Sorin stuck in her shoulder. It heats the axe and pushes it through her, leaving her swollen arm severed and apart from her burning torso.
“Do we think anything’s left?”
“Only one way to find out.”
Cautiously, Rae steps into the circle again.
Unconscious, Cypress rolls an 18 and gets close to waking up.
Waiting to see what’s gonna happen, Ari kneels down to Cypress and pulls out his med kit to try to use it on him. With a nat’ 20 on the medicine check, some of the smelling salts land directly in Cypresses nose and he jerks up to a sitting position.
Ari is beaming with pride, “Are you proud of me? I did it!”
Cypress looks down at the scattering of first aid supplies, and then at the bandage over the dried blood on his uninjured arm. He pulls the sachet of salts out from where it fell into his nostril, “Yup, uh, you did it. Good job.”
Sorin moves to check on Cypress and Ari, but Rae sees the arm move. As she watches, the swollen arm – as thick as a body builder’s leg – rears up with the hand darting around in the air like the head of a snake. “I’m done with this!” Rae charges and leaps. With both hands on one end of her staff, she brings it down in an overhead strike. The capped end with the four mimic teeth seem to burn with her rage as they rip into the Zombie arm. The teeth drag down the snake-line arm. Three of them dig into it and slice it apart, fileting the skin from the bone like peeling a banana. The bones stand there for a heart beat and then topple over. The Hag is destroyed.
Before we move on, Rae spends a full minute just jumping into-and-out-of the circles over and over to make sure nothing happens.
Cypress sits up and wipes off the Hag-juices from his face. “I need a bath.” He goes over to the pile of supplies and finds the barrel of stale-but-probably-moderately-clean water, then he kicks a crate over to it, jumps on top of the crate, and dunks his head directly into the barrel.
“Um…”
“Gods that looks refreshing.” Sorin says and walks over to the barrel.
When Cypress comes up he sees Sorin scrubbing over his arms and face with the water.
Sorin smiles at the halfling, “You don’t have, by chance, any soap do you?”
“Ari, Rae, bring my bag over here, we should all scrub off as much of this goo as we can.”
After a minute of digging, Cypress pulls out a small package wrapped in an overly-large mint leaf. They unwrap it and we see a pale yellow bar with several scored marks in it. He says a quick prayer and then snaps one section off, then breaks that chunk down further into small lumps, handing them around. As everyone takes a piece, they breathe in deep. This is the first pleasant thing they’ve smelled in days.
After a good standing scrub-a-dub-dub and a thanks to the spirit of the all powerful rubber duckie, everyone is feeling a lot better (regain 1 HP, and Cypress gets a point of Inspiration).
With that out of the way, we can finally finish looting the room. What’s left?
First, Rae goes over to the beaten up old couch in the corner of the room, and when no one is looking, she spits on the spot where the fine Shay-look-a-like lady was when we first came in here, before she transformed the ugly Green Hag (should i not say ‘ugly’ here? I’m not sure, if you’re a monstrous Green Hag of evil, write to me and tell me the appropriate terms).
Now that she’s looking around she can see the rusty chains and the shackles. Just like in Chapter 3: The War Room, the couch has two sets of shackles, one on each end so that a person can be chained lying across the seat somewhat comfortably, or chained sitting upright with arms and legs spread wide. Looking under the seat she can see some armor and pulls it out. It’s a chest and back of heavy cloth and square metal plates riveted to it in panels with a rough skirting underneath and an arm of hemp threaded maille rings. (Wisdom 21 over DC 18) She can make out letters in something similar to old elfish on one skirt panel (Wisdom 21 over DC 18) “Armor of Rabit Velilnyu”
Sorin is walking towards the cage with the remains of Delphin at the bottom. “I’ll go see if there's anything in the -” He stops and clutches his knees as soon as he gets another look at the face-skin on the floor (4 against a DC 10). “Nope. Nope, nevermind. Can’t do it.”
Ari is looking at the Gazers cages. Something about the curtains and the patterns of splattered gore and dust strikes home to her. The Hag, ‘Sister’, kept these cages open. The Thugs always seem to hate the Gazers and the other time they were in cages they were kept covered. But Sister kept them open. She must’ve enjoyed the ‘music’ of their garbled laughs and threats against the world.
Cypress takes a beat to look at his new shiny shield. After a long Arcana Check he can just get a sense of the spell, but won’t know more without attuning to it. It’s something to do with projectiles though. This shield may come in handy.
Rae turns to boldly go where Sorin couldn’t – and stops half way there. That face, peeled off on the ground… being so flat when it should be round. She can’t do it either.
Squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw, Ari draws her sword and pokes into the iron bars of Delphin’s final resting place. She moves bits out of the way until she sees some glints of metal and flicks them out from between the bars. After a moment she picks up the coins and washes them off in the water barrel. Four Trade Coins for the Apothecaries in town (like the one Sorin got from William Burrows for Ari’s old sword).
Only one thing left. Time to look at the crystal.
Everybody, roll a D6 until you all have different numbers to determine what side you’re looking at.
Sorin, give me a Strength Save.
Cypress, give me a Dexterity save.
Rae, give me a Wisdom Save.
Ari, give me a Charisma Save.
Sorin, since you failed, give me an unarmed attack roll.
Cypress, since you were the first to pass, give me a Constitution save.
Rae, since you were the second to pass and there's one left, give me an Intelligence Save
Everything happens so fast.
Sorin takes one look at the crystal, and suddenly it’s coming at him! No wait, he’s coming at it! He’s grabbed onto it with both hands and just slammed his face into it as hard as he can!
Cypress hears a whisper like an evil ring, and jumps to the side just as a loose rock falls from the ceiling!
Rae hears it too, and when she looks at the crystal, she can feel the rage boiling inside. She steps back before it can take a hold of her.
Ari can see the angles of the crystal. The angles inside the crystal. She can see the parallaxing red lens bouncing on and on forever into infini- She closes her eyes and steps back.
After jumping to the side, Cypress is still looking at the crystal. He stares and this time the whisper is an angry shout of doom, echoing inside his skull. His vision goes red and he reaches up to his eyes. His fingers come away sticky with the blood dripping away from his eyes like tears.
Even backing away, Rae can hear the voice as it tells her to take the Slaad Crystal from Cypress and return it. She shuts her eyes, shaking her head and backing away. In her denial of the crystal, only one thought remains. “Dynamite.”
I’d love to end the chapter there – cause that’s a great exit line – but they do collect their gear.
Cypress takes the divided crate into the tunnel and moves the poisons into it, being careful not to touch anything from the one that broke earlier.
Sorin picks up Cypress’s shield and carries it a ways out, then moves back to wait at the exit for his cue.
Ari takes some rope and rubs some of her grease over it, then knots and separates it for a long wick.
Rae shoves her staff into the ground at the center of the magic circles. She wiggles it around, losing up the packed dirt until she has a small hole. Then she plugs the hole with one stick of dynamite and wraps Ari’s makeshift fuse around it. Trying not to look directly at it, she sticks the other one into a crevice between two parts of the crystal, knotting the fuse to it and backing away.
Finally with everyone in the exit tunnel behind him, Sorin uses Firebolt to light the fuse, and runs down the hall.
There’s a loud bang, then a thump and the walls of the tunnel shake as dust pours down from the ceiling.
🛡️🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Chapter 19:
🛡️🎲🗡️📿✨🌿Chapter 19:
Out in the other room, Bostra looks up to see a wall of gray and brown dusk bellowing from the open door the party took that morning. He quickly whips off his cloak and flaps it at the rapidly approaching wall of dust to move the air around him.
When the Thug Muggers emerge, coughing, from the tunnel everything is coated in a thick layer of cave dirt and dust – except Bostra who is standing still and looking unflappable and exquisitely clean as the edges of his cloak fall to the floor.
Cypress is the first to emerge from the tunnel and when the air settles, he sees tZulèe leaning down on all fours, its eyes open wide, its mouth cracked open just enough to breathe without moving, and just… staring unblinkingly at Bostra. It has not moved. “Uh.. tZulèe, at ease?” Cypress is a little unsure. “We’re back now, so you can relax, buddy.”
The gargoyle gives a quick, deep nod, then smiles. It jerkily scuttles up the wall to hang from the ceiling with its mouth open as the finally wafting branch of dirt-dust comes out overhead.
Sorin is the last to emerge, waving away a cloud of dust from his face that tZulèe sucks in with a deep breath. “I went back to check. The room is destroyed. Everything overhead collapsed except a small tube from the tunnel where we left to the tunnel on the other side.” He thinks for a second. “We could probably make it back through that way, but I don't think it’s too safe.
“The tunnel on the far side?” Cypress asks. (There was a tunnel with cows? I need to pay better attention)
“The hole? The Crystal?” Ari Asks.
“The witch?” Rae asks, pronouncing it with a B.
“All buried. Looks like the dynamite worked.”
Bostra is looking at each face one after the other. “So… it’s been a long night, and most of a long day if I had to guess – much longer than usual for you lot. Now I hear about mining explosives, crystals, witches, more tunnels or maybe just holes, huh… So, who wants to start first?”
The governor Aratron hath in his power those things which he doth naturally, that is, after the same manner and subject as those things which in Astronomy are ascribed to the power of Saturn. Those things which he doth of his own free will, are,
1. That he can convert any thing into a stone in a moment, either animal or plant, retaining the same object to the sight.
2. He converteth treasures into coles, and coles into treasure.
3. He giveth familiars with a definite power.
4. He teacheth Alchymy, Magick, and Physick.
5. He reconcileth the subterranean spirits to men; maketh hairy men.
6. He causeth one to bee invisible.
7. The barren he maketh fruitful, and giveth long life.
He hath under him 49 Kings, 42 Princes, 35 Presidents, 28 Dukes, 21 Ministers, standing before him; 14 familiars, seven messengers: he commandeth 36000 legions of spirits; the number of a legion is 490.
— Unknown, “ARBATEL of MAGICK: or, The spiritual Wisdom of the Ancients, as well Wise-men of the people of God, as MAGI of the Gentiles: for the illustration of the glory of God, and his love to Mankinde.” Translated into English by Robert Turner, London 1655.
Table talk:
So these quotes… After talking it over with the players, I’m only going to do a few more of these historical quotes about the origins of magic in culture. These quotes are really interesting and teach us a lot! Which is awesome! What’s less awesome though is learning that most ideas of magic stem from racism. I have been pretty selective with these quotes and a lot of that is because i only want to include ones that wouldn’t shame me to be associated with. From what i’ve encountered so far, these really fall into 4 camps.
Genuine Magic. These are where most of my pulls have been so far, ideas, passages, instructions, etc. that tell the reader of how to do magic. Magic with no other cause than WILL power, ‘think this’, ‘say this’, ‘draw this’, and what you imagine will happen.
Demons/Angels. This is an overlapping circle with the first category, the main difference being that the caster/magician INVOKES a supernatural or non-mortal entity to do the thing. Most of the spells or artifacts are in line with ‘command this demon to make you fly’, ‘use the angel of ___ to create this thing’, ‘inscribe the symbol of this spirit to a ring and they will grant you ___’.
Anti-Semitism. Here is where a lot of early ideas of magic in the middle ages really flourished, and for anyone who has read other accounts from that time or, for instance, anything written by Walter Scott it is unsurprising. I’ll skip the long and unqualified history lesson just to say that Jewish people were degraded outcasts in Europe for most of that time, but were however often in charge of great financial power and medical knowledge. This led to ideas that their practices which involved ‘strange writing’ (Hebrew letters) and ‘ritualistic behaviors’ (reading from scrolls) was what gave them money and power over the body. I see this a lot in passages like “the true magic of Solomon the King’ where Hebrew letters are misshapen into magic and the holy texts warped into spells. Add onto that a knowledge of basic first aid like ‘wash the wound’ or ‘sterilize the needle in fire’ which were not practiced elsewhere and… boom, magic witch healers on the edge of town.
Islamophobia. This is mostly just ascribing “magic” to knowledge and scientific research in Arabic cultures, and a fair amount of it overlaps with the second camp i listed. This is where we see ‘magi’ in turbans with astrolabes and telescopes who invoke mathematical formula to alter the will of the stars. It seems to me to be mostly derived from a perverted distortion of Arabic writing (like the antisemitism) coupled with a misunderstanding of the scientific advances made by various Arab peoples. This also shows up in a lot of European interpretations of Romani “gypsy’ magic like tarot or palmistry.
Please bear in mind that his short paragraph is by no means a complete explanation or even a good telling of that history. It’s just my reasons for why searching for ‘good’ish quotes has become taxing alongside (hopefully) some food for thought. So after i use up the ones i have already found, i’ll be moving on.
Alright everyone, time for more MATH! YAY! Add 50 XP for the Zozozozombmbmbmieieieie Spectator (& Gazer Eyestalks), add 44 for the Zozozozombmbmbmieieieie Hag. Then for round 5, add 6 for the Spectator Eyestalks plus 22 for the zzzzzooooommmmmbbbbbiiiiieeeee Hag. And lastly add an additional 11 for the re-re-re-re-re-animated Hag Claw (arm). So that’s 133 more total.
A quick note here about the challenge rating and XP. For 4 lvl 5 PCs, the Deadly rating is an encounter at 5,600. This room, as i originally built it, was a single fight at 5,588, so right on the line. By dividinging it up into these 8-13 fights depending on the split technicality (Cultist, Hag+friends, Zombie eyeball boys, Zombie Hag, Re-Zombie eyeball boys, Re-Hag, Re-re-Zombie eyeball boys, Re-re-Hag, Re-re-re-Zombie eyeball boys, Re-re-re-Hag, Re-re-re-re-Zombie Spectator with a side of Eyestalks, Re-re-re-re-Hag, Spectator Eyes, Re-re-re-re-re-Hag, Hag Claw) then we got a room of 6,330 XP with it being very hard, but passable because we got a chance to pause between rounds of fights.
I left the players with something to think about for next time. The way i’ve decided to do Long Rests is to give 4 action slots and require that 2 be back to back sleep. But, they are exhausted. Actually they’re exhausted at second level now, and it will take an additional action slot for them to get rid of each level of exhaustion. So, do they want to do any extra long Long Rest for 6 slots but taking much more time, or all just rest with no other actions and no one on guard? Something to think about this week.
Lastly reader, be on the lookout for a big Lore post coming up. I’m getting close to done working on the Religions and Churches of Nibiru as extracted from “Wonderful Wanderings: Diary of the Traveler Ccysol”, and i’m really excited for it.
