Session 007 ❖ May 10, 2020
| Name | Title | Class | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aeris | Knight of No House | Fighter | Has no memory of their past. |
| Caenn | the Mage | Wizard | Well-educated and curious. |
| Erebos | the Yellow | Wizard | 100 year old tremulous coward. |
| Garviel | of House Ibis | Cleric | Cast out for breaking his vows. |
| Lan | the Necromancer | Wizard | Stole a book from their master. |
| Marus Kiwa | Faithful of Mananan | Cleric | Priest of the Sea-God. |
| Rhea | the Small | Thief | Grew up on the streets. |
Crowded into the green dragon-prowed boat, the adventurers sail down the foetid sewer river toward the Catacombs and the fulfilment of Garviel's promise to the archon. With them is a lanky youth in fishscale armour with a blade formed like a swordfish - Marus, follower of the sea-god.
A slaughterhouse reek fills the air, the water growing thick with blood and offal. Giant insects teem in this part of the sewers.
Reaching the entrance to the tombs they begin their sacrilegious task, casting open caskets and looting the dusty dead. The shades of Amalkus and his men arise to reluctantly defend the rest of those who keep them from their own.
In the battle Garviel is wounded, but saved by Aeris. Deeper in the catacombs, they meet their first men of the Fleischguild, and Caenn and Rhea despatch them with fire and blade.
The climb a staircase, up, up, through the depths of Zyan Between, emerging onto one of many balconies adorning a great structure of white stone and bloodstained altars. They blink in the evening sunlight and look out over the windswept, cruel, convoluted city of Zyan Above.
Ben Laurence told me that in his campaign it took his players forever to get around to visiting the city - I had the same experience. After this brief excursion above ground, they won’t return until next year.
I suppose it speaks well of how the adventures hype the city up as an important and terrible place that players feel the need to be at the height of their powers before venturing there!
There’s something special about that, too - not only venturing into a fantastical land, but knowing there’s another, even more fantastical, that you don’t quite dare to enter yet - but that it’s there, waiting for you. It makes the world feel a little more real.
Ben L also notes that having a slightly more mundane home base from which to venture into the stranger realms creates a welcome contrast - Zyan is weird by contrast with the more mundane fantasy of Rastingdrung - though Rastingdrung itself is anything but boring!