Sailors on the Starless Sea, Session 1
Abductions! Over two dozen missing from the village, and rumors of bestial half-men in the woods. Could they be responsible?
Desperate, the village’s bravest, if not brightest, assemble to investigate the likeliest source of the trouble: the terrifying, abandoned keep on the hill. A former bastion of chaos, destroyed in ages past, the keep is thickly overgrown and pestilent. A ragged pennant flies from its battlements: a crimson skull on a black field.
Choosing to scout the hill rather than assault directly, the group adjoins to the northwest corner of the hill, where they find a section of wall that has crumbled down the hill. Rascal, the dwarven stonemason, identifies a safe path among the precarious stones. He tests the path, then urges the rest of the party up to join him in the courtyard of the keep.
The vast courtyard is muddy and filthy and the keep and battlements are mostly in ruins. In the northeastern corner a sinkhole has swallowed the walls. On the eastern wall a burned building is barred from the outside, REPENT written above the door in flaking red paint. In the southeastern corner is the only surviving tower of the keep. The mud of the courtyard is littered with tracks of men as well as of a myriad of strange beasts -- hawk-taloned, snake-tracked and more unrecognizable things. In the middle of the courtyard is a well made of black stone and this is where the party turns its attention.
The elven falconer Aviar Leafypants and Slapper the trapper investigate the well. Its walls are decorated with glyphs devoted to Chaos. As the two look into the well a peculiar visual effect causes the depths of the well to seem to move away even as it gets closer. Slapper is overcome by the vertiginous effect and tumbles into the well! Aviar scrambles to catch him, and would have if not for the errant lightning strike in his childhood that reduced his reflexes. Slapper makes one last grab for the well’s chain, misses, and his screams echo for long moments before fading away. Unknown to the rest of the party, the well is a wormhole leading into a nexus of pure chaos, and Slapper falls for several days before eventually being torn apart by its ravages.
Moving on, the party checks out the eastern building. It appears to be a recently burned chapel, its bronze double doors decorated with leering demons. It is barred shut from the outside. While examining the doorway, the miller/baker Dusty LeBuns spots a glyph-inscribed flagstone in the mud of the courtyard, but chooses not to waste time examining it. Instead the party tentatively unbars the door and moves into the building. It is a ruined temple to chaos, with fallen timbers and burned skeletons. Everything is still warm to the touch as though the carnage had happened recently. On the eastern wall of the room was a fountain of a toad of demonic mien, black ichor spilling from its mouth.
Aviar is first into the room and notices a golden censer emitting incense. He gingerly picks it up. The roguish Lucky LeSnare searches the room and found a small, locked iron coffer, which he puts into his pack, as well as three scorched but functional chain shirts, which the party splits up. He also notices a mace in a corner of the room, but this is forgotten in the chaos that ensues when Erasmus Cooper (the cooper) investigates the fountain. As Erasmus approaches, the hot, black, tar-like ichor animates and attacks! The party bravely leaps to his defense, rapidly pounding the ooze insensate with swords, spears, staves, and even a handful of Dusty’s flour.
The party departs and re-bars the chapel, then girds their courage and investigates the southeastern tower. The door is barred from within; listening at it reveals the sounds of human groans and bestial muttering. Jasmine, the porn star/trapper, Aviar and the halfling trader Lefty “The Gambler” McTiggy use the bar from the chapel door as a ram and smash down the door. Within is a tower covered with rotting hides of many beasts -- some with four legs, some with two -- as well as a group of hellishly mutated beast-men! Their chaotic features are inconsistent and warped. Horrifyingly, some of the party’s fellow villagers have been mutated in this way, among them the former Mayor Maggot, now ironically mutated so that flies, maggot and larvae are oozing from his orifices. The party storms the tower and attacks! As the halfling mariner, Tripod McSalty, stands in the middle of the room, the largest beastman of them all, a brute with the head of a bull, leaps down wildly swinging his axe. Ambush!
The party of brave little adventurers comports itself well, killing all six beastmen and their fell champion. Sadly, there is one loss: Icon, the indentured servant, is stabbed through by a beastman’s rusty spear. Freed from his life of servitude by sweet death, he passes into the other lands with a smile on his face. Free -- free at last! As Jasmine loots Icon’s body, she finds a locket on his corpse. Its contents? A crudely-drawn image of Jasmine herself! This poignant moment gives the players themselves pause.
The party turns its attention to the captured villagers chained to the walls. There are only a few here! They tell the party that some of the villagers were taken outside to the well and transformed into beastmen. The rest of the captives were taken downstairs into the depths of the tower only an hour ago! Make haste, brave party, who knows what fell purpose these abominations intend!?
The party gives the villagers cursory instructions for exiting the keep and hurry downstairs. They descend a long, twisted stone staircase. The air grows dank and wet as they proceed. Aviar hurriedly scoops a few gold coins off the staircase. Shortly the group enters a long room, lined with grim mosaics displaying fell scenes, brackish water running down the walls and collecting into a long pool. Ed Tedsen, Lucky and Digby find themselves under a compulsion to stare into the black pool. As they do, skulls bob up from the bottom of the pool, eyes glowing with unknown magical purpose! The three tuck away their newfound skulls.
The party also finds a series of alcoves in the rooms, containing time-worn, hooded robes lined with symbol of chaos in silver stitching. What a find! Several party members stow away robes.
The party hurries down the long steps. Winding around and around, they find themselves on a black sand beach, at a dark, underground sea. A tremendous standing stone etched in glyphs towers nearby. In the distance across the sea is the golden glow of a distant pyramid. As the party stares agog at this mind-boggling site, a dragon longship sails out of the inky blackness, parking itself some fifty feet offshore.
And here, the adventure ends! FOR NOW.