Session 37
Month 5
Population 54,000, profits 220,000 gp. Vulfelind finally levels!
Galswintha is 11th; Chlodomer and Vulfelind are 12th; Merideth is 13th. With their shared profit system, Galswintha earns XP at more than 160,000 gp. Chlodomer and Vulfelind need the duchy to produce more than 240,000 gp per month. Merideth needs it to earn, er, more than 600,000 gp per month - for Merideth, adventuring and research is the only way until Galaufabonne is MUCH larger.
Galswintha has her apprentices identify items … and discovers that the four amethyst cylinder seals they’ve been sitting on for the last ten months are wishes granted by a djinni prince.
Chlodomer squeals delightedly and immediately begins rummaging through her wardrobes.
Galswintha hrms, and asks questions about how djinn compare to efreet. We come up with these answers:
Genies all form caliphates under princes, are hidebound and conservative, and are bureaucratic masters of twisted wording.Efreet: Fire elementals. Chaotic. Wicked and ruthless, they delight in the pain of others and the destruction of value, and are infamous for their twisted wishes. When Galswintha asks whether the fungal attraction to Galaufabonne and the purple worm migrations toward Galaufabonne are a side effect of her wish for prosperity, the Judge tells her she can take a month to research that.
Djinn: Air elementals. Neutral. They blow this way and that, and may be wicked or benevolent by individual dictates or whim. They are difficult to bind, because their nature changes!
Madrid: Water elementals. Neutral. Known for stormy tempers, but generally benevolent otherwise. Very, very difficult to summon without enraging; an enraged madrid tends to destroy things on arrival.
Dao: Earth elementals. Lawful. Extremely strict, forbidding, and autocratic. Will serve faithfully if bound, and their wishes are the most trusted of genies, but adherence to Law makes them the most difficult to bind at all.
When Chlodomer returns, breathless and flushed and armed with her old male clothing, Galswintha activates the first seal. A djinn prince appears, tall and handsome, and bows before Galswintha, his forehead and both palms touching the floor, then stands and stares at her, “You are not He who bound My Word.”
Galswintha: No.
Djinn: How did you come by His Seal?
Chlodomer, silk-smooth: She recovered it from His ship, lost for centuries.
Djinn: I see. Indeed, it has been some time.
Djinn, to Galswintha: My bound Word is in your hands. I would have It back.
Galswintha: Do I get a wish first?
Djinn, sighing: Please do not anger me. I would hate to destroy such a pretty little thing.
Galswintha, face reddening: …
Chlodomer: Her proper title, O Prince of Djinn, is Wizard, 12th Order.
Djinn: Oh.
Djinn, to Galswintha: My most abject apologies, Mistress. What is Your wish?
Moments later, Chlodomer is once again a man, the cylinder seal crumbles to dust, and the djinn prince returns home.
They set the remaining three aside for later discussion while they plan their next assault on Tepui West. Galswintha puts them in her pouch, just in case.
Tepui Overview
A tepui is a tall and vast mesa, often characterized by its own ecology and weather. This one is larger than most. The cliff-sides are thick with caves, ravines, chimneys, and falls; and the ancient remnants of thousand-foot stairways. One of those stairways was rebuilt by the Grim Fist.The tepui is moist and humid, with daily showers, constant mist and clouds, year-round streams and waterfalls, and a heated lake fed by underwater geysers.
The majority of the lake is in the northern hex. A hilly, cave-riddled, mossy cloud forest covers the rest. The three hexes are Tepui Lake (#0807), Tepui South (#0808), and Tepui West (#0707).
Tepui Lake probably has an island. The Grim Fist has not yet dared the fog.
Tepui West has the highest elevated terrain, with stone ruins rising in concentric arcs away from the lake. There are several visible objects:
- Some landmarks that they can only see because they know to look:
- The hill/cavern the two manticores were living in.
- The cleared patch where they found the brigands.
- The ashes of the hill giant gang's campfire.
- Concentric partial circles of stone ruin.
- The lower two-thirds of an obese humanoid sitting cross-legged. One pair of arms rests across the thighs, the hands (and whatever they were holding) broken off; a second arm on the left is held out, elbow bent and palm open upwards; and a second arm on the right is broken at the elbow. Even without the upper shoulders and head, the seated statue rises some 60 feet above the surrounding forest canopy (the crosslegged thighs are of a height with the trees).
- What appears to be several ship wrecks, grown over with trees and moss.
- A sunken entrance to what may be a vast cavern.
- Two lizardman villages along the lakeshore, separated by a few miles, with a dirt path between, and an additional path each further into the jungle.
Tepui South has the median height terrain (between the lake and the hills of West), and no sign of any major civilization ever having existed beneath its canopy … although it may have been any of a number of less permanent structures, such as farms. The visible objects:
- One lizardman village at the shore, with trail into canopy.
- A giant, moss-covered chiquinib oak, of a size with the Galaufchulis tree, but in poor health. And instead of rocs or pegasi, lizardmen have established a vertical village cut into the bark, a hollow hole is visible in the side, and giant lizards of some sort scurry along the outer portions.
- A single moss-covered ship wreck.
- A crude, lashed-rope bridge across a chasm.
- A crude pyramid of tree trunks topped by the skull of a giant humanoid.
Village North-on-Water
The party decides to tackle the northernmost village, on the strength of an argument from Vulfelind: if they have to run away, they don't have to run past the other village.Vulfelind, her invisible canoe, and Team Thief move into position above. Galswintha and Team Mage stay a cautious distance out, ready to move in. Chlodomer, Merideth, and Merideth’s Cavalry ride into the village to give the lizardmen a chance to leave without a fight.
There are 300 standard lizardmen in the village. 375 females. 60 champions. 13 warband leaders. And their chief - a sixth-level Thrassian gladiator with a vicious temper and a cruel streak. The biggest problem, however, is the Thrassian’s wives, who bear the marks of that temper, and thus make a peaceful resolution unlikely.
Chlodomer: HUH.
Merideth: Indeed.
Chlodomer: Don’t signal the girls.
Merideth, looking down at herself: …
Chlodomer: You’re a knight.
Merideth: Fair enough.
Chlodomer: Okay, komodo breath, here’s the deal. I’m going to chop you into tiny, teeny little pieces, and your people can choose to leave peacefully or not.The Thrassian takes a long look at Chlodomer’s quality of gear, his aura of power, and the circlet on the ducal brow … and gargles a command to his people. Who fail to move.
The shaman clears his throat, “I think you two work it out. I think we talk with winner.”
The Thrassian takes one more long look, then sprints for the lake shore … and bangs his head on the underside of an invisible canoe before a werefox and her crew appear in the midst of a backstab. The Thrassian is a corpse before he knows what happened.
Chlodomer: HUH.
Merideth: Indeed.There are some complications. The fifteen wives of the Thrassian now consider Chlodomer their owner, and the village considers him their Chief … and as long as he remains Chief, they will happily remain “loyal” to Galaufabonne.
Galswintha and the lizardman shaman sit down in the medicine lodge to discuss the situation. When she returns, the Grim Fist has a better idea of what’s going on:
There are roughly five thousand lizardmen (1,000 families) hunting, gathering, looting, gardening, and "farming" in the three hexes of the tepui, plus four villages (the three small lakeshore ones with around 75+ families, and the larger giant tree one with around 250 families). It is technically a "civilized" Chaotic domain.The Chief of Chiefs who rules the four villages and related tribes is not really powerful enough to hold everything together by himself … but he doesn’t have to be, because the Serpent King backs his claim to the position.
The Serpent King guards a terrible maze of catacombs, and is some sort of snake-bodied lizardman necromancer of terrifying power. The Serpent King also has servants other than the Chief of Chiefs: a mist-colored dragon; a giant human shadow (“the night walker”); an immortal warrior of some sort; and an awful creature of metal and glowing crystals that few have seen.
None of the villages like the Chief of Chiefs. They would much rather be allowed to murder and pillage and eat sentients without paying a vassal tax for the privilege.
But no worries: all of the Chiefs meet with the Chief of Chiefs once every seven days, so Chlodomer won’t have to wait long to get properly involved in the local politics.
The Grim Fist take advantage of the momentary respite and hospitality to explore the area this village controls. Chlodomer fends off the advances of fifteen slave lizardwomen. Vulfelind has a long, private conversation with Wordthief. Galswintha discusses the local politics with the shaman.
Merideth tries to not kill anyone.
Village Above-the-Cloud
A few days later, it is time to meet the Chief of Chiefs. Chlodomer puts on the ceremonial headress, and the Grim Fist and lizardman shaman walk the path to the Great Tree and then up the creaking and poorly-shaped stairs. Galswintha, long-accustomed to living and dwelling in such a tree, notes that it is in far worse condition than it looked previously. She fingers one of the amethyst cylinder seals in her pouch, then shakes her head.Near the top, the shaman announces Chlodomer as the new Chief by succession.
The Chief of Chiefs stomps over and sniffs him.
CoC: A human?
Shaman: This human is strong.
CoC: This I would see for myself.The Chief of Chiefs drags out a shaking lizardman, and speaks to it in hissing tones. Finally, it nods, and bares fangs and claws at Chlodomer, then leaps at the human, howling with rage.
Chlodomer lets the claws scratch uselessly on his armor, then wraps one ogre-and-giant-empowered hand around the lizardman’s throat, lifts it bodily, and tosses the lizardman off the tree. To the Chief of Chiefs, he says merely, “Let me know when you are ready to test my strength, and I will do my best.”
Chief of Chiefs grabs four more warriors in ill favor, and sends them against Chlodomer, who draws his sword and in one smooth motion, cleaves through all four, then yawns.
The Chief of Chiefs harumphs again, but lets it stand, and then states that the formal meeting will occur in the lodge in one hour, and then stomps away into the tree’s hollow. The other Chiefs look nervous.
A few minutes later, a dragon with palest blue scales crawls out of the hollow with the Chief of Chiefs, 18 feet long and winged. Its eyes glow briefly, then it gives a dry chuckle, and in quite elegant Frankish, “If I may hazard a guess? You are the individuals who slew Agape and Agathon?”
Chlodomer admits that this is true, hand on sword, and the dragon laughs, “Oh, most excellent. If I may advise? You may be wondering if you have gotten yourself in too deep - and you have - but my mistress would speak to you, and perhaps offer you an alliance rather than a conflict. Would you, perhaps, be willing to accompany me to speak with her?”
The Catacombs of the Serpent King
The party is escorted to the base of the vast multi-armed, headless statue, which turns out to be constructed on a fortress of substantial craft. They are brought therein to a courtyard, and then a Great Hall ...… and all but Chlodomer are instantly paralyzed at the sight of Her.
Her face is heart-stoppingly beautiful … and terrible beyond words. Dread washes over the room as She surveys it. Her skin is palest jade and her flesh perfect, but Her arms end in lizardman forearms and claws. Her smile is fanged. Her eyes are jet black, with amber hints of lambent light. Her lower torso is a coiled constrictor of the same pale green. Her hair - 18 feet of it - is silken black and straight.
She is as large as Iamanu, some sixty feet long, and Her perfect upper torso is easily nine feet of that. She wears obviously magical jewelry: an emerald-studded, platinum crown with a faintly-glowing third eye; emerald earrings; an ebon collar with a jade intaglio of a serpent; on each arm, a platinum torc, bronze bracer, and ruby-studded finger gauntlet; around Her waist, a delicate platinum belt.
Chlodomer, utterly immune to fear, bows as one ruler to another, “My lady, they regrettably did not tell me you were so beautiful or I would have traveled faster.”
And She laughs, and the dread - of very similar feel to that of mummies - evaporates in an instant. Galswintha nervously slips a hand into her pouch, where it wraps itself tightly around an amethyst cylinder.
“I am Lady Jade the Undying. The degenerate thrass insist on applying the term king, but truly, I do little more than advise their Chief of Chiefs. My role here is as guardian, not ruler, and I have little interest in world affairs beyond ensuring the security of My guardianship.”
Vulfelind raises an eyebrow, “Does that mean that if we conquered this area, but left this place to you, you would not interfere?”
Jade, with a razor smile, “That depends entirely on what I think of you after this meeting.”