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[Fireday, 19
Sarenith 4708 A.R. continued]
The journey toward the
Cinderlands has reached Janderhoff, a dwarven sky citadel at the base of the
Mindspin Mountains. After a day spent in
the markets and conversing with a potential employer, the Harrowed Heroes have
settled in for a night’s rest at nearby inns.
But their slumber is shattered by a loud rumbling that shakes even the
solid stone walls around them! Goldcape
wakes up to realise that hairline cracks are forming, and hurries to pull
Yraelzin out of his room to investigate.
Hearing shouting and screams in the distance, they rush to
investigate. Meanwhile, The Reckoner
wakes to the noise and quickly dresses while Anorak snores loudly, adding to
the rumbling. The Reckoner finds other
guests and the innkeeper assembling in the common room, spreading word of
what’s happened: a bound earth elemental at a nearby forge has somehow broken
free! The Reckoner rushes back to wake
Anorak, and helps the dwarf begin the laborious process of donning his
enchanted chainmail.
Some tunnels away, Goldcape and Yraelzin investigate (despite the latter’s suggestion to just leave it to the dwarves). Goldcape moves quickly toward the source of the rumbling, flying on Rocky’s back through tunnels barely wide enough to accommodate the roc’s wingspan. Suddenly, rounding a corner, Goldcape sees the cause of the chaos: an earth elemental, almost forty feet tall, smashing everything—living or nonliving—around it! The forge where it worked is in ruins, as is the summoning circle where it was bound. Sword blanks lay shattered on the ground, troughs of quenching water are overturned, and bellows lie crushed under the stony heels of the elemental. Those forge-workers who didn’t escape in time lie bleeding and unconscious, slumped against the walls. Goldcape conjures ice spears that only enrage the elemental further, and it grabs a nearby a wooden cart and hurls it through the air to smash into the vanara! Goldcape, wounded, decides flight beats fight, and beats a hasty retreat. The sounds of destruction continue for several seconds but then terminate suddenly, with the unbound refugee from the Elemental Plane of Earth presumably sinking somewhere deep below the ground in search of its home.
Before long, The Reckoner
and Anorak arrive at the scene and Goldcape and Yraelzin return to
investigate. A patrol of several
heavily-armored dwarves arrive and intently question everyone around—including
those metalsmiths who can be revived.
The dwarves were forging weapons for Janderhoff’s contribution to the
war effort. One recalls seeing a gnome
with a white beard and a red hat near the summoning circle just before the
elemental broke free, but there’s no sign of the likely saboteur now. Frustrated but largely unharmed, the Harrowed
Heroes return to their beds.
[Starday, 20 Sarenith
4708 A.R.]
In the morning, Goldcape
notices that Yraelzin still seems curiously subdued. She gets him to open up, and he says he’s
been pondering The Harrower’s reading and wondering what it means that his
card, The Forge, came up reversed. If a
forge is normally used to make something, he says, perhaps he’s meant to do the
opposite: destroy something! He removes
his iron mask and holds it up for examination.
Sighing, he puts it back on. He
says he doesn’t doubt Razmir—proof of the Living God’s reign is
indisputable. But, he says, he has been
wondering if he was sent away from Razmiran on that colony ship bound for the
Arcadian Ocean because his fellow priests thought him annoying or
unworthy. After breakfast, he heads out
into Janderhoff’s labyrinthine markets alone.
The others shop as well, with Goldcape purchasing a magic wand allowing her
to change her voice and The Reckoner initially commissioning the construction
of a magical headband that would make him smarter, before changing his mind. Later, he purchases a magical backpack that
can hold far more than one would think.
At one point, while walking down a side tunnel, Anorak’s keen eye for stonework notices a secret door. He hurries back to the markets to find The Reckoner. Anorak opens the secret door and hurries down the tunnel beyond, but The Reckoner runs into a thick, viscous, invisible magical field! The vigilante is determined, however, and pushes his way through. The tunnel winds for some distance through the fortress before opening up at a vast cavern memorialising the Quest for the Sky—the generations-long trek of the dwarven people to reach the surface of Golarion. Once there, the dwarves built ten sky citadels—including Janderhoff—but many have been lost to memory or conquest. The cavern clearly also serves as a temple, with statuary and shrines to the dwarven pantheon and Torag in particular. Anorak and The Reckoner pay their respects before departing.
Over at the Stork &
Gull Inn, Yraelzin arrives bearing a deck of Harrow cards he says were hard to
find and quite expensive! He tells
Goldcape he can’t figure out how they work, as they didn’t come with instructions. Goldcape says they should find the dwarven
equivalent of a library. Alas, the
stacks of carved stone tablets and crumbling vellum scrolls are mostly written
in a language that neither can speak.
Once back in her room, Goldcape decides to finally read the stack of
papers they took from Vencarlo Orisini’s house while searching for him. The papers look like accounting ledgers, and
detail how Orisini Academy’s finances suffered over time—partially because
Vencarlo stopped teaching regularly.
[Sunday, 21 Sarenith 4708
A.R.]
In the morning, the group
discuss how to proceed on their journey.
Goldcape doesn’t want to head for Kaer Maga, citing the reports of how
strange and dangerous it is. However,
The Reckoner wishes to make some purchases of goods he hasn’t found in the
other stops during their journey so far.
With Anorak curious about Kaer Maga and hoping to find adventure there,
and Yraelzin offering only a shrug as he tries to puzzle out the Harrow,
Goldcape relents. She has Rocky fly the
group along the road. The group thinks
they’ll be able to at least reach Sirathu, but it appears that the scale on the
map of the area they purchased in Korvosa is wrong! Fortunately, no dangers arise as they camp
for the night.
[Moonday, 22 Sarenith
4708 A.R.]
Over breakfast, there’s further
discussion about whether or not to go to Kaer Maga. Goldcape and The Reckoner reach a compromise:
they’ll go there, but just for one day.
A few hours’ flight is enough to reach Sirathu, a hamlet on the
Yondabakari River. Ramshackle walls,
muddy streets, and a beautiful fountain of white stone from which not a single
drop of water flows marks it as a forlorn place. Shouts of “is anyone here?” lead to the
keeper of a rundown inn stepping out with an accusatory glance. Clearly unwelcoming of strangers (a bad sign
for an innkeeper), the man mostly shouts for the newcomers to shut up and
leave. The travellers are able to get a
little out of him—something about a young girl who has prophesied the fountain
will flow again once “the storm breaks” and the corrupt heart of Korvosa
becomes visible to all. Anorak,
frustrated by the man’s unfriendliness, takes a mighty swing at the statue with
his waraxe, but is unable to even chip it.
The Harrowed Heroes reach
Kaer Maga in the early afternoon. The
hexagonal, 80-foot-high walls of the city sit at the edge of the cliffs of the
Storval Plateau—a vertical barrier of hundreds of feet separating the southern
part of Varisia from the north. The
Reckoner directs Goldcape to fly Rocky toward the base of the cliffs where huge
bronze double-doors covered in strange runes lead to the Halflight Path—the
only practical way for land traffic to ascend to Kaer Maga. However, Goldcape flies Rocky higher and
higher and over the enclosed walls of Kaer Maga before landing in the only area
of the city open to sunlight—the center of the hexagonal ring, a vast
marketplace full of exotic goods and even more exotic buyers. Irritated with
Goldcape, The Reckoner stalks off and purchases light warhorses for himself and
Anorak, plus magical horseshoes to speed their canter.
Although the journey
hasn’t been a pleasant one, the Harrowed Heroes have reached the final bastion
of “civilisation” before the dangers of the Cinderlands.
GM Commentary
The encounter with the earth elemental was something I added because I thought it might add some excitement to the trip to the Cinderlands and it would tie into the idea that efforts were ongoing in several places to sabotage the war effort of Varisia's city-states against Karzoug's giant army (if I remember right, the "red-hatted gnome" was really a redcap working for the Army of the North). Like the burning of the granaries in Korvosa, however, I don't think the PCs really put two and two together--but that's okay. I had the elemental do some big cinematic things (like hurl the cart) and that was fun. The Reckoner spent the whole time slowly donning his armor, which was kind of funny--encounters at night can really complicate things for some characters.
Because Anorak was a dwarf and there is hardly any dwarf-themed material in the AP, I really wanted to take advantage of the brief stay in Janderhoff to add some flavour. I thought making use of dwarves' special ability to notice unusual stonework would be a good hook, as well as the magical repulsion-type field that would (ostensibly) only allow dwarves inside. But The Reckoner just couldn't take the hint! I think I had some clerical magic stuff planned to go off inside the temple, but it didn't activate since non-dwarves were present. It probably didn't matter in the long run, as it gradually became clear that Anorak's player just wasn't really that interested in setting flavour and character background, and was more of the "how do I make an awesome build?!?" type.
The little bit with the map having the wrong scale was a real thing. I think they had the "in-world" map from Varisia: Birthplace of Legends which had the wrong scale compared to my official super-giant Golarion map. The players were a bit irked, but I just figure in pre-tech fantasy times, it's very likely maps are inaccurate (just like in the real world a few centuries back).
Kaer Maga stressed me out a bit in the sense that I really like to portray settings "accurately" but there was a ton of material to digest (a sourcebook, modules, novels, etc.) and I just didn't have the time or energy for what was only a quick stopover. I tried to do what I could, but it probably wasn't a great portrayal of what's one of the most memorable places in Golarion.
The Reckoner buying the horses and magical shoes was because he and Goldcape were disagreeing a lot on where to go (there was still tension from the hippogriff incident of a session or two ago), so it gave him the option to travel quickly on his own.
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