Curse of the Crimson Throne Recap # 43 [RPG]

[Toilday, 23 Sarenith 4708 A.R. continued]

As they rest from the heat of the Cinderlands during their journey to the Kallow Mounds, the Harrowed Heroes see a truly fearsome foe approaching like an undulating snake capable of breaking through solid rock: a gigantic purple worm!  The Reckoner calls out a warning and judges he has just enough time to use various wands to cast spells to increase his combat prowess.  Goldcape leaps on Rocky’s back and tries to cast an evocation, but misjudges the distance.  Anorak grips his waraxe and readies spells of fire and lightning, while Yraelzin hurls the jade elephant figurine found in Arkona Palace—with a mystic word, it turns into a full-sized elephant that stands between the behemoth worm and the adventurers.  At Yraelzin’s command, the conjured elephant gores the worm with its tusks, slowing the beast.  But then the purple worm raises up to its full height and its maw comes crashing down, completely enveloping the elephant and destroying it instantly!

The Reckoner rushes in and smashes his war-maul into the purple worm’s thick chitinous exoskeleton.  But he’s not ready for its tail stinger to whip around and stab him in the torso, simultaneously injecting a toxin that turns his muscles to jelly!  Goldcape conjures ice spears that stab into the beast’s softer underbelly while Yraelzin’s magic turns the beast’s exoskeleton brittle.  Anorak tries to race in to aid The Reckoner, but the severely wounded purple worm is too fast and bites the dwarf, shaking him vigorously and nearly swallowing him.  But although injured and poisoned, The Reckoner has enough strength for a massive swing that finally brings the beast down!

 

After several attempts, Goldcape’s nature magic succeeds in drawing the poison out of The Reckoner’s body.  The purple worm’s corpse is butchered in the vain hope that it carries swallowed treasure.  Despite Goldcape’s warning that the worm’s flesh is dangerous to eat, Anorak harvests seven pounds of its flesh.

 

[Wealday, 24 Sarenith 4708 A.R.]

 

The Harrowed Heroes wake to find powerful winds swirling ash and dust across the mostly-barren surface of the Cinderlands.  But although it limits their vision and makes travel arduous, the wind at least helps keep the summer’s heat at bay.  Rocky’s powerful wings are strong enough to manoeuvre despite the air currents, allowing Goldcape to fly high enough to spot a route around the volcanic cones that blocked progress the day before.  After a few hours of travel, piles of stones arranged in rough pyramids begin to dot the landscape, with most topped with animal skulls.  The pyramids, which serve as both signposts and warnings, appear more frequently as the group travel east into the area known as the Kallow Mounds.  The Reckoner removes his helmet (a disguised symbol of the Red Mantis) and calls out that he and the others come in peace.  Without warning, four Shoanti warriors wielding bows and wearing white, skull-like face paint emerge from hiding places around them.  The Shoanti aren’t rude or hostile, but nonetheless demand to know why tshamek (strangers) come to the Kallow Mounds.  Goldcape does the talking for the group, and the Shoanti warriors visibly relax once they hear mention of Thousand Bones and his deceased grandson, Gaekhen.

 

The Shoanti warriors, known as Boneslayers of the Skoan-Quah (Clan of the Skull), lead the travelers further into the Kallow Mounds, where hundreds of cairns mark the resting places of revered warriors and elders of every Shoanti tribe.  Before long, the travelers see a small but permanent-looking camp: a few dozen yurts arranged around a fire circle.  Several Shoanti look at the newcomers with a mixture of hostility and curiosity before going about their daily tasks.  Sunning atop a cairn not far from the largest tent in the camp is a creature with a lion’s head and the body of a small dragon, but stumps are all that remain of its wings.  Anorak recognises the creature as a dragonne, and one of the Boneslayers explains that it is named Wicked Claws, and now protects the Skoan-Quah after its life was saved by the clan’s chief during a battle with a bulette.

One of the Boneslayers runs off and soon returns with a tall, rail-thin Shoanti man of sixty winters.  The man leans heavily on a walking stick—the polished femur of some giant beast crowned with a firepelt cougar’s skull—and wears a shirt decorated with countless jangling animal bones and a bearskin cloak draped about his bony shoulders.  Although his eyes are milky, as if he were blind, he navigates the camp without difficulty.  And oddly, a regal red-feathered crow sits on his shoulders!  Goldcape and Yraelzin instantly recognise Thousand Bones, and in return the shaman greets them warmly with words of welcome.  Ralph Blackfeather and Anorak are introduced in turn.  When the travellers begin to explain why they’ve come, Thousand Bones holds up a palm to stop them.  He says he knows that trouble in Korvosa has poisoned the Queen, and that he fears what she’ll do to the Shoanti if she continues building power.  But, he says, the time to speak of serious things is this evening, over the Bone Council Fire.  For now, the travelers should rest while Thousand Bones consults with the Skoan-Quah’s chief.  The newcomers are taken to a guest yurt, and food and water is brought to them.

Thousand Bones returns after about an hour, bearing the good news that Chief One-Life has agreed they may stay in the Kallow Mounds as guests of the tribe.  Ralph breaks the news that Rolth Lamm, the necromancer and suspected serial killer who had disfigured Gaekhen’s body, slipped through the group’s grasp again.  Thousand Bones nods sombrely and says that Rolth is a coward who lacks honour.  Thousand Bones thanks Ralph, Goldcape, and Yraelzin for retrieving Gaekhen’s body so that his spirit could be laid to rest properly.  He leads the group to the cairn under which Gaekhen’s remains lie, and Goldcape leaves a memento to mark his passing.

 

As the group are returning to the camp, the sound of several horses galloping in can be heard.  A half-dozen Shoanti, brash and young with tattoos very different than that of the Skoan-Quah, lead their mounts into the center of the camp.  Their apparent leader, an intimidating, muscular brave, pulls the body of a slain Shoanti from where it lays slumped over the saddle.  Boneslayers silently accept the body and take it away for internment.  Seeing the Korvosans, the leader of the newly-arrived Shoanti sneers and calls out for Chief One-Life.  “Why do the Skoan-Quah harbor tshamek trespassers?”  he says in the Shoanti tongue—which both Goldcape and Ralph are able to understand.  But Thousand Bones responds sharply.  “Tell me, Krojun Eats-What-He-Kills, when did the Sklar-Quah become judges of who trespasses upon the Kallow Mounds where the ashes of our fathers lie?”  Krojun snorts, “Your words change the question, Thousand Bones.  These ones bring trouble to the Cinderlands, and you know it.  The coming days shall reveal to us all who is right about them.”  “Perhaps,” Thousand Bones replies.  “But not today, and not here.  Would you have word that Berak’s burial was tainted by bloodshed get back to your Sun Shaman?”  Cords in Krojun’s neck strain, but then he exhales and grins.  “You misunderstand me, Thousand Bones.  My grief has wounded my words.  But see to it that no tshamek defiles our memories here.”

Krojun then pulls a leather loop from one of his packs.  “Certainly, though, guests of the Skoan-Quah must be brave to come this far.  You wouldn’t mind if I tested the courage and strength of your guests, would you?”  Thousand Bones looks at his guests with a shrug to indicate that the choice is theirs, and Ralph steps up immediately to accept the challenge.  Although the rules of the contest, called sredna, is unfamiliar to Ralph, its nature is abundantly clear: a test of strength, endurance, and willpower.  The two contestants face one another on their hands and knees with their foreheads spaced just over a foot apart.  The leather loop that Krojun retrieved is placed around the competitor’s heads, like a headband, so that the contestants are bound to one another.  When the match begins, each contestant is to spend three “breaths” staring into the other’s eyes before attempting to crawl backwards—and it’s clear the resulting tug-of-war will cause extreme pain as the leather digs into the soft part of the back of the neck and skull.

The match begins, and immediately Krojun begins to growl and gnash his teeth like a rabid dog to intimidate Ralph.  But Ralph gives as good as he gets, insulting Krojun’s bad breath.  The two begin to pull, their bodies straining while all in the camp observe.  They’re almost evenly matched and every time one manages to gain a few inches, the other pulls him back.  But Krojun is more experienced at sredna and has learned how to transform rage and frustration into raw strength—finally, Ralph is forced to give!  But although Ralph has lost the match, he has gained respect.  Krojun claps him good-naturedly on the shoulder.  “Almost as good as an aurochs calf.  Nothing to be ashamed about.” With a hearty laugh, Krojun reclaims his strap and returns to his kin to see to their brother’s burial.

 

As night falls, Thousand Bones invites the Korvosans to join him at the center of the camp for the Bone Council Fire.  The rest of the Skoan-Quah have retired early, leaving only Thousand Bones, Chief One-Life, and the tribe’s most revered shaman, an elderly woman named Ash Dancer, present.  Only Thousand Bones speaks, but Ash Dancer sprinkles the fire with a greenish-brown herbal dust, and the resulting fumes slightly blur the vision and bring on a feeling of ease.  Thousand Bones begins: “You have already done my people a great favour by returning the body of one of our warriors.  I sense now you come to me to ask something in return, yet know that by asking for this, you are helping us all.  The Skoan-Quah are a peaceful people, yet we are also all but shunned by our kin.  Our willingness to mix with tshamek shames many of my brothers and sisters in the other quahs.  Only their respect for our tradition of guarding and protecting the dead of all Shoanti keeps them from open hostility against us.  And thus, my words do not reach their ears when I warn them of Queen Ileosa and her rise in power.  They hear tales of the city in flames, of its kind dead, of disease ravaging its people, and they see this as a just punishment for a hated enemy.  My people do not see that a greater threat is growing in this turmoil.  And now, you come to me with concerns, seeking the aid of my people.  Speak of what you wish of the Shoanti, and perhaps we may find our needs are the same.”

 

Goldcape begins by explaining that the Seneschal of Castle Korvosa is still alive, and believes that Queen Ileosa has been corrupted by something she found in the deepest vaults under the palace: the fangs of an ancient warlord named Kazavon, which may be the same thing as an ancient Shoanti legend called Midnight’s Teeth.  Thousand Bones grows visibly distraught when he hears the words.  Ralph provides a full recounting of how the Harrowed Heroes fought the derro to recover Gaekhen’s body, discovered that the Queen’s own agents were responsible for the disease called blood veil that swept the city and killed so many, and how Rolth Lamm managed twice to escape justice for his crimes.  Ralph raises the possibility that the group has been guided on their path by forces seen and unseen—the divinations of the Harrower, and perhaps the spirits of the Shoanti peoples.  Thousand Bones nods with recognition and expresses his appreciation, as the Skoan-Quah value a tale well told above almost all else—for such stories can pass from mouth to ear across generations from time immemorial into futures of unimaginable duration.

 

Thousand Bones ponders for a long moment and then begins to speak again.  “My people dwelt where your people live now, not so long ago.  We remained there for many, many generations, but across the centuries my people have always kept the lore of our ancestors in mind, passing knowledge to the new generations.  Yet when Cheliax came to us with war and drove us to the Cinderlands so many years ago, we fought.  And died.  And many of those who died took this lore to their graves.  The name ‘Kazavon’ is not entirely unfamiliarly to me—it is a name associated with a great and ancient evil, and many Shoanti believe to repeat such a name aloud is to preserve the evil.  This, coupled with the deaths of so many lore keepers, has sequestered the knowledge I suspect you seek in the minds of a rare few: the Sun Shamans of the Sklar-Quah—the Clan of the Sun.  They alone preserve the history of the Shoanti time in the lands you now call Korvosa, but they do not readily share this with tshamek . . . or fellow Shoanti, for that matter.  Yet . . . . if you were to build your names among my people, to earn proper respect, even the eldest of the Sun Shamans would agree to provide the knowledge you desire.”

 

Thousand Bones congratulates Ralph for his fine performance in the sredna match against Krojun Eats-What-He-Kills, and says already the group has begun to gain respect among the Shoanti.  But much more would have to be done before a Sun Shamans would share the truths entrusted to them by their ancestors.  Thousand Bones proceeds to outline several possible ways the Korvosans could earn respect, emphasising that no single method will suffice, but no single method is mandatory either.

 

He begins by relating the tale of Skurak, a legendary Shoanti hero.  “Skurak was a great warrior and greater traitor to the Sklar-Quah.  He slew his brother, a man of even greater courage.  To the Sklar-Quah, family is purity—crimes against family are the greatest one can commit.  Although Skurak claimed the death was an accident that occurred while he and his brother were hunting, others spoke of murder spawned of jealous rage.  Skurak was declared a tshamek by the Sun Shaman and cast out.  But before Skurak left, he said he would be born again and return to his tribe.  This, he did.  He went to the killing grounds of great Cindermaw the Clan-Eater.  Skurak walked up to the beast carrying only his dagger.  Without fear he dove into the beast’s mouth and cut his way out.  He returned to the clan and declared he had been reborn, and had left his misdeeds behind in the cleansing fire of Cindermaw’s belly.  The legend says the Sun Shaman accepted this and Skurak’s time as a tshamek was spoken of no more.”  Thousand Bones says Cindermaw still lives, and if his guests were to travel to the great worm’s killing grounds and replicate Skurak’s deed, their legend would grow.  But such a feat would need to be witnessed by Shoanti eyes to gain veracity when the tale is told.

 

Thousand Bones then relates a second possibility: if they can convince a member of the Sklar-Quah to proclaim one of the Korvosans as his nalharest—honorary sibling—then the Sun Shaman would surely see this as a sign they are to be trusted. 

 

A third option, he says, is to secure the endorsement of a Truthspeaker—one who has lived many lives without lie, and who achieves the gift of speaking only truth after decades spent in chastity, self-control, and introspection.  But, Thousand Bones says, he knows of only one living Truthspeaker in the Cinderlands today—a man named Akram who lives among the Lyrune-Quah (Clan of the Moon).

 

Next, Thousand Bones speaks of the Thrallkeeper’s Mark, explaining how, in ancient times, a caste of spellcasters his people remember as the “Thrallkeepers” kept them as slaves.  Although the Thrallkeepers are now gone, some of their buildings remain.  Once such building lies in the Cinderlands, a dangerous acropolis some Shoanti warriors enter to prove their courage.  Those who return are marked by their experience and known to be powerful, lucky, or both.

 

Another means to earn the respect of the Sun Shaman is more direct: to undertake the Sklar-Quah’s Trial of the Totem and survive it.  This would be a demonstration of the travelers’ dedication and perseverance.

 

Finally, Thousand Bones raises the idea of demonstrating bravery and prowess in combat by slaying the long-standing enemies of the Shoanti and returning with trophies in the form of their severed heads.  Powerful orcs, giants, dragons, and criminals known to the Shoanti would earn the group esteem.

Thousand Bones says he has no intention of sending his guests into the Cinderlands on their quest alone or unarmed.  He calls forth four brave young Skoan-Quah Boneslayers—Ahalak, Hargev, Nalmid, and Shadrar—to serve as guides and witnesses to the adventurers’ deeds.  Ralph intuits that the way he and his allies treat the Boneslayers is another, unstated, test.  Thousand Bones then provides the group with some gifts in the form of magical wands, potions, and pots of Shoanti war paint.  He concludes by saying the group is welcome to stay in the Kallow Mounds as long as they desire, and to return for advice and rest as needed.  Thousand Bones and the other leaders of the Skoan-Quah then retire to their yurts.

 

Ralph makes a special point of welcoming the Boneslayers and getting to know them; it seems that Ahalak is the speaker for the group and the Boneslayers specialise in destroying undead.  Ahalak is quizzed about the distances to the locations mentioned by Thousand Bones.  Ahalak says he and the others move slowly and cautiously across the Cinderlands, and for them, the Ash-Blown Lands (Cindermaw’s hunting grounds) would be six days’ walk, while the Thrallkeepers’ Acropolis would be about five days’ walk, with the House of the Moon (where the Lyrune-Quah would be camped at this time of the year) a little further on from it.  The nearest location to the Kallow Mounds is the settlement of the Sklar-Quah—a place called Flameford.  Ralph says he’s leaning towards challenging Cindermaw as a first step, while Anorak is inclined to visit the Acropolis.  But for now, with the evening wearing on, the visitors settle down for a good night’s rest—knowing that, tomorrow, their real tests begin.

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GM Commentary

This is a pretty long recap, mainly because of the necessary exposition by Thousand Bones of ways that the PCs can earn the respect of the Shoanti.  I thought the introduction to the Kallow Mounds, Krojun, the sredna match, etc., went very well (I pretty much followed the script as outlined in the book).  I personalised the four Boneslayers assigned to the group by giving them individual names and personalities--I figure if they're going to be spending so much time guiding the PCs, they should be more than nameless background NPCs.  I was happy with the feel of the Kallow Mounds, and the style of speaking I adopted for Thousand Bones--solemn and dignified, but with warmth for those who aided him in a time of need.  The PCs did an excellent job telling their stories about what had happened so far, and it was encouraging to see how involved they were in the plot.  Some groups are like "why are we here again?", but I was fortunately to have players who took an active interest in the overall story.

The purple worm battle at the beginning of the session was pretty exciting.  The Reckoner proved his mettle, though that poison was hard to get rid of (it had a high DC for the purposes of neutralize poison).  I don't know why Anorak decided to carry seven pounds of its flesh around though :)

I have to give a shout-out to Paizo's artwork in the hardcover AP.  It's amazing, and really brings the setting and NPCs to life.