Month: June 2019

The society of supernatural enthusiasts
Weekly Digest, vol 52 issue 4

A roaring crowd greeted Sir Singedham’s treatise on the great phoenix. Following the tale of hope, despair and love, subscriptions to the digest exploded, and we would like to welcome all our new readers. Sir Singedham has promised us , the novelisation of his journey to the Rowbel Ravine is almost complete and will be premiered at an exclusive book signing before years end. Stay tuned mystery hunters!

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Creature profile no 9: The Alp

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Few other monsters inspire so many myths and fallacies as the alp. Folktales describe their charms and their beautiful, seductive voices, as well as their loathing of virgins. What is true beyond any doubt is that they move without a sound and attack by surprise, rarely giving their victims as much as a chance to scream in terror.

Blood Addict.

As higher vampires, alps, or alpor as they are also called, don’t need blood to survive but are extremely addicted to it. Of all the higher vampires, alp are the weakest when it comes to controlling their darkest urges. They lack the restrain and manipulative skills of the bruxa or the cunning edge of the katakan, making it very difficult for them to hide in the midst of civilization. To indulge in their addiction alps rely mostly on the poor judgement or social isolation of their prey, hunting lonely men, drunkards or notorious perverts.

She-Devil.

Alps, just like bruxae, are womanoid, exclusively appearing as female creatures. They have the power to change into a beautiful female humanoid, often an elf, and for this reason they are commonly mistaken for succubi, people believing them to be lecherous and inclined to seduce handsome young men. Some even pretend they are able to turn into a black dog or a venomous toad, but this is pure nonsense.

Home Invader.

If cornered, alps are more than capable fighters, their natural magical abilities allow them to daze and feed on their prey easily and their hands end in dangerous claws. Truthfully though, alps prefer to attack unconscious victims. They will sneak into bedrooms at night, draining the blood of the sleeper and leave before dawn. The alp will then return the following nights to feed again on the same victim, until it’s caught or the victim dies. For some unknown reason, alps seem to develop a mystical connection with their sleeping victims, having a hard time to let them go.
This weakness can be used against the alp, for it makes its behaviour somewhat predictable.

Between Beasts and Men.

Alps are ambiguous vampires, they cannot stand to be too far from humanity, as they need to satisfy their blood addiction, nor can they hide directly among men, due to their lack of control. Therefor an alp is reduced to share the same refuges and lairs than lesser vampires, lurking between the world of men and beasts. To the contrary of lesser vampires, alps do care for comfort and will build their lair accordingly, garnishing it with furniture and accommodations, even art sometime
SS.

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Popular request

A number of budding members of the society have enquired after the mythical gemstone dragons these last few days. A man of the people, and always keen to act upon the inspiration provided by his wonderful listeners, SS has performed some research and is crowdsourcing an expedition to uncover new information on these spectacular creatures and return to Namburg with stories to regale his supporters.

Preliminary research has provided a number of leads – Windsoar castle houses the last great transmuter Zarini who was known to be close friends with A particular creature who was reputedly made entirely of rubies – he will likely delight SS with his tales and we expect them to become fast friends.

Other chapters of this upcoming best seller include SS following up on rumours of a great saphhire beast spotted centuries ago by shipwrecked sailors on the great Knaru Isles, shrouded by impassable storms – they were rescued by court wizards who were able to both scry and teleport them to safety. Their tales were thought to be hogwash, but your discerning author suspects otherwise! Only a sailor extraordinaire such as SS could navigated the tempest to bring you the greatest stories known to Namburg! By the twins! (can we still print this? -editor)

Our journey will continue on a vaulwide tour de force as we visit the deserts of the east to hunt for around Rini where a mountain of amethyst was said to appear in the sands shortly after our victory moon greated us ! The e.m.a.i.l is as hot as it gets!

Dragons have been spotted at both the mountains east of Selegina, and a red dragon (ruby?) was allegedly seen swimming through the sea to the south of South Hallow.

Finally, The sunless sea is surely the perfect location for an ancient and mysterious creature to hide itself from our curious eyes, no? Your author suspects that deep veins of topaz found in the frozen north near Caer Mynn may lead to deep and excellent adventures!

Donations are now being accepted – expected cost for this expedition is 500,000 g. This will include the building of a custom airship, an accompanying fleet of sailing vessels, the battalion of soldiers and wizards tower for research and defence. The expected completion date is within the decade, so hurry fast! Applications are welcome to join the adventuring party, must have own health insurance, minimum 6 months campaigning experience, no magic items are provided, proven survival under extreme circumstances and any direct contact with gemstone dragons extremely desirable. Bards need not apply.

Tier 1. [ supernatural enthusiast] 1g-10g / year. – you will be thanked in our book series and receive easy access to the first draft!

Tier 2. [ supernatural obsessive] 10-20g/year . All the tier one awards, and your name will be emblazoned across the bow of our airship, working name “ The Supernaturalist”

Tier 3 [ supernatural champion] 20g+/year. All the tier 1 and 2 rewards plus. We will read your name to the first gemstone dragon we find and tell them you said hi.
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Quest log.

Date: The night of the Vigil, the day before the masquerade ball.

Tensions are high. Multiple factions are vying for control of the city, and either using the moon as convenient leverage, or ignoring it completely. Suboptima have manged to ingratiate themselves to varying degrees with all the key players. Things have become complicated in classic over ambitious Eoin compounded by lateral thinking Suboptima. They can be deconvoluted as follows:

The Kaiser Matiyias and his son Wilhelm:

Not a particularly popular or noteworthy royal family, but the true heirs to power. Wilhelm has asked for your help in removing Mario and if possible, disempowering the church, for which he holds no particular love. It obviously needs to be a secretive and ideally “outside” job. He thinks he has very few loyal guards remaining and doesn’t not think he has the popular support of the people. His father was a peaceful ruler and maintained a calm, passive state and status quo, until strategic assassinations in Salt and Wounds removed his key allies within their city and he found himself alienated and unable to control rising fear and tensions. Wilhelm was attacked by pirates en route and seemed reluctant to speak much about it in the Flagonborn. He owes you a bit of gold. Wilhelms sister used work with Mario, but they no longer do. Details unclear.

Mario

Arrogant but a genius. First attempted frame the party over a year ago IRL and has been pulling strings for the entire campaign. The party are aware of the tip of what surely must be an iceberg of control. Having goaded and ushered the Herald forwarded into summoning the moon for him, he then managed to spy on the party, first using his initial plant of Jeremiah Trope into a promising mercenary band and later via Madga’s scrying amulet. Having sent his Doppler companion in the form of Alistair to ensure you had the key to Ashenkirk and could carry out your purpose, he trusted you to remove his now unnecessary tool – the Herlad, which you did wonderfully. Shame about Tulip.

He aided the church designing and disseminating the redrot (via herald) and the necrophage and gained their trust and alliance, which he has used to whip the populace into a resentful anger towards salt and wounds.

His goal, in so far as he has revealed it to you, is to break this cycle of scholars and their moons, by first controlling and unifying the entire world under his banner, and using his absolute power to save Vaul. He is basically the cutthroat and Machiavellian Hero the world needs, in his opinion.

Clinks exceptional intel hunt revealed however that he has a secret lover, and you are aware of the location they meet in, a small inconsequential tea house. Transpires you think you actually met his lover Sofia, who helped him frame you, and who he presumably then installed into power after murdering her father for her. Politics eh?

Clink suspects he is at the very least over seasoning the soup, as it robbed Gritgoz of HP for 48 hours. Gritgoz was understandably frustrated, but knows that the best poisons are odourless, tasteless, and difficult to detect. This isn’t Marios first toxicity rodeo.

He has promised you a barony, and insane power and riches should you help him. You would be his lieutenants.

The Road

Your main contact is Radokaf thus far. A jealous barmaid seemed unwelcoming to Mes when she enquired at the usual recruitment site. A scattering of cells, the road is a fairly vast network, and a thorn in Marios side. He has told you he doesn’t know what they are planning, and wants you to find out. They have spent the last number of years sneaking explosives into the capital – you first became aware of this in episode one and two,  but it wasnt confirmed until the barrels in the sewers were found to be full of aurite. Thus they have a bomb set up somewhere, and are preparing to begin the revolution during the maskerade ball. They have quite a bit of support within the city, and Bardnet recons a civilwar would divide families down the middle. It feels like a 50/50 split on the streets. Radokaf agreed to hold off for a better plan after you rescued fingerless carlotti, his failed operative , but you have promised to provide it before the ball, otherwise its all systems go. He may have forgotten the password.

The Church

Interested mainly in consolidating power, they have had a wonderful year, with the undead plague, and now war. Popularity is at an all time high. The leader of the Church, the Cardinalis, has asked you attend the vigil tonight to help him unearth the cause of annual murders that plague the event and are hugely worrying and embarrassing for all. You come highly recommended from Mario.

Key intel gathered:

Namthar did not die during the last war, but is instead locked in the statue. It is unknown if this is against his will or not. This is not public knowledge, and perhaps nobody knows . Radokaf will be wondering what you found in that tomb.

Gemstone dragons were here once, left the intel re Namthar? The last great scholar disappeared to his flying castle , Windsoar castle. Ernie has asked the observatorium to be searched for intel.

Gritgoz is a solid jockey, having killed Seymour, Marios last champion jockey. After arriving at a suspicious hidden room marked on a map they discovered in the safe house, about 36 hours after ransacking the safehouse and murdering the jockey who was supposed to turn up for work the previous day, they found the room deserted.

Mes has the makings of a cracker of a brew now.

Ernie learned that city sized objects are dropping from the moon onto the surface of vaul. Had Clink been present, memories of Bastion may have flooded back.

The black flags await the signal to become m o o n p i r a t e s

Donkey boys are working in the observatorium havnt heard about your presence yet.

Your magic items are in stock should you want them.

Other goings on:

Bardnet: Whereitis remains an important strategic village for the war, and it’s a key supply line to the lancers in the front. Most of the buildings have been commandeered now by judge konstantine.

Ernie’s troubles grow as he is now powerful enough to summon malignant demons sent my his.. patron. The big fella has grown sick of his stealing and is trying to stamp him out.

Camelots sword collection grows, as does his deep connection to the pony he rides. His desires and motivations remain mysterious , beyond swords of course. His people , none of whom are sword masters toil miles below, somewhere in the sunless sea.

Clinks Father stalks the corridors of the castle as bardnet grows and clinks reputation of a datamonger and performer extraordinaire are consolidated. A lucky scry last week revealed a slight problem in the network however. Clink did not subscribe to Sir singdham’s newsletter.

Gritgoz walked into a tree.

Your centaur squad have returned to your tower on your orders, in light of Marios veiled threats. Situation unknown.

You’ve got nothing to wear to the ball if your going.