Sessions

Characters

• Ahaucatl a fainthearted and filthy animist, born in the sign of the Dwarf¹.
• Ahuatzi a merchant with glorious hair who craves knowledge. Born in the sign of the Mallard.
• Axatl a hairy but haughty knight, born in the sign of the Wolf-man.
• Oxlahun a delicate bard of rare talent and elusive renown, born under the sign of the Halfling.

Session 0

The group forms at a meeting with a fixer for the Ontei-Sûlét clan. Apparently the village of Tomexl has not turned in its yearly harvest of narcotic Ormuzd berries, and someone has to go and remind them of their responsibilities. They are paid 14 silver each up front with a promise of another 14 each on completion and the possibility of a bonus if all goes well.

With this agreed, the group sets out on the old high-road towards the village, but are ambushed by a strange wounded bear. After a brief fight, they recover some intact Etherglass shards from the bear's face and proceed on their journey.

Session 1 & 2

The group arrived at the village of "the Copper Tower", and found that the villagers seemed to be in the grip of a strange lethargy. After some investigation, they found the entrance to an old ruin, and while exploring it, they discovered that an ancient evil seemed to have convinced the villagers to waylay travelers and grind them down to paste. The paste was fed into a stone sarcophagus where some sort of creature seemed to be trapped. They fought several undead minions before finally clearing out the ruin. As they began experimenting with pouring water into the sarcophagus, it reacted violently by spewing streams of viscous purple goo. The players were spooked by this development, and the palpable feeling of evil emanating from the sarcophagus, and beat a hasty retreat.

When they emerged, they were met by the entire village's population led by the High Servant. In a face off they cowed the villagers to not attack, and the High Servant seemed to have some sort of possessed fit of rage before dying. In the aftermath the villagers agreed to go back to harvesting Ormuzd berries.

Back in Ortuxl, the group were debriefed by the Ontei-Sûlét fixer, and received healthy bonus of gold for their job, and a promise of discretion. They also handed over the golden key they found in the ruin, but not before commissioning a copy in secret.

The group went their separate ways, but agreed to keep in touch. With the notable exception of Oxlahun, they all kept their promise of secrecy ...

Session 3 - 5

Some time after coming back from Tomexl, Ahaucatl was approached by an earlier associate, Tenoch the Scaly, a thief of some renown. Tenoch had heard Oxlahun's stories and taken note of the purple goo. He let slip that he and his crew had observed a trickle of purple goo leaking from a cracked wall in the tunnels close to The Hive.

The group packed their things and went to investigate. They found the cracked wall and broke it down, to expose a walled-off complex that looked to be from before the Shattering.

As they explored the complex, they initially followed the trickle of goo, coming across strange machinery along the way. Eventually they found out that the goo was leaking in from one of the basements in the city above. Crawling up a vent, Oxlahun made a shocking discovery. In a small locked room below the brewer district, he found the very sarcophagus that they had seen below the copper tower. It became clear that the Ontei-Sûlét clan had moved the sarcophagus and were experimenting with it. Based on the stains on the sarcophagus, they had been feeding it blood. The party decided to retreat to their lodgings and return with flammable materials to light a fire around the sarcophagus and roast its inhabitant.

They returned the following day and set about their plan, but as they lit the fire a veritable tsunami of purple slime was ejected from the sarcophagus, flooding the basement and the chamber below where the party was waiting. They were all swept along and were soon drowning in the magical slime.

Instead of dying, they were transported to a strange realm on a dark plain with a lightning-wreathed tower in the distance. Through exploration they discovered that they had entered the dreamlands prison of the sarcophagus' owner, the Overseer Itzyoyotl. As they explored the strange place they were hunted by Itzyoyotl, enraged at their intrusion and meddling with her plans in Tomexl. While she hunted them, a strange visitor arrived as well, and while they never saw him, they were able to listen in on parts of his conversation with Itzyoyotl. He mocked her, and made it clear that she was drawing the attention of others like him, presumably Overseers as well.

Itzyoyotl was in a near-apoplectic rage after the visitor left, and she finally cornered the party in the dreamlands. Just as she was about to rip them limb from limb, they were saved as Tenoch and his thieves found them in the real world and washed the purple goo off them.

Session 6-8

Together with the thieves, the party explored more of the complex and came to the realization that the whole place was a form of factory that reduced drugged and hypnotized people to their liquified components and in turn produced Etherglass from that. They now had a machine that could seemingly produce the very substance that had not been seen since before the Shattering.

They returned to their lodgings to regroup, only to be met with a gang of armed brewers from the Ontei-Sûlét clan. The brewers politely requested that the party come with them to explain the recent events—the persistent rumors caused by Oxlahun's loose talk (and singing), and their possible relation to the recent devastating explosion in the brewery caused by their meddling with the sarcophagus.

The affair turned ugly, and the party drew their weapons and dispatched the clan brewers in a very public and messy way. Afterwards they fled into the tunnels where they sought out their Etherglass machine and hid it, before deciding to explore the lower parts of the Etherglass "factory". An area that had until recently been blocked off by some sort of acidic slime creature.

Session 9

After fleeing the scene of the fight in the Upper Hive, the characters returned to the exposed ruin of their earlier adventures. Here they discovered that the slime creature had moved into the upper area to feast on the corpses in the prison. The adventurers exploited this to explore the lower area. Here they found a strange central tunnel that seemed to be an underground concourse lined with abandoned shops. They also found the first real-world example of a Beetle Knight like the ones in the dream of the Copper Tower, but it was long dead and just an empty carapace. It did, however, have a strange ceremonial spear with a jade head.

Throughout the tunnels they heard a constant thumping sound, like the sound of a giant heart. Following the noise they found a large circular room surrounded by a moat of sorts. The entire floor of the room was covered in a massive summoning labyrinth with lines of gem dust, below a strange "forest" of hanging chains. It soon became clear that some sort of demon was trapped in the room, hiding among the chains.

The adventurers parlayed with the demon, and it revealed that it had been summoned by an overseer and that said overseer was still present in the city above! The party promised to return and free the demon if its information proved true.

As they looked around the rest of the tunnels, they came upon a hall where the exit was seemingly collapsed by a great explosion long ago. There were signs of battle in the form of skeletons, arrows, and spell scorches on the walls and floor. Most interesting, however, were the faded murals on the walls, seemingly displaying Overseers creating the world with magic, and a banner with the strange motto: "Make for us a garden, that we may harvest it."

As the party were moving to explore the other end of the concourse, they came upon another large open hall, with several doors exiting it. On the far wall was a large silvery door with a massive engraving of spiral, flanked by two large stone statues looking like stylized Beetle Knights.

As they were discussing how to proceed, they were interrupted by a sound from the stairs to the upper area, where a group of two Red Priests flanked by a handful of torchbearers had just entered.

Session 10

Picking up from the standoff at the stairwell, the party executed a tactical retreat, luring the newly arrived Red Priests and their torchbearers into the great hall housing the silvery spiral door. This intrusion triggered the room's guardians: the two massive stone statues—stylized Beetle Knights —awakened as golems and made brutal, short work of the priests.

By observing the slaughter, the party deduced the strict, underlying logic governing these golems: they act as wardens that only grant safe passage to those bearing a specific amulet, and they are programmed to violently intercept anyone attempting to approach the spiral gate while it remains closed.

Looting the remains, the characters recovered a grimoire containing an incantation called "Invoke Gate," designed to "open the way and find the path." A closer inspection of the priests' corpses also revealed that their tongues had been removed. Among their clan tattoos, from jeweler clan and a ropemaker clan, were also a number of magical binding tattoos.

Session 11 & 12

After the battle, they concealed the Etherglass machine in the tunnels, and returned to the surface to arrange a deal. Through their fence, Axochitl, they got in contact with the jewellers of the Kuatka clan, who agreed to buy raw Etherglass cubes at 100 gp each, with fused variants priced higher: 220 gp for a double and 500 gp for a quads. Delivery was expected within a week.

To avoid drawing attention, the party took precautions to lose any tails in the city. For fuel, they bought a Everflowing Cauldron from a local amulet merchant and spent several nights collecting blood from drunk sailors. While this was going on, Oxlahun took time out to perform as many places as possible in the harbor city, Antuxl, with his new catchy song. The song was a not so subtle retelling of the "true history" of the [[Overseers]], according to Oxlahun....

Around this time they learned that Tenoch, a scaly thief who had worked with them previously, had been captured. This was a problem, as Tenoch carried the only other eye amulet that could get past the golems guarding the ruins. Later they observed Tenoch being held in a draining cage near the great gate, and the last time they saw him, he was dead.

The party re-entered the ruins, avoided the remaining Red Priest patrols, and retrieved the fusing machine they found in the tunnels past the golems. Using the blood they had collected, they ran the machine and produced a batch of raw cubes and one fused double cube, then moved the machines to a secret passage.

Above ground, they learned that the surviving members of the Ontei-Sûlét brewing clan had come under the influence of the purple slime and were now hunting the party on behalf of someone called "Mother" — likely the Overseer, Itzyoyotl.

With their cubes ready, the party met with Chimalpococa, son of the Kuatka clan leader, to collect payment and discuss future business.

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1. See the House Rules "Kin" paragraph. ↩