The Gaming Den

Where the High Priestess is:
'When we realized that Ulrakaah was sending her demonic forces through the portals to attack us,' says Castrabel, 'the High Priestess hid everyone in the city. She has placed them on another plane where they are safe for now, but it has left the city vulnerable and all sorts of monsters have got in. The High Priestess is still here, however, hiding in a secret chamber behind the shrine of Lunara in the main temple. If you give the correct offering to Lunara, the concealed door will open.'

The temple:
'There is a balance in everything,' says Castrabel. 'Between day and night, between left and right, between chaos and order. You cannot have one without the other. Throff tries to keep the balance in the universe, and there is a balance here. This temple is symmetrical. It has a light side and a dark side. The north side is a mirror image of the south side and the Temple of Throff is at the center.'

The Gates of Death:
'The Gates of Death are right here under the temple,' says Castrabel. 'That's why the city was made invisible, so nobody could find them and open them. We work here all our lives keeping the city safe, but now Ulrakaah is trying to create enough demons to open the gates. I've never been brave enough to go down and look for them. The old entrance was sealed by a rock fall, but there is a secret tunnel somewhere in the temple. While I've been praying in here I've heard lots of banging and crashing. I think demons might be trying to break their way through.'

Where to now?

Go to Lunara, offer fish.

Retracing our steps:

You are in a long hall running roughly east to west, with wooden walls and a high ceiling. It is full of bunk beds. This must be the dormitory where the priests and the acolytes and the temple workers sleep. The walls are covered with paintings of Glantanka, the Sun Goddess, and there are three doors here: the heavy iron door leading to the Walkway of the Dawn, another at the eastern end of the dormitory with a sun symbol on it, and a third in the same wall as the one leading to the Walkway of the Dawn with a symbol of wheat on it.

You are in the Walkway of the Dawn. At the southern end is the archway leading to the Pool of Mysteries, at the northern end is a heavy iron door. Halfway along is a smaller door on the west side, with purple light spilling underneath it.

You are in the heart of the Temple. The great silver statue of the goddess Throff stands before you.

And now we offer dried fish to her:

You put some dried fish in the bowl and send a prayer to Lunara to help you find the priestess. Nothing happens.

Let's try an apple this time, as we can try again:

As you place your apple on the dish, smoke rises from it. For a moment you feel light-headed, but when the smoke clears you see that a passageway has opened up behind the shrine.

(I assume we enter the passageway.)

You walk down the passageway and it opens out in a windowless stone-walled cell. A woman is standing waiting for you inside what looks like a shimmering ball of cold blue fire. She is dressed in green robes and it is hard to tell how old she is; one moment she looks like an old woman and the next she looks like a young girl. You have found the High Priestess. Next to her is a bronze water dish on a pedestal. She stirs the water and looks at you.

'So, you have discovered my hiding place,' she says. 'Only one who is pure of heart could do it. I welcome you, young acolyte. My name is Alesstis and I have been guiding you and using my influence to help you make the right decisions. You have arrived just in time and now it is up to you to perform the last act of this terrible drama and save all of Titan. Do you have the smoke-oil with you? I need only one vial. If you have more, you may keep the rest.'

(Colin does not have any smoke-oil left.)

'If you have come this way without any smoke-oil...' says the High Priestess, her face showing infinite sadness. 'Then you cannot save Titan. You will have to stay with me here in this cell and pray that another makes their way here who is more fortunate than you...'

Your adventure is over.

So do we want to try again, and if so, then how? Start over from the entire beginning (either with Colin or a newly rolled character), go back and just assume we didn't try to cure Fossick's daughter (and possibly other decisions we know now are "bad"), or something else entirely?

Darth Rabbitt wrote:
So do we want to try again, and if so, then how? Start over from the entire beginning (either with Colin or a newly rolled character), go back and just assume we didn't try to cure Fossick's daughter (and possibly other decisions we know now are "bad"), or something else entirely?

A note about the plot hole I mentioned earlier in the thread, that may influence your decisions.

As far as I could tell when reading it, there is no point in the endgame where you are asked if you have met Alesstis, and you can reach the ending by just completely ignoring her; the book just assumes you have.

Mr Shine wrote:

Darth Rabbitt wrote:
So do we want to try again, and if so, then how? Start over from the entire beginning (either with Colin or a newly rolled character), go back and just assume we didn't try to cure Fossick's daughter (and possibly other decisions we know now are "bad"), or something else entirely?

A note about the plot hole I mentioned earlier in the thread, that may influence your decisions.

As far as I could tell when reading it, there is no point in the endgame where you are asked if you have met Alesstis, and you can reach the ending by just completely ignoring her; the book just assumes you have.

Oh, right. I completely forgot about that.

...I mean, they did say you'd need the oil. But why they'd let you actually fail the book like 10 pages in, and only tell you that for sure this late... that's pretty much a middle finger, right?

Cheerful to proceed on either backtracking, rerolling, or just penetrating the plot hole gleefully. Whatever .

There is no oil that you can obtain except the vials you start with, then?

Whiysper wrote:...I mean, they did say you'd need the oil. But why they'd let you actually fail the book like 10 pages in, and only tell you that for sure this late... that's pretty much a middle finger, right?

There are essentially two paths through the book; both are winnable but one's a lot easier than the other. We took the harder of the two. The easier way involves leaving Port Blacksand with the ten starting vials, in which case using any one of them isn't a game over (you only need one to give the priestess, so you can use the other nine).

Agreed that it's a "fuck you" that this isn't actually checked until the end.

SlyJohnny wrote:There is no oil that you can obtain except the vials you start with, then?

That is correct.

So Whiysper wants to continue in any way. Anyone else? Specify if you have a certain way you'd like to continue by.

Let's retcon that we helped Fossick's daughter, lose the items we gained from it (and maybe a couple of extra cures to account for the skill bonus we benefited from) and just continue as if we had the smoke oil still in our possession.

MisterDee wrote:Let's retcon that we helped Fossick's daughter, lose the items we gained from it (and maybe a couple of extra cures to account for the skill bonus we benefited from) and just continue as if we had the smoke oil still in our possession.

The SKILL boost from the Hero Medal never actually came up. It doesn't have anything indicating that the bonus can let you exceed your Initial score, and Colin never took more than 1 (temporary) Skill hit. We wouldn't have lost anything other than Fossick's rewards for curing his daughter.

So here's what would have happened, more or less. I openly admit that for sake of getting the LP back on track I'm making a few choices that would avoid combats/other paths:

Fossick grows red in the face and shouts at you, his breath reeking of Skullbuster. 'I fed you and gave you shelter and offered you my hospitality,' he rants. 'And this is how you repay me.' He throes a chair at you. 'Get out! Get out! Get out of my house!'

(There's a choice to fight him but I'm avoiding any unnecessary conflicts.)

As you run for the door, Fossick picks up a heavy fire iron from a rack near the stove and hurls it at you. Test your Luck. (7, which was Lucky at the time.)

You catch the iron before it can hit you in the head and run out of the door.

Add the fire iron to your Weapons List.

Weapons section wrote:This improvised weapon will cause an enemy 2 STAMINA points of damage but wielding it in battle reduces your Attack Strength by 1 point.

It's raining harder than ever outside the cottage and you're exhausted. (Choices are to inspect the barn or hide in the woodshed, but checking the barn doesn't lock you out of going back to the woodshed.)

You look in your pack to see if there's anything that might open the locked barn door. (There are choices to pick the lock with our fishhook, hack the door down with an axe, or smash the lock with the fire iron. Colin didn't have an axe then, so it's either the first or the third, and I think the first takes precedence, and I know it's the better option.)

Working quickly, you jiggle the fishhook in the lock until you feel it snap open. Slowly you pull the door back.

An animal snorts in the darkness. It has big, yellow teeth and black, staring eyes... (There's a choice to run away, but we know that the only thing in the barn is the horse that Fossick would have given us for curing his daughter, so I see no reason to do so.)

It's only a horse. And there's a saddle and bridle hanging nearby. Quickly you saddle the beast and lead it out of the barn before jumping on to its back and kicking its flanks until it caters away.

You ride through the woods, leaning forward and clutching tightly to the horse's neck to avoid being hit by any low-hanging branches in the dark. The horse is strong and fast and it's not long before you come to the edge of the woods. It's easier going in open country, and not so dark, but you're still not sure exactly where you're heading. The horse wants to go in one direction, along a path it's obviously taken many times before. (We know from experience that it wants to go to Salamonis, and so do we.)

You gallop on through the night, wondering where the sure-footed horse will take you. As the hours pass, you doze off in the saddle. (Add 2 STAMINA points.) You are eventually woken with a start by a noise like thunder in time to see a familiar black carriage go rattling past you in a cloud of dust.

You look at the position of the sun and figure that you must have ridden all night and most of the following day. You find that you are still sitting on the horse's back, and it has stopped to crop some grass by a river that passes below some high city walls. From what Brother Tobyn told you, you think this must be Salamonis, famous for its ancient walls.

And from there it moves on to where we ended up going before. Basically, relative to the other path, we lost 3 STAMINA, 1 LUCK, and our pick of Fossick's treasures in exchange for keeping our smoke-oil (and getting a fire iron I suppose). Now back to the present:

You give the High Priestess a vial of smoke-oil and she smiles. 'With this as a seed, I can grow as much oil as we need to banish the demons here in Allansia,' she says. 'But Ulrakaah herself must be stopped or she will simply create more. You will need to arm yourself with both the knowledge and the weapon needed to pass through the Gates of Death and defeat her. To do that, you must first find the Holy Man who is hiding somewhere in this temple.'

Ask Alesstis about Ulrakaah?
Ask about the Gates of Death?
Ask about the Holy Man?
Go back to the Temple of Throff?

Adventure Sheet
Colin Hunt
SKILL: 11/11
STAMINA: 14/18
LUCK: 3/11
Equipment: Traveling Clothes, Lucky Anchor Charm, Silver Ring, Bier Goggles
Vials of Smoke-Oil: 0
Gold Pieces: 18
Weapons: Lord Azzur's Khopesh (+1 Attack Strength, extra +1 attack/damage vs. demons), Temple Guard's Axe (+1 Attack Strength, +1 damage on doubles rolled in combat), Fire Iron (-1 Attack Strength)
Items: Fishhook, Jar of Healing Ointment (+4 STAMINA when used), Poison Antidote, Silver Trowel, Map of Trolltooth Pass, Bronze-Colored Jewel
Compasses: Brass Compass, Silver Compass, Bronze Compass
Provisions: 1 meal (+4 STAMINA when eaten), Dates (+3 STAMINA when eaten)
Keys: Icefinger Key
Magic Potions: 'Collywobbles', 'Dragon's Breath,' 'Nostalgia' Perfume, 'Pretty as a Picture,' 'Thick as Thieves'

In order: Holy Man, Gates, Ulrakaah then leave

The Holy Man:
'When I knew the Invisible City was under attack,' says the High Priestess, 'I sent to Kaynlesh-Ma for the Holy Man, who knows Ulrakaah's weaknesses. But before he got here things became so perilous that I had to protect my people and so transported them into another dimension. I then hid myself here so that I could watch over the temple. I can see outside events reflected in the surface of this enchanted water.' She nods to the bronze bowl. 'So I know the Holy Man is here, but, like me, he is also hiding, behind a secret door in the temple kitchens. To find it you must lift a certain metal dish attached to a lever.'

The Gates of Death:
'Many, many years ago,' says the High Priestess, 'these plains were a rich and fertile land, and this was a beautiful place. It was called the Gleaming City, and was famous for its copper-clad towers. But then the War of the Wizards broke out and tipped all of Allansia into chaos and turmoil, and, when all eyes were looking elsewhere, a demon portal appeared on the plain nearby. A demonic horde poured through the portal from their realm and the people of the Gleaming City tried to defend themselves but the demons were too many and too strong. In the end, the city mages used a great and terrible weapon against the invaders. First they built an enchanted prison in the caves beneath the city and once they'd finished it they summoned up a magical firestorm that rained down on the demon army. In the process the people of the Gleaming City destroyed not only the demons but also themselves and their fine city. All was melted or blasted into rubble and everything that lived, people and demons alike, was hurled into the prison and sealed behind the Gates of Death. It was the only way to prevent the demons from rampaging across the rest of Titan. The once great city was turned into a blasted spire of rock and bronze. A few people survived, however, by sheltering in the caverns beneath the rock and from the wreckage of the old they started to build a new city—this city—with the sole aim of of guarding the Gates. They made the city invisible with magic spells, so that anyone who looks upon it believes that they cannot see it.'

Alesstis pauses and looks at you with tenderness. 'You will have to learn how to pass through the Gates and confront Ulrakaah. Seek the one who calls himself the Holy Man. He will help.'

About Ulrakaah:
'Ulrakaah was once a high priestess of this temple,' says Alestis. 'They say she was once the most beautiful woman in all Allansia, but she grew proud and vain. She wanted to use the power of this place to rule not just this city, but all of Titan. She used dark magic to grow stronger and it ate away at her until she became a monster. The priests of Throff finally rose up against her and imprisoned her behind the Gates of Death, where she has remained ever since, growing ever more powerful. Now she is strong enough to create portals and send her demonic forces into this realm. Her creatures are allying themselves with all the twisted forces of Chaos in our world, and when there are enough of them they will storm the temple, open the gates and release their queen. Already there are monsters here in the city. You must slay Ulrakaah. And to do that, you will have to use an enchanted khopesh. There are two, one purple and one black. They are the only weapons powerful enough to defeat her.'

(A new topic is unlocked here. I assume we ask about it.)

The enchanted weapons:
'Ulrakaah herself forged two enchanted blades to help her conquer Allansia,' says the High Priestess. 'One from purple demon steel and the other from black steel she got from the Dark Elves of Tiranduil Kelthas. The blades have magical properties and in their time were the most powerful weapons in Allansia. When Ulrakaah was banished to the demonic realm on the other side of the Gates of Death, the weapons were taken from her. They lost much of their power and were hidden in the Icefinger Mountains. Lord Azzur somehow managed to find one of them, the other was found by an adventurer named Hikaz Mandeera. Hikaz was on his way here, in the hope of using it to defeat Ulrakaah, when he was ambushed in Trolltooth Pass by a freebooter known as Sinna the Sly. Sinna stole the black khopesh. It seems he had a plan to destroy Ulrakaah and loot our treasures, but I do not know what happened to him. If you do not have Lord Azzur's khopesh, you will have to find Sinna and take the black blade from him. There is no other way to defeat Ulrakaah.'

And that leaves us back at the heart of the Temple. Where to now?

Back to the pantry, check the cheese on the metal dish, then do whatever option involves interacting with/removing the dish.

The moldy cheese is sitting on a metal dish. There are maggots crawling all over it, but at least they'll add some protein to your diet. As you lift the dish, however, you see that it's attached to a steel rod that goes into the wall. It's some kind of lever. There's a click and a section of the wall slides back. You have found a secret opening. (I assume we enter.)

You are in a secret passageway with a narrow hole on one side and a small doorway on the other. The walls have been crudely carved out of the rock and there is purple light coming through what looks like a barred window at the eastern end.

Investigate the window?
Crawl through the hole?
Go through the small doorway?
Return to the kitchen?

Doorway.

Sure, doorway.

You walk through the door and realize you have walked into a giant mouth. It seems that Ulrakaah's demons are taking over the temple. Its huge jaws start to close and you watch helplessly as the upper row of teeth comes down. The next thing you know the tongue moves and you are swallowed by its gaping black gullet.
Your only hope is that the mouth won't like the taste of you. Test your Luck. (1,3=4; Unlucky.)

You are swallowed by the monstrous demon rock-eater. Your adventure is over.

OK, so that's a no-go. And kind of out of nowhere. I see two courses of action (assuming we don't just call it quits).
1: Assume we didn't ditch the kids to the Demon Mother (the thing that caused us to get a really big hit to our LUCK) in which case we'd have survived the mouth.
2. Just pretend this death didn't happen. It's kind of bullshit anyways.

I think you misread that 6 there, Darth - it says 1 in your transcript, but I'm sure it's a 6 from where I'm sitting .

Or, yes, don't abandon the little meatbags. Whichever!

Whiysper wrote:I think you misread that 6 there, Darth - it says 1 in your transcript, but I'm sure it's a 6 from where I'm sitting .

That would be worse. When Testing your Luck you need a low roll. In this case Colin only had 1/12 chance of survival but the dice gods came close.

As the three children run screaming from the hut, the Demon Mother picks up a meat cleaver from the table and advances towards you. You choose your own weapon and get ready to do battle.

DEMON MOTHER SKILL 7 STAMINA 7

Combat Log:

Mother 14, Colin 19. Mother is at 4.
Mother 16, Colin 22. Mother is at 1.
Mother 14, Colin 24. Mother is dead.

You are glad that the children weren't here to see the demon die and turn back into their mother, and you quickly search the hut before they return. You find a flask of firewater, a bag of nuts and a bowl of hot stew. You can take the nuts with you.

Add 1 meal to your Provisions; whenever you eat the nuts they will restore up to 4 STAMINA points. The hot stew you must eat now and this also restores up to 4 STAMINA points.

You know, I realized after I started rolling dice that it would have been simpler to just retcon that we never entered the hut, but since I had already started typing it out, I'll let us reap the benefits (orphaning children is actually all good for Colin; it brings his STAMINA back up to full and gives him an extra meal.)

Anyways, this makes the Luck test retroactively Lucky:

You walk through the door and realize you have walked into a giant mouth. It seems that Ulrakaah's demons are taking over the temple. Its huge jaws start to close and you watch helplessly as the upper row of teeth comes down. The next thing you know the tongue moves and you are swallowed by its gaping black gullet.
Your only hope is that the mouth won't like the taste of you. Test your Luck. (1,3=4; Lucky.) It spits you out through the roof.

You are in the Temple Gardens, which are planted with healing herbs and sweet-scented flowers. There's a fishpond in the middle with a fountain depicting Hydana, the God of the Oceans, spouting water from his mouth. You follow a gravel pathway over to a flight of steps leading to the main temple building, its silver dome towering above you. You climb the steps, pass between some pillars and come to a walkway where you see gold letters inlaid into the marble floor—The Aisle Of Guardians.

The Aisle of Guardians runs east to west. With the Temple Gardens at the east entrance and the Temple of Throff at the west end. There are statues all along its length, depicting previous priests and priestesses, the oldest ones closest to the gardens. As you walk down the aisle you see an empty pedestal. One of the statues is missing. There are two chambers off the aisle, one on the north side, one on the south. The one on the north side smells of rotting meat. The second chamber has a faint purple glow coming from inside it.

So yeah, we're just dropped back at the entrance. So the places we haven't been are:

Window in the secret passageway?
Hole in the secret passageway?
The smaller door in the Walkway of the Dawn?
The Walkway of Night?
South chamber in the Aisle of Guardians?

Adventure Sheet
Colin Hunt
SKILL: 11/11
STAMINA: 18/18
LUCK: 5/11
Equipment: Traveling Clothes, Lucky Anchor Charm, Silver Ring, Bier Goggles
Vials of Smoke-Oil: 0
Gold Pieces: 18
Weapons: Lord Azzur's Khopesh (+1 Attack Strength, extra +1 attack/damage vs. demons), Temple Guard's Axe (+1 Attack Strength, +1 damage on doubles rolled in combat), Fire Iron (-1 Attack Strength)
Items: Fishhook, Jar of Healing Ointment (+4 STAMINA when used), Poison Antidote, Silver Trowel, Map of Trolltooth Pass, Flask of Firewater, Bronze-Colored Jewel
Compasses: Brass Compass, Silver Compass, Bronze Compass
Provisions: 2 meals (+4 STAMINA when eaten each), Dates (+3 STAMINA when eaten)
Keys: Icefinger Key
Magic Potions: 'Collywobbles', 'Dragon's Breath,' 'Nostalgia' Perfume, 'Pretty as a Picture,' 'Thick as Thieves'

half a vote for a window in the secret passageway, and a full vote for me learning the rules . I'll go read.

There's a hole that needs penetrating in the secret passageway.

Tradition must be maintained, penetrate the hole.

The hole in the wall leads into a small cave, lit by glowing green and red crystals embedded in the walls. There is a man sitting cross-legged on the floor with a pulsating blue orb suspended above his head. He is wearing only an old grey loincloth and you see that his skin is covered with holes, inside each one of which sits what looks like a large seed about the size of a pea. You understand now why he's called the Holy man.

He smiles at you.

Ask him who he is?
Choose some of the Holy Man's seeds?
Back out through the hole?

Identify yourself, weird seed dude.

Then give us the seed of languages or whatever.