CLUMP talk:Current events
Lore Tour Summaries
2024
- 20240316: Arrr! Hear this declaration from the Pirate King:
- BRNJBJRN: "FIGHT TO THE DEATH, THE CHALLENGE APPROACHETH"
- A Shadow Brinclone (You may remember the Adventure to recover Mehan's Armor....) has uhhh roared a challenge through the planes to Puddleby. Come fight him in his shadowy cave.
- So, for Puddleby and those inclined to THE GREAT BEAR SPIRIT, we shall answer this call to combat.
- Now from previous encounters and expeditions into the Shadowplane we know that these Shadow Bears are rather mighty. Bring yer best. Iz gonna be dangerous. We got this.....
- Yarr it should be noted that this... seems to be the result of a chain of events started accidentally by Mehan when she lost her armor riding an agronox (it could happen to anyone) and then continued by one Inu Teisei (with some help from Sativa) when they checks notes temporarily bound the shadow bears to the ice altar, which presumably gave the Shadowplane lots and lots of time to learn all about bears....
- If this goes poorly, this is their fault. If this goes well and works out for us somehow, they get medals.
- Fight with RAWR ROAR RAWR and Honor in Glorious Bear Combat!
- Soul Hunter TLDR: Shadow ROAR RAWR RAWR ROAAAAAAR adventure time.
- 20240309: Lore Tour Recap, as best I can understand it: With Venables' dead and his crew scattered, a treaty was to be signed to reward those who helped us with responsibility for the outpost. Unfortunately, Brisk managed to lose his reading glasses, so the signing was derailed as we traipsed across the archepelago looking for them. Along the way we discovered and possibly-foiled-or-maybe-not some sort of Shadowguild plot involving Rafinus and the blacksmith shop, as well as some of Brisk's... family? Associates? Unclear.
- Anyway, once we'd successfully located Stinkfist who'd be abducted by a drake (did I mention that happened? It did, from Devil's Island), we found out that the drake had also gathered Brisk's glasses. With them finally reacquired, we returned to Tenebrion's conference room for the signing. You'll have to ask someone else for the exact details of the treaty, but from what I understood the idea is to try to deal with the damage to the ethereal plane that Venables' experiments caused and finally try to run the darshak off the island once and for all. — Coriakin
- Addendum: After a great deal of shenanigans, the Loyal Supporter wandering around 'Noth summoning Ramandon'ts has fallen. But by the Cone it took forever to fell. — Shadowfire
- 20240302: Holy moley, what a chaotic day assaulting Venable's Camp. Here's the recap, as much as I can put together from the variety of simultaneous plans: Ritual/song magic, beehive projectiles, sea magic candles, and more.
- Under the assumption that there wouldn't be time for a whole ritual during an assault on a darshak compound, under Valadorei's direction a ritual was performed before leaving town while a song played. I'm not sure how they did it, but the ritual's power to calm the ethereal damage taking place in Venable's camp would remain dormant until the song was played again.
- Preparations complete, we ventured to Tenebrion's Island to collect former darshak (I think?) Glorak who would be manning a catapult, and sea-witch Pelaegia. We ventured to the north gate to Venables' camp and faced strong opposition, although Glorak had snuck in earlier and left the pirates some "presents," and now many of their forces were too drunk (or poisoned) to fight effectively. The catapult was loaded with beehives brought by Biro and the other bears, and the stinging of angry bees also helped distract our foes.
- Eventually we established a foothold, and Biro was able to entreat The Great Bear Spirit to send some bears to aid out defense. With the catapult prepared to lob more bees into the heart of the camp, we gathered to help Pelaegia begin a ritual of her own, which would involve using a creating a triangle of sea candles to aid in some magic to repair the damage to the ethereal plane caused by Venables' experiments. We successfully prepared the first candle at the north gate, and left the bears to defend the candle and catapult as Lore Tour moved to the other candle locations.
- South of the compound we found the location for the second candle, and left it to be defended by an apparently friendly (or at least neutral) undead spirit known as Tatterflesh, or Mr T to his friends. The final candle location was at the compound gate located near the west landing of Tenebrion's Island, but once it was in place we needed to get inside so, another ritual was used to summon Sammy the Mantaun Rider from the bookfort, who tore open a hole in the stone wall for us. All seemed to be going according to plan(s) at this point…
- This is when Venables started taunting us over the sunstone channel, claiming to not hear anything happening, and letting us know he was going to do things like go for a walk around his outpost. You know, the sorts of things that are definitely not traps.
- Well, it was a trap. We spotted him running past us as we were making our way to the compound's east gate, and upon trying to follow him we realized that he was leaving a trail of ethereal portals on the other side of snell borders and, well, everywhere. We were eventually able to re-collect the exiles who accidentally fell for the trap (and into the portals), and realized that our primary goal needed to change to fixing the immediate ethereal damage. The mystics, aided by Pelaegia, were able to close most of the unstable portals around Venables' compound, but one seemed so tainted by darshak magic that it resisted their efforts. We entered the portal and found a seemingly calm area, but soon realized that Venables was lurking in the snell to the southwest.
- Another desperate battle ensued, but in the end we were victorious and Venables was vanquished. Or was he? I thought Venables was a flesh-and-blood being, but the "Venables" that we saw there died in a poof of smoke, much like a spirit. Hmm….
- Time was pressing and that area of the ethereal plane seemed particularly unstable (unless it's normally filled with cracks), so we had to leave that mystery for now and return to the material plane to finish what we'd started. We returned to the one remaining portal, and the combined powers of Pelaegia, the team of mystics, and the "Doomsong" were finally able to seal that remaining ethereal rift.
- We were not able to stop Venables' experiments, nor the man himself, but we inflicted a great deal of damage to his camp and were able to repair at least some of the damage to the ethereal plane. Hopefully a future trip will be able to put an end to his threat for good.
- Soul Hunter TLDR: Musical kaboom. Bee catapult. Sea candles. Confused Darshak! — Coriakin
- I attempted a TLDR:
- TL;DR: The group conducted a pre-assault ritual and song magic to calm ethereal damage at Venable's Camp. They then launched an assault with unique strategies like beehive projectiles and sea magic candles. Despite facing strong opposition and traps by Venables, they managed to establish a foothold and repair some ethereal damage with rituals and the aid of allies, including bears, a sea-witch, and an undead spirit. Venables was confronted but his defeat raised questions about his true nature. The mission caused significant damage to the camp and partially mended the ethereal plane, leaving Venables' threat unresolved for a future confrontation. — Ayelwen
- 20240224: Next week's bard concert will also feature Supplanter's audition for bard quester! Please come to the guild hall on Saturday, February 24, 2024 11:00 AM [PDT] to cheer him on! — Coriakin
- 20240217: Stinkfist says, “So to summarize: we have a small base camp set up on TI now to combat Venables and Kestrel's forces in two zodiacs.…we picked up a kyeum power stone also.”
- Inu Teisei says, “summary snipe hunt with prizes is my summary.”
- Stinkfist says, “So, Two zodiacs from now how do we wanna do this? Ideas? Additional allies to call upon?”
- Phroon says, “Sneak in and steal more stuff?”
- Dandelion says, “Collect wood fer me, please. Fer more signs.”
- Stinkfist says, “Additional allies to call upon?”
- Soul Hunter version: more dead darshak, sativa banished in two towns.
- 20240113: Lore tour recap: We took the portal to the village to invite Forsythia to come see the Org Sanctuary with us. She was interested, but while we were chatting her hut was set on fire by some invading orga! Despite numerous setbacks we were eventually able to fight them off, and tracked their attack to the nearby org cave. It seemed like the orga were unwilling to actually enter the org cave itself, but they did their best to block it off.
After defeating the orga and unblocking the cave we went inside to find a panther cap mushroom which we took to the org sanctuary along with Forsythia, who may or may not return to the village depending on how damaged the roof of her hut is. We gave one of the blue flowers to Khami, the centaur seemingly in charge of the org sanctuary warens, as a thank you for all the work they've done to help the org. And then Phroon was so overcome with thankfulness that his Orb Of Unstable Something-Or-Other burst showering everyone around with good karma. Did you know that it's possible to get a cartload, a boatload, or even a shipload of good karma? Now you do. Oh, one other lore tidbit. Apparently the Windspinner monk in charge of training the agronox so we can ride them is called Andrachnea. If we want more agronox flight destinations, that's the person we should talk to. Uh... anyone know who that is? — Coriakin
- 20240106: Lore tour recap: we helped Gorvin find the famed warrior Darktur, but in the process encountered Sharktur, a sharkitty who’d taken Darktur’s Makobite Bracer in a poker game. After Darktur agreed to train Gorvin, we went to Ash Island to track down Sharktur and retrieve the bracer. After many pitched battles we were able to do, although Gorvin was unable to determine what the bracer does.
Soul Hunter recap: Too many darshak, but blinged Gorvin out anyway.
2023
- 20231111: Hello! It is I, Brisk!
To recap this week, we made it through everywhere we wanted to during the lore tour today and even some places we did not plan on.
The group did a very good job of staying alive and making other things less alive. The machines were charged in advance by Kalian the Tawny and Falinea's Blade, thank you for your efforts. The portal was moved in place to the Fountfell for easy access by an anonymous exile. We made good progress through the citadel to the ancient machinery with minimal horus checks. Once the water was reached we realized we were not as prepared with potions and amulets of breath but we made do with a little bit of downtime and a lot of uncomfortably close movement (seriously people, I need my personal space!). Under the water we found rubble had fallen from the ceiling and littered the area around the thrones. Many trips were spent checking for holes in the crumbled walkways and cleaning up the debris. We must get Pelaegia to return and check the upkeep of the citadel, lest we lose it completely to a cave-in not unlike the one that happened long ago to cut off the gates of the twin moons! After we reached the basement to check on the seal placed atop the shadow rend we heard a skittering noise like a sound of nails on a chalkboard. These weird insectoid like creatures came down from the walls and tried to separate our insides from our outsides. Luckily we had Gorvbot there to murder and a few blood mages that were more than comfortable bleeding a little bit to crack those carapaces. We could hear them on the other side of the rubble from the stairwell that crumbled. I suspect there may be many, many more in our future.
Phroon was carrying a page from the book of rend that started to chant and sing and was largely pleased to be in the area. When he was fumbling with the page it happened to open a rift into the shadowplane itself. We lost a few folks to his portal of doom and decided as a group to definitely go rescue them to leave no one behind and not because we wanted to know where the portal led to. We made a mad dash through the shadowplane, found a Lost Dreamer and guided it to its memory of puddleby and escaped in its wake. It might've been record time, it depends who you ask.
Either way, it answered some lingering questions but also opened a whole new line of questions for us to visit in the future.
soulhunter summary: citadel construction bad, new insects, great group today
