Last but certainly not least is SITHRAK

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YAOLNAIGH in his tomb

After the spider battles, the party continues on.  The find the traditional worker live/work spaces, and then enter a room with statues, representing the 'gods'.  Oh, I'm sorry - the 'GODS'.  It's pretty freaky and repetative - they go through a series of similar but not quite identical rooms, which is spooky and off-putting.  Finding their way free of that they start hearing chanting / singing, and come to a cavern with a statue of an old, robed/bearded man in the middle, and floating mouths/eyes/ears.  It is a fight, with biting and gaze attacks - again, the fight with organs is spooky and off-putting.  The party approaches the statue of YAOLNAIGH, who starts to change and transform - AofEk leaps forward with his Jovanspike and stabs YAOLNAIGH in the forehead.  The GOD laughs, and transforms into cockroaches and centipedes and other creepycrawlies - and again, uugh.

The party leaves, with the cultist priests bleeding from the eyes behind them.  And then back to Joven to check in with Salamancar.  There are more refugees; chit chit and helping and drinking, but mostly there's nothing new to be heard in Joven.  So the party leaves for the fourth tomb!

Some information about the Elves

From traveling and conversing with the Elves for a month or so, the following information was gathered:

• The Elf Lands, in area, are a little smaller (maybe two-thirds) than the human lands.  Maybe.  The lands are a rough circle, and it generally takes 20 days (or so) to ride a horse from one end of the Elf Lands to the other.
• However, there is a faster means of transport - each main Elf city has a device which transport between the city in question, and the Capitol.  These devices are called 'the device'.
• The Elf Capitol is called Trademeet.  Eight other cities have devices to teleport between the Capitol and that city.
• The devices have been around since the start of Elven history, which goes back 4500 years.
• The Elves originated when the gods were bored, and desired beings to dance and make their lives less tedious with love and artistic endeavors.
• The terrain of the Elflands is much less variable than the human territory - lots of plains broken up by forests, with rivers and the occasional hill.
• There are a few mines - but not as much industry as in the Empire.  Most of the ore dug is of higher quality than the human mines, but MUCH less of it is accessed.
• Elves live about twice as long as people do, with 300 being possible but quite rare.
• The Elven government is more along family/tribal lines; occasionally large groups will gather to talk about large projects (like constructing roads, or trade regulations).  There is a High Council with representatives of each family group meeting once every year, too.
• Families are organized by female lines; a male Elf will marry into a family, giving up the family of his birth.  The opposite happens, too - but rarely.  Family leadership is generally by age, ability, and will; women slightly outnumber men in government/leadership positions.
• The leader of the High Council is Glindea Au'Rean; she's held the position for 24 years.  The First is chosen by the Council when the previous first is ready to leave (or, rarely, is impeached); Glindea is a fairly popular First, though, and generally goes along with the High Council's decisions.
• Justice seems to be meted out at the individual level, when appropriate; for the most part restitution and rehabilitation is applied except for horrific crimes, or the insane.
• The elves don't breed as quickly as people; family sizes of three are uncommon, four are rare, and more than four children in a family is almost unheard of.
• If you had to guess, you'd think there were about a tenth as many elves as humans.
• Technologically they seem about as advanced as humans - their weapons are similar to human weapons, but with each element of design seems built with an eye to aesthetic appeal as much as functionality.
• The Elf Gods are as follows:
• Tir'Na Niogh; Goddess of Family, Organization, and Magic (NG)
• Allundrielle: Goddess of Nature, Moon, Poetry, Beauty, and Wine (CG)
• Zhen: God of Wisdom, Language, Mysteries, and Exposing the Unseen (LG)
• The Elves also honored JOVAN until quite recently.  Another God - KinThia Marquille - is seen as a trickster god - like Coyote in certain Native American pantheons.  Maybe KinThia might best be described as a demi-god; her alignment is CN but with good tendencies.
• The High Priest of the Elves is (was?) Gorioh Moliere; he was fairly old and feeble when the Elves you met left the Elf Lands, though.  Elven priests exist outside - or maybe parallel to - the general Elf governance.  Gorioh could cast 4th circle spells.
• The Elves don't, in general, dedicate themselves to one god or another - the priests honor and give each god their due, as appropriate.
• Elf wizardy is seen as a skill, like metallurgy or singing, which anyone with the will and time can learn (but few can master).  Magic training is informal and fairly well-distributed; sharing spells and even trading spell-books are common.  There are stories of casters who could cast 5th circle spells, but none widely known to currently exist - a few can cast 4th circle spells; almost every family has at least one person who can cast 2nd circle.

The Human Gods (revised) and the party

JOVAN was the human God.  As a monotheistic faith, JOVAN was dominant in all spheres of influence, touched everything the humans did, and granted spells to the faithful; under HIS influence the Church of JOVAN came to have great influence over the human Empire's development.  JOVAN was, in a traditional alignment scheme, NG.

JOVAN is now dead.  HE has one priest left, a scattered few relics, and some Paladins who still pay HIM some sort of regards.  In HIS wake are the new human gods:

• AELAEPHIXIA is generally represented as a tall woman wearing full armor and holding a spear.  SHE is generally associated with war, battle, the moon, courage, and strength; SHE is Lawful Evil.

• ASHELOIATAUR wears a faceless and formless-but-well-formed humanoid shape when appearing.  HE is associated with faceless masses, anonymity, magic, and the hidden/unseen.  HE is CN.

• YAOLNAIGH is a wizened old man with a beard and a smile that appears variously congenial and insane.  HE is associated with madness, mysteries, mortality, and penance; HE is CE.

• SITHRAK is a strange, somewhat bestial humanoid, with stringy patches of hair and an extra joint is HIS arms and legs.  HIS influence is that of control (especially over monsters and other humans) and slavery, trickery, and the night.  HE is NE.

Most of the worshipers of the above Gods are insane, by any regards.  It is a dark time for the human Empire!

Currently, the party casts as equivalent as 2nd level priests.  They have each chosen two domains, with the abilities of each domain and one 1st level domain spell per day; they can each cast a 1st level cleric spell and 2 0th level spells each day, too.  If anyone takes a level in any divine-casting class these spells are in addition to any of those spells; and the effective caster level for any cleric spells or abilities will be increased by two.

Freeing JOVAN also gave the party a permanent +1 to all saves as JOVAN's boon.

The spells and powers the party has do not come from any particular deity, and no powers need be invoked to use them.  Starting at 3rd circle, these and more powerful spells must come (at least in part) from a deity's beneficence.

Joven, changes in the Empire, and into another crypt

Picking up the pieces after the adventures in the tomb / attack by the cultists, the party and elves survey the scene.  The dead Elf is buried with a modicum of pomp and ritual, spells are exchanged between mages, and our merry band of adventurers decides to escort the Elves to Joven.

Everywhere the Elves go they get looks - they tower over humans, being on average seven feet tall (the commander is pushing 8 feet), and have a willowy, otherworldly look to them.  Being accompanied by some guardsmen - even such rough customers as our band of heroes - more than likely helps it from only being quizzical looks - but they're firmly in the uncanny valley for most humans, so maybe it's just seen as part of the general fuck-up-ed-ness of everything these days.

And the fuck-up-ed-ness has been ramped up recently, with the death of all the priests of Joven (well, except for a few) - the Militia is holding on, but just barely.

In Penumbria they hear of changes to the Empire - martial law has been declared as Sal tries to keep things together, and the priest in town - trained by Darbauw at the asylum - appears to think he is at least half dog.  In Applo the elves take a quick look through the tomb, and state they'd like to spend more time there, after diplomatic ties are established.  Then on to Joven!

Sal is glad, as far as he gets glad, to see the party, and had supper sent in for everyone.  Chit chat chit chat and the party finds some things out about the world - the cultists appear to be mutating into a service organization, helping to heal the sick and wounded now that the Empire has no priests of its own.  They're still attacking settlements - around all three towns the party travels into/through are refugee camps - but they seem to be targeting infrastructure, and replacing it with themselves.

AofEk learns some spells and makes some shit and generally fucks around in a lab, as mages do.  Horace gets wasted and finds trouble, as rogues do.  Cimbri, after being a horrible motivational speaker in Penumbria, tries again - but this time his message is intended to rally the homeless to join the militia, at which he is significantly more successful - overall, from his speech and actions, a good four hundred people sign up for the Empire (that's almost half as many people as serve in Joven - quite a sizable increase!)

Somewhere along the way Tara freaks out and sets fire to the Mage Academy, as well.  The party shrugs and moves on.

Moves on to the third tomb - up north, near the border between Atlea and Zendea.  Again, a group of pilgrims guards the entrance to this tomb - a hole in the ground, this time - but the leader of the group greets the party by saying "Asheloiataur's blessing upon you".  Which really is kind of a strange thing to say to our group - but whatevs, they think, as they grimly enter the tomb.  Shit's pretty fucked up, after all, and maybe this too is part of the fuckupedness of the world.

The party descends, finds corridors, and has a fight with some spiders - some big and nasty beasts!  The battle is pitched and furious, but the party emerges victorious, and....

The curtain falls, for now.  What will happen next!

The book that James found

It's a 15-page document, so instead of posting the text here, I've posted it to my Google drive.  Here's the link:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GcO1adBwigq3YCdzCNuB2fOzP35sRY1ziJHfbuSJIb0/edit?usp=sharing

Good luck!  Info on the Elflands to follow in the next couple of days.

This portion of the adventure is brought to you by the letter J

Because J is for James - the last priest of the Dead God Joven.

The party rides to Penumbria, having a conversation with General Joachim.  More is told than asked, but the General seems happy with the results of the conversation - play the mage guild off against the Senate, induct the mages into the Militia, and go searching for people living outside of the Empire.

The third one doesn't seem like the highest priority for Joachim, but the other two ideas seem pretty good to him.

Next to Penumbria - as quick as possible, where Salamancar is found passed out at a table, drunk.  His assistant Fred seems fine with them reviving Sal; the bartender Tony is wary, but ultimately strongly in favor of the plan, telling Cimbri that the other drunks in the bar are Sal's assistants, that Sal will need as Regent, and that he's Sal's secretary.  Tony would follow Salamancar "to the ends of the earth, and back, if needed," which seems like an unusual thing for a secretary to the head of the thieve's guild to say.

The party rides, as quickly as possible, away from Penumbria towards Joven, with two carts full of drunks and their gear, the 'bartender' Tony driving the first cart, and a Militiawoman named Sara to drive the second cart.

Salamancar wakes up on the road the next morning, a bit confused at being in a cart, and resistant to the idea of assuming his duties as Regent.  But here is reason (1) why J-is-for-James is the sponsor of this episode:

"AofEk.  AofEk.  Do you want to do this, or should I?"

"Go ahead, James," the mage replies.

James Morrigan looks Salamancar, the Regent of the Empire, in the eyes, and asks, "What oath did you swear?"

Salamancar, hungover and belligerent, pretends to not understand this question.

"You have duties.  Was your oath to Joven, or to the Empire?", James asks again.

Salamancar's face shows several different emotions: rage, despair, sorrow, and acceptance, all within the space of several seconds.  Then, nodding, he appears to sober up, and expresses to the party his resolve, "I have a hole inside of me, where my god is dead, but I swore an oath to the Empire and I am ready to perform my duties."

After that it's a bit tense, actually, and harsh words are said between Sal and AofEk, but by the end of the day Salamancar and his assistants, the last Paladins of the Empire, agree to take up their mantles, and perform their duties, even though they all feel an emptiness where their god used to live inside of them.

AofEk is surprised to see Sal heal himself from his hangover, and a conversation is had about spells, spellcasting, duties, oaths, and honor.  That afternoon they part ways - Sal and the Paladins (and Tony) head to Joven to try and keep the Empire together, and Sara drives the party back to the Black Swamp.

The last thing Sal commands the party to do is "Keep on stirring shit up,"  which makes the party a little tense, because the command was to do what they've been doing, but it's hard to take commands.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppositional_defiant_disorder

So on to Coriander!  Coriander is burned to the ground!  That's not really unexpected.

The party searches for an afternoon, finding a few burnt bodies but nothing much of interest; the mages' hut in the swamp is not burnt down, but looks deserted.  Heading further into the swamp towards the pull our heroes feel they see a small palisade in the distance, where they want to go, manned by...

Well, maybe 'manned' is not quite the appropriate word.  Imagine a person, stretched and elongated by about a foot-and-a-half, and you'll have a good sense of these... beings?  People?

Elves.  Let us call them by the word that the world will come to refer to these - yes, people - as.  Elves!

There is a moment of greetings, which is significantly less tense than some first-encounter-moments our heroes have experienced, where the Elves realize that the party is who they've been waiting for, and are not crazy cultists intent on only murder, and the party realizes that elves are pretty rad.  Only one elf speaks Human, granted to him in a vision - a priest of Tir'Na'Nagosh (whose demesne is farmers, hunters, parks, the wilderness, and beauty).  Introductions all around!

The Elves guard an entrance to a set of corridors, where there is a door that the elves cannot approach (they are filled with dread/despair/fear/horror/disgust when they get within ten feet of it) - the kind of door with runes and wards that our heroes have encountered before.  Turin - the Elf priest - and the party share stories and fables, and AofEk and Wu'ur (an Elf mage) share spells - smiles and good feelings all around.  Then a quick rest to re-memorize spells, while Cimbri and Fallia N'ir (the Elf Commander) spar; and into the passage they go.

Unfortunately, the Elves are still unable to approach the door even after it is opened and the wards removed; this causes AofEk no end of consternation.  Turin is consulted, who reveals that there will be 'fire and blood' when the party proceeds inward; the Elves tell the party that they will watch the palisades, and keep everyone safe:  "We have your back," Turin says.  AofEk warns the Elf that our heroes go to kill a god, the god of the Elves, which is an unusual thing to say to a priest, but here is reason (2) why J-Is-for-James-the-last-priest-of-the-Dead-God-Joven is today's sponsor:

"Turin.  It will be strange and life-changing.  But remember that it is an adding, not a subtracting.  New doors opening does not mean old doors close."

And with that, the party descends!

This crypt is much shorter and less walk-for-a-mile-through-underground-corridors than some of the crypts; the party soon comes to a 4-way intersection.  To the left is a warded door; ahead is a set of ancient living-and-working spaces; to the right is a warded door, which pulls the party.

Opening the left door - not the one that draws our heroes - we find a room forty feet wide, several hundred feet long, with two 'rivers' of smoky steam travelling lengthwise down the chamber.  It's a very odd effect; Cimbri finds the columns to be hot and wet, and the end to be solid but with a different feel than stone.  AofEk casts a spell - and at that, demons appear!

On the one side, a 10-foot tall, white skinned man-shaped but featureless figure wearing a... well, a suit of armor made of bottles, is the only way to describe it.  On the other side five blob-shaped-men figures emerge.

It's not a very tense fight; of course our heroes finish the demons handily.  James summons fire elementals to guard the flank from the smaller creatures while Cimbri and Horace finish the bottle-armor thing.  AofEk asks James about his summons, and lack of secret-door finding spells; James says that he's different than he used to be.

And then to the chamber that draws our lads.  Opening the warded door, at the ready, we see...

What looks to be a stage, with concentric circular rows of seats descending, like an operating theatre; our heroes enter at the top.  Down in the 'stage' part of the room is a study or a den; a fireplace, bookshelves on the walls, and a figure, seated in the middle on a fancy chair, 'reading' a book in 'his' hand.  The figure appears unfinished, an amorphous man-shaped figure, but in an instant the party realizes that the formlessness is created by intricate, precise form.

The figure looks up at our heroes, closes 'her' book quickly, and, snapping 'its' fingers vanishes.

Oh.  Once more the party has been in the presence of a god.

James clutches his head and sinks to the floor, moaning, and everyone feels a stronger connection to the realm of Gods.  AofEk grabs the book the figure held and then casts his run-fast spell, and he and Cimbri race for the surface, where they find a battle just finished; one elf lies dead, the rest are mostly injured but mostly alive, and Turin quivers groaning on the ground.  AofEk and Cimbri, with the help of AofEk's raven, take off after the retreating cultists (who attacked the compound); slaying several and generally mopping up.

Horace searches the chamber while James recovers; the room, on further inspection, is shoddy and fake;  the bookshelves are painted wood, the fire is colored paper over a natural air vent, the chair is plywood and balsa.

When James recovers, he asks, "Horace - am I okay?  How's my hair?"  And while the last might seem an odd question, given the nature of the cultists (identifiable by their odd and oddly similar haircuts) an appropriate question.  Horace is worried - in a variety of ways, one might suppose, but helps James to his feet; James grabs a book out of the bookshelf - yes, a real book out of the fake bookshelf - and the two return to the compound.

The book the figure held, which AofEk grabbed, was 112 pages, all filled with the same word, over and over:

ASHELOIATAUR.

((The contents of the book James grabbed, and some notes about the Elf lands, will follow in the next posts.))

Exciting times!