Than Greyhawk: Fortunes

From AJS.COM

Contents 1 Heading out 2 Greyhawk 3 Woolly Bay and Highport 4 Danube 4.1 Festival 5 Hope 5.1 Ambush 5.2 The village 6 Carpenter's Cove 7 Rondil's Cave 8 Mechanus 8.1 The Hills 8.2 The Fall of Rondil's Army 9 Back to the Gate

Heading out

After negotiating with the party over destination and travel venue, Than has arranged for a merchant named Shan Heno to bring the party to Greyhawk, and then on to Highport, where they would travel overland to Danube in search of a lost party of orcish scouts (along with a similarly lost party of Ulek military scouts who were deep in enemy territory when they vanished).

Greyhawk

Upon arriving in Greyhawk, the party split up. Gylfi discovered that Shan was headed for a temple of Osprem, so he followed. There, Shan acquired a "navigator". It was never clear exactly what a navigator does for a ship, but she spent the entire voyage in his quarters....

Colis sought out a temple of Norebo, and asked if they knew the location of a temple of Lendor. Sadly, it turns out that the followers of the two gods are not on speaking terms, and Colis was ejected from the temple. He followed up with a merchant named Blotto, whose name means "fishmonger" in Keoish, but is actually derived from the Ancient Seul word for "drunkard". He helped both Colis and Grin, but in reading Colis's aura, he claimed that Colis was being scryed on by many observers. He then gave Colis an anti-scrying potion, but slipped him the cryptic hint that "we aren't allowed to talk to you."

Woolly Bay and Highport

On their way from Greyhawk to Highport, Shan's ship was approached by a vessel with a red banner and a green dragon head. The ship approached and the two captains met for a very brief, but cryptic conversation. They then continued to Highport. After appropriate warnings about the dangers of Highport from Shan, the party acquired horses and left for Danube. Along the way, they ran into a troll, which they dispatched with difficulty, proceeding on then to Danube.

Danube

Their second night in the Pomarj was spent in the homes of a couple of residents of Danube that the Saloon keep put them up with. Over night, various strange noises were heard from the swamp, and upon awaking, a general sense of "oddness" was felt by some party members.

Cheadle is with the party when he awakes, but insists that he was never gone, and that it was Colis who had been missing. He also recalls having noticed an emblem on the gunwale of the other ship that Shan spoke to the captain of in the Woolly Bay, the same emblem that Gylfi had shown him previously.

Festival

The next day, the party discovers that there is a festival being prepared for the evening. There is significant reluctance to describe the festival, but they are able to determine that it involves the coming-of-age of a young man named Grantus Sweltz, and he will depart the town the next day.

The festival itself is uneventful and pleasant, and the party is introduced to a local beer-like drink called Glog (a swamp-plant based fermented brew which resembles a mix of a Porter beer and honey mead).

In the morning they followed the young man across the Dark River, into the Dark River Swamp, and along the Dark Hope road—the rumored direction of the scouting party to the hut of an old woman named Hetti, who Grantus claims was mean to many of the local children, but not him. She confirms the direction of the scouts and also explains that Grantus is headed for the Ruins of Old Hope, a ruined city to the west. There he will join a community which was started by bandits who had at first terrorized the community of Danube, but ended up having to defend them during an orcish raid, prior to the Greyhawk Wars. Since then, every 10 years, a young man from the city has been sent to Hope, and Hope has defended Danube in times of need.

Hope

Ambush

On the way to Hope, the party is ambushed by three humans in light armor. Thorgrim is nicked by one of them, but before the battle can be truly engaged, the blue dragon, Sa'n, appears and interposes itself. He claims that he is defending the party and manages to cow the attackers who appeared to be backing off anyway.

The attackers tell Thorgrim that they thought he was the chosen one from Danube, and that the attack is a part of their ritual trials for the new chosen. Because Thorgrim was stabbed, they insist that he return to the village to speak with the elder.

Meanwhile, Sa'n tells the party that he's been following them since Dyvers, and found out their location from Cynthia Mason (who he appeared to as a human again). He then explains that he was concerned about having tricked them, and felt that his attempts to be "good" has somehow been subverted by the wizard who suggested the whole scheme. When he found out from Cynthia that they had headed straight to Danube, he began to wonder about the wizard, who had also said that he was from the Danube area. When Sa'n reveals that the name of the wizard was Rondil, Joshua points out that this was an associate of his father's, and that this may all connect with the information given to him by the Red Shade. The dragon wishes to follow the party and make sure that he has not set them up for a trap. Joshua and Gylfi are not pleased with this, but Colis wants to speak with the dragon and help it to understand what "good" is.

The village

When the party enters the ruins of old hope, they find that it was once a city, but almost nothing is left of it, and generations of new structures have been built and then fell to ruin also. Now, there are just crumbling walls and the outlines of towers. In the center of the ruin, a few thatched structures stand. Eventually the party gets to a structure where the locals have gathered, cautiously eying the dragon in the party's midst.

The elder emerged from the building, and called Thorgim and Grantus in to discuss the situation. After explaining to Thorgrim that he is now technically a member of their community, he offers information to help speed the adventure's completion and Thorgrim's return. He hopes that Thorgrim will decide to stay with them, now that his fate is tied to theirs through ritual.

Carpenter's Cove

The next morning, the elder (who says that he never gives out his name) comes back into the village. It's not clear where everyone was, but they were not in the village over night.

He gives the party information about Rondil, who was working with Laughing Jack, building ships for pirates years ago in caves, below the cliffs. They had taken some of the village as forced labor. The village fought back, and eventually reached an uneasy truce of some sort with the two. Now, after a long respite, it seems Rondil has returned, but the village has had no dealings with him. Both groups of scouts, however, had gone that way.

The party headed down to a path to the part of Carpenter's Cove where the old dry dock was (a channel into which high-tide waters flood, allowing ships to be dragged into a partial dry-dock). The old scaffoldings are broken down and rotting, but the channel has a cave at its end, a mile or two back from the cove.

On the way to the cave, they encounter three unusual skeletons, which they defeat, but they appear to be bones, held together by some kind of gear-work mechanism rather than just magical animation (also, Colis was unable to turn them). These skeletons sounded some kind of alarm, so the party assumed that their presence was known.

Because of the nature of the skeletons and the fact that Cheadle has recently had visions of Mechanus, Sa'n says that he cannot join the party further. He is a worshiper of Primus, and feels that getting involved in this further could put him in the position of choosing sides between his god and the party. In parting, he gives Grin a box, which he says has a deck of cards. In extreme peril, Grin should draw three cards from the deck. No further explanation is given.

Rondil's Cave

Inside the cave, the party encountered two sets of horribly augmented humans and orcs (possibly the scouts that they've been seeking). After dispatching the first group, and starting combat with the second, the wizard Rondil appeared and called off "his children". He then begged Joshua (he called Joshua "Hummel") to join him in what he promised would be a successful campaign against the countries of the Flanaess, putting him "on par with the Circle of Eight".

Joshua and Gylfi answered with violence and, transforming by rotating one-inch squares, all over his body, Rondil's features changed to that of Marduke, Joshua's (believed dead) father! Enraged, the figure warned them not to follow, and the squares of his skin turned once again, and "winked out", leaving his black robe to fall to the ground.

In the next room, the party discovered a glowing gateway which they decided to follow, agreeing unanimously that, even though it vastly exceeded the scope of their mission, they must follow Rondil/Marduke and discover if he is actually capable of such an invasion, and potentially even stop him.

Mechanus

Through the portal, the party encountered a strange pair of metallic humanoid guards, but dispatched them easily enough. Having only moments to come to terms with the vast expanse of cogs before them (the ground upon which they stood being one), another strange metallic humanoid figure appeared. It claimed to be some sort of law-keeper here, and told the party that they would be protected from any local interference if they agreed to travel to the lower level of this cog and stop Rondil's plans, since he has somehow cloaked himself in the rules of this place to an extent that the authorities here cannot take direct action against him. If the party succeeds, this creature claimed that they would be rewarded. It then disappeared again, warning them to remain on the paths in this place.

Moving further into the cog, the party encountered another group of the strange metallic men, and again defeated them easily, but the third group that they encountered was too numerous to be a safe fight, and the party withdrew into the spire at the center of the cog, winding their way down a set of stairs. At first, it seemed as if the spinning shaft that made up one of the walls of the stairway was becoming warped as they walked, but as they continued, it became obvious that it was the floor (now smoother, as they moved on), which was slanting away from the shaft, but "down" continued to be the floor. Eventually the shaft was on the other side of the stairs, which were once again stairs, but now the party was climbing the stairs, going up to an exit which had its outer wall on the opposite side from the direction it was when they entered.

The Hills

Exiting the stair, they found a very different landscape from the "top" of the cog. In the distance was a series of hills, and as the party approached the hills, they discovered that there were a large number of cave entrances; about one out of each three hills had an entrance. From the top of a hill, they also spied a valley with five buildings, all larger than any they had seen, but of similar construction to those they had seen on the top.

The party agreed to explore one of the caves, finding a network of confusing passages, and an underground stream, which Gylfi recognized as the sort of acidic "water" that sometimes flowed through metallic ore, but this was strong enough to immediately rot a water-skin that Joshua put it in.

The Fall of Rondil's Army

Turning back, the party tried to explore the buildings, but were quickly surrounded by the metal men who laid in wait for them, and Rondil announced that they would not be hurt if they surrendered. Instead, he simply wished to hold them so that he could gloat over his victory. The party agreed to surrender, and was taken to one of the buildings. Here, Than admitted that he had some foreknowledge of this. His fortune teller—the one that he had sent Colis to—told him that he would need a dog whistle and should blow it when, "your darkest moment comes; it will summon your fate from across the hills."

Blowing the whistle, Than summoned a horde of ant-like centauroid beings that immediately fell on the metal men, harvesting their adamantine (and in some cases mithril) armor plating in a violent battle that raged on around the camp.

Spotting Rondil fleeing, the party engaged him in a brief fight. They were able to quickly overcome his guards, but Rondil fled, using a ring of levitation and the ability to re-orient his sense of down so that he could "fall" toward a cog, far above the party.

After discovering Rondil's treasure horde (all marked "The Clockwork Wizard"), and destroying the device that apparently Rondil used to charm all of the metal men, the law keeper again appeared to the party. It told them that, in order to protect their world from the forces of Mechanus, they should hurry back to the gate, and one of them would have to destroy it. However, it could only be destroyed from the Mechanus side, meaning that one of them would have to stay behind!

Back to the Gate

The party returned, agreeing with Than that he would be the one to stay behind. They gave him all of the provisions that they had, and departed through the gate, but just after returning, the gate exploded (presumably as than destroyed it). Once again (like their previous time-traveling), everything went dark and they awoke, slightly injured and dizzy. Each found themselves alone in a wood, and in a sequence of events that matched Fróðleikr's earlier vision, the each of them wandered toward a beach, finding a pair of small cogs spinning in the air, and Than standing amid scattered group of metallic bodies, grinning. As the two cogs stopped spinning, fell to the ground and broke, Than said, "we did it!" and slowly faded away.