What You Missed - Storytellers VII

By Stephen "Laika" Sanford 

To those who have never been to a Storytellers event, generally the way the event series works is an Eventholder pairs up with two or three more people who will break up the event into three parts with little to no interaction between the three. This is a good event for future event holders to dip their toes in event writing on a smaller scale, and a good event for players to experience three different plots over the course of a night. Generally Storyteller events are done in “Arthurian Style” where PCs can play in two sections of the event and NPC for one section. I was told by the event holder that there was enough NPCs and I would not need to follow these rules. Fun note about this event, this is the second Storytellers VII, the last Storytellers was XI. I look forward to the second Storytellers VIII next year.

Section 1: Teng Hua

At the beginning of the night I grouped together with several other players inside the tavern where we made our orders of delicious burgers and fries. A local Tenghuanese woman came up to the tavern with a corrupted Woodlad Yousei asking for help. The Woodlad was harmed out in the forest and would not let anyone near it to help heal it. The way to heal the Woodlad would be find a bandage and coax the yousei and tie the bandage around them. Due to the woodlad’s fear of pain and people’s patience thinning, several people flatted the yousei and bandaged and freed them. Down by the beach of the coast of Teng Hua we found a boathouse where a woman let us know that there was an earthquake recently which released miasma across the land. To allow us to enter area,q she gave us protective masks to safely breath while in the miasma.

Heading back outside we found some more Woodlad who needed to be healed. I asked one of them where it got hurt and it pointed me towards a cave in the woods. Inside this cabin was a Dutch ghost trader. This dutch trader who might have been dead for a long time had been logging and while logging had caused the earthquake and corruption. Inside this cave was filled with miasma which was seeping in from the floor. After several failed attempts to purify the miasma, Lako came up with an idea to trick the ghost and used an intervention to banish the ghost which stopped the miasma flow but did not dissipate the miasma. The miasma should have dissipated by the morning. The corruption of the woods had not dissipated. Rosetta took one of the bandages and performed a seven point rune ritual to purify the corruption.

On our way back to the tavern we discovered the body of a man with bones around his neck and wearing a hockey style mask. This man rose from his deathly slumber and attacked the group swinging armor piercing. After many of us ran off and some of us split off and creeped back to the tavern to safety. At this point we learned his name was Jason the bone collector.

Order of the Magi: Section 2: Electric Boogaloo

Upon returning to the tavern famished and burgerless, some people had received our glorious burgery food while myself and Lako did not. A bumbling wizard showed up and asked for our group’s help with a ritual that would get them to be in the Order of the Magi. This ritual consisted of many different items many that we already have and one was asking for a mage who has never, ever, ever been a fighter. I volunteered myself for this as I had never been a fighter before (remember this for later) but wasn’t needed to satisfy this as I had the banner of wind to symbolize the wind for the ritual. Upon completing the ritual, we were sent out of the tavern, away to lands that were not filled with the smell of delicious burgers. Upon leaving, Lako used his divine powers to have his burger summoned to him.

For the whole quest the group was split into two halves. Upon stepping on the path we encountered goblots which are goblin robots which would stun or kill us. On those goblots were rune tiles, half of them were in Futhark the other half was in Ogum. To proceed we needed to find all the pieces and translate them both to the word “Open”.

The bumbling wizard had now let us know that we needed to ring two alloys to proceed to the next area after passing through a spider’s nest. To pass through the nest you must not touch any of the webs or be sent to the other group’s path. We were able to get through without swapping and Lako and I were rewarded with our burgery deliciousness mid quest delivered right to us. After finishing our meal, we fought more Goblots who had now become more self aware due to reprogramming by others in the group. The Goblots staged a revolt against the wizard and tried to seize the means of production. While the goblots staged their intelligent revolution, we had to find the silver and crimson plate to ring to get to the next area. Unsurprisingly, both plates had shattered and needed to be put together. Unfortunately due to the darkness, we could not find all the pieces and time ran out and rocks fell and only some people died.

Upon our return to the tavern the lights went out and Jason the bone collector came to claim his next victims. This time swinging disease, he felled many of us and some of us cowered in fear and others with the courage tried to stand their ground with Jason. Eventually a group of us ganged up and dragged him out of the tavern and locked the door keeping us safe as the clock passed midnight securing our safety as Friday the 13th had passed.

Section 3: Divine Intervention

Here comes the part of the night many of us had been waiting for, the high risk continuation of the story that ended earlier in the year with the freeing of a god that was long gone. We started the quest inside Darkvale where we were greeted by a familiar local Priest of Justari, Brother Warren. He had let us know that the Aspis (snake people who worship the god Rexan) were invading Darkvale again and had poisoned the local well. We shortly were attacked by Aspis on the field under the full moon. The Aspis had opened a portal into Darkvale and just kept coming with no stop. Eventually we got close enough to remove the supports to the portal and stopped them from entering.

Brother Warren then invited us back to his temple where we found several scrolls from Garm, the god who we had saved 6 months ago. I could go on for a very long time on who Garm is and his aspirations but to make it simple he’s a god being forced to follow and enforce the rules set by the gods. The balance of the gods has been off for a very long time while Garm was gone and got even worse. In the scroll Garm declared war on all followers of gods until the nations of the realms can declare war on a god. Look out for more progress on this at Black and White at the God’s Moot.

Here is a copy of that letter:

Mortals

You have restored me to power, I would thank you had you done so for my benefit. for nigh on a decade I laid pinned by that cursed blade while you went about your lives, but still you've made the right choice and restoring me that I may restore the balance and save the world. In my absence new gods of emerged or lesser ones risen to restore the balance this must be rectified.

As mortals, I know you will only act when forced to, so I will graciously do so. Until the kingdoms of Realms declare war with the intent to kill one of the greater gods of the pantheon and banning all worship of that God is publicly stated and enforced, all who worship any God will be hunted and destroyed. My death knights march now.

Garm

Brother Warren then showed everyone a beautiful Justari sword that swings silver and gives the wielder immunity to poison (which is useful vs Aspis which are snake people). This item would be extremely useful but could only go to those devoted to Justari. Lawrence aka “The Swoop”, came forward and was going pledge himself to Justari but the group said he should wait off until he felt ready. Brother Warren told us that we should go to purify the poisoned well. I talked to my goddess and found out in order to accomplish that someone would need to have immunity to poison cast upon them, enter the well and be killed in the well where their blood would purify it.

We then left and went to go fight the aspis by the well. It was a hard fight in close quarters where aspis kept sneaking around the flank killing the group. We had almost wiped and Lawrence went back to the temple, devoted himself to Justari and took the sword, using it against the Aspis. I had died somewhere in here but was later told that Kovaks had bravely purified the well herself, stopping all regeneration that the aspis had and allowing us to succeed against the Aspis.

Upon returning to the temple the lights went out once more, except this time it was not Jason the bone collector seeking our deaths, it was Garm’s Death Knights. They proclaimed the temple heresy and planned to burn it to the ground. Death Knights are beings who are immune to most wounds except those directly inflicted by Aurora’s power in honorable combat. With the swords of light I had, we tried to fell Garm’s General to no avail. He quickly culled the rest of the group. While he was razing the temple a voice spoke to myself and others to challenge the Death Knight. Lawrence, Kovaks, Tirvanel and myself volunteered to challenge him in that order. Those three all challenged and lost to the General and knowing it was all up to me, I grabbed the Main Gauche of Saint Daniel and the Bone of Shoshanna (the weapons of light of a knight and his squire) and broke weapons restriction trying to fell the General. With all my might and furiosity I jumped on that General quickly taking out two points of his head armor but because I did not have armor myself I took a blade to my back.

Upon dying I heard a voice asking myself if I wanted to challenge them again in exchange that if I lost I would lose 1/3rd of my soul. Without hesitation, I volunteered myself and the Bone of Shoshana left my hand and was replaced with the Sword of Kings. For reference, this god slaying blade was used to pin Dionin and Garm previously. With this power I challenged the Death Knight General once more destroying him entirely. Upon his death, the sword spoke to me once more telling me that it will be back when the time it is needed. The Sword of Kings then left my hand and the Bone of Shoshana was there once again.

I have not had such an adrenaline rush in a very long time and such an enjoyable short quest. As a person who had claimed to have never been a fighter less than 2 hours earlier and then ironically broke weapon restriction to save a temple to Justari it was an amazing experience and kept me up many hours later into the night. I want to thank all the storytellers and the people who helped npc, the grilling staff with the delicious burgers and the players for sharing this eventful night with me.