shifty louts

Antarctica Campaign Session 8 - Guinea Pigs Upon the Cordillera

Players

Summary

The group spends a week at Fort Salagrano, Xixili Esgrima, beginning to pen a monograph entitled  I Think, Therefore I Amber Ribbon: A Psychogeographic Survey of Eest Antarctica, while Uhin speaks to the guards regarding his theories on the Martian influences present here.

The group learns that the warriors of Fort Salagrano protect merchants and travellers alike from the Carukia and another creature called the Underwater Lion Izurdea

The warriors speak of starting a Warrior Society. Many names are bandied about while drinking maize beer: the Crazy Hounds, the Mountain Dancer Clan, Red Shield, and more.

Xixili suggests the Crazy Hounds, but his thoughts on the matter are rebuffed by the soldiers.

Eventually, the group decides to assist the Professor as escorts, he seeks the eest, to places not yet seen so the group decides to head south to Pacem, then follow the river and the Cordillera’s rim.

Descending the mountain fort, they reach Pacem by afternoon, meeting a maroon-kirtled farmer tending to his fields. Pleasantries exchanged and news of the Duke of Nalid’s dealings regarding the Amber Ribbon.

Xixili casts Read Unconscious, probing the man’s inner psyche, he sees another phallic telluric entity emerge from the ground in the west, while saying travel east.

The group takes their proceeds and buys a giant guinea pig from the farmer for 30gp, thinking it a wise investment to carry any found items.

duchess

They continue southward, smelling Purple Beard and vanilla upon the wind. A piping drone, softer and sensual. The wind picks up and purple whisps float upon the gusts of wind.

The Professor digs through his notes, saying this reminiscent of the Shrublander stories of sylphid spirits who seduce women.

Xixili nods and thinks it to be the unconscious worry of cuckoldry made manifest, Uhin thinks it is perhaps aliens, greys, more specifically. The group makes it to a river by nightfall as the piping drone continues intermingling with the barely audible voice of a woman in the throes of passion.

The next morning the decide to go, doffing their armor and using Duchess as a raft. As they make it across, Uhin and Xixili see two feline forms low in the tall grasses waiting on the riverbank.

They steer Duchess downriver as the feline forms continue following. Xixili can throw some rations which distract the saber tooth tigers, and the group makes it safely away and across the river. The group camps and awakens, finding another river by mid-day, but shallow enough to cross due to the lack of winter’s thaw.

They hear howling, but no wolves, and see further in the distance thirteen conical, slate huts. The group gets closer, as the Professor stays with Duchess, his pen a crude knife, as Xixili dons his plate armor and weapon, heading into the village to see llamas torn apart and disemboweled.

A voice from within one of the huts yells out if they’ve encountered the dogs. Xixili responds no, and the voice urges them to come quickly into their hut. The group dashes forward and learns that Porem’s dogs rebelled, urged on by Red Tree.

The man asks if they’ve seen a woman. They respond no. The man’s wife has been missing for three days. She was out prior to the dog revolt.

The group asks the Professor about Red Tree and learns that many, many, many winters ago, such an event unfolded at a city called Gegno the first dog turned upon his master. The master's name lost to the fog of memory.

A young pup named Red Tree tore his master's throat when the master attempted the peaceful cut against his ally.

Since then, Red Tree has urged all dogs to revolt against their masters during times of famine and during times of great harvest alike. It matters not, for such hungry darkness always awaits in men's hearts, awaiting the ripe moment to show its true self.

Some stories differ, the Professor comments that some say Red Tree has learned all the names of plants and animals and can command them, others speak that Red Tree became so powerful is through a "wolf song" which he keeps secret, other speak of coming apocalypse - If Red Tree isn’t killed, they will grow larger and larger, eventually large enough to eat the sun itself!

The group debates, offering them safety in the montane fort of Salagrano, or perhaps to the close village of Pime on their map. The man, Olowa convinces the remaining thirteen to follow the armsmen to Pime rather than starve to death within their slate huts. Olowa gifts them a periscope they were using to try to find his wife.

Preparations are made, and the group leaves Porem under a waxing gibbous moon northeast across the Shrublands as howls echo across the expanse.

A day and night find them arriving outside a large birch forest, but exhaustion forces them to rest for the entire day. Deeper in the forest, elephantine trumpeting can be heard, freaking out the refugees of Porem and Duchess.

The group continues to rest and plunges into the forest, finding knocked-down trees and branches. Stripped bark and deep indentation of footprints head deeper north east in the Cordillera.

The Professor complains about not bringing his casting kit, as the group sees three cedar totems. The first, displaying welcoming human forms, near 40 feet tall, stands upon the edge of the village to invite visitors and guests.

The second is within the center of the village. Outside the clan hall draped with yellow and red flowers. While a third uncarved totem stands at the end of the forest to the south. Atop is a serpentine figure, daubed and rubbed with ash collected from fires.

The caravan is met by a spearman and three slingers who are shocked to see armed men and ask in an accented Free City Creole of their business. Stories of evading the canine acolytes of Red Tree are exchanged and the group is let into the village.

cordillera

The hospitality of Pime is displayed as a great feast of salmon, eel, chinook, river otter, clams, and sea birds alike for the refugees of Porem. The three adventurers are asked into the lodge hall where they meet a young woman in her early twenties, the elder of this village, the Daughter of Sunyanatika.

She worries about how the differences between the two peoples will be reconciled, as she is obligated to adopt them as her children. There isn’t enough food nor enough houses to accommodate such a sudden influx of people.

Egiarte asks about other places that could accommodate their group. The storyman speaks of a city in the Cordillera called Tisena, having heard about it from a merchant some thirty years ago.

The group debates next steps, the safer route of travelling by canoe is out of the question given their lack of funds, a straight way through the Cordillera is dangerous for the storyman warns of Telluric Spirits and Those of the Little Trees, so the group opts to head to the coast and walk along the shores hoping to find the city.

Aftermath

Treasure Found:

Foes Encountered:

Rumors:

Deaths:

XP Awarded:

Notes

#aaj