shifty louts

Antarctica Campaign Session 9: The Train to Tisena

Players

Summary

The group heads down the coastline from Pime, leading their caravan of refugees based on a thirty-year story about the city of Tisena to the southeast in the Cordillera. The Professor duBoig managed to bring along four “student researchers” from Pime.

They travel for two days. Upon the third day, Josu sees torch light upon the far mountain, an ominous warning.

The next day passes much the same.

The fifth day sees Uhin and the rest meet the merchant Lanpetuta in the evening upon the coastal plain.

porter

The merchant wears a towering backpack. He bears luxuries. Powdered spices of cinnamon, clove, cassia, cardamom, and star anise. Crops: seeds of plenty; lentils, sugar beets, and alfalfa. Spirits and preserved, candied fruits. He asks of news from these travelers, stories to delight the Prince he serves, for the Prince’s mirrors can only reflect so much.

The group speaks of Porem and Pime, of Red Tree. Lanpetuta has heard the stories, and banter is exchanged. Lanpetuta will accompany them to Tisena, a new market for new goods for the Prince’s yearly bacchanal.

Lanpetuta speaks of avoiding a southern mountain chain; the children of the Once-Roving Torment call the mountain home.

The sixth day has the caravan reach a mountain peak. To the southwest, a cyclopean causeway leading to a floating tower.  Shards of liquid mercury that reflect and mirror the surroundings back towards the tower. A panopticon.

To the south-east, a mass of woodsmoke

The group descends the mountain and, in the river valley, meets eleven strange humanoids bearing the fur of Cordillera pronghorn and llama. Crude and muscular, they gabble and wave their spears. The group doesn’t want to fight, and Uhin and Josu present offerings of food. One bearing a skull mask and some sort of electric whip from Heriotza accepts the food, and they are escorted back up on the mountain all evening and into the seventh day.

The strange humanoids bound down the mountainside as fast as mountain goats. The group is forced to rest, exhausted.

third creation

In the morning, more of these humanoids charge from the crevasses of the Cordillera. Egiarte falls to their spears as Josu, Uhih, and the Dog Shaman Hilargi defend those under their charge. They bury Egiarte as duBoig pockets the monograph the Black Magus was writing: The Geological Operations of the Cordillera and the Shrublands; The Amber Ribbon and its Influence on Flora, Fauna, Fungi and Further Forms of Life as well as Abiotic Factors

The victors search the corpses, finding a satchel of 2000gp, seven gems identified by the Professor as lapis lazuli, a strange ring made of oyster shell that has hairline cracks, and a scroll bearing a hexagram sigil.

cmap2

The group can see, upon the mountain to the south-east, log cabins and paddies cut into the mountain that grow chia and pumpkin. Storehouses and a grand lodge further up on the mountain with chartreuse flags whipping in the wind.

The group arrives at Tisena, seeking an audience with the King. A vizier ruling as regent, for the King died only a few days ago. The group is accompanied by a Knife, one of six knights adorned with dyed-black Builder Plate armor, wielding a ceremonial halberd.

The group sells their gems and buys four war dogs, as Hilargi says their baying turns First Creations away. They attempt to ask a Storyman with chartreuse-dyed hair to identify the scroll and ring, but all the Storyman can do is say the hexagram is similar to symbols he’s seen on those who bring back relics from Heriotza.

hex20

Aftermath

Treasure Found:

Foes Encountered:

Rumors:

Deaths:

XP Awarded:

Notes

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