Session 85

To Session 85

• Finish Cabal with refactoring - Enforcers and Shades are Nightsworn Concalians, sent by Shar to assist the Cabal as the “muscle” and as the ones transferring information within the organization discretely.
• Archive queries:
  • Mentions of Valiant
    • Diagrams of “upgrades" - the Valiants, and other construct models, are running out of power. A series of “experimental upgrades” are performed on a bunch of them. Are lists of participants with notes,  with list for each “upgrade”, all assertaining to their Core, how it gathers power and how it funnels it to their bodies. Valiant is  far down the first list, though several entries are “stryket over”. Each entry has a note associated with it, either describing the procedure as having been completed, or if it's been “strøket ut”, a note regarding why. Typical reasons are them either having run out of power and deactivated, been lost in the conflict, or something having gone wrong during the upgrade.
    • Valiant is the 1st entry on the last list that's not been “strøket ut”. This procedure seems to be making modifications to the core itself in an attempt to make it perpetually self-powering. All the “strøket ut” valiants above seem to have failed, with the diagrams showing signs of having been modified probably just as many times as there have been attempts.
    • NOTE: Fullfør timeline.
      • De finner ut hvordan nye typene med constructs er powered. Flees the capitol to gather support against this blasphemy. Civil war ensues.
      • Time passes. Battles ensue. The civil war drags on. The Valiants cores, and the cores of other modules, are starting to run out of power, seemingly being cut off from whatever power fueled them in the past. The clergy's golems does not seem to have this problem. Valiant's side therefore gets pushed back over time.
      • They start looking for ways to make the cores self-sufficient, i.e. no longer run out of power. As Valiant is about to have the last step of the final procedure, the order is given to immediately depart for a mission - a forward repair facility for the enemy's constructs has been found, and is currently lightly guarded, with the enemy armies “out of position” to defend it. They are to take it and secure it. Serves as a strategically important target to take out, and secondarily they want their Forgesmit to look at the procedures the enemy use to find any potential weaknesses, or to perhaps help them figure out how to make their Valiants no longer run out of power.
      • They secure it, but enemy returns earlier than they thought, making them trapped. Forgesmith dies. Valiant “rescues” angel, who in its final breath digs their hand deep into Valiant's chest, overloading him with power, allowing him to beat the incoming enemies, but the angel's last efforts also causes the building they're in to collapse, burying Valiant with it. - Valiant's part ends here.
      • With the Forgesmiths dead, Valiant's side grow desperate, knowing their remaining Valiants and other constructs will soon run out of power. In a hail-mary attempt to win the war, they decide to lure the enemy by letting them assault their home city. They will have as much of the army as they can maneuver around the enemy, and march straight for the Capitol while the enemy is busy with their home city. They are basically sacrificing their own home, along with a portion of their army that must remain there to delay the enemy and make them believe the army is still there, in order to give them a chance to enter the capitol and stop the Forges. They hope that if the evil of the current Forges are revealed, the clergy will loose their support.
      • They sort of succeed - they barely manage to free the archangel as their forces are slaughtered. Though in a twist of fate, the angel condemns the entire race to the Shadowfell.
  • Note on cool names for other COnstruct models
    • Stalwart – praevalidum // Praval? Pravalum?
    • Dauntless
    • Savior/Preserver/Protector – Servator
    • Enduring -  perennem // Perennium
    •  

Ravanelli Estate

• Time: About 03.00AM on the 29th. Festival will start in about 15 hours (around 17.00-18.00)
• Currently in basement. Just fought Shade/Enforcers from the Castigian Cabal, of Concalian descent.
  • "Their skin begins to crack, releasing faint tendrils of black smoke. Tiny flakes peel off and float upwards, disintegrating into shadowy wisps that vanish into the air."
  • If they speak some last words: “Nightsinger embrace me”? (Ambleceme, Doma Noctus".
    • Concalian words for Nightsinger: “Doma Noctus”
  • Potential Cabal names for Nightsinger: The Hidden One. The Unseen Hand. Enlightener?
  • Note to self: Concalians have trouble passing through to the Material Plane, and “decay" MUCH faster when on it.  This is in part why they are motivated to create a huge crack in the world's seal, beleiving it will let them pass over easier. Shar has also convinced them that breaking it and passing over will dispell the curse placed on them, making it so they no longer waste away.
• EVENTS:
  • Just finished combat with Concalians allied with Castigian Cabal - Cabal sees them as servants the Nightsinger has brought to aid them.
  • One got away, having opened the basemen. reinforcements are on the way. Let's say group has 5+ 1-2d6 turns before they sow up.

Cabal Documents on Table:

A large amounts of paper, as well as a few maps, and a couple of books.

Many of the papers seem to be reports regarding ship movements, specifically ships belonging to the Marcandrian Royal Armada. The Huntsman, the Marcandrian capital ship currently docked in Alatri, is among the ships being tracked. Some of the books here appears to be logs of reported movements, spanning back years.

One book, however, seems to instead log outgoing shipments, smuggled out from the city with the help of Privateer ships. Among the goods the log describes are tons worth of fused Concalian crystals. The destination of these shipments is not listed.

Additions with roll:

Ship tracking: The Marcandrian Royal flagship, the Concord, had its last entry about a year ago. They seem to have stopped caring about tracking its position since then.

Privateer Ships listed in log: At least a dozen different ships, among them Edward's Revenge, whose last smuggled goods out of Alatri a few months ago.

Shipment timeline: Seems to have started a little over 2 years ago. Last outgoing shipment was about a month ago. There logs seem to indicate there's been some frustration since the nearby shores off Alatri got infested with sea-monsters. A couple of privateer ships are also indicated as having been sunk due to these sea-monsters.

What was shipped off: In addition to the fused concalian crystals, vast amounts of magic materials and magical items seems to have been among the smuggled goods.

Documents In archives

These archives contain rows upon rows of letters, documents, and books. The archives seem very well organized. The contents seem to include:

1. Documents on official agreements, such as treaties, pacts, and trade agreements. These documents outline the terms laid forth by said alliance, trade agreement, and other agreement,
2. Legal Documents. These includes official decrees, contracts, and charters. These include land deeds, contracts, and feudal charters between House Ravanelli and their vassals – which detail acerage, taxes, and the duties and responsibilities the vassal agrees to in exchange for being granted land. Laws, regulations, edicts, proclamations. Decrees of pardons/amnesty, and decrees of confiscation/expropriation are also among these.
   1. Documents detailing the terms for each of House Ravanelli's vassals can be found here – the terms laid forth for them in terms of taxes, duties, responsibilities, etc, are not always equal.
   2. .
3. Financial Records. Records detailing House Ravanelli's finances, including accounts, ledgers, budgets, and financial transactions. Some documents also detail inventories of assets, properties, and resources owned by the family.
   1. Ravanelli family seems to historically having been quite wealthy.
   2. There seems to have been a sharp increase in expenditures related to mercenaries, espionage, bribes, etc, starting early 1350. The family seems to currently be running a massive deficit, tapping into the funds they've stockpiled and selling off assets in order to finance this.
4. Correspondences and Communications: These are records of letters, messages, and other forms of communication exchanged between the ducal family and various parties, including other noble houses, government officials, diplomats, and influential individuals.
5. Espionage Reports and Intelligence: Reports compiled by spies, agents, or intelligence operatives employed by the ducal house. These reports may contain information on rival houses, political intrigue, military movements, economic activities, and other matters of strategic interest.
6. Strategic Plans and Policies: Documents outlining long-term strategies, policies, and objectives of the ducal family, including plans for governance, defense, expansion, and diplomacy.
7. Personal Journals and Diaries: Private writings of family members, such as personal journals, diaries, and memoirs, providing insights into their thoughts, experiences, and personal lives.
8. Historical Records and Archives: Documents of historical significance to the ducal family, such as records of past events, achievements, and milestones in the family's history.
9. Genealogical Records. Records documenting the family lineage, ancestry, and genealogy of House Ravanelli, including pedigrees, family trees, birth certificates, and marriage records.

Additions with roll:

• Recent strategic plans:
  • They appear to be gathering support to try get Mariana Ravanelli to ascend to the currently-empty Marcandrian throne. They seem to be in competition with the ducal houses of de Vesci and Grimani, with the documents seeming to convey that relations between the three houses are quite sour at the moment. Three Casodonian houses are also listed as vying for the Casodonian ducal seat. Their plans for the two remaining ducal houses – house Bologni and house Moretti – seem to involve trying to convince them into backing House Ravanelli by the time they're done dealing with the current turmoil in their respective duchies (in part also to prevent more contenders).
  • Most of House Ravanelli's family members thus seem to have been away from Alatri for most of the past couple of years in order to garner support, with Mariana Ravanelli herself staying in Vessina.
• Legal documents
  • Includes a decree that forbids burials in Alatri – all burials must happen outside the city's perimeter. An accompanying document, that seem to be addressed to the writer's descendants, is very insistent that this decree must not be reversed so long as the apparent curse beneath the city remains.
• Financial records
  • House Ravanelli seem to be tapping heavily into their wealth, starting Winter 1349 – when the royal family was assassinated. This money has been used to, amongst others, bribes, military equipment, and the hiring of mercenaries.
• Correspondences and communications
  • Vast array of recipients, on a vast array of issues. A lot of them recently seem to be in regards to garnering support for House Ravanelli's claim to the Marcandrian throne. Other noble families, and members from factions such as the Fulcrum, Wayfarer's Union, Meranzeum, Joybringers, Greenwardens, and so on.
• Intelligence and espionage
  • House Ravanelli seems well aware of Elena “the Grin”, and are keeping track of her. The records seem to indicate that House Ravanelli and Elena the Grin has an informal agreement, where Elena keeps a leash on the other criminals in Alatri, and make sure they don't do anything stupid that would upset the citizenry, in return for House Ravanelli mostly looking the other way.
    • House Ravanelli's view: “There will always be a kingpin, beheading one will only open the path for another, so let's make a not-so-bad option that we can work with holds the position of kingpin.”
• personal journals and correspondences
  • Old journals and correspondences belonging to duchess Fioretta Ravanelli seem to indicate that her, Euphemia Moretti, and someone called Elrithia Renfallan have been rather close friends for decades.
• intelligence and espionage
  • Seem to have been quite an effort into figuring out who was behind the royal family's assassination, with little luck. They seem concerned that one – or more – of the other houses vying for the Marcandrian throne could have been involved, and are thus also concerned about their and their subjects' future should someone involved in said assassination ascend to the Marcandrian throne.

Regarding Ravanelli Documents: It seems people have been looking at quite a few of the records. Some seem to be missing, others seem to have been placed back.

Documents include: Personal correspondences, confidential reports, + more confidential versions of what's found in state office.

There are also a lot of documents that either are or that describe the exchanges between the Ravanelli family and other parties, be that other noble families, other factions,  both within Marcandria and abroad. Documents that relates to diplomacy in a sense. The topics are many, though one that often comes up for exchanges within Marcandria are negotiations on promises and favors in return for the other party supporting House Ravanelli's claim to the Marcandrian throne.

Study and Escape corridor:

• Study is somewhat dusty. Only a large writing desk, with a chair, and a bookcase has been placed here.
• Drawers contain ink and quill, as well as stacks of blank papers, envelopes, as well as a few wax sticks placed together with a wax spoon.
• Only a few items in the bookcase.
  • Duchess Ravanelli: Personal correspondences, mostly letters, with a few books consisting of old letters bound together.
    • Most of the recent entries seem to  entail gathering support for a Mariana Ravanelli's claim to the Marcandrian throne.
    • There are a couple of correspondences between Ravanelli and Headmistress Moretti, mostly scheduling meetings. The language used in these seems to indicate the two as old friends.
  • Mariana Ravanelli: Mostly correspondences on getting support for her claim. Many of the letters seem to be discussions and deliberations on promises and demands related to garnering someone's support.
• People whose been using the studies, i.e. who has personal correspondences: Mariana Ravanelli, Raffel Ravanelli, Alvis Ravanelli, Fioretta Ravanelli
• Getting out:
  • The drawers have a luxurious carved finish, that fan out from a central point on each drawer
    • No obvious button. Perception check: The centerpiece is a button, though the craftmanship is so immaculate that it's almost entirely invisible.
      • The button is also pretty hard to push in, to the point where if you were to just press to check if it was a button, you'd probably stop pressing before applying enough force to make it move.
  • Pushing these buttons on the two top drawers simultaneously makes the bookcase move, rotating slightly from the wall, revealing a hidden path.

Escape corridor:

• Quite slim. There are no lamps or crystals to give off light, though the walls, floor, and ceiling have the occasional arcane rune that glows faintly, making it barely possible to see.
  • If they investigate these symbols: Arcana check. Warding runes - Abjuration. Two types of runes. One seems to prevent detection. The other seems to prevent certain types of creatures from entering the corridor.
  • Corridor is long, with a rather long decline.

Night

1. Narthael:
   1. He's at 35 out of 50 for getting flyer shapeshifting. Though he called the staff useless, and the staff is a part of his mothers (literary).
   2. Valanthe is rather mad, berating Bhin on how hurt Thiala got when Bhin called her useless.
   3. DC15 Persuasion if he wants them to each him how to turn into birds tonight, else he's just going to be berated by Valanthe for a bit more before they leave for the night.
   4. If he succeeds, Thiala will be the one teaching him. It's her turn after all. You can see she there's dried sap on her cheeks, and the lesson is far more transactional than it usually is with her - she's clearly stil lsad.
      1. The lessen consists of her blindfolding you, has you lie on your stomach on the ground, before she starts making gusts of wind to hover you in the air. She instructions she gives, in a somewhat melancholy tone, is to feel and attune yourself to the wind, trying to feel what the bird feels, and in the moment you feel you've aligned perfectly with the wind, shapeshift.
   5. Wisdom check. If he gets 15 or more, he succeeds in becoming a bird, and can from now on shapeshift into flyers.
2. Ari:
   1. Your dream consists of you, or perhaps someone else, you can't really tell for sure, is sitting with your head dug into your knees, in a muffled-out street as the contours of other beings move past you, up and down the street. You, or whoever's eyes your looking out from, is constantly at the verge of panic, taking quick glances at the vague outlines of the beings moving past while praying that they do not notice you.

Conciri Compound

1. Forbidden Archives

1. Large somewhat circular room, two floors beneath the ceiling. Both the floor and ceiling is covered in thin but deeply interwoven patterns that appears to make out arcane symbols. Braziers and statues are strategically placed along the walls - the braziers having almost solid flames with apparently no fuel source, and the statues holding staves with large iridescent gems.
2. 3 large tables are placed at the center - two having thick stacks of blank papers, with accompanying ink vials and quills. The last table, the only one with a chair, has a single huge tome.
3. At the far left and right side of the room, from the perspective of sitting in front of the tome, are two large tables, with the only item on each of these tables being a large lever. On the far forward direction, from the perspective of looking at the tome, is what appears to be a circular staircase going further down, though the stairs are behind rune-engraved metal bars.
4. At the “north” side is a long corridor that eventually leads to a staircase going upwards.
5. Bordering each quadrant of this somewhat circular room are four large sections filled to the brim with books. Part of the walls here are windowed, allowing you to look into them, though the thick doors appears to be locked. These doors appears to have medium side slits, akin to a “mail slot"

The Tome:

• Approaching the tome will cause the text “What knowledge do you seek from the archives?" to just appear on the left page that's open. The pages are otherwise blank.
• They must make a specific ask for something to happen. if they just ask “what can you give me, or something vague, nothing will happen.
• Asking a question will cause two things to happen:
• 1. A series of tomes will fly from the adjacent rooms, through the slits in the doors, and to the central tables, where they are neatly lined up, all open at the beginning of whatever section of the book starts taking about what was asked about.
• 2. The tome will write “X retrieved Y from the archive”, “X retrieved Z from the archive”, and so on, listing up each book that was retrieved.
  • The name listed here will be their real name.
    • So Narthael will be “Guiliani Viani”
    • Valiant will perhaps be something like Aegis Prime, or Redeemer? There's a cool name written down somewhere, from far back, if only I can find it again.
    • Cairne will be Cairne. Nothing fancy here.
    • Will Arilile Mountainfield perhaps say Liviana Mountainfield? Is that too dark?
  • if they ask what the tome is:
    • Books will come, as per usual. The tomes that open will describe the making of an intelligent magical “librarian” of sorts, that is to serve at the forbidden sections of the Conciri's archives. It is described as knowing what is written in each tome placed in the archieve, and is able to retrieve the relevant tomes for any topic it's asked about.
    • If they ask about a log: The tome will retrieve a log with names of those who have accessed the archives. Euphemia Moretti is heavily featured in the tomes, though a myriad of other high-ranking members of the Conciri are also there. However, over the past year or so, the majority of the entries are for a “Te'Lik” and a “Rahier de Maromme”, only rarely featuring the names of others.

Getting out of the room

• As simple as pulling both the levers. Doesn't have to be simultaneously.

Countermeasures:

• Faintly glowing magic circle will follow you both on the floor and roof as you move about in the room. This does nothing so long as the defensive measures are not triggered. If triggered, these will Levitate the person, with the goal of making them helplessly trapped floating in the air.
• The statues will try to Counterspell every spell cast with a +5 to the check. if a spell is counterspelled by them, the target will take 1d6 Psychic damage per level of the spell, with Cantrips dealing 1d6 Damage.
• On Initiative 20, a Fire Elemental will spawn from one of the Braziers, preferring one near an enemy. Each statue will also shoot a 1st level magic missile spell. This goes on indefinitely.

Artifact Storage

1. Experimentation area
2. Countermeasure System