Dominion: Session 6

General Summary

Downtime in the Navician Woods

• Nazgul finished training her new diplomatic corps, giving them what they were Lacking in Social Graces and schooling them in idioms in order to turn them into a Properly Trained Kobold Diplomatic Corps.
• Qazir continued to work on his dreams of napalm. He enlisted the help of his enthusiastic Salted Earth apprentices to collect flammable gasses or liquids for experimentation. One of them, a kobold called Doddering Nurgul, returned with a flammable tree sap that even continued to burn underwater, which Qazir incorporated into his mixture to create a Sticky, Burning Substance that was, unfortunately, Still Too Weak A Flame.
• Damira went to learn magic from Zahur, the Crimson Oracle. He gave her a spellbook of basic human priest magic, but cautioned her that draconic magic was more powerful and difficult to control than that of other races due to the magnitude and complexity of their "Self". She found this to be true in her practice; she attempted to manipulate stone in the same way Aelia Marcellus had to trap her, but was unable to accurately target the effects of her magic.
• Mursili continued training his caryatid allies, this time enlisting a group of kobolds (including Nazgul's husband, Timur the Tenacious) to fight alongside them. To push past the fact that the caryatids were Unwilling to Rely on Kobold "Strength", he had the kobolds practice skirmishing alongside a golem, then quickly shifting to charge and overrun a target en masse. This led to Mutual Respect for the Underfoot Kobolds, but without a chance to test the strategy in battle, all he could report to Damira was that it Works Great in Theory.

Prophecy Problems

Before the dominion left, Zahur cautioned Damira that a portion of the Salted Earth tribe was becoming obstinately committed to their interpretation of the prophecy, with its valuation of Qazir's wings, and that this could lead to discord in the dominion (or at the last, an insular, isolated tribe). After conferring with the others, Nazgul went around to the historians of each recruited tribe, transcribing their takes on the prophecy so that Damira and the others could study the variations.
As it happened, there was a considerable amount of variation between the different tribes' versions, which prompted Damira and her advisors to examine the differences closely. Nazgul also stumbled upon an alternate interpretation of a line of the prophecy during her study of gnomish, when she learned that "to face the sun" refers to a willingness to handle tough choices head-on.

Joe's notes on the prophecy:

• Strength vs Power - magical vs physical strength?
• Tribes from isles to streams vs tribes beyond counting
• Teachers vs exiles - probably gnomes. Crimson Oracle seems biased towards magical stuff
• Crimson Oracle is much more different than others - gnomish memories? Gnomish lies? Assimilation of any nearby tribes?
• East vs sun - became very relevant with the "born to face the sun" gnomish idiom
• Wooded bend also has "power" for the last line, and the same stuff as Crimson Oracle for the penultimate; they traded with one of the tribes assimilated into the Crimson Oracle, explaining that connection
• Salted Earth is full of shit, nobody else shares their line about all kobolds having strength under their wings

Joe's notes on Nazgul's gnomish:

• 1st singular and plural are the same
• Misc Idioms:
  • "getting lost in the sea"—someone getting lost in nostalgia/remembrance
  • "a whistle on the wind" for ultimately inconsequential things that will be forgotten by history
  • "born to face the sun" for a willingness to make hard choices
  • "trading knives"—a ritual involving exchanging gifts as a show of good faith; important for gnomes

Allies to the South?

Just prior to their departure, Zahur got a message to Aelia Marcellus on Damira's behalf, asking her to meet with some of their diplomats and provide them with safe passage into Tamera. The dominion marched south stealthily, crossing the main road unseen by blockading it up- and down-road on each side, and making it all the way down to the Srydari river, sending out the diplomats along the way.

Quick Notes

Rewards Granted

• A spellbook of Patrian human rituals.
• Several versions of the Prophecy of Baizhan.

Clocks

Projects

• [4/4] Creating a diplomatic corps.
• Properly Trained Kobold Diplomatic Corps (HC)
• [3/4] Training Petros and the caryatids to fight alongside kobolds.
• Mutual Respect for the Underfoot Kobolds (HC)
• Works Great in Theory (T)
• [3/6] Creating napalm.
• Sticky, Burning Substance (HC)
• Still Too Weak a Flame (T)

Other

• [5/8] Bracaran Awareness of Damira
• [4/6] Acathan Awareness of Damira

Character(s) interacted with

Newly Introduced

• Celebrated Tursynbek, Nazgul's chief diplomat.
• Doddering Nergul, Qazir's surprisingly-competent apprentice.

Recurring

• Adept Zhansulu
• Aelia Marcellus, messaged offscreen.
• Timur the Tenacious
• Zahur

The Bracaran Peninsula

Open full size

A zoomed-in map of the southeastern portion of Aedes.

Bracaran Date

7 Blessed Moon-5 Thunder Moon, Year 6 of Damira's Domain

Patrian Date

Day of Shadows-26 Helvidia, 102 AL

Report Date

13 Oct 2021

Primary Location

Navician Woods

PCs

Damira, Mursili, Nazgul, Qazir

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