Mapday, Soldiermoon, 1313

General Summary

Connie can reroll STR or WIS
Hugo Headband: +1 with Dargents, -1 with Stargazers, +1 with Dargent-Laureats.

Ears of the City

Rounds 1-3: Why are Stargazers upset with me?

Veiled conversation but single word: Targatis.

Round 4: Stargazers on Guinevera

-27

Round 5: Significant changes to Amiera’s Hand Idea

Stargazers have come around to being definitely on board. Andromeda and Leopold Stargazer are discussing how to convince Ironsides (not confident).

Round 6: Why did stats go down with the Nightkeepers?

Webb Nightkeeper had seen enough of Connie’s magic to be suspicious.

Round 7: Polomart

Every noble household member at Blademas is gossiping – surprised.
No-one has any idea why Scarhide arranged that.
Other noble families are concerned about stronger bond between Stargazers and Ironsides.
Stargazers are unhappy with Pollux for not telling them before but can use political marriage.
Rina privately dislikes it.
Pelagia has some concerns – employment review with Andromeda.
Balthazar is angry – had expected he could choose own son in law, and it wouldn’t have been Pollux.
Menelaus is quietly supportive – pleased his sister got to choose someone (who wasn’t a fighter)
Agamemnon – concerned about Balthazar’s reaction.
Britomart pinning Pollux to wall while pulling armour off.
Lord Captain Emissary is planning to congratulate them in Court today.

Round 8: Scarhide

Immediately after seeing Scarhide betray him, Richard Dargent ordered Huntmaster to bring Scarhide to gnoll tunnel for ambush.
Failed, so Huntmaster was reprimanded and blasted with negative energy. Sent to recapture Scarhide when he reappeared.
Richard and Guinevera Dargent's sweep of the Noble District turned up nothing.
No convincing theories.
[End of Ears of the City Info]
Connie reads Carnegie book (11 hours in total)
Dwarven book Memoirs of Akbar Muntaqim can’t recognise the name
Cactus Cat improvement: 3/8

Noble Court

All Stargazers and Ironsides have shown up
Lord Captain Emissary is here, talking with the Amira's Hand.
Nycteme and Crepuscule Underhand are not here.
Grimoire Brasseyes is coming on the expedition.
Cody cashing in his favour for drugs.
Rouge: “You might want to suggest that your mother scry on the creature in the book again. It might resolve a lot of things.”
Hugo: “Will I hate it?”
Rouge: “I can’t see why you would hate it.”
Hali Shajara drinking gold-coloured cocktail.
“The Necromancer”: Absinthe, Elderflower liqueur, Lemon juice, White wine, Quinine, Fruits and Herbs
+7 Shajara Party Tokens (5 for Cody's Gang, 2 for Hugo and Lindie – pets get in free, right?)
Hastur weeklong party: ends on Wealthmas.

Katharine Ironside Whisper Vote Intel

Baharat: Banish. Legitimately suspicious disappearance. Don’t want to risk her coming back if she was involved.
Bakerstreet: Forgive. Can’t get much detailed explanation. Cody mentions “yeah, my dad’s pretty sure she didn’t do it.”
Brasseyes: Exile. They maybe would be on Forgive, but they don’t want to look too lenient.
Carterhold: Execution. Djann lost his wife to those wasps.
Dargent: Harsh.
Dargent-Laureat: Whatever Richard wants.
Darktusk: Execution. Mostly because they don’t especially care but they’ve got an alliance with the Carterholds.
Greenskin: Exile. Does think Katharine is innocent but doesn’t think Forgiveness vote will work. Pragmatic.
Ironside: Forgive (Probably).
Jackalslicer: Forgive, if they think they can get away with it.
Mason: Banish. Not sufficiently convinced that she was behind it to vote execute, but he did get wasped so…
Nightkeeper: Banish. Although they are being cagey about why.
Ratrider: What’s the deal with those goblins?
Shajara: Probably whatever Richard wants.
Stargazer: Probably lenient now. Polomart.
Underhand: Harsh. Always vote to kill.

Expedition Vote

In Favour of Expedition: Dargents, Dargent-Laureats, Stargazers, Baharats, Jackalslicers, Greenskins, Shajaras, Nightkeepers.
Abstain: Bakerstreets ("no comment"), Underhands, Ratriders.
In Favour of War: Ironsides, Masons, Carterholds, Darktusks.
Lord Captain Emissary seems disappointed by outcome.

Menelaus’s Room

Wooden ascetic (he is a Druid as well as a Monk).
Menelaus: "Last chance if this is a trick, Katib."
Hugo: "No trick."
Menelaus uses one of the charms on Bracelet of Friends.
Katharine Ironside is back! She has black cuffs with glowing blue runes. She blinks in the light.
Katharine: "Menelaus?"
Aw, shit – was she being held by the Underhands?!!!
Katharine’s cuff runes: Dimensional Anchor spell – used to capture and bind Genies
Shackles

• Moderate aura
• Dimensional Anchor without a save
• Shrink to tightly clamp (hurt)
• Escape DC = at least 30
• Anchors creature in place
• Blocks teleportation and other means of shifting
• Cuffs tried to counter bracelet and failed
• Fused to skin
• Brand burned into each wrist under the shackles
• Right wrist brand
  • Brand of hobbling, inquisitors can use it
  • Faint aura
  • Can be scrapped off but will return as soon as it’s healed
• Left wrist brand
  • Unknown purpose
  • Moderate aura

Neck brand has Underhand symbol: faint aura
Underhands don’t tend to kidnap and hold someone
Value secrecy maintain brand identity
Menelaus does not wear magic
Mirror – moderate, not magical, Fancy framework (wooden)
Conjuration (teleportation) on the mirror followed by a cluster of 4 other similar auras and then they all fade

Detect Desires

Menelaus Ironside CHA 10: Unknown.
Katharine Ironside CHA 14: Unknown.
5 "beings" CHA 13: Remain unseen. One of them wants to be given permission to hunt.
Decanter Genie CHA 11: Return to bottle before any of the wards that bind it there start kicking in – weird magic compulsions.
Lindie Asklepa CHA 12: Protect Hugo and Connie. Make sure this scenario doesn’t make Hugo’s politicking more difficult than it already is.
Hugo Dargent CHA 18: Unknown.

Balthazar (actually Sonata): “Hand over that clone.”
Menelaus 8 INT 14 WIS

Nat 20 Doppelgänger info

Doppelgängers are mentioned in the Prince's Yarns. Each copy of the Prince’s Yarns is a little different. What stories are in each edition are different, but there are stories that may or may not be in any edition.
Doppelgängers are part of a collection of different monsters and entities that are categorised by children who follow the teachings of the Prince of Orphans as “Things That Go Bump In The Night”.

• Bogeymen
• Evil fairies
• The sack man
• Koblaks
• Soulslivers
• Doppelgängers

Associated within that story telling tradition with the Downstairs Room.
There are horror camp story stories swapped between orphans about kids that woke up one morning and their mother had been replaced by a thing that looked like their mother but wasn’t.
A story in that tradition that is one of those short flash fiction stories that is just where a child is called downstairs by their mother, and then halfway down the stairs heard a voice from upstairs saying “Don’t go any further, I heard that too.”
There were 12 Underhands when Thornhill was alive.

• Haruspex, Crepuscule
• Ingestron, Diana, Nycteme, (and Thornhill)
• Glaive, Sonata – no listed partners
• 4 others. Sonata and Glaive have 2 children each.

Khopesh – neutral evil (edit: not actually Khopesh…)
Mysterious Voice: “A friend of the rabbit, I presume.”
Don’t split the party!

Behind Katharine's Mirror

Little passage
Octagonal room with mirrors.
Centre of room has sunken dias
Magic circle
Drain with grate
Set of chains with manacles
Pillars with alcoves
Benches with red and black velvet cushioning.
In the Alcoves

• Empty bookshelves (not dusty)
• Coatrack with full body set of robes and mask (Black and red but faded and darkened)

Sithrak pushes Katharine into room and she is dragged away by masked cloaked figure.
Menelaus: “Mother, do you recall the third stuffed animal you created for my sister?”
Katharine: “A dog, an Ironside Molossus. The second was the rhino, the first a butterfly, just as my mother made for me.”

Connie: “Dear Viziera Dargent. Master Hugo and I are imprisoned by Ironsides. It’d be awkward if they were to get wolfed. Please help. Best wishes, Connie.”
Guinevera: “Give me half an hour. Whatever you have done, do not expect leniency.” Connie requests Viziera Guinevera Dargent's help using a Sending spell.

Escher Mirror Room

Purple beast shadows pulsing
Corner of your eye figure
Tall, thin humanoid creature in long coat and thick scarf, layers. Some kind of fey. Impression of teeth and claws.
Voice is just behind ear – doesn’t trigger Blindsense.

“You met one night upon the stair,
The dreadful man who wasn’t there,
He isn’t there again today.
How might you wish he’d go away.”The Man Who Is Not There.

Lindie: “I don’t remember that.”
TMWINT: “Quite understandable, you were very young then and you had much more important things to remember.”
Golden Eyes.
TMWINT: “A terrible thing it is to be powerless, isn’t it, little Lyndwyrm?”
Hear the words as Vishkanyan but don’t remember them as having been said in Vishkanyan after the fact.
Many names:

• The Man Who Is Not There
• The Man Upon the Stair
• The Nightmare Man
• The Bogey Man (which is also a kind of fey, but possibly not what this guy is).
• Oracle of the Thing

Know where a door could be forged.
“Granny Ginger, 33 Troubledown Lane” – level just underground where many Beastfolk live.
At one time Granny Ginger was an informant for the Undergazette – Lindie isn’t sure if she still is.
Find the Thing In the Downstairs Room face-to-face in the basement
What does the Thing want from us?
TMWINT: “Imagine what it is like to be trapped, little Lyndwyrm.”
TMWINT: “The word Apocalypse means more precisely an unveiling. A revelation of the true nature behind the world we walk in.”
TMWINT: “A fragment of its creations sought refuge with a different deity. A stronger one under whose wings is a shadow even my darkness cannot penetrate.”
Do you know the noble with the golden eyes?
TMWINT: “I know them very intimately from your nightmares.”

Nightmares

House of Dargent

"Your own employer (Richard) fears a cage with himself and his kin on the inside. And the jeering mob on the other. He gives himself away in his nightmares many times and many ways and always ends in the cage.
His wife (Guinevera) fears a muddy street and sore paws and a bitter cold and the ruination of a life’s work separating her from the comforts she so briefly tasted so far above. And the knowledge that if she fails, all this will be made reality against her by one far far richer than she. The children, have remarkably similar nightmares in the case of the two boys. Both fear their parents. And fear the consequences of being held responsible for their parents’ secrets. And the little girl. (laughs). Oh her nightmares fascinate me. She has seen and known and read so much more than other children her age tend to do. She knows so many things to fear. Gods and devils, divs and genies, ghouls and ghosts and curses of every stripe. She knows the powers she dabbles in and yet even in the nightmares so often just before claws fall or the sack tightens she surprises herself and she surprises me and she surprises the nightmare, be it divs or ghouls or sometimes even gods.

House of Underhand

Of those thieves that steal their way through the way through what is rightfully their creator’s. Of them I cannot say so much I’m afraid. Like most of the Things creations, their kind do not sleep and so they do not dream. But they do have fears. I know this. I am one.

House of Shajara

As for the golden shajaras, their nightmares are exquisite. There are so few that have no need to experience nightmares yet choose to induce them anyway. And your golden Shajaras are two such mortals. Their nightmares are not solely the stuff of my realm, however. There is another entity far stronger than I, into whose realm they have sought to open doors within their minds. It is a realm surprisingly close to my own. You could say we share a wall. [Mirror becomes slightly translucent as a strange yellow tinged light as it seeps through the glass. Twisting, elaborate, multifaceted architecture of ivory and saffron dyed satin and velvet. Shimmers away again.] There are things in their nightmares which I do not think it would be wise to expose you to just yet. Do not take it as a personal slight. I am a great admirer of your mind, I know it well, but I do need it intact for now, and I fear there are some things that could too easily break a will such as yours.

House of Stargazer

The Stargazers I know their Viziera’s mind. But not as well as I might wish to. Her nightmares are tinged by the messages of her deity. The things that it has seen on its many travels. There are corners of the cosmos even I have not had means to walk except through the nightmares of the chosen clerics of the sailor. A recurring one recently, you might call a prophecy if you were religiously inclined. The Sailor seems very keen for her to see one particular place. A large room deep in the centre of a city filled by a singular beating heart. A heart whose veins stretch up into the sky. And whose beating echoes the ebb and flow of tides beyond merely the mortal plane. Her dear husband, he has grown familiar with many nightmares. There are many nights in his younger days that he would awaken screaming on the dreadful warnings and judgements of long exhumed curses. These days he treats them almost as familiar territory. A strange sort of comfort in fear. The young son fears pain. And he wishes he had anything more meaningful to see in his nightmares. But, more often than not, no. Just pain. Wracking agonising pain. At the hands of a vicious noble witch. The elder son, far more mundane. He fears that his family be torn apart. He fears that they are irrevocably incompatible in their needs and inclinations. And he has lost every one of them over and over again in so many dreams.

House of Brasseyes

Now, Brasseyes. They are indelible dabblers. They have known a wide variety of exotic flavours of fear in their dreams. So very well read in matters most mortals are forbidden to research. They share a wide range of nightmares that flit between them. They fear the entities they have bound. They fear the entities they have not. They fear lacking the bound to protect themselves. And they fear the consequences of disturbing something they cannot put down in their hubristic quest for such powers. The little girl, well, she has one she keeps to herself. For she has seen the world end through the eyes of a God. And that is a sight that cannot easily be scrubbed from the mind.

House of Bakerstreet

Their dear stalwart vizier so very seldom sleeps, I do not see him very often at all. But when I do, the nightmare is aways the same. A woman. Clever and dangerous. And alluring. Curious. And when it came down to it, mean. Fallen in a way he could not countenance. Taste of coffee and cloves on his lips. And the smell of incense in his nostrils. Dark, red blood on his hands. His eldest son fears inadequacy. He fears that he is inadequate for his family, for his court, for his wife. His wife, in particular, he fears very much in some very fascinating ways. She is a formidable woman of course. I should know. And the youngest son, he too has nightmares. When they are able to squeeze their way in past the fog of alcohol. They are amusing but of no great interest, I’m afraid. Mostly he fears himself. There is a level within his mind that only speaks loud enough for him to hear it within his nightmares. In which he knows that he has not become the person he wanted to become.

House of Greenskin

The old Greenskin vizier finds her own nightmares used as an outlet for the rage of her chosen deity. Mostly when she experiences nightmares, she dreams of rage. Rage and iron and fire. Her daughter fears consequences. She fears that her many secret misdeeds will finally topple upon her. She fears nearly everyone and everything in the world she knows, one way or another. Her mind is an exquisite smorgasbord.

House of Darktusk

As for the Darktusk family, their vizier I know well. For he experiences nightmares often and vividly. He fears two things, really, and little beyond. Impotence and death. I suspect on one level he knows one of them has already struck him down and the other one is waiting in the wings. His son fears many things. He fears being outsmarted. He has nightmares of conflict, war, assassination, of being judged and found wanting by his father, by the nobles of his court. By the humans who have seized control of his city. His sister in a strange way fears only one thing, though her nightmares do look similar on the surface. She sees many of the same images but her only fear is humanity. And the little boy, I always love the fears of little children. So pure, so uncomplicated. He fears clowns, he fears the loss of his dear possessions. He fears losing his mother’s grip in a crowded street. He fears that his relatives may be dragged down the plug hole by unseen forces and forgotten.

House of Ironside

And to the warlike Ironsides, their boy is not a child anymore. Yet he has retained a certain familiar naivety and that I see in his nightmares. Mostly they are of war. War or hunting. Sometimes he is forced to carry out the murders himself. Sometimes he is on the other end of the barrel. The other children fear only one thing in all their nightmares. They share a single, solitary terror of their father. The times he has broken them. The times they have seen him break others. The father has nightmares too. Though I would not expect to hear him admit it. Underneath the robes of his office and the armour of his rank Balthazar Ironside conceals many scars. And each scar has a nightmare to go with it. An abdomen torn open by ghouls. A lung pierced by a rhinoceros. A terrible malarious infection contracted in the Plane of Earth so far from his camp. A swarm of wasps from within. And the mother. Dear, sweet Katharine. Like so many who become mothers so young, for a long time her nightmares focused primarily around her children. Their safety. Her inability to control their fate. More recently she’s been introduced for some delightfully new fears for the last few nights. Insects forcing their way from her body, the trail of blood on the carpet, a fragile weakened broken form huddled in unfamiliar passages under a drain. Her blood coursing down the grooves born over years by the blood of others. And finally, inevitably, the capture. The imprisonment. The sensation of all her many years of secrets torn from her by force.

House of Carterhold

The vizier of the Poorman fears revolution. He knows what thoughts darken the minds of those it is his role to keep in place. He knows what he would do in their position. And what they must surely do sooner or later themselves. His eldest daughter shares fears I know very well. The theme of her nightmares is powerlessness. Powerlessness of her own trajectory in the world. Over the whims of the court. Powerlessness to protect those she cares about more deeply than she is willing to admit. Her sister fears for the baby, the little son she bore. A half-breed in a world unkind to half-breeds. And the baby of course, one of those few in the court still young enough to really see me for me. His fears are the purest. He fears what lies under his bed. What lurks in his closet. He has not the words to express it. But on the level of all such tiny tots he fears the Thing in the Downstairs Room.

House of Mason

The wallbuilder’s vizier fears the failure of his wall. He has seen it compromised in his nightmares. Ghouls swarming the city and him the scapegoat of the court. His wife fears not so much the failure of the wall and the consequences it would bring. But more simply the idea of the things that walk beyond it. She understands better than many why it is that the wall must always rise higher. Their son experiences nightmares rarely. But when he has done, they tend to be of dreadful consequences of his own weakness. He never quite learned to forget the bullies of his youth and though he has acquired for himself a power of his own, the fear still lingers. His daughter, ironically, fears falling more than anything. And every foot the city rises she knows is one more foot to fall.

House of Nightkeeper

As for the dwarves. They are united in two primary fears that shape their nightmares. They fear the anarchy of a world insufficiently watched. And they fear the dreadful consequences should it transpire that the wrong sort of people may be watching them.

House of Jackalslicer

The hobgoblins too have a little child. His nightmares contain dogs and terrible agitated horses. And the deaths of his parents and siblings in combat. In one way or another all of that family fear war. They see in their nightmares the court split, fighting in the streets, the breakdown of order and the reign of pointless deaths. The sons fear being drafted. The older moreso that he might be slain. The younger morso that he might be forced to slay. Their mother has spoken with entities older than herself often enough to have nightmares of a very different much older war. A war that spilled across both the city and the sky.

House of Ratrider

As for the lesser goblins. Their nightmares are many and varied. A dedicated sense of discipline and detachment seems to keep most of their tribe from obsessing over singular occurrences but patterns do emerge. They all fear the loss of more relatives. They all fear the precariousness of their family’s position should they step out of line. One way or another, they all fear the Underhands.

Amira

I do. I am with the Amira constantly. And I see her nightmares all the time. The collapse of the city. The scouring of her people. And more than anything else in all the worlds she has known, the faithful that waits in the Garden. What’s the deepest nightmare you know? Deep enough. And there are only minds that do not know fear. But the deepest I have ever seen was of falling. From the forbidden fruit that was the culmination of three lifetimes of dedicated co-operation. Retreating further and further out of reach as the ground rushed up so very fast from so very far. A trail of dark black blood trickling through the sky in her wake. Do the gods have nightmares? The gods do not sleep and so they do not dream as you or I would. But they do fear. And sometimes waking dreams can be close enough. Mostly so far as my meagre eyes can see they fear the apocalypse. Even the new ones? I don’t think so but unfortunately their fears are not for me to know. The eight are gods above other gods. In time their power will fade, and I may get a peak at what they fear too. What are your nightmares, Oracle of the Thing? [Very long laugh.] I dream of a door. And of confinement. I dream of being trapped. Those are my nightmares.
Man Who Isn’t There: "I trust you have taken these many dark secrets as an adequate gesture of good faith?"
Lindie: "I understand that these dark secrets are prepayment for the door opening task you have entrusted me?"
Man Who Isn’t There: "I’m glad you understand. I trust I can hold you to your word."
Lindie: "To the letter."
Man Who Isn’t There: "I would expect nothing less. I hope you understand, similarly, that if the Thing Downstairs is displeased with the results of your efforts, there will be consequences for you."
Lindie: "Is it possible for the Thing Downstairs to be pleased with my efforts?"
Man Who Isn’t There: "Could you bring even a fragment of it to the waking world, it will be pleased."
Lindie: "You know from my nightmares that I am not a fast worker. But I do get things done."
Man Who Isn’t There: "We have waited a long time for an opportunity like this, we can wait some more. Just not forever. Are you ready to be sent home, little Lyndwyrm?"
---
Man Who Isn’t There: "When I leave you, my influence shaping the mirrorwise will dissipate. And now that the Thief’s traitorous souls have left this realm, their influence will also be fading. It will be up to you to guide the stairs yourself back to one of those portals that is known to you."
Lindie: "Can I use these mirrorwise again?"
Man Who Isn’t There: "Not without help. Not yet. Keep your head about you, little Lyndwyrm. The netherrealms are no place for a waking mind for too long. I do not think I need be worried for you. I have complete faith in your abilities again next time you have the dream. You may not see me for I will not be there. But I can promise that I will always be not there no matter how much you wish I may go away."
(Mirrorwise is a method of transversing the Netherrealms – Netherrealms is the underground, mirrorwise is subway tracks).

Lindie Solo Adventure

Vestibule with altar and torches and holy symbol. Clawed arm with eye in palm.
Blue and purple mosaic made of glass depicting a room like the one I am in.
Armour guy with jailor’s keys (Millbank Watchguard).
Sailor and Rich Man tabbards (clerics).
Two guards with slightly less fancy armour.
-2 Ifrit Blood
+1 Spiderseye Crown. Crown with gem in crown. Darkvision 60ft. (purple shades)
+1 hand torch
Nightkeepers do not have an official family deity and for that reason they don’t have any real bias in their hiring policies for religions. Their estate has a cleric for all of the eight major deities.

• Bentham is a Tinkerite.
• Galia is a Thievian.
• Webb is a Soldierite.

This doesn’t look like the kind of architecture of the main buildings of the Nightkeeper Estate.
The older parts of their estate has this kind of oppressive prison thing going on. Could be under the Nightkeepers.
One of the older noble families. They’ve been around longer than humans, orcs or goblins.
Lindie Disguise Self as Thievian Male Catfolk
Dwarven Incantation against Maledictions
Whymslaho, the fool, of the Mid Eastern Asparatus
Large, whispy
Lindie: “Can you get me back to Palimpsest within the hour?”
Whimslho: “Perhaps a third of the way?”
Lindie: “Could you create something that would get me there about three times faster?”
Whymslaho can cast Major Creation:

• Wood / Veg – indefinite
• Earth, Stone, Crystal – 9 hours
• Precious Metals, Gold, Silver – 3 hours
• Gems – 1 and a half hours
• Rare Sky Metals (e.g. Mithral) – perhaps 1 minute

Flies 60 mph.
We are about 200 miles from Palmpsest – South East.
The Understacks War Room Map of the skull tent is not exactly here but is near enough that the moving camp could have moved.
Gian Spider has black eyes and green blood
Whymslaho has pink eyes
+ 4 silver pieces
Lindie sleeps in spider web cocoon