Isle's Destruction and Arrival into Civilization: Game 5

General Summary

The Party attempted to take a statute of drow goddess, Lloth, which triggered a cataclysmic event that destroyed Fairy Island. After escaping the destruction of the sacred Isle, the Party traveled down river to Bondar and Buntar, and spent the rest of the session securing transport south, and investigating clues related to the missing lute and kidnapped gnome.

Key Learnings

In brief, the information obtained has confirmed that the forest gnomes are being smuggled to someone or something named "Explica Defiluous" in the Northern Fultar village of Orlane. Rhodri Fawr is a successful merchant and will honor his commitment to the Druids and hires the Party to protect his cargo south to Northern Fultar. His merchant company's daily operations are managed by his young daughter, Fianna Fawr. The Party plans to leave with a number of merchant boats south the day after tomorrow. Thus, the Party has about a day and half before leaving on the trading journey south guarding Rhodri's goods that he is transporting down the Kozar River and then overland to the town of Immersea in Northern Fultar. The two boats of Emer Mor Emer, Emer the Boatwoman and her daughter Enid Ni Cuhail will be supplied with Rhodri's goods. Gravon Pitt, whose name was found in a book on poisons in the half-orc Gwenus Crannog in Gwenus' Crannog and Down the Kozar River: Game 2 is an apothecary who is allied with the local criminal element and is known as a worshiper of Hecate. The Party plans to visit Gravon Pitt and see if they can obtain additional information from him. Given the heightened tension associated with the war between Bevil and the Gildam Confederacy, the presence of a strong city guard, and the prohibition on non-Bevilians bringing weapons into Buntar, the Party is planning on avoiding violence. The mage Odium Moulim has decided to join the Party traveling south to Northern Fultar, which is his home. Odium was planning on waiting for the maritime war to end, but was convinced by the Party to join them in their overland travels. Odium emphasizes that he is not a fighter, they should not plan on him risking his neck to engage in unnecessary conflict, and he plans on traveling under the protection of the Party and other merchant guards. The weapons trainer half-elf Bayleaf has been invited to join the Party south, but he has not informed them of his decision. In fact, the Party has not seen Bayleaf since they arrived.

Destruction of Fairy Island

The Party elected to search the Order of the Necromantia's Abby underground basement, and found a secret room with Odium Moulim's astronomical equipment and a hideous statute of the Drow queen goddess Lloth. The Party was able to successfully take the astrolabes and other equipment, but taking the Lloth Statute triggered a powerful earthquake and volcanic eruptions. The Party fled helter skelter as the basement collapsed, the earth was runt asunder and explosions of lava blocked their path. With the aid of a powerful lighting bolt cast by Odium, they defeated fire salamanders, scaled the cliffs and were rescued by Emer Mor Emer, Emer the Boatwoman and her daughter Enid Ni Cuhail. The Party is unclear whether Alette the Pixie and the other rescued pixies escaped the isle's destruction.

Arrival in Bondar

The Party proceeds downriver, with Emer the Boatwoman and her daughter Enid Ni Cuhail, and their boaters: Sinead Ni Tiar (short, strong, broad shoulders, red hair) and Aiden Mac Cuhalin (tall, black hair with an Adam’s apple). As you turn the bend in the river, you see the great hill with the fort Budatar to the left. Then two towns spread out before you. To left, is the great Bevilian town of Buntar, with its impressive Royal Castle with the town spread out beyond it with its many round towers. Beyond those walls you will be subject to the Bevilian Emperor's jurisdiction. Here reside the Emperors's officers, in the castle on the northeastern perimeter. Here is a place of rule and order. The high circling walls, the great round towers, the Castle and an immense temple collectively impress you with their sheer strength. To the right, is the Celtic town of Bondar across from Buntar with a single bridge separating the two towns. Bondar is smaller, less impressive, but still has a number of towers, and strong and sturdy protective walls. The skald, Druid, forest gnome and Cormac the ladies man wonder, How were these walls built? By giants maybe. How do the towers and buildings not fall down? It must some sort of magic. Next that is seen the desiccated remains of criminals left hanging on gallows at a windswept crossroads leading into town, and three emaciated men in a metal cage looking forlorn as your boats pass them by. You can see other travelers arriving and departing, most of whom are peasants from the nearby villages and hamlets. Most traffic is on foot with artisans in bright colored tunics and hose, women in gowns and mantles their hair covered wimples, merchants in fur trimmed coats, and priests in drab habits. Honking geese fulter under the hooves of horses, and cats, dog and pigs run rampant. Along the Bevilian side of the river are the tombs and sepulchers of their esteemed dead. In Bevil, almost everyone was buried beyond the limits of the city, which is thought to have been a disease-reducing practice. The Bevilians keep their private burial spots along the roads . The sepulchers might contain bones and ashes, but are also monuments to the dead. No tombs or sepulchers can be seen on Bondar side, as the Celts bury their royalty in great burial mounds and the common people in smaller graves or burned in funeral pyres. And then you notice the smell. A brook empties into the Kozar River. As you look along the banks you see piles of refuse, broken crockery, animal bones, entrails, human feces, and rotting meat strewn in and around the bushes. In some places the muddy banks slide into thick quagmires where townsmen have hauled out their refuse and pitched it into the stream. In others, rich green grasses, reeds, and undergrowth spring from the highly fertilized earth. As you watch, two seminaked men lift another barrel of excrement from the back of a cart and empty it into the water. A small brown pig roots around in the garbage. It is not called Shitstream for nothing. You have come face-to-face with the contrasts of a town. It is so proud, so grand, and in places so beautiful and yet it displays all the disgusting features of a bloated glutton. The city as a body is a caricature of the human body: smelly, dirty, commanding, rich, and indulgent. As you your boat pilots toward the docks of Bondar, the contrasts become even more vivid. As you dock, a group of boys with dirty faces and tousled hair run towards you and crowd around, shouting, "Sir, do you want a room? A bed for the night? Where are you from?' They pretend that they know your family or are from the same region as you. Their clothes are filthy, and their feet even filthier, bound into leather shoes which have suffered the stones and mud of the streets for more years than their owners. Welcome to a place of pride, wealth, authority, crime, justice, high art, stench, and beggary. Arriving involves an assault on all the senses. Your eyes will open wide at the great temples and towers, and you will be dazzled by the wealth. Your nostrils will be invaded by the stench from the sewage-polluted watercourses and town ditches. You will find the odors of this garbage and animal and human dung mingle with the pleasanter aromas from cookshops and houses. The most pungent smells will come from the fish merchants, line makers, butcher and, worst of all, the tanners. After the natural quiet of the country river the birdsong, and the wind in the trees, your hearing must attune to the calls of travelers and town criers, the shouts of laborers and the ringing of temple bells. You will find yourself being jostled by the crowds who come in from the country for the occasion, and who live it up rowdily in the taverns. This is a bewildering and extreme sensory experience. The boats dock in Bundar, and Emer complains about the slow customsmen, and waits for the Celtic guards, dressed in their distinctive plaids, to arrive. Emer suggests that the party either explore the town or secure their lodgings at the Bluebell Coaching Inn. The Party hires room and food at the Bluebell Coaching Inn, and meet the proprietors: Belle and her husband Blue.

Arrival in Buntar

When entering Buntar itself, the Party had the following experience: As you arrive, you will find the heads and limbs of traitors on display. There are the blackened heads of criminals stuck on poles above the city gates, their eyes plucked out by birds. Legs and arms hang by ropes, each the relic of a conspiracy or crime, now riddled with maggots or covered with flies. These remains remind you of the power of the Emperor, a greater and more ominous shadow behind the immediate authority of the Duke, the city mayor, and aldermen, local lords and sheriffs. You are met by the City Guard, who wear chain mail, purple and black cloaks, helmets with purple feathers, and embroidered vines and grapes on their surcoats. They are armed with shields, halberds, and short swords with separate light crossbow men (no shield or halberd). The City Guard is tasked with defending the walls, patrolling outside of the city, and protecting the outlying villages and farms. Officially, this is the army of the Emperor, and only the Emperor’s men may wear the royal purple. Inside the city, you see the City Watch, they are responsible for internal policing and security. City Watch wear studded leather armor, red cloaks, helmets with yellow, green and red feathers distinguishing rank, and surcoats with embroidered yellow, green and red flowers, and their primary weapons are the spear and club, with some crossbowmen. The city is so alive, so full of busy people, that within a short while you have forgotten about the decapitated criminals and traitors. And Shitstream's stench is no longer in the air. You see great stone and metal statues in the city of the warriors, priests and rulers of over thousands of years of the first Fultonian Empire and now the Bevilian glory which has added to this great history. These tell in both words and visual images the great mythology and history of Fultar. There are cats, pigs, dogs and geese, a cacophony of overwhelming noise, little shops with their wears. You see servants shoveling up horse dung from the area in front of their master's house. As you walk towards the center of the city, you will encounter more traders' shops tightly packed together in small street-front premises- sometimes tiny rooms of less than forty square feet--but all with their distinctive projecting signs to tell the illiterate their trade. Some are paintings depicting the items on sale, such as a painted knife indicating the shop of a cutler. Others are three-dimensional objects: a bushel on a pole, showing that freshly brewed ale is available, or a bandaged arm, marking a surgeon's premises. At the top of the street of the smiths which leads down to the river, you can hear the clang of blacksmiths hammering away at their forges and shouting in guttural voices at their apprentices to fetch water or bring coal. Others in the same street are setting up stalls, hanging out ironwares such as scissors, rushlight holders, and knives to sell. The languages and accents you hear in Buntar give it cosmopolitan air to the place. Foreign merchants are regularly to be found and, while Bevilian is spoken in the street, there is Celtic, Fultonian, Kozar, Arabic, Nubian, and Henarrian. Travelers of all sorts- -clergymen, merchants, messengers, Imperial's officers, judges, clerks, master masons, carpenters, painters, pilgrims, joined by travelers and businessmen from all the corners of the known world. So many of them are dressed in fine velvet, satin, and damask that all you can do is gawp at their finery as they swish into this shop or strut out of that one, attended by their servants. There is an extraordinary range of costumes, from russet-clad peasants to richly dressed merchants and esquires and their wives, and maybe even a knight or nobleman. Their traveling cloaks might hide the colorful hues of their clothes but, in this sunlight, the rich reds, bright yellows, and deep blues are shown off, trimmed with furs according to social rank, but so many of them are dressed in fine velvet, satin, and damask that all you can do is gawp at their finery as they swish into this shop or strut out of that one, attended by their servants. You pass a public square, with a baker in pillory with loaf around his neck, and a man tarred and feathered. Over the hubbub of the morning's business you hear the town crier, calling from the crossroads at the center of the town, you hear laughter as friends share a joke. Over it all the practiced cries of the street vendors ring out as they walk around with trays of food. There are peddlers with fruit, cheese, wine, milk, and meat pies. There are smells in from different areas of the city mixed with that of waste and food. The stench and obstruction of the animal dung, vegetable rubbish, fish remains, and entrails of beasts present problems of public sanitation. Such is the level of detritus, especially in the town ditches, that it is also infested with dogs and pigs. You learn that there are frequent attempts to eradicate the wild pig population, but each one bears testimony to the failure of the previous effort. If you cannot get rid of the pigs, what hope is there for eradicating the rats? A little farther on you come to Butchers Row where the counters of the shops are laden with meat lying exposed in the sun, with joints and carcasses hanging from hooks in the shade of the shop behind You can listen to the thunk as the cleaver comes down and strikes the chopping board, and watch as the leather-aproned butcher lifts the red meat onto the scales, balancing it carefully with metal weights until he is satisfied that he, at least, is getting a good deal. Streets have tubs of putrid water positioned here and there, supposedly in case of fire but more often than not full of decaying rubbish.

Gnomes

A small group of Gnomes and Halflings live in a small ghetto in Buntar called Littletown. The main gnomes are:

Grawor Silverkind, silversmith
Sapine Gobbledwadle and Ronfan Tinkerthread, tinkers.

From the tinkers, the Party learns that there are rumors of missing gnomes, which appear to be limited generally to forest gnomes and is told about Ianver Flukefen, a forest gnome who lives outside of town. Ianver tells about gnome kidnapping, in which the gnomes are being taken to the village of Orlane in Northern Fultar--confirming information that the Party was previously aware of. The Party did not talk with the Halfings.

Vikings

There is a small Viking community, including:

Frode, Roar and Sten: Three merchant brothers

Gorm and Estrid, the owners of the tavern: Loki’s Horn

Njal, Mercenary warrior

Skarde Suneson, blacksmith

Revna: a Soothsayer, and diviner. The Party's Viking bar hired Revna to remove a curse from him.

Celtic Merchants

The Druids informed the Party that Rhodri Fawr owed them a favor and would be able to help them travel to Fultar. Rhodri Fawr was eager to help and hire the Party as guards for his merchant goods south. The war between the Gildam Confederacy and Bevil has disrupted sea trade, which has significantly increased traffic along the Kozar River bordering the territory of the Ordovocian tribe of Galletica, and overland through independent Celtic lands with Henarria to the west and the Albae tribe of Galletica to the east. Rhodri did not use the sea lanes, and the disruption of commerce has increased his business significantly.

Rhodri Fawr's Home:

There is a store on left, main doors, and smaller door on left. The store sells pottery, lumber, dyes, pepper and spices The door is guarded with a mastiff hound with massive key to door and chain, and guard dog chained up. The rooms have oil lamps, smoky candles, cloth tapestries, the floor is covered with rushes, and benchs for sitting on. A number of Rhodri's clients are waiting to see him, but the Party is moved to the front of the line when it is learned that they have been sent by the Druids. Rhodri Fawr is an an older Celtic warrior. Bald, greying blond beard. He wears bright clothes with furs. Fianna Fawr is his strawberry blond daughter who is large and strong, well fed and well exercised with worked, callous hands. She inquires into each of the Party members, identified their skills and professions, explains how they will be of assistance and value, and impresses them. Angharad Fawr looks like a younger version of Rhodri. He has ostentatious clothing and jewelry, and insults the gnome. Tigernach, is a 22 year old, brown haired, scruffy looking, unkempt, bastard son of Rhodri, and is assigned to the Party as a guide. He is scholar and studying in the local Bevilan university, which is organized similar to the famous Fultonian Universities. Also present are Heledd, Rhodri's chief guard, who is a stocky, broad shouldered woman with a bastard sword, and his augur Ruth, who is a raven haired woman in her 60s. She is portly with a cane and bad knee.