Hello Monsters,

Pretty great buzz after our manuscript section from yesterday! Lot of cool character ideas being shared, and a ton of fun discussion about the possibilities. And eagerness for our Chapter on Edges, Sceptres, and Crowns coming next week!

All that buzz got us some new backers too, and we've unlocked our second Stretch Goal. Speaking of sharing character ideas, here's what we've unlocked...

With that taken care of, let's set our next target. An Onyx Path classic...

My dear readers, I hope you have found the tables and records of peoples, beasts, and flora in Dys and Creuore to your liking. To my mentor and master Khufu Triple-Wand, I trust that the information I have notated is what you require for the strengthening of glorious Draoidahaek. If tis not, please burn this journal and cast my body from our kingdom, for I do not deserve to dwell there if I am unable of meeting that humble task.

When last I wrote my experiences, you might recall I was set to hunt and slay the many-faced abomination of the Whispering Ruins. Much has changed since then and I have found little opportunity to put ink to parchment and write in long form (as I do now) what transpired. I shall summarize.

The many-faced abomination was known to locals of the Whispering Ruins as the “Aschelagoan.” A most interesting name. When I enquired as to the genesis, they gave me short shrift (I suspect as none of us are spiritlike, as the majority of Dyso are, they saw us as interlopers, which in truth we were). It had consumed another thirty bodies and souls by the time we arrived at the Whispering Ruins to murder the monster, and alas, I must state plainly that plans were made but not fulfilled as desired. 

We ventured into the blasted town (more of a city, based on footprint) and to our surprise, discovered survivors who had formed a cult to the Aschelagoan. Furthermore, the ruins were rife with necromantic energies, pockets of black air fit to absorb the life from your body, and smiling traders, welcoming innkeepers, and laughing children all acting as masques for foul void entities. Entrust yourself to them, as the lamented Iscap did, and you will find yourself gutted and puppeteered by these dark energies! Ah, Iscap. I had only known him a brief time, but his songs were pleasant enough.

The remaining three of us evaded the cult and established defenses against the Whispering Ruin’s people and creatures, tracking the Aschelagoan to the multi-layered crypts beneath the town. Mascar was only too keen to dive in, and I had no hesitated in following, though Sjazzara remarked that such a delve would herald certain death.

I laughed at this, my reader. I do not fear death.

And so we cut through undead monstrosities, we evaded traps erected centuries before (yet still active!), and found secret tunnels and treasures! These crypts were precisely the kinds of things I read about when in my more fanciful youth, when I believed in such follies as light, enduring happiness, and untempered life! What a incorrigible fool I was.

We discovered the Aschelagoan in a state of multiplication (it was splitting into versions of itself, perhaps because it sensed our approach), and together — though Iscap’s presence would have helped — we coordinated our attack. It was a wondrous destructive event! I have chronicled separately every blow delivered, sound emitted, spell projected, and sceptre power for the students reading this, but the narrative version is thus: we overwhelmed the abomination and its offspring, slaughtering each one and leaving naught but rotten flesh scraps for the vermin. But alack! No crown was to be found! The rumors were just that, as this awful monster held no treasure beyond being a source of necromantic study.

We left Dys dejected, it must be said. Many folk heralded us as valiant doombringers, but their words fell on my ears as if I were deafened. I had no time for their praise or worship. I wanted a crown. I still want a crown. I shall find one.

Do not be mistaken into thinking I succumbed to despair. Hardly so, my good reader. As we headed south from the Whispering Ruins, we had to pass through dense forest and across craggy mountains, and such a trek — which took us into Creuore, where blood drinkers are common in a multitude of forms — sees fit to focus the mind. Mascar wondered if I might throw myself off a cliff and end my whining, but when a flesh-hungry revenant bounded from a cave to bite at me and I paralyzed him with magic before tearing his head from his shoulders (courtesy of my sceptre), the dwarf shut his ignoble mouth. I had and have plenty of life remaining within me, rest assured.

Creuore is a remarkable place, reader. Nowhere else in Gewinn is so drenched in darkness. For verily, Krr’szch is known for its thick smog clouds and Dys its rolling mist, but due to the nature of our dual suns and Gewinn’s relationship with them, combined with the umbral sorceries that the past inhabitants of Creuore mastered, the kingdom is shrouded in a nigh-permanent state of gloom. This makes it exceedingly beneficial to the undead inhabitants (Sjazzara was definitely content) but treacherous as all the hells for those trying to cross the land, discover new flora and fauna, and avoid plummeting into a precipice, a monster’s jaws, or the like.

When we arrived in Mawraton, we were privy to a great act of a sacrifice taking place within the town’s unholy sanctum. Compelled as I am to chronicle such things, I convinced Sjazzara and Mascar to help me sneak in, and oh, what sights! To see an entire family of bone-white vampires, their hair flowing like vines alive with energy (for a while I wondered if they might be vipers) delivered offerings of blood to placate their thirsts. The offerings were humbling, with families offering up the youngest of their children or the eldest of their line (I assume some pragmatism applies here, but the words spoken implied the offerings were the most valued mortals in each family, and I saw no sacrifice rejected) before the vampires shifted from statues of elegant repose to creatures of feral appetite. The families were forced to watch, applaud, and smile as their kin were slain.

I had no desire to remain overlong in Mawraton, and so planned with locals a coming journey as far south as the Grimehold before coming back the same way and heading to Fair Bay. The wagon driver set to take us on this journey seemed only too happy to leave his town (I’m not blind as to why, dear reader), and it’s bouncing in this vehicle as we approach Falcassel that I write today. Or tonight. In truth, time is difficult to keep in Creuore.

to be continued....