April 2020 – BEARDED DEVIL

The characters in this session were:

XP Awarded: 350 XP

After Sparks started a fight to free to pixie Babs, the party slew several goblins of the Bonegrubber tribe, inhabitants of the Upper Tombs of Lord Finvarra’s barrow. The fight began with Sparks firing off a Firebolt, followed by Blue-Eyed Molly sliming seveal of the goblins with glowing green ectoplasm. Fun-Guy, coaxing the gigantic drunken Cat Sith from the other chamber, lobbed the huge feline into the goblin ranks, producing a hissing, snarling, spitting ball of chaos. As goblins scrambled to evade the cat, Susurrus sowed confusion amongst foes and inspiration among allies, while the stealthy Wick worked through the mob, stabbing kidneys and skewering goblins in the back. Petallu swirled her sword in a beautiful but stunningly inefficient pattern, aimed way too high for goblin necks, while Mud bashed a goblin over his skull, splitting it in two.Weevil, vexed at the death of other goblins, chose to clobber several unconscious rather than kill them. The fight ended when Molly cast Sleep to subdue the remaining combatants, including the winesop cat.

While Sparks and Petallu spoke to Babs (and got her some false wings made up, courtesy of Petallu’s tailor), heavy footsteps were audible down the corridor as something came to investigate the commotion.

“What’s all this then?!” a gruff voice demanded. “Who defiles Lord Lousewort’s domain?”

“Invited guests!” the affable Mud said smoothly, stepping up to block any sight of the carnage close behind them.

“Yes, don’t you know who we are?” Blue-Eyed Molly retorted. “I’m Blue-Eyed Molly, famed bard. Your lord invited us to play for him.”

Fennrix used Friends to help convince the lumbering ogre, while Weevil played on his goblin cred. Eventually the ogre – who apologetically introduced himself as “Nosebiter,” led them down the hall; meanwhile Susurrus and Wick hid the bodies and sleeping goblins.

The party was shown in to meet the grotesque Lord Lousewort and his wives, Bloodeyes, Toothsome Jenny, and Curlyhorns.

“Who’re all these people?” the goblins demanded – a gangly, long-limbed creature splayed over his throne, his brain stranglely swollen in its skull. He scratched his belly and flipped idly through a mouldering-looking spellbook while snacking on some sort of fungus.

“Blue-Eyed Molly and friends,” the bard proclaimed. “You invited me, don’t you remember? I’m a famed entertainer, here to regale your fine court with song…”

Flattery seemed to have proved a wise tactic, and after a few more exchanges Molly was led into a dank “dressing room” to prepare, while the rest of the party – having carefully hid the goblin bodies in sarcophagi – made themselves comfortable. As word spread through the goblin barrow, goblins began pouring into the chamber, introducing themselves with names like Fuckwit, Drool, Batbreath, Wibbly, and Wobbly. Mud conversed with Lord Lousewort’s wives and managed to acquire some exotic spices, and bits and pieces of the embalmed elfin dead the goblins considered a delicacy.

After preparations, the concert was soon underway, with Fennrix adding an illusory multi-coloured feline disco ball, Susurrus on horns, and Blue-Eyed Molly on her tin-whistle. The goblins writhed, danced, and drank, smashing their heads into one another and leaping about the room in a bacchanalian frenzy. Even the Cat Sith wandered back in and, after vomiting all over the floor, engaged in the festivities, swigging from her enchanted bottomless goblet.

At the climax of this concert, Susurrus blew the Drudehorn and conjured a nightmare, Mary, lighting the Lanthorn of Renewal in the tomb, which repaired the broken pillars.

The party initially mistook the lamp for the Sacred Cauldron itself, and later realized they would need this item to bypass the collapse elsewhere in the ruins.

The rousing concert was sufficient for the party to convince Lord Lousewort to lend them the Lanthorn; he also told them that the Sacred Cauldron might be found in the Lower Tombs.

Suitably equipped, the party used the Lanthorn to clear the blockage they had discovered back near the entrance – only to discover the statues in the hall animating to attack! Petallu convinced some to go after the “goblin trespassers,” while quickly snuffing the lamp returned the blockage to its previous state.

While the blockage was cleared they also found the remains of a knight and a pixie, as well as the Lion’s Shield and the Acorn Key. The party again used the Lanthorn (carried by Fennrix) to descend a newly-repaired stair, and glimpsed the slimy tail of some hideous beast disappearing down a tunnel.

Choosing a different route instead, the party crossed a previously ruinous bridge with the aid of the magical lamp and came to the Hall of Years – which they found mysteriously unlocked. An inscription read: “To Pass the Hall of Years, Thou Must Remain the Same Age As Thou Wert When Thou Entered.”

Here, Mud’s Druidic knowledge of runes (the closest he has to reading) and a degree of trial and error enabled the party to figure out a path across the warded aging and de-aging tiles to remain the same age as they entered.

The party looted the Royal Tomb beyond, discovering a series of journal entries by Fraff the Foolish – a gnome adventurer from the city of Hex – who apparently was transformed into the Lindworm. He told of the sinister Green-Fingered Gentleman and his desire to use the Sacred Cauldron of Rebirth to revive the long-dead Erlking, champion of primal Elfhame, rebel against the four Faeire Kings and Queens. From their knowledge of history the party deduced that this individual would likely have headed to either Joyous Gard or Dolorous Guard, two fortresses in Mag Mell where the Erlking or his Fetch – a kind of magical double used for purposes of strategic and political deception – was reputed to have been killed in centuries past.

Investigating the tomb with the Lanthorn, the party accidentally restarted the magic that reanimated the giant Fachan, a skeletal monstrosity and guardian of the tomb. Although Blue-Eyed Molly managed to blow off the thing’s legs, it was still a terrible opponent.

A fierce fight ensued that nearly saw Petallu and Sparks killed, the giant sweeping the terrible Ablach Flail left and right to scatter his foes; the elfin knight and pixie were sent flying, hitting the far wall with twin sickening smacks. After pelting the giant with spells and blades, the group of would-be heroes lured Fachan to the sarcophagus of Lord Finvarra, over which a stone had fallen, and then through Weevil’s clever use of the Lanthorn managed to break his back with the stone, destroying him once again. Petallu then obliterated his skull and scattered the fragments in the Hall of Years.

Thorough investigation of the tomb yielded the Royal Signet Ring of the King, and a few gold pieces.

The party made their escape, only to encounter the tail’s owner once more – a vile Lindworm, lured into exposing itself via a clever illusion! The hissing beast caused the illusion to disperse and turned to face the party, slaver dripping from its jaws…

The hideous Lindworm proved amenable to tasty treats.

Before it could strike, however, Mud offerred forth some of the sweatmeats of Lord Lousewort’s wives. The Lindworm sniffed, cocked a scabrous brow, and took a tentative bite of the goblin treats…

What followed was not a fight but a very pleasant meat tea, over the course of which the Lindworm began to remember his life from before his transformation by Dragon-Fever, an illness common to tomb-robbers in Elfhame, wherein a desire to hoard wealth and leave it unspent transforms the miser into a serpent. It seemed the creature was none other than Fraff the Foolish himself, penned down in the tomb for some time.

Returning to the surface, the party found themselves faced by a roomfull of goblins, who had discovered the dead bodies after some of the unconscious warriors came to. Lord Lousewort – strapped to Nosebiter’s stomach – demanded the return of his Lanthorn. Susurrus instead blew the Drudehorn and scattered the goblins, including the protesting Lord Lousewort, strapped to Nosebiter’s stomach, who screamed protests as his warriors scattered.

The heroes emerged into the sunlight, and in moments Fraff reverted to his gnome form, sloughing off his dragon-scales and the avarice that had cursed him.

The Sacred Cauldron was not at the Barrow of King Finvarra, but the heroes now knows who stole it – and why. Resolving to cover more ground, they split into two parties, one to investigate Joyous Gard, the other Dolorous Gard.

A Century of Weird Fiction, 1832-1937: Disgust, Metaphysics and the Aesthetics of Cosmic Horror

By Bearded-Devil

On April 6, 2020

In Academic

This is not a gaming-related post, but may interest some of this blog’s readers, since there’s a certain degree of overlap between my gaming interests and my academic ones.

The University of Wales Press has just published my first academic monograph, A Century of Weird Fiction, 1832-1937: Disgust, Metaphysics and the Aesthetics of Cosmic Horror. This book grew out of my dissertation on weird fiction, completed at the University of British Columbia.

The book is a study of weird fiction by key authors during the period indicated, beginning with Poe and ending with Lovecraft. In essence, it argues that in contrast with many of the clasically Gothic works that the Weird grows out of, weird fiction is focused not on human interiority – psychology, history, taboos, the buried secrets the Gothic spectrally manifests – but on the non-human, on the nature of reality itself. Furthermore, it suggests that the aesthetic key to this investigation into the primal, mysterious nature of things lies in the power of disgust. Disgust arises when what we’ve demarcated as “not-us” encroaches upon what we’ve defined as “us” – when the self is threatened with contamination from the Outside. Weird fiction, I argue in the book, is obsessed with this kind of confrontation, a breach of borders queasily suggesting that many of our self-conceptions are delusions – especially the idea that we are trascendental souls or hermetically sealed selves that can be separated from the unclean, physical world around us. Instead, these texts intimate, we are enmeshed in a seething, oozing, often eerily agentive morass of roiling materiality, a chaotic, messy, deeply weird universe. In the works of authors like Lovecraft, Hodgson, Blackwood, and others, stable boundaries between us and not-us, the self the the world, are exposed as anthropocentric conceits.

There’s a lot about monsters, slime, sentient tree-things, possession, putrescence, quasi-molluscoid hill-people, infectious fungi, and similar glooping horror. While written primarily for a scholarly audience, I’m of the belief that works of literary criticism don’t have to be rendered in dry, antiseptic prose, or as a stream of dense abstractions only intelligible to experts in continental philosophy. Indeed, I was playfully accused in my thesis defense of having adopted something of the style of weird fiction itself – lush, ornate, and a touch lurid – a charge to which I proudly plead guilty.

A Century of Weird Fiction, 1832-1937: Disgust, Metaphysics and the Aesthetics of Cosmic Horror is available through U of Wales Press, U of Chicago Press for North American distribution (there may currently be some delays there), and can be pre-ordered on Amazon and Indigo.

Elfame Session 1 – Actual Play – Quest for the Sacred Cauldron

By Bearded-Devil

On April 5, 2020

In Roleplaying

The characters in this session were:

XP Awarded: 200 XP

Once upon a time, in the land of Elfhame, a group of would-be heroes journeyed to the Glass Fortress of Glistermarch, heeding summons of Lady Una, a Seelie princess of the Royal Blood. They were eight in number, the sardonic shade bard Blue-Eyed Molly, the mad pixie sorcerer Fennrix, the tragicomic fungoig barbarian Fun Guy, the chef and woodwose druid Mud, the aforementioned Petalu Morriden, Knight of Harts, the irascible pixie sorcerer Sparks, the hard-bitten goblin mercenary Weevil Stench, and the enigmatic firbolg rogue Wick. Two others followed Petalu, the squire Tiesel and servant Bellaquick.

The party briefly tarried with Rhiannon, the lady in the moon, a Tatzelwrum guarding the borders fof Glistermarch in the Realm of Tír na nÓg, and the merchant Hawthorn (whose broken cart the druid Mud fixed), and acquired some magical candles in the village of Wick, where enormous beehives produced wax which fey chandlers then animated, directing the semi-sentient waxkin to pour themselves into moulds.

At the fortress, Petalu convinced the guards of the party’s good intentions, and they were led into the heart of the keep to meet with the princess.

“You have come here having heard of my need for heroes,” the princess said. “The truth is that the Quest beforeyou is in the service of all Elfhame. Look now upon Her Highness, Queen of Tír na nÓg, Titania.”

With a gesture, one wall of the chamber shimmered, and they saw the Queen Titania herself, ruler of Tír na nÓg; she appears to be asleep, her face pale and drawn, her hair not its famed gold but streaked with white and grey.

“Some weeks past, my mother fell into this slumber,” Lady Una said. “What manner of poison, curse, or illness has afflicted her, we do not know, though it is beyond all magic or remedy we have attempted. But it is affecting the realm.” She gestured again, and the view shifted, replaced with a vision of a decaying woodland, the trees twisted and riddled with fungi, some dead and leafless. “As Monarch of Spring, Queen Titania sustains the Everlasting youth of Tír na nÓg,” the princess explains. “As she fades, the land itself is beginning to sicken. Should she die, all of Elfhame will plunge into chaos – the natural order will be disrupted. The borders of our realms will be fatally breached.

“Some believe this to be the work of the Unseelie Court. Though suspicions naturally fall to Queen Mab, even she knows that Elfhame requires a balance between forces. Should Tír na nÓg lose its vitality, Mab’s own realm would suffer as well. Even dark Lord Arawn would not threaten the stability of the Wheel of Seasons.

“Whatever the cause, Elfhame must act if we are to save Queen Titania. I believe our best hope is an artefact of great power, one of the Thirteen Treasures of Elfhame – the Sacred Cauldron of Rebirth. It is said that any who drinks of the Cauldron will be cured of all illness and purged of all poison, restored to the first blush of youth.

“Like all Thirteen Treasures, the Cauldron is fated to pass from one hand to the next, never to be possessed by any single owner for long. As such, I cannot tell of its whereabouts with any certainty – rumour and legend are our only guides. The last known location of the Cauldron was in the hands of King Finvarra, husband of High Queen Nicneven, father of both Queen Titania and Queen Mab. It is believed that the Cauldron was one of many treasures interred with King Finvarra when he died. As such, I suggest you begin by seeking his tomb, which lies on the border of Tír na nÓg and Annwn, deep in the Gloamwood at the hill of Cnoc Ma.

“As for a reward – beyond ensuring an eternal place in song, should you return with the Sacred Cauldron, each of you shall be granted one of the precious Royal Wishes – anything it is in my power to grant, you will be given.”

After a heart heroic feast – complete with psychic dessert – the party set out at twilight through the Gloamwood.

The party’s first encounter was with a pair of monstrous slugs in the depths of the woods, devouring what appeared to be decomposing leaves – anathema in Tír na nÓg! Fennrix and Mud made quick work of one with a mixture of fire and salt, while Fun Guy and Weevil butrchered a second. Attempts to befriend additional slugs looked dicey, so the party pressed on.

They next assisted the treefolk bard Susurrus Psithurisma with a band of errant torch-bearing pixies. The treefolk, from Oberon’s court in Mag Mell, gladly joined the party’s quest. Petalu also spotted a red-eyed owl and asked it to help put out some of the fires of the pixies.

After an uneventful watch, the paryt pressed on along the Greenroad, lingering briefly by an overturned carriage from which protruded a black-fletched arrow, somewht reminiscent of those famously used by the followers of the Erlking, who wanted to return Elfhame to its “primal” nature – but the Erlkin has been dead for nearly a thousand years. Coincidence? Mud also found a magical emereld.

Weevil found a cold iron dagger, dropped by a petrified goblin.

The party had another encounter with a flock of randy cockatrices, after the mischievous Fennrix immitated the mating call. of the basilisk With spells and blades they quickly dispatched the ferocious birds – and found themselves dinner.

Grateful for liberation from the cockatrice and drawn by the entrancing smells of roast fowl, various beasts of the woodlands joined the party for a jamboree that night. In conversation with some bears, Wick heard tell of witch-like spirits in the deep woods, dwelling in a dead tree – gwyllion, souls of the dead who did not pass into Annwn but lingered by its northern border.

Resting that morning the party enduring some… strange dreams as a result of eating the meat of cockatrices preparing to mate…

Travelling that afternoon, the party discovered a series of severed goblin body-parts on the fog-swathed trail that led like gruesome breadcrumbs into the woods. Sparks removed a hexing ward from one of the trees.

At the dead tree, the party attacked the lurking spirits that skulked in the fog, lured out by a clever illusion. A fortuitous shaft of sunlight caused the gwyllion to flee into their tree, which Blue-Eyed Molly then uprooted with Thunderwave. Cast out into the light, several of the ghosts were easily dispatched, their apparent leader slain by Weevil with the cold iron knife.

Amidst the bones of the dead the party discovered the Drudehorn, a nightmare-conjuring hunting horn. The tomb was set on a hill that rose up out of the forest, looming like the head of some terrible beast. Snow fell softly, a cold wind blowing in from Annwn, distantly visible to the north – a bleak vastness of jagged mountains and windswept moorland, shrouded in a perpetual brume. The mound was marked by a ring of menhirs, like some ancient crown.

The gates of the Tomb of King Finvarra must once have been resplendent, being intricately carved with elaborate bas-reliefs showing the deeds of the former co-ruler of Elfhame – his war with Hell, and the peace that led to the Tithe; the tricking of the red and white dragon that once wreaked havoc over Elfhame, when he poisoned a pit full of mead with a sleeping draught, then filled in the pit over their slumbering bodies; his victory of the cyclopean Fachan, former ruler of Avalon and wielder of a terrible flail with heads like spiked apples, dripping poison; his marriage to Nicnevan, which brought peace to Faerie; his glorious death in the battle against the rebellious Gwyn ap Nudd, the cambion son of Arawn.

Now, however, the gates had been pried open, one ripped entirely from its hinge, marred with chisel marks. What’s more, the carvings had been defaced, with a ridiculous moustache and even-more ridiculous priapic cock and swollen testicles added to Finvarra, and enormous heaving tits scrawled over the carving of Nicnevan, with a puff of air indicating the High Queen of Elfhame was farting.

The adventurers crept inside and found a long, dim hall; mutilated forms loomed amidst a sea of dust. Shrouded in cobwebs, the broken remains of half a dozen statues stood, their heads and arms broken off, their bodies adorned with crude graffiti, severed heads chipped and disfigured with scrawled-on faces. Weevil pasued, admiring the craftsmanship of the graffiti. The way forward was blocked by a collapse.

Exploring the Upper Tombs, they passed by a door where something scratched and clawed, trying to get free of its tomb; this they passed by, entering another chamber and discovering an enormous Cat Sith, drinking wine from a bottomless goblet. The crept further into the tombs, hearing laughter and shrieks up ahead, and soon discovered a group of goblins betting on a fight between a squirrel and a wingless pixie. Despite Weevil’s boisterous charms and attempts to befriend the goblin gamblers, the appearance of the rest of the party and the rage of Sparks at the sight of pixie-torture seemed to make a fight inevitable…