On the surface of the earth, the plants grow with corresponding beauty, the trees and the flowers and the fruits, and so with the hills and the stones, more beautiful in their smoothness and transparency and color. Our precious stones here are but fragments, our cornelians, jaspers, emeralds, and the rest.
Plato, Phaedo
Players: idraluna-archives, oldhawkeyes, roguewithwhimsy, nolifeisenough
Region: Northern Strata
A Triangle in the Snow
The party began in the halfling village in 16.31. Morgan had been dreaming of an Earth covered in choking verdure, and Jorcal was experiencing feelings of anger emanating from the back of his neck.
Jorcal asked around town regarding the triangular symbol on his mace and was told that it was associated with olden times and signifies risk or risk-takers in some way.
The party resolved to journey north toward a rumored ruin with religious artifacts guarded by crabs. Along the way, a triangular depression in the snow was sighted, and by consensus the group opted to investigate. Jorcal & Boris found a metallic excrescence and, after chipping ice off with their spikes & hammers, uncovered part of a much larger metallic mass and located a triangular hatch.
Excavating the Buried Ship
Prying open the hatch, they entered a room with a metal chair and assorted control panels. Toward the south was a triangular door, which Jorcal was able to dilate by presenting the triangular symbol on his mace. Meanwhile, Morgan was keeping watched, and witnessed an altercation between approaching creatures, who eventually withdrew after some died.
The door Jorcal had opened led to a trapezoidal chamber with contraptions and three humanoid (but not human) cosmonauts in red jumpsuits. Boris examined their pockets and found three green wheat seeds and a square tablet of lightweight stone.
Jorcal and Roald cleared debris away from another south-facing door, behind which could be heard watery sloshing & gurgling. They opened the door, and found five fish-men in waist-high water. In the ensuing fight, the fish-men were slain and Jorcal was seriously wounded.
This room appeared to be some kind of aquarium, prompting the realization that the fish-men and cosmonauts could constitute a lucrative scientific discovery. Spurred on by the thought of sweet, sweet, academic funding, the party explored two smaller rooms to the south, one of which was full of garlic, the other containing 12 magnetic snails on a conveyor belt, seemingly acting as a power source for what was evidently some kind of space(?)ship.
On to the Scholar’s Tower
The snails, assorted corpses, and garlic were loaded onto the sled and transported via ferry to the tower in 29.17. There, the party was directed to speak with the biologists (taxidermists?) on floor 3. The corpses were deemed a ‘significant’ contribution, meriting 1,000 g.p. The adventurers then consulted with the mineral spirit experts on floor 6 regarding the magnetic silver snails. Professor Lafar expressed interest in retrieving the entire ship, but was unwilling to supply adequate resources for its extraction & transport. However, he was willing to assign his most expendable student, Mikel, to aid in recovering whatever mechanisms could be retrieved.
Regrettably, this was not to be. Returning to the ship was uneventful, but the decision to gamble on reactivating the ship (by returning the snails) and attempting to fly it away was met with disaster. Boris unthinkingly hit a large square button that activated a self-destruct sequence, then ran away like a coward while the others attempted to halt the countdown by removing the snails again. Although all adventurers (& Mikael) made it out alive, the student’s notes and the ship were lost in the ensuing implosion.
Rumors: The philosophers occupy the top floor of the tower & never leave. The mineral spirit researchers have been favored by the geometer lords of late.
Gold & XP: 1,480 gold recovered for 1726 xp
Special or Magic Items:
- One square tablet
Written by: idraluna-archives
GM Notes
I felt like I was stumbling over my words a lot this session, but had fun. I am still trying to work out how much to prep for hexcrawl settings–it seems like what frequently happens is that I roll on a table for a random detail (in this case, “triangle impression in the snow”) that then becomes the focus of the whole session. Not that it’s necessarily a bad thing, just something I am trying to think about.