Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

A new chapter! This one's about the League's last little adventure in Mlag and their visit to Morocco before the Deep Carbon Observatory.
I'm trying to post shorter parts from our campaign, so the time between updates wouldn't get too long.

---

Last time we left our heroes they had just (barely) survived an assault by unfairly powerful magic statue. One of them, Reggie Harlock, fearsome pirate, had been slain and embalmed.
Everyone was sick of Portugal and wanted to leave.
"Wait a moment, didn't Reggie say something about an Eloi queen? He wanted to kill one for his god or something."
"Reggie's dead, I'm tired and sick of fighting here. Lets just go."
"Reggie died for us! We cannot leave without fulfilling his final wish!"
And in the end they just had to go purge the old lighthouse. It didn't take long. Petrus bombarded the Queen with Stinking cloud paralysing it and most of its guardians and then Siegfried went in and slashed it to ribbons.
(This was also the point where Siegfried's player decided that Warrior's level up table had some too overpowered options and decided to nerf himself. You might notice he's the one of us who's designing classes, balancing rules and doing other crunchy stuff.)

So, after the morning's work the Eloi were dead and the crew was now ready to leave for real. Or they would have, if their crew had been present.
"Where's everyone?" Lorenzo, who's somehow found his way to the ship, asks.
"Oh yeah, I bet they're still repairing the Sea slut. Lets go get 'em", Wilbur remembers.
They sail to the Sea slut, which has been repaired and is already preparing to leave. Captain Olaf is already waiting for them.
"Aye, I reckon'd ye'd be comin", he muses.
"Yes, we'd like our crew back now", Petrus says.
"Ay, I betcha would", says Olaf, "but the thing here now is, and I don't want no trouble meself, but ye crew came to me just this morning, they did. And they said they were done with your ship and would like to serve on it no more. And they asked, whether I needed crew with nothing to lose. An' what I said was 'aye'."
"So. You stole our crew, you bastard", Siegfried butts into the conversation, "do you know what we do to thieves?"
"I betcha you do pretty nasty things", Olaf replies, still calm as the ocean, "but you see, I haven't stolen nothing, just offered a ship to a landlocked crew. Yer own crew stole themselves. I want no trouble from you guys, so if you got trouble, bring it to your EX-crew."
He then hides in his cabin and lets the party's old navigator continue the discussion.
"We ain't comin' back!" he yells.
"We. Had. A. Deal. So you are either going to return all we paid you and pay additional penalty for breaking contract OR you are GOING to play NICE and get back to work until you are given leave", said Siegfried.
"Aint no deal about the Cap'n dyin'! Nor stone giants. Nor satanists on board. We aint comin' back. Deal's off!" the Navigator gave their counterargument.
"So then you'll be paying back the advance, won't you?" Wilbur interjects.
"Well, 'tis dreadfully embarassing, but I reckon' all's been gone since Amsterdam."
"Enough of this circus! You are coming back or I will make you come back! And then you will be grateful we didn't kill you!" Boris shouts.
"Naw that ain't proper. Sorry, guv, but we already made a new deal with Olaf."
"Get that no gooder captain back here!"

The Navigator complies and soon Olaf's back on the deck.
"So, didya sort yer problems out?"
"No! And now you shall return our crew back!"
"I'd really like to help, but no can do. They made their choice and I aint gonna force them anything. Dun wanna lecture anyone, but ye might wanna look into a mirror and think why they left yous."
"This isn't over yet!" Siegfried yells, but the others calm him down.
"I think we lost this one", Wilbur admits.
"If it's any worth to you, ye may have my old crew. Ye'll find 'em in the town", Olaf says, bids his farewells and begins raising the sails.

"Prepare the cannons! We're sinking that ship!" Boris commands.
"... I don't think we have cannons", Siegfried replies.
"Yeah, they were too expensive so had to be cut", Wilbur knows.
"Bah, what kind of ship this is, when it doesn't even have cannons!"

The League marches to the town in frustration and beat up the first sailor they find. Then they shove a bagful of gold into his hands.
"YOU. You fucker are going to find your friends and say there's a keg of rum and another bag for everyone who's sober enough to sail the ship. NOW GO!"
While the startled and very surprised sailor scampers off and the League goes to find what's left of Will, Petrus gets a vile idea. He casts fly and trails the Sea Slut. When he gets near enough, he casts a Death Curse on Olaf. Then he comes back.
"No one fucks with us."

Then they gather their 'new' crew and set sail. They almost hit the lighthouse.
(The party was determined never to meet Olaf again, but we still wanted to roll how long he'd survive with the curse. The poor norwegian sailed for two weeks, meeting worse and worse misfortunes before ultimately being devoured by a shark.)

It soon becomes evident, why Olaf was so eager to ditch his old crew. The bunch couldn't sail themselves out of a bucket. They would never make it to Venice with the crew, so they retrieved their maps and looked for the nearest port.
They decided to make a detour in Tangier, Morocco. There they would hopefully recruit better crew and perhaps even find an entrance to Ghoul Market.

Long story short, they make and they do.
Recruiting crew is no problem as they have more money than any other captain, but they are unsure what to do with the old one. They briefly discuss keelhauling the lot, but in the end cannot bother and just dump them off the side. The useless lot.

First thing they do at the Market is taking Reggie to the Skinsmith, who agrees to sew the pirate back to life. During the process he's inspired by Reggie's new horn and declares he has a pair to go with it. Thus when Reggie wakes up, he sports a pair of demonic goat horns around his straight think-horn. He also knows his god's will has been fulfilled and may request a boon. He requests a scepter fit for a mighty wizard and gains a revelation that one will present itself in four sessions time. Reggie doesn't know what a session means, but unknown are the gods' ways.
Siegfried vows the others not to take him to the smith again, if he dies. Reggie decides to buy a turban.
They also offer the smith what's left of Will. The smith makes meat balls out of the Will bits.

Lorenzo, who appeared back on the ship, heads back to slave market and buys every child and ghoul available. When the others say he won't be allowed to keep the children, he takes them to Skinsmith and makes pastries out of them. Yum!

They then visit Vespero and purchase his stock of health potions, sell most of the unsold loot and peruse his wares. They buy most of his stock, notables include an old portal stone and a curious red potion.
Ben decides to chug the potion. He immediately shrinks to ant size and becomes an angry little ball of crude insults and bigotry.
"Hmm, there's something with Ben and size. When big he becomes stupid, when small he becomes an asshole", Wilbur observes.

"Fuck you and your mother you sand%#¤/%#! %#¤&#%½! #%%! %¤&#€#!" Ben retorts.
"Alright, lets shut you up", Wilbur says and puts Ben in his pocket.
He spends some time in Tangier's bazaar looking for doll sized clothes for Ben, but to his woe the potion's effects end and Ben returns to his original size.

Meanwhile Boris went to visit the Arsenal to try and purchase cannons. But Boris is not the best at making deals nor does he speak the language, so when the rest get back they find the guards are looking for them.

They've had enough of Tangiers anyway.

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

Here's the next chapter from our campaign report. Here we'll begin Deep Carbon Observatory proper. The League of Extraordinary Opportunity arrives in Carrowmore and traverses the Lock River Valley. They have a brief encounter with the Crows and reach the dam on their third day in the valley.

---

A day from Carrowmore the crew witnesses an end of a world.

It starts with a deep rumble, strong enough to reah their ship. Reggie immediately draws his spyglass. With it he sees Carrowmore and the hills that surround it, he sees the mountains (one of the few blank spots on their map) and the great dam. He sees a crack and the storm of water that breaks free.
In a few short moments they see most of the Lock valley wiped from the face of the earth. Siegfried yells to raise all sails and for men to row.
They wouldn't get there in time.

When their ship arrives at Carrowmore, the sun has already set. The last of the voyage had been perilous as the waters were full of flotsam and the drowning and the wave had rearranged the shoals.
They anchor and mobilize their boats. They would fit in one, but reckon there might be others in need of buoyancy. Both are quickly filled to the brim, when the League rescues a raft full of children and Benedict insists rescuing a priest calles Selminimum Tem. One of the children rewards their aid by whispering something to Wilbur's ear: "She made all the mums and dads into ghosts. She had nine lives - they poisoned her first. Then they stabbed her and smashed her and burnt her and drowned her. That. Makes. Eight. If you kill her once more, that's it!" This would trouble Wilbur for a long time.

Their boat raises a lot of attention and soon they have a small flock trying to get in. One particularly crafty child pulls another into water to make room for himself.
Unfortunately for him, Siegfried notices this foulplay and jabs his sword through the kid's chest.
"We're all in the same fucking boat. Everyone play nice", he says as the dying boy slides back into the water.
No one tries the same trick again.

Things get confusing in the town as the water levels fluctuate, building's slowly crumble and distances are scrambled by the GM trying to hold two boats and seven players (two of which can fly) together.
Ultimately they run into a group of suspicious people that most certainly want to help the children and not eat them. Foolishly they leave Ben alone with the cannibals. He gets mobbed and tied up.
"Boy, these people got desperate fast", Siegfried notes.
They also run into a scholar named Tzani Spillios and catch another child trying to steal her research. Tzani gets along well with the adventurers, so the League agrees to take her with them upriver.
They also interrogate the boy, who eventually breaks and tells that bad men took her sister and will kill her, if he doesn't return with the scrolls.

Meanwhile Ben wakes up in a dilapitated attic. He's alone with a sink that's been converted into a makeshift deep fryer. The oil's boiling.
You know you have a few moments left to try and escape. Please describe how you plan to do it, I tell him.
Ben cannot wriggle his way out and he could already hear the chef returning. So he prayed to Jesus for aid.
When Jesus didn't answer, he prayed to Satan.
Then another player asked "don't you have 19 strength? Why don't you just break the ropes?"
"Oh, can I do that?" Ben asks. Sure, I answer.
He easily breaks the ropes and jumps out of the window.

Ben runs into the rest conveniently as they are staking out the house, where bad men wanted the boy to come after the heist. It was situated on higher ground than most of the town, so only its ground floor was flooded.
Everyone got into position. Petrus and Reggie became invisible and stayed near the child. Wilbur took position near a window. Siegfried and the rest waited some distance away.
Everything was quiet, a bit too quiet.
Wilbur took initiative and peeked inside. All was dark and silent except for a low whimper. He also spotted a crossbow trap rigged to shoot when the door opens.

When it seems the house's empty, they disarm the trap and rush in. The boy scampers straight to the back, where a small girl has been nailed to a ceiling. Ben rushes to heal her, but she's too far gone - her gut has been slashed open and pulled out into open. She was barely alive and in great pain, so Siegfried did the merciful deed.
The sight was too much for the boy, who collapsed by her sister. He no longer responded to anything.
"Hot damn", Reggie remarked.

They did a sweep in the house, but find nothing. Whatever had been waiting, had had time to retreat. Not even flying Petrus could catch anything in the darkness.
They decided to return to the ship with the refugees.
Once everyone was fit in snugly, their new cargomaster quietly informed Reggie that they would have enough food for everyone for barely a week.
"We ain't prepared to run a hostel here, Cap."
"Then we'll be done in a week."

Next day the League sets out again. The priest they saved, Selminimum Tem, says he needs to check on his church as he saw it swept away by the tide. The Leagueers agree as Siegfried and Wilbur reason the church might be a good place to deposit excess refugees. They also take Tzani with them as her knowledge might come in handy.
They row through Carrowmore, but don't encounter anything - it seems that most of the survivors had either drowned or fled deeper into the city.

On the way to the church they witness a peculiar sight: two wizards floating on the water. They pause to follow the battle and witness one of them triumph - and soon after get eaten by a gigantic pike.

They find the church moored in a nearby field. Unfortunately, a group of toads have claimed it as their home. The toads had gorged themselves on the drowned and now bulged and wobbled from their poorly digested food. The party manages to go past them to the church, but when they have to stop to wait for Tem to fiddle with the locks, the frogs begin approaching menacingly.
During the nasty battle (the toads have a tendency to burst open, when they take too much damage), someone begins firing on the party from a nearby hill.
Petrus immediately soars in the air to pursue and easily catches his prey. It's a dwarf.
He returns with his captive to the church.

Inside Tem thanks the adventurers and rewards each of them with a vial of holy water. He begins to regret his gratitude, when the League gets to business with their captive.
"So, a child murderer, huh?" Siegfried begins.
"We're all murderers. Why should I tell you anything?" the prisoner answers.
"Bold words. Luckily I was counting on it", replies Siegfried as he takes his flensing knife and begins working on the dwarf's fingers. He relents after a few.
"Wait. I'll talk."
"Shh, not yet. Not until I'm done", says Siegfried and works until all of the hand has been skinned.

They find out the dwarf is Ghar Zaghouan and he's part of a group called the Crows. He claims that their goal here is to save the world, but he doesn't know their leader Hölloch's plans and that one of them can control the dead.
Ghar tries to negotiate with the party and say that he would do anything if he could keep his bow. But he's not much of a social butterfly and the offer might've come across as a threat.
Ultimately Boris breaks his neck. "I know his type. We used to hunt them all the time in the KGB."
Selminimum Tem is offended by this murder and violence and shoos the group out of the church. He then locks the doors behind them.
"What a dick", says Petrus.

Coming back they notice their boat has attracted a swarm of lungfish. They're too numerous to kill, but slower than the boat, so they decide to just deal with it later. They also witness a challenge that they'd have to confront later: a massive whirring golem. This one stood guard in a drowned orchard. They wisely decided to take the longer route.
The longer route took them to the hunting ground of a gigantic pike. (What do all these animals eat?! - Reggie) They try to steer their boat as not to agitate the pike, but fail - the pike roars and lunges from the water.
It strikes at Ben and bites deeply. It has tasted human blood.
Siegfried disciplines the fish with a well placed sword strike and the beast is forced to retreat. But not without draggin Benedict down with it.
The pike retreats, but the lungfish it had been hunting are driven into a frenzy by the smell of blood.
Fiercely they attack Ben, seeking holes and gaps in his armour, while Ben himself struggles to stay afloat. Not an easy task as he wears chain and full backpack.
The others try to help him up, but their attempts are futile as no one dares to join Ben in the water and Ben cannot find a steady grasp in the wet oar. Blood now pillows in the murky water.
Suddenly, Petrus and Siegfried find Ben becoming less heavy and they manage to haul him up.
Then they discover the reason, why he lost weight: the entire lower half of his body has been eaten and only hanging, half eaten guts and bones remain.
Ben is irrevocably dying and only has time for a few last words:
"Fuck... you... all..."
"Don't worry, Ben! The Meatsmith can sew you back together!"
"Fuuck... youuuuuuuuuuu."
And he dies.

Solemnly they continue their way. They pass a hill, where a plethora of animals has taken shelter, both predator and prey in a temporary truce. The League considers hunting some rations, but think again, when a giant tentacle lazily rises from the water, grabs a cow and slithers back under.
"Again, what's with these animals?" Reggie ponders.
They wisely steer away from the kraken towards a distant windmill.
As they come nearer a cry of help comes from the windmill - it's base's covered in a sea of hungering white crabs that try to get at the mill's upper loft. Or more precisely, the refugees holed there.
It is getting late and the crew needs a place to spend the night. So they try to save the villagers.
Compared to the other horrors they've met during the trip, the crabs fall easily. Petrus conjures a wall of flames around their boats and the air is filled with the smell of roasted crab. Only few of the refugees die when the adventurers reach them.
The one who cried, a woman named Tana Che Urla thanks the League for their heroism and the PC's agree to take the refugees on their boats.
Tonight everyone gorged themselves with crab and happily they put up the watches.

During the night they are attacked by a group of ghouls that try to sink their boats. The undead are barely driven off after they almost drown Reggie.
Later in the night a gigantic hill crawls near the windmill. Its sight keeps Boris and Siegfried awake.
Morning they see it's not a hill, but a house-sized mudcrab. (This place is nuts! - Reggie)

It seems docile and first the adventurers decide to leave it alone. But then Siegfried spies something shiny lodged in the crab's shell. He takes their lone boat and carefully rows nearer.
The shiny thing proves to be a fist sized lump of gold.
Oh so carefully Siegfried rows nearer and then tries to climb towards the treasure.

The crab doesn't like that.
Lazily it lifts one claw to smash at the thing pestering it. It barely misses, but smashes the boat. Siegfried jumps out at the last minute and hangs onto the only leverage nearby - the crab.
He snatches the nugget and scampers up the crabs shell, while the crab tries to shake him off.
Luckily, Siegfried takes only one hit before getting away.
"Worth it."
Unfortunately he wrecked their second boat in the process and now they had to fit all of the refugees in the only boat they had. It was a very tight fit.

They rowed upriver awkwardly and stopped by Pollinacrom village that was in middle of the process of being dismantled by one of the Turbine golems.
"Hey! You guys have any food?" one of the villagers shouted as they saw PC's boat.
"No! Can you take in refugees?" answered Siegfried.
"Not really! We're literally running out of space!" the villager shouted back and motioned towards the golem.
"Do you have a problem with a witch?" Wilbur interrupted.
"No! We have no idea what you are talking about!"
"Are you sure?"
"Yes! ... Is there any room in your boat?"
"No."
"Oh... well... we'll manage... somehow."
So, they moved onwards.

Onwards, the water suddenly erupted and a fell beast rose from the depths. It was the Cow-sized killer platypus. It was finally free. The battle began once more.
It turned its attention towards the PC's boat, it's eyes gleaming with red rage.
Everyone shook in horror, everyone but Siegfried who was immune to the fear. And ready to meet the beast in combat.
He was, after all, a professional.
Siegfried raised his blade and took stable position on the boat's prow. The Platypus roared and came forth, accepting the warrior's challenge.
They met and clashed.
And then.
"Magic missile! Magic missile!"
Petrus and Reggie, the two mages, who had deathly startled of the platypus simultaneously let forth volleys of magic death. The platypus was torn into pieces and Siegfried was left standing on the prow dumbfounded.
"WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT? DIDN'T YOU SEE WE HAD A MOMENT THERE?!"
"Sorry, we got scared."
"... I'll never forgive you."

Around midday they reach the point where the river turns and they can finally see the Great Dam. Or what's left of it, as its stony side was marred by a huge tear from which water now flowed freely.
At the base of the Dam they saw one of the golems kneeling, as if in a prayer.
"If I had any knowledge of modern turbine dynamics, I'd say the golem was trying to charge itself. But I don't, so I won't say anything", Siegfried ponders.
On a nearby hill they spy a family gathered around a small bonfire, they decide to greet them as they might have advice on where to dump their extra passengers.

As they reach the hill, they see what the family had been burning.
"Hey, that looks like a ninth level spell scroll!" Reggie shouts and charges towards the fire. "Gimme that!"
"Wot are you doin' to ah fire?"
"Do you realize what kind of fortune you have destroyed?! Is there anything left?!"
"Ah realize mah li'l uns an me darlin' woulda frozen last nite, if we aint been burnin' these."
"Aargh! I could kill you! I swear!"
"Shut up, Reggie", Wilbur intervenes, "do you know about the hills here? Could we leave our refugees nearby?"
"Nah, aint nuffin but underbrush an' gravel 'ere."
Eventually they manage to calm Reggie down and return to the boat.
It wouldn't be long until they reached the Dam.

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

Here's the second to last chapter of Deep Carbon Observatory. Enjoy!

---

Having had enough of dealing with the frustrating locals they set off again in their barely floating boat. They pass by something that looks like a huge riverboat made of gold, which makes everyone exited. But they have nothing to carry it on, let alone wedge it off the mud, so they just have to let it be. For now.
As a precaution, they tie it to a nearby bloody rock.

They arrive to the Dam. Once it had been majestic, but now a massive crack had divided it in half. The mindbending mass of water it had held was in the valley and only a (comparately) small waterfall dribbled from the tear. At the base they see one of the golems praying at its base. They keep a safe distance.
That's when the woman they saved from the windmill, Tana Che Urla, gets anxious.
"We cannot follow you up that dam! Please, let us have your boat once you don't need it anymore!"

This sparks a heated debate between the party. Not surprisingly none want to give up their only boat. Rekt argues they should just leave the woman and the children on land.
"What land?" asks Reggie. "The rocky, steep cliffs that are only things not under water? Why don't you just kill them now and save them the wait!"
No one is ready to kill them, so eventually they decide to let them have the boat. Tana's gratitude knows no bounds and she promises to return the boat, if she's able. The teacher leaves with the children.
"We aint gonna see her again", Reggie guesses. He's not wrong.

They still have to deal with the golem, which gets antsy every time they get close to the Dam.

Long story short, Boris and Rekt are enlarged while Siegfried stands at the Dam. The Golem engages and is soundly defeated. Siegfried did most of the work, but also got most of the punishment.
Petrus flies up to scout while the others inspect the Dam base. Boris uses his dwarven knowledge to know the Dam is made from 'concrete', a mystical material used by Romans and the dwarves.
"It's concrete", Boris states.
"Yes. We're gonna need concrete evidence on who made the damn", Reggie agrees.
"No! It's concrete!"
"What? You already know! Then tell us!"
"You imbecile! It's made of concrete!"
"Well, then DON'T tell us, you dwarfish pygmy asshole. Be that way!"
"Argh! Keep believing what you want!"*

Then Petrus returns and shares what he saw: a great expanse of exposed lake bed.
They use the golem's eye to open one of the hatches at the base of the Dam. A pathway inside lets them climb to the top.


Having climbed the dam they briefly survey the upside and make special note of the peculiar village and the square hole in the ground, both at least a day away.
But what draws their immediate attention is much nearer: the crack through the Dam has revealed a room.
Petrus still has his fly spell active, so making a pulley ride there is easy. They enter something that resembles a tomb but with all the grave goods washed away by the water. A door has been torn open and leads deeper into the Dam. A sprung log trap hangs from the ceiling.
They go deeper and find another tomb, this one untouched by water. It seems identical to the previous room except: Here the depicted king is shown as noble and merciful, when earlier he was wrathful. The door they came through was clearly hidden from the opposite side. And all the treasure (including a familiar golden boat) were only gilded replicas.
Another door lead deeper. It was trapped, but Wilbur took care of it easily.
Somewhat worriedly Siegfried noted that all the traps were aimed towards them. So whatever they were built against was inside the Dam.

The next room contained eight canoptic guards - statues with embedded canoptic jars in them - who all animated and attacked, when Wilbur tried to steal one.
A battle was joined and the statues fought with machine-like precision. Every smashed jar released something: stomach acid, animated intestines or such. The League fought hard, but the guards were durable as stone they were built of and they hit with the strength of a mountain.
Then Petrus made a plan that might take them all out: he aimed a magic missile spell towards all eight 'head jars' and let loose.
That was a bad idea. Jars shattered, but did not destroy the guards.
Instead, eight floating brains emerged from the jars, each of wich forced the PC's to utter their deepest regrets or be paralyzed.
The battle soon turned against the League.

They manage to kill the brains but are forced to cast haste and retreat back into the previous room. The guards follow, but very slowly, so the PCs have time to chug their last healing potions, regroup and make defensive lines at the doorway. Rekt and Siegfried took positions beside each other.
The guards pursue and battle begins anew. This time the League fares a bit better, but their ill luck isn't completely gone: A fumble makes Rekt hurt himself and Siegfried also hits him twice by accident - killing the poor sod where he stood.

This was the fifteenth dead character for his player. And the funny thing is that after his last character, Will the Elf, had been killed by Ragath Statue, the player had told be he was a bit sick of constant rerolling and was considering leaving the game, if I killed him one more time.
As a Referee I swear I won't favour nor hound any individual players, but he is a good player and it is more than likely I'd been subconsciously protecting him to keep him from leaving.
Tonight, however, the problem was surprisingly averted by having another PC kill him instead.
The player let out a long sigh and set out making his new adventurer.

Eventually they do kill last of the guards. Wilbur even managed to steal one of the jars.
They lament Rekt's death a moment ("Now we have two corpses to carry! That's not a normal amount of corpses!" "Technically it's just one and half") and venture forth. The next three rooms contain traps that are easily avoided by the party. They have become good at this.
Eventually a door opens into open air and they see they've reached the top of the Dam.

The party descents into the newly formed valley and go through a forest of drying kelp. There they meet the Bush Knight, who fights using a large pair of scissors. (A visiting player)
The scissors give immediate flashbacks for Petrus and Reggie, who both were savaged by a similar pair of scissors back in Villa Cavallo.
Bush Knight almost has to reroll his character right there and then.

As they exit the forest they spy a tribe of lake creatures assembling on the other side of the small river that divides the valley. Reggie recognises them as Kapeks, freshwater cousins to Deep Ones.
He also sees the staff their leader is carrying.
"That one! It's meant for me! I need it!"
The rest take one look at the adorable, yet menacing army and convince the Reggie to wait. As the both groups were heading in the same direction, they would inevitably meet, so the party should take their time and observe.

They went on towards a pale formation they had seen from atop the damn. Now they saw it for what it was: the belly of a giant, dead pike, probably the father of the one that menaced them downriver, that was being devoured by hundreds of small crabs.
Luckily, these where more shy than their downriver cousins and scattered as soon as the PCs came too near.
The party's casters, Petrus and Reggie, took an immediate interest in the pike's jawbone.
"You could make a kantele out of this!" Reggie exclaims.
"Cough, I mean, this bone is full of potential to become a finnougric instrument of might!"
Petrus agrees and so they take the bone with them.

They pass a field of dying lungfish that have become bloated with gas emissions. There Reggie prods Wilbur, until the Specialist agrees to shoot one.
It causes a massive chain explosion that clears the whole field.
Soon after they reach a natural "bridge" that they could use to cross the river, a huge rok bird, still clinging to life, slowly being eaten by man sized leech and dying. Its body lays in the middle of the river with wings forming a natural bridge.
The party decides to make the crossing though they shiver each time one of them makes the bird shake from agony.
As the last of the members makes their way across, the rok lets out its last pitiful shriek.
Which draws the attention of the kapeks.
Their leader points its scepter at the party and bellows a war cry. The army answers.
"Mii mii! Miimiimii! Mimii!"
They begin their charge, which is about as fast as the group's walking speed.
The League is torn: the kapeks are too adorable to be taken seriously, but their spears would hurt regardless.
They decide to power walk away from the advancing army, towards the peculiar village.

At the village, a group of warriors greets them in an unknown tongue.
As the Leagueers seem mostly human and are chased by the kapeks, the people of the reeds decide to lower a bridge and let them in.
In the village, Reggie notices he can understand some of the warriors' speech and they trade stories.
The People tell about their centuries long feud with the kapeks and about the apocalypse that took the water away. They query whether the outsiders are gods as they have come beyond the god wall.
Reggie doesn't doubt long before going on with the story. He asks about the kapeks and learns that the creatures are only afraid of the tribe's old chieftains - who might be able to save the village, if warned of their need.
Reggie replies that the adventurers are just the right people for the job.
Petrus rubs his arms together, it would be no problem getting the chieftains move.

Over at the grave site, they see that the chiefs need no magical aid. The revenants break free from their tombs and begin a slow lurch towards the village.
"The battle will be over before they get there. Is there any way to make them go faster?" Boris ponders.
Eventually they just decide to out pace the chieftains and flank the approaching army.
They hide in the drying underbrush and Wilbur aims his bow at the Kapek leader. He lets his arrow fly, while Petrus and Reggie prepare their magic missiles
But to their amazement, missiles are not needed as Wilbur's sneak attacked arrow makes the 1HD kapek leader explode.
This sows immediate chaos in the kapeks' ranks, who waddle to and fro in panic. They are no match for the experienced adventurers, who easily carve their way to the fallen shaman and its distraught honour guard.
"I almost feel too guilty to do this", Wilbur laments as they fight the guard. As the last blow to the kapeks' morale Reggie conjures a phantasmal version of a Turbine golem.

The triumphant Reed Warriors rally to capture prisoners. For the People this was a day of a great loss and great victory. They lost many capable warriors, but the gods from beyond the wall and the risen chieftains proved that the times would soon turn for the better.
It was time for a feast.
The adventurers awkwardly take part as the guests of honour in a party that inlvolves roasting, disemboweling, draining, torturing and eating the kapeks alive. To their horror they discover that the mewling and crying kapeks taste absolutely delicious.

Next morning they gather themselves and head towards what the locals call "Door to Hell". On the way they go search the mountainside and find the sun forts - aimed lenses that were clearly made to reflect light towards the hole.
Similar lenses were built around it too.
Whoever made this wanted to drown that place in light.


They seriously consider repairing the lenses and letting the place be. But eventually their curiosity and greed win and they take their time climbing down the reverse ziggurat that has been dug in the ground. At the bottom they find iron-wrought twin doors, now covered in rust. Despite their immense age the doors open easily and reveal a stairway into the darkness.



*The dialogue has been changed to translate the joke into English. The original wordplay was between Finnish words 'betoni' (concrete) and 'peto' (beast) and it went something like this:
"Se on betonia / It is concrete."
"Kyllä, näin ison padon on voinut rakentaa vain valtava peto! / Yes, a dam this big could only have been built by an enormous beast!"
"Ei! Se on tehty betonista! / No, it's made from concrete!"
"Mitä? Pato on TEHTY pedoista? Et voi olla tosissasi! / What? The dam is made from beasts? You can't be serious!"
"Minä luovutan... / I give up..."

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

It's been a while after the last one, but here's how the League explored half of the Observatory. Next chapter's almost ready, so I should be able to post it much sooner.

Note: This is best read when listening to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6invdfmqT8A
---

They descent into the silence. There seems to be no end to the stairs, no sound other than the echoes of their footsteps. According to Boris' intuition, they've long since gone under sea level with no change other than the walls shifting slowly into white calcite.

Then, after seemingly descending forever, the stone wall ends and is replaced by cage of metal. Their lights throw dark shadows into a reversed ziggurat, similar to the one they found at the entrance. Except this one's levels are guarded by statues.
"Statues. They're always trouble", Wilbur reminds.
Eventually the stairs end and the metal cage lets them to the bottom of the ziggurat.

They go through the western door and venture deeper. All this time only light is what they bring and only sound is what they cause. And the low rumble of tectonic activity.
Eventually the tunnel ends, cutting abruptly off before great, immense void. There are narrow stairs chiseled into the wall - wide enough to descent, but so narrow and so high that you take each step wondering, if that's the one to topple you.
As much as they try, the League cannot make out the opposing wall nor the cavern floor. On the opposite, the face they are on seems to curve inwards.
They know it's a bad idea, but they go down the stairs all the same.

Next they enter a vast cavern with several chests and a giant pulley elevator. They take a moment to wonder what kind of creatures could have ever operated it.
Then they pry open the chests.
It's a motherlode. The League takes their time to shift through the contents, which consist of all the manner of exotic weaponry and equipment - enough to outfit an army.
They quickly equip themselves with punch daggers, infrared lanterns and other gear used for underground warfare. Rest they pile up in the middle of the room to be sorted out and packed later. They assumed they would have time later.
At this point their party is also joined by two clerics, who happened to be nearby and wanted to help.
They descent further into yet another large chamber. They find two moonsilver doors, a ladder and the terminus of the pulley system. Behind it looms a massive bridge that reaches into the dark.
The bridge is not solid, but resembles a spiderweb. As Wilbur steps on it, the reverberation makes the structure hum.
If you look down, you could see the emptiness through millions of holes left between the strands.
They do not wish to step on the bridge.

Instead they pick one of the moonsilver doors and go down the stairs. The regular darkness soon becomes a throbbing, wrong void, a total absence of space that attacks their eyes, attempting to tear them down. Only thing keeping the void in check being a flimsy cage around their staircase.
Boris hears something through the stone. A slow and steady beat. A Heart? As soon as he focuses, it goes away.
It takes courage to go down.
There they find a workshop full of strange harnesses. They wonder if they have something to do with the throbbing, living dark above.
Ultimately they find a ceramic lens that looks important. Going further down there's a machinery, some kind of command console that looks functional.
Further down, well, it ends. The stalactite that is.

Abruptly the stairs end into empty nothingness and a seat. There's an inscription: "The objects are further away than they appear. Please do not scry the aboleth."

The League take their time using the device, which shows them many foreign vistas around a roiling black sea. (Unfortunately know not how to put Azimoth's around the lens.)
Here Petrus has a religious experience: deep down he knows what they saw was the origin of river Styx.
And as the realisation dawns upon him, he receives a vision from his god.

In the vision he's in a villa overlooking a burning city. He's not alone, for there's a Red Architect with him.
She tells Petrus that an impending doom is approaching and his compatriots are at fault.
She tells that the Praetor-Pontifex is invincible as long as he has his army.
Last time the unified forces of the Great races needed an artifact just to defeat the armies of Duvan'ku.
The races are no longer unified. And the Praetor-Pontifex made sure to banish the artifact to a place all gods have forsaken.
She says that if they are to defeat the Praetor-Pontifex, they need what the modern man calls Ark of the Covenant. And to get the Ark, they must travel to dread Carcosa.

The vision ends and Petrus returns from the seat. He tells the others what he saw.
"Do you know what that was about? I wasn't there, when you went to Death Frost Mountain."
"The bitch is probably lying her ass off. I wouldn't trust anyone we saw in the tomb", Siegfried retorts.

Having played enough with the lens, the group climbs back up. This time they take the ladder they ignored the first time. In the middle of the climb they notice a crack in the wall.
One of the clerics decides to investigate. Inside he finds a small cavern with a clear pool. In the pool are three objects: a sword, a tongue and a statue of a baby.
He augurs the pool: "Will there be weal or woe, if I touch the pool?"
WOE
He decides to let the objects be.
Then the other clerics goes to the pool and casts another augur: "Will there be weal or woe, if I take the sword?"
WEAL
Happily he retrieves the sword, which bursts into green flame as it's removed from the saline liquid.
"O that's not fair!" yells the first cleric, who then climbs back to retrieve the two remaining objects.
As the statue is removed from the liquid, it rapidly ages, reaches senility and dies.
"You have gained a severe radiation poisoning", I tell the cleric.
"This sucks", says the cleric and his hair falls off in chunks.
He still takes the tongue. It does nothing.

Then the League takes their chance and crosses the bridge. Boris thought he saw something moving up above.
They have now reached the other stalactite.
Some light scouting reveals the stalactite is covered full of rooms like a vertical storage. Loot. This is something familiar for each of them and it perks the adventurers' moods. They can see most of the rooms from the central shaft where a gigantic chain slowly sways.
They quicken their pace and shift through the valuables.
Many wonders greet them, like condescending salt dryads, strange shells and fossilised brains.
When they reach the top the charm of spelunking the place has run out, so instead backtracking they send Petrus to scout through the eastern rooms.
He comes back to tell that they missed a room on their side. A room with no obvious means to access it.
Now this should have something interesting.
They set up a rope above and rappel down.
The room is empty except for a block of ice. When they approach the ice they see a black-skinned elf clutching a book.
Then a ghostly apparation manifests and claims to be the librarian of a library which consists of one book.
She bids the party to leave - she would not care if they looted everything else in the complex. But touch her book and she would make them pay.
"Sounds reasonable. Do we really need one book?" Wilbur ponders.
"Makes sense, when you think about it. Now we have a permission to loot the rest, it's not even stealing!" Siegfried says.
Then everyone bursts into laughter and Petrus casts Form Made Flesh on the ghost.

Alas, fighting Ixtrerian the ghost wasn't so easy. Soon the ghost rematerializes, vengeful and angry. Unnatural fear emanates from the spectre - all but Petrus, Siegfried and other Cleric scamper away in fear.
They only have one rope and it's unfastened from this side.
Boris would never make the climb. Panicked he takes his chances with the chain. He jumps.
And misses.
The dwarf tumbles into darkness.
"Shitcrap!" Petrus yells and flies after him. Leaving Siegfried and the Cleric fight the ghost.
This was not in the plan. The Cleric and Siegfried can kill the ghost easy enough, but it always comes back and each of its attacks ages its victims unnaturally.
It doesn't take long for them to realise that they need to kill the material corpse. Which is encased in ice. Even with the Cleric's eternium blade, melting the ice is slow. When they finally pierce the elf's dead heart, both are ancient.
Only good thing to come out of this was that the valuable book survived.

Meanwhile Petrus is unable to reach Boris as he's falling faster than Petrus can fly. He uses his last trick: Dimension door 100' in front of Boris.
(They worried for Boris so much that we had to calculate the time Boris would reach terminal velocity and compare it to Petrus' flying speed.)
He catches the dwarf, though both tumble through the air, dazed from the impact.

When each and everyone make it back to Siegfried and Cleric, they find two old men.
"Jesusfuck, what happened?" Reggie asks."
"Don't. I think I'll retire after this..." Siegfried says.

"Do you still have the tongue?" Old Cleric asks the other one.
"Yes?"
"Gimme!"
He takes the magic tongue, cuts out his own tongue and puts the silver thing in its place.
"Okay, the tongue is cursed, so I can make your character say things couple times a day", I say.
"Well, that sucks", the Cleric decides and cuts out his new tongue. "I think that was it."
Then he jumps down the shaft.
All the while others look in horror.
"What the fuck is wrong with all the Christians?" Reggie yells.

"So... did you get the book?" Petrus asks, casting Comprehend languages.
"Alright, after skimming the book and reading the preface you discover that it's a book that allows its owned to observe individuals and with time discover personal details about them. It would, however, take many months of study, before you could use it."
"..." Petrus' player is silent for a moment. "So it's a psychology book?"
"That was a bit anticlimactic."

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

This is the last we have of the Observatory! In this they finally get out, I promise!

Tune in for the exciting last chapter of the League and Deep Carbon Observatory!

---

They return to a fresco they found disassembled in an earlier room, which they had evaluated to be the most valuable thing. It would take them at least three trips to haul to the armory.
During the second haul Boris finally sees the thing that had been following them.
The Giant.
It was hanging on the chain hanging above the bridge. The rock it threw just missed Wilbur.
"Welp, that's our cue to run!" Petrus yells.
The rest agree.
"Wait, I'll go after the bastard" Siegfried says. Petrus looks at him and nods. He casts spider climb on Siegfried.
This the Giant did not expect. It retreats somewhere Siegfried cannot reach it.

"What the hell was that?" Petrus asks Boris after they've got inside.
"I think it was Giantus Grayus Elasticus. They live in the dark spaces."
"So. How do we kill it?" Siegfried asks.
"According to ancient dwarven lore they are best slain by hitting them a lot with hard objects."
"So be it."

After they've taken the pulley lift up, the Giant makes its second entrance. This time the adventurers are ready.
Petrus casts Enlarge on both Boris and Siegfried, who move in to surround the Giant.
Then they begin administering knuckle sandwiches.
The Giant fights, but it's not used to a prey that fights back. Or is its own size.
Licking its wounds the Giant flees. It could easily climb the cliff face.

The fighters know better than to give chase, so they take advantage of their size and haul the fresco up with the lift.
When they make their way back to others, the Giant is waiting under the bridge. Its pale hand reaches for Boris.
But it could never get the advantage of surprise it had before.
Petrus aims a stinkin cloud around its head. Then they hack and slash its limbs, until its hold releases.
The Giant falls.
And falls.
And disappears.

After an eternity they hear something akin to a wet thud.


It takes several grueling hours to haul the fresco and rest of their pickings over the bridge, up to the armory and across the narrow staircase to the entrance chamber.
There they begin shifting through their loot to decide, if they want to continue exploring the dungeon.
By then they hear several footsteps from the main stairway. Someone else's coming. A lot of someone is coming.
The League has been stretched almost to its end. Everyone's tired and wounded, the wizards barely have any spells left.
Who could they be? Did the Crows finally catch up to them? Did the Reed people decide they'd rather loot the underworld themselves? Or was it the taxman?
Everyone was waiting with their weapons drawn, when...
"One"
"Two"
"Three"

“Oi! Captain Reggie! Me and men were talkin’, it’s boring on the ship when you are away, we are coming with ya next time you go out, and me and men want an equal piece of the action and the treasures!” Beardless Dante shouts over the cacophonia that was the crew of the Ecstasy of Gold.

It's the Filibusters! Part of Ecstasy of Gold's moonlighting as an amateur orchestra featuring Beardless Dante their leader and chorus, One-eye Shelly the boatswain, violin, and chorus, Blunt Leopold the Carpenter and Blunt Instruments, Mate Harmony Jones playing the Harmonic and, not to forget, Powder Monkeying Fingerless Edward playing the Guitar. Plus an unremarcable bunch of rabble providing some crowd.
Our unlucky player had finally found a class that would not die: the Extras!


"Dante, you old coot! What the hell are you doing here?" Reggie yelps, not sure whether he's grateful or worried.
"Ay, me an me folks wanted to help!" Dante replies. Rest of the Filibusters yell and chatter in chorus.
"Well then, start shuffling through the loot!" Boris orders.

With the help of the Filibusters, arranging their findings in neat piles takes no time. As they sort through the piles, they discover some of their items have peculiar writing in them. Tzani Spillios, the scholar who had been right there all along, knew the language of the Dam Builders enough to translate.
"These are just random words, like 'auscultation'", she says.
And then the statues on the reverse ziggurat react.
"Oh hell, you woke them up!" Wilbur exclaims. "Should've known better than leave them be!"
But the statues don't attack. Instead they form into a staircase, connecting their level to the next.
"Neato", says the remaining Cleric.
"Damn. All this time, did every statue we met have a code word?" Wilbur ponders.

Shifting through the loot reveals one more word. But they still lack two.
"Well, now we have manpower to carry all of this. Maybe we should take a lookee through the rest of the dungeon too?" Reggie suggests.
All agree.

So, they head to the yet unexplored eastern section of the Observatory. (Yes, they had mostly mapped the east stalactite, but they didn't know how much or little they'd missed.)
The hallway soon expanded into a large working area dominated by the massive chain they saw earlier.
They find and learn to operate the Gravity Knife - a hatch in the floor and a fall into the abyss. They notice a lone chain, almost reachable down below. They laugh at the cruelty. Before feeling a twinge of guilt. They spot the viewing area up above, but leave it be for now.
Around the Knife are small carved hovels. One of them has a triple-layered container containing something vitrious green. As they come closer, humanoid shapes beging to coalescense inside.
"Oh, fuck no! We're not touching that!" Siegfried declares and they leave.
In another room they find hidden carvings of spells. "Ease hunger", "Avoid notice", "Lessen pain", "Reduce thirst"
"Woah! These are convenient!" Reggie says. "Anyone thirsty? Look what I can do!"
He casts a spell.
"Whoa, I'm still thirsty, but not as much as I was before!" Wilbur says. "... We're horrible people."
Another room contains an old torturing rack. What makes it special is that its occupant is still alive - altough no longer lucid.
Wilbur and Reggie examine the rack: its neck and wrist braces have hundreds of small razors that slice bite into the victim's flesh with their every move.
"That's elaborate and cruel. But it would go well with our rape table", says Reggie.
"Agreed", Wilbur concurs.

They try to cut away the victim, but the parts they carve grow back before they can remove him. And there's no way to open the locks without the key.
"Hmm, I wonder if this is a corpse generator?" Petrus ponders. Then he casts Dispel Magic. "Now it should be easier!"
The victim crumbles into dust. After the magic evaporates, the rack's braces open invitingly. Petrus is disappointed, when no new victim appears.
"We're taking that with us. Filibusters, tear it off the ground!" says Reggie.
One room has mushrooms in it, but they know better than to disturb mushrooms.

Then they explore rest of the eastern stalactite. Reggie, Petrus and Wilbur get unnaturally excited about shells they find in one room and soon have the Filibusters shoveling them into bags.
They stop to gawk of some hieroglyphs depicting anthromorphic lizards enslaving humans.
"Do you want to cast Comprehend Languages on them?" I ask.
"Nah, it's probably nothing interesting", Petrus answers.
It is the Duergar mining equipment that interests them more. The motorized drills and picks are something completely new to them, but the party's hopes crash down, when Boris admits the machinery requires a pint of blood to operate for ten minutes.
"This is just like dwarves! You make something really, really cool and then put a weird blood-requirement on it!" Reggie complains, while Boris is somewhat defensive.
"I don't like to talk about our deep cousins. They're weird folk."

Having gone through everything, they have Petrus and Reggie fly up and explore the viewing room above the Gravity Knife. It takes some effort to remove the protection grid, but eventually they lower a rope for the rest to climb up.
"Looks like we didn't need the code phrases after all", Wilbur remarks.
They return to the entrance hall, this time staying on the upper level. Now they get to take a closer look at the doorway blocked by a platinum snake.
Its maw opens as they approach and closes back as they go away.
"Hmm, what do we do with this one?"
They try to talk to the snake and feed it random surplus, but it doesn't seem to work. Then Wilbur has an idea:
"Maybe we can crawl through? I'm the smallest, so I could go inside", he suggests.
"Alright, that sounds reasonable", others concur.
So Wilbur discards his backpack and excess gear, while Petrus ties a rope around him "for safety".
All in all, Reggie thinks this is taking too long.
"Hey Ref, where's Tzani?" he asks me.
"Umm yeah, she followed you guys, so she's gawking at the snake with you guys", I reply.
"Alright. I cast Avoid Notice."
"Uhhuh."
"THEN I KICK HER RIGHT IN!" He rolls. And succeeds.
Everyone's startled as Tzani suddenly flies into the maw. It closes behind her and the snake retracts from the doorway.
They enter a grandiose throne room and take turns sitting on the obsidian throne. None try on the crown nor hold the sceptre - instead they fly unceremoniously into the loot bag.
"The Empire of Extraordinary Opportunity. I like the sound of that..." Wilbur ponders.
They have more trouble to decide how to take the throne with them. Ultimately they cast Shrink on it and into the bag it goes.

They go through the diplomatic suites and have a chat with Zeelnebrooch, a slime being that inhabited a much too elaborate to describe glass thingamajig.
"He was perfectly polite and knew many interesting topics. Shame he was hungry", mused Wilbur, who had a near death discussion with him.
They enter the treasure vault only to discover someone had been there before them - most of the coffers were empty and only the few handfuls that earlier thieves couldn't bother with remained.
Their disappointment disappears, when we go through the contents: Occultum coins, Bank notes stamped in Sigil, Cloudcradle silk, Configurations of madmen tradeable for one impossible deed each etcetera.
They pack everything up. Then they have an argument, whether to take the furniture in the guest chambers - each piece worth more than their whole hauls early in their career.
"But compared to everything we have, those are nothing! And they're hard to carry."
So, in the end they dismantle some of the (priceless) furniture to make stretchers to carry rest of the loot.

They carry everything they have back to the entrance hall and send a messenger to the People of the Reeds. Eventually a party of them descends down the stairs.
"We have conquered the underworld and require your aid bringing all this shit back up!" Wilbur declares. The leader of the People hesitates and nervously makes his demands:
"Your men came through our village yesterday and they have taught us the wonders of Capitalism. We will aid you, but we demand a cut of the treasure."
"*Grumbling* You good for nothing... Very well, how much do you require?"
"We demand 1d10%." *rolls*
"1% cut of the profits!"

The League huddles up.
"1%! They demand a fortune and they've done nothing!" Wilbur fumes.
"Is it only the money or from XP too?" Petrus wonders.
"We really cannot haul all of this up by ourselves and we've already spent four sessions here", thinks Reggie.
"1% is nothing. We already have more than all of Europe put together. What's 1%?" asks Siegfried.

They reach an understanding and shake hands.

After a day most of the valuables have been hauled to the Great Dam. Before they have time to worry on how to carry it the rest of the way, they see an unknown ship moored near the Dam and fly to investigate.
"You have met the great Snail Shell Zarazhustra!" Bellows the captain, who is immediately renamed "Sebastiano Konquistadore" by the party. "I have come to explore the world beyond the Dam."
"But we already explored it", say the League.
"Heavens! And what did you find? Treasure? Danger?"
"Yes. Lots. Both."
"Hmm. Then my work here is done. I shall help you carry the treasure... for a share!"
"Argh, here we go again... how much do you want?"
"With my greater knowledge of Capitalism, my demand is 1d20%!"
*rolls*"
"And that is 1%!"
"Okay?"

When they return to their ship they find all the refugees they saved in a content vegetative state with a strange woman tending to them.
"I am Nürgul the Vivimancer. I come bearing a message from the Grey Medusa."
"What's the message?"
"Hurry the fuck up!"
"Getting to it. What happened to the refugees?"
"They were continuously moaning how hungry they were. So I taught them the art of photosynthesis."

The League of Extraordinary Opportunity had completed yet another quest, so on their way home the it was time to make plans for the future.
"I think I'll retire. I never intended to be slaying monsters into my 70s", announces Siegfried. "In fact, my replacement character is already here, Nürgul, it's your turn to adventure."
"I kinda want to do something about that end of the world thing. While it's cool to be responsible for it, it really leaves a bad aftertaste", Wilbur says.
"I concur. Ruins the party mood", agrees Reggie, "we could go to Khirima first. One of van Ooms' weapons is there and the Sodality of Conjurers might have some inkling on how to get to Carcosa - or Vornheim."
"I have business there too", adds Petrus.
"Yeah, and if we fail to stop the apocalypse, we can always just not come back!" Wilbur perks up.

So ends another adventure and the party again jumped up several levels. Here's the total tally of treasure they retrieved from the Observatory (minus the stuff they didn't cash for XP):

Lootpile
tables by Petrus & Siegfried


Those of you who have read the module know there was an evil adventuring party called the Crows in the area. What did they do after Zaghouan was killed?

Well, their first rule was: take no risks.
After the by Frosen's saw how easily their tracker was slaughtered, they decided that the League was too powerful to tackle head on. Instead they trailed behind, staying a safe half day behind them.
They found the Anatomharak's key and spotted the Golden boat the League had left behind. They spent some time gathering a force using Zolushiska's staff to raise the Killer Platypus and other prey slain by the League.
They shift through the leftovers in the Great Dam and find the hidden chamber. After a fierce debate they decide to free the prisoners. At this point Zolushiska breaks up with the party to cause mayhem elsewhere. (After Gar Zaghouan died the by Frosen's weren't intimidating enough by themselves. She was tired of being the only one to burn XP.)

The Crow's plan was to ambush the League as they exited the Observatory or enter if the party didn't return after a week. They knew of the Giant. The Prisoner's told them.
The Reed people did not tolerate them and harried the Crow's intensively. They had to relent - they backtracked to the Golden boat. They could hire mercenaries with them.
When they came back, the League was gone. The Crow's were free to take the Observatory.
Unfortunately the book on Drow Psychology was missing. It would make their plans somewhat harder to accomplish.

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

The last few posts have been so long that here's something shorter for a change: a quick recap on how the League of Extraordinary Opportunity spent their treasure and ended up in the next adventuring location.

---

Last time on Tales of Greed our intrepid adventurers looted the ancient Deep Carbon Observatory.
After a boring week of sailing they were back in Venice in their mansion, where they again became aware they had a lot more wealth than they could use.
It was time to do some acquisitions. First, their ship the Ecstasy of Gold, while serviceable, was much too small for them. Also it had no cannons.
So it was time to commission a new one. The best one.

They get the biggest ship on the market and christen it The Greater Ecstasy of Gold. It cost a million silver. It's figurehead is a huge mermaid made from smaller mermaids. It had cannons, it had a catapult.
Why a catapult? you might ask.
You can't shoot a dwarf out of a cannon, that's why!
The old ship was decommissioned and Wilbur paid for some workers to dig a lake to their estate - the old Ecstasy of Gold would spent its retirement there, sailing the moat.
"Now I know what's best about all this money", Wilbur ponders. "It's the gold."

There are some ill omens around: prices have soared since their last time. The merchants are fleeing south. Ominous dark clouds gather over the Alps.
Reggie makes a small trip to his old favourite pub in London and hears Sweden has fallen.
"They promised to take down the Swedes first. Probably heading south now", the party speculates. "We better get to it."

They provision their new ship for a voyage and visit the Ghoul Market. They purchase a few hovelshells - house sized tortoises with actual houses in their shells. Also everyone gets a Haste-tattoo.
Hildi also gets a Fly-tattoo.

Nürgul acts all around creepy "Would you perhaps require more hands?"
She has a small argument with Petrus about Haste and Neural Surge. Petrus scoffs at Nürgul's heathen ways:
"We simply quicken our personal timestream. No need to make your nerves faster like a hipster!"

The League sails south towards Khirima, but on the way they have a small holiday in Las Palmas, where they want to test out their new Carousing rules.
They party for 20 days wasting 150 000 silver. During the party Filibusters somehow end up in the local courts' wizard's mind while the wizard is spread around their crew. During the same incident, the local lord turns into a tree and Nürgul is declared the heiress.
She promptly turns all of her court into veggie drones.
Wilbur, Boris and Petrus just had the same old: one ruined the economy, second burned down the tavern and third woke up in a temple after a night of passion. Again.

During the party we also switched to Logan Knight's magic research rules - so the mages researched a bunch of spells. "We're high Wizards now!" they said, while sharing a spliff.
"I could put an eye to my hand", Petrus decides, "I'll do the right one, you'll do the left!"
He tells Nürgul.

The hangover doesn't lift until they reach Lagos and have a new party. This time using rules from World of the Lost.
They learn a lot of rumours, but little interesting: "These are frankly level one quest hooks! They are beneath us!" Nürgul declares.
Anyhow, by morning they wake up tied up to a pole in between a lake and mysterious banana plantation. Menaced by a crocodile.

Tune in next time.

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

I've noticed that when we're playing regularly writing this is a breeze, but if there's a longer hiatus, I cannot find the time to updating our journal. Everyone's been so busy this spring that it's been hard to shcelude a regular game.

---

Anyway, the last time we left our heroes, well you can't really call them heroes - high functioning sociopaths, maybe? - they woke up drunk, tied to a pole and menaced by a crocodile. As the session begins, Wilbur immediately sleights himself from the ropes, while Petrus just detaches his hands to free himself. Then they free everyone, who couldn't free themselves yet.
Crocodile suffers a humiliating and painful death, when the mages unleash their spells on it.

Wondering where they are, the League spots a banana plantation nearby. It's as good place to ask for directions as any, so they head there.
They pass a somewhat creepy scarecrow and head inside, where they meet a starving merchant named Qi.
Soon they realise they are trapped: the bananas have closed behind them leaving no way out.
"You know, we could just fly out?" Petrus says.
"And miss all the fun? Nah, lets do this the old fashioned way", Reggie remarks, "consider it a holiday."

Inside they find an interesting book Tales of the Scarecrow, which contains many stories about a monster scarecrow. The stories include:
- Scarecrow was made by a peepee-wizard and it craves dick.
- It's a restless spirit that thirsts for booze, blood and bitches.
- the Scarecrow is an ancient guardian, whose task is to ensure no one leaves the Paradise. Unfortunately what the ancients consider a paradise is not fit for humans.
- the Scarecrow wants to become a real boy, which is why it seeks human skins to wear.
- the Scarecrow is a cursed peasant that will possess everyone leaving the plantation one by one and slowly decompose them.
- the Scarecrow is a murdered man, who seeks its lost head and hands. It will consider every living being its murderer.
- the Scarecrow is the lord of nightmares. Everyone entering the plantation has already been cursed. They won't be able to sleep and when they finally can, their nightmares will manifest in reality.

"Boy, those are sure edgy stories! We're lucky they are not relevant in any way to our situation!" Nurgul exclaims. Then she casts Drone on Qi, whose become too annoying, "Sit boy."

Nurgul and Alfonso the Cleric brave the bananas to check the Scarecrow. They try to curse, purify and burn it, but little to nothing happens. Ultimately Nurgul asks Alfonso, whether he wants to fly away (so they wouldn't be bothered by the tentacles coming out of the ground).
Something goes wrong with Nurgul's spell.
Everything blacks out. Something that was not meant to be is set loose upon the world.

When the lights return, Nurgul is gone. Alfonso, on the other hand, is very full having eaten recently. He's idly toying with something that resembles Nurgul's skull.

"You fucking clerics! What have you done now?!" Petrus, Reggie and Wilbur shout.
"Alright. No panic. I can handle this", Petrus promises.
Together they tie Alfonso to a table. "Are you gonna scream?" Petrus asks while brandishing a scalpel. Alfonso nods furiously.
"Thanks for warning me", Petrus says, then casts Detach Limb to Alfonso's head. He places the head in a soundproof jar.
They get to work and slice open Alfonso's belly. They then scoop out all the Nurgul bits into a big jar, which Petrus Embalms. "That should keep her fresh. We can plant her later and see, if we'll grow a new salad-wizard."
Then they replace Alfonso's head.
"You can heal yourself, right?"

The holiday is has become somewhat dull, so Reggie uses Move earth to reveal whatever is the source of the tentacles. He succeeds and a giant brain is uncovered.
"I have an idea!" Petrus yips. He casts Life of a Mayfly on the brain. "Now we just have to wait a day. It'll die on its own!"
Alfonso disagrees. He descents the slope and slaps the brain with a Harm spell reducing it to 1 hp. Then he punches it once. The brain shudders and dies.
"You're no fun, killstealer!" Petrus says. Alfonso just stares.

They leave the wilting plantation and head towards Khirima.

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

Another chapter!

The League arrives at the gates of Khirima late in the night. They decide to spend the night outside with a group of merchants as no one is allowed inside the city after sundown.

When they wake up, they sense commotion at the gates. A massive gastropod has slithered from the jungle and is apparently trying to get into the city. The city guard hires the adventurers to deal with it.
Reggie casts Speak with Animals to commune with the Slüg: It introduces itself as the Swiss Army Slüg and it wants to know, if the city has any Catholic priests as it would serve their cause.
The adventurers fetch one bewildered priest and explain the situation. The priest whispers something to the Slüg, which slithers away happily.

The League enters Khirima and takes time to gawk at its wonders. The helpful city watch tells them the whole city is randomly generated for each visit: this keeps the tourists confused, so they'll wander more and buy more souvenirs.
They also hear worrying news from Europe: the global centre of economy is shifting toward Khirima as "there's not much other than death" in the north. And even here there are rumours of an undead army destroying cities.
The party dicks around and visits ghoul market, where they buy an Essence of the Ancient One.
According to Vespero it can Perform a Miracle, Tear Reality or awaken the Ancient One - and Vespero kindly asks the party not to do the last one.
Come evening the party rents a suite in the best hotel and goes in for the night.
Despite how soft their beds are, everyone has trouble sleeping and when they wake up, the hotel has transformed into a flaming hellscape. In the middle of everything stands a scarecrow.
"Just like in my dream!" someone gasps.

The League smoothes things over with the hotel manager, who's angry at first but after a considerable bribe remembers that the royal suite needed landscaping.
The PCs go to a meeting with the Pangolin General, the leader of local armed forces.
As it happens the General has need for an amoral set of murderers for hire: he lets them in on a secret. The rumours about an undead army are true and according to his scouts, the army has already razed Akabo, an important city on the northern side of the plateau. The General also requests that the League would investigate an abandoned wizards lair, The Wizardarium of Calabraxis, as his men have reported cannibal apemen infesting the place.
"Alright, what do we get out of it?" asks Wilbur.
"I can show you the way to the Forbidden Plateau. That's the only reason adventurers flock to this area so you must be after it too. As for the Wizardarium, the undead army will no doubt raise the apes as zombie cannibal apemen, which you'd have to kill with the rest of the army. Mere cannibal apemen should be easier to deal with."
("That might be the necromancer I was supposed to meet", Petrus whispers to the others.)
"You got yourself a deal!"

Before they go deal with the army, the party tries to get some information about their curse. They seek the Libraries of the Edo, but are rebuked - apparently, only those of the faith and those favoured by the church may access them.
No one wants to convert, so they ask how they'd gain the priest's favour.
"Oh, you just have to complete a randomly generated quest for us! Lets see, we have a sinner that needs to be escorted to the Cave of Wraiths before the army gets there."
"I suppose we can do that much", Reggie agrees even though Wilbur and Siegfried scoff at such beginner level quest.

The PC's start towards the Cave, which conveniently lies near the cursed banana plantation. Nurgul and Petrus have devised a convenient way to get there before the army: they bring forth two houseturtles (massive turtles with shells shaped like huts) and work their magic. Next both of them can fly (one with regular flying magic, other with MASSIVE WINGS).
When they fly over the plantation and its massive, exposed, decaying brain, they are buffeted by gasses and a massive cloud of flies. As a joke Reggie throws a torch down and ignites the gas causing a massive fire ball to engulf them and their rides.

The PC's survive with minor singes, but their prisoner isn't so lucky: the poor lvl 0 fella dies flaming.
"Well, did they say the prisoner had to be alive?" Petrus asks.
"I think they did, yes", replies Wilbur.
"Shh!"

Anyhoo, they take the corpse to the Cave and make it look like the prisoner didn't die until she was left there. They back up to the plantation (their flight spell had ended) and decide to make camp.
They again have trouble falling asleep and as they wake up, something is not like it was earlier:
They wake up in a flaming tower where flaming cultists torture crucified victims.
The cultists are very startled and upset to have adventurers appear in their lair and promptly shoo the League out.
Where the plantation has disappeared and in its stead is a valley covered in mist.
In the middle stands a Monolith.

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

We had another session yesterday, which motivated me to complete another chapter.
At the time of writing the League is in the Veins of the Earth, in the service of Dia Andine, the Black Medusa. We are nearing the endgame as they are nearing the GodForge, where they hope they can forge a weapon strong enough to defeat the Duvan'ku.

Anyhow, this chapter won't be about the Veins nor the Duvan'ku. We are still near Khirima, where we spent too much time...
This is about 5-6 sessions before the Veins and regales the tale of the League exploring the Monolith Beyond Space and Time.

---

Recognizing an adventure when they see one, the League descends into a valley. Soon they meet a bunch of quirky sailors and make some banter. The sailors ask if they can follow the adventurers, but the League soon forgets about them. They don't even notice the sailors vanish.
They pass a small creek and meet someone very peculiar:
"Greetings, travellers! I am the League of Extraordinary Opportunity!"
"You a what now?" ask Wilbur and Petrus.
"Ah, let me explain. My given name is WilBorPetRegSiegNurLorHilFil. I am an adventurer, master of several mystic arts, a specialist, dwarf and also the crew of my ship, the Greater Ecstacy of Gold."
"That's quite a coincidence. We also have a ship of that name."
"Yes, indeed. I guess I've ventured into some kind of dimensional anomaly and now met a parallel reality, where I'm actually several people."
"Well, we think you are from the parallel reality."
"Might be, but from my point of view, you are the strange encounter."
"Your point of view sucks!"
"Never mind, I have no time for dillydallying. I was recently cursed by a scarecrow and have to save the world. Nothing good can ever come from travelling with doppelgangers, so I bid you fare thee well!"
"Yeah, we better get going too."

They cross an innocent stream two times before they finally reach the Monolith. An invisible being attacks them, so they rush to the Monolith.
And enter a new realm of existence.

They enter a white, infinite corridor.
The special qualities of the Monolith might stump a lesser group of adventurers, but the League had seen a lot of shit (both literal and figurative) and their magic users were already tuned to similar mindwaves as the Monolith.
They begin looking for treasure and find the head of Carter. A short discussion follows, as the decapitated head wishes for the adventurers to kill him, while Wilbur and Nurgul suspect a trap.
Eventually Carter convinces them, not for moral, but purely monetarian reasons.
To be safe they let the Filibusters taste Carter's brain first - and after they gain few cool spells, the others join in. Remarcably Reggie's teeth turn into gold and Petrus gains some fond memories of Fluffy the Cat, a dire servant of Satan (the League's old friend).
Around the same time Reggie accidentally dislodges himself and enters his own head. As he tries to return to his body he searches for "out of here" and is flung outside the game: he sees into eternity and grasps the possibility to escape this sadistic game he's part of. Eventually he decides to return.

While Reggie's on his adventure of self-realization, Wilbur ponders that they are all none the worse for wear and they have no idea what dangers still lie inside the Monolith. He looks for a place to rest and finds a pod. He climbs into the pod.
The rest are worried, he doesn't come out.
The rest of the League get tired of waiting and travel to "the time when Wilbur comes out". This ages all of them several years, a level and blows Nurgul up due to temporal causality malfunction. Everyone sports a fancy beard.
Sudden explosion of Nurgul disencourages the others, who want to travel back in time to prevent themselves. Except the Filibusters. They are glad to finally gain a level. An argument ensues and eventually all, but the Filibusters travel back.
They decide that Wilbur's slept enough and just open the pod. Filibusters experiment with different dimension, before giving up and returning to the others.

Having decided they've done enough to meddle with interdimensional causality, they leave the Monolith. At this point we end the session. My metagaming players immediately grab their copies of the Monolith Beyond Space and Time and read through the adventure, pointing out the mistakes I made. One thing causes instant uproar: The Light riders and their "surprise". I tell them not to worry about it.

Next session we return to the party just having left the Monolith. They find a letter waiting for them:

"Greetings Intrepid Adventurers!

I see you have found yourselves in a very peculiar place. I trust you had much fun in the multidimensional folds of the Monolith!

However I fear that you have subjected yourselves to a fairly aggravating problem, while remaining ignorant. Would it alarm you to know that even now you have been invaded by a strange yet peculiar species of light-drifters that are inhabiting your body without your knowledge? I assure you, the thought would vex me greatly!

But fear not, my adventure-seeking friends, for I, Iri-Khan, the master of the Mystic Arts, have once again been one step ahead of you - and two steps ahead of those pesky squatters in your bodies - by taking the liberty of freeing your future life of this ailment.
And as a pure gesture of goodwill, I've outdone even my great expectations by taking a fantastic journey through each of your bodies and teaching your new and permanent companions the value of bodily sanctity and entertainment. No longer they shall interfere with your daily lives and adventures, what, trust me, they would have done. Instead they shall reward the heroics you would no doubt perform freely by sharing their cosmic experiences.
No need to thank me, for I trust you would have done the same were you in my position.

Now this is the second time I have aided you unbidden, you must be anxious to repay the debt, no? Yet there is no need to worry, for I am certain I shall be needing the help of a group of high-minded adventurers such as your good company. Altought I am still waiting for that drink I am sure you will buy me once we finally meet in person.

Oh, and one word of warning, before I again leave you to carve your own path in this world: The device you are looking for in behalf of mister Van Ooms is truly a powerful weapon, yet the price it would exact is probably more than you would willingly pay. I would highly suggest for you to devise a more creative solution to your problem, yet I am sure my warning will not prevent you from going into the Plateau.
But do mind that the Barrier prevents all magic from passing its boundary. Once you are in, it will be difficult to get out. As you no doubt already suspected.

Always your friend,

Iri-Khan
Master of the Mystic Arts"

As the party returns to Khirima, they notice something is wrong: The gatekeepers seem to have forgotten the Slüg that visited just a week back. As they try to cash in their quest to the church, they are rudely rebuked "We only have one heretic here, and her trial won't begin in a week!". Their hotel no longer has the Hell Room.
"Oh, we've been causally displaced!" Petrus and Nurgul proclaim. "There's nothing to worry about."
"What are you rambling now, you nutters?" Boris asks.
"An ordinary causal displacement," the wizards lecture, "we just need to lay low for a while and take care not to bump into ourselves and we'll be fine."
Boris buries his face into his palms. He ventures into a bar, the only one that seems remotely serviceable for a dwarf.
There he meets two other dwarves! They are gruff as usual, but dress in robes and have no beards. Now, this bears investigating.
The two introduce themselves as Father Grudgegrudge and Initiate Burvis. At first they act very condescending, but after Boris name drops "Old" and "Miner" they somewhat warm up to him.
They say they are one of the last devoted to the Old Miner and they have a quest to visit and sanctify every surviving shrine to the Old Miner. According to their annals, there should be one somewhere north of Khirima. But now all this humbug about an undead apocalypse scared away their escort and left them grounded in Khirima.
"I shall find the shrine and then lead you to it", Boris promises. He downs his beer and heads back to the hotel.
"Get up, you lazy bastards! We've got work to do!"

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

The League's jaunt through the Wizardarium of Calabraxis didn't really have many memorable moments, so this is a short one. Players, feel free to add your high moments from this adventure, if you have them!

---

The League heads north through the jungle. Their plan is to investigate the Wizardarium and then head to Agabo and kill/talk with the necromancer. Then they would find the Dwarven Temple.
On their way to the Wizardarium they encounter a merchant caravan and mistake its guards for thieves - their mistake is not found out, before Nurgul and Petrus have had a chance to inflict body horror and permanent trauma to the hapless guards.

They have a chat with a curious human headed bat, which leads them to the Wizardarium's entrance. The bat is magically hibernated and stored for future examination.
There's one problem: the giant cannibal apemen have made the entrance their lair. Boris readies his axe. This problem has to be solved by fighting.
"Wait a moment", says Petrus and begins playing a bone flute.
The apemen begin dancing frantically, flesh decays from their bones, but the dance of death cannot stop.
"Fucking wizards", Boris curses and rushes in to kill at least some apemen before the wizard.

When every apeman and woman is dead, they go venture deeper. As they enter a circular room with an obelisk, the whole area shakes and some dust falls from the ceiling.
"Should we be worried?" Petrus asks.
"Not really, those are clearly mood-tremors. They usually happen once in about ten minutes or when a suitably foreboding location is entered", Boris knows.
Nurgul and Petrus go touch the Obelisk, which grants them enhanced intelligence, but makes them lose their common sense of decency and shame.
"Totally worth it", thinks Nurgul.
Deeper in the complex they find two more pillars which Petrus and Nurgul feel compelled to sit on and then answer questions.
Nearing Calabraxis' treasure vault they have a pleasant chat with an eye monster and agree to summon it, so it'd be released from its guardianship. As compensation the monster lets the League loot the vault. They gawk at the different magic items and then throw all into the bag. I think they've forgotten most of them by now.
All in all it was a routine dungeon run for them.

They leave and go on their way. An undead army forces them into hiding and again enchant their turtles with flight to bypass them.
"Well, it's not THAT undead army, so no reason to be worried", Wilbur says.
They visit Agabo and are somewhat annoyed by all the unquiet dead there. A wall of fire keeps them at bay, but Petrus cannot practise his usual shenanigans as he has to concentrate on the spell. They find no signs of Henriette the Necromancer.
"I thought she'd be in this ominous tower, but apparently it's only a prop", Petrus decides.
They leave Agabo to head for the Dwarven temple.

---

A short one this time. Next time the League excavates the Shrine of the Old Miner, a sequel I made to Hammers of the Gods. That I shall depict in a bit more detail.

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

Here's the first half of the First Shrine of Old Miner. I made this dungeon as a sequel to the Hammers of the Gods as Boris' player had wished for some continuation to that adventure. (Altought I doubt he guessed how big that continuation that would be.)
I had a couple of goals while designing this one: First, I wanted to continue our campaign's backstory of the Dwarves and Duvan'ku, keep it faithful to the earlier adventures while making it unique to our campaign. Second I wanted a place I could store some magic items and plot hooks from adventures I couldn't use no longer and reintroduce some hooks the player had forgotten (such as the Banes and the Words of Creation). Third, I wanted to move our campaign to the endgame. After Deep Carbon Observatory our player characters were clearly overleveled and they steamrolled through any opposition easily. Despite that they'd been expertly involving the Duvan'Ku problem. "We'll get to it eventually" was the usual answer, when they were planning their next course. This adventure would, I planned, steer them toward one of the few endgames I had in mind.
With this dungeon, I began the eventual end of our game.

Now that was an intro. Onto the adventure:

Boris' instructions lead the League to a crack in the mountain wall, which hides a pair of doors.
"Always choose right, was it?" Boris notes as they open the right door.
They enter a hallway suspiciously similar to the other temple of the Old Miner in the Alps.
Using their earlier experience the party goes through the main hall to the priest's quarters. They find an abandoned camp that looks like it's been abandoned for hundreds of years. According to a diary found from the camp, it belonged to a priest named Thorgrim Grimeye. He had escaped from the attack to the main temple - one of several attacks. Thorgrim notes that only a handful of temples remain and for security reasons he is afraid to name them. Latest entry mentions weird noises coming from the crypts and about Thorgrim's intent to investigate.
The League heads towards the crypts and finds the door open. They also find the corpse of Thorgrim. However, there's no clear indication of what killed him and the dead do not seem restless, so the party decides to move on for now.

They head south, where they remember a library was located and find a smaller archive. Most of its contents have been smashed or decayed, but five notable items remain:
- Origins of Dwarven Species by Grimli Thunderbeard and Durad-Kod the Elder is a debate on the subject of "The Miner's Stones". Grimli believes them to be the Old Miner's tools which ultimately belong to the Dwarven people. Durad-Kod speculates that there are as many Stones as there are Great Races, so they must somehow be related to them. The book mentions that one of the Stones was situated under the First Shrine and only the High Priest was allowed to read it.
- Calabraxis' Notes on the Banes of Species is a bundle of random notes forgotten by the great wizard. It mentions that it was the Sodality of Conjurers that hired a band of adventurers to break into the temple in the Alps and steal the Human Bane. They were given several experimental scrolls by Calabraxis, excess spells he had formerly used to catch time travelers. However, the adventurers never returned and Calabraxis suspected a rival band of magic-users, who named themselves after colours.
- War victims is a chronicle on the Great War. It depicts the hardship endured by the Great Races, who were accustomed to peace and how they tried to answer Duvan'Ku's war machine. According to the chronicler the leaders of the Great Races' had to perform the unmentionable in order to win the war. The War council decided to perform their morbid work near the First Shrine so that the worker's could pray the Miner for guidance. As the work was strictly confidential, the whole complex was designed to self-destruct if ever misused.
- Construction of the New Temple chronicles how after the war priesthood of the Old Miner decreed that Dwarvenkind did not deserve to see the First Shrine without penance. They also decided to preserve the war time research as an eternal reminder on the atrocities Dwarves were capable of. Way to the Shrine was trapped, so only an enlightened pilgrim could cross it in peace.
- Praise for Gold is a book about gold, it's noble qualities and overall awesomeness. It's written so well and with love that it's reader might catch some of that gold fever.

The Temple's main hall contains a similar meteorite as the Main Temple and a pair of silver tools. A familiar ritual makes the wall behind the shrine slide down and reveals a room full of stone slabs, with chisels and leather harnesses. On the north wall is a Dwarf Door, which Boris recognises as a pinnacle of dwarven handiwork: a door so finely balanced that it will only open to members of one race: in this case, the dwarves.
He promptly opens the door. Which is when the party is ambushed by Chameleon Women.
It turns out that the Chameleon Women of the Neonate Empire had opened a portal into the Temple. After they had accidentally killed the tending priest, they were forced to wait for another dwarf to open the door.
The League kills all the Chameleon Women and track them back to the crypts. They find the portal and Petrus ventures inside to arrive in a strange Archive. He decides this is a bit outside his comfort zone, returns and drags a slab of stone over the portal.
"That should do it."

Having dealt with the distraction, the League goes through the Dwarf Door into a stairway.
"So, which of you have a beard?" I ask.
"Umm, I have, I guess", says Boris and couple of others.
"Well then. As you walk down the stairs you hear a click and the stairs turn into a slope!"
"Can I grab a crack?" asks Wilbur.
"Sorry, this is dwarf quality. There's no cracks left and the slope is perfectly frictionless. Down you go", I reply.
They slide all the way down past the second floor, to the third floor, where they hit a wall and each other.
"Ouch"
"Now this isn't so bad. I'll fly up and lower a rope!" Petrus tries to fly, but as he ascends the runes on the wall begin glowing and his magic begins waning.
"Should have known. These runes absorb all magic going past them", Boris examines.
"Why didn't you say it earlier!?"
"Referee only told me just now."
"I'll try climb it", decides Wilbur.
"The walls are also frictionless", I reply.
"You said they were full of runes. I could grasp them."
"You're kinda right. Alright, I'll just put an absurd penalty to the roll. -4!"
"Ha! That's still 2 in 6 chance! Easy!" Wilbur triumphs and fails his test.
"Ouch. Again!"
"Owww, I didn't like the sound of that crack. Do we still have health potions?"
"Hey, Referee, where were the runes that canceled my flight spell?" Petrus suddenly asks.
"They're just before the second floor platform."
"What if I fly Wilbur up and he just has to climb the last two metres?"
"Oh, that could work."
In the end they get Wilbur up and Wilbur helps Petrus up after him. When they open the metal door on the second floor a gust of hot air buffets them.
The following foyer is hot like a sauna and empty except for another metal door, this one pressure sealed, and a donation box.
"The northern door feels boiling hot to the touch and there's one gold coin in the box."
"Sweet gold!" Wilbur yips and takes the money.
"You feel something divine very disappointed with you and all your encumbrance double."
"Still worth it", Wilbur knows.

They decide they don't want to mess with the hot door, so climb back down.
"So, anything interesting there?" Nurgul asks.
"Nothing much", Wilbur replies. "Lets investigate this floor."
They head south past a corridor full of stone statues. Except one of them holds a carving: "We willingly gazed in the eyes of the stone lizard so we'd forever stand vigil on our sins."
"Haven't we seen this one before?" Wilbur asks.
"We might not want to go deeper recklessly", Petrus concurs.
"We're here too!" Filibusters, their crew, perks.
"Really? We didn't even notice how crowded it was!" Wilbur says.
"Yes, we've been here the whole time", Filibusters reply.
"So, mind going through that door first?"
"No problem at all!"

Filibusters open the next door and enter a round chamber with several doors, smashed east wall and huge, cracked head of a statue in the middle.
"This wasn't so bad", the Filibusters say just before being attacked by a basilisk.
The Filibusters fight valiantly, but one of them eventually fails a save.
"Umm, how do the Extras deal with this kind of attacks?" I ask.
"They're basically treated like they were one character", the Filibusters' player says.
"Okay... so all of them turn into stone. I'm sorry..."
"Noo! Not again!"
Then Petrus steps in to finish the job from a safe distance. Fucking wizards.
"Hey! Can I take it's eyes and graft them into my chest?" he asks.

Boris moves to examine the statue piece, which stirrs to life and demands to know "WHO WAS RESPONSIBLE OF MY CITY'S DEATH?"
"Err, the humans? Technically they were."
"DEATH TO HUMANS!" the awakened spirit of a lost civilization, the Ozymandrian, bellows and attacks Lorenzo, who happens to be the closest human around.
Fortunately for Lorenzo, Ozymandrian is really slow.
"No! I meant the other humans! Back there!" Boris says pointing north.
The Ozymandrian heads there until it meets the wall. And begins to smash through it.
"We might want to hurry. I don't know if the structure will take that for long."

The League searches the rest of the room. They find and startle an Acid Slüg, which makes everyone trip balls. They also find a curious, covered mirror in one prison-cell shaped alcove.
"Better not touch that. Mirrors are nothing but trouble, especially covered ones", says Boris.
"Too late!" says Petrus as he pulls back the curtain.
"Fuck wizards", mutters Boris.
There's a medusa in the mirror. It has no eyes and no tongue, yet it stares with its empty sockets. A hand moves against the clear surface, as if beckoning.
"Don't touch it!" Boris yells.
Petrus places his hand beside the Medusa's.
The Medusa grapples Petrus and begins pulling him in - or her out.
"Oh, no you don't!" Boris says and cuts the offending hand off.
The Medusa looks startled and retreats.
"Now look what you've done, Boris! She was being perfectly friendly!"
"She's an imprisoned monster and you almost let it free!"
"Only almost, thanks to you!" Petrus says and offers his other hand.
This time he pulls the Medusa out.

It takes some time to find a common tongue, but the Medusa does not seem aggressive and is willing to talk. Eventually Petrus notices that he can speak with the Medusa's serpents.
Medusa introduces herself as Dia Andine, the Black Medusa. She fought in the Great War on the side of Duvan'Ku, until she decided to defect - the dwarves promised her sanctuary, if she'd reveal the location of Duvan'Ku's Dead City. She complied, but was then imprisoned in the mirror.
"I guesssss the dwarvessss were honesssst. And alssssso got their revenge."
She thanks the party for freeing her and says she has to find her old laboratory in the Veins of the Earth and get in touch with her sister. The party is welcome to join her, if they dare. Then she offers them one boon as a reward.
"What can you do?" Wilbur asks.
"I can perform many kindssss of magic."
"Could you depetrify our crew?"
"Eassssy enough."
And the Filibusters' player sighs in relief - he didn't have to roll a new character after all!
The Medusa then heads west and the adventurers follow.
"This ussssed to be a hall of diplomacy", the Medusa reveals, walking past several portals. "Yet only the lasssst one isss of any interesssst to me. The portal to the real world. The Veinsssss of the Earth."
"Veins! Veins! Veins! Veins! Veins!" chant the players of Wilbur, Nurgul and Petrus in unison.
"It ssseeems to be broken, I'm afraid. I can fix it, of coursssse, but it will take approximately one sssesssion's time."
"One what's?" Wilbur asks.
"That just wizard time. It means we have time to explore rest of this dungeon!" Nurgul knows.
They leave the Medusa to her work and take a look at the other portals.
A plain looking portcullis contains spaces for several weapons. Some arcana rolls reveal it can open the way to the old capitals of any Great Race, if the proper bane is presented.
Another resembles folded lotus flowers. "We're not going there, don't try anything Ref", Nurgul warns.
Third one contains swirling mists and tastes like dreams.
"That one might be interesting!"

They return to the central chamber and notice that the Ozymandrian had been sitting on a trap door. Now that the giant weight is gone, it opens easily. Under it is a steep slope and a Word of Creation encased in a rock formation.
"What the fuck! Not again!" Boris yells.
"What?" Nurgul asks.
"Not that crazy clone cube again! I won't allow Miner's cult be because of that thing! I won't allow it!"
They sweep the First Shrine, the holiest of holy, and leave when they find no treasure.
"Well, there's always the second floor", Wilbur consoles Boris.

That's all for tonight! In the next chapter the League delves into the shrine's second floor, the War Laboratory, and are sidetracked to a dreamlands adventure. After that one we should be nearly finished with the Khirima Arc.

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

In this chapter the League finishes the First Shrine of the Old Miner. They then deal with their curse by visiting Cörpathium, the Yellow City. The Curse had been causing havoc and gray hairs to me every time the party rested, so getting rid of it was a welcome twist for all parties. The party also decides to add 'killing a god' to their bucket list.

---

The adventurers climb back to the 2nd floor using the rope Wilbur left behind and take a closer look at the foyer. Now that Boris is with them, he can read the runes on the north door: "Everything inside has caused nothing but pain and suffering. They are contained only so we'd never forget."
"This sounds promising", Boris muses.
They unlock and force the door open and the gust of scalding air almost boils them. They enter a small chamber that has a river of molten gold - that's right, gold - running through it.
"A river of gold! All my dreams have come true!" Wilbur celebrates.
"So, would you like to take a swim in there?" asks Petrus.
"A swim? In the gold? You have a spell that would protect me?" Wilbur says.
"Well, I have a spell that would prevent you from dying."
"... Maybe next time."

Regardless Petrus casts fly and goes to scout the river. He notices two things: First, it's not a river it's a lake. The other side of the room is on a massive floating rock. Second, all of the gold is pouring from a giant beating heart suspended in a side chamber.
"Now that looks interesting", Petrus says and comes back.

The adventurers cross the stream of gold to the other side into something that looks like a contamination chamber. There are several strange contraptions, mostly broken, but one that looks like an air pump is still serviceable. There are also several dwarf sized leather suits and crystal goggles. One of them is still intact and Boris happily dons it.
"Wow, these goggles grant infrasight! We dwarves should have had it since character creation!"
Next room is a pressure chamber with a brazier, pressure door and a window into a swirling purple haze. The brazier has runes in Old Dwarf: "Ignite the fire seed to be granted passage."
"So, is this the same smoke as in the first temple?" Wilbur asks.
"I think so, do we have fire seeds with us?" Boris replies.
"I think we left them at our manor", Nurgul says.
"No problem", says Petrus and breaks the glass.
"I guess that works too", says Boris.
The party descends into the cavernlike hall. Vision is clouded because of the mist, but Boris can see thanks to his goggles. The hall is vast, at least 100 x 100 feet across. In the middle stands a gargantuan humanoid. The adventurers have descended to a platform about chest high of the titan.
There's a walkway leading to the titans open heart cavity.
"I wanna try that!" Boris moves to investigate the Titan.
Then he's hit by a giant flail that sends him scampering.
It's a giant fläilsnäil, sleeping on the giants back!
Boris knows that the only way to battle a kaiju is with a mecha, so he enters the Titan's heart cavity.
But before he has the chance to activate the golem, the wizards pepper the snäil with spells until it falls of.
"Alright, as you enter the dwarf sized hole in the cavity, the ribcage closes and the cavity begins filling with blood."
"Lucky I have my suit! And a pair of strong lungs!"
"So you have. Lets see how long the titan will keep you. Oh and roll a save versus Magic Device as you feel a vast mind trying to possess you." *Rolls 1d30, got 1*
"I succeed easily!"
"And it seems the titan lets you go after a minute."
"We'll have to find some way to fix that. Riding it will be awesome!"

They decide to let the titan be and investigate the cavern's side chambers. On the northern side they enter a small workshop full of golden tools. On the table there's a Hammer, Sword, Axe and a Trident. On the cupboards there are dozens of cups, cutlery, statues, any tools you might ever need.
Except one cupboard has fallen. Under it is a huge pile of golden cups and a skeletal and peeking underneath them.
Boris quickly recognizes these items as absolutely perfect.
"Perfect cups, how quaint", Nurgul says as she leans to pick up one cup.
Upon touch it becomes scalding hot and explodes into six cups that hit Nurgul and explode again. Full of burns, she runs back to the door. The party closes it and waits for the chaos to settle.
"Stupid me, should have known there'd be a trap."
Next time they are more careful. They decide to ignore the riff-raff and use a stick and a canvas bag to lift the Bane-like tools from the table.
Then they use controlled exposure to see, if any of them is not a trap. With that and a Detect Magic they determine that only the axe is untrapped. But it is a perfect axe. Perfect tool in every way.
"Lets take some of these cups with us. They'll make a clever weapon or a trap!" Wilbur says.

They move on to the next workshop. It resembles a temple and all its work tables and forges are small shrines. Its walls are full of small shrine-like cavities, all empty except one.
In the cavity is a warhammer that resembles a judge's gavel. Before anyone else can react Lorenzo moves to pick it up.
He's struck by a vision. The hammer used to be Aþ, the petty god of oaths and wells. It tells Lorenzo that it and its brethren were forged into weapons to fight the Duvan'Ku. If Lorenzo would wield it righteously, it would serve once again.
"Neat", Lorenzo says and pockets the hammer.

The third and last workshop on the north side is clean and bare. Its walls have tool racks containing micro-sized crafting tools. Its center is glazed and the lone work table in the middle has five miniature dwarves on top of it.
"These look useful", Boris says and loots all micro sized tools. Wilbur also replenishes his lock picking kit.
They also take the dwarves, but don't really pay attention to them. They're clearly dangerous, so they're stored in glass jars and thrown into the loot bag along with the rest of dangerous artefacts.

The rooms on the south side of the cavern all have traps in their entrances and resemble storage vaults. Two of their stone guardians demand dwarven trivia before letting anyone pass, one has a corridor ending in a wall of pure darkness.
The first vault contains a mirror. Inside the mirror is an adamantium slab and runes of Undeath Slaying. The league retrieve the slab using trickery and their wizards begin examining it. They identify that the slab is a magical scroll containing the legendary Lost Dweomer spell. It goes into the loot bag.
The next vault contains a left piece from a triptych. The painting depicts a burning city filled with the undead.
The third vault is a bit trickier. They send Petrus through the wall of darkness, whose rope goes slack and who fails to return.
Luckily Boris' goggles can see through the darkness and he can tell that Petrus collapsed on the other side.
He's dragged back and awakes, as if from sleep.
"There seems to be some kind of sleeping trap there. We must throw everyone over it!"
And they proceed to throw and drag everyone once they are clear of the trap.
Inside the vault is a curious wooden chariot.
"Oh, it's this one!" Nurgul knows. Into the loot bag it goes.

Last the party goes through twin doors on the cavern's far eastern wall. They enter a gallery filled with statuary. They carefully inspect the statues for a) horrified looks and impossible detail and b) signs of animating, and sigh in relief as they find neither.
All of the statues depict a dwarf naked from waist up and hair tied into a mohawk. There are also some runes that Boris translates: "Gribultek the hero shall rise again to battle death."
They enter into the tomb and find a bone sarcophagus. As they open it, purple mist escapes and the coffin's occupant stirrs.
It is a heavily tattooed dwarf, straining with muscle. Its wild eyes examine the party and as it notices Petrus, the small warrior springs into action, hitting the half undead mage with fists that leave nasty burns with every blow.
The party is startled. They move into attack positions, but are reluctant to strike at the risen Gribultek. Petrus tries to flee upwards with flight and tries a few debilitating spells, that harmlessly deflect off Gribultek's rune tattooed skin.
"Do not fight! We mean no harm", Boris shouts at the dwarf.
Gribultek stops and regards Boris for a moment. Then he replies in archaic dwarfish:
"The undead are a plague and I am the cure. I shall free you from its influence."
"Yes, some undead are, but this one is good. And he's only barely dead!"
"No exceptions! Surrender him or die alongside him!"
The ancient dwarf attacks them relentlessly, but Boris prevents the others from fighting back. Instead he catches the warrior's attention with an epic filibuster about honour, sacrifice and dwarven spirit, thus giving the others chance to sneak away. Gribultek too decides to flee rather than give pursuit. But he would return.
Boris prevents others from catching him.
"We'll come back for him after he's regained his senses", he says, "(and I need to know the secret of those runes.)"

Now that all of the temple had been searched, the League proceeded to their favourite part: gathering the loot.
While waiting for the hauling to end, Boris, Wilbur, Petrus and Nurgul decided to have some fun with portals. They did not have any banes with them and they did not want to touch the Qelong portal. Portal to the Veins was still being repaired, which left only one other option: the portal to the dreamrealm of Yellow City.
"Lets take a gander, who knows, maybe we'll find a cure to that curse that's been plaguing our sleep", Nurgul says.

As they walk through the portal they begin feeling drowsier and drowsier. When their eyes finally close, they instead wake standing in front of the Yellow city's Ram Gates.
The doors open and they walk in. The city is full of people, marvelous, terrifying people. But like in a dream, everything feels normal, even when they cannot really discern anyone's faces.
There's tension in the air. Joy even.
"Are you here for the wedding?"
"Which wedding?"
"The Queen's, of course, the Yellow Queen's."
It soon becomes evident they need a guide. One agrees to aid them, if they aid him in confessing his love.
The beloved scorns their advances and both her and the suitor unleash their ire on the party by throwing roses, sharp sharp roses.
They try without one, but are hopelessly lost. Somehow they've found their way into the Chiming Chapel's reception room, where a scared acolyte shoos them away.
Once they get out, they try again. This time the potential guide only asks them to carry her basket for the duration.
She leads them to the docks and disappears. The adventurers look into the basket and see it's full of snakes.
They board a ship and ask where it is going.
"Where do you wish to go?" asks the boatman.
"We are trying to find the Nightmare god."
"I can take you there. You only need to pay the toll."
"Which is?"
"Two human fingernails. And listening to my woe."
"Fair enough."
They pull of two of Petrus' nails and listen the boatman tell how all his life he has performed onanism and thought of his siblings.
They are there.
An infinite field of corn awaits them. In the middle, a single scarecrow.
"Hey, you fucker! Remove this curse now!" Wilbur begins
"WHO DARES MOCK THE SCARECROW GOD?"
"It is us, the guys you cursed!"
"YOU SPURN MY GIFTS? VERY WELL. WORSHIP ME AND I SHALL REPLACE IT."
"Hey, we don't want another curse, take it away immediately!"
"Yeah, you don't look so strong! I'll cut you!" Petrus adds.
"HAH, YOU ARE LIKE FLIES BUZZING AROUND ME."
"Perhaps we could make a deal. We could, for example, introduce you to the Yellow Queen. We hear she seeks a suitor", Nurgul tries to negotiate.
"Y-YOU WOULDN'T DO THAT! THAT'S TOO CRUEL!"
"You fear her! Even better! We'll leave and tell her you're here!"
The League leaves the field with only laughter of mad gods behind them.
"What a dick."
"Yeah, we should kill him."
"Lets do it."
"Are you sure?" I ask.
"Yeah! It'll be easy!"

Back at the Yellow City they try to gain an audience with the Queen. They go back to the Chiming Chapel where the wedding preparations are in full blow: Bakers and the Florists guild send assassins at each other, suitors are corralled into their pen etcetera.
They are stopped by guards as they approach the main gates.
"Wedding business only."
"We have urgent news to the Yellow Queen", Nurgul begins.
"Only the suitor may see the Queen before the wedding."
"But we have a suitor, we can tell where he is!"
"Only the suitor may see the Queen. Is it one of you?"
"Well, I would, but I'm - you know - a woman."
"The Queen cares not for trivialities like gender."
"Really? Well okay then, I'll be her suitor."
The guard looks astonished. "Are you sure? Do you really volunteer?"
"... Yes", Nurgul says.
"Marvellous! Hear hear! The groom has been found! The wedding is due!"

So, in a grand ceremony Nurgul is wedded to the austere and distant Yellow Queen, while the rest learn that suitors never last the Queen's affections for long. "There'll be another wedding soon."
They also feel the Nightmare Gods curse be lifted.
"The suitor cannot have such things as curses. And if your curse is the same, maybe it was lifted when the Queen purified her paramour", someone explains.
Nurgul and the Queen retreat to the Chapel to consummate their marriage. I tell Nurgul's player that the time with the Queen feels dreamlike, yet more real than reality. It is hard to remember details, but Nurgul can feel herself waning and changing. Every night she spends with the Queen, the Queen will whisper strange truths. Yet she should escape before it's too late.
Nurgul opts to take a risk and stays for three nights. She gets to ask three questions and receive three answers:
"How do you kill a god?"
Only a god can kill another god. Except every god has a weakness. The particular god you seek to kill is vulnerable to items from his nightmares.
"How will I escape your fury, if I were to flee?"
I would be too heartbroken to act, yet my subjects would tear you apart.
"How do I become god?"
There is a fixed amount of divinity in the world. You need to slay a god and use its essence. Yet, you need great magic such as the legendary GodForge to craft divinity into yourself or liquid time to refine your essence.
On the fourth night Nurgul sneaks away and seeks her friends, who have been having the best wedding party ever. She tells them what she learned and that now would be a good idea to leave the city.
Hearing this Wilbur says that their plans of godhood can be taken back into consideration.
"Pantheon of Extraordinary Opportunity. I like the sound of that."
"We also have another reason to kill the Duvan'Ku. They have liquid time!" Petrus remembers.

They flee the city through the portal and are back in the temple.

---

The last two chapters of the Khirima arc are almost ready and I'll post them some time next week. When we get to Veins, we're again almost caught up with the campaign. Gotta schelude more games...

Edit: I was reminded by my players that Boris only operated the Titan, when the fläilsnäil attacked as he never rushes into anything. Also they did not fight Gribultek as Boris gave an epic speech that won the day. Both parts have been fixed.

Last edited by Tallu (2017-08-06 09:42:44)

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

Here's the next part of our campaign journal. Having thoroughly looted the First Shrine of the Miner and gotten rid of their curse, the League takes care of their lingering business around Khirima and "accidentally" get trapped on the Lost Plateau.

---

When the party returns through the Yellow portal, they see the way to the Veins is now open.
"Should we go now?" Wilbur asks.
"We should probably finish everything we want here first. Visit our ship, do some research", Nurgul replies.
"Yeah, I still want to have tea with Henriette the Necromancer", Petrus quips.
"And lets not forget killing that god", Wilbur adds.
"Killing a god, what's all this about?" Reggie asks.
"Yeah, we met the god that cursed us. He was a dick."
"So... we're just going to kill it? Without any plan?"
"We're gonna collect dream sticks and shank him!" Petrus offers.
"... maybe we should think this through. For example, we're going to the VEINS to seek a GODFORGE, maybe that place has something to help kill it?"


Finding Henriette is easy enough as she had turned her army back to see, who had caused such destruction in Agabo. They encounter her riding her howdah with a familiar figure: it is the Slaughterer, one of the leaders of Duvan'Ku!
"This necromancer was bad news, I knew it", Boris says, but the Slaughterer doesn't seem to remember the League and only regards them with bored indifference.
As Petrus and Henriette trade notes and chat idle nothings, Filibusters decide to act.
They come closer carrying a barrel of gunpowder, bring it to the howdah and leave a trail of gunpowder behind them. Then they retreat and set fire to the trail.
But the Slaughterer is bored, not stupid. He steps on the flame and draws his blades.
"How nice of you, I really wanted to kill you."
They begin fighting. Henriette curses and retreats in gaseous form, while the League hacks the Slaughterer into pieces. Finally the Filibusters manage to re-ignite the gunpowder causing everything to blow up.
"Well, I think that was about it. We should still visit Khirima, I have business there", Boris says.

The party flies to Khirima, taking a small detour on their earlier camp sites to collect nightmare sticks, nightmare axes and one bottle of nightmare flame. When they arrive in Khirima Boris immediately leaves to find Burvis and Grudgegrudge. Meanwhile the others think on what to do.
"Technically we dealt with the undead army now. Should we cash in that quest?" Reggie, who has been away for several sessions, asks.
"We kinda don't care about the plateau anymore, but whatever", Petrus replies.
"But lets prepare for Veins first", Nurgul hurries.
They visit their ship and Filibusters discreetly try to burn it. As a punishment Nurgul turns some of them into trees.
They also visit the Ghoul market and hear that the economy is collapsed, so now they barter.
Things cost exotic fish, secrets or years of life.
Reggie finds a Lost Scroll of Gimblewang from Vespero's collection and learns his best spells so far: Power Word: Kilt, Peak with Animals and Amaze.

Meanwhile Boris talks with the other dwarves. They demand to be taken to the shrine and want to be sure that no non-dwarves know of the holy place.
"Err... Of course not!" Boris assures them. He also asks, if the dwarves have heard anything about rune tattoos.
"We thought the art of runecrafting lost. No runemasters live on the surface, but our deep cousins might still remember the arts."
"Be ready to leave. I still have some business before we can go", Boris says and leaves.

He finds the rest and has a declaration:
"Alright guys! We're going into Veins! Also, you all need to turn into dwarves."
"What."

"I think we still should cash in that quest to the Pangolin General", Reggie says.
"Yeah, sure, whatever, you go do that."
So Reggie goes to the Military Quarter and seeks out the General. The General is skeptical on the words of just one mage, so Reggie casts Amaze and now everyone is impressed with him.
He goes on a roll and casts Power Word: Kilt for good measure.
"Very well, mage. You have proven your skills and honesty. I shall prepare a scout to lead you to the Plateau and you may leave whenever you're ready."

Reggie then returns to his compatriots.
"Hey, we can go to the Plateau entrance now!"
"Err, that's very nice. Can you help me pack these spelunking gear?" Nurgul replies.
"Hey, give the man a break. Lets go see the entrance at least. We came all this way because of it", Wilbur says.
"Very well then..."

The scout leads them to a hidden cave and a hole.
"Here's the entrance. I know you're adventurers and won't listen to me, but no one who has gone down there has ever returned."
"Why do you keep it so secret then?" Wilbur asks.
"We've noticed it's good for the economy to get adventuring parties perform minor chores before they kill themselves on the Plateau. If everyone knew where this hole was, they'd just come straight here."
"That makes sense. Well guys, we can go home now!"
"You're not going in? That's a first! ... Wait, just sign this receipt, please. If you come back, they'd never believe I actually lead you here."
"Sure, sure."

As the others leave, Petrus signs for the Filibusters to stay.
"Hey crew, go down and have a look", he says.
"Okay."
The Filibusters climb down the hole. They find it turns into a tunnel that leads to the plateau. In the middle of the tunnel, there is a curious strip of gray, moving ground.
"There's a tunnel down there!" they yell.
"Very interesting! Investigate deeper!" Petrus goads.
So they go deeper to look at the Plateau. It's a jungle full of dinosaurs. Somewhere little birds sing Jurassic Park theme.
As the Filibusters turn back they notice they cannot pass the treshold in the tunnel.
"Hey Petrus! You should come here!"
"Why?"
"There's... like... treasure and so on!"
"Come here first!"
"No!"
"Why?"
"The ground is sticky and I can't move. You have to come help me!"
Petrus casts Elongate and sends one of his hand-eyes to have looksee.
"Nah, I think I'll just leave you there", he says and leaves.
"You asshole!"

"He's right, that was a bit dickish thing to do", I say, "Filibusters, you're the victim party here, so I'll let you choose: a) the Filibusters will adventure in the Plateau for 1d4 sessions and you can play a spare character during the time, b) we'll play an one-on-one session some time before the next game or c) your friends have a sudden chance of heart and all join you on the Plateau. Tho we already agreed not to go there, so..."
"Hey Ref, is there cool shit on the Plateau?" Reggie interrupts.
"Wha?"
"I mean, is it a cool adventure?"
"Well yeah, I don't run adventures I think are boring, but..."
"That's enough for me. Reggie casts Dimension Door to get where his friends are. Then he casts Teleport to take everyone where Filibusters are."
"Hands off! I'm not coming!" yelps Nurgul.
"Okay... that just happened", I say.
"We must look on the bright side. Now I can tame my own apatosaurus!" Wilbur says.

So, we are doing the Temple of Ages That Are Not after all...

The ending might need some background: when I first gave them the quest for World of the Lost, the League had not found the motherlode of XP in Deep Carbon Observatory. So, when they finally got to Khirima, they were vastly overleveled for the content. During the time we spent there I noticed a trend that my players weren't really keen on going to the Plateau or doing stuff around Khirima and what drove them were the other adventures I had seeded around the Plateau. Also, Veins of the Earth had finally been published and a vocal minority wanted to get there as fast as possible.
So couple of sessions back I had asked them "Do you want still to go to the Plateau or shall we save it for some other campaign?" The answer had been almost uniform "Lets not go there".
Unfortunately Reggie's player had been busy most of the Spring, so he wasn't there when we discussed this nor when the other players got fed up with the hexcrawl. This was his first game in a long time, so in his mind we were all still primarily going to the plateau. (At least, that's what I think. Reggie, you're free to correct me!)
As for Petrus... I don't know what drove him. He's a pure agent of chaos.

Next time the Plateau! And then Veins of the Earth!

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

As my players were heavily conflicted between themselves about doing this part of the adventure or not, I arranged the next session as fast as I could and with only those players who actually wanted to go to the Plateau. So we had Lorenzo, Boris, Reggie, Petrus and the Filibusters in attendance. (I don't know if Petrus wanted to go there, but the whole mess was his fault so consider it penance.)
I had promised everyone (especially those, who wanted nothing to do with the plateau) that this would take only one session of play. To make that even remotely possible, I unfortunately had to scrap the hexcrawling aspect. So I got the most interesting hexes and made a pointcrawl out of them.

The party decides to investigate a curious tower first. It seems to be made from some kind of metal and extends high into the clouds.
"That probably should have been visible from outside too", Reggie remarks.
"Yeah probably, but it's only mentioned in this hex, so no one really paid any attention to it, I guess", I reply.
When they move closer an old woman slides down the side of the tower.
"Get off my lawn", she yells.
"Calm down, we come in peace", Lorenzo says.
"You aren't one of those adventuring types, are you? Adventurers, nothing but trouble!"
"No, not at all. Look, would an adventurer have this many children?" Lorenzo says and gestures  to his child slaves.
"You have a point. So, what do you want?"
"Who are you?"
"I am a mighty druid! And this is my green room."
"Druid? You're some wacky special class?" Petrus interjects.
"Well... cosmically speaking I would be aligned as a Cleric. But I identify as a druid!"
"Ah, that makes sense. Do you have anything to trade?"
"I have my custom spells. You can have one, if you got something I want."
"You need an apprentice?" Lorenzo says and offers one of his slaves.
"That will do. Here have Stone to Mud scroll. You can also touch my tower, if you want."
"Does it do anything?"
"It gives you the Tower's blessing."
"Alright... I might as well try." Lorenzo touches the Tower and is turned into a plant and man hybrid. Same happens to the Filibusters.
"This wasn't what I wanted! Reverse! Reverse!"
"No takebacks!" the Druid yells and rises up with her new apprentice.

The League continues their journey until they reach the silver field in the center of the Plateau. They wisely do not step on it and observe from afar a guardian robot burninating other intruders.
"We'll come back to this later", they decide and circle the other way.

After a days travel they encounter the first other humans: a small barracks made on a hill. The League is spotted and a scout party is sent from the encampment. They find a common language and the League learns the group calls themselves the Exiles, though this group has splintered from the main force.
They are the children of adventurers trapped on the plateau, trapped in a cruel war against the bestial Pterians.
The League feigns interest and asks, if there was any treasure around.
"Well, there is the temple, but it is closely guarded. Then there's the silver man, of course."
"The Silver man?" Reggie asks.
"Yes, a man of silver, it's standing on a nearby hill and screaming at pterians."
"And... you haven't done anything about it yourself?"
"What use there is for silver here? And you never know what gets you killed, so no one wanted to take the risk. Anyhow, we can lead you there."

An Exile scout then leads the League to the hill, though she refuses to ascend herself.
The League climbs and, would you look at that, there's a silver man.
"Hello, silver man, what ails you?"
The man looks at them blankly, then points somewhere in the sky and screams
"REEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
"You... you can't understand us, no?"
Blank stare.
"That's it!" Filibusters yell and aim their muskets. The Silver man flees in horror, but a bullet hits and he dies with a look of utter agony and horror on his face.
"That died surprisingly easily. What's it worth?"
*I roll dice* "About a 100 sp or so."
"Only pennies?! What, is it only covered in silver or?"
"Errr, it's surprisingly porous silver. Also it's very heavy and hard to carry."
"We'll still take it. Might be useful", Filibusters say.
They then hide and wait for the pterians investigate what happened to the silver man.
When the dinosaur men have landed, the League approaches and makes conversation.
The Pterians are wary, but chatty enough to tell they are in war with the savage Exiles and only they have been blessed by the Plateau and thus retain their sanity.

"So it's a that kind of situation", Reggie says once the Pterians have left.
They return to the barracks, where they are regarded as brave fighters for having conquered the silver man.
The next day the scouts promise to lead them to the Exile's main city. It's surprisingly developed for one built from bamboo and coconuts. The streets are as straight as the uniforms worn by the Exiles.
They are taken to the Exile leader, who welcomes the League in. She says that many adventurers feel distress and try to escape, but the sooner they realize the Plateau is their new home, the sooner they are able to feel content and maybe even achieve something in the Exile hierarchy. She tells the League that they are welcome to stay as long as they please and if they wish to join, they would have a new home and plenty of quests on their war against the Pterians.
"Especially you Magic Users would be well needed on the front."

The League remains sceptical as the Exiles' attitude resembled the uniform van Ooms had painted on Siegfried. But they get along rather well, so might as well stay the night.
Reggie gains notable favour by using his spells Amaze and Move Earth to plow several fields.

Next morning the League goes dinosaur hunting as Boris had promised Wilbur a pet dino. The Exiles let them go, but warn of a Horrorsaurus on the other side of the lake. They also send an obvious patrol to obviously tail them.
Boris soon finds a lizard he likes: a hybrid between Apatosaurus and Ancylosaurus. He grapples the beast and holds on tight as the monster trashes around.
In the end, the lizard tires before the dwarf and the taming is done.
"I name you Igor", Boris announces.
They follow the saurus to its nest, where a dozen eggs wait.
"It seems your Igor is actually Igorette", Reggie remarks.

Soon after they find a crashed Unidentified Flying Object that is guarded by several robonoids.
Petrus conjures an undead army to distract the bots, while the rest sneak in. Reggie and Petrus find the command room and somehow manage to deactivate the robots using its psychic interface.
They discover this Object could take them home (Carcosa), if they wanted it.
"I think not", says Reggie. They loot several laser pistols, plasma grenades and teleportation devices and leave.

They decide it is time to finally enter the temple.
They descent into the metallic, symmetrical hallways, which look utterly alien to them. The inside is filled with alien geometrical shapes with a guardian here and there scuttling around.
They opt for caution and refuse touch anything.
Soon an alarm sounds and a temporal anomaly rips open in front of the party. A peculiar group steps out. One of them is wearing some kind of yellow suit, another has a blue one while the rest are wearing red.
"Captain, it appears that the anomaly sent us far into the primitive past of this world", says the person in blue.
"Who the fuck are you?" asks Reggie.
"Natives! How very interesting!" shout-talks the person in yellow, "Be not afraid. We come in peace."
"Do we understand them?" Petrus asks.
"Yeah right", I say, "make a check if you know Future English. +1 because it has evolved to become more simple."
Everyone can understand Future English.
"Well, it would be best that you quietly follow us. We are professionals and you might accidentally break something with your primitive hands", says the person in yellow.
The League follows this ultra careful group for some time, getting more and more irritated on their coddling.
But before they have a chance to knife the fuckers, the anomaly reverts and sends the futuristic group back into the future.

This happens in a room the person in blue had called "War Room". The Filibusters get interested about some treasure on the sides of a pyramid in the room, but the rest prefer not to touch the thing that alarmingly looks like a targeting reticule pointing to a world map in the ceiling. The rest move on to investigate other rooms, while the Filibusters remain to witness another anomaly: a group of hominids appear from a time rift and use teamwork to retrieve some of the pyramids treasure. A while after another anomaly brings forth a massive sea beast that dies in agony.
They dick around in the rest of the Temple for some time, but are inevitably drawn bak to the War Room. They are unaware that they shut down the barrier between the Plateau and rest of the world,
They are stumped by the pyramid, so Reggie casts Legend Lore to get even a gist of its function. From the sprawling and epic tale generated by the spell, the League learns the pyramid is a massive weapon that has the power to destroy everything.
"If you researched this for 1d6 months or so, you'd probably learn how it works", I say.
"Nah, I've had enough of this place!" Reggie declares, "Boris, are you with me?"
"Okay!"
Reggie picks up Boris and they fly away.
They fly over the Abscess that's squirting stuff over the jungle and lob future grenades into it until a part of it collapses. They notice that some of the pterodactyls have wandered outside the Plateau and deduce that the barrier must be gone. "It probably had nothing to do with us. But we'll be blamed nonetheless."
They return to Khirima and prepare for a fast exit.

Meanwhile in the Temple, Petrus still has some stuff he wants to try out in the time room, so he leads the rest away. Except Filibusters, who want to see what's over the pyramid.
While no one's looking, they climb up to a floating disc shaped object. They touch it and a spear of light shoots from the pyramid to the world map above. An unknown continent (Australia) flashes red.
For a fraction of a second, everyone has a distinct feeling that something terrible has happened. Like a million souls screamed in unison and were suddenly silenced.
When Filibusters rejoin Petrus, he asks them:
"You didn't do anything just now, did you?"
"No, we didn't."
"Okay, that's enough for me."
They dick around for a bit and leave, when Petrus gets bored.

So, that's how the League of Extraordinary Opportunity killed Australia and unleashed a disaster on the last free city on Earth.
Next time we move into the Veins of the Earth!

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

Another chapter! I'm very sorry about the long hiatus. I've been very busy between finishing my MA degree, moving and other hijinks, so there has not been enough time to game nor write about it. However, we did manage to finish this campaign in mid-January, so now my priority is to finish this series of play reports. Once I'm done. There might be a post mortem.

---

When the League returns to Khirima, the city is in a state of panic. The Pangolin General's scouts have spotted pterodactyls flying outside the Plateau, and, while he never believed he would actually happen, he has always been prepared for this moment. The time of peace was over. Now it was time for survival.
"Tell me the last group to enter!" he shouts at his aides, who scramble to provide descriptions of the League of Extraordinary Opportunity.
"Alert every guard! We must seize them when they pass our gates!"
"But General! What about our defenses?"
"The League is the real threat. Only their end can save the city!"

Meanwhile the members of the League either teleport or fly in, bypassing the guards and being none the wiser.
"So this city seems more or less fucked. I say we scram!" says Reggie.
"We cannot leave yet. I have business. Dwarfy business", Boris says, vetoing Reggie. He then runs off before anyone can follow. He goes into the tavern he first found Burvis and Grudgegrudge. They are still nursing their drinks.
"Alright, we found the temple!" Boris quickly exclaims.
"The Temple? You found the Holy First Temple of the Old Miner?" Burvis asks.
"Yes, yes. Whatever it is called. We must go to it now!"
"What do you mean 'we' found it? Don't say you lead non-dwarves to our holiest of holy sites!"
"Erm. Of course not. Would that be bad?"
"It would only be the greatest shame a dwarf could ever perform."
"Wait a moment. I... I forgot the kettle on."
Boris runs back to his party.
"We have a problem!"
"Yes, the fact you keep running away, while the rest of us try to pack", Wilbur quips.
"Not that problem! We have to take two dwarves to the Temple. And they're really iffy about non-dwarves."
"Why can't we just kill them?" the Filibusters ask in unison.
"We just can't. Now how do we solve this?"
"I could always cast an illusion, so we'd look like dwarves," says Reggie.
"Or I could mutate us to become dwarves," Nurgul offers.
"I could bind tortured spirits of dwarves into us, making us look like dwarves!" Petrus says.
"You fucking salad wizards and necromancers! We could do this elegantly, using the aetheric powers of pure magic and you want to mutate or deathify us. Or worse!" Reggie explodes.
"Ermmm... We have to side with Reggie on this one," Boris and Wilbur yelp.
"Well then, lets go get the dwarves", Boris announces.

"These do not look like dwarves", Grudgegrudge notes as the League enters.
"Of course they're not dwarves. They're just guides to take us through the jungle. My party of dwarves is waiting in the bushes near the temple. We'll just kill these guys", Boris says.
"That sounds highly implausible, but I believe you."

The journey passes with few events worth mentioning. Near the temple, Boris leads the rest of the League into the bushes to "fetch the dwarves". Then Reggie casts his spell.
"These are the worst disguises ever! It only gave us illusory beards!" Nurgul complains, "My mutations could have done the job much better."
"What do you think? The spell has to affect several people for several hours. I'm not a miracleworker!" Reggie replies.
"Well... technically you are", Wilbur interjects.
"Shut up."
To their luck, Burvis and Grudgegrudge do not poke their "cousins" too closely.
While they marvel at the temple, the League quietly sneaks to the bottom level, where an open portal is waiting for them. There's a note waiting for them:
"You took too long. I went ahead. - The Black Medusa"
Wasting no moment further, the League enters the Veins of the Earth.

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

Here are the League of Extraordinary Opportunity's first adventures in the Veins.

---

They emerge into a dark, looming cavern. They are Elsewhere, they can taste it in the air. They can hear it in the low rumble of a tectonic plate slowly grinding against another. They can feel it in the slow breath of the Veins.
Their continual light spell immediately draws attention. They appear to have arrived to a some kind of marketplace. They look around, seeing a group of pale reptilians, some beings made of stone and a heavily infested crocodile. But no woman with snakes for hair. The Medusa is somewhere else.
They are, strangely enough, approached by the crocodile.
It introduces itself as an Ambassodile, a courier on a diplomatic mission.
"So, where you're headed?" Reggie asks, while shaping sculptures from the rock wall.
"I wait for a portent. My mission is either to the Temple of Continents or the Barony of Debt", the Ambassodile replies in a peculiar double speech.
"Good luck with that. Have you seen a woman with snakes in her hair by any chance?"
"Of course we met the honoured Medusa. She went thataway", the Ambassodile helpfully advices.
The League trades some of their shaping products with the Olm men for a map. Then they set out to the direction indicated by the Ambassodile.
There are no day and night cycle in the Veins, so the League makes camp when the fancy takes them.
One such time they hear nothing from the cavern before them. Not an absence of sound.
But an end to it.

A great avian creature flies towards the League.
"I herald the end of the world above!" it cries.
The League prepares for a battle.
The Anti-Phoenix prepares for a dive.
Then it stops.
And looks at the Filibusters.
"I sense many ends in you", it addresses the Filibusters as if they were one. "My interest is greatly piqued."
"Now that was unexpected", the Filibusters say, "but we should really go our separate ways."
"Ask it how to we kill that Scarecrow god!" Petrus whispers."
"Wouldn't that be rude?"
"No, it probably knows all about it!"
"Well, alright", say the filibusters and turn to address the Anti-Phoenix: "Can you tell us how to kill a god?"
The Phoenix thinks for a pregnant moment and replies: "I certainly can, if you first give what I seek. Bring something worthless, yet valueble. Something unique, yet common. Then I shall instruct you."
"What the hell does that mean?" Reggie asks.
The Phoenix flies away.
"What the HELL did that mean?" Reggie asks the Referee.
"I dunno, guess you just have to figure it out", I reply.

Eventually they catch up with the Medusa.
"I was wondering what took you so long."
"We only had to deal with fricking dinosaurs, jungle nazis, murdertimetemples and grouchy dwarves on our way here!" Reggie says ("Hey, who's grouchy?!" Boris interjects.)
"No matter. I have need of you. Please go into my home and make sure there are no squatters, when I arrive."
"And why should we do your dirty work?"
"Veins are my home. I'll help you any way I can, when you are done."
"Fine."

They enter a small tunnel indicated by the Medusa and so they enter the Wormchannels of the Sleepless Dead.
Behind the tunnel is not the Medusa's home, to their disappointment, but a smaller cave and tunnels leading deeper in.
The Tunnels don't please Reggie, who has massive horns and floats a little. They try to clear a way with Disintegrate. They have not realised the distances of solid rock in the Veins. They only manage to disturb some zombie coral, and in the ensuing battle Reggie only barely avoids an infection.
Eventually Nurgul makes herself elastic and crawls up a tunnel to investigate. Petrus joins her.

Deeper in the complex they emerge in a vast cavern full of ash. A group of ghoulish figures squat before a pyre of bones. Not being the most stealthy people in the world, Nurgul and Petrus are both noticed.
"Excellent of you to have joined our ball", the first Pyroclastic Ghoul hails them.
"Who the fuck are you?" Nurgul demands.
"Why, I'm no other than the Bishop of Popes himself. You may have heard of me."
"Not rea-"
"And here are my colleagues: King of All Ash, the Cardinal of Fire, the SuperDuke and etcetera. Very nice of you to join us."
"But we have not-" Petrus manages to say, before he is interrupted by the King's hand pressing him down beside the bonfire.
Their discussion continues for a while with the ghouls exchanging pleasantries while at the same time insinuating that they'd eat anyone trying to leave. Eventually the topic turns to companions.
"Oh, we have lots of friends", Petrus volunteers, " in fact, they are waiting at the entrance. Maybe you should fetch them? We're having such a lovely time with you."
The SuperDuke agrees to take half of the ghouls to fetch the others. Nurgul and Petrus see their chance and attack the rest.
The fight is surprisingly even. The ghouls are resistant to the Magic Users' most debilitating effects, but lack fine tools or tactics sufficient to take down the wizards. The situation changes, however, when Nurgul runs out of Cataclysm and has to Cast the Bones. She is overtaken by Black Blood and begins attacking indiscriminately. The ghouls are soon taken care of, which leaves Petrus as her only target. Further Chaos makes Nurgul turn into a cloud of mustard gas. Petrus barely survives.
Meanwhile Reggie, Boris and the rest subdue the hideous creatures coming for them, except for the Bishop of Popes, who they take prisoner.
After some interrogation the ghoul agrees to take the League the its master.

The ghoul leads them to an entrance that can be nothing else than the Medusa's lair.
"Master holds court within", the ghoul utters, making a small half bow. It makes no move to enter.
So, the League draw straws and then decide the newcomer, Baldwin, should enter.
He does.
WHO APPROACHES THE BRÖCKEN (SPECTRE OF)
"It is only me, the humble and ill-tasting Baldwin."
BRING FORTH YOUR LORD
"Okay."
Baldwin returns outside.
"There's a Bröcken that wants someone in charge inside."
"Hey, Nurgul is royalty! Maybe she'll do", Petrus suggests.
"I'm here too", Lorenzo unnecessarily reminds everyone, while rubbing his oiled body. "My slaves lick me clean, thus I save on their rations."
"Nobody wanted to know that and I feel filthy now that I do", Reggie remarks.
They enter.
HAVE YOUR ROYALTY KNEEL BEFORE THE BRÖCKEN (SPECTRE OF)
"Hey, wasn't Nurgul some sort of royalty? Back from that one time we partied?" Petrus asks.
"Yeah!" Reggie agrees.
"Fuck you", Nurgul adresses the Bröcken.
SUCH INSOLENCE
YOU MUST DIE
A desperate battle ensues. The League soon realises that only royal attacks have any effect on the Spectre of the Bröcken. And most of Nurgul's spells are more debilitating and weird than lethal.
KNEEL IN AWE
"I kneel in awe", Baldwin says. The Spectre notices this noble gesture.
WHAT IS IT THAT YOU SEEK SUBJECT
"We're on our way to the Godforge."
YOUR WILL BE DONE
And Baldwin disappears.
"We'll handle what happened to you later", I say.
Then the Spectre of the Bröcken eats Nurgul.
"I'm afraid being eaten by the Bröcken completely erases you from the timeline", I tell Nurgul's player.
"That's not so bad." He gets it. "Now that I've sat through six months of this campaign without playing, I think I can roll a character."
"But? Wha-?" someone wonders.
"I never rolled Nurgul, you see."
"Oh."

"How do we defeat the Bröcken now?" Petrus laments.
("I exasperate", Lorenzo says.)
("Okay, *roll* you notice a secret door leading somewhere interestin", I say.")
("I go there.")
"I know! Nurgul's spellbook must have royal spells in it!" Reggie knows.
"What spellbook?" I ask.
"Oh dammit!"

They opt to flee. The Spectre of the Bröcken deems pursuing above its station. Besides, it couldn't fit through the doorway.
Meanwhile Lorenzo has an adventure, which ultimately has him replaced by an alternate universe Lorenzo, who's exactly the same except for a goatee and being a Cleric (Logan Knight's Mystic, to be exact) instead of an Alice.
The Medusa is waiting for the party outside.
"Have you cleaned out my house yet?" she asks.
"We barely got in! There's some ghost or bröcken or something inside that's causing trouble!" Boris yells.
"Bröcken? MY apologies, I did not realise such a terror would have entered my lair. Clearly this is beyond the original quest parameters. I'll consider your quest completed."
"That's surprisingly reasonable", Reggie says.
"From what I've gleaned from your goals in the Veins, I've thought about two goals worth pursuing. An assembly of Veins' Powers That Be is about to take place. If you were to attend the assembly and ensure it goes well, you would be able to convince them of the threat of Duvan'Ku. The Veins have met extinction level threats before. We have ancient lore which will be of use to you. First, you need to find the Ambassodile. It has gone missing and the meeting cannot take place without it to preside over it", the Medusa gives exposition, sounding surprisingly like a Referee, who wants to get the players back on rails.
"The Ambassodile?! We met it, when we came here!" Petrus remembers.
"It was going somewhere... the Barony of Debt? Or some other place?" Boris continues.

"Or you could seek the GodForge and the Boa Constructor. The Forge is a place fabled by the Dvergir civilisation. It would surely grant you means to fight the Duvan'Ku. And the Constructor is the fines smith-slash-assembly line in creation. It can equip and provision any army in existence."
"On the other hand... I've always wanted to be a god!" Reggie and Petrus say in unison.
"Bah, sounds too silly for me", Boris says.

---

What does the League decide? How will the Veins change them? Will Siegfried's player have a new PC, after his latest was erased from existence?
Find out- ... Not the next time, after that surely.
The next time will be about the Adventures of Boris and Lorenzo in the city of 3-A!

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

Now remember when I told you this chapter would be about Boris and Lorenzo?
Turns out, I don’t really want to write about it. So to get this report series done and finished. I’ll just summarize:
The Medusa teleports Boris and Lorenzo into City 3-A. There Boris quickly goes native and becomes an important member of the city’s directorate. He finds a map in the archives that reveals where the Boa Constructor resides and enjoys his time in a rare place with sane and rational folk. Meanwhile, Lorenzo dicks around and befriends a vampire.

Now back to the interesting parts:

As Boris and Lorenzo are leaving the Medusa teleports rest of the party to their location. On arrival, Petrus wants to summon a devil. (Siegfried's new character, using the ritual by Patrick Stuart: http://falsemachine.blogspot.com/2016/0 … ing.html.)
Each name that is given to the devil corresponds to an order they must obey. I forgot the name, but the orders were as thus:
Protect me.
Serve the League of the Extraordinary Opportunity.
Obey me.
Fight against Duvan’ku.
Do not scheme against me.
This results in a not too strong devil, but who’s quite easy to control.
“Did you ask it to join the union?”, Reggie asks.
“No”, Petrus replies.
“YOU HAD ONE JOB!” everyone else shout.
(Secretly Petrus had earlier sold away his conviction to only deal with unionized demons.)

They finally reach the Boa’s lair and after (accidentally) feeding it a ghoul, some fungoloids and half of the Filibusters, the serpent’s belly is full enough that it agrees to talk.
“My price is sssimple. Everything you own or one of you. What is it that you require?”
“Ummm, what did we exactly want with the Boa?” Wilbur asks.
“Dunno, thought you knew”, says Boris.
“Can you make us as gods?” Reggie asks the Boa.
“I can make many wondrous artifacts, I can equip an army in a day or run a siege, but no… I cannot make you gods.”
“This worm is useless, lets go somewhere else!”
Thus, they head towards the GodForge.

On their way they venture into Knotsman territory and encounter a Bailiff that asks them for their visas. He also agrees to sell them visas for a simple price: a casting of Boneown. A simple spell that transfers the ownership of your bones away. The Devil is the first to take the price. Knotsman casts the spell and the Devil is immune to it.
They expect the Knotsman to get mad, but he instead congratulates the fiend for its cunning. The rest sneak around it. Then the following conversation happens:
“How long have we traveled?”
“Time is hard to measure here, but about twelve days.”
“Shit, I ran out of food two days ago. How long till we’re there?”
“About 16 days.”
“Hmm, if we only eat something every third day, we need 7 500 silver for the rations. Double that, if we want to get back.”
“What do we do then?”
“We could send the Devil to buy some from the Knotsmen.”
“Do we really wanna do that? They are asshole slavers!”
“True. What if we just invade? We could easily do it, there’s eight of us.”
“Yeah! There are eight of us and only thousand of them. Lets do it!”
“And I shall be king!”, Lorenzo proclaims.
The session ends here, because the Referee has to plan a city invasion scenario.

Karmically, only two Boris and Petrus show up the next time.
The two still valiantly try to conquer the city, but get stopped at the first checkpoint and eventually barricade themselves into the empty break room. Petrus is stuck in a gaseous form and cannot fight or cast spells. Boris is a dwarf with only one magic item.
Luckily, Wilbur makes it into the game right now. He’s also useless in this situation.

Then they notice they are not alone: a fuck-ugly beast named Murcanto is locked in the break room jail. (Knotsmen have jails in their break rooms!)
The ugly magician helps the party flee in exchange for freedom. As a show of gratitude Petrus then petrifies Murcanto with his Basilisk-nipples. The statue is then mined apart for its loot.
Rest of the journey goes on uneventfully. The GodForge has been surrounded by a horde of cholerids, which doesn’t hinder the party all that much.

The Forge is too magnificent to describe. Thus I won’t describe it. (In the session it went like this: ‘Imagine the coolest and grandest forge you can. This one is ten times cooler and grander.’)
The party begins feeding it magic items, which are fused into new ones. Primordial godspawn and Cloak of the Deep Ones turns into the Spawncloak, which spawns miniature tadpolelike clones of its wearer.
Echo Doom and Calabraxis’ Stopwatch are fused into Echo Vu, a Hammer that pounds time. Staff of the WIZZARD and Essence of the Scarecrow (or something like that) turns into Staff of Nightmares, which can cast nightmare versions of spells.
The nameless bow and Fire seed turn into a Holocaust bow that can either kill everyone in a large area or kill one target REALLY HARD. Lorenzo’s throne and servants meld into one abomination that will one day grow into the new temple-city of Tittivilla. And the Filibusters’ instruments are fused with insectoid bits.

Then the party themselves step into the refining fires of the GodForge. They have the option to elevate one of them into a true god of LAW or CHAOS, or make each of them demigods. They choose the boring option.

So, we end our penultimate adventure with a new roster:
Petrus, demigod of the Abyss,
Reggie, demigod of Magic,
Filibusters, demipantheon of Music,
Wilbur, demigod of Greed,
Lorenzo, demigod of Oppression, and
Boris, demigod of Stone.
The Devil’s essence was not compatible with divinity, so he didn’t get no nothing.

Re: Tales of Greed, a LotFP campaign report

When the fires of GodForge finally die, the League sees the world with new eyes: everything feels deceptively normal, but what they see seems sharper, clearer. Like if you had lived your whole life with sunglasses on, which were then suddenly removed.
They are not alone, an old man is waiting for them:
“Took you long enough!” Iri-khan says, “we finally meet and I think you owe me at least two drinks.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Iri-Khan! Master of the Mystic Arts! But that is not important!”, the old wizard expositions, “For many years have passed since you stepped into the fires of the GodForge. The world has been desolated by the Duvan’ku and they are on the cusp of their victory! Indeed, they will be victorious in barely four sessions of time.”
“Four sessions, what the hell does that mean?” asks Wilbur.
“That sounds like a mystic and godly measure of time. I think it means we do not have much time”, Reggie says.
“Now go and be the hero the world needs!” Iri-khan exclaims and hides behind a rock, when the party is not looking.

A word or two on how I handled demigodness:
The players got to exchange their regular class levels to demigod levels for 2:1 basis. Players took turns giving their levels up and when one refused, the turn finished and ended. There was also some risk involved: the more levels you sacrificed, the higher was your chance of losing the levels and gaining nothing. Thus mos characters got a comfortable amount of three to four Godlevels.
Each demigod got to choose a domain for themselves. Then the Referee assigned them an ironic weakness (for example, the demigod of Magic was vulnerable to his own magic). The newly born god became immune to death except for three conditions: If slain by their weakness, they would stay dead. Similarly, if their death was considered Just or Heroic (determined by the Referee and other players via vote), they would stay dead. Otherwise they would regenerate or be reborn some time after being slain.
For each of their divine levels, the demigods got to invent a divine power that suited their domain. For example, the demipantheon of Music could rouse inspiration with their music or force everyone in the room act like they were in a musical. As a rule of thumb, the more weirdly specific the power was, the more powerful it was allowed to be. If the table considered a particular power boringly powerful, they were permitted to retroactively add some kind of embarrassing clause or weakness to the power.
The full writeup has a little more meat to it, but I’m saving it for a later blogpost or something.

The League decides that the best way back to the surface is through the Deep Carbon Observatory. They don’t bother planning the route, as the new demigod of Stone simply has the bedrock flow around them and mold into a neat passageway.

There they are surprised to find a bustling trading post waiting them. They ascend the Great lift and go through customs. And it seems that quite many underpeople are also heading upwards. “We go to eat the carrion, before it rots through”, one traveler tells.
Up at the observatory the League is greeted by the Great Kyriarch By Frosen. When he recognises the party, he gives them a lavish welcome, while being almost deferential:
“I am so sorry about the psychopatic dwarf and all the zombies. I thought you were after the Observatory too - instead you killed the guards and left its doors open, leaving me free to take control. This is all thanks to you.”
The party decides to humour him, especially as he’s very open with the present situation:
“Some years after I took control here, Sweden just vanished. It’s like it got torn away, there’s nothing there anymore. Then the horror began. Armies of the Dead began rounding everyone and everything up. Some are tortured, some merely killed. That’s when I decided to open my empire to refugees: those who can fight, do. The rest I sell to dark elves.”
“But they are just zombies, do you really need to enslave everyone?”
“Oh by all means no, the zombies aren’t even the worst of it. Around the same time, Portugal collapsed into the ground. Under it there was this big… tentacly… thing that now tries to subvert everyone it can, especially the magic users. They have to wear buttplugs, when they fight. Oh, also Italy is now called New Histepratepland, except the one part that is under the Hell’s Baronies’ control. Someone named Boris rules Russia and at some point a warparty of vampires emerged from a great mirror or something.
“Well, it sounds like the world’s truly fucked”, Wilbur says.
“Tell me about it. I haven’t even told you about the Deep Ones rising from the sea or the dinosaur-rising fascist down in Africa. Oh, and the British Isles too! The Northern island has practically become cancer, while the southern areas are surrounded by an impenetrable magic barrier.
The Duvan’ku are practically harmless. They only take those who cannot defend themselves and waste most of their resources in some big tower in the Alps.”
“A tower?” Wilbur asks.
“Yes, I think they’re aiming for the moon or something.”
“Sounds ominous. But lets act! We have a lot to do!”

First they scry their holdings: their manor has been replaced by a large golden pyramid. Luckily their employees have taken the Greater Ecstacy of Gold and are sailing it towards Australia.
“Fools! I said NOT the Australia! Not, TO Australia!” Reggie curses.

They go to their mansion (or the pyramid replacing it) and find Histeprateplands soldiers guarding it. A quick fight later the guards flee and one tells that the pyramid was built to imprison a fearsome beast.
Soon they hear a rumble and now fully grown Smög, their pet dragon, takes flight. At first Smög does not recognise its caretakers and the League is almost roasted by dragonfire. But then something clicks inside the reptilians brain and it instead decides to make the adventurers part of its hoard.
With some coaxing, Wilbur reminds Smög of the good old times, the dragon flies towards the horizon, but the League knows it will be back by the final battle.

Then they fly to Venice- I mean, the Histepratepland and confront the evil pharaoh, Histep-ratep. On their way they learn from the populace that people have tried - and succeeded - to assassinate the pharaoh, but the would-be assassin always dons the deceased pharaoh’s crown and proclaims himself to be Histep-ratep - so nothing much changes.
Still, they confront the ruler hovering beside his balcony:
“You are evil! Why did you imprison Smög and ruin our mansion?”
“Fools! You haven’t paid taxes in years! That was a wholly lawful repossession. And your pet kept pestering the neighbours, we had to leash it!”
“Excuses!” the mages proclaim and cast combined Disintegrate or some other immediately lethal spell. The spell easily pulverizes Histep-ratep’s physical form, but his spirit tries to possess Petrus and fails. Petrus tries to magic jar it, but the spirit resists and manages to flee muttering “Fuck this, I’m outta here…”

Then they fly towards Khirima and the Temple of Old Miner. The dwarves there have worked and finally finished the golem mecha. No one has been able to control it, but appropriately Boris has an innate understanding with the creation and controls is easily.
They use it to fly to Australia, just so they can wait for their henchmen and give them a good chewing off.
While waiting, Reggie and Petrus channel the continents lost potential and the dreams of its dead inhabitants into Ayers Rock, making it a powerful Dreamstone, which is made to power the Greater Ecstacy of Gold. The ship thus turns into a flying ship.
Before they leave, Reggie, the demigod of MAGIC, makes his greatest work yet: He takes a dead seed from the dead ground and breathes magic into it. Then he plants the first Mojito tree in the coast of Australia.
He’s expecting a forest the next time he’s back.

Then the League makes a grand tour around the area formerly-known-as-Europe. They talk to the Looking Glass offensive and the Deep ones and manage to recruit some of them against Duvan’ku. The Baronies of Hell also pitch in their help, which isn’t much as they can only manifest on the material plane through mortal stomachs.
They then visit the Boris Eternity, where everything and everyone is Boris. (Boris-3 from back in session 2 had used the amulet intended for accessing the Word of Creation to create infinite clones of himself.)
The sheer dwarfiness almost overwhelms the party, but when the original Boris yells “You’re all under arrest!”, his sheer Borishness overwhelms the lesser clones. Thus an army of Borises joins the assault.

Finally, with one session to spare, they assault the Tower of the Duvan’ku.
Endless undead armies stand in the way, but the mountain golem easily wades through them, while the United Armies of Extraordinary Opportunity prevent the enemy from toppling the golem. When they reach the cabin where all of this started, they ultimately realise the League needs to go in alone.

They enter and find… the same cabin they visited the last time. Only one thing has changed: the bedrooms have been replaced by a grand staircase that leads to the tower.
“Wait a moment, I’ll check just one thing”, Reggie says, opens the trapdoor and climbs down to the Crypt.
The place looks abandoned, just the way they left it. Reggie heads straight towards the secret tunnel in the kitchen area.
“You see the tunnel floor and walls have been lined with glass shrapnel”, I tell Reggie.
“Damn that’s nasty. But no problem, I’ll shrink myself and weave through them”, he replies.
“You do so, only to notice that the shrapnel has been covered by even smaller shrapnel.”
“Really? Well, I can just fly through and avoid it all.”
“You reach the end of the tunnel and find the exit bricked shut.”
“One word: Disintegrate.”
“Aigh, the brick wall is destroyed, you see a clear space where your spell did its work and packed dirt everywhere else.”
“Alright, alright, I get the point. I’ll go back.”
“Yeah, Tower is the new thing, so the adventure is probably there”, Petrus says.
And, secretly, I wipe the sweat off my brow. That was too close.

The League begins ascending the Tower: it’s absolutely immense and it takes one day to climb to a floor and the floors have all been stacked with different devious traps from the campaigns history. It’s air is suffused with aakom, making the adventurers sicker and sicker with every passing day.
They encounter a hungering curse and have a rematch with the Lucksucker. They free a famished Joop van Ooms, whose tongue and hands have been amputated. They find a room with a mirror in the middle.
Other obstacles they bypass with little to no difficulty, but it took them half an hour in real life to get past this ordinary, absolutely non-magic mirror.

Finally they reach the top of the Tower, which resembles a gigantic moon-grasping claw. There the Praetor-Pontifex awaits them:
“You are too late, heroes! See the desolation we’ve made! We have won! The Ritual is complete! Muahahahahaa!” the Overlord of the armies of the Duvan’ku monologues and attacks.
The players roll their eyes, but they know I don’t really like battles and they know I’ve been trying to end this campaign for some time, so they forgive me for using cliched tropes and hammying up the villain.

Still, the battle takes some time, as the new demigods are not quite as overpowered as they were before their ascension. At last they manage to whittle down the Overlord’s HP, capped by Wilbur firing the Holocaust arrow into the monsters chest.
The undead falls and… nothing happens. It’s over, but why does it feel so empty?
Wilbur and the others gather around the corpse to search it for a clue.
AND THAT’S WHEN THE ANGLERLICH LEAPS FROM THE FLOOR AND TRIES TO EAT THE HEROES!
SIKE! THIS WAS ALL A RUSE! THE REAL PRAETOR-PONTIFEX WAS BACK IN HIS TOMB ALL ALONG!

The Anglerlich dies quickly, because the League’s aakom-infected touch slows it down and makes it easy to slay.
“What do we do now?” Siegfried (who had joined the League for the final assault) asks.
“We go down”, says Reggie and jumps down.
The others are exasperated, but follow.
They fall for a long time, epic music begins playing in the background.
"This is one for the history books. The worlds first halo jump", Boris says.

They go back the way Reggie went in the beginning of the session and find out his Disintegration only missed a couple of feet of dirt. Only the Testifiers tomb had been filled, while the hallway was as it were.
And in the back, they find Praetor-Pontifex Cyris Carnithrax Maximus poring over a map and directing the Duvan’Ku war effort. He raises his eyes and notices the party.
“Oh, you came here.”
“Yes, we’re here to end your tyranny!”
“Do we have to go through this? I gave you your epic final showdown. Take your victory and leave. I won’t bother you and surely you will find a peaceful dimension to wreck.”
“Nah, we cannot let you go free. You’re Evil with a capital E. We know we’re not the good guys, but we’re mostly greedy and irresponsible, not evil”, Wilbur says.
“If you kill me, you will die too.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Reggie asks.
“This world exists only to facilitate our conflict. If I am slain, the world ends. But if you stop here, the world will remain as long as the possibility exists that we will finish our battle.”
“Enough of that metaphysical bullshit!” Siegfried and the others say.
“Alright, I think we have an agreement. We’ll kill this fucker.”
“Before you do so, please look at the back wall”, Cyris says.
They look.
On the back wall, Joop van Ooms’ final painting, the one depicting him dead and the world burning is hung. In front of the unfinished spot, hangs Van Ooms’ amputated hand, with a paintbrush affixed to it.
“Even the smallest stirring of air is enough to move the hand and finish the painting”, Cyris tells the League.
Which is when Wilbur reveals his ace in the hole: the Lost Dweomer spell.
“Ha, good luck, when I erase that rule from the book!” he yells and casts the spell.
And fails his save.

In my game the Lost Dweomer can be used to erase any one page from the game. If the caster succeeds a save vs Magic, they may pick the page. If not, the page is chosen randomly.
So, I stack all my LotFP books and we roll the die.
7.
The Magnificent Joop van Ooms. The table holds its breath, when Wilbur rolls the die.
3. The Index page. You can taste the disappointment.
“I use this magic item from an earlier adventure to choose the number on the die”, Wilbur says with a smug look.
“What item? Oh, that one. Yeah sure”, I stutter.
And the painting vanishes from reality.
“Very well. I have tried to best you with the force of arms, the force of reason and the force of manipulation. I am thrice and truly defeated. Let me just sit back on my throne and assume a pose worthy of my cadaver”, Cyris says and sits down on his throne.
“Yeah, like we’d  let that happen”, Reggie quips while transmuting his arrows into baseball bats and sticks.
Every member of the League gets a stick. Then they collectively whack Cyris Carnithrax into small bits of bone. Finally they sweep the bits into a pile and Wilbur sticks the Holocaust arrow in the middle.
“That should do it”, Wilbur states.

And thus end the Tales of Greed.

---

Epilogue:

Duvan’ku was defeated, but the characters emerge into a broken world. But the League’s part is now over. They only know how to destroy, so they have no place in the rebuilding process.

Siegfried intends to retire (again) and finish his book of monsters and sword techniques.

Reggie invites everyone into Australia, where he intends to drink mojitoes and re-establish civilization. Some take his offer, some don’t.

Boris reveals he’s been keeping a journal for the whole of the campaign. He’s been periodically sending its chapters to his brother, who has bound it into a book. A book titled the Tales of Greed.

Lorenzo walks the earth on his throne of beasts. He intends to revive the Cult of Tittivilla. And then eat their god.

Petrus returns to the Veins. Surface no longer has anything for him.

The Filibusters spread the joy of music to the war torn land.

Wilbur leaves to see his sister and family.

Everyone wonders what happened to Hildi, the League’s child ward who disappeared some time after they went to Khirima. That’s when Siegfried’s player reveals a used character sheet: he rolled Hildi as an Alice, so Hildi’s been on her own FLAILSNAILS adventures all along.
So if you’ve ever met a girl adventurer with a pragmatic streak, you might have shared an adventure with her.