A few of us LXOG-ers have been playing in a (virtual) tabletop group for a little while now, and our most recent campaign has been one that I’ve been GM-ing in a slightly modified version of Dungeon World. We decided that we should start streaming these sessions and share the fun. Unfortunately, we’re already fairly deep into the campaign arc, so here I am to make sure that all of you are brought up to speed on what’s gone down so far.
If you happened to read the post I wrote about my gamertag, I mention there, that I’m running a game based in my own world-built setting (the one “The Raeth” is from); this is that game. I apologize if this seems a little rushed and broad, but I didn’t want to get too mired in details for the sake of this synopsis.
In the world of Tandara, we found a chance convergence of three characters: Iridia, a Narin businesswoman, tinkerer, and confidant of high society, who dealt in finely crafted jewelry of her own making, Matthos, a smooth-talking, quick-thinking young Galdarian having taken work as a smuggler to make a comfortable life for himself and his elderly father, and Brakk, a somewhat jaded and war-weary Balteshi surgeon pressed, by duty, to hunt and poach in enemy territory on behalf of the military. These three found themselves in a Narin port city, all boarding a Raelian ship called The Dawnlight Sojourn, each for their own purposes. Iridia was attempting to escape the influence of an aggressive and unsavory former business partner. Matthos was returning to a rendezvous to reap the rewards of a successful score. Brakk was being escorted in chains as a prisoner of war, headed toward a life of servitude. In the midst of storm and intrigue, partway through the journey, they suddenly found themselves impossibly transported to another world, a world known to Tandarans as only fiction and mythos, the world of Ollárdin. Upon finding themselves no longer on the sea, but in the middle of a wild forest with a strange single moon and unfamiliar stars and formations in the sky, they were nearly killed by an enormous and fantastical creature, only to be saved by a creature that appeared nearly half animal: a man with legs like a bear, four lean arms, antlers, and long hair that becomes like a hairy trunk of an elephant. Wondering at their confusion, he called himself Barblish by race, Kinnarenth by name, and was accompanied by two other incredible creatures, a large cat-like creature called a tilberash whom he calls Bridge, and a small, flying creature called a Quil, full of mysterious magic.
Kinnarenth, a wanderer by nature, lead them on their way through the thick wilds to a town called Third Sholdor, the first stop to a place where they might’ve been able to find answers as to how to return home. On the way, they were passed over by a few large ships, flying through the sky, an inconceivable wonder to the three Tandarans, but to Kinnarenth, only an ill sighting of a group of pirates called the Ebon Armada, headed toward the same Third Sholdor for reasons that could not be good. In sudden desperation, Kinnarenth begged his Quil to aid them with its magic, and without further action, the four immediately found themselves in a small home in Third Sholdor itself. But they soon found that they were not alone. Aside from the family of diminutive quilled creatures whose home they had somehow landed in, there were two others, two other Tandarans at that.
Ornn, the giant Traxic warrior from the frigid south had left his home, fleeing a terrible crime and seeking a new truth. Fawyt, a quiet Obeleen, dressed in the monk-like trappings of the loving Faithhood of Niera hid a much more dangerous visage beneath, secretly and truly an exile from the Faithhood of Vartyr, she had been travelling in a effort to re-earn the honor she had lost, through the violent excising of corruption. Both of these had likewise found themselves, first in Tandara, each coincidentally in a city in Raelia, when a tense chase through the streets then led them both to also fall into the world of Ollárdin. With little time to gain any of their bearings, Kinnarenth and the now five Tandarans rushed out to find the Ebon Armada attacking the town and taking captives. They separated and chased after different groups. Fawyt ran down a pirate whose hat and knife she recognized, oddly, as being distinctly from their home world of Tandara, from the nation of Hanalan. Before she could properly question the man, he was killed in the chaos of the attack. The rest pursued a small group of pirates that had captured a townsperson, and ran themselves directly into an ambush. They were able to defeat the ambushers and regroup as the pirates fled in their ships, to decide their next course of action. In the process, the party saw Ornn unleash his native Traxic battle-rage, a thing he has no love for, as well as Fawyt show some of her true nature, remorselessly killing a defenseless captive pirate in cold blood as punishment for his crimes. Though Kinnarenth indicated he would be staying behind to help in Third Sholdor, he sent them on their way towards the next city called Newwater Nest, along with the names of a few friends there who would hopefully be able to help answer some questions.
They spent a night making camp on the road, then come the next morning, they found a member of their band missing. Ornn has disappeared. Brakk calls upon his skills, tracking Ornn’s path to find that he had returned back in the direction of Third Sholdor, seemingly heavily conflicted. They made the decision to leave him to his own path, but upon returning to the road, they found themselves facing yet one more very lost Tandaran, Zahida, a young Hanalene woman who had been looking to find her place in the world and live up to the legacy of her warrior father. Attempting to fill her in with answers they did not have, they continued on to Newwater Nest. There they met Lelesh, an official for the Communer who brought them to speak with the avatar of the river called Sifwessi, who urged them to discover the “need” for which they were brought here to this foreign world. They were directed south toward the mysterious Temples of the Cancrizans Cartographers, where Sifwessi tells them she feels an important tool for their journey will be presented to them. Before leaving they also met Kintellistral, a representative of a group called the Bohemians who deal in information, and Enir, a professor of a magic native to Ollárdine humans called Animancy, who taught them to find their Soul Beasts and equipped them to begin their understanding and practice of Animancy.
Embarking in a (very) small and unreliable skyship, A Question Carved from Disregard, that they scraped enough money together to purchase, they made their way south towards the Temples, with Matthos getting his first, thrilling taste of piloting a ship through the skies with Animantic power. The temples proved a harrowing challenge for the party where they were forced to split in two and traverse a pair of towers that seemed to defy the very laws of space and time as Iridia and Zahida travelled upwards, brightening, through the Temple of Ascension, facing strange puzzles of mind and body, while Matthos, Brakk and Fawyt wound a perilous path through the darkening Temple of Descension, trying to escape forces of corruption and decay. At the ends of each of their paths they met in an enormous chamber and came face to face with the ancient and terrible power of two of the Cancrizans Cartographers themselves. Time and space are warped, looped, and stretched to the breaking as they repeatedly perished in the battle, then were finally able to leverage the magic of a conjunction of strange Cartographer relics in order to defeat them. In the process, they somehow brought into existence a multitude of versions of themselves as if from a myriad of different branching realities, who were bound to the mysterious magic of the Temples. They also found here, a ship of unimaginable size, a veritable flying city of a vessel named the Horizons of Infinite Correlations. This was the tool Sifwessi had felt calling to them. With only the five of them, and the magical versions of themselves unable to leave the Temples, they decided to return in their small ship to find a crew with which they can launch the mighty Horizons. Upon returning to the Question they found some familiar faces. Kinnarenth and Ornn had found their way to them. After returning to find Kinnarenth in Third Sholdor, Ornn spent time with him there before they both made their own way to Newwater Nest, before also making the journey south after the rest of the party, realizing that he could not abandon the only other people from his home world.
Together, they all made the journey back to Third Sholdor where they discovered a new truth about this world: the area upon which Third Sholdor and Newwater Nest sat, called Toh-Jeth, was actually a gargantuan beast of some strange earthen nature called a Tohborán, and it had woken from its seasonal slumber and began to move. Truly, many of the centers of civilization in this world were built upon the backs of these incredible, and occasionally wandering, creatures. When they reached the enormous lumbering form of Toh-Jeth, they found, nipping at its heels, a vast horde of half-man, half-lizard creatures called Gél Walkers, looking to strike at and plunder the two cities (particularly Third Sholdor, being closest to the edge of Toh-Jeth) when the Tohborán stopped and laid back to rest. They were able to quickly secure an adequate company of sky sailors and made haste back to the Temples, hoping desperately to return in time to aid the cities against the imminent invasion.
After retrieving the ship (with no small difficulty), Matthos valiantly took upon the herculean effort of helming this massive vessel, even in his relative inexperience. The strain of the swift passage taxed him greatly, but they were able to arrive after Toh-Jeth had settled, just as the horde was beginning their assault. Through incredible effort and bravery, they were able to load the people of Third Sholdor into the Horizons and escape, though much of the town was left in ruin. Worst of all it appeared that something else had been awoken by the Gél Walkers in the process, a being they seemed to be worshipping in some manner, another Cancrizans Cartographer.
Finally they were able to return to Newwater Nest and be sure any defenses were as set as possible against the threat of the Gél Walkers on the other side of Toh-Jeth. Unfortunately they found the city in sour shape. Though their defenses had been prepared, Newwater Nest was also straining under the threat of agents from the Ebon Armada who had infiltrated close to the highest levels of their power structure. Fear and suspicion pervaded the city, and a full town of refugees being dropped upon their doorstep by an unfathomably large ship no one had seen before in the middle of a potentially imminent siege did not help matters. The party attempted to help as they could, until late in the night, when meeting with a “friend” in the town guard, they were alerted that Lelesh had gone missing. Now they rush to her last known location at some secretive meeting, hoping to find and rescue her…
Our first streamed session should be this Saturday, September 26th, at about 7:30 Eastern. Bear with us, as this will be new for us all, but we hope you enjoy. I will also be working on an external site where I can catalogue all sorts of extra information about the world, the races, the creatures, the factions, the characters, etc. so that they can be easily referenced. Hopefully I will have that up and running soon. When it’s ready I’ll post a link. If you have any questions, or want to know more about the world(s), what’s gone on, and/or what’s going on, hit me (The Raeth) up on our LXOG Discord. Enjoy!