(I was the scene master, and I randomized “help the clan atone for angering the gods” in a “monster lair.”)

A greedy group of explorers from Clan Caskbound found their way to the Temple of Six Doubts and stole a fist-sized ruby, the Heart of Kyber, from deep within. Now the clan elders realize that the ruby was a key, turned in the lock of Prince Fasaash, a demon prince, who will be released if the ruby is not replaced by midnight tomorrow. The temple is defended by the People of Dust, masked sand elementalists.

Four dwarves volunteered to go. Tancred (Shaun), The Dan (Simon), Korvask (Michael), and Barteus (Andrew). They piled into a rowboat and headed for the island, unsure of what they’d find, with only the semi-coherent story of the surviving dwarven thieves to guide them. Korvask carried the Heart of Kyber.

Scene One. (Shaun. Crystals, Homestead. Hunting Monster.)

They saw a dock, and pulled the boat up onto the sand near it. There was also a tower and a house by it. The dwarves talked with an old man in desert robes and a turban and face wrapping, who was humanoid if not human. He told them if they fetched a book from inside the temple, thus transferring ownership of it to him, he would give them crystals that would ward off the monsters that would otherwise haunt their steps to the temple. They agreed, and as they followed the path they saw massive sand worms at a distance that did not approach.

Scene Two. (Simon. Vent, Redoubt. Hunting Monster.)

They came up to a 20 foot wall that stretched on both directions. Barteus threw a grappling hook and rope up to it, but a goblin popped up and told them there was an easier way. He led them 20 minutes down the wall to a goblin settlement with all sorts of goblintech, and told them he’d show them a better way in if they could trash his refurbished guardian that the last group of dwarves walked all over.

He activated a metal construct that operated on mystical fuel pumped into its back via cables, and the construct used its gripper arm and firehose arm to fight them. After being torched and battered, they knocked the metal monstrosity apart, featuring The Dan’s brutal berserk fury and annoying the goblin. Still, the goblin did show them a metal tube down into the ground, under the wall, so they could continue.

Scene Three. (Michael. Corrupted, Disputed. Hunting Monster. We decided not to honor any more hunting monster results after this!)

Following the pipe-like sewer-like tunnel, they came to a stinking room with big vats of waste. As they crossed the room, lumbering sewage constructs loomed out to fight them. They held forth against one of them, and tried for the exit when another emerged and they barely escaped. They found a mine cart on a track powered by goblin tech, and scooted on their way.

Scene Four. (Andrew. Dread, Fangs. Environmental Hazard.)

They drove the cart along the rails until they reached a place that smelled better, and Korvask successfully deciphered writing in big signs that warned they were about to need protective gear they didn’t have. Tancred managed to bring the cart to a halt, and he scouted ahead. His body experienced fear, and he saw translucent teeth in the darkness, attached to very unpleasant mouths. He retreated back to the cart.

Korvask’s education prepared him for this. Those things were the Formless Dread, a cosmic outsider attracted to where powerful otherworldly beings touched the material world. They were probably near the tomb of Prince Fasaash, and this was a guardian. He used his enchanting to make blood runes for armoring their life force to resist supernatural intrusion, and that was enough to hide them from the monster that was attracted to delicious fear. This cost about all his Resolve, and The Dan shared drinks and bolstered their resolve before they attempted the bridge. They passed the elementalist-built bridge with its goblin tracks (noting some goblin corpses along the way) until they passed through a massive gate.

Scene Five. (Shaun. Ice, Cache. Environmental Hazard.)

They came to an area locked in receding ice. They noted how the flame that always danced in the center of the Heart of Kyber drew heat from the environment here as it had back in the clanhome as they studied it. They found a square column with four holes, and Korvask studied the holes and discovered two were traps, and of the remaining two, he guessed which one was right. He put the gem back in place, and it sealed the Demon Prince in. The temperature dropped further, and it was time to escape; they scrambled up the ladder as fast as they could, ice swelling over everything far below.

Scene Six. (Simon. Ectoplasm, Transforming. CLIMAX)

They found a dead desiccated dwarf missing his name weapon, an with a moment’s thought they realized they were going backwards of how the escaped dwarves described their route. The other dwarves crossed a river of souls, then down to where the gem was, across the bridge, through the sewers, past the goblins, and down to the coast.

They came to an intersection, and followed the path with the greatest energy, hoping to find a way out. Instead they found a room with the spellbook described by the tower-dweller on a bookstand, chained in place. As soon as Korvask touched the book, he was locked in place as though by an electric current. The door to the room slammed, and a thirty foot ectoplasmic giant took shape with an axe, ready to kill them all.

Korvask struggled to vent the energy away from himself to not take damage while he was stuck to the podium. Attacking the podium just got shocks, so the dwarves took some of Korvask’s healing potions and turned their attention to fighting the giant. It walloped the dwarves around some before The Dan’s relentless assaults led the way to putting it down. Only name weapons could hurt it, as they were connected to their owners.

Tancred struck the killing blow, and as he stood in a swirl of luminous ectoplasm, he wrapped his wrench-hammer name weapon in it and gave up a permanent Resolve, so the weapon became supernatural and able to ignore normal armor.

The door creaked open, Korvask and the book were released, and the dwarves left the battlefield in search of an exit.

Scene Seven. (Michael. Foundation, Rapids. Movement Hazard)

As they approached what appeared to be the exit, a number of robed and masked figures leaped out at them, brandishing snakes from their sleeves. Pitched battle ensued, with The Dan plowing ahead and the rest of the fellowship killing off those he injured first. Gaping holes opened in the roof as the ownership of the temple shifted to the ones bearing the book, and the People of Dust fought back hard, even employing an area of attack snake-splosion. Still, the dwarves won free.

Conclusion.

They went to the tower by the coast and gave the strange man the grimore they liberated from the temple, and returned their guardian crystals. Then they boarded their boat and returned to the ship.

This was a Historical mission (it really happened) and everyone got 5 ledger except the Bearer of the Heart, Korvask, who got 6.

[We played a “Strange Mission” game, without a GM. I was the Frame Master, who set the scene based on the random elements, and everybody got two words and a type of scene was generated when we started it. Out of game comments will be in brackets.]

[To set the scene, I had the words “safe haven” and “minefield” and generated the location as a secret pocket realm, and the objective to destroy secret clan lore in the hands of others.]

The fey princeling Sardine was visiting Whiskey Forge with his diplomatic entourage. The archon graciously put on a sports event for him. While watching, Sardine got bored, so he snagged the archon’s son (Rensen) and vanished. The archon was furious, but this sort of thing is a risk you take when you have diplomatic dealings with the fey. Sardine’s entourage was very apologetic and offered to open a gateway to the princeling’s favorite hideaway, so a group could go after the baby. No one of blood relation could go, so the archon chose a stalwart group.

Tancred (Shaun), The Dan (Simon), Onexia (Elizabeth), Gudrun (Iris), Piker (Mark), and Barteus (Andrew) were picked for the job. Steeling themselves, they marched through the fey diplomat portal. They found themselves on a pretty sand beach with bones here and there, under a gorgeous sky, the ocean at their backs and the jungle ahead.

Scene One: The Beach [Environment Hazard. Autonomous, Artifact. Mark]

As they started across the sand, it twirled into sinkholes with bone cages in them that rose up around the trespassers. The Dan and Onexia were accustomed to uneven floors as carousers, and Piker got lucky, so they weren’t caught up in the cages that swayed up on stalks like deadly cage flowers. Tancred, Gudrun, and Barteus had to break out of the bone cages and jump down to the sandy beach, or slide down if the trap was damaged and listed to the side. They evaded the rest of the forming traps, making it to the jungle eaves.

Scene Two: The Vine Door [Movement Hazard. Riddle, Rotten. Iris]

A path led to the jungle, but it kept splitting like a delta, and they risked losing their way. They came to a wall, and it had a doorway that was grown through with vines that wove into a barrier. When prodded, the vines set forth a glimmer of a riddle, but none of the dwarves could read it. The vines tightened when pestered, and there seemed to be a chasm underneath that was emptying of vines as the door was reinforced.

Losing patience with this fey trickery, the dwarves assaulted the portal, hacking through in an explosive flurry of violence, and dashing past it. As they did, the ground ruptured, because the door pulled at vines from the ground to reinforce itself, tearing apart the tunnel behind the door and the ground beneath them. Gudrun, Onexia, and Barteus made it across, while The Dan and Piker (who tied themselves together) both fell, along with Tancred, into a foul rotten goop far under the vine door. The party was split!

Scene Three A: Tunnel Panther [Hunting Monster. Warning, Cache. Elizabeth]

The Dan, Piker, and Tancred won free of the horrible muck, and followed a pathway up. When it split, they were attacked by a giant puma from one side; focusing their efforts, they blasted it down in the initial clash. They went to its lair and poked around, but didn’t find anything they wanted to keep (except from the puma corpse, where they harvested the tail to make a belt, the four big fangs, and some claws.) They found a ladder leading up.

Scene Three B: Rrrumblecats Ho! [Movement Hazard. Tapestry, Lurker. Simon]

Gudrun, Onexia, and Barteus came to a big hall, where Sardine taunted them by flaunting the baby, then teleporting out on a platform. Two huge panthers with whips coming out of their shoulders had runes branded on their sides matching runes on the platform (so it would only work if they were on it.) They attacked!

As the dwarves fought the vibrating cat-things, the injured one retreated to the platform and cloned itself. Still, the dwarves killed all three, and dragged the bodies onto the platform, and teleported–

Scene Four: Pain is an Illusion [Dealer’s Choice. Adventurers, Scorpion. Shaun]

Gudrun, Onexia, and Barteus teleported into an alcove by where The Dan, Piker, and Tancred were following the tunnel to a ladder. Reunited, they headed up the ladder–only to find progress was an illusion and they weren’t going up at all. So they headed down the corridor, and came to a side chamber where there were gleaming bones and such, and an opening high above. It was where corpses were dumped; they saw about 9 bodies, with some humans, maybe human children, at least 1 dwarf and elf, all jumbled together. The bones were picked clean, but no one had the urge to look for loot.

Continuing on, they found a big room, dark, with a spotlight on an altar in the center with a gleaming Clan Caskbound axe–a rune weapon! They took the axe, and heard skittering, so they ran. Checking the axe once they got away, they saw it was a rusted piece of junk. (Barteus kept it anyway.) Continuing on, they came back to the same room, and the axe was there again! They went to retrieve it again, but this time they were attacked by two massive scorpions with saw-tooth stabbing tails.

As they battered the scorpions, dismembered scorpion pieces broke down into smaller swarms, and they attacked those swarms. Gudrun got far enough back from the fray to realize the scorpions were an illusion, and they all came around to seeing it. They also saw Sardine laughing at them, hefting the baby on the far side of the room. He ran, and they pursued.

Scene Five: Time Space in a Knot [Movement Hazard. Sorcerer, Thorns. Andrew]

They came to a sphere, with pole-tops sort of big enough to stand on in a field that curved up the sides, defying physics. On a platform on the far side, Sardine, with a marimba where when he struck a note, one of the pillars gusted magic. They had to cross the room to get to him, and save the baby.

Piker tried firing his rifle, but the bullet curved around the weird physics of the room and nailed him instead. He picked himself up and tied himself to The Dan and Onexia, and together they tried leaping across.

Tancred, an engineer, could not accept the broken rules of gravity in the chamber. While he struggled to come to terms with what his eyes were telling him, Gudrun rushed out and didn’t get much closer to Sardine, avoiding his magical blasts. Piker, the Dan, and Onexia fell. Piker got stuck at the bottom, waking swarms of imps, but that left The Dan and Onexia hanging from an odd angle with the rope, able to take advantage of their strange position to get much closer to Sardine. They cut the rope to Piker and closed in, swinging each others’ weight on the rope, reaching the far side as the others were stranded or trapped in awkward situations.

When they reached the platform, they leaped out of a gem, to find themselves in a nice jungle gazebo. Sardine was pinging the teeth of a comb, looking into the gem where everyone else was, and the baby was off to the side being cared for by fey critters.

Onexia and The Dan insisted they won and it was time to give them the baby, and Sardine agreed. He dumped the rest of the dwarves out of the gem, and let them keep it as a souvineer. They got the baby, and he opened a portal back to Whiskey Forge; they had a chance to make themselves presentable, then they strode out with the baby and the gem in hand.

The Conclusion

The fey diplomats apologized once more, and headed out through the portal. The archon expressed his gratitude to the dwarves who saved his baby, and he received the gem from them as a gift. Then they were all generally happy that they wouldn’t have to host the fey princeling for at least another year… [and they all got 5 Ledger, and agreed that this version of the story was the truth as it really happened.]