| The World of Teréth End - Chronicles - Othic |
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"Too often days swiftly pass / Weeping in the evening grass / There just is not enough time / Forthings you dreamt you'd do / The hours still drift by. "Too many years, too high a cost / Too many lessons earned but lost / And still you complain all the time / Cursing the days before you / Lamentng the days gone by. "And finally laying in your bed / Staring skyward, nearly dead / It all floods back one last time, / The chances that you left behind / But alas there's little left to do / ... but cry." Dirimoran song  |
The Shores of Seereth's Swell The group discovers half of a peasant militia listening to the screams of their dying in the cemetery tunnels below. Jak fights a large Gru. The ghuls lure more Gru with a cunning trap. The party searches deep into the dark corridors until the ghul leader and his skeletal henchmen are found, and destroyed. As dawn's first shafts of sunlight pierced the cold morning, the hillside fog stirred, beginning its slow retreat to Seereth's Swell. Approaching cautiously, toppled tombstones and small stone structures could be seen along the shore amiss high piles of loose earth, and hundreds of gaping black tunnels. In the distance Mishara could hear conversation and the barking of dogs. Mishara and Tressta investigated, to find a large group of townspeople with peasant weapons exploring the ghul holes by the shore. A scream issued up from an open grave nearby. Jak raced through the defiled graveyard toward the cry. Reaching the dark hole, Jak and Mishara climbed down into the tunnel but found it too dark to see. Mishara could vaguely see one figure hunched over another making flailing motions. Tressta handed down a lit lantern and a grisly scene was uncovered, at the tunnel's end a ghul crouched over the eviscerated form of a peasant. Jak charged forward through the cramped tunnel, and skewered the creature, which curled-up and perished. Grabbing the victim, Jak dragged it from the tunnel, disgusted as viscera slipping from a mortal abdominal cut. Alcerra and the others were called. The priestess arrived to confirm the man's death. Nothing more could be done for this man. As the group talked, Dammon noticed two people set around a nearby earthen mound, viewing the party. Dammon stepped forward and introduced himself, as did Harmus and the woman Yalla. At Dammon's prompting, the two explained that the town of Dolor was ruthlessly attacked last night, with adults and children having been ripped from their homes by ghuls. Yalla explained further that nothing like this, on this scale, had ever happened to their town before and that they couldn't understand what could have prompted it. When asked about the dogs, the two explained that the villagers were using the dogs to find the ghuls. About then, more screams were heard. Jak raced to where the sound came from and found a dark grave with several passages leading away below. Climbing down, Jak was knocked out of view as a monster charged him from behind. The party reacted as best it could to the tearing sounds coming from Jak and the Gru deep in the hole. Mishara fired arrow after arrow into the monster, while Tressta held onto Alcerra's legs, allowing her to lean forward and stab with her trident at the monster. Soon, but not quite soon enough the rubbery monster collapsed in an oozing heap. Jak, severely battered and clawed, climbed out over the beast and was helped out of the grave. The screams below wound away and became silent. Alcerra, claiming to be "leaking magic", cast a healing on Jak which in short time closing all his wounds. The group decided to regroup with the other peasants, so walked among the holes toward the shore. Near the shore, the group spoke with townspeople gathered in front of a larger hole, waiting for their friends and dogs to return from the darkness. There had been no response for several minutes they explained worriedly. When asked about the Gru the townspeople related a children's story that if you're frightened when the lights are snuffed, the Gru come and take you away. For this reason, they explained, the people they'd sent into the tunnels may have unwittingly summoned the Gru. Dammon returned then and cast a spell which only Jak seemed to notice. At the spell's completion, a gory eyeball leapt from his hands and darted into the dark tunnel. After a minute or more of standing silently, Dammon announced that he'd found the girl Tana, and the others, and they were dead. This confused the townspeople, and when Dammon explained he had used a spell, the people looked even more concerned. Dammon ignored further questions from the people, explaining to the group that he could lead them to where the dead lay. The group, with lit lantern, filed into the hole while Aren remained behind to calm the townspeople, and instruct them on how to make bandages for Jak. Inside the low tunnels, ghuls could be heard scampering away in the distance. A few times, the tunnels widened into chambers as they descended. In the second chamber a pile of bones and two dead townspeople were found lying in the dirt. To the displeasure of Bear, Alcerra stood among the remains and with a small ceremony rose three skeletons and two zombies from the fallen. Using these mindless servants as a shield, the group crawled forward through the tunnels. At the next chamber, the skeletons and zombies emerged into an area choked with ghuls. The monsters advanced, tearing viciously at the zombie guards. Alcerra instructed her servants to fight those that attacked them, and with slow mighty swings the zombies clobbered the ghuls around them. Jak and Mishara pushed into the room through the skeletons and the ghuls were swiftly vanquished. Exploring the chamber, the group found three small mountains of old leather shoes. Following the Chamber of Old Shoes, the group explored several tunnels that ended in bone deposits, but found no further ghuls. Following Dammon's instructions, the group found their way into an upper room filled with the shredded remains of missing townsfolk. Dammon's spell had led them unerringly. Pulling dirt and stone down from the small hole above, the group climbed from the tunnels, and summoning the townspeople from the shore, began the laborious and gruesome task of excavating the dead. One by one the bodies were hauled from the grave-room, and laid in a row on the graveyard ground. Alcerra began a ritual of passage for one. During Alcerra's prayers, Jak pushed back into the darkness with the uneasy Mishara and back to the shoe room. There, Jak began beheading the ghuls so that their rotted brains could be given to the alchemist of Dolor. Climbing from the tunnels, it was decided to return to Dolor for the evening, and start again in the morning. A wagon was brought to carry the dead, and the group wandered into town in the late afternoon, filthy with blood and gravedirt. In Dolor, the group was allowed complimentary stay at The Bloody Inn. Jak carried the large bag of ghul heads to Eg Dar's to discuss the potion manufacture. Unhappy with the alchemist's response to leave "some" of the ghuls alive to sustain potion sales, Jak returned to the inn with the heads still wrapped in the sheet. Mishara listened to Jak's story and returned to Eg Dar's with the heads; juices from the bag seeping down his back as he walked. The Elve made a deal with the alchemist and returned. Tressta meanwhile relaxed luxuriously in a pleasant hot bath. The friends gathered themselves, ate dinner, and retired for the night. In the morning, the group returned to the Cenotaph Cemetery with a mangy dog in tow. The townspeople had explained earlier that they were using dogs to find the ghuls, but that the dogs had not returned from the tunnels. Entering the main entrance near the shore, the group explored the branching tunnels they'd passed the day before. In one tunnel, Jak fell through a hole in the floor. As others tried to help him, a scream was heard further down the tunnel. Jak scrambled out of the hole and ran bent-over down the corridor. Around a bend in the passage he found a man tied and bound against a wall. The man stopped screaming as Jak approached. Grabbing the man, Jak returned to the group and ushered them outside so that Alcerra could tend to the man's injuries. With a small healing, the man became conscious, screaming where'd he'd left off. As the group calmed him, Jak explained that the ghuls were probably capturing Uren, and using them to summon the Gru Returning into the tunnels the group came to a blockade of broken coffins in the passageway. As Jak and Mishara kicked and cut away at the rotting boards, Bear's crossbow began clicking. Charging from the darkness, the teeth and claws of a giro carved mercilessly into Bear. Plugging the creature with his crossbow, the giro cut deeply again and again through the large man's chainmail. Dammon's strands of lightning darted through the cramped crowd at the creature he could barely see. Within a minute the Gru slumped lifeless to the ground. Grievously wounded Bear cut the monster into pieces and each member of the group carried a piece out of the tunnels. Returning, Jak and Mishara were able to break through the coffin barricade. Jak's nostrils were assailed by the stench of the ghuls, leading the group onward. The tunnel eventually opened into a large chamber. The zombie and skeleton guards stood upright as ghuls charged from the darkness. A zombie pushed forward and sideways but fell amiss snarls and growls. The closing ghuls tore the remaining skeletons to the ground. Pushing into the room, Jak turned and engaged the hiding whuld, cutting deeply into the dried flesh stretched across its ribs. The creature bit back and then let forth its unearthly howl. Jak screamed and fled across the room, reminiscent of a few nights before. Mishara stepped reluctantly forward to the side, peppering the waiting ghuls. Across the room, on a large throne of tombstones, sat a much larger ghul who commanded the others to attack. Dammon unleashed needles of lightning at the monster. Other ghuls pressed around the Elve, who saw fit to switch to Shakal, the notched sword. Dodging from the barrage of Lallan's Lightning, the ghul leader took long steps toward the cowering Jak, and casually raking an offhand claw across the warrior's neck paralyzed the peasant hero. Bear charged forward but the ghul leader breathed a cloud of dust that dropped the chainmailed soldier to the floor. Alcerra finished her Circle of Protection, etching a wide circle of silvery fire through much of the room. The ghuls shrieked and fled, but many perished as swords and tridents cut them down from behind. One last series of lightning threads from Dammon sent the leader reeling backward onto the dusty floor. The remaining ghuls cowered piteously against the far wall, unable to cross the circle etched in silver fire. Mishara and Tressta cut those ghuls down. Alcerra moved to the bodies of Bear and Jak, and after casting a few spells explained that they appeared dead, but were not. Dammon cast a spell, and offered a quiver of arrows to Mishara, claiming some within were magical. Dammon then pulled off the boots from the large ghul. Tressta searched in the corner where the whuld had been skewered by Bear's quarrel, and found a large green gem. The room was searched and the group left for Dolor, dragging the bodies of Jak and Bear behind them. Arriving in Dolor that afternoon, they found themselves welcomed once more at the Bloody Inn, at the plaque of the wavering red river. The inn was filled with townspeople talking about the heroes who'd returned to the cemetery to finish the ghuls once and for all. Jak and Bear were carried to their rooms, to sleep-off whatever strange magics had befallen them. 8 May 1999
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Navigation People Cergus
(Com1) Introducing Cemeteries
of Oth: While most communities have graveyards and some farms have
small family plots, only cities can support large cemeteries. Like
all things Uren, over time things are forgotten. In Oth,
when gravestones are worn smooth by wind and time they are commonly removed
and used for stonework. As centuries pass, cemeteries are created
and they disappear. It has happened more than once that in located
a new cemetery, gravediggers have found unmarked coffins already buried
where no cemetery was known to exist. For this reason, the Mourners'
Guild keeps the authoritative record of where cemeteries are located,
and who is buried where. The largest of the 'missing' cemeteries
lay where the Ghûlwood now stands.
Another of lost cemetery once lay in the region that is now the
Dnur Fen. The last internment
there occurred in 310 DR, and even then large spans of the cemetery were
already overgrown and forgotten. A major difference between the
two burial grounds is that the Ghûlwood was consecrated in the Dekàlan
manner (per the laws of Draun), while
the Dnur Fen was not (and is now believed haunted).
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Ref. PHB (Player's Handbook), © Wizards of the Coast  |
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