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Game Summary - 01/22/2006.

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Game Summary - 01/22/2006

The Coming of Aurelius

The RQ weekend (January 20-22, 2006) went quite well and a good time was had by all. I think we may be changing the site of our Saturday steak dinner, as Ye Olde Steak and Ale House has seen a dramatic decline in the quality of their service (but not of their blonde serving staff).

Our group consisted of:
• Dwayne - Lucky, the leprachaun follower of the Morrigane, the Celtic goddess of Battle.
• Rich O - Aurelieus, the Greco/Egyptian sorceror follower of Ra
• Bob F - Theleos, the Gondorian knight who wears the Scales of Bairanax, the magical dragonscale armor that allows him to shapeshift into a huge, glowing blue bear.
• Rich F - Grumfar, the minotaur follower of the Morrigane who wields an axe enchanted against Islam and the East, and who has sworn an oath to his goddess to slay 100 of the followers of Mohammed..
• Thad - Arre, the minor nobleman of Melnibone` who specializes in archery and alchemy.
• Keith - the troll follower of Argan Argar and Hoomoboboom, the Troll gods of Trade and Music respectively.(Keith, what is your troll's name?)
• Leon's and Mark's characters are present but only to provide healing and magical support, to set scenario hooks provided by the GM and to take care of the horses.

Note that almost all inhabitants of this world see and hear the party members as human, due to the spell cast upon the party by Merlin.

Part I

Our adventure starts in the winter of 809 AD, as the party journeys east from the old shrine at Delphi in Greece towards the great city of Constantinople. Some distance from the city, they encounter recruiters seeking to hire mercenaries to join the army of Prince Michael, son-in-law of the Emperor Nicopherus, in a punitive expedition against the Bulgars. The Bulgars are said to be massing near the site of the town of Sturma, taken from the Byzantines by Krumm, Khan of all the Bulgars the year before.

In need of cash and horses, the group signs up, and after careful negotiations, joins Prince Michael's army as scouts with a pay of 11 copper pennies a day. Each.

(Keith arrived on Saturday, so his merchant troll had no part in the above bargaining session.)

Because they are hired on as scouts (expendable) and because they are, well, weird, Prince Michael sends the party forward of the center of the Byzantine main body and tells them to go north until they find the Bulgars. Due to an ridiculous combination of bad luck from both the party and the GM, the group goes north and finds nothing until they stumble into a meeting of half a dozen Bulgar scouting parties, lead by a nephew of the Bulgar Khan, who have no idea the group was in the area.

The party slaughters the Bulgars, and receive a sum of silver equal in weight to the head of the Bulgar nobleman they killed. Prince Michael makes the mistake of thinking that the party is as perceptive (not) as they are deadly (mucho) and sends them on ahead thru what he thinks is a hole in the Bulgars scout screen; he makes the decision to leave the imperial infantry behind to catch up, and he throws all of his cavalry as close behind the scouts in the center as possible, without telling them.

Once again, the party stumbles past the scouts of the Bulgar forces in the area, and the next day wind up wandering up a ravine that takes them between the forces of the Bulgars who are gathering to march south. They discover that the town of Sturma is being filled with supplies to support an extended campaign by the Bulgars against the Byzantine Empire, but the Bulgars have not yet replaced the town gates. They are discovered, and finding their retreat south through the ravine blocked by Bulgar horsemen, decide to rush the town gates. Aurelius (Rich O) attempts to ignite a fire in the ravine to block pursuit, but somehow manages to set himself on fire. He rolls on the ground to put the fire out, and sets the vegetation in the ravine on fire. The rest of the party has charged the gates (with the exception of Thad who has ridden back to save Aurelius); they reach the gates and hack down the Bulgar workmen before they can take up arms, and scatter the survivors. They proceed to block the gateway into the town with carts and wagons.

Arre rides back to find Aurelius running in flames from the briskly burning ravine, but before he can drag the smoking sorceror onto his horse, they are the target of every single Bulgar horse archer in range when they cut loose with a storm of arrows. Arre's horse is killed, both Arre and Aurelius are punctured by 2 impaling arrows each. they have to stop and pull the arrows out. In desperation, Aurelius attempts to summon a salamander from the fire in the ravine and screws up the summoning, opening the doorway to the spirit world and an sentient elemental of light appears. Aurelius bargains with it and it lashes out at all of the enemies of light within range, using Aurelius's magic points and hit points for fuel. Four beams of light strike down and blast wielders of Lunar magic: 3 in the armies to the south and 1 in the town itself. However, the price for this is devastating and the seared sorceror collapses, mortally wounded. Only a divine intervention costing the Knight of Gondor 8 points of power saves Aurelius from death. Maat, goddess of Truth and Judge of the Dead appears and offers Aurelius her protection, he refuses (politely) and she heals him, but marks him with her sigils: The Feather and the Scales of Judgement. Aurelius is now a Shrine of Maat, and will carry her influence where ever he walks (for as long as he lives.)

Part II

Arre and Aurelius were running for the barricade at the town gate, while the rest of the party prepared a desperate defense: 6000 ferocious Bulgar barbarians have the party in sight and are bearing down on them. The odds are a thousand to one and it looks like its time for another divine intervention, when the Byzantine army attacks. Prince Michael's decision to follow closely behind his bait...um, scouts pays off big time. With their attention on the party, the Bulgars are taken completely by surprise when a hail of arrows from every horse archer and cataphract in the Byzantine army sweeps the center of their line. Their defense hampered by the smoke and fire from the ravine in the center of their infantry, (and the fact that the magical attack brought down by Aurelius killed half of their commanders), the Bulgar center is smashed by a cavalry charge lead by Prince Michael himself and the Byzantines roll up the flanks. The Bulgar cavalry are scattered and their reinforcements (the Bulgars were in the process of gathering their army when the party was spotted) are crushed piecemeal by the Greeks. It is a lopsided victory: although outnumbered 3 to 2, the Byzantines suffer less than 500 casualties while the bodies of more than 5000 Bulgar dead litter the battlefield, with hundreds more captured. The Bulgar infantry are especially hard hit. It is the first victory of any kind against the Bulgars in a decade, and the first major victory in 2 generations.

The party, in the mean time, decided to enter the town of Sturma when it became apparent that the Byzantines would win; Arre tells them that the 4th of the magical strikes landed in the town, and the party enters the town and discovers the shell of a Christian church which someone has turned into a temple of the Red Moon. There are Lunar heroquesters aiding the Bulgars against the Byzantine Empire. Grumfar spots stone pillars that register as magical and proceeds to attack one to breach the defenses of the Lunar temple, he does so, but not before taking an incredible amount of damage from the warding spell. Aurelius hears chanting coming from the temple and recognizes the ritual to summon an elemental; he tells the party, who decide to rush the temple, and who reach the center of the temple before the remaining Lunar has a chance to do more than flee after summoning a very big gnome (earth elemental). The gnome smashes the back wall of the temple and goes right through the north wall of the town without stopping. The party grabs what they can of the Lunar belongings and flee the collapsing temple. They are treated as heroes by Prince Michael and the Byzantine army. The prince gives them a cash bonus of thousands of silver pieces and the emperor himself awards them medallions that bear the mark of a double headed eagle, the sign of the Byzantine Imperium.

The party is also awarded cavarly mounts if they need them, and iron weapons and armor to replace any they have lost. While relaxing and seeing the sights of Constantinople, greatest city of the known world, the party also has some time to devote to personal matters: Keith's troll begins investing in merchant ventures, Grumfar begins construction of what will become a shrine to the Morrigane (at the bottom of the Bosphorus) and Lucky begins gambling. Of course.

Arre starts combing the libraries in search of rare alchemical recipes and Leon's character seeks out the shrine of Humakt rumored to be in the city, and to investigate the scrolls the party salvaged from the lunar temple before its collapse; he disappears for some time. As part of their reward, they are each taught a single sorcery spell. Aurelius chooses Mystic Vision and attempts to use it on a ring recovered from the blasted corpse of one of the Lunars struck down by magic at Sturma. He succeeds and sees a clear vision of the badly damaged figure etched into the surface of a red gem in the ring: it is an image of a woman with 4 arms, each arm holding a different weapon.

Meanwhile, the emperor has declared that there will be a series of games given in honor of Prince Michael's victory. Rumors begin to spread about Michael's growing popularity, and some see him as a competitor with Crown Prince Staraucius. There a number of contests in the imperial games, culminating in the widely anticipated chariot race in the Hippodrome. The party competes in the musical contests and does rather well; Theleos manages to reach the semifinals in song and is greatly applauded. Unfortunately, an instrument malfunction removes Lucky from his contest when his bagpipes explode during the 2nd round.

Aurelius has some skill at chariot racing and offers to drive Prince Michael's team of matched blacks in the great race, and is accepted. The party is given the task of guarding the horses during the run-up to the race and succeed driving off an attempt to sabotage the race by drugging the horses. The day of the race comes, and after having Mark give the horses a pep talk, Aurelius leads them out onto the track. Carefully eyeing up the other prospects and drivers, Aurelius realizes that he's screwed.

Prince Michael's political enemies want to embarrass him, and have offered 10,000 silver pieces to the man who kills Aurelius or wrecks his team of horses. Fully half of the drivers in the race attempt to kill Aurelius. In an orgy of violence that has the crowd on their feet screaming a dozen times, the raked sands of the magnificent Hippodrome rapidly turn into the chariot version of the battle of Kursk. In one attack, Aurelius's right wheel is damaged, in another, his left. There are two attacks on his horses, which but for a skillful throw of a powerful healing potion from his pit crew (Theleos) would have resulted in disaster. There are multiple attempts to whip Aurelius but one results in an opposing driver being dragged by Aurelius to his death. By the time Aurelius reaches the last turn in the 4 lap race, all but two chariots have wrecked, and of those 6 drivers, only one is still alive. (This is Josephus of Niceae, whom the party insists on calling "Joe")

Going into the last turn, Aurelius's horse are whipped by his remaining opponent, and go into the turn too fast; the strain is too much and BOTH of his wheels come off and the chariot flips. In an amazing display of skill, dexterity, but most of all, blind luck that is remembered by the crowd for generations, Aurelius jumps free of the wreck and ONTO the backs of the center 2 horses in his team and urges them on to victory. His opponent, Karras the Red, shakes his head in amazement and attacks again, but only succeeds in knocking Aurelius off his feet. His team races down the back stretch towards the finish line with Aurelius spread eagled across the backs of 3 of his horses. While it is generally assumed that Aurelius was shouting encouragement to his horses as they raced towards the finish line, the other pit crews swear he was screaming " I DON'T WANNA DIIIIEEEEEEE" at the top of his lungs. Karras gives up on killing Aurelius and whips his team on to a victory by a nose, but it is Aurelius who has won the favor of the crowd. It was truly a race to remember.

Part III

When we left our intrepid adventurers, they had become the talk of Constantinople. Now firmly associated with Prince Michael, the party threw themselves into the social and mercantile life of the greatest city in the world, with Keith's troll and Lucky the Leprachaun leading the way. Lucky started gambling and managed to win some money, lose some money and destroy at least gambling house in the process. He, of course, was untouched; they don't call him Lucky for nothing.

It was at this point that Leon's character returned; while the rest of the party had been taking it easy, he had gone looking for the shrine to Humakt rumored to be located somewhere in the old city of Byzantium, the oldest part of Constantinople. He had found it and those who guarded it; they had made him a monk of the order of St. Michael the Archangel. Leon tells you that somehow, Humakt has become identified with the Archangel Michael and in this time and place, they are the same. The monks of this order (called the Michaelines) have dedicated themselves to guarding the Empire from its magical enemies, especially demons and the undead. They say that followers of the Red Moon have entered the city in secret many times in the past 200 years, searching for something that they have never found. The monks think it may have been something that the Lunars lost when the Emperor Heraclius broke the power of the Sassanid Persians, and brought the loot of the East back to his capital. That treasure was said to have rivaled the plunder brought back by Alexander the Great when he conquered Persia, and even to have included the Lost Aquilae, the legionary eagles lost by Crassus in the disaster at Carrhae in the first century B.C.. Somehow, the Lunar Empire had been involved in that war, and lost something they have never ceased to search for. The monks have told Leon that now the Lunars have allied with the Bulgars, and by providing them with magical aid, seek to overthrow the defenses of the city so that they can search its tombs and vaults unhindered.

The party is more than a little alarmed by this and begin combing the city using the Sense Lunar skills of some of its members. They find that there are traces of Lunar magic all over the city, concentrating on the city defenses and the great reservoir, which holds most of the city's water supply. Guessing that the lost Lunar treasure is somewhere in the tombs of the Emperor Heraclius's family, the party decides to find the treasure before the Lunars. In order to gain favor with the Emperor, the party uses Arre's knowledge of alchemy and his discovery of an ancient recipe in the scrolls taken from the Great Library of Alexandria: the imperial purple dye of Tyre, lost since the time of Marcus Aurelius. They decide to suck up to the Emperor by gifting him and his son cloaks dyed in the unique purple color not seen in more than 500 years. But first, they have to find some of the Tyrian conchs, shellfish that are found only in the seas around Tyre, in Lebanon between Sidon and Antioch, in waters ruled by the Mohammedan fleets. They con a fast ship out of Prince Michael, and set sail for the east; after evading the Islamic patrols, the party reached the waters around Tyre and began their search, using the minotaur (who can breathe water) to gather the conchs. After slaughtering a giant octopus foolish enough to attack the minotaur, the party was able to gather scores of the rare conchs, and just in time, because the black-sailed ships of the Emir of Antioch have tried to close a trap on their ship, and their escape becomes a running fight that extends from Lebanon past Cyprus to the coast of Rhodes. The party's edge is the abnormal range of some of their missile weapons and their magic. After setting 2 ships afire and cutting down the officers of half a dozen ships, the last two vessels barring their path are engaged and defeated: one is sent to the bottom and the other captured, even though its crew uses air elementals in an attempt to strip the party's ship of its sails and strand it until the rest of the Islamic fleet could catch up. The group discovers that the air elementals were provided by the eastern sorceror Assurbanipal, an enemy they encountered in North Africa.

Returning to Constantinople, Arre concocts the dye, and two silk cloaks are dyed in the imperial purple and presented to the Emperor and his son. However, the party's attempt at diplomacy doesn't quite come off, and they don't have the permission they were looking for to investigate possible locations of the Lunar treasure. They have to do something else. At this point, the city is preparing for the great games thrown at the time of the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year. Aurelius enters the great race, which will have 24 chariot teams competing, and the rest of the party competes in the other competitions. They make a fair showing, marred only by another instrument malfunction that takes out the most skilled bagpiper in the games, when Lucky's bagpipes again explode during the second round of competition; to the applause of the crowd and the delight of the little children. The great race begins, and it is a whirlwind of action and mayhem. Karras the Red, winner of the previous race, is killed when two of his rivals force him into the wall, causing the ugliest 3 chariot wreck the Hippodrome has seen in some time. By the time the race ends, 3/4s of the teams involved have wrecked. The winner of the race is Josephus of Niceae, with Aurelius coming in last, and alive.

As summer ends, the party receives word that their patron, Prince Michael, has been ordered back into the field, not against the Bulgars, but against the Muslims in eastern Asia Minor, which has been a no-mans land since the death of Harun El Rashid. Seeking to win the emperor's favor, the party signs up with the expedition to the east, and takes the field with the newest mercenary group hired by the empire: Varangians, blonde giants from the distant north who wield axe and sword. At first, things don't go well; Lucky gets into a fight with one towering northman, but holds his own for an hour, sword to sword, and wins their grudging respect. Then someone proposes a drinking contest, and things become less violent but a great deal more disgusting. Basically, the party drinks 1000 vikings (and themselves) under the table, which leads to a local shortage of alcoholic beverages and a series of embarassing incidents involving different types of livestock.

Once the expedition, a huge reconaissance in force, is launched, the party are the chief scouts. The army pushes east into Cilicia, and heads into the territory now a wasteland between the Byzantine Empire and the Caliphate. Their general target is the town of Akpat, about fifty miles west of Tarsus. As the army gets closer to what was the frontier of the Caliphate, they discover something sinister: all of the villages in the valley of Akpat have been destroyed, even to the point of their wells being filled in. When they reach Akpat, they find that it has been leveled and its people either enslaved and taken away or slaughtered. Some of the remains of those victims are on display in what had been the town center, and several monuments with inscriptions in Arabic, Latin and Greek states that the lord of Akpat was guilty of rebellion against the Emir of Antioch and the Caliph, and he and his people had been destroyed as an example. Naturally, the party began tampering with the bodies (to give them decent burial) and the monuments (just because) and provoked a response. Four efreets, each bearing the mark of Assurbanipal and armed with two flaming scimitars, answer the magical alarm sounded when the monuments were vandalized. Expecting to find grave robbers or rebels, the efreets run smack into the party and in a knock down drag out fight, are killed in full view of the Varangian mercenaries and Prince Michael and his command staff. This makes an impression.

In an attempt to find out where the efreets came from, the party follows fresh tracks of Muslim cavalry horses on a dirt road leading into a narrow valley just SE of the ruins of Akpat. There, they find that the road they have been following makes a sharp turn and heads right into a hole in a cliff face. It isn't a tunnel or cave, but a hole in the solid rock, and looking into it is like looking down a well, except instead of water, there is light at the other end, and the scent of strange incense and unknown blossoms blows out of the hole on a hot desert wind. The party sees a number of dots enter the circle of light at the other end of the hole, and almost immediately they are attacked by an efreet that emerges from this magical gateway. The party hacks down the first efreet, but are about to be overwhelmed by a wave of the monsters when Leon manages to seal the gate with a sigil given to him by the order of St. Michael. There is an explosion of magical energy and the party is blasted off their feet and into a shallow lake. When the dust clears, all that remains of the magical gate is a glowing cross of St. Michael, cut into the cliff face, and above it, the outstretched claws of an efreet, frozen forever trying to emerge from the sold rock of the cliff face.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:48, Tue 15 May 2007.
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