[TO COME]

Here we go:
RQ Meeting Summary #11 – January, 2010

Our group consisted of:

Baclane - Mark's master of horses
Arre, Thad's Melnibonean alchemist archer
Aurelius, Rich O's graeco-egyptian sorceror charioteer
Grumfar, Rich F's minotaur, who is sworn to the service of the Morrigan
Palanar - Leon's Maat/Humakti arkati sorceror
Nick the Greek –Scott’s Byzantine catacphract (disciplined, well armored horse archer)
Keith’s Argan Argar Troll, who has left Constantinople in order to enjoy the sunny shores of the Baltic
Dave’s hunter sidhe, Felcia Shadowclaw, from the Unseelie Court, who follows Fladais the Huntress, who has been guarding the camp.
Dwayne’s Norse ship captain, Thorgrim Seastrider, follower of Thor, son of Odin, Wielder of the hammer Mjolnir, Slayer of Giants and Lord of the Thunderstorm (Thor that is, not Dwayne)
Bob’s sidhe from the Unseelie courts, Lysteria, who follows Sholto, the sidhe Lord of the High Hunt
Tony’s sidhe from the Unseelie courts, Namon Pferd, who follows Essus the Just, Prince of Flesh and Flame (brother to Andais, The Queen of Air and Darkness, ruler of the Unseelie Courts.)
Please note that everyone from the Unseelie Courts takes double damage from iron.


When we left our merry group of adventurers, it was spring (April 1, 812 AD).  The party had a number of goals they needed to work towards while they built their ship and continued their development of the war engines whose plans they had discovered.  This included the following:

1. Obtain the huge timbers necessary to lay the keel and provide the masts for the great ship.
2. Obtain a number of tons of lead and tin, along with a vast amount of vermillion paint and the vivid dyes you want for your ship's sails.
3. Obtain a great deal of wool and flax for the sails and cordage for your vessel.
4. Information about your enemies, their goals, and just about anything else you can gather.  Information, as you know, is both power and money when used right.
5. Stay alive.

Changes in personnel: Epanimon, the local Pyramid agent, has transferred out.  He has been promoted and will be running a portion of your operations in Constantinople from now on.  Taking his place will be Keith's Argan Argar, who arrives with a much needed infusion of cash.

Your first move is to get the huge trees needed for the keel and masts cut and shipped to your way at Kiel.  Your comrade Felcia (who will be staying behind to guard your property) has found a lead that indicates that the Unseelie Sidhe in the german forests can help there.  You set sail east to the Oder and south, upstream until you reach forests that have not known a human axe since the time of the emperor Germanicus.  There, you gain admission to the halls of the sidhe prince Wotan, whose permission you must have before you can get the timber you want.  He is a known to be a powerful and rather unpredictable lord, even among the sidhe.  When you enter his great hall, he is playing host to the 3 sons of Uar the Cruel.  Although Uar is a great lord of the Seelie Courts, his 3 sons are monsters who took refuge among the Dark Sidhe.  They are victims of a curse, and although they appear as handsome young lords, their hands sweat a venomous acid that burns flesh and eats metal.  Wotan, his guests and his henchmen are a war-like bunch, but Wotan is more than happy to allow you to harvest whatever timber you can from his fief, as long as you meet his price: kill 200 people.  He would prefer that these be members of the Seelie Court, but high-ranking humans will do in a pinch.  It becomes apparent that what Wotan wants is a war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts, and he doesn't care who knows it.

Your party refuses to accommodate Wotan, and you decide to find another way of getting the timber.  You head south through the Black Forest, and enter a part of the forest with just the type of trees you're looking for, towering oaks that were old when Caesar was born, when your path is blocked by a horde of ogres, goblins and spriggans, the foot soldiers of the Unseelie Host.  You suspect treachery by Wotan (not without reason) but before any kind of battle can start, the goblin army is warned off by the surprise appearance of Doyle, Queen Andais's personal assassin, spy, Captain of her Guards and all around right hand man.  He is known as the Queen's Darkness, and is a tall Sidhe whose skin and hair are pitch black and who is a killer of legendary prowess.  The Queen of Air and Darkness has been keeping an eye on Wotan; she doesn't want anyone starting a war until she's good and ready.  Doyle speaks to the goblins, and they agree to provide the party with the timber they need.  The Queen will help pick up the tab, for a favor to be named later.  The party then returned to Kiel.




Namon receives word that Barinthus, Lord of the Sea has agreed to meet with you.  But before he arrives, you get word from the north of what is transpiring in Scandia (what is now Norway, Sweden and Finland).  Sweden, which had conquered Norway and west Finland, had descended into civil war a year ago, caused by a disputed royal sucession.   This was probably part of the reason why the Viking fleets have not raided Kiel recently.  You get this news when 4 longships are seen heading south along the Danish coast towards Kiel; it is 3 ships pursuing the 4th longship, and it looks like they will catch it unless you interfere.  Thorgrim decides that he is bored, and to give his men some exercise, the party launches his ship and sallies out to meet the Swedes.   Magic and arrow fire from your vessel (the increased range of your weapons and spells is terrifying to the swedes) convince the 3 pursuers to turn back, and the vessel they were chasing raises their oars and lower their sail as a sign that they wish to parley.
This longship is battered and leaking, the survivor of more than one sea battle.  It is over-crowded with men pulled from the waters of their last, lost battle; they have no food, little water and less hope.  They have heard of you and they know of Thorgrim, and they offer to swear themselves to his service if you will have them.  Thorgrim agrees, and the party now has not only enough men to crew two ships, but skilled shipwrights to aid in the building of your great trireme.

Soon the timbers are delivered, in a way typical of the Fey: unseen, unheard and in the dark of night.  You begin the work of shaping the keel, which will be the backbone of your ship, and then Barinthus arrives.  He is one of the tallest of the Sidhe, towering well over 7 feet in height, and his skin, hair and eyes are all the different shades of green and blue that the ocean itself possesses.  Barinthus has webbed hands and feet, and is known to be one of the oldest and most powerful of all the sidhe in either court; he is very proud and is extremely touchy about comments on his appearance.  Namon has warned everyone NOT to provoke old sidhe lord; he is perfectly capable of killing Namon or Lysteria with a single spell.  When Barinthus arrives, he comes striding up out of the sea one night as if he is out for an evening's stroll, and he seems to know exactly what you are doing with the ship whose structure is just taking shape.  He never walks far from the water, and he speaks directly only to the party, but his voice can be heard all over the settlement; it carries unnaturally over water.  The next day, people from Kiel that you speak to say they heard his voice in the distance, but only the party can understand what he says.

Barinthus knew Tros and his father, Perseus, the greek explorers who designed and built the first 2 Liafails.  He aided them in their efforts and he dislikes the idea of muslim fleets using his gifts.  He approves of your efforts to build a 3rd Liafail, and so he gifts you with an enchantment and some information.  The enchantment is a spell laid on the keel of the ship with his own blood, to strengthen it against magic, storm, battle and wreck.  The information is this:

"These ships were not meant to sail the seas of this world alone.  If you can recover the three talismans which powered the spell I taught to Tros, I can show you how your ship can sail the magical paths that lead to many strange seas, many distant shores.  The talismans you must recover are these:

a. The Sword of Macedon
b. The Horn of Nearchos
c. The Orb of Worlds

After completing his enchantment, Barinthus tells you he will see you again, and returns to the sea.  The Sword of Macedon is mentioned in the notes left by the greek Conops; it was placed on the body of the greek admiral Tros when he was laid to rest.  It was presumably taken by the muslims who salvaged the wreckage before you found it.  You have no idea where the Horn or the Orb are.

The next task the party tackled was to purchase the lead, tin, paint and dyes needed for the completed ship.  Lysteria has heard of two places that might offer what you need; however, the closest is smack in the middle of the war in Sweden.  The other is at the northern end of the Baltic Sea, the dwelling place of the black dwarves (Svatalfar), who do not have a good reputation, in what is now eastern Finland.  The party decides to sail to the land of the Black Dwarves, and after a few nasty encounters, reach a place in the North Baltic where a road leads off to the northeast, a road marked by the runes associated with the ones you seek.  The Black Dwarves live mostly underground, and to do business with them means you must enter their stronghold.  These people are cunning, sadistic and tricky, but they NEVER renege on a deal; once you meet their terms, you are guaranteed delivery of exactly what you ordered.  And if you are not careful, you might get a little something extra.  For example, Thorgrim now has an enchanted sword, but to get it, he had to kill another viking from his home village.  Now the sword he had crafted for him is of slaying versus people from his village and his old crew can sense that the sword hates them and wants their lives.  Thorgrim had to switch crews between his ships.

There are some nasty fights in a magical arena for the party to get through, but they succeed and manage to bargain with the black dwarves for the lead, tin, vermillion and dyes that you need.  The party returns home and finds that rumors of disaster are coming from the east.  The military governor appointed by Charlemagne requests the party's help in fending off a wendish invasion.


The Wends are the slavic tribes who live along the southern coast of the Baltic sea, and they are attempting to migrate into Frankish territory.  Something or someone is terrorizing them, and they are fleeing the lands to the east in a panic.  The frankish knights manning the border fort at the river crossing on the Oder are starting to get worried and have requested your help.  The party sails upriver from the Oder delta and finds thousands of Wends have made camp on the eastern side of ford in the river.  Scouts report that the Wends are babbling in a panic of a Terror from the East, an unstoppable force that slays any who oppose it and sets fire to the countryside.  And it is coming west.

The party heads to the SE to investigate information brought by the fairies of the area and find that something is indeed setting fire to the forests; it is the hydra summoned by the party years ago to crush the Lunars in their secret base near the Black Sea.  After that battle, Arre (who had done the actual summoning) sent the hydra off to the North and West to harass the Slavs and distract the armies of Khan Krum.  It has wound up here, but it isn't alone.  When the party investigates, it discovers agents of Asshurbanipal attempting to take control of the hydra, and a fight begins.  The party crushes the agents of the Lord of Arabia, but some escape.  More importantly, members of 2 Wendish tribes witness this fight and its aftermath, where Arre manages to persuade the hydra to turn around and go back to the Southeast to crush the party's enemies.

The party returns to Kiel to find that the lead, tin, vermillion and dyes have been delivered as ordered.  Now, only the wool and flax for the sails and rigging remain.  Felcia heard rumors of giant herdsmen living in lands around what is now St. Petersburg, who produce magical wool and flax from their herds and farms.  The party sails east to investigate, and after some exploring make contact with these giants, who are much more reasonable than gloranthan giants.  After some haggling, the giants agree to provide you with enough wool and flax for 2 sets of sails and rigging for the ship.  In return, they require that you do something for them.  They are planning to move lock stock and barrel to the east, away from warring swedes and flame-breathing hydras.  The problem is that there are wolves (big ones) in their way, and they can't risk moving their flocks east until the wolves have been killed or driven away.  The party agrees.  I mean, they're just wolves, right?  How tough could they be?

The party moves east, and eventually finds the wolf pack that has got the giants so worried.  What the party does not realize is that they have stumbled upon an old enchantment placed by Lunar sorcerors years before, when they were researching how to trap and slay the White Wolf of the Turks.  It is a wolf bane spell placed in a staff; a spell that draws wolves to it from hundreds of miles away, and then slays them.  Unfortunately, there were a number of defects in the spell: it didn't kill 100% of the wolves involved and those that survived grew to immense size and had greater than average intelligence.  Wolves of high power could resist the spell, and over time it drew in wolves (both normal and magical) from an area covering thousands of square miles.
The result was a pack of smart giant wolves with a minimum power of 20, who were just starting to breed true to this new type.   Dire wolves, who, if allowed to breed freely, would pour out of western Russia to devastate Europe and Asia.  Just a little gift from the Lunar Empire.

The party moved into the area and were jumped by  50 of these wolves.  The initial fight was the big one, and with a couple of exceptions wasn't that tough.  The biggest exception (pardon the pun) was Grumfar, the minotaur.  He was the biggest threat and so was jumped by the most wolves, who eventually ripped him up good.  Only a Divine Intervention by Lysteria finally saved him, which set Lysteria up for the Grand Power Suck of all time when she got cocky and walked into an ambush set by the 4 females guarding the pack leader.  I can still feel the satisfaction: 26 points of power in 60 minutes.

Talk about your good times.

The party investigated the staff when the combat and searching for loot was done, but only succeeded in destabilizing it.  Running like hell enabled the entire party to leave the blast area before the staff went off, and they were able to return to the giants and inform them that their migration path was now clear.  They took their payment and sailed back to Kiel.

Upon returning to the shipyard with the last of the rare supplies needed for the ship, the party was surprised to find a courier from Charlemagne's military governor waiting for them.   He brought notice that there was a group of wends at the eastern border who wished to speak with the sorceror elf (Arre) and his companions.  When the party meets these Wends to parley, the slavic tribesmen surprise them by asking for refuge; more, they seek to swear allegiance to the party.  They will accept you as their hetmen, and in return for your protection (they know that you commanded the hydra and it obeyed you), they will tend your flocks, farm your land and follow you into battle.  They bring with them, their women and children, and their shaman.
The party accepted the wends, who now follow you, and who now have a tribal symbol that includes a pyramid.  They help you finish the process of fortifying the community that is growing up around your ship, and their shaman helps you build and enchant a summoning circle, so that the party now has access to spirit support.  Granted, the first few summonings didn't turn out quit the way you expected, with one member of the party barely surviving an encounter with the Bad Man, but what the heck.

Winter has begun.  One of the last couriers from Aachen (before the snows start in earnest) arrives with a packet of messages and news of a two groups of horsemen on the road before him.  The courier says that he saw the tracks of at least 20 horses, in two groups headed towards Kiel.  You have not seen or heard of any such group of strangers, and the party rides out to investigate.   A day's ride south, you find where the strangers left the main road; there were indeed 2 groups of horsemen, the first with 8 riders and the 2nd with at least a dozen or more.  You track them and find the bloody clearing where the pursuers caught the smaller group and cut them down in a pitched battle.  The scavengers have not left much (the fight was at least 3 days ago), but you can see from their clothing and equipment that the horsemen had been greeks, not wends, franks or saxons.  You also notice that one of these greeks managed to escape the fight by plunging into the woods on foot.  He managed to lose his enemies in the rocks of a dry streambed, but he failed to lose the best trackers in your party, and you follow him.  He is 3 days ahead of you, but he is badly wounded, and after a few miles, you realize that he is heading straight for Kiel as well as he can across wooded country.  He never made it.

You find his body wedged into a tight space between 3 rocks, so he could defend himself, with a small fire between him and anyone who might attack him.  He's been dead for a day or so, and you (some of you) know him.  His name was Parmenion, and he was prominent in White Faction in Constantinople.  He was not your friend (you were supporters of the Red Faction) and on at least one occasion, he tried to bring about Aurelius's death in the Hippodrome.  Clutched to his chest is a leather parcel; within it is a packet of scrolls and a wooden box.  The box contains a finely crafted golden horn in the shape of a conch shell: The Horn of Nearchos.
The scrolls explain that Hero, the widow of Tros of Samothrace, did indeed survive the journey back to the roman empire, and made her way to Byzantium to make it her home.  Her children and their descendants helped to found what later became the White Faction in the Byzantine Empire.  The goal of the White Faction was to keep the navy strong; the secret goal of Tros's descendants was to use the Byzantine navy to find and rebuild their ancestor's ship, so that Liafail would sail again.  Each generation swore an oath to seek out the wreck that you found; their names are listed in the scrolls you found on Parmenion's body.  For more than 800 years they sought the ship where their ancestor had been laid to rest, and for 800 years they were kept from doing so by bad luck, bad weather, war and natural disasters.  Now word has reached Constantinople that Liafail is being rebuilt, and their oaths bind them to aid you, as you are their best hope.  They sent Parmenion to aid you, and bring you the Horn, but someone heard of this, and did their best to keep you from ever getting the Horn or this information.
The scrolls describe the Sword of Macedon and the Orb of Worlds.  The Sword of Macedon is the sword of Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great.
The courier from Aachen brings you information from Charlemagne's spies; it is said that the Emir of North Africa wears a magical sword, made in the style of ancient greece.
The Nile has flooded for the 2nd time since you opened the way to Ra's Home: Aurelius gains the following:   +1 to Charisma, +1 to Appearance, +1 to POW, + 1 (one-use) Heal Body.
It is now the beginning of January, 813 A.D.