Cult of Aois III

Read Part II.

Osvald the assassin was lost again to turbulent dreaming. Again he found himself hiding in a nightmare; the very dungeon the heroes are delving into. Every night this assassin found himself hiding from the Ogre while it sang it's vile rituals to summon the dead.  Were these the souls the assassin had sent to death? But one night the assassin saw Faylor burst into the room to challenge the Ogre, and so took the chance to escape.

In the attempt, the assassin was slain by the scything bones of the Ogre's skeleton guardians. In his dying breath the assassin begged for life, and a demon of these cursed halls whispered back. The assassin did not pass on. Instead he was transformed into a spirit of shadow and jealous hunger. He realized then, that he would never wake from this. I used the Wizards' World 'vampire' class as an inspiration, although I plan to modify the model significantly.

Faylor was desperate to defeat the ogre and so opened the black chest. Faylor found that for him -- the price of opening resulted in the obliteration of his connection to magic. Thus forth Faylor walked the caves as an explorer not a mage (the player wanted to change classes without sacrificing his character's backstory). But the trauma of the transforming experience knocked Faylor unconscious. In the chest, Luukol found black barnacled spear wrapped in seaweed. In the chest Aever found a shield with a gargoyle's mein carved into the front. Luukol and Aever desperately held back the ogre, but only until Faylor regained his senses, at which point the heroes retreated.

Even with the assassin reinvigorated by demonic energies, the heroes dealt the ogre a death by guile rather than brawn. The heroes retreated into the low halls and set up a spear tipped choke point in the room of the collapsed statue. Jareth's unconscious body was found here, along with his familiar who was desperately trying to drag him from danger. Luukol and Aever managed to toss and pin the ogre with polarms while the assassin and Faylor loosed their arrows from the shadows. The unconscious Jareth was treated after the ogres final howls. Seeing as the assassin proved to be a true ally in the fight, the other characters invited him to join the descent. Faylor found a crawlspace in the statue's rubble which led to the Ogre's original chamber.

The ogre's elvish accomplice claimed to be the ogre's prisoner not its ally. Faylor was particularly distrusting of the elf, but Aever managed to convince the party to allow the mysterious elf at least a weapon for defense. A spring bubbled beneath the stairs, forming a river which fell in quiet waterfalls from an open-top plateau. To the south a decrepit outpost winds further into the depths. To the north a massive kiln in the shape of a helmet sits outside a door. The door is at the base of a cliff face with numerous winding caves in the lofty heights. Listening behind the door, Jareth heard the goblin tongue.

Cult of Aois II

Read Part I first.

The giant spiders assaulting the heroes were borrowed from Greg Gillespie's Barrowmaze megadungeon. I chose these spiders due to Gillespie's "Blood-Thirsty" quality. Blood-thirsty monsters catch the scent of a PC's open wound and converge to attack the injured target en masse. These are particularly brutal monsters in low level play because hit points are precariously low.

The heroes rolled well for initiative and managed to swiftly kill the spiders with a few well aimed bolts before the blood-thirsty quality could come into play. The heroes noticed that these spiders had white scars that ran like streams (a divergence from Gillespie's design) over their faces and heads. The heroes don't know what these scars are from, but they will probably find out in a deeper level of the dungeon.

Skeletons were waiting silently behind the door to the north. These undead stood in formation in the claustrophobic hall that turned at a right angle behind them into the unknown. The heroes had a hard time hitting, let alone pushing through these restless foes. Luukol managed to turn the undead while Aever stood vigilantly between the dead and the living. The skeletons fled into the darkness and the heroes carefully followed.

Around the corner the heroes found a door with it's arch labelled, "Confessional." The heroes walked into the 10 by 15 room and saw that a screen had been slashed to ribbons in the east. Another room stood behind the ruined screen -- this is where the skeletons were assumed to have run. The heroes looted tapestries off the western and the northern walls before moving into the next room. Hamish, the party's hireling torchbearer was convinced to carry the loot. He didn't complain, he'd been asked to do worse things before...

The other side of the confessional screen displayed a room with much the same parameters as the last. But instead of tapestries lining the walls, delicate and ancient tomes crowded the walls. These books contain a history of the demon Orcus as well as the "summon" spell as it appears in James Raggi's LotFP Grindhouse Edition. A door to the south stood ajar. While the heroes tore through the books, Aever noticed the approach of skeletons from the southern door.

Using door-cover, Aever managed to brutally hack the lead skeleton away from the doorway. But even this did little to slow them, so Luukol was forced to unleash his darker aspect. He did not 'turn' the undead but chose instead to 'command' them to destroy each other. Once the bone dust settled, the heroes were able to move through the short hall the skeletons had been standing in.

The hall led to a grand eastern door. Inside the heroes found a mausoleum; four stone caskets rested in each corner of the room. From here, the heroes could hear a guttural and unholy song coming from behind a fine dark-wood door to the south of the room. A massive onyx chest  sat in the center of the room. A door stood ajar to the east. A lot started to happen very quickly.

Jareth used his ten foot pole to lift the lid of the chest. Inside he found his first familiar, a fox sent on Orcus' behalf. Faylor could stand the singing no more so he kicked open the southern door, tossed in a torch, and strode into the room. Inside he saw a massive chamber held up by classical pillars. Trampled scrolls and relic boxes littered the floor in a pattern of refuse mingling with a pile of corpses. A female elf stood silent beside an ogre who was chanting the vile ritual at the top of a staircase inside a humming magical circle.

Skeletons rose from the pile of dead and made their move towards Faylor who cast 'sleep' before retreating from the room. The elf fell unconscious in the circle, but the ogre stood unfazed. At the door the heroes did their best to brace the door against the skeletons, but the Ogre charged the door himself to see who was on the other side. The party managed to bloody his nose with bolt and missile, but they will be in real danger when he crosses the threshold.

Once Jareth got sight of the ogre he fled, backtracking the route the party had made. Stumbling with the treasure and his hireling, Jareth ran into the half-dwarf the party had had terrified the day prior. Jareth tried to calm the mysterious half-dwarf, but succeeded only in startling him further. Jareth caught the half-dwarf's axe in the eye, falling into a well of dreams drank by his demon patron.

Read Part III.

Cult of Aois I

The first session started pretty gonzo -- the players were blinded/ teleported by a magical sandstorm. They wandered through the desert looking for their destination but instead found a statue erected to "the god-killer" overlooking a jagged valley. Almost as soon as they got their bearings they were attacked. Depraved madmen in tattered priestly robes emerged from the biting winds gibbering in tongues and lashing long obsidian daggers.

The players were still feeling out the system so perhaps this ambush was a bit unfair. But now the players are fully aware of how desperate low level play is. A henchman had died, two heroes had fallen unconscious, and some of the trader's wares had been ruined. Paraphrasing Luukol, the group's cleric, "We are at 60% strength and havent even walked into the dungeon." But I'm not a malicious DM, no, of course not. I offered the players a risky power grab just outside the dungeon gate to make up for the gritty start.

A ram-horned 14 foot tall demon in hell-forged plate armor offered the players a pact. This demon presented himself as Orcus and told the players that those madmen were his unworthy thralls. In exchange for the players' worship, he would grant them a blessing in his halls. Two of the players responded with fervent piety, out of fear or greed I do not know. Others responded with guarded and not-so-guarded suspicion. The demon vanished into the sandstorm leaving the players with a lot of uncertainties. The heroes know that this demon's tunnel can lead to the dwarven city, but all else is speculation and rumor.

In the dungeon's antechamber the players found a half-dwarf entranced or stunned, but the players managed to terrify him away from any sort of allegiance. He had actually just been attacked moments before the heroes arrived, but saw the heroes as another threat. Dwarves are the only lawful race in these depths, all others are either neutral or chaotic generally. The half-dwarf fled, but could not be pursued far in the darkness. Once down into the actual depths, the players found themselves in a claustrophobic armory-turned rusting trash heap.

At one time this dungeon was a sacred barrack for the dwarven people, crafted by the finest artisans in pious worship of Aois. Aois was the famed demi-god bard who slew the selfish pantheon, freeing the dwarven people from their divine debts. While the dwarven faith in Aois was real the dwarves lived near  the surface but never lost a war to the beastmen. After Aois ascended becoming a god himself, the dwarves' grip on the surface caves became a tenuous one. They retreated ever lower, building their mausoleum citadels in worship of cthonic demons instead. Orcus was once the demon prince, but the dwarves stole his staff through unknown trickery, greatly reducing his power and outcasting him from their new pantheon. If the players read the books they found in the second session, they will learn this.

The heroes came across two doors, but opted for the one without the sound of dripping water behind it. The passage opened to to a hall with a collapsed staue defaced beyond recognition to the north. A door to the west opened upon a long "L" shaped hall lined on both sides by flying buttresses. Altars to various crumbling idols had been erected in alcoves by the beastmen after they had torn these halls from the dwarves. I was going for a holy warrior vibe hence the religious iconography and the remnants of long past battle. Thick gossamer webs flooded the room but the heroes pressed on, that is until the sound of skittering above warned them to draw their blades. Part II begins in medias res.

Read Part II.

Mortals

Men sup from the bosom of mortality. Such is the tragedy of man, such is his triumph.

ACKS provides an appropriately open-ended description of the human nomad, leaving much to the DM's determination. In sandbox games like Cult of Aois this is preferable. The nomads I envision are jointly inspired by Howard's barbarian as well as mexican indian mythos. Rival nomad tribes war over resources and honor, but band together against the neanderthal threat. While men follow the herd, the neanderthal pursue men from caves. Neanderthal come for flesh, both as a breeding stock and as a food source.

Humanity's social elite rarely concern themselves with neanderthals. Living in decadent and crumbling castles they are safe from the threat for now. This elite is the extended family, court, and knights of the last king, consisting of 10% of the population. The king has been dead for over 100 years with no heir. But the scheming and vile grabs for the throne has torn the court into disorder. Many wars have been waged over the petty squabbles of noblemen with nomad blood.

Even behind castle walls, there are far more fel dramas than the occasional noble's infidelity or incest. House Halrys' patriarch is the un-living nephew of the past king. Patriarch Greln Halrys is a vampire who brings his brave men back from the grave with cursed miracles. Greln's living servants are enraptured because they believe him to be the first lord to cast off his humanity for godhood. There will be more on the vampires soon.

Caterpillar Elevators (Part II)

Read part 1 first.

Sylk Wyrms or "Dire Wyrms" (as they are called by surfacers) are ordinarily more docile than their nickname implies. These  gigantic furry mollusks have earned the nickname, "Deep Mammoths" by the few lore-men who withdraw from ancient scrolls fantasies of the ancient cold. Mature wyrms even have powerful tusks which resemble those of the long-distant mammoth. Larvae wyrms are hairless, bone white, and translucent. From the egg they are about the size of a bull, and their tusks are barely pronounced.

By puberty the wyrm's tusks have grown up to a span of ten feet long. But wyrms with tusks those large are the very largest of their kind, about the size of a sperm whale. By middle age, the wyrm's hair is a ruddy red. In their eldest stages the wyrms outer flesh hardens into a gravelly and chitinous surface, and the hair turns black. Their saliva is a corrosive substance capable of breaking down stone, earth, and flesh.  Though wyrm flesh is impervious, of course. In a spiral-screwing motion wyrms use their tusks and spittle to tunnel out suitable domains. Some claim that they can "swim" through the earth as fast as a man can run.

Typically wyrms nest in colonys as they are social creatures. Various glands allow the wyrm to weave a powerful acid-impervious thread. Gnomish artisans use this thread to make a superior weave the gnomes implement into everything from insulation to armor. Wyrms use these webs to make "nests" over high chasms ussually near moisture sources. Both male and female wyrms have tusks and can secrete the acidic saliva from birth. Female wyrms are typically 20% larger than males. Once a wyrm's hair has turned fully black it retreats from it's colony in an isolated pilgrimage until death.

What is a "Caterpillar Elevator"?
Answer: Deep gnomes with wyrm companions make use of the wyrm's ability to quickly zip up and down their thread-lines. Gnomish excavators grab a ride on the furry flank of their wyrm accomplices and in minutes have sped upwards to ore-rich caverns ordinarily hours of climbing away.

The Numen

Elves call them spirits, men call them demons, dwarves call them gods. The numinous forces of the standing races can be divided into two categories. The first group, called "The Forgotten" are the class of gods which no longer respond to the appeals of worshippers. These are entities so ascendant that even the power of prayer is of little concern to them. These gods are in an eternal political struggle with the other master powers. The Forgotten rarely manifest on the material plane, but send pawn lesser deity's if necessary.

Picture Link. 

The second class of deity are are called "The Singers." These are the mouthpieces of faith and the architects of cults. These are the lesser gods who cringe before the greater gods. But it is the duty and the honor of the Singers to make men bow. Whether through service to the material plane or through its domination, The Singers are the forces that meddle in the affairs of elves, dwarves, and mortals. For a Singer to ascend, they must first enrapture the masses into prayer. The faith-force of the devout directly empowers a Singer. A cult's power grows with the deeds of deity's champions. As the masses are inspired, the deity feeds on their devotion with a dreadful gluttony.

The Eldar

The elves in my home-brew are inspired by several sources, but Frank Herbert's Dune is the primary influence. The elves in my campaign are in the vein of Herbert's fremen; supreme survivors conditioned by the hell-blasted desert. They are mystic warriors who worship martial and magic cults. Though the aesthetic is  certainly fremen, thats really as far as the similarities go. These elves worship magic as men worship gods. Males follow one cult, females the other.  The elves were the first race to hear the whisperings of magic from the spirits. The eldar mother chose the cult of the *Nightblade. The son-father found the cult of the *Spellsword.

Picture link.

The males are not fair elves, their flesh has taken the hue of the red sands, and been shaped by it too. In Dark Sun (I never played it) I heard that the elves stood taller than men, something around seven feet tall if my memory serves me. So too will the elves in my campaign stand seven feet tall. The male's ziggurats are antediluvian pyramid-fortresses where the brotherhood may hone their magics and their steel through monk-like meditative practices.

Underground the female cult extends it's shadowy grip of the underworld ever further into the depths. The spirits of both cults require an absolute separation between males and females except during procreation rituals. Though ancient, the elvish race faces decline. Males are particularly hesitant to participate in elvish consummation because to do so would be to sever the male elf's magic potential forever. The elf may no longer level as a Spellsword, and must instead level as a fighter. Though a different system, this male elf attitude is comparable to the male Giant Spider's attitude in Luke Crane's Burning Wheel.

For this reason males are taught to practice asceticism at a young age. The only woman some males ever encounter is their mother before they are taken and delivered to a surface ziggurat. Female elves follow a more martial path than the brotherhood. As they are dwellers in darkness, their flesh is a light grey, and fairer than the brotherhood's. The sisterhood's cult of deep spirits demand virtue through conquest. Vengeance is the spiritual absolution the sisterhood's ancient matriarchs glean like coins. Breathtaking natural caverns and grottos house the sisterhood. Through magic the natural chambers have been enchanted to be both luxuriant and deadly. Obviously I've drawn some inspiration from the Drow as well.

* The Nightblade is an ACKS class which is effectively a thief/magic-user multiclass for elves.
The Spellsword is an ACKS class which is effectively a fighter/ magic-user multiclass for elves.

Next Session

Intro:

Where are the gods? Elvish sorcerers meditate in ziggurats above a sand scarred desert. Only the desert rivals the elves' callousness. Dwarves dig grand tomb-cities like ants to stabilize their death cult "queen." Humans are the few, they are as weariless as they are desperate. The tribes of men must constantly war with each other and with the desert to compete for scarce resources. And stranger things still lie in the swamplands. The spirits are said to be restless there. But the spoils of dead kings are said to be there too, cursed though they be. But past the fetid wetlands great mountains are said to rise -- some taunting even the clouds. But who is to say what lies beyond? 


Who are you?

I will be running a megadungeon using several sources, but primarily the ACKS. The dungeon will be partly of my own design and partly composed of borrowed modules. We all love a good dungeon crawl, but the evolving political component of ACKS is what we found most compelling. As a subterranean campaign, it will be highly likely that characters will build their fortresses far below the surface. This will be a tale of downwards progress.

Picture link.

Updates soon.