Tis the Season

Well, last year I managed 24 posts. On average 2 per month, though some months had more and some less. It is up from the year before, and more focused, as is appropriate for my Year of Tekumel. So with the first of the year it is the season for making plans and resolutions for the new year.

Tekumel activities will continue. The campaign has had a number of canceled games of late, but that is not due to lack of interest. Work and school schedules have conspired against us at times. That probably can't be helped, after all, none of us has the luxury of a high school life anymore. But Mriga and Suni have found employment locally, which was a concern.

I hope to bump the blog posts up, shooting for 36 for this year. That seems doable, if I simply keep up on the campaign, and trivial if I also record other game activities. For example, I don't think I have mentioned here my recent ACW game with Chip and friends. Forgot to bring a camera, so there wasn't much to report. I have also not blogged about recent mins purchases, and I could certainly have said more about UCON. I will also try to add some more Bling. I have plenty of figs to paint, and terrain to build, so that should help.. And there may be a top secret project about which I can leak some info.....

This year will still focus on Tekumel, but will include other gaming. However, I, like many gamers, am easily distracted. So this rule will apply. Each month I will set a goal for myself, and I can't do non-Tekumel projects until the month's tekumel project is done. This will probably involve completing a few projects that I have half done right now.. and breaking down some unpainted figures into project groups.

I think better with Pen and Paper than keyboard, so details will probably come after some time away from the screen. I need to think about the Butrus underworld as well. More later..

Into the underworld

Well, The party was given instructions to find a clan house for a Pé Chói liquor trader in the foreign quarter. Given a primer on Vintner clans from the eastern empire, they were expected to make passable conversation with the clan elder and then ask to see the Brandy store rooms. A code phrase was given, they they were to give to the keeper of casks and this would get them access to the underworld. All went according to plan. They were left alone, to try the brew they had requested, and when they picked up the bottle, the cellar wall slid silently open. Down steep spiral stairs, and they found themselves with a very small bottle of a vintage called Orange Silken Treacle, in a sub-cellar beneath the foreign quarter. They found no obvious way out, but Suni looked for a place to set the bottle again. Once located and used as expected, (and balanced to offset a small portion of the bottle they had tasted (it wasn't actually very good, in their opinion – overly sweet, heady, syrupy)), another door opened into the sewers.

The sewers under Butrús are actually fairly well populated by her “sub” citizenry. They were fortunate enough to not open the door onto a party of people, or others, having failed to find the peephole that would tell them the coast is clear. The sewers are two levels down into the Tsu'urum, and serve as the main streets for the upper two levels, which are used and they are home to Nakomé, poor lineages of low foreigners, and the idle, lost, or dispossessed youth of the city. At least the areas they were in for the moment were considered part of the city, if only the foreign quarter, and patrolled. They stood out, as the interlopers that they were. But they went unmolested towards the main lines. When they reached the first gates, under the great walls of the city, they were told to contact a specific guard, when he was alone, present him with a token from the temple Hriháyal, and he would let them out. But when they arrived they found 6 guards at the gate, at the far end of a large chamber where several sewer lines met, and which served as a bit of a sewer life market place. As they waited to see what would happen next, they were approached by a young entrepreneur who, suspecting they were after the wealthy lower levels, offered to help them procure proper papers for access.

The sewers mark the lowest level of the Tsu'urum that were accessible to the masses of Brutus without specific authorization from the city government. A mere couple hundred years ago, Butrús had suffered an unpleasant level of uninvited attention from below. Whole families had disappeared from invasions that came from their own sub-cellars. Rumors of Shunned ones and Ssú raced through the streets and troops were sent down to secure the Tsu'urum. They chose the level of the sewers, which had been saved through the past two Ditlána, as the line of demarcation. Access below would be strictly controlled, under penalty of impalement, or worse, I suppose if some force less friendly than the city or tomb guard caught you. Above the Sewers were two Ditlána of underworld, in more active use by the Temples and clans who valued their traditional sites for rituals and observances.

As they spoke with this man, they noticed that four of the guards at the gate had taken notice of the group. The dealer, eager to avoid “Imperial entanglements”, offered a to take them to a safer site. They agreed to hire him as a guide, if he could lose the guards. Back up the sewers they all went, their new guide stopping, occasionally, to negotiate, (and allow the guards to catch up, to maintain a negotiation advantage..). It became clear to Mriga that he was also trying to make sure the party was lost, so he made mental notes of the route. Eventually they came to terms of two K per day, assuming they all survived, and considerably less if they all died.. and their new guide led them to a clan house that hid them while the guards passed. They then doubled back to the “plaza” and the guide negotiated passage through the gates, saving the party the necessity of using their token, which might now allow them to exit later by this gate. Good move..

The party passed under the City walls and out side the current city to what was, several Ditlána ago, the sewers under the old foreign quarter. Here they found evidence of whole clans, and Nakomé, whose social status was in question because of the current hostilities with Yán Kór, and a few social groups who are less social to the humans above. Specifically, they were aware of Pygmy Folk, Ahoggyá, and a clan group of Swamp Folk. They initially avoided contact with these groups. The directions they had been given were based upon re entry to the city at the SE sewer gates. But the SE gate was now guarded by a dozen guards, far more then they had been told to expect. The party had come down with only two bearer slaves, so the odds, should they try to force their way past, would be 4 to one against. They began to seek an alternative.

Though Suni had reason to believe the Pygmy folk would know of alternative entry points, Sánjesh and Mriga felt they would not be trust worthy, and might be hostile. They elected to send their new guide to speak to the Swamp Folk first, as they seemed most likely to be warm to humans. They offered simply a gift of one bottle of Orange Silken Treacle, and the chance to socialize and gossip with some outsiders. Surprisingly, this worked. They were invited in, and spent some time gossiping with the Swamp folk, They learned that the guards in this portion of the Sewers and at the gates were more numerous and more active as a result of rumors of Mu'ugalavyian activities in the Chákas. The Party told them a small amount about the Mrúr activities, and the subject of the Goddess of the Turín river came up, as Sánjesh thought perhaps, being water dwellers, they might have insights or know legends. The party learned that the last known manifestations of the Goddess were a up in the area of the Lushman Canal project, and the Swamp folk had heard of these drowned undead, and several of the strange “bounties” that they had encountered emanating from the caves (mushrooms, Étla, etc) had been noted at that time. This was 2000 years ago, and the dates coincided with the alleged authorship of the book they were seeking. As it turned out, no one much liked the Orange Silken Treacle..

It was agree that the swamp folk would show the group a way into the Sewers under the city.

Chnéhl, the final episode

Our Heroes set out in pursuit of the Chnéhl. They opted to push hard during daylight, but not to press on at night, both because of the inherent risk, and because it would hamper tracking efforts. They are fortunate that the escaping Chnéhl decided to slow down once they put some Tsán betwixt themselves and their hunters, because, if they had simply pressed the advantage, they were faster than the party by a significant enough margin that the delays of tracking would have allowed them to escape. But it quickly became apparent that the Chnéhl did not have a plan for exactly where they were going, and they lacked the skills to disappear stealthily into the forest.

Day after day the party closed the gap. I can't say this was extremely exciting, but the drudge of daily tracking tests was probably realistic. It didn't become exciting until they they closed the gap to an hour or two separation. It was at that time that they discovered they were in the territory of a pack of Feral Rényu, and the forest became alive with yipping calls back and forth, as the critters tracked them, while they tracked the Chnéhl. This was the Chnéhl's end game, but our heroes were having none of it. They decided that, if the Rényu attacked, they would deal with it, but if not, they would give them no reason to do so.

They focused, single minded, upon the Chnéhl, and closed to within sight, sending the resting Chnéhl running, Bigfoot-esque through the undergrowth. A couple of well placed, drugged arrows took down the first, and Sánjesh, ordered three spear men to stand guard. Luck was with them, and a moment later, perhaps 50 yards hence, they dropped the second one. (Their animal handlers advised them that this was certainly good fortune, because if they had split up, the chance that the Rényu would attack one group or the other would have gone up substantially.)

Some applied healing skills, and drugs, and they had recaptured Mis's valued ritual subjects. They were kept heavily drugged for the trip home, as the Slaves, really, a bit over burdened by the task, carted the glorious prizes back. They decided to retrace their route, rather than risk a random encounter in uncharted forest, while heavily burdened. The trip back was laborious, but uneventful, until they got back above the tree line on Silver mountain. From their they could see the remaining smoke trails rising from the river village that had rescued Sánjesh and company during the unprecedented summer flooding so long ago. Our heroes quickly surmised that the Semétl of Mrúr were probably afoot again. They made as quickly as possible for the Camp at the Cave entrance.

Upon arriving they found more refugees were streaming in. Fewer, and mostly children, capable of outrunning the Mrúr, who had, this time, killed everything they could catch. The river village had been less defensible in many ways, sitting between the river and steep banks. The Mrúr had entered from two sides. The young man who had accompanied Sánjesh and the Hriháyal guards during the initial search for Mis did survive, though he feared he might well be an orphan as the village was, to the best of his knowledge, his entire clan. He reported that the village had taken strongly to the new practices of the goddess of the river, adding them to their worship of Belkhánu, and believing, perhaps, that their might be more to their lives than simple escape into an honorable death, in time.

After a rest, the great Chnéhl were loaded, along with what was left of harvests from the cave, and the party, onto a Chlén cart for a long, slow, and hopefully relaxing trip into Butrús. Signs of occupation had begun to return to the village by the Sákbe Road gate, and the guards were complaining about extra duties, now that there were reports of rogue Semétl of Mrúr, along with the wet ones.

In Butrús Sánjesh received his promotion to Tirrikámu, though he was not given a command, as yet. This was in part because there was none to be had, and, in part, because his independent operations might prove more profitable. The party collected and divided the bounty, paid off the labor, sold the Gerednyá, and other critters they had acquired along the way, visited their temples and clans, and took a break. Well, they used the time to better themselves.

Suni gave most of her earnings to her clan, and went to study with her temple. This will give her better access to clan resources, when the time comes. Mriga kept his personal wealth, as this venture had not been funded by his clan. He also went to his temple to study. The temple of Grugánu was taken by his tales, and he has been tasked to record what he can of the cave, which has tentatively been title “The Silver Womb of Hriháyal” as his labor of reverence for his advancement to second circle. Sánjesh was assigned training for his new rank with the Temple guard. Mis packed up her entourage and her Chnéhl and headed for Tumíssa, to complete her variation on the ritual of the 32^nd Unspeakable act. I can not tell you how that went, however. But before she left, she gave the party a few pointers and instructions on how to access the underworld of Butrús, and, if they were lucky, obtain the book they had been seeking in the temple of Avánthe about a few weeks before.

post management post

This a non campaign post.

First order of business is to point out that I have posted several posts today. Three campaign updates and this. For unknown reasons, the campaign updates are out of order. They are numbered, so read them in order, if you want to have a sense of chronology, and don't if you just want to save time and read top to bottom.

Sanjesh (geo) and I went to Ucon, and had a good time, though the drive home was a burden after three days gaming after an overnight drive out. We were fortunate to get back awake, and a few hours prior to Geo's axle coming apart. We will prepare better should we make the journey again, and we do hope to do so. Ann Arbor seems a nice town, it would be pleasant to explore an eatery or two besides Denny's.

Been painting a bit, but not a lot. Still, a little is at least progress. Missed an opportunity to buy a Sró dragon on Ebay, and I will kick myself for that for a bit, but I did just order the Qól and Hlutrgú from the Tekumel Club. A few figs were given away at the con, but I never heard who got them.

Also bought some 6mm figs a bit ago to make massed armies for Tékumel warfare. Talking to someone on the Tékumel minis who has used rapid prototyping to build some proxies in 25mm with the hopes of scaling down his meshes for doing the same in 6mm. Don't suppose any of my readers is a 3d graphic designer?

Quick campaign update pt 3

Now our heroes had decided that the whole Chnéhl adventure was getting both dangerous, and frustrating. Suni had nearly been killed twice, and their targets had eluded them several times. They climbed back to the lair. The Beast handlers believed that the Chnéhl might have abandoned the area, but they found no sign to support the theory. They had brought along two of the mountain Hmélu to use to drug their prey, but the plan this time was to use zoic domination on heavily drugged animals and walk them right up into the cave. It was a matter of dosing them correctly to keep them alive just long enough to get them into position. The set up a defensive perimeter at the high camp late in the evening. But the night was not quiet.

During the first watch the party was attacked by Shánu'u, the giant distant cousins of the Hláka. They struck from above, and attempted, primarily to separate the party from the Hmélu. Overall, it didn't go well for the Shánu'u, losing nearly half their number, but they injured a few of the parties guards, and made off with one Hmélu. One Shánu'u was captured. In the morning the party decided to follow through with the plan with the remaining Hmélu.

The Hmélu, drugged and ensorcelled, made it to just outside the cave, where some young Chnéhl cautiously approached to investigate. They prodded it with sticks a couple times, then bashed it once or twice, celebrated their hunt and dragged the poor creature inside. Our heroes waited an appropriate time for the drugs to do their work. Then they cautiously approached the lair.

Exploring the lair they found the young Chnéhl had all succumbed to the drug, and the mothers were, if not unconscious, incapacitated. But they did not find the alpha males. Searching they found a larder, and a back exit. Now, it seemed reasonable that, under normal conditions, the Alpha males would have been the first to eat, so they deduced that they had not been in the cave. No idea where they might have been. The high camp was currently only occupied by the slaves. But the Chnéhl normally won't attack a group larger than themselves, and there should only be two, while the slaves numbered ten. Our party decided to wait in the lair and hope the Alpha males returned. In the morning, they did.

A single slave head rolled in through the cave entrance. I don't who, but someone suggested responding in kind, and the party killed and decapitated one of the females. Her head was tossed out. Another slave head rolled in, and then nothing. More waiting. Eventually, our heroes came out, to find that the Alpha males had left. The tracks lead off around the mountain, counter clockwise. They found one more slaves head, in the bushes, simply discarded.

And that brings us to this week's game, I think. I may have missed something, but I hope not. Their plan is to press on after the Chnéhl and bring this to an end.

Quick Campaign Update Pt 1

Our heroes spent the next day deciding what to do with the captured Chnéhl. They considered releasing a couple of the smaller males in order to keep the local family group alive, in an effort at herd management. They had them all drugged, for easy compliance, and trundled all but two off on a Chlén cart to collect bounties from Mis. They then went off into the local woods to look at the traps they set up. Then they discovered the tracks. The Chnéhl they had captured were not the largest Chnéhl in the area during the fight. It appeared that two other Chnéhl had sat in the woods and watched. Had they simply realized the attack was doomed, or had they actually used our heroes to eliminate their potential rivals.

Our heroes decided to make another attempt on the Chnéhl. They climbed up to the area of the Chnéhl lair looking for Mountain Hmélu, which they planned to drug, in the hopes that the Chnéhl would catch the weakened beasts, eat them, and, thus also be drugged. In the first attempt they found a group of Hmélu just off the lairs entrances. (The Chnéhl lair has three obvious entrances, in close proximity..). They spent a good deal of time trying to close on the Hmélu close enough to get a shot off. Despite her perfect balance, Suni couldn't seem to make a stealth roll, and repeatedly startled the flock. She had the weapon with the shortest range, and Mriga, who is not adept at this kind of thing, controlled one of the Beast handlers with an Atle Atle, and the longest range. So he moved to a decent range, and waited, aiming, for several turns while Suni struggled on a slope of loose gravel. In the mean time, Sanjesh had noticed some of the Chnéhl females watching from the cave mouths. Finally the Hmélu had enough and bolted, so Suni quit trying to be sneaking and gave chase. Mriga, who had been aiming forever, found his foot asleep, and tumbled backwards when he went to throw, firing wide. Suni managed to tag one with a well tossed dagger, but she didn't really have time to savor the moment, because she found that she had come to close to the lair. The two big Chnéhl roared forth from the lair and attacked her, and, nearly killed her in the next few moments. But the others leapt up to attack, and, again badly outnumbered, the Chnéhl wisely fled back into the lair. Our heroes scooped up Suni and retreated to their high camp. They prepared for what they expected to be a night on Defense, but the Chnéhl never came down.

The next day they went up, hoping perhaps the Chnéhl had taken the Hmélu and thus been too stuperous to press the attack. They saw no sign of the Chnéhl, and tracked the blooded Hmélu along the mountain side. Eventually they found the flock, and the wounded Hmélu down. Stringing out their slaves as herders, and moving up the flanks and ahead, the party managed to capture, if I recall, the entire flock. They also discovered that the downed Hmélu was dead, but it had attracted some local fauna. Curled up near the carcass were two lskjdlfj that had succumbed to the drugs in its system. The party used nets and sticks to bundle them up and cart them off as well. All in all, an excellent hunt.

Quick campaign update pt 2

I don't recall what prompted the group to drop that thread for a couple days and go back into the caves. I suspect I tempted them, as they discovered from the workers who were going down, that there was a form of grass growing on the cave floor. Entry added mystery on mystery, as they also discovered the cave had developed a weather pattern all it's own, with a minor monsoon season every 20-30 hours, and thunder and lightening. The eco-system was cycling at an accelerated rate, with a full crop of grass and such growing, withering and regrowing each day. The players packed up an entry team and made their way upstream, investigating the apparent source of the daily weather cycle.

Again, they found themselves up in the area of the Stele and the temple like room. Here they were attacked by Dlaqó, who were quickly run off when one of the Beast handlers used Zoic Domination to control the leader and he was hacked to death. The carcass, they decided, would just attract other critters, so they dumped it down the deep hole across the way. (Remember that hole.. did I mention it? The players have expressed the belief that it is the pathway created by a HUGE Aqáà?. This made our more conservative player a bit nervous about attracting much worse than more Dlaqó.) They also found a chimney, and Suni scuttled up it, past Hu bat guano, and an apparent hu bat nesting site directly out to the surface. She noted the location, which was outside the area that Mis had agreed to purchase, and came back down. That was significant, because, in theory, they no longer controlled all access to the tunnels.

The next morning the Suni and Sanjesh took ropes and went down the Aqáà hole. At the bottom they found a shallow water feature and a large, round room, filled with a slightly unnaturally persistent darkness. They found a large room, with 6 large doors, More or less equally spaced and three small doors clustered up on a dias. They had no tools for opening the doors, but one small door was slightly ajar, and they could see a white tiled room on the other side. They could not get it open. They also found three platforms on the dias, and pried one up. It created sparks, and a bit of ozone. The others were trod upon and they lit up. Then they heard a low grating rumble, and the sound of water draining down an opening. They also found that the water was quickly emptied of thousands of small frogs up onto the dias where they stood. Sanjesh caught one, to take out for further study. When the climbed off the diase, the water on the floor had gone down, and the sludge was a bit thicker. They made their way back to the ropes and climbed out.

Sometime on the exit Sanjesh discovered his frog had escaped.