Caravan through the Red Sea – 3
Synopsis
After discovering the brutally killed human merchant from the caravan near where it had its camp the group tried to find the culprit. After heated debate and after discovering a pair of tracks coming from where the caravan was standing they brought the old lady and Shona to the crime scene not before slightly altering it to see both of the women's reaction. The old lady pointed out that it looked like a Cult of the Snake ritual but Shona didn't reply and the mistery continued unveiled.
The next morning a coming storm greeted them. Tales determined that it would be safer to try to reach the temple instead of trying to get cover in the open. Luckily they managed to get rid of some jackals that were harassing them trying to make get caught in the storm and they arrived to the temple in time to get cover.
After leaving the caravan at the entrance of the Temple of Unbroken Silence they managed to pass through a corridor full of pendulum scythes. Shona and the little cannibal halfling followed them however the halfling had to be rescued by Feral because he got hit by the scythes and subsequently fainted at the sight of blood.
After inspecting the first floors of the underground temple and seeing some visions they reached the bottom floor fully inundated of water. They now have the water with the desired lichen in front of them but the whole temple is impregnated with a suffocating silence and it feels like the walls are vigilantly looking at them discussing wether or not to give Shona the piece of information she's asking them for.
Podcasts
Caravan through the Red Sea - 3, Part 1 (1h25m, 82.4Mb)
My Macbook Pro decided that "The hard disk is too slow" halfway through the recording so half of the session wasn't recorded. I apologize in the name of my Macbook.
The three illusions
These are the three illusions that you saw while going down the temple:
You see some lights forming at the middle almost blending with the rays of light that come down from the top. Some men dressed in monk clothes are smiling, scenes of people constructing large structures appear in front of your eyes but, after a few seconds, they slowly disappear.
A young couple is seen together hugging. A few seconds later the man stands up, gets an armor and a sword and slowly walks away while the woman looks at him worringly. After the first few steps the man drops the sword, starts limping and begins to wither until he is a walking skeleton at which point a huge bestial pawn appears and crushes his bones. Then the scene fades away.
Something huge engulfed in flames is surrounded by 6 small humanoids. After a few moments the humanoids slowly morph into glowing symbols (a camel, a stone, a whirlwhind, an eagle, a dragon and a fox) that begin to grow while whatever is engulfed begins to shrink. The flames become smaller and smaller. Finally a white snake with some feathers sprouting from his head appear and start to move around the 6 symbols while his body becomes longer and longer and entangles all of them without crushing them. Finally she eats what remains of whatever was in flames and the scene fades away.
Caravan members
Here are the members of the caravan:
Hadi
The caravan leader, a middle age tiefling that always tries to sound confident. He seems to be short sighted but you haven't had too much contact with him after he fell ill.
Gnome family
Two little gnome kids and their mother. The kids love Feral and his strength.
Human family
A father and his 3 daughters. One of them is really fascinated with Feral.
The monk group
3 arrogant githzerai monks. They seem to have issues with Feral's attitude towards them.
Two humans
Two One human guy that look like a merchant.
The old human wizard and his now-pc apprentice Zandor
The old wizard fired his last fireball during the fight against the cannibal halfling tribe. Since then he has been down all the time.
Mercenaries
A dragonborn, a half orc and two human mercenaries hired to defend the caravan who are now dead.
Dwarf merchant
A tatooed dwarf merchant. He looks cool.
Old lady
An old affable but distant nomadic elf lady who appears to be good with herbs. Sometimes she stares at people, in particular some of you, in a creepy way.
Geram Silver Eye
Halfling slinger member of a cannibal tribe who followed the caravan attracted to Feral's ferocity. He faints when he sees blood near him and likes flesh only very well cooked. He actually favors vegetables.
Shona
A shockingly beautiful drow woman member of the Cult of the Snake who is currently very interested in Zandor and seems to like him a lot.
Caravan through the Red Sea – 2
Synopsis
A day after the halfling clan attacked the caravan, as the sun rose, a tiefling cleric coming from Al-aman approached and subsequently joined the caravan. The group didn't have a problem letting him in and the rest of the day passed without any incident as they travelled towards their new destination, the northern cursed temple. During that night someone seemed to be spying on the caravan but they flew before the group could see them. On the second day the kids started playing tag early in the morning in the dunes and they got lost. Luckily the group was able to quickly track them and continue the journey without delay. That night the mysterious spy approached the caravan again but they were also frightened away by the vigilant group. On the third day the caravan arrived to a big chasm surrounded by cliffs. And old bridge allowed them to overcome the chasm but not before almost making Feral fall to the bottom as he courageously guided the camels through it. The caravan prepared an ambush at that same bridge to try to catch whoever was following them but they were not careful enough. That night however they setup another ambush in the rocky area where they chose to set their campament. When later during the night a group of eight human bandits attacked the decoy they had setup the group surrounded bandits and killed them all taking no prisoners.
According to Tales's estimates less than a day separates them from the temple, enough time to save Hadi from its lethal illness.
Podcast
Caravan through the Red Sea - 2, Part 1 (1h, 57.6Mb)
Caravan through the Red Sea - 2, Part 2 (1h25m, 82.4Mb)
Random notes
- The cannibal halfling that travels with the caravan faints when he sees blood. They discovered that in the middle of the bandit assault.
- Bruce didn't feel too well that day and preferred to stay in the background.
- Feral is showing the githerai monks lots of love.
- Tales's fennec is proving to be a very useful ally at night.
Khairon
A tiefling cleric in his late 30s with greying hair. He’s generally good natured and not ashamed of who he is. Helpful and resourceful. Worships some obscure neutral deity that doesn’t really care who its worshipers are; Khairon sees this as a business arrangement rather than blind faith. Good cook and loves the bottle. But there’s something dark hovering around him and unimaginable pain behind his eyes.
On the flip side he has a short fuse and can become cruel and sadistic to his enemies. In fact he much prefers to torture his victims rather than kill them. He does not see them as sentient creatures - which helps. Has truckloads of anger and he takes it out on anyone who crosses him. Spent almost 9 days killing his former master after he found out the man was far from holy and in fact raped and robbed his flock in the guise of his god’s duties.
Caravan through the Red Sea – 1
Synopsis
Bruce, Feral, Tales and Zandor started their adventures as mercenaries in charge of protecting a caravan that would get them from Al-aman to Tenari crossing the Red Sea, a desert known for its enormous sandstorms.
After meeting each other and exchanging a few words with some members of the caravan they started their journey. On the first night Hadi, the caravan leader organized a small dinner party to socialize and to try to get everybody a little bit closer together. That night and the next two days went by without any incident. However during the third day, as the caravan crossed a labyrinthic area surrounded by eroded walls a clan of fiery cannibal halflings ambushed them. Besides their natural hunger the clan were angry with Feral because he killed the brother of the clan leader the night before in a bar crawl that started when someone stepped onto someone else's toes. After a strenous battle between the group, the four other mercenaries hired to defend the caravan with them and the halflings the group won forcing few halflings that remained alive to run for their lives and capturing, and later on killing, the tribe leader.
One day later, as the group was waking up someone noticed that Hadi was very ill and unconscious. An old woman part of the caravan examined Hadi and concluded that he had been poisoned by a powerful venom and his life was in danger. She couldprepare an antidote if managed to get some lichen. The group decided to go find that lichen in a nearby cursed temple that Tales had heard about in the past. Before changing their direction towards that temple they first checked everybody in the caravan to search for clues as to who might have poisoned Hadi and why.
Podcast
Caravan through the Red Sea - 1, Part 1 (59min, 57Mb)
Caravan through the Red Sea - 1, Part 2 (60min, 58Mb)
Caravan through the Red Sea - 1, Part 3 (65min, 62Mb)
There is a missing part of the podcast that would have covered the fourth hour however due to technical difficulties that recording is not available.
Zandor
Zandor is an eladrin wizard. He started his adventuring life with an old man that initially looked like a powerful wizard. However Zandor would soon discover that behind that old mysterious man who never wanted to talk about magic there was little of real magic.
Bruce
Bruce is a female half elf battlemind who escaped the rigid and artificial life with her wealthy family. She was raised as a boy in a family after 4 failed attemps by his parents to have a boy. However after several years her parents managed to get a boy and therefore tried to force Bruce to behave like a woman from that moment on. Bruce did not want to accept that and took on adventuring.
Feral
Feral is a Razorclaw shifter originally from a forest region, but he and all his clan were hunted down by a vicious Warlord who blamed the Shifter's for his daughter's death. She was in fact killed by wolves but the Warlord was too blind to see that. Alone of all his clan, Feral escaped but was later trapped by a slaver and sold to a travelling circus as a freakshow act. The evil ringmaster would taunt Feral in his cage, bringing out his Razorclaw shift and charging people for the view. At the last town/city that the show was in, Feral was helped escape by one of the other freaks. He tore out the ringmaster's throat, and knowing that he had to get out of town quickly, he signed on with the caravan as a guard. Some day he plans to get his revenge on the Warlord who wiped out his clan.
Feral's catchphrase: "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."
Tales-Our-Ancestors-Tell
Tales
Tales' spirit companion
Tales tribe's crest
'Tales' for short is a human shaman who wanders around with a spirit companion. Most of his powers are focused on supporting, protecting and healing other people.
He is a member of one of the tribes roaming the Red Sea desert. When Caravan through the Red Sea started he was just on his way back from a Hadj, a pilgrimage, to a place where shamans of different tribes meet to tell each other the stories of the heroes of their tribes, so that all can remember them.
Appearance: covered in tattoos of writing; he is a walking book of the stories of his tribe's past.