They live like we do in a world like our own. Their world, however, is beyond our perception. They are almost never seen, but sometimes when conditions are right the Taqriaqsuit can be heard. Have you ever heard the sounds of footsteps or the sound of talking or laughing in the distance but see no one around? Maybe it was the Taqriaqsuit. ...
Stories tell us that some Inuit have crossed over into their world, but few have ever returned to tell us what it is like. If the Taqriaqsuit invited you to cross over into their world for a visit, would you go?
Strangely enough, that's exactly what the characters in Legend of Hero have been doing this past week. Their shadow world is full of surprises -- such as treasure chests and their contents, in Hall of Heroes IV. HoH V finds them debating whether to continue exploring. And in HoH VI, our heroes find a clue suggesting what happened to their mysterious benefactor. (The clue has some fairly dramatic consequences, but you'll just have to read on to find out ...)
This weekend was Solstice -- we've officially turned the corner on the season, and days are growing longer rather than shorter. Hurrah! To celebrate, my gaming group and I sat down and roleplayed 'til dawn. They cleared out the campaign's first dungeon -- some undead-infested catacombs underneath the city hospital.
As they were advancing through the catacombs, they found an unexpected shortcut that caused them to end up facing both bosses at once -- which worked out alright for them, since the burly fighter with the two-handed sword scored a double critical on his first swing and nearly one-shotted the vengeance-mad demon-thing. The druid went toe-to-toe with the ghoul and it looked like they'd be mopping up pretty readily -- and then they made a big tactical error.
They set fire to the sad, ineffectual, recently embalmed zombie of a seven-year-old boy.
Crispy (as A.J. nicknamed the monster) immediately became the scariest foe of the encounter. Once he was on fire, his attack dice wouldn't roll anything less than an 18. He took the party apart piece by piece, lighting at least three of them on fire and bringing the mage to -6 HP before one of them dove past the ghoul to smother the mage with a wet cloak. I very nearly got a TPK before Crispy finally collapsed under the sustained fire damage.
The only explanation we could come up with later was that it was karmic retribution. The seven-year-old had originally died because our druid botched a Heal roll when trying to save him from dying from massive burns. So it goes.
Speaking of karma: kadyg brought home a new Tarot deck to play around with. It was given to her because the previous two owners found it too temperamental to effectively give readings with. She showed me the deck; I shuffled it, asked "So, deck, how are you doing today?", drew a card at random, and stared into the face of "Death."
I have a sneaking suspicion the deck will be on owner #5 pretty soon.