Mediums and Messages

Eyes Unclouded - Session 11

A. Cornillon. "Edible Mushrooms" from Atlas of mushrooms: edible, suspect and poisonous. 1827.

These are the records of a lightly modified game of Cairn 2e that I am playing with an in-person group. I've expanded Eyes Unclouded, a now out of print collection of Studio Ghibli themed 5e adventures, into a more open-ended sandbox. You can find our last session here. I'll try to keep these spoiler free, so enjoy!

Some Downtime

This week our dramatis personae were:

The party had just liberated the fire spirit Igneous, leaving the Verdurous Court in a state of disarray. In the aftermath of the day's action, it became clear just how much the Court relied on the spirit for basic functionality. Without power, the towers had no interior lights, few accessible stairwells or bridges, and no ground level exits.

The party agreed to rest and resupply for a few days before setting out on their next expedition. This session, we followed Madrigal and September through this period.

The Library

With the rest of the afternoon on their day of arrival, Madrigal and September hit the books, gathering information on the Blue Woods itself - the flora and fauna that lived there.

Madrigal found a cache of books on the subject, presumably set aside by the absent herbologist, Ismene. As she had observed, the woods were a montane forest, mostly composed of evergreens with heavy scrub. She determined this would be good mushroom foraging territory and got a good sense of what they might find on an expedition through the woods. She made particular note of a "murderous truffle" - a rare and deeply poison fungus that can be prepared as a delicacy by a master chef.

September took a more direct research approach and petitioned Aviquin for access to any "curse-breaking" magic he might have in the library. The elder wizard said that there were no such spells in the library's general collection. September was persistent though and he agreed to lend them a tome of Dispel Magic. He warned that this spell was "not gentle" and that if cast it would likely have unexpected and catastrophic consequences in the immediate vicinity of its target.

The Roots

Having recently acquired the spell Speak with Plants, September wanted to go interview the roots that had intruded into the basement level of the Court. The area was still unstable, all the more so after having been battered by Ophiane.

The roots provided a complicated perspective on the forest. They belonged to a tree "cloned" by whatever weirdness was effecting the Blue Woods and thus were only a few days old. They had no memories to speak of and only really sensed things through vibrations in the soil and change in temperature.

September translated for Madrigal as the duo asked the roots about their origins, their goals, and the nature of the threats to the forest. The roots were vague and unhelpful at first, but the party soon realized the roots were in communication with the whole network of the forest. They could field a question to the Blue Woods writ large and get an answer back in a few moments.

Eventually they discovered a few key facts:

Madrigal and September thanks the roots and asked them to cautiously withdraw. September explained in great detail what the tower was and how the Roots actions might harm people inside. They complied and retracted, leaving a viable (if fragile) tunnel to the surface as they did.

The Library (Again)

The party spent a restful night in the comforts of the Verdurous Court, getting a great night's sleep thanks to the Nap Stone. In the meantime, Airen had startled to settle in to the Court, quickly taking over day-to-day operations like lighting candles in interior spaces and organizing supplies. She was used to a much more practical magical practice and she was quickly becoming indispensable.

In the morning, armed with new questions, Madrigal and September went back to the library to research Fyrir the Wolf and Eirnos the Deer. They learned that Fyrir and Eirnos fulfilled dualistic roles. Fyrir represented direct action and retaliation while Eirnos represented gradual change through constant pressure. Both were ways the Blue Woods might change or grow.

Fyrir, for her part, had been the one to act directly against the humans who had settled in Wealdstone when they first cross the River Alfiann.

Eirnos was believed to be long dead and was famous for having wed a human woman, Alfiann, to seal a pact between Wealdstone and the Wood. It was unclear whether this marriage was literal or figurative. Madrigal suspected that the vacancy left in the cosmology by the absence of Eirnos might be part of the Blue Woods' woes.

The Crate

Their research concluded, the duo split up to talk with specific wizards around the tower.

Madrigal sought Aviquin to help investigate the mysterious crate she had "freed" from a Purple Outfitter coach (way back in Session 1). The small box was addressed to one Alfiann Yve and labeled "do NOT open near soil." Madrigal asked if the Alfian mentioned could be that Alfiann, but Aviquin dismissed that as unlikely since she would be long dead. Still Aviquin agreed to help.

Madrigal used her trowel to crack open the crate. As soon as she loosened a nail, the lid burst open showering the room in a cloud of spores. The box was filled with green puffball mushrooms. As the spores landed they instantly desiccated anything they touch. Coughing, eyes aching, Aviquin conjured a bubble of force to contain the spores.

Through the bubble, Madrigal could see that each puffball seemed to be coated in salt-like crystals. She asked if they could test the spores' effect on soil next and Aviquin grudgingly agreed. He suggested they do any further experiments in the laboratory though, so as to not ruin his personal apartment any further.

In the lab, Madrigal slid a small potted plant into the bubble of force. As soon as she did, the plant withered and fell flat, as if pressed dry. Moments later the soil began to bloom as the spores spread with astonishing speed. They sealed back up the box (I assume? I just realized we never mentioned it.) and Madrigal thanked the cantankerous wizard for his assistance.

The Conjurer

September went down to the sub-basement to talk to the wizard Anais. The conjuration expert had not yet emerged from his bunker there.

September called to Anais and successfully persuaded him that Ophaine wasn't there, Igneous was freed, and it was safe for him to come out. He was a nervous fellow with round glasses and only a small dash of gray hair at the center of his forehead.

Anais turned and, with a wave of his hand, collapsed the room he had been hiding in. The doorway folded in on itself until it was no larger than a slip of paper, then he tucked it away in his robe.

September and Anais discussed a variety of topics ranging from the hazing practices of the wizards to the nature of Eirnos to the history of the Giants whose ruin the party had explored on the way here. In this last case, Anais put forward an interesting theory: No remains of these "Giants" had ever been discovered and the material artifacts that had been discovered usually had human-scale handles and controls. Maybe they weren't so giant after all?

The conversation turned to helping Evius. The poor illusionist was stuck at the top of one of the Court's towers with the mechanical stairs retracted and lacking any magical ability to descend. After some pushing from September, Anais agreed to help Evius down.

His approach left something to be desired. He conjured a pair of portals through a demi-plane where the force of gravity was significantly lower. Through it, Evius could slide down the walls gradually, but only over the course of hours.

GM Notes

Due to some illness and scheduling conflicts, we were down to only two players this week - significantly less than our usual party size but totally workable. We talked about how to proceed and decided to run a slightly short session of downtime since the party was right on the verge of making big decisions about their next short term goals.

This session involved a lot of improv on my part (and on the parts of the players)! September's player did say last week that they wanted to use the Speak with Plants spell to talk with the roots, but foolishly I didn't prep any specific notes on how they might behave. I figured it out on the fly, thinking through what exactly they could sense and what they would care about. Other highlights included detailed discussions of what kind of candies might be available in the middle ages and mushroom varieties that might grow in a fictional forest.

One hole in my knowledge that might be interesting to fill: what are the common properties of different types of forest? I had a mental image I was working from of forests I remember seeing on the way from Milan to Turin, but those were hazy at best. I think I could probably do a passable Virginian forest description and maybe one for a prairie savannah like the ones in northern Indiana. That still feels like a limited range for such a common category of place.

#Cairn #Eyes Unclouded #session reports