SCORPION HORROR

Rides a Scorpion-Mole mount, custom creature. Creature is slightly larger than a horse. Some empathic link with the creauture, slight telelpathy. Creatuire is fairly intelligent. Cat-like. Consult notes: biology. MS spits jelly as breath weapon. Acidic/dissolves and/or hallucinogenic stupor. The shaman kings of hthe lands gathered and extracted and purified the jelly for ritual use. * Local ecosystem is tied into poisonous flower/nectar and a beast who feeds on it. Bluish-purple thorned plant which grows all around the slopes of the mountain, all around Elves' area. Mauling thorns protect the nectar sac in the center, the size of a cabbage head. Thorns are super-poisonous (1 drop=Death). Nectar is hallucinogenic/magical. In caves and burrows lives the horrid beast, the Mole Scorpion, which has intricate and mysterious connections to the purple flower. Tribesman harvest the nectar from where its stored in the esophagus. A team of tribesman/young braves make ritual sport of hunting down MS to gather the juice. They know the creatures well. When braves corner one, they musically charm it, sync up with its 'rattlesnake rattle'. Some use hands and mouth ( re: Renegade movie), some have hand-instruments. They time the beat to anticipate when MS will spit. Then they must strike to get the goods in a flash. Blue flowers toxin coats a large tangle of thorns around the honey-sac. The MS's thorny, tough snout snakes in past the thorns unaffected. It reaches the juice with extendable tongue/mandible. (re: water bear) Heroes role in this: a) influenced by Illithid dreams (re: Call of Cthulu, called there) or b) influenced by by rumors the Elves plant, trying to draw out some greedy adventurers to break the stalemate. MF can't be reached, can't be killed. He continues to warp their people. He can't escape. (Githyanki shock-troops search for him) Local legend/Character idea: One of the tribesman who tamed and rode a MS and fitted it with chitin armor. MS sprays blobs of poison/nectar when attacked or cornered; loogie/spitballs. Concentrated nectar/nuerological toxin

Player Character Notes

Possible name Sasska. Cribbed from the Broken Lands campaign, detail borrowed from 'Son of Alfang'. Copnsult notes. Twin sister of Alfang? Different character entirely? She is a Fighter or possibly Fighter Mage. Barbarian tendencies. Specialty/Propensity for handling magical weapons. Her indetermined /unknown speies abilities: Alfang was a mong the race of astral traveler/interdimensional beings who guarded the Horde, living weapons stored on the crashed astral ship. She has the innate race abilities of sensing magic/dimensional magic. Ability to spot effects or occasionally see through illusions. Her psuedo-shapeshifting ability. Not shape-shifting per se but low-level synmpathetic magic. A natural, innate, intuitive ability to alter her appearance as long as it isnt super close range. A combination of sensing a persons mental perceptive threads and the ability to bend light around herself. Could be: Glint vs Gleam mode, or Glimmer vs Glamour. (((((( Glint: togive out or reflect small flashes of light. Gleam: to shine brigfhtly, especially with reflected light. Glimmer: to shine faintly with a wavering light. Glamour: An attractive or exciting quality that makes certain people or things seem appealing. In character terms, the effects could range from...momentariliy hiding or confusing sight of the character, like the bright flash of reflewcted light: gleam Seen out of the corner of the eye, not resolving into a clear, remmeberable shape. Or appearing a sa different person. ))))))) Rides a Scorpion-Mole mount, custom creature. Creature is slightly larger than a horse. Some empathic link with the creauture, slight telelpathy. Creatuire is fairly intelligent. Cat-like. Consult notes: biology. MS spits jelly as breath weapon. Acidic/dissolves and/or hallucinogenic stupor. The shaman kings of hthe lands gathered and extracted and purified the jelly for ritual use. Creature lays its eggs in the bodies of stupefied hosts? Fighter's appearance: dark haired, babrbarian looking. A hand-made suit of armor: pieces of the chitinous , tough hide of other mole-scorpions, tied around her together with sinew. The hide pieces are a natural deflector of the acid-jelly. Artifact: She carries the staff with the cracked crystal pendant, containing a n air elemental. The holding device binding the elemental id damaged and leaking magic essence. Can only be used a handful of times, then the elemental will be gone. Consult story notes from BL and source book regarding rules guidelines. Melee weapons: javelins/spiked nunchucks/curved blade-scimitar.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://brokenlandsarchive.blogspot.com/2018/09/environment.html xxxxxxxxxxxxxx It is revealed from the memory-trance, among other things, that Alfang had a son: a brilliant, gifted, complicated, morally-conflicted son. Entire chapters here have yet to be sketched out, but the overall arc would be this... SoA (Son of Alfang) was destined to become a mysterious wanderer, an unpredictable, perpetual terror among the hills of Akan. The erratic warrior who rides a mole-scorpion and wears chitin armor. At some point in the past, Alfang took a mate among the city dwellers. Human or Elf. Soa was born of this, yet his entire existence is a battle between the 2 sides of himself..a battle physiological and psychic. of Alfang and his race: They are effectively immortal, existing in their base, dormant state as a 'shroud' of energy.The ability to alter this energy shroud at will is an instinctive ability of theirs. This ability is nWhen SoA was born, he was something of an accident. In keeping with the need to remain hidden from the populace, Alfang never acknowledged him. Alfang gathered together 8 orphaned children..girls and boys from the docks and slums of Akana, and began training them. SoA was the 9th, thus his mysterious sigil on his shield bears a '9'. As youths in their training regiment, Alfang could never acknowledge SoA, but he constantly showed him favoritism. Over the years this developed into tensions and bitter rivalries among the wardens. Many times in training, Alfang would offer praise or reward for being first to complete a challenge, knowing SoA was fast and sharp and uniquely gifted. SoA complains that this makes the others hate him but nothing changes. After more tragic events, likely the death of the squad, minus SoA, he goes off to live with the amphibious elves of the upper, alpine lakes. Malcontent and estranged from his father, he wanders the zone around the mountain, sometimes helping adventurers, sometimes leading them to their doom. His motives: opaque.ot precisely illusion. Yet they are mostly insubstantial. Being dimensional travelers, they have very little effectiveness once seperated from their material bodies.

The Story So Far

Into The Broken Lands ********************************* Blackfoot and Hugh make their way to the crossroads which are the true entrance to the Lands. Known as the Lost Crossroads, they are an abandoned, destitute place. Falling down structures in a scrub-brush landscape among a dusty, umber glow. A signpost points in dead script towards dead villages. The heroes set off towards Akital, the wizards outpost, now a ruin. A second sun appears in the sky, with an arc of plasma between. They come upon the spectral form of a mysterious dwarf. He seems to be trying to speak but quickly winks out. A few turns down the trail, they encounter the same dwarf, embedded in a stone from the waist down. He writhes a bit but cannot speak. Search reveals a square-tipped blade near him in the tall grass. The heroes leave it within reach and continue. Oversized insects buzz through the area: wasps as big as house-cats, butterflies with several-foot wingspan. The terrain becomes thick with copses of succulent-type plants as they approach the ridgeline covered with tropical forest. They skirt the edges of a bog and allies appear. memories tell Briar that the small horde of mud-men/homonculi which appear are a product of the magical anti bodies of the island. Diminuitive proto-golems made of clay and mud, they accept commands and are helpful crossing ravines and ascending embankments by making a bridge of themselves and stacking into pyramid formation. Upon approaching the front gate of Akital, an overgrown complex of onion-domes in the jungle, the shrieks of the Faceless Shriekers are heard and strange lights flicker from within. With the homonculi taking the lead, a strange force ripples the air and seizes a number of them and dismembers them. Further in, they encounter an egg-clutch of the shriekers, an alcove thick with mucusy-membranes. A quick battle ensues when the shrieker bursts around the corner: a pale hairless ghoul with a blank head except for a long snaking proboscis. It has 3 talons on each limb and its legs bend backwards like a cats. A scimitar strike from the druid ends it. Searching deeper into the structure reveals the chamber of the archmage. Against a wall is a strange mirror with a stout stone box below it. The mirror shows a strange reflection: Briar's reflection is that of AlFang, in full shaman head-dress and regalia. Behind him crawl spectral things; softly glowing blue and green centipedes and things either plant, animal, or insect crawl in the reflection. Intuition tells him these are another expression of the islands magical defenses/antibodies. The stone box/stasis box contains the crystal staff holding Othon the Air Elemental. The sky sled rests nearby, concealed behind debris. Further noises in the ruin sound closer. A wall of broken stone collapses, nearly trapping them in rubble. A second Shrieker appears, larger and darker. The mud men do their best to encumber and grapple with it long enough to mortally wound it with another scimitar strike. Turning a corner to the room with the flickering lights, they come across the Arboga: a multi-dimensional mutated squid humanoid drawn from the interstices by a hunger for magic. It has stealthed itself by spreading its tentacles out in a blinding sensor-null net. It wounds them with barbed tentacle strikes but is overcome when Briar hurls a magic arrowhead at it with his sling. The powerful magic of the arrowhead glows and smokes and sputters, incapacitating the horrid creature. The mudmen lift the Arboga and hurl it into the fractured dimensional armature device in the center of the chamber. The monster elongates and disappears into a rip in space. Shortly the staff is applied to the Sky sled and the party take flight through a gap in the dome. The watercourse next to the structure resolves into a waterfall which falls upward, into the sky. Ri learns to channel the power of the air elemental and they flit off.

Faceless Shriekers

Faceless Shrieker unsightly creature XP 200 Init +2; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +4 DEFENSE AC 15, touch 13, flat-footed 13 (+2 Dex, +2 natural, +1 size) hp 5 (1d8+1) Fort +1, Ref +2, Will +2 OFFENSE Speed 15 ft. Melee claw +2 (1d6+1/×3), bite –2 (1d3) Special attack striking proboscis STATISTICS Str 12, Dex 14, Con 13, Int 9, Wis 10, Cha 9 Base Atk +0; CMB +0 (+4 trip); CMD 12 (18 vs. trip) Skills Perception +4, Stealth +14, Swim +13 About 4 feet long from head to claw tip, they appear to be half-goblin and half-squid, violent, ravenous creatures that suck out the organs of things that scream and cry.

MUTATED OCT

Mutated Octopus CecaeliaCR 5 XP 1,600 CN Medium monstrous humanoid (aquatic) Init +4; Senses darkvision 60 ft., tentacle sense 10 ft.; Perception +1 DEFENSE AC 18, touch 14, flat-footed 14 (+4 Dex, +4 natural) hp 45 (6d10+12) Fort +4, Ref +9, Will +6 OFFENSE Speed 30 ft., swim 40 ft., jet 200 ft. Melee mwk spear +11/+6 (1d8+4/x3), 2 tentacles +5 (1d4+1 plus grab) Ranged mwk spear +12 (1d8+3/x3) Space 5 ft.; Reach 5 ft. (10 ft. with tentacles) STATISTICS Str 16, Dex 19, Con 14, Int 9, Wis 12, Cha 11 Base Atk +6; CMB +9 (+13 grapple); CMD 23 (can’t be tripped) Feats Combat Reflexes, Weapon Focus (spear), Weapon Focus (tentacles) Skills* Stealth +13, Survival +10, Swim +12 (+20 if including missing +8 bonus from having Swim speed) Languages Aquan, Common SQ amphibious Tentacle Sense (Ex) While it is not grappled or grappling, the cecaelia can spread its tentacles wide to form a sensory net around it. This grants blindsight to a range of 10 feet and lasts as long as the cecaelia concentrates. While this effect lasts, the creature cannot attack with its tentacles or move. Cecaelia stand 6 feet tall on land, and weigh just over 200 pounds. They prefer not to wear armor, though when they do, they prefer light, flexible varieties. Tattoos are a common form of decoration as well. Cecaelias are inquisitive creatures, but wary of strangers, and are quickly frustrated by wordy attempts at diplomacy—which they nearly always view as attempts at deception.

Supp Notes: S3

If Blackfoot eats memory fruits= Permanent increase +3 Wisdom/ +3 Intelligence. +1?Consitution **about 700 years old. **can cast basic illusions about himself for disguise.** Blackfoot/Alfang...// Secret passwords, knowledge of creatures and artifacts. Fusilier's Lance will resist those of evil alignment. Youthful prank gone wrong, unleashes horde, kills his people, destroys outpost, creates automaton battle, causes an earthquake which opens up giant chasm/ canyon in center of island. Canyon populated by rock-hoppers (Xithgri), originally small, mutated by broken lands magic. ********************* **The Volrath..skeletal knights, the shambling ghosts of the old guardians. Falling apart, hardly much of a threat .(Knights of Volrath, part of a magical anti-body infection in the Lands. 5 of the remaining warrior-mages, standing watch over the entry to the crystal ship. Properties of the Lands. Conflicting magical energies on the island ; the unleashed magic power of the horde versus the magical essence of the Mogari..the imprint they left, their remaining psyches. The forces which re-animate the knights act as infection in the lands, a poisoning effect. **** A ragged band of Prowlers lurks nearby..( ragged band of prowlers creeps around the edges of the battle...mutants from the zone who Rob travelers. 'Prowler' stats. A complex playing field. Play order for next S: strange doubling of suns. Eating of corpse fruit is so unpleasant that only one who is driven to discover the mystery would do it. Collapsing skeletons, band of prowlers: all disparate beings who sort of drip, and are a semi-hive. And dazzle-mammoths. Part of data dump is understanding new contexts and connections with characters in town who were influenced. Othon the air elemental once had brothers..xenon and argon. Seems likely that the fusilier's Lance is one of those blow-up-in-your-face weapons.. maybe the control mechanism is missing and it could run unpredictably w max power. Maybe to get Lance to function will require the glowing stone that is in the mysterious lantern. Not so much a power source as a modem, tapping into extra-dimensional energies. Accessing the hardware that is present. Instead of creating a transport tunnel through matter, the Lance vaporizes. So maybe both items are required to finish the quest... It's revealed that the ceremonial dagger and sheath that the druid has actually contains an embryonic creature within it's gem. It is a tracking device of sorts, and eventually the crab like creature in the gem will become too large for it and break it. History/memory: a character who wore the thing on his hand as a weapon..(Live-Claw)

The Burden of Alfang

The awful fruit is dissolved in your mouth like the dessicated husk of a thousand year old mummy. It is absorbed, and takes root. A tracery of veins blossoms and burns the brain hemispheres. Shooting tentacles of deep memory burrow into the fugue. Your entire body feels splayed out, exposed like the raw nerve under a tooth. A whirlwind in your mind unfolds an entire library of compressed memories. A world unknown to you dilates and overlays your own thoughts and senses. It is as if you have turned a corner and are confronted with a vast, complex vista which goes on for miles. A new personality takes root inside you and reveals its secrets and experiences. And above all, it's tragic burden of guilt. *********** My name was Alfang, and all that I was belongs to you. I was the last of my people in this place, the last of those who guarded the Horde. My people, the Mogari, watched over this island for thousands of years. An accident brought us here, and, forced to improvise, we kept dangerous forces in check to protect the life of your world. Our vessel, bound from another plane, suffered damage and was forced down on this island; at the time, a barren, sparsely inhabited place. The cargo of our crystal ship: a fearful arc of living weapons. Creatures gathered from across the planes, tools meant for the conquests of the Mogari. Nearly all escaped when the great ship was shattered and buried itself in the earth of this world. Our leader was killed in this conflagration and only 60 or so of my people remained. They are extremely long-lived, and did what the could to safeguard the dangerous menagerie. The worst of the entire bunch was sealed in the mountain, entombed in rock. All was stable for thousands of years, until my life began. I was the first and only child born to this small colony of my people. As a rebellious youth I unleashed the dreaded powers pent up here and my mistake is one which can never be repaid, for it led to the death of all of my people. Chafing at the life I was born into and all the restrictions which it demanded, I committed a careless act of mischief which had far-reaching consequences. Tinkering with the powerful magic of the spirit-seals which held the Horde vault together, I unwittingly released doom upon the other Mogari. I had only meant to render the beast Hraxen, among the worst we guarded, visible from its spectral form. What I had meant as a harmless prank, thanks to my ignorance and novice skills, unleashed the energies of the vault and freed everything within. The Horde destroyed our colony outpost and were scattered across this island. Containing all of them was no longer possible, even if I was not alone. The others have been gone now for 700 years and I remained, trying to sweep up the destruction I wrought. Some of the beasts I have managed to kill, some, to corner, and others, to subdue and befriend. Yet there is one unspeakable horror, locked away, that even I had no knowledge of. The very worst of this Horde was secreted away in an unbreakable tomb with our most powerful magic. A mind-block was implanted in me regarding this beast, a gap in my knowledge of the Horde. The only way to keep me safe from it. And yet still I can feel the influence of this unknown beast, the tightening and warping of its bonds, how it slumbers restlessly in its cradle of stone. When I broke the Horde vault open, it must have provided a crack in the binding. The box which held it opened a fraction, and its chaos has infected this land ever since. A slow unraveling is taking place, one which will end in either the destruction of this monster or our own. Somehow, the mind-walls put in me prevented me from approaching the cell of this creature, and the other defenses my people left in place keep it well-sealed in. But it calls out through dreams, it twists the fabric of this world. In its torpor it struggles to be free. Over the centuries I shaped this land, enticing the city of Akana to be built, drawing explorers to it, all in the hope that I could redeem myself. The illusion skills I had allowed me to come and go from the port at will, and so kept an ear to the ground. It was a very long chess game. The horror works through rumor and madness to free itself, and adventurers from every continent hear its call. The Hraxen beast remains in a struggle with the 3 remaining automaton guardians of our fallen crystal ship. It is a stalemate which has lasted centuries. It is not strong enough to completely escape this plane, and the automatons were not built to kill it. This spectral battle erupts periodically and wreaks destruction upon the lands. It is clear that the beast in the mountain has used this conflict to try to free itself, as well as influencing the other living things in this region. This unknown creature must be killed; a formidable, dangerous task. Knowing that my wounds would end my life soon, I did what I could to prepare the way for those who would follow, to finish my work. I have hidden powerful tools and items in various places. When it was clear my death was imminent I gathered myself into the boughs of that vile tree, hopeful that brave souls would eventually come to take up this task. The 3 arrowheads I carry are powerful magical tools crafted by the mages of the crystal ship. They can subdue most any creature, but can be dangerous and unpredictable in their effects. They are the key to entering the lands, finding the sunken ship, and retrieving the only weapon which can destroy the unknown beast in the mountain.