Idealogue

Semi-Amphibious Elves Large black eyes/ Grey alien-like looking. Semi-webbed hands. Live in large alpine pools along waterfalls.

Some use webbed wings to jump from pool to pool. One (legend) Elven warrior rides a beast (local apex predator), the Mole Scorpion, which suckles nectar of local poisonous flower, stores in sac. Squirts poison blobs in rhythmic fashion.

Local Mind-Flayer imprisoned in mountain cell with astral arm-band.

Imprisoned by larger, scarier cosmic beast, stored for later use. To escape he needs something untethered from the astral plane. MF has been warping Elves for eons, trying to escape, giving Elf shamans bits of magic. ********** Bridge of Gollinar (ancient hero warrior-king) Crumbled ruin of bridge over a vast chasm/canyon. Leading from the ruined onion domes to the back side of the mountain. Still has partial automated defenses (magic). Need a mage to get past them. A long causeway for combat on. The mountain's valleys are tropical rain forest/cloud forest but the rugged mountains above are frozen wastes where snow-ghouls prowl. *********** Session 2: Howling (Shrieking) Face-Suckers

Tropical climate. Eyeless reptilian. Green and scaly. A cry like an eagle's with a flutter. A large group of them shrieking causes minus initiative. Proboscis. Fingered claws. A chicken-like reptile that grapples and sucks your organs out.

Magic Staff A staff with a magic item: a cracked crystal, malfunctioning. A spirit inside (elemental) whose life drains out like a battery. Imperfect clairvoyance. Cracked-Crystal staff (air/water elemental/spirit) is found in null-chamber, a static storage lockbox in a wizard's tower, preserving the last days of life of the being inside it. Elven Archer's Sled/Glider.

A smallish, elegant vessel (Needed to get to high place in mission) One person vehicle. (2?)Foot stirrups. (Needs running start? Works only for Elves?) ************************** 3 beasts loose within walls. 3 Wooly Mammoths w/ breath attack They roar and their opened throats release rays of a small, blinding sun-ball. Dazzle Attack

************ Character: Gnome Barbarian Barbarian Shaman

Half-sized humanoid with a strange misshapen castle on his back. Gives him a strange profile when he appears, shuffling, out of the haze from the sun. A symbiotic relationship, a colony of gnat-sized intelligent beingslive in the castle on his back. Fairy/Elf-Mutation?/Elf-Insect Hybrid? They possess some potent magic and possibly an artifact but have adopted mutual aid with club-wielding mini-barbarian. They appear as glowing sparks when they fly. (Party needs something: object/knowledge) Castle has telescoping legs to release carrier like a backpack. Baroque architecture encrustation like a seashell growth done with magic. ******* Potion: Heals All Wounds Brings subject to maximum health, healing any/all injuries, erasing scars. Missing limbs regrow. Adds 1-2 points to Charisma. Does not restore those close to death but can forestall it. ******** Creature: Uber Shambling Mound A giant stupefied creature with an (abandoned?) village on top of it. The size of a small mountain. The creature moves unpredictably. One of the host of Mogari menagerie. Dangerous/criminal. Creature exhibits 'snot-rockets': toxic geysers which spurt occasionally from the paralyzed creature. **** MF godling was worst prisoner of prison ship crash. Put in make-shift cell in mountain. Uber Shambling Mound drugged to semi-sedate state. Small wizards outpost built to guard the area. Over time becomes deserted. Guardian in Corpse Tree is last one and things are unravelling.

Environment

******** 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. ************ Some ruins on the mountain here and there, a few old towers, a damaged causeway. Local flora/fauna equally mutated/exotic/hostile. ********* Wall Around the Cursed Lands (Broken Lands/Bitter Lands) The "Bosun" at the Gate There exists a large wall sealing off the area and the mutated creatures within it, the range of the MF's magic. (The 'Madness Effect': Saving Throws vs delusion/memory-loss become more frequent as they approach hell mountain.

Critical info about how to pass the gatehouse into the realm must be gained by accessing the memories of a dead man (getting absorbed by carnivorous tree) The last known servant-mage-guardian who knew the secrets of the barrier, its defenses, possesses this knowledge. It is known he is being digested by a carnivorous tree with snaky limbs. A body, dangling from a branch. His knowledge/memories can be gained by eating the necrid fruit of the tree (something civilized people view with the disgust of someone eating dog-shit) In the grove where it is lives a swarm of feral sprites which ride giant mutated moths. Tiny weapons sting the heroes. (tree near gatehouse? Just outside?) (Object: Search)? For Fusilier's Lance. Secreted (literally? Bio-Tech?) on mostly transparent crashed ship within broken lands. Lance of an elite guardsman. MF wants them to retrieve this object to make its escape. Prison-Transport ship crashed; a large flying vessel. (partly buried underground?) (From land of Mage-Kings)? Ship crashed at edge of river-valley. One long sectionof the flying fortress remains, as the wall marking the edge of the Broken Lands. Wall has gaps in it where pieces have separated and cracked. Strange mutated creatures escape from gaps in wall. Walls are strange material, neither wood nor stone, and hot to the touch. Corpse Tree is marker towards Broken Lands. ************* Rougish characters hang around the taverns, an 'interzone' type situation. An illicit/dangerous trade of theifs/magic-hunters and smugglers, the lure of wealth and powerful magic. (Famed Mage-Kingdom?) Story starts at mysterious trading city, desert/arabic in flavor. At river-mouth/estuary, as gateway up the valley into the Broken Lands. A sort of "Go No Further" for traders. Hundreds of years, and the locals have carved many warning plinths on the path to the tree. (The city exists on an otherwise barren island, a supply port for a large military empire. A distant power with naval fleet uses the port to store livestock and a number of warehouses/grain silos. Military movements in area to counter neighboring nation(s) and/or combat piracy) The city guards have a minimal presence on wall to keep trespassers out, but some can be bribed.)

Port of Akana (By all accounts, a thoroughly disreputable place) A port at a silty river estuary, spread on both sides of river mouth. To North and South East, nearly impassable mountains of granite blades and sandstone cliffs. Sharp granite ridges to the north. Silt islands at river mouth make navigation difficult. A handful of shallow canals run out from river to various warehouses. Much of city is seedy and derelict. Dusty, broke-down warrens. Brothels. Gambling. A stone fortified wall with guard-towers marks the beginning of the Broken Lands. In the plain beyond the wall lies the warning plinths and Corpse Tree. Beyond this is the strange wall with gaps. Hot Gates. All they encounter try to menace/hustle them. They arrive on a ship pulled by two giant enslaved fish on big chains. ******* One side of hell-mountain is nearly impassable, a long steep slope of loose scree, rocks and boulders. Frequent unpredictable rockslides. In places, overhangs.

Conception

Illithid Sorcerer King ******* A massive snow and ice-bound peak. An Illithid/Mind-Flayer Godling is imprisoned in a chamber bored into the center of the mountain. Hundreds or thousands of feet deep. He was placed there by a larger, scarier cosmic entity called 'Mogari'. Which may come back for him. (How is prisoner kept alive? Occasional victim dropped in cell?) (Do the walls seep immortality goo?) (Is the prisoner immortal/semi-immortal?) Mogari imprisoned him and handicapped his astral powers. Clamped on an iron arm-band: Guantlet of Sapping/Diminishment. A restraint which needs special release. Something needs to be 'untethered' to break the arm band, untethered to astral plane or earth. For many eons the Mind Flayer waits in a stupor, dreaming. He has called and influenced wild Mountain Elves to live near his prison. He longs to escape. They long to long to kill him and be free of his interference. Their shamans use magic secrets/bits from him. High high up elevation, the Elves live on the leeward/sheltered, sunny side of peak. A large plateau creates a series of several clusters of deep pools. The Elves living here have speciated; become semi-amphibious, pale, with webbed fingers. Large, bulbous black eyes, nictitating eyelid. They leap from pool to pool, burst out of pool with spears to attack. Some can glide between pools with rudimentary gliding wings. ******** First Challenge: To Enter the Broken Lands The Bosun's corpse/spirit Bosun been consumed by Corpse-Tree. Swaying from boughs in vine-ball net. Gross fruit sprout from the pod. Corpse Tree is surrounded by human bandits who have tunnels dug around the clearing. (Steal the Heroes stuff?) (The Bosun was the only survivor of crash?)x Escaped beasties. Bosun was final guardian till absorbed by Corpse Tree, a mutated plant from ship's hold. Heroes learn of powerful weapons in the ruins. Bosun's corpse has objects hidden on it, they learn from eating the dog shit memories: 3 potent arrowheads for dealing with the escaped creatures. The arrowheads must be bathed in the heroes blood as a sort of tag, so the weapons will know them and be no danger to them. (Arrowheads of holding? Imprison targets in stasis?) Memories of Bosun are needed to know secret words to get past defenses, knowledge of creatures, and where valuable artifacts are in ruins of Mage-Tower city. The corpse of the Bosun: A powerful Fighter-Mage, now mummified. Possessing very fine armor and weapons. A noble figure. (Guardsman amulet: entwined snakes?) ************