Last updated August 7th, 2008

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Game Summary

Previously...

mp080322

Previously, on Mediterranean Plotluck... Ackrak, Ghamor, and Seikius successfully fought off wave after wave of hideous, monstrous frogs before destroying them utterly. They dueled another mysterious severed-head-wielding spellcaster that turned out to be a distraction from a sea monster that attacked their ship.

After they slew the strange man and chased off the sea monster, the party ventured one last time under the island and found the frog's home camp, and more importantly ... their treasure hoard. Decades of raids on local merchant ships ... all the loot collected in a single room...

...but they weren't prepared for a strange magical mirror they uncovered. Reeling and disoriented, the party was sucked inside the mirror, trapped in a dark, senseless void until they were released onto the rainy deck of their ship. Liola was there, along with their crew, and she informed them that one year had passed since their entrapment...

Overview

Episode 8

Date: April 19th, 2008

The rain pounds the deck of the ship and the naked bodies of Ackrak, Ghamor, Seikius, and Krok. They are all disoriented from having spent over a year trapped in the Mirror of Life-Trapping., though Ackrak refuses to believe it, going so far as to accuse the others of an illusion. Then Gycco steps forward and offers Ackrak a familiar greataxe and tells him that he recovered it from the treasure room. The party realizes all of their gear was left behind when they entered the mirror, everything except the two items they took from the hoard.

Scattered on the deck around the party are shards of broken glass. Liola tells them that she tried a number of different methods to contact them and finally extract them. She says that divination magic would only tell her where they were, not what their condition was. Since there were no bodies, she couldn't manage a raise dead ritual, either. She concluded that they had to be saved from the mirror somehow, and set about learning how such a thing might be accomplished.

Liola tells of how it took considerable resources, all of Occela's magic, and all of Gycco's researching skills to learn enough about the mirror that they might discover its secrets by yet other methods. It took the better part of the year for them to learn that the mirror was a prison, and that the only way to release the party was by destroying it. Then they had to determine a way to destroy the mirror, because conventional methods all failed. Finally, they tried the scythe, as a last resort, and successfully destroyed the mirror and freed Ackrak, Ghamor, Seikius, and Krok.

Though hard for the party to believe, there were few other explanations available for their appearance, and the appearance of their companions. Liola told them that she took charge of the ship while the party was away, and made her first priority to rescue them, even putting her search for her father on hold. Her only remaining goal before she turned over control of the ship was to reach the island of Lemnos to continue her search.

Liola also informs the party of the perpetual storm that began a few months after their disappearance. Cloud cover that spans from one side of the world to the other, with no breaking. Unnatural high winds, and sudden squalls that consume ships on the sea. Many people believe that the end of the world is coming, and that the gods have cursed the land. No one has seen the sun in almost a year.

Over a week passes on the ship, and the storm indeed shows no sign of breaking. Ghamor studies the tome he recovered from the treasure hoard, and Ackrak and Gycco catch up after their long separation. Seikius is pleased to learn that his goblin students, Gin and Hosper, have continued to train in his absence, and have advanced some in the time that he was gone. Without him, however, they still require lots of guidance.

The days drag on, and one of the crew spots land! However, as the ship makes its way towards the land, it comes under attack from a giant sea-turtle. A blast from its breath incinerates several crew members, and the party scrambles to the surface. Ghamor throws fireball after fireball at the creature, while it tries to capsize the ship. Ghamor's attacks seem ineffective, and another blast of the creature's breath forces Ghamor into unconsciousness.

The turtle tries several more times to capsize the vessel, though Ackrak and the crew manage to keep the ship steady. Finally, the turtle relents, and moments later the ship crashes! Those aboard are surprised to find that the land they spotted is actually a tangled mass of seaweed over a half a mile across. Here and there, the outlines of other ships can be seen, mired in the sargasso.

Quotes

ACKRAK

Gycco saved my axe.

Game Review

Jack was complaining about wanting a random fight. I almost, almost gave in. But then I had a better idea. The "random fight" became a vehicle to push the campaign in a direction I'd already been looking to go in...

EXP by Player

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EXP by GM

I advanced Ackrak and Ghamor's slaves to 4th level with this game. Part of the idea was to help promote them as side-characters, especially since they were hand-made underlings of the players. This made them only 2 levels behind their respective masters, which I hoped would encourage Don and Jack to bring them along on the adventure more. It ... kinda worked. Jack still uses Xiao Nan for a little here and there, though not really any more than before. Don continues to only *sometimes* remember that he has Gycco at his disposal.

Overall, I'm glad I powered up the cohorts a little, if for no other reason than to make them a little more durable, but it also helped fill in this great big "gap" of time, by showing how some characters had grown and changed during that time.

All the NPCs leveled up to match the party during the year the party was trapped.

Next Session

Date: April 26th, 2008

Link: mp080426