Cyrran Reaches: By Its Cover

Saturday November 23, 2013 at 7:00pm cyrran reaches, gaming, game session notes Comments (0) »

- Lily and the others guessed that the key impression in the cover of the book they'd found was made for the key the mephit had given them.  When they put it into the book, an opalescent sphere enveloped them for a moment, but the only further effect was the sudden arrival of an ice devil.

- Certain this book was the key (ha!), Lily continued to try to activate it properly while the others held off the devil.

- The party eventually incapacitated the fiend, but, knowing it would soon revive, they decided to flee the library - taking the book with them.

- They eventually found themselves in a relatively secluded room with a large statue of a dragon holding a glass-like green orb.  Lily and Kael continued to examine the book, but Taryn was interested in what they'd found.  As he approached, the statue spoke, asking him if he desired the orb and warning him that, if he decided he did, it was a decision that could not be reversed.  Feeling they needed every edge they could get to combat the current threat, Taryn took it.

- It took both Lily and Kael a few minutes to figure out the book's function, but, when they did, they discovered that placing the attached bookmark in one of the pages (each of which depicted a very specific locale), placing the key in the cover would transport the book and those nearby to the place indicated.  Removing the key reversed the effect.  In discovering this, they traveled to an ancient dwarven corridor with some sort of distorted or slowed time effect.  Inscriptions suggested the place was "waiting" for some divine intervention.

- They studied the book for some time, trying to determine which place the professor they sought (an elf called Valthious) might be in.  Ultimately, it was Taryns luck that lead them to him.

- When he realized the group was not sent by Jekri, Valthious was very happy to see them.  He was being kept prisoner as and expert on cosomology and the interplay of the planes.  Jekri wanted to know if and how the Arch could be weaponized - specifically, made to catasrophically implode.

- Valthious lead the group to a good place to rest - one of the more peaceful locales in the book - and gave them a scroll that could be used to allow their weapons to overcome the resistances of the fiends they faced.

- When the group returned to the Academy, the situation seemed to have worsened.  The walls of the tower shook, and an unearthly shrieking could be heard echoing through the halls - over an above the relentless grinding and pounding sounds of infernal machinery...

 

***

GMs Note: I'm quite proud of the artifact I created and introduced in this session, dubbed the Book of Urzen'Tu.  The book is a large leather and metal bound volume, covered with runes and with a carved resting place for a key in its cover.  It has a large, finely-woven bookmark attached to its spine.  

Inspired by Myst (one of my favorite cosmologies), the book contains detailed descriptions of hundreds of very specific places - each of which composes/occupies a (relatively) small pocket dimension.  Placing the bookmark at one of the location descriptions, closing the book and placing the key in its place in the cover causes the book to instantly transport itself and those nearby to the location described.  Removing the key reverses the effect, transporting the book and those with it back to the material plane.

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