10 February 2010
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net
ROGUE FEED
Dwimmermount, Session 30
FEB 09, 2010 08:20A.M.
The party continued its explorations of Dwimmermount, fully mapping
— or so they believe, at any rate — the entirety of the catacombs beneath
the temple to the Iron God. This left them with two options: return to
Muntburg or Adamas or look for something they might have missed
previously. Brother Candor suggested they consider looking more closely
at a “mechanical table” they’d seen earlier. The table was festooned with
gears, knobs, and dials, and was placed at the center of a series of tracks
that led away in various directions. He assumed that, properly used, it
might lead to areas of the catacombs as yet undiscovered.
A wandering monster encounter with an ochre jelly briefly interrupted
their experimentation with the table. Once the ooze was dispatched,
Vladimir suggested helpfully that no amount of mere experimentation
would yield any results unless someone lay on top of the table. This was,
after all, the purpose for which it was clearly built. This insight led to
some momentary worry that it was a dissection or embalming table and
that laying on it would result in death. However, there was no evidence
of blood or gore stains on the table nor were there any runnels along its
edge to suggest that such liquids were drained away when used.
After further discussion, Brother Candor decided to trust in the Lady and
get on the table, while Dordagdonar operated its controls. After some
fiddling, he found a setting that caused the table to turn to face a wall
after which it seemed to lurch forward without even moving and Brother
Candor disappeared. Startled by this, the party then discussed what to do
next. Iriadessa emphatically stated that she would stay behind in
Dwimmermount, while Dordagdonar, Vladimir, and Gaztea all took
turns getting on the table and vanishing just as did the cleric of Tyche.
Those left behind were all henchmen and hirelings, who indicated they’d
stay only for a short time before returning to Muntburg to await their
masters. They were, after all, not paid enough to wait in the dungeon
indefinitely, especially when it’s possible their employers had been
forever lost.
Fortunately for the PCs, they were not forever lost, though they had
arrived — at varying intervals and out of temporal sequence — in a
featureless, foggy place. This place included solid ground beneath their
feet but little else. The characters noticed a light ahead and they walked
toward it, eventually seeing a translucent hemisphere inside of which
they could vaguely make out what appeared to a funeral bier upon which
lay the body of a man. As they got closer, the light become more intense
and the shapes within the hemisphere became more indistinct. Touching
the hemisphere, they found it cool to the touch but also permeable —
1
solid yet not.
Once again trusting in Tyche, Brother Candor passed within the
hemisphere, followed by his companions, and found himself in a room
made entirely of some peculiar metal. Vladimir licked some of the
surfaces to get a good taste of it and stated that it was some type of
adamantine but “with a spicy kick.” There were no obvious exits and the
walls were covered with all manner of blinking lights and whirring
machines. In the center of the room was a raised table that bore some
resemblance to the one that propelled them into the gray misty realm but
much more finely made. Indeed, many of the devices in the room bore
some passing resemblance to things they’d seen in Dwimmermount but,
again, more finely made, as if those in the dungeon were crude copies of
more perfect types.
Resting on the raised table was a man-shaped being in a suit of black
armor. He bore some resemblance to a statue they’d seen in the temple
of the Iron God, leading the characters immediately to think that
perhaps this was the Iron God. The figure was clearly breathing but he
did not move and seemed otherwise to be in a kind of stasis.
Dordagdonar boldly attempted to examine the table on which the figure
rested and then heard a disembodied voice in his head speak: “Greetings,
traveler. What brings you to this place?” After some effort, all of the
characters present were able to participate in this telepathic conversation
with the figure on the table. He informed them that his name was
Xaranes and that he had come “into the sphere” in order to find and
destroy “the shard” that had passed within it. He claimed to be “just a
man, no different than yourselves” and “a servant of the Makers.”
These revelations led to more intense questioning. Xaranes seemed to
have difficulty expressing his thoughts in words the characters could
easily understand and so his answers were often cryptic. As best the
characters could ascertain, he was from “outside” and was wounded in
his original quest. Convalescing here, he sought out a way to heal himself
and it was in this effort that he contacted “other men” to whom he taught
the secrets of “energy conversion” for this purpose. The characters
assume that these “other men” were the priests of the Iron God, whose
machines were made according to the instructions of Xaranes, albeit
crudely and according to the materials available to them. “The shard,”
they suspect, is the Eater of the Dead, which Xaranes noted was “but a
piece” of a larger entity whose “kin” have more influence “within the
sphere” than the Makers wished they had.
As the characters puzzled this out, Xaranes noted that he had hoped to
have been fully healed by now but that the flow of energy had long since
ceased. He wondered why that was. It was then that Dordagdonar
explained that the men he had once contacted were long dead, killed by
another group of men whose own beliefs were very different. When
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR riorio2@rogue-games.net 10 February 2010

Xaranes asked for an explanation, Dordagdonar said that they did not
know all the beliefs of these other men (i.e. the Termaxians) but that
some at least did not believe in an existence after this one and so deemed
the priests of the Iron God fools. Xaranes laughed at this, asking “Who
could be so blind as to not see the plan the Great Maker has laid out for
us? Who could doubt that this existence is but an antechamber to a
greater mansion beyond?” Dordagdonar made a feeble attempt at
explaining the Termaxians might think so, but did not press the issue.

Xaranes then asked the PCs to help him regain his strength so that he
might remove the shard from within the sphere and complete his
purpose. To do this, he would need someone to organize the effort.
Brother Candor volunteered and Xaranes then transferred into his mind
the means by which he could do this. It was then that Brother Candor
realized that the worship of the Iron God was the means by which energy
was generated and healed Xaranes. To heal him fully, he would need to
re-establish such worship. How he would do this — and what the high
priestess of Tyche would think about it — were the things he was left to
ponder as Xaranes returned them all to Dwimmermount.