They stand together in our wildest dreams

We invoke the Fomori

Strangers with the eyes of men

And they fall from grace

And they fall from light

Two hundred angels

Black rain from the clouds

And they fall from grace

And they fall from light

Blackened forsaken tears

Snake down my face

The high order of the Fomori

The sons of god, they never dream

Strangers with the eyes of men

  • Lament of the Watchers

[Faustus’ note: We have played 3 or so sessions of Undriel, of which only the last two sessions I have joined, and for reasons unrelated to the game I haven’t been in the mood to do write ups. I’m catching up now with this brief summary of the two sessions I joined].

Background

The party consists of five members:

  • Ichimusai, a Milesian warrior who does not speak. Milesians are a type of giant cat-people, much larger than humans and hailing from a strictly heirarchical and warlike society
  • Leantoir, a human druid, a great bear of a man from a nomadic and empoverished background, who combines magic and a very big stick
  • Idril, a Sidhe Draoi priest. Sidhe Draoi are a type of forest dwelling ancient that resembles a humanoid grown from a tree. Imagine an elf that mated with an Ent.
  • Fellan Braeduth, an Aes Sidhe assassin with a very short fuse. Aes Sidhe are a more classic type of elf, though they’re of dubious morality and probably more Drow-like than one should be comfortable with
  • Xenobia, a human noblewoman, unwilling necromancer, who uses her powers to investigate murders, deaths and other unsavoury deeds

The land of Undriel has just recovered from a shattering war with a race of evil outsider-like creatures called the Fomori, who come in many forms ranging from the beautiful to the monstrous. The party are veterans of that war, who have teamed up to travel across the war-ravaged lands to a regional city. They have stopped at the town of Crois Arald, which sits at a crossroads south of the city they are traveling towards, and is beset by many troubles. Seeing the chance for fame and fortune, the PCs have decided to help the citizens of the town to deal with some of their problems.

In the first session (which I did not attend) they stumbled on a gang of Fomori and slew them without negotiating, in an orgy of spectacular bloodshed (or so I am told). They kept one survivor, who they handed over to the town guard. The next two sessions begin here.

Interrogating the Fomori

The Fomori proved to be a most accomodating prisoner, willing to answer all our questions without trouble, although the interrogation still took half of the session because we were so stupid and indecisive. She revealed that the Fomori gang they had murdered was part of a splinter faction of Fomori who had opposed the war and were fleeing east to the Kingdom of Reynes, which is offering sanctuary to Fomori who opposed the war. They were heading to a rendezvous point with the rest of the tribe, which would then take some secret faerie route to cross the oceans to Reynes. Unfortunately the PCs had murdered her gang and she was unwilling to reveal the location of the rendezvous point. After much debate they agreed that she was being honest, and let her go.

Bandit and bear

Having “solved” the “problem” of the pacifist Fomori the group decided to take on a clearer problem, a gang of bandits preying on caravans on the western road into town. They set up a simple trap consisting of a wagon decorated as a noblewoman’s wagon, with Xenobia riding the front of the wagon as bait and the rest of them hiding in the back, while Fellan stalked ahead. This trap worked beautifully and the bandits, unable to resist such ripe and easy fruit, attacked without plan or sense. The resulting battle was a vicious bloodbath, with half the bandits falling in moments and the other half cut down in the forested slope as they fled, one having his soul ripped from his body to power Xenobia’s dark magic and the other being gutted and left to die slowly. (Apparently a slow death from disembowelment is more civilized than being rapidly drained of your life essence by a necromancer!) They then followed the path to the bandit’s camp and killed the rest of them in short order. While they were searching the camp they were disturbed by an enraged bear because of reasons; Leantoir tried to calm it but this failed, so then Ichimusai cut the bear in half with one stroke of his katana.

Ichimusai is large, and deadly, and very very quiet. Xenobia likes him.

Dark magic in secret places

The PCs rested a little before setting out on their next adventure, a quest to investigate a group of caves near the town that had recently been declared off limits on account of their being the source of a plague or curse of some kind. They traveled to the area and found the caves, which lay inside a narrow culvert cut into some hills. Stone outcrops just inside this culvert bore marks in Fomori script indicating it was death to enter; intrigued and unworried, they entered. Near the cave entrance they found the bodies of two Fomori, who bore the same markings on their clothes as the pacifist Fomori the group had previously mercilessly slaughtered. Xenobia investigated the bodies and found that they were occupied by a strange dark magic that would animate them as zombies, and was able to disable the magic just before they rose. They appeared to have been killed by black magic, the same kind of soul-stealing weapon that Xenobia uses and marker of necromancy.

Concerned that reanimated corpses might be immune to normal weapons, Xenobia enchanted some of the group’s weapons with coruscating aurorae of shadows, which would disrupt the animating magic of any corpses they encountered. Ichimusai and Leantoir initially resisted this magic but finally consented, but expressed extreme distaste at the slippery, slightly greasy cold feeling it imparted to their weapons and the strange whispering of dying children that they heard whenever they swung their weapons.

Xenobia shrugged, and they ventured further in. Here they found more Fomori from the same tribe, some of whom animated and attacked them. They cut them down and proceeded until they found an inner cave where a necromancer was engaged in a horrific ritual, stitching together the body parts of dead Fomori to make new monstrosities that he perhaps intended to turn into an army. They killed the necromancer and his minions, though this battle was tough and his powers frightening. Behind the ritual cave they found a smaller cave where the necromancer slept and studied, in which they found a strange orb hanging in space, which was obviously some kind of communication device.

Obviously something big was going on here. It appeared that the pacifist Fomori tribe had been meeting here, and the necromancer had killed them as they gathered, though they could not identify his purpose. Some dark plot was being executed here, and it was obviously being coordinated from somewhere far away by someone powerful.

Tensions with the Morrigan

When the party emerged, covered in blood, from the caves they found themselves facing a large squad of Knights of the Order of the Morrigan. This order are a kind of elite military force among the Fomori, and this band had been wandering the local area looking for remnants from the war. They were led by a big soldier called Rumiel, but in their midst was a sinister black-robed woman called Aredhel. When they encountered the PCs a strange, tense encounter unfolded, in which they seemed somehow altogether too interested in the manner of the Fomori’s deaths, and altogether too aware of what might have happened here. At the same time the PCs immediately distrusted this group of soldiers, and tried to angle the encounter so that no one from the group managed to get inside the caves and see the clues of necromancy. No one could quite say why but we all had a suspicion that this band was connected to the deaths of the Fomori. Aredhel also expressed an intense interest in any survivors of the group, and the PCs immediately suspected she was looking for any pacifist Fomori who might be drifting through the area. During this encounter they managed to organize a formal cremation of the dead Fomori, and also managed to escape with their lives. Unfortunately the Morrigan somehow found out about their past prisoner, and sent scouts to town to investigate further. So after they had parted company with this band of ne’er do wells, the PCs also decided to rush back to town to see what they could do to protect their erstwhile prisoner.

And on this strange and confused note the session ended.