Stories and Journals
- Kulas-Dar and Friends (6)
- Lazlo's Travels (4)
- The Long Night (6)
- Vroomfogle (5)
Nightwings Campaign
- Chapters (9)
- Characters (0)
- Scrolls (0)
Chapter 02 - A Fistful of Orlini
3-15-6050 - Predawn
- That evening the Nightwings bring Tasher’s unconscious body back to HQ, somehow managing to pole The Blue Drake through the dark canals with Tasher’s bloody Boat pole.
- A short period of paranoia ensues. They change their clothes and try to clean up. Tasher goes up the roof, tosses his bloody clothes off and passes out. Everyone sleeps.
- Jerig is suffering from a cut arm. While Raen healed the muscles the arm is still hurting.
Chapter 01 - The Elgata Debacle
3-13-6050
- The Nightwings hang out at the Cold Barley Soup Kitchen - Tasher arm-wrestles, Jerig and Cricket cause problems, Raen identifies targes that may have valuable healing herbs in their possession.
- Rumors of brutal murders - bodies being found that have been ripped apart.
- Cricket and Jerig pick pocket some fancily dressed Y’nar man and he seems to let them at the same time he magically (?) makes himself look like Jerig. The man had a piece of paper stating that “the holder should not be in the company of known criminals”.
- Stole some Finrot (”fang”) and Fort (”sniff”) herbs and sold them to a “Yorell”. However the bad manners of boarding Yorell’s boat without invitation bought them a favor they now owe to Shaal.
- While poling along they see someone, or something, swimming (?) in the canal. How disgusting! Sel-kai canals are definitely not for swimming.
Garath’s Journal - Within Tarek Nev
What the hell is Yorell even still with us for? He is just the boat we hired. I can appreciate that there must be many rare herbs that only grow in such a volcanic place, and much wealth laying around. But that’s NOT why Kelgryn and I are here in Tarek Nev. Kel needs to destroy the Urloc, or destroy his sword, or whatever. I am here to witness what is going on, and to try to, if possible, keep such evil things from becoming powerful again, thus starting huge wars all over again. That would be bad. Millions of innocent people would die. If I have a chance to contribute to the prevention of such an occurrence, it is my duty to help. Yorell, on the other hand has already gotten us into trouble with his impatient, money and power hungry attitudes. Our new friend Aroth was nearly killed when Yorell jumped into combat (which he is not very good at) instead of trying to help him in other ways that Yorell is better at, such as healing, or blinding the enemies, or casting protection spells on him.
Yorell’s Memoirs
At sea, waters flux from the movement of the land beneath, the wind against and the pull of celestial forces above. On land, life shifts and sheds as nature bestows new demands. So shall you, my son, enjoy this close marriage to the essence flows. Only with the embrace of this dynamic will you come to the wisdom of identity.
Andorn SeaDrake to his son Yorell 5905 TE
My earliest memories of my childhood were of greeting the morning on a beach along the Bay of Ulor. My father and I watched the sun rise and then he would expect me to study the primer he had given me. That primer taught how to manipulate and control the essence flows around me. I grew in my proficiency quickly. I would use the flow to complete simple tasks such as raising the sails of our sloop or tying off ropes. Unfortunately there something inside me that tapped the flows directly. At times I drew in too much energy and it would explode around me. My father, through my life, helped me learn to control my energy reception, as much as possible, but for the rest of my life I would periodically have the problem of overdrawing the essence flows.
Tarek Nev
The day is overcast. The interior of Tarek Nev is oppressive. The living wall is silent and the Solaviers that shoot their deadly bolts are now as still as statues. You all wonder if the Demon Gate is as adept at keeping things inside the city as it is as keeping things out. The interior is in ruins. Some buildings remain intact but others are completely in shambles, unrecognizable as to what their original purpose was. Shadows are everywhere, moving in erratic motions.
Aranmor
Kelgryn sits on the beach looking intently at the orb in his hand. Inside the orb, in a translucent, azure liquid, floats the disembodied finger. The finger, slightly bent inward, swivels due south as the elf moves the sphere across his hand. When he holds it steady, the grotesque appendage uncoils stiffly in the appointed directed, as if to convey the sense of urgency from its lost owner. Kelgryn moves his hair locks behind his right ear. The newly formed ear has reached its normal size but the skin coloring still appears bleached against the Erlini’s olive complexion. Gryk is next to Kelgryn digging for a half buried shell in the sand. The ape suddenly loses interest, stops and jumps upon Kelgryn’s back. Kelgryn’s forlorn look breaks a slight smile. “Yes, I too am glad our stay here is ending. But I am still unsure how long our journey with the half human and the Lokaran will continue.”
The Long Night was my first campaign in Shadow World…sort of. It started in my own world but as I read more SW material the more I liked it and my world ended up morphing into Shadow World.
We started with Demons of the Burning Night but also used material from Jaiman and elements of the Grand Campaign.
While we started with 5 players, it turned into three: Kelgryn Dal’shrek of Urulan, Garath Talon’kara a retired Changramai warrior, and Yorell “The Seadrake”. It is their picture that is on the front page of this website.
It was an epic campaign that unfortunately ended before it’s time.
There is a lot more material: stories and journals that I have yet to post. Stay tuned.
The Seadrake in Danarchis
From the deck of the royal galleon Neela’s Favor, the new ruler of Danarchis, King Sephron, watched the descent of the sun beyond the horizon. Amongst the sun’s orange path over the waves, hundreds of fishing yachts trailed their nets behind them searching for hidden schools. War galleys, flying the Danarchan crest, drifted along the perimeter of the fishing fleet. The day had been a hot one and the crew appeared relieved at the cooling of dusk. Sitting lackadaisically at their posts, three sailors held sail lines and passed a decanter of Sel kai rum outside the view of the royal entourage. The crew and the royal servants slumped from heat and fatigue and either sat on crates or leaned against portions of the ship. A bard, who sat on the bow ramp, played his reed pipes quietly, keeping time with the rhythm of the waves.
My first time playing Rolemaster I was a kid and played in a adventure with my brother as GM and all his friends. It started with all of us having amnesia and finding ourselves shackled together on a beach. It was a great time trying to survive all the while figuring out who we really were and what we could do.
I tried to recapture some of that experience by running a version of the adenture myself. Keeping the pieces I could remember I generated all the characters and when we sat down to play I watched their faces as I handed out character sheets that were all blank but names. A campaign was born.
It was my second year at RIT and we’d sign the [photographic] studio out for a night and play RM - everyone was new to Rolemaster but they took the switch (from D&D) and never looked back.
The Bishop Lazlo Bennington made his appearance then with his bodyguard the Paladin Schlaade, along with the half-ogres Maul and Remonoga Gwackmung, Jason Ferency the Mage and the mysterious elf, Silk.
Vroomfogle was a player of mine that originally appeared in a campaign on the world Landrin. It was a very unsual campaign that was both silly and fun. Here are several bizarro stories written by the various group members and the GM. At first there was Lord Mythalnorin, Malvidicus the Damned, and Vroomfogle but later it was just the unstoppable duo, Malvidicus and Vroomfogle.
Abandon all hope if you delve into these twisted tales. The best of the lot is “The Bloated Catfish”. Read it, if you dare.
Janos’ Journal
I have been on the road with this group for a couple of weeks now. For the most part all has gone well. The report you requested on the group members is as follows…
Bad News for Silk
“OK folks let’s be real careful”, the Bishop Lazlo Bennington warned as the group of adventurers peared into the large hall. Many stone pillars, in rows, reached to the ceiling twenty five feet above. The air was cold on musty, for they were far underground. The pillars were decorated with symbols, which were not discernable from a distance. There was no sign nor sound of movement, except for the grunting breaths of the two gargantuan figures that stood to the left and right of the party.
The Gwackmung Tavern
It was aproaching late afternoon when Dalf got his first look at the city of Toreen. After three weeks of trudging barefoot through the Worldsedge mountains his muscles ached with every forward step and the sight of civilization he let out a huge sigh and crashed to the ground to rebandage his wounded feet. As he tore up the last of his cloak for bandages the scent of cooking meats and breads stuck him in his empty stomach like a giant fist.
With the storm…
Black clouds boiled on the horizon. The wind, which had been a pleasant spring breeze only moments before, ferociously whipped his hair and stung his eyes. As King Treebreaker adjusted his purple wig, he looked at the approaching thunderheads with increasing unease. Is this the storm that the wise ones fortold? He absentmindedly plucked a roach from his ear and ate it. Pink lightning laced the edges of the clouds, and the thunder seemed to sound like it was echoing across his consoiusness. It rattled his pointed teeth, and made his jewelry jingle. The storm moved ever closer. It seemed to even command the ground to tremble. THUD! THUD! THUD!
Deathreaper
It was a dark and stormy night and as the rain pelted the thick stone walls of the decaying fortress Deathreaper stared blankly into the large gem he was holding. Lightning flashed outside and as the thunder rumbled down the long empty coridors the gem began to glow with a pale green light. This was the time of reckoning for the leader of the death goblins. All of his warriors had been slain and he was the last goblin alive in a world of aliens far more violent than any he had encountered in his two-hundred years as master of the deathgoblins.
The Bloated Catfish
A young boy sat on the wharf, fishing well into the night. His luck had been bad recently. Actually, that is a major understatement. His parents were killed in a shipwreck, the house burnt down when he tried to cook dinner on his own, and he lost one of his shoes just a minute ago as it sunk into the lake. He had been surviving by catching a few fish and trading them for other goods at the marketplace. The last few days he had not caught anything. His stomach growled with contempt.
Arto-beela-choota
Arto-beela-choota the assassin crept silently through the underbrush. His black silk jumpsuit rustled silently as he stalked the slim elven woodsman as he picked his way towards the valley that the small green creatures had fled to. He had been searching for the home of the little green people for nearly a month now but things were not going well at all untill the other night when he overheard the elf saying that he knew the location of the “goblin” village. Arto snapped back into reality as his back spines rasped against a tree and realized that the elf had stoped moving and was whispering into the forest in front of him.
The Void
The void was a formless, timeless experience. In that void, known to most as the abyss, wandered many souls, one of which was particularly dark.That soul wandered aimlessly, it’s past a vague dream. The abyss was not a place of fire nor a wasteland of ice. It was simply darkness. Darkness occasionally lit up by memories that come in flashes. For this particular spirit, pools of fire and howling demons would have been more welcome than this. This hell here was eternal. An eternity of jealousy and rage, for here he completely lacked the one thing which mattered at all to him. Power. And so he wandered and his jealousy of the living grew and grew. Powerless,the dark spirit raged for untold yeas. Memories of life occasionally lit up the black void, but vanished just as quickly as they came. Memories of faces, lands and battles. But most often memories of a single object. A crown. Sometimes the dark spirit felt another entity nearby in the void. Close by, but never in contact. The spirit knew that this entity was related to the visions of the crown, somehow.
“Patience…”, the entity would communicate. This was the only communication that the spirit ever had with another consciousness in the void. It was this shred of hope that the spirit clung too for a seemingly endless amount of time…
Rebirth
Melgrin was lost. He had traveled farther from the caravan than this in the past, and always found his way back. But this time he had somehow gotten totally turned around. His father was going to punish certainly this time. He had already been gone eight hours. Melgrin was scared, but not because of the possible punishment. In less than an hour it would be dark, and the desert was a terribly cold place at night. Hunger gnawed at his stomach. There were also the nasty creatures that came out at night to deal with. He began to run. Melgrin ran until his lungs burned, and he dropped to his knees. The panic subsided slowly. He buried his head in his hands for a few minutes, and got his breathing under control. Finally, he got to his feet and surveyed the area. Sand for miles. Actually hundreds of miles he thought. That was when he spotted it.
Falnor’s Journal
Awoke this morning to find myself shackled to a group of five other people. None of us seem to have any recollection of who we are, or what we are doing here together, but any one of them could easily be faking the amnesia.
The Death of Karn
The graveyard virtually pulsed with malignant energy. A dark rain began to fall at midnight, while a lone, black-hooded figure stood before a tombstone. The stone read ” Master of silent death….. KARN”. If one was so inclined to get close enough, a low mumbling could be heard coming from the figure. Not in any language that most mortal peoples could understand. It gave the impression of the utmost evil. Thunder crashed louder as a black mist began to envelop the tombstone. The figure’s chanting grew louder as if to compete with the sky’s thunder. As the chanting grew to a crecendo, the black mist swirled faster and faster around the grave. The wind whipped the figure’s hood back, to display a face that would send any normal man running and screaming! It was the face of a dead man. No flesh remained on the skull. Only a bit of muscle and tendon held it together. But the most impressive sight was the bejeweled crown that perched on top the skull. Very few have seen it and lived. A red light glowed in the eye sockets. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the black mist congealed into a distinguishable form: that of a man. It only appeared as a shadow, but the first figure recognized it easily.
“Your service is required once again. And this time you cannot refuse!” the crowned mage proclaimed. He then began to laugh. The laughter seemed to amplify itself a hundred times over. It echoed throughout the graveyard, and even the rest of the city was awakened by this unnerving sound. Later, they would not be able to say what had awakened them. The mage spoke to the shadow form before him: ” You shall be my private assassin. In the form of “The Shadow” you will do my bidding. I have a task for you. Come, I will reintroduce you to some old friends……… HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA Ha Ha ha ha…”
The Death of Falnor
From the corner of his eye Falnor watched the crown roll slowly to a halt at Kulas’ feet. In the dim light he could see the tiny bits of hair and tissue still stuck to Zarofs crown, much of it he knew was his own. It had all happened so fast that his shattered mind couldn’t comprehend why the power was not his and why it had not shattered Kulas’ body as it had his. In his last moments of life Falnor watched as his dark skinned companion was wreathed in a shroud of black lightning that stripped his skin from his bones and left him a bloody servant of death. Falnors last thought was “It should have been mine, the power should have been mine…”.
At that moment a lash of black energy struck him and he faded into death. The deamon thrashed and screamed at the powers unleashed by the lich that had forced him into this pittiful world. Suddenly the flow of energy’s changed and the lich was forcing him down into a twisted human form on the dirt floor of the chamber. There was a circle of flesh missing from the bearded humans head and a pile of arrows spread out around it in a pool of dried blood. The daemon roared with rage as it fought the lichs’ power but then it made contact with the dead human and its mind was destroyed in a flash. After what seemed an eternity of darkness Falnor saw a spark of light heading towards him through the void. The light squirmed and twisted away from him but with every passing moment it floated closer until he could make out a vague humanoid form within the light. As the ball of light struck him he was torn from the world of darkness and slammed into a body that was not quite his own anymore. When he looked down with his new eyes he saw that his black skinned hands ended in six inch tallons and his arms were much stronger than he could remember. When he looked up he almost didn’t recognize his old companion Kulas Dar with his staff and his black robes and burning eyes.
“Welcome back to the world of the dead Falnor, you seem to have lost some weight during the change. Come we have much planning to do to reunite the rest of our friends in death.”