Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Interlude

Hi.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure what to write about next for Hekinoe. I would like some input from you guys. So please, enter some questions, or something, into the comment section. Give me an idea about how to proceed with breaking down the Psychogenic Fugue arc. I have some ideas about what to write about, but it is like end game stuff where Derf hunts himself down and becomes one with the Source and becomes a prince of the universe with the blood of kings within him and whatnot. Heh, sometimes I really miss Tony playing DnD.

To continue. So, I've been thinking about starting to play DnD again since I am unable to attend my company's paramedic program this year. Since I intend on signing up for it next year, I am hesitant to do anything with Hekinoe. I really don't want to get into something deep and plot heavy and have to stop mid stream like we have just recently. I mean, I am enjoying breaking the arc down and filling the guys in on details, but I would have liked for it to happen more organically through play rather than through a series of rambling articles on my blog. 

One of the things I have been considering is running 1st Edition AD&D, something "classic" like The Village of Homlett/Temple of Elemental Evil, or White Plume Mountain or The Tomb of Horrors. Something old-fuck-school. Another part of me wants to create some fairly formulaic high-ish fantasy setting and just play some AD&D rules as is in my own world. Part of the reason for that is that I am jealous of this dude named Alexis that writes on The Tao of D&D.

I used to read the blog semi-religiously, however, I don't really care for what I perceive as the writer's arrogance. He is very eloquent and has a lot of cool ideas though. My jealousy stems from the fact that he has been playing AD&D for multiple decades, to the point where he no longer plays AD&D because he has made the rules into something that fits his style and his player's style through various house rules and tweaks to the system. He took TSR's product and over a decade or two has turned it into something that is his, rather than theirs. I would love to do something similar. Every time a new edition comes out, I end up eventually turning to it, make a few tweaks here and there, but never anything truly game changing. We played 4th Edition for so short a time I don't think I actually changed anything from the rules as written.

I dunno, I just think it'd be cool to take something and turn it into my own thing. I think it would also be cool to play something rules light and goof around with THAC0 again. Also, Wizards is rereleasing special editions of the 1st Edition AD&D PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual in April and I want to own them. 

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Breaking Down The Psychogenic Fugue Arc: The Wizard

Krieg Byr'ger disappeared on the guys. They put forth some effort and coin to try and figure out what happened to him when he disappeared from the Necropolis and discovered that he had been captured and stowed in a basement in Meroteth in less than six hours. They also discovered his true identity was Krieg Zauber'konig, Nakmander Zauber'konig's son. By the way, Zauber'konig is some half-assed German for sorcerer/wizard king. Kudos to Jeremy for picking that up almost immediately, it earned him one hundred bonus experience points. Eric earned one hundred bonus experience points for figuring out almost immediately that the guys were clones, hehe. 

So Krieg was kidnapped and stowed in a basement in Meroteth. What happened? Why? Here goes. Krieg was captured by a group of sorcerers, they easily overpowered him and the Fallen and Soulless guarding the library took no interest in the goings on, as their books were unharmed by the conflict. They then teleported Krieg to Meroteth. Krieg went down rather easily, he is tough, but in no way was he equipped to win against a half dozen skilled sorcerers. These sorcerers were enforcers working for Nakmander with the specific purpose of tracking his son down and bringing him home.

Nakmander and Krieg have very strong idealogical differences. Krieg also blames his father for the death of his mother. Nakmander desired Krieg to join his empire to continue the Zauber'konig line as the rulers of Meroteth. Nakmander has the Longevity trait and the Immortality feat, so his lifespan will likely be long, but it is by no means guaranteed, and he wanted his heir to continue his work. Basically their idealogical differences relate to the artifact. Krieg believes it is too heavily relied on, which has made his father desperate to find a new defense, like the Fell Soulless and his massive cloning project. Krieg did not know the guys were clones.

Eventually, when their power level or interest was sufficient, I would have given the guys a quest or whatever to rescue Krieg. An aging Fell Human sorcerer would have met them in some shadowy dive bar and spoken of a need to recover young Krieg Zauber'konig. This sorcerer would have called himself a relative and stated he had great affection for young Krieg. He would have been cagey and reluctant to a lot of their questions, but he would have admitted that he is related to Krieg and Nakmander and sought to free Krieg from his captors.

The guys would have, with the backing of this sorcerer, located Krieg's hiding place (he would have been moved by this time) and stormed the place with guns blazing and cut their way through heaps of sorcerers and finally rescued Krieg from his captors. When they brought Krieg to their patron, they would have discovered that all was not as it seemed. Shocking!

Krieg would have reacted very strongly, the sorcerer was his great uncle, his father's uncle, and the brother of Smiling Jack: Mysterious Enemy #5, the father of one of the Fell Humans that were not acting in a militaristic fashion deep beneath The Fell Peaks on those floating islands. The sorcerer would have then proceeded to fucking kick the piss out of them all, his power surpasses that of even Nakmander. At one point ME #5 was in line to rule ALL of The Fell Peaks, he was referred to by the Glenwighta as "The Grey Shadow Awash With Flame" when he worked to conquer them and enslave their race. He is not immortal like Nakmander because his sorcery is far more powerful and literally consumes him from within. 

The reason for this abduction is because ME #5 wants to use Krieg as leverage against Nakmander and to force him to rejoin Meroteth to The Fell Peaks. ME #5 would have found a way to contact Nakmander, and because he knows who the guys are (magic did it!), he would have explained that Nakmander's clones are free and captured his son and turned him over to ME #5. Nakmander would have come for the guys almost immediately, and he would have come ready for murder. They could either attempt to explain things, fight (and possibly die, depending on their level, as Nakmander was level nineteen last campaign and has been waging war for the past several years, Daun'mok would be there as well and he is basically an epic level Druid/Sorcerer/Mystic Theurge), or just fucking flee, and things would have gone from there. 

The potential outcome of this arc could lead to a lot of things. If they haven't met with Nakmander yet, it draws him away from his efforts in the south, potentially stalling the battles going on down there. They could also die, or choose to join up with him, depending on how they feel about the whole clone thing. If they go after ME #5, they get to learn a lot about The Fell Peaks and the story of the whole Smiling Jack/ME #5/Nakmander family line. They also get to see not the fanatic Nakmander, but the scared father Nakmander as he fights against his older brother for the life of his son and the safety of his country. Fleeing puts them on the defensive again, with them struggling to find a way to hide from a sorcerer and druid that rule a nation of sorcerers. Good luck with that. If the guys were captured, Nakmander would have attempted to obtain blood and tissue from them to exert his mental control over them and everyone would have gone back to The South to wage war against Eldumans and Varanids in the hopes of conquering territory for Meroteth. If that happened they would have encountered the Gods of the Deep Earth and their Lacerat creator, along with some shadow monsters and a shadow egg. 

It was going to be a pretty cool arc, and I was really excited about it. Any questions?

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

Breaking Down The Psychogenic Fugue Arc: Memories

The following is the list of memories in chronological order copied directly from my DM's wiki. Some of them are a little oddly worded or phrased, but these are literally just my notes that I adapt during play when drawn. Some of them have the cards they were tied to bolded above them as well. 


The Following Memories Contain Their Iconic Weapons
The Magician
-Nakmander is the Braun mansion, you all are in the foyer, weapons out and murder in your eyes. He looks weak and injured, tired and sickly, there is a livid red mass of scar tissue on his forehead, and there is a long white streak in his hair above. His stance is humble and respectful, his eyes downcast, he wears no armor and bears no weapon, but outside, you can see a dozen of his sorcerers and they are prepared to unleash their power on you. In Nakmander's hands, wrapped in black silk, is a sword D'alton knows well, the sword that almost claimed Nakmander's life. He extends the sword to D'alton. He speaks, you cannot understand his words, but there is regret in his eyes and you feel like he is apologizing. He says something then, and grabs D'alton's hand and slashes it with his taloned fingers. He then slashes his own palm and repeats the ritual with Xein. Make a Sense Motive check for me. You get the impression that the shedding of blood is a symbol, you have shed blood for him (and against him), and he has done the same. There is no malice or debt between you all, at least on his end.

Ace of Swords
-You guys see Kethranmeer lying broken on the ground in the basement of the Braun mansion. His chest is a melted ruin of slag full of dents and gaping holes. His leather gloves and cloak are burned to cinders and you see that everything they covered is rusty and broken. Steel plates had been torn off of him and bronze and iron, or even tin, were bolted back into place. His hammer lies beside him, his copper fingers twisted and misshapen and barely touching the haft. You look up and you see that his five sons have come to reclaim his body from you, they are faceless, as he was, but they are new and you can see bits and pieces of him where he used his own flesh to repair the damage they did to themselves when A'lst's process stole their minds and granted them freedom. They shoulder their father's body and one of them approaches you, he has two axes across his back. He steps forward and gestures at D'alton jabbing a thick springsteel finger into his chest. He speaks and it is just garbled angry sounding noises muffled by the memory and the soulless gestures wildly back over his shoulder and you assume at the city around him. D'alton, and then Xein, begin talking, they look as if they are pleading with the Soulless you know as Mokethneer. He shoves D'alton then and steps away from the Fell Human and he and his brothers leave the Braun mansion. 

Ace of Disks (Twenty-Second One Remembered)
-You guys are in Meroteth. There is garbled noise and smoke everywhere, you're in the streets and your weapons are out and it feels like you're wading through a battlefield. There is a battle going on in the streets, not a celebratory riot like when Cenn was slain, this is war in the streets. The bodies of Kusseth soldiers and Merotethian rebels are everywhere, there is war in the streets and it has spilled over into your district and outside your very home. You will not sit idly by while your district burns around you.

Ten of Disks (Second One Remembered)
-You guys are looking at Tesla's Boil and the whole thing is torn apart. You and the regular employees are clustered on the street looking at your beloved establishment. Crews of workers scurry back and forth across the roof and main floor banging on stuff and carrying timber and stone back and forth. You are rebuilding the Boil, bigger and better and tougher than ever. When the crews are finished and business resumes, it'll take a Hell of an explosion to bring the sucker down. 

Nine of Disks (Fifth One Remembered)
-You are in an office, a large and well appointed one. Before you, at a desk, sits a tall Vyanth. Huge flaps of skin hang off of his thin body, as if he got extremely fat and then lost a lot of weight rather abruptly. You guys hand him a document. He has this obscene, shit-eating grin on his face as he is reviewing the piece of paperwork you just handed him. He smiles and stares at you guys with orange cat eyes as he brings down a large rubber stamp on the document. He hands the document back to you, and you see that the stamp on the paper says authorized. The Vyanth has also scrawled a fee in the appropriate column of the very official looking Kusseth building permit, the fee is for 15,000 marks. The Vyanth is still smiling when he waves a hand at you guys to dismiss you, you hear a distorted slapping noise through the memory as the skin flaps of his arm slap together.

Knight of Cups (Eighth One Remembered)
-You are in an office building, everywhere you look is the name Conleghelherr & Koel'hanker: Construction and Demolition. The office you are in is very nicely appointed. You are sitting down with a Child of Volung and a Fell Human, both are wearing frock coats and ties and watches and such. They are reviewing a pile of paperwork, and as they review a piece of paper, they slide it across the desk for Xein to sign. The paperwork is for a construction project spanning the next decade in five different cities in Kusseth, along with a district here in Meroteth. The Kussethian cities are Kusseth City, Tork, Corte, Tolon, and Caln.

King of Cups (First One Remembered)
-You guys aren't in Hell, you're in a city, but not one the size of Kusseth City or Hell. You guys are deep in an entertainment district and you are at a table overlooking a pile of blueprints and sketches. You are in the middle of a building site, you're the foremen of some kind of building project. There are crews pouring concrete, putting up the studs for walls. The air reeks of flame retardent and other odors associated with building. A steam lorrie sits idling nearby, chugging and hissing steam while its driver smokes a cigarette, on the bed of the truck, you can see a still. 

Four of Wands (Fourth One Remembered)
-You are fighting reavers at the main gate of the city. They bear the red armband that is their calling card, but they each sport a livid burn scar in the center of their brow, almost like a third eye or something. They are fierce, and the smoke wreathed battlefield is a ruin of blood and flesh, but they are failing. They're not nearly as organized or as tough without their demi-god of a leader storming around the battlefield with them using great ursines to tear down walls and such. Make a Heal check, the burn scars look fresh, like they're only a few weeks old.

Five of Cups
-Pyrel, Xein, and D'alton are in Tesla's Boil eating a meal. Without warning, D'alton and Xein leap out of their chairs and tackle Pyrel to the ground. Their eyes are glazed and they fight mechanically with halting motions. Nonetheless, they are competant hand to hand fighters and though it might be said that Pyrel is better, they have surprise and confusion on their side and they subdue him relatively quickly. When Pyrel is unconscious, Nakmander joins Xein and D'alton and he uses one of his talons to cut Pyrel's hand and collect a bit of the blood in a lead mug.

Nine of Cups (Third One Remembered)
-You guys are in a dogpile on Kethralzahn, Xein and D'alton are each hanging on a metal leg, while Pyrel rides the Soulless' back. Kethralzahn roars and charges around the mansion, his arms pinwheeling as he attempts to land bonecrushing blows against the meatbags slowing him down. This goes on for some time, until Nakmander steps out of a hallway and extends a fist wreathed in a heat haze of sorcery. Kethralzahn stops cold and begins inching backwards, propelled by some invisible force, until he impacts a wall and is held there. Once he is unable to move, Xein, D'alton, and Pyrel kind of go limp as well, their eyes go all vacant and they slump against a wall. Nakmander's fist goes intangible for a moment and enters Kethralzahn's first. When the hand exits the Soulless' chest, you see that there are three things in his palm. A bit of pitted red beltanizine, what looks like a withered piece of muscle tissue, and some ashes.  

The King of Swords
-It is after last call, you are all in a room you know to the be the Boil, you know it is after last call, because you're all cleaning up there. Xein counts the till, D'alton kind of stares off into space, sullenly picking at a meal and allowing a beer to warm on his table. Kethralzahn spreads sawdust on the floor and Ran'dahl and his creature are setting up fresh looking tables in empty spaces on the Boil's floor. Without a sound, D'alton leaps up like lightning, Ran'dahl's creature turns immediately and howls at D'alton, but he brings the warm bottle of beer down on Ran'dahl's head, hard enough to shatter it. The creature lunges for D'alton, but Ran'dahl crumbles to the floor and the creatures shimmers and dissipates into a heat haze of sorcery before it can tear D'alton limb from limb. After the sorcerer falls to the ground, Nakmander enter the boil and approaches Rand'dahl's fallen form. He leans forward and uses his talons to scratch a collection of Ran'dahl's scales off of the Fell Human and collects them in a small cloth bag. 

The Four of Swords
-You guys are in the mansion, it is just after dawn and Kuyst sits in the center of the main room on the first floor meditating, his owl sits on the floor before him. They stare intently at each other, as if communing with each other in some strange way no one could understand. They're so intent on each other that the rest of you can quietly and easily creep into the main room and surround Kuyst. Suddenly the owl swivels its head around and looks at you guys, its strange bird eyes staring at you knowingly. Kyust continues to stare at where the bird's eyes used to be. You guys approach Kyust and the bird just sits there, staring at you all, not moving other than to swivel its head. Kyust continues to stare off into space and the bird just kind of stares at you guys, still making no noise or movement. Nakmander steps into the room, looking fairly agitated, and shoulders his way through you. He leans over and with a quick flick slashes Kyust's forearm with a talon and collects the blood in a chalice. He turns to leave, and as he does so, the owl blinks and lets out an eerie, echoing hoot at Nakmander. Nakmander turns to look at the bird and it just stares blankly at him, then he turns and leaves. 

Ace of Disks
-You guys are in a bustling city, across the street from what looks like a shop, there is a sign on the front saying []. You creep through the dark city street and storm through the front door like a shock troopers, quickly rushing through a main show room full of guns and into a workshop. In the workshop, you see John, once a member of The Robust Five and you guys hit him like a ton of bricks. He's unarmed and all he has at hand is a leather apron, some black powder, and a wrench. He goes down easily, managing only to give Kethralzahn a dent before slumping to the ground. Once he falls, Nakmander enters the room and briskly slashes John's forearm with a talon and collects a few drops of his blood and collects them in a small chalice. 

Five of Swords
-You guys are in The Jigging Jackass meeting with Nakmander, John is with you as well, he looks tired and worn, like he hasn't slept  or gotten a solid night's rest in a good long time. He has a pile of papers out on his desk and he is gesturing at them. He's got a map out and he is pointing to Meroteth on it, then Kusseth, Vyanthnem, and The Fell Peaks. He's raising his garbled and incomprehensible voice now and gesturing somewhat wildly at the city out through a window behind him. He clenches his fist and bares his teeth at you and he bangs his fist down hard on the table. Make a Sense Motive check for me, Nakmander is desperate and he needs something from you guys, but he has nothing to offer in return that interests you.

Strength
-You guys are standing up and about to leave Nakmander's office in The Jigging Jackass. Nakmander bellows in anger and begins yelling incomprehensibly at you guys, except he's not just yelling. His words hang heavy in the air and reverberate like thunder. His eyes are glowing with sorcerous light now and black smoke is slipping out of his mouth as he speaks. You guys begin sitting, something compels your very bones and muscles to seat themselves in the chairs you just vacated. Then you feel the fabric of reality twist and the room explodes into warmth and fire. The Jigging Jackass is now on fire. You guys come to and choke on smoke, still seated in your chairs and unable to will your limbs to move. Nakmander is stumbling around in the burned wreckage of his office, but he is smiling and laughing madly at you guys. He raises his arms to the sky, the Jackass still on fire around him, and continues laughing like the bat-shit crazy bastard of a sorcerer he clearly is.

Eight of Cups
You're in a room you recognize, the meat locker section of The Jigging Jackass. The group of you are strapping Xein and D'alton to a pair of tables, and they are not really resisting you. You see Nakmander and another Fell Human in the room with you. The other Fell Human looks like some wizened shaman, draped in furs and hides, little bone and twine fetishes hanging from his wrists and ears. He and Nakmander are talking in garbled memory talk. Nakmander says something and Kethralzahn steps towards Xein while the shaman Fell Human begins chanting. Kethralzahn raises an aluminium arm and you see a cleaver in it, he brings it down on Xein's left arm, about midway along the forearm. Blood is everywhere, and suddenly Xein begins thrashing and screaming and trying to escape. The shaman finishes his chanting and there is a flash of smoke and light and the bleeding from Xein's arm stops and something pale begins worming its way out of the stump of his forearm. The process is then repeated on D'alton, although when the cleaver drops, it severs his right arm closer to the elbow. 

Knight of Disks
-You guys are angry, so angry that you can barely think, yet your bodies move of their own volition, albeit with the occasional pause or halting motion. You are in the Ward of Governance, in a government building, you can tell by the building address codes on all the doors. Nearby, you can see an office with the words "Sorcerer Magistrate" on the wolf-iron door, the door is flanked by two badass looking sorcerer types. Between you guys and the sorcerers are two dozen Brasscoats and you guys are cutting them down two or three at a time. When the last body falls to you guys, Nakmander exits the office and smiles at you, he gestures at you and the halting jerky motions of your limbs cease and you feel your anger grow. You step towards him, but he waggles a finger back and forth at you and you seize up once more. 

Nine of Wands
-You're in The Jigging Jackass with Nakmander, there are boxes everywhere and the walls are empty, it looks like he is packing. He presents each of you with a steam engine ticket leaving from the eastern border of Kusseth. The next thing he does is slide black leather billfolds at you, they contain visas of visitation and will allow you to pass safely within the borders of The Fallen Empire of Man. The visas permit you access to The Great Library of the Necropolis, but no other facility. Once within the Necropolis, you will lodge within the walls of the library compound and nowhere else. 

The Chariot
-You guys are on an armored steam engine hurtling across a desert, to the north you can see the mountains of Whurent, and to the south, more desert. You're passing through sandy, rocky terrain, interspersed with stands of bent and twisted scrub trees that you can see shaking and quivering. The living trees are a sign that you have entered Serethnem. The tracks extend as far as the eye can see, your engine is heavily armored but moving at a speed a lorrie or armored destrier could not hope to match, even muffled by the memory, the thundeirng noise of its engine is almost deafening.

The Empress
-The sun hangs high in the sky, but the city around you is chilly and alien. The streets move on odd angles and circle back around for no reason as the twist and turn around buildings made of odd shapes and heights, everything around you is black and glassy, like the walls of Meroteth. You pass through empty streets, your only companions are the six soulless surrounding you and their master, a Fallen. The Soulless stomp along, their clanking and clattering heard as weird distorted noises, and their Hellish red eyelights lighting the darkness of the twisting alleys. Your guide stops suddenly, as do his bodyguards, and he turns to you, gesturing up a twisting path with a rotten limb. Before you is a large building of that black stone, surrounded by a foreboding gate of black bars of alien metal. The insignia atop the gate is that of an open book.

The High Priestess
-You're in a library, a windowless one with walls of black stone and a large wooden table piled with books and notepads. There are four Soulless guarding you, their eyes glow like embers and their muffled and distorted voices echo unpleasantly as they speak to one another while you conduct your research. Your bedrolls and piles of food and drink tell you that you've been here for days. Books on sorcery and history lie all across the table you sit at, and you page through them slowly, looking for something.

Five of Disks
-You're in a dark library, and four soulless stand you as you look at a device of some kind, a three dimensional diamond shape. The device is depicted on a battered piece of parchment with notations and measurements scrawled in a neat, legible hand which you have unrolled on a large wooden table. It is some kind of focus, a large device, perhaps the size of a small room. There is no description of the device, other than the measurements. Twenty feet from top to bottom, with a circumfrence in the middle of twelve feet. Someone make a Knowledge (Arcana) check. The sorcerous formula scrawled in the margins indicates that it amplifies sorcerous energy to tremendous magnitudes. There is a symbol on the lower right corner of the page. It is an equilataral triangle, within the center of the triangle is an ex and there is sort of a short stem coming from the bottom of the triangle (draw).

Four of Disks
-You are in a dark, windowless room of black stone with a large wooden table in the center. There are books and notepads all over the table and you all look like you are prepared to leave in a moment and you are watching Xein write on a notepad. His hand shakes wildly as he writes on the slip of paper, sweat springs from his brow and blood begins to run from his nose and drip on the paper. Eventually, his fingers clench and snap the pencil and he faints. When he faints, D'alton takes over and a struggles in a similar way, he manages to finish his writing though and folds the slip of paper up and slips it into a leather sack. D'alton then crawls beneath the large wooden table and when he comes out from under it, he no longer has the leather sack. 

Six of Wands (Seventeenth One Remembered)
-You're in an office, not in The Jigging Jackass, meeting with Nakmander. His desk is bigger. He's speaking to you and you guys are slashing your arms and dripping a bit of your blood into a small cup. Your jaws are clenched and your limbs are shaking, like you are struggling against the movements you are making. Nakmander looks haggard and underfed and he takes the cups of blood and pours them into a goblet on his desk. He looks at the goblet of blood distastefully and moves it to one side of his desk. He then produces a long, slender, splinter of wood the thickness of a pinkie. It kind of trembles in his hand.

Five of Wands (Twenty-Third One Remembered)
-Nakmander speaks to you, gesturing with his free hand at the trembling splinter of wood in his other hand. You sit in your chairs, staring at him with your jaws clenched so tight it hurts. There is a flash of light near Nakmander's hand and the huge splinter explodes into hundreds of tiny ones that whirl around the room as harmless shrapnel. Make a Knowledge (Nature) or Knowledge (Geography/Local History) check. The splinter of wood is a fragment from the trees of Vyanthnem, and they are sorcerously active things that violently detonate when their masters will it with sorcery. Those tiny splinters were harmless, but if a thousand of those bigger, pinkie sized ones, hit you with the same force, it could go poorly for you.

The Hermit
-The sun hanging in the sky tells you that you are moving south, you hear the distorted clink and jangle of armor and weapons and the kit of a solider. Surrounding you, you can see soldiers and sorcerers that conduct themselves in a militaristic fashion. You all stop and dismount, and find that you are near a stand of trees, they look like pine trees, and each one is an exact replica of the one next to it with no dinstinguishing features to separate any of them from one another. They stand straight up from the ground at a perfect ninety degree angle. The only sound in the area, now that you stopped, is the muffled and distorted noise of them quietly vibrating their branches. These trees mark the border of Vyanthnem.

Judgement
-You are bloody and tired and you are all peppered with long, jagged, wooden splinters that struck you like slightly less deadly shrapnel from a grenade. The perfect, silver, pine trees around you quiver slightly. Before you is a slender stone tower surrounded by the alien trees of Vyanthnem, they shiver and shake, sensing your nearness and waiting to be touched by sorcery so that they may explode and feed upon you. There is a silver insignia on the tower right above the bland looking door of the place. It is an equilataral triangle, within the center of the triangle is an ex and there is sort of a short stem coming from the bottom of the triangle (draw).

Two Of Wands (Twentieth One Drawn)
-You guys are clustered around a table looking at a map, you look like you've been in a fight, you have half healed cuts and scratches all over your hands and faces. You have been in this study near this table for some time. The remains of half-eaten rations are scattered across the table, you can see your bedrolls on the floor out of the corner of your eyes. You guys have staked the map out on the table so to speak with long, jagged wooden splinters that are piled on ithe table. Before you focus on the map you can see some of the splinters staking out the map and lying in piles on the table are bloody. The map shows an island continent in an empty ocean. There are navigational markings scattered across the map, but none of you experiencing the memory know anything about sailing.

King of Cups
You guys are bloodied and riding hard, to your left, the sun is setting. Behind you, you can hear the distorted sounds of horses and hounds. You look back and see thirty or so Vyanth warriors riding after you, further south and to the east, you see a burning city. Your pursuers are laughing and throwing spears and spells at you guys, all the while flinging wineskins back and forth among the group. Your mounts are sweating and struggling, foam coating their mouths, you guys refuse to relent, kicking spurs and aluminum heels in hard to keep them going. Too the north, uncomfortably distance, you can see the walled monolith that is Meroteth.

Five of Wands
You guys are on a ship, a slow one that rides low in the water and is basically made of heavy slabs of steel. You're pacing the deck looking out past the brass handrails and into the night. Smokestacks rise up out of the deck, belching steam and black smoke out into the night sky. There is a strange, distorted noise, and suddenly lights flash in the night and sa hip under sail ghosts up beside your ironclad. The ship flies two flags, one flag is the black, three-eyed skull and crossbones flag of Haven, the other is the red field with a fanged skull with an eye patch with a crossed revolver and dagger flag. A few buccaneers swing across to your ironclad on rigging ropes and you can see that one of them is Hector Aiden Vaux. He smiles at you guys and gives a deep bow before saying something and quite eloquently gesturing to his ship.

The Emperor (Sixteenth One Remembered)
-You're on a boat, there is rain and the deck is slick with thick rivers of blood that won't wash away. There is a burning wreck of a ship dead in the water next to you. A figure swings down out of the rigging, dressed in black leather and a tri-corn cap with a cutlass at his side and a fang exposing grin on his face. When he lands, a massive hound, all glowing red eyes and fanged maw, hurtles out of the darkness at him and the boy and his puppy slip and slide across the deck. Once his hound has been greeted, Hector rises from the deck and gives you guys a thumbs up and tips his hat at you.  

Knave of Wands (Eighteenth One Remembered)
-You're in a city of brass and steel, huge towers of metal stab up into the sky and you can see zeppelins of all shapes and sizes clustered around them like bees investigating a flower. This is a port city and you can see sailing ships guarded by armored boats that belch clouds of steam as they ride low through water. Intead of sails, they are topped with thick plates of wolf-iron and deadly looking cannon. Each street is lit by electric lamps and you can see telegraph wires everywhere. The city is densely populated, but it is clean and well lit with all the modern conveniences available in Kusseth. Lorries clatter through the streets and steam carriages carry well-dressed citizens past you every few seconds, and you see patrols of Brasscoats making their rounds, armed with huge lightning cannons and armored in steampowered Abraxen plate. 

Knight of Swords
-You're in a shop that resembles that place way back when where you guys bought Xein's sword and John's rifle, except that it is cleaner, more well lit, and much much larger. There is a wizened old Fell Human with a tentacle growing out of his neck and a third eye ringed by wispy white chest hair at the base of his neck. He is gesturing to a table before you, on it you see several slabs of rust red beltanizine, they look like they were once a suit of armor. Beneath them, kind of scurrying about, digging into a potato, is a large night fowl. The Fell Human gestures for a moment and a green-yellow bolt of lightning snaps into existence and sets everyone's hair standing striaght up from their skin. The bolt strike a thick plate of beltanzine, flows through it, and obliterates the bird and potato. The Fell Human kind of chuckles and shrugs his shoulders. Make a Sense Motive check, you feel like he is apologizing for the beltanizine's performance, not for the bird guts and socerously cooked potato splattering your faces.

Memrories After This Point Do Not Feature Iconic Weapons
Ace of Wands
-You guys are blindfolded, your tongues feel thick in your mouths and your bodies feel kind of abused. Make a Heal check for me, you've been drugged and beaten in the memory. You can hear someone talking in the mumbled nonsense of talking in these memories, you can feel your weapons being taken and your armor being stripped from you, your limbs bound. Once your gear is gone, you're beaten, for a long time, though your sense of the pain is dulled by the memory. Whatever this is, it is personal. You've pissed someone off and they've decided to break you.

Queen of Disks (Sixth One Remembered)
-You come to, blindfolded, and just kind of curled up on the floor, no one is restraining you though. You remove the blindfolds and stumble to your feet and you see that you're in a one room, run down shack, like a warehouse. You note that your blindfolds are reaver armbands. Your captors are not around, and neither are your weapons and armor or pocket change. You move through the shack and see a body. The body is pretty badly abused and has a thin puncture wounds, bullet holes, big fat crush wounds, along these horrific tracks of rent flesh. These wound patterns are very familiar to you guys. You see the bloody red armband of the reavers on the body and you also see a small burn scar between the eyes of the dead reaver. You look around and see blood on the floor and know that most of it is yours, you guys were captives here and were beaten rather badly. 

The World
-You stumble out of a run down warehouse, stiff and sore and bloody and bruised, with no weapons or armor or money. You look at the area around you and see that it is a warehouse district in what you can only describe as a Kussethian city. The district is clean and well lit with lots of electric lamps. The skyline is a mass of brass and steel towers and smokestacks with zeppelins floating far above the crisscrossing and zigzagging lines of electric and telegraph wires. Behind you, back in the warehouse, you see the dead corpse of a Fell Human reaver armband and burned brow clearly visible.

Ten of Wands
-You are in the mansion and you guys are pissed, kicking and throwing things and pounding on walls. For once, you all look like hobos. You're unshaven, dirty and grimy, covered in road dust. You have no weapons or armor on you and you feel tired and sore and you all look somewhat cut up and abused. You don't spend too much time in the mansion, enough to have a hissy fit and rearm yourselves with some gear you have lying around the house and grab some bumming around cash, then you head back out.

The Hierophant
-You guys are in Nakmander's office, though it is not the one he had in The Jigging Jackass. You're dressed in unfamiliar armor and use unfamiliar weapons, those of you that need them. You guys are yelling at Nakmander and gesturing at your weapons and armor and he is kind of smirking, like you have amused him, but he is trying to restrain himself. You rage at him for a while in the distorted vocals of the memories, and eventually he just shrugs and then says something. You guys immediately seat yourselves, and he begins talking at length. He pulls out a map and points to Morwen, a port in The Fell Peaks.

Six of Swords
-You guys are hitching your horses to a hitching post outside of an inn called the Meandering Mule. The inn is part of a row of businesses on a street facing the ocean. The sun is high in the sky and the breeze is warm and fresh and the ocean glitters like diamonds. Down the street you see a leather supply shop, and in front of it is a wizened Fell Human, he has three arms and a tail and he is kind of arguing with a large, burly looking Fell Human that looks fairly menacing. With little warning, the big brute grabs the vestigial arm of the old Fell Human and snaps it in two, he then throws the old one to the ground and kicks him a few times, then rifles through the pockets of the fallen Fell Human and yells something at it before walking off.

Queen of Swords
-You guys are on some docks, you're laughing. You guys are breathing heavily and sweating and laughing together, and it looks like there are some sailors on the docks around you bloodied and groaning. Your knuckles and limbs are kind of sore, like you just fought them. You guys are looking beyond the docks out at the wide expanse of the ocean and the setting sun and you feel like you're annoyed for a moment, or impatient or something. Make a Sense Motive check for me, you kind of feel like you are stuck here or something.  Then you look at the jackasses groaning on the docks around you and you all laugh. 

Three of Wands
-You guys are in a small house, kind of a one room flophouse of sorts. Your gear is piled all about the room in various states of disarray and use. There is a distorted knock on the door and you answer it. At the door is a collection of what you can only describe as Fell Human thugs. They lean in through the door and point to you guys and start talking and rubbing fists and cracking knuckles and holding out their hands expectantly.  

King of Wands
-You're in a one room house of some kind, your gear is spread out in it, along with your bedrolls. Ten Fell Human thuggish types are in here with you, with a few standing outside the door. There are knives and various implements of death out everywhere. Kethralzahn is pounding a few to pulp with his huge aluminium fists, D'alton's pistols roar like thunder, Kyust screams sorcerous incantations and dodges underfoot through the battle, while Ran'dahl's monster just tears through the Fell Humans like some sort of monstrous monstrosity of talons and violence. Pyrel darts back and forth, slipping slender blades through creases in armor and into hearts. Xein stands at the far end of the room with a lit bomb in one hand and a vial of chemicals in the other, kind of looking like he is deciding which form of destruction he desires to wreak. 

Three of Cups
-You are on the docks. You turn out to the ocean and you see a ship sailing into port. The ship is pretty big and it flies two flags. One flag is the black, three-eyed skull and crossbones flag of Haven, the other is the red field with a fanged skull with an eye patch with a crossed revolver and dagger flag of Hector Aiden Vaux. If you squint into the distance, you can see a black clad pirate captain standing on the deck with a huge black, red-eyed, hound at his side. 

Two of Disks
-You guys are in a dark place, surrounded by wood. You hear the muffled sound of waves crashing nearby, and the distorted sounds of battle above you. You still have some of your gear, like someone frisked you poorly and took most of your stuff. You see dried meats, casks of ale and water, fruit, tools around you, supplies basically. There are also nets, huge rolled up swathes of canvas, fishing poles and the like. There's also a few dozen cannonballs. 

Temperance
-It is quiet, except for the dull lapping of waves, and you guys are straining against a wooden door in a wooden room full of nets, barrels of supplies, swathes of canvas, and cannonballs. Your hands and arms are bloody and torn. You shove hard and manage to crack open the door. You rush up a wooden stairway and find yourselves on a boat of the dead. Bodies lie everywhere on the deck, in various states of death and violence. You see that one of the lifeboats is missing and the captain's wheel is unmanned. You also notice that you are on a collision course with the rocky shore of what looks like a swamp wreathed in what looks like green smog that you can already sort of smell on the wind.

Death
-Everything is tinged green. It is just the 5 of you and you're in a sickly looking swamp, the water is thick sludge, greenish brown and motionless. There is fog in the air, but it is yellow-green and you can feel it kind of itching at your lungs as you try to take a breath. You're all ok, a little rough around the edges and you're tired and loaded down with supplies. You look around at the twisted trees and thick water and all you feel is hostility from the world around. From the abrasive fog and the undrinkable water, to the bloated mosquitoes that clamber around on your amor, this place is trying to kill you. 

Four of Disks (Nineteenth One Drawn)
-You guys are in the swamp, smog tickling and irritating your noses and throats and something rears up out of the muck near you. A furred beast the size of a bear, but like no bear from The Known World. It surges up out of the muck and bellows distortedly at you, taking swipes at you all with huge digging claws. You kind of think it smells almost like a wet skunk dunked in swamp water. Xein downs a potion a belches what can only be described as a flood of flaming magma at the creature, which you've never seen him do before, not even when he incompetantly fumbles the spell. You've seen him belch fire and lighting after swallowing potions, but never anything on this level, and he was clearly not expecting it. The spell ignites the beast and the swamp on fire and now you're all running like Hell, or Meroteth as the case may now be, to get away from the angry, burning, smelly swamp bear thing. 

Star
-You guys are tired, your breath coming in great sucking gasps, and sweat coats you and soaks your clothing. You're all coughing because you're deep in the thick green fog that stings your mouths and nostrils. You're being hunted, there are no cities or towns in this deadly swampland. Only ancient, broken ruins, that you stand in now, ruins with strange heiroglyphs and repitilian imagery. There are humanoids though, and you can see them inching closer in the brush. Short creatures that are deadly quick and tough as nails. They hide in the foliage nearby, bloodied, but they smile at you when your eyes cross theirs and they seem to like the challenge. You can hear them catcalling you in their strange, high-pitched, language. Ahead, through the sickening fog, you can see trees, ill looking things poisoned by the fog, but they're real trees and not the twisted and dying things that are around you in the depths of this swamp. Beyond and above the forest you can see mountains. Make a Perception check for me, at the very tops of the mountains, you can see fortresses of stone.

The Moon
-You're passing into a forest now, the trees are stunted things, injured by thinning green smog. Back behind you, you can seen a true swamp, choked by thick cloud of green smog. As you walk on, the trees  grow taller and straighter, still maintaining a grey and somewhat sickly appearance though. There is the suggestion of a path on the ground, but nothing tread with great regularity, and after some time the suggestion of the path fades into gray-green grass that you feel you are the first to have tread in a long time. You also notice that it is getting chilly. 

The Devil
-You're in the woods and you are screaming. The trees around you are gray and the grass you kneel on is gray-green, alive but sickly. Your weapons have fallen from your hands and your minds are gripped by cold terror, all you can do is scream, your breath coming out in great clouds of mist in the freezing air. Something black and wrapped in gray smoke looms over you taller than a man and assaulting your minds with an ancient terror so primal and old that it has no name. You scream and scream and scream till your voices are hoarse and your eyes are aching from tears. The ancient thing looming over you looks like it is born of the same shadowstuff as D'alton's magic, it is huge and black and gray smoke surrounds it, its eyes are white flares in the darkness of its face and they are all you can see as the memory fades out.

Justice (Fifteenth One Remembered)
-Your throats are sore, from screaming you think, and you are shaking so much that you don't feel like you could pick up weapons if you tried. You look around and see a dozen humanoids, tall and blond and pale, so pale you can see blue veins in their skin like faded tattoos. They're burly looking warrior types with axes and leather armor. One of them has something gleaming and silvery outstretched above his head like a silver beacon of light to burn away the darkness. The humanoid holding the object, which you can't see the true shape of, speaks to you. The 5 of you nod your heads. The humanoid gestures to his compatriots and they begin collecting your gear and hefting you guys over their shoulders and the group of you moves off into the forest. 

The Tower (Twenty-First One Remembered)
-You guys are kind of slung over the shoulders of pale, blonde warriors, but you can see that you are within the walls of a city. The walls are wood and topped with spikes, and more tall, blonde, albino-like warriors man the ramparts with spears, axes, and bows. There is a bustle of activity around you, a lot of onlookers and looky loos, you are apparently an oddity here. Most everyone seems to be a hunter, warrior, or lumberjack. There is kind of a log hall in the center of the village, and above it is a tall wooden tower, at the top of the tower is a gleaming, silver object of pure incandescance that you cannot see the true shape of. 

Eight of Disks (Ninth One Remembered)
-You guys are fresh from battle, there are pale, tall, blonde bodies all over the place. Warriors you guys have slain. Around you are other pale, tall, blonde warriors that are cheering. You guys are in a wooden hall of some kind and one of the pale warriors has some glowing, incandescant objects of silver light. Three of them in fact. You're close to them now, and they seem dimmer as they sit on the wooden floor, and you can see the vague shape of a quarterstaff-like object within the blinding light. 

Ace of Cups
-You're at the wooden fortress of pale, tall, blonde humanoids. They have piled supplies and equipment at your feet and are shaking your hands. Their leader points you deeper into the island, raising a hand and gesturing towards the trees. Beyond the trees of this half-sick gray forest you can see a range of mountains, it is at the highest peak of this range that the leader points to. He says something to you, and you are perceptive enough to note that his face conveys fear. He is afraid of these peaks, but it is not his place to keep you from going. 

Knave of Cups
-You're running through a forest of grey tree. You've been stuck with darts and arrows and you can feel poison trying lay you low, but it isn't working. You're not sure what did it, but you feel like your endurance is limitless and no poison or sickness could bring you down. You feel this strange, unnatural, vitality within you. You're only running because there is nowhere to stand and fight, the trees are thinning out and you're nearing the foot of the mountains, it is there, with the rock against your back that you can make your stand to fight whatever is pursuing you.

Knave of Disks
-You are at the foot of mountains, your backs are against stone, your weapons out. You're breathing heavily but recovering quickly, feeling a strange vitality within you. You're ready to drown the earth  in the blood of your foes. Except that they're gone. You hear the rustling of the little humanoids as they move through the brush, and the growling of their angry mounts as they restrain them, you can see and hear them easily and they have you cornered, but they are retreating. No more darts or arrows or stones strike you despite your decision to make a stand here with the mountain at your back. In a few seconds you know you are alone here at the foot of the mountains.

King of Disks (Seventh One Remembered)
-You're making camp in the mountains, close enough to the foot that the warm gases of the swamps can still be seen and felt from this distance. The fire is lit and there is some meat cooking nicely. You're settling down for the night and keeping watch, doing basic maintenance on your weapons and gear. You notice what amounts to a stick figure carved into the rock near your camp, except that this stick figure has what looks like six arms and two legs. The stick figure is on a rock that faces the path and anyone traveling up the mountain by your route would have to pass by. It is scrawled on the rock at about the height of a young boy or girl. 

Two of Swords
-You are within a mountain, the passages are old and worn, webs and dust collect in corners and hang from ceilings. You can tell that at one time the stone was cut by civilized hands, these passages were built, not worn into being by time and water. The dust is thick though and it has not been disturbed in years. You progress further along the passage and find it completely choked off by webbing. The strands are thick, the width of your forearms, and they completely criss cross the passage tighter and tighter as you go. It would take swords and fire to cut through the mess. 

The Sun
-Strands of thick webbing surround you, burning like oil slick ropes. The tunnels are choked with the odor of burning webbing and clouds of back smoke. Your lungs itch and you cough as you inhale the thick clouds of smoke, but a strange vitality fills you with strength and the smoke in your lungs isn't choking the life out of you for some reason. The tunnels are dark and smoke filled, but you feel confident that you can proceed in relative safety.

The Hanged Man (Twenty-Fourth One Remembered)
-A thing leaps out of a pile of webbing at you, tall but hunched over in the tunnels. Eight limbs, clawed and dripping venom, dart at you guys and eight gleaming eyes glitter in the darkness. It hisses and screams at you and you can hear the memory distorted screams of others of its kind screaming nearby. Its limbs are thin and almost fragile looking, but they strike hard and fast and it takes you far longer than you would like to dispatch the thing. It is a humanoid of some kind, but it has those eight clawed limbs and eight eyes. Its face is a cluster of fanged mandibles that drip with venom and its body is covered in fine brown hair over a shining black exoskeleton, gooey innards leak from the cracks you put into its hard body. 

Four of Cups
-You're climbing an ancient spiral stairway covered in dust and webs. Most of the webs are small, strands as thick as your pinkie and kind of hanging and floating in the warm air currents of the stone stairway. Other's are a thick as your arms and must be cut with blades to get by. The stone of the stairwell has been worn smooth by age, but you can tell it was cut by humanoids similar to you guys. In the space of the memory, you trudge ever upwards, finally reaching a high point where the webs are thinnest and step out into a room with walls of stone brick.

Three of Disks
-You look around and see that this crow's nest of a stone building is built of cut stone, rather than just carved out of the earth like the passage behind you. You step to a window and can see a shore far away below you, though you cannot tell which direction it is in. You see the swamps choked in thick green smog, the crippled forests, and the foot of the mountains. Turning back to face the lightless passage you just crawled up, you can see a circular shaft dug into the center of this high vantage point. Looking down into the dark, you see bricks lining the side with a series of rungs leading down into the pit, which extends far beyond your ability to see. 

Seven of Swords (Tenth One Remembered)
-You reach the bottom of a shaft and drop down onto a piece of black rock, its surface an ugly looking collection of swirls and twists. Around you, you see sluggishly moving magma flows surrounding islands of black rock that is very likely cooled lava. It is warm in the memory, and you can feel the air searing your lungs. The islands of cooled lava head off in one direction through the sea of sluggishly flowing fire and you follow them, finally coming to a wall of glistening webbing so black and shiny that it looks like thick cables of oil. 

The Lovers
-You're in a sea of lava, on an outcropping of cooled lava. You're staring at what is basically a wall of glistening black webbing, each strand the size of a stone column and they are blocking a hole in the rock like a huge sticky portcullis. At the foot of the webbing is a rock jammed into the cooled lava. On the stone are some carved heiroglyphs of a sort of lizard thing battling an eight eyed spider thing and between them is a what looks like a ball of fire. 

Six of Disks
-Before you are columns of fire, spitting sparks and oil-like fluid that sticks to whatever it falls on. Beyond the curtain of flame and black webbing, you can see a light, like the cleanest brightest fire you've ever seen in your lives. Burning webbing splatters around you, and when it strikes the sea of lava surrounding your outcropping you can see that the sluggish flows begin to churn and roil. 

The Fool
-Burnining strands of black webbing fall around you as you step into a chamber. It is a twenty foot tall yellowed crystal, like a huge topaz gemstone hanging in the air. A heat haze of sorcerous energy surrounds it, and this same energy causes your stomach to wrench around violently and your teeth to rattle in your skull. Deep in the center of the crystal is a glimmering light, like the purest burning fire you've ever seen. 

Nine of Swords
-Looking around the stone chamber, you  can see that it wasn't dug out by the hands of man, it is smooth, like stone worn away by running water. Stuck in the walls you can see the outlines of creatures that are no longer there, almost like fossils. Tall, thin creatures, wrapped in ripples in the stone that might be the impression of smoke. Looking closer, you see that they aren't fossils, they're more like bizarre burn marks. Like shadows cast by radiation blasts. 

Seven of Disks
-D'alton, Xein, Kyust, and Ran'dahl are screaming at the foot of the giant gem, their eyes are gleaming with sorcerous power so potent that it threatens to burn their minds to cinders. Pyrel and Kethralzahn drag the screamers away from giant gem and their screams cut off. Whatever the artifact is, it is just brimming with power and that power threatens to incinerate any sorcerer that comes near it. The screamers recover quickly and are back on their feet, feeling like their bodies and minds are buoyed by a strange vitality.

Knave of Swords (Fourteenth one remembered)
-The smooth sided, fossil studded cave you are in suddenly fills with light, blinding you momentarily and completely obscuring the twenty foot tall gemstone artifact. When your vision returns you see that you  are not alone. Four creatures are in the cave with you now,  none of them less than twelve feet tall. They stand between you and the giant sgemstone. The first of the creatures is chalky white and dressed in white robes, and you can see small scales on its exposed skin. Its eyes are round and Elduman like, but they look like molten silver with no pupil or iris. It opens its mouth to speak and reveals rows of narrow, sharply pointed teeth. Its ears taper to sharp points and its flat face has three nostrils below the eyes and above the mouth. The words it says are muffled by the memory, but you feel that they would be incomprehensible anyway. The white creature moves its hands and its stubby white fingers begin tapping at metal studs buried in the flesh of its forearms.

Ten of Disks
-The second creature has the brown, aged leather, skin that you've seen on some Children of Volung. Flesh that is more like unfeeling sun-baked hide than skin. This one is hairless, like the white one, but its head is sort of a rounded triangle, with ridges of black spikes where eyebrows and jawline are. Its face is flat like the other one, with the same three slit nostrils above a maw of black fangs and thin lips. Its body is thin and wasted looking, and the clothing it wears is little more than a loincloth. Sickle-like talons extend from its fingers and smaller claws from its toes, ridges of black spikes stud its shins and forearms, with a larger single spike of black at its elbows and knees. Its eyes have pupils and whites, but the irises flicker orange and red like fire and there are four of them beneath eached spiked brow. You notice suddenly that the orb of light within the center of the artifact is exactly the same shade as the colors within the creature's eyes.

Nine of Cups (Eleventh one remembered).
-The third creature is tan-colored, somewhere between the chalky color of the first creature and the dark hide of the second. It is as hairless as the other two, and just as alien looking. It is not nearly as skinny as them though, muscles roll beneath its tanned flash and it moves with a kind of loping stride, pacing back and forth beside the brown creature. As it paces backand forth you can see that its eyes are pits of black, shark eyes, eyes like the Children of Volung, and they seem to suck in the light of the artifact the creatures stand before. Its face is flat, three nostril slits below the eyes and above a fang filled mouth, though its fangs are white like the first creature, and pale talons, short but deadly, extend from its fingers. It wears a vest and pants of some dark material, and sandals lace up around its calves. Like the first two creatures, it has metal studs like buttons implanted in the flesh of its forearms. 

Four of Wands (Thirteenth one remembered).
-The fourth, and final creature that appeared in the flash of light looks to be an enormous snake man. It has a large wedge-shaped head like a snake, that sits on a mundane looking neck, and a heavily muscled green torso. Its hide is the dark green-brown of an crocodile, with its chest and stomach a lighter shade of that same color. Its limbs are taloned and you can see that it has two large sets fangs and a snake tongue. Like the brown creature, this snake, lizard thing wears a loincloth. This creature too has metals studs on the back of its forearms. 

Queen of Disks
-The creatures continue talking at you in their foreign tongue until the white one says something loudly and the other three silence themselves. It continues tapping away at the studs on its arms and its eyes roll back in its head as it continues speaking. When its silver eyes return to their normal position you feel an invasive presence in your minds and the earth beneath your feet begins to rumble. The presence feels like something is scouring the passageways of your thoughts and gleaning every bit of information about you that it can. When the presence leaves you, the ground stops trembling and the white thing nods and says something to the brown thing, and it too nods. 

The Wheel
-The brown thing kind of stretches its arms out, and the others step away from it and you can see little tendrils of flame within its nostrils and mouth and sort of creeping up out of its flesh around the edges of all its spikes and talons. In a sudden flash of brilliant fire the flesh of the creature is gone and before you is an indistinct ghostly creature radiant like an avatar of the fires of creation. It looks like the complete opposite of the creature that brought you to your knees with soul numbing terror. This creature of fire and light expands and thins until it covers the sorcerous artifact like a blanket, lingering there for a moment and then returning to its previous shape. You can see black spikes and claws beginning to take shape on its fiery form. When you look back at the artifact, the fiery heart at its core is gone and in another moment, accompanied by a flash of light, the creatures are as well. 

Ten of Swords
-You're hit with a slew of memories, like time lapse footage of you crawling up a stone well out of some Stygian abyss of darkness and fire, journeying through tunnels of stone and webs, down out of some mountains and into a forest of grey trees. Through the forest you travel, and as you do, the trees become more bent and twisted and sickly looking until you come to a swamp wreathed in green smog and pass through it, chased by huge furred beasts that smell like skunks and are ridden by short humanoids, until you finally reach a rocky shore and find the wreckage of a sailing ship. You see that the tattered flag flying from the wreck is a red flag with a fanged skull bearing an eyepatch with a crossed revolver and dagger.

Two of Cups
-You are sifting through the wreckage of a ship and find a large chest of rusty red pitted metal that you recognize as beltanizine. You open the chest easily enough, it isn't locked, and find it lined with lead. Resting in a depression in the lead is a large sphere of solid metal that looks like mercury. Make a Craft (Alchemy) check for me, you recognize this metal as refined beltanizine. One of you grabs the ball of metal and you all gingerly carry it out of the wreckage and out to a rocky shore. 

Six of Cups
-You are on a rocky beach near the wreckage of a ship flying a tattered red flag with a fanged skull bearing an eyepatch with a crossed revolver and dagger. You all have your hands on a large sphere of metal the color of mercury (Craft Alchemy and it is beltanizine). As a group, you kind of hand the orb off to Xein, whose muscles bulge and flex so much that they threaten to split his clothing, his face is a twisted animalistic mockery of its normal features. He grasps the sphere in both hands and hurls it into the sky like a silver rocket. D'alton begins speaking sorcerous words and downs a potion, immediately bleching a lightning bolt up into the air that impacts the orb, resulting in the biggest and loudest explosion you have seen in your lives. You are all knocked to the rocky ground and you can see green smog swirling around as if a hurricane collected it all and spit it out. The smells of fire and ozone and smoke are everywhere along with a nauseating hint of that poisonous green smog. You're not sure how, but the sky itself looks like it is on fire and keeps raining little bits of smoky burning stuff down on you guys. 

Eight of Wands
-You are in a fort on a rocky beach, your fort is built out of the wreckage of a ship, you guys are at a table talking and you see that the tablecloth is the grimy, faded, and tattered remains of a once red flag with with a fanged skull bearing an eyepatch with a cross revolver and dagger beneath it. You guys look thin and wasted and looking half starved,  you have long scraggly beards and unkempt hair. The meager meal before is the remains of a bird slightly larger than a night fowl. You see that your weapons are close at hand. 

Seven of Wands
-You guys ever see Viggo Mortensen in The Road or Christian Bale in the Machinist? That is what you all look like. You hurt everywhere and you are starving. You can barely stand, let alone pick up your weapons and armor and fight. You're on a rocky beach and in the distance, to the east, you see a group of four ships. The lead ship, the biggest, flies a black flag with a white obelisk on it with three bolts of white lightning forking away from the top of the obelisk.

Knight of Wands
-You are on a rocky shore near a dilapidated shack of a building covered in canvas and rigging that looks like it was built out of the wreckage of a ship. Behind you is a swamp thick with caustic green smog, before you is a ship flying a black flag with a white obelisk and three white bolts of lightning on it. Descending a ramp to the shore is Nakmander, dressed in his black plate armor and accompanied by lots of white masked sorcerer looking types and white masked riflemen with fancy black metal rifles. Nakmander is smiling from ear to ear, everyone else is aiming a rifle at you. 

Derf and John Johnson Are Featured In The Memories After This Point And Extras Wear White Face Masks With Slits For Eyes And Mouths
Queen of Wands (Twelfth one remembered)
-You're on a ship at a table with Nakmander, through a window you see a rocky beach and beyond that, you see a sickly looking swamp wreathed in green fog. Your are talking with Nakmander in the garbled and distorted fashion of these memories, occassionally pointing out the window to make a point. As you talk, one of Nakmander's cronies approaches you and cuts a your forearm with a knife and collects the blood in a battered wooden mug. You guys keep talking at Nakmander while this happens, and you feel your forearms twitching as if you are trying to keep them from the crony, but you can't move them. As the crony wanders away with your collected blood, Derf scarred and smelly and wrapped in dirty bandages enters the room and seats himself next to Nakmander. 

Queen of Cups
-You guys are in a foul swamp of green sludge and caustic green smog. Nakmander and his white masked sorcerers are flinging fire and lighting and every destructive form of sorcery they can at the swamp and are burning a swathe of devastation through it, heading west towards some mountains. The world is around you is a curtain of heat haze, smoke, green smog that itches at your nostrils, and strange colors. You see corpses burning in the devastation, small humanoids and huge furred beasts. The smells of the area get worse the nearer you are to one of those burning beast corpses. Atop a burning corpse, is Derf, laughing madly and flinging fiery dark death in every direction at the forest around him.

Three of Swords
-You are in a grey forest of somewhat sick looking trees, Nakmander is with you and he and his cadre of white masked sorcerers are blasting holes in the forest with bolts of purple lightning and balls of green fire. The world around you is a heat haze of smoke, burning lumber, and strange colors. As you move west, you encounter tall, pale albino humanoids, and Nakmander and his sorcerers burn and destroy them as easily as they do the forest around you. At times you try to stop them, and you feel like the memory of yourselves recognizes some of these albinos, but when your past selve try to resist, your limbs and jaws suddenly lock down and you cannot move or speak. 

Ten of Cups
-Derf, Nakmander, and his forty or so white masked soldiers and sorcerers have burnt a black path of destruction through a gray forest of sick looking trees and now you stand before mountains. Between you and the mountains is a Child of Volung, he is huge and tall and ancient looking, his raven  black hair streaked with gray. He wears hides and has a a spear in one hand, the haft festooned with feathers and bonest and bits of colored stone. The heat haze of potent sorcery shimmers above his black shark eyes. Nakmander is yelling at him and he remains motionless and silent, at the Child of Volung's feet is a large spider the size of a fox.

Four of Wands
-Everyone  is still as stone in a grey forest facing some mountains. Nakmander is staring at the black shark eyes of a tribal looking Child of Volung with a spear. Nakmander is yelling at the Child and the Child is motionless, although a fox-sized spider is crawling up its tall body to sit on its shoulder near its ear. The air is shimmering between the two sorcerers, a twisting curtain of heat haze that you associate with tremendous amounts of sorcery. Nakamander calls out something in the dark tongue of sorcery and you feel reality shift as he brings something into existence with his will, the tribal looking Child of Volung blinks, and it shuts Nakmander down. The heat haze of sorcery disappears from the area and Nakmander's jaw drops. The silent Child of Volung points at Nakmander with his spear, blinks once, and then flat out disappears. 

-You guys are in some mountains, surrounded by Nakmander, Derf, and forty or so soldiers and sorcerers. You are being attacked by tall spider-like humanoids. They chitter and screech at you guys, paralyzing Nakmander's warriors with their venom and dragging them off. You guys are bloodied, and your weapons are out, but you're tired. So tired you can barely stand, and Nakmander's soldiers have kind of herded you into the center of the knot of warriors as if they are shielding you from the spider things. You guys are near a passage that leads into the mountains and it is from this passage that the spider men are pouring out of.

-You are descending a stone lined hole, it is dark and warm here, but you see that there are lots of bodies crawling down into this pit, you're somewhere in the middle of a mass of of bodies carefully crawling down a series of ancient iron rungs leading down into the depths. Far below, through the mass of grunting bodies, you see the hint of light. You climb and climb and now you are with Nakmander in some hellish underground pit, lava swirls around you, angry and scorching the air. More and more sorcerers and soldiers drop out of an opening above you, and you are quickly running out of room on this outcropping of cooled lava. Ahead of you, you can see a series of small islands of cooled lava, like a pathway, and at there end is a wall of rock with an opening.  The smoke and heat blur your vision, all you can make out beyond the opening is a yellow light. 

-You have accompanied Nakmander into a stone chamber, you can see that it wasn't dug out by the hands of man, it is smooth, like stone worn away by running water. Stuck in the walls you can see the outlines of creatures that are no longer there, almost like fossils. Tall, thin creatures, wrapped in ripples in the stone that might be the impression of smoke. Looking closer, you see that they aren't fossils, they're more like bizzare burn marks. In the center of the chamber, hanging in mid air is a twenty-foot tall diamond shaped topaz colored gemstone glowing with clean, bright light. 

-You guys are on a rocky shore loading a twenty foot tall topaz colored diamond-shaped stone into a ship. Sorcerers carry the device with force spells and soldiers are lashing it to the deck of the ship. Nakmander oversees it all, smiling constantly. There are four ships on this shore, and there are soldiers and sorcerers everywhere preparing to leave. You guys enter a wooden shack built from the wreckage of the ship, and collect your meager possessions, then you join Nakmander on his ship with the giant topaz thing. With little warning, the four ships set sail to the east. 

-You guys are on the first of four ships, you stand in the bow of the ship, Nakmander beside you. Behind you is a twenty foot tall topaz colored diamond shaped thing. You are sailing into a port city. The port town is a burned ruin and the streets are full of what looks like groups of soldiers. In the southern portion of the town, you can see a large collection of wagons and steam lorries, and as you grow closer to the docks more and more activity in the town centers around that area, as if preparations are being made to leave. 

Two of Wands
-You are riding a steam lorrie through the gate of Meroteth beside Nakmander. All you can see are cheering citizens, all you can hear is the roar of the crowd. You guys ride on the lorrie straight into the depths of the city and up into what were once the Ward of Governance of Hell. The entire area is in the final stages of a massive reconstruction project and Nakmander orders the driver to roll the lorrie into a work site at the base of a tall building. The building vaguely resembles an office building of some kind. You guys and Nakmander carefully unload the twenty foot topaz stone and hand over care of it to a crew of workers and sorcerers. From the shape of the building and the number of cranes and workers on the scene, you suspect that the stone will be fitted to the top of the building.

-You are all in an office with Nakmander and Derf. Nakmander is seated at a desk and Derf is seated in a chair facing it, while the lot of you are sort of in a semi-circle behind Derf. Nakmander produces a thick rolled up scroll from his desk and hands it to Derf. Derf accepts it and unrolls it, spending a few miniutes reviewing its contents. He nods and says something garbled to Nakmander, who yells something garbled as Derf lays an arm out across Nakmander's desk. An aid of some kind rushes into the room as Nakmander slashes Derf's forearm with a black talon and collects the blood in a chalice. Derf stands, shoulders his way past you guys and the memory fades. 

-You're in the mansion on the top floor, staring out a window at the city. It is night, but in the distance you can see the gleaming beacon of light that is the twenty foot tall gemstone atop the center of the city. You see flashes of clean white lightning flashing out from the gemstone. You see vague shapes and shadows moving in the air around the gem, and staring out into the darkness, something causes your guts to tighten and the hairs on the backs of your necks to stand up. You hear screaming, even from this distance, you can tell that hundreds, if not thousands of people, are screaming in the night. 

-You guys are in Kusseth City, in the Abraxen ghetto. Everywhere you look there is steam and smokestacks, and hulking Greyskin Abraxens. You walk through the ghetto, led by Xein, who periodically peers at a slip of paper with writing on it. Eventually he leads you all to a large stone building that looks like a workshop of some kind. He knocks on the door several times and you all wait.

-You guys stand before a door, Xein in the midst of knocking, a Greyskin Abaxen wearing spectacles answers, he is huge and almost completely bald. He peers at Xein and the rest of you for a moment, and his huge fists clench, then he seems to recognize Xein and your peaceful intent and he wraps Xein up in a bear hug with those huge grey arms. Xein resists for a moment, and then returns the hug and the Abraxen ushers you all into the shop. 

-You're in a large warehouse or workshop, or something along those lines. There are several Greyskin Abraxens scattered around the room overseeing what look like slave laborers. Xein is being led around by a bespectacled Abraxen that takes him by the shoulder and points a finger to a female worker diligently working on something. Xein leaves the Abraxen's side and approaches the female slave, who appears to be of Uncout origin, and what follows can only be described as a tearful reunion. 

-You guys are in Tesla's Boil, looking quite healthy, almost fat to be honest, as if you guys have been sitting on your asses for some time. You are in fact eating a rather expansive and fancy looking feast, complete with flaming Tesla's at the moment. The door to the Boil is flung open and Nakmander steps through the doorway, he says nothing, just crooks a taloned finger at you guys and motions for you to come to him. You immediately rise from your seats and stiffly follow him out of Tesla's Boil, trying to keep yourselves from joining him, but you are unable to still your limbs. 

The Tower/Great Ziggurat
-You enter an office with Nakmander, he orders you to seat yourselves and you do. You see that you guys have napkins tucked into your shirts and knives and forks clenched in your hands, as if you were in the midst of a meal. Nakmander begins talking to you and has a map out. The map looks like what we would define as a paper version of a world map. He is gesturing to The Known World on the map and saying something, you notice that as he speaks, his finger lands on Meroteth and then the countries surrounding it. Then he brings his finger south of The Known World to a continent with no name, his finger strikes it three times. He looks at the clock on the wall, says something, and waves a hand to dismiss you. Forks and knives fall from your fingers and your limbs suddenly release and you can rise from your chair and leave the office. 

The Hanged Man/Well of the Seraph
-You guys are climbing a tower with Nakmander, you come out in the top of the tower onto what you now see is a zeppelin dock. Looking down and to the north a bit, you see the Braun mansion. The zeppelin is a large one, and it is pretty heavily armored, as armored as a giant torpedo shaped balloon can be. As you enter the passenger and cargo compartment you see a lot of soldiers and sorcerers, as is normal in Meroteth, but you also see a lot of workers and tools. The main cargo here isn't weapons and food supplies, though they are there, it is workers and tools. Stonecutting tools, lumber tools, etc. Much to your surprise, John is there with his massive gun strapped to his back and looking pissed, next to him stands a lightly armored warrior of Elduman descent with ruby colored eyes, he has a saber in a scabbard at his side, unlike John, he looks kind of bored. 

Seven of Cups
-You stand upon a sandy shore with Nakmander and two dozen of his white masked sorcerers and soldiers, sort of in a depression. The sand is thick and sodden with blood and at your feet are piles of corpses, strange lizardmen corpses armed with primitive stone and obsidian spears and axes and clad in hide armor. Arrayed against you, beyond the wall of corpses and at the top of the depression, is another horde of them. You cannot help but notice that Xein is riding a giant, mechanical, razorback boar and behind him is John loading his massive gun. Standing next to Nakmander, with a saber in hand and casting some manner of spell, is a bored looking Elduman descended creature with ruby red eyes. Behind you is a ship, shattered and broken upon the shore. Nakmander bellows commands and you grit your teeth and step forward to do battle as Nakmander's commands turn thick and black in the air as he begins casting spells.

Nine of Disks
-There is a pounding on the ground, something you feel as vibrations, and you see a hundred giant cats, like huge panthers, racing down the ridge towards a line of advancing lizardmen. Riding the cats are what look like Eldumans, but ones dressed in hides and clothing similar to what the lizardmen are wearing. They ride their cats like horse cavalry from The Known World, wielding long lances tipped with obsidian, and they crash into the lizardmen like a wave of bloodied destruction and cut the lines of lizardmen to shreds.  Nakmander and a saber wielding, red-eyed Elduman Descendant begin firing bolts of fire and lightning, along with the rest of Nakmander's sorcerers. Xein surges forward on the back of a giant mechanical boar, with a bomb in hand. There is a loud disorted explosion as a John fires a huge round from his gun towards the lizardmen. Kethralzahn surges forward like a metal juggernaut of whirling limbs and metal fists, while Pyrel leaps and whirls making acrobatic stabs with his blades while Nakmander's sorcerers in their white masks begin casting spells.