Just wrapped up a long saga tonight!

We ventured into the shattered ruins under the ancient city of Qar in search of secrets from the First Age of Man. (My character, Nymox the Red {Greatest Thief South of the Axos Mountians!) wasn't particularly interested, but our group's not-quite-sorcerer was. Nymox was eventually persuaded that such knowledge would have some monetary value as well. (He doesn't have the Greed flaw, but he is a thief after all.)

There we encountered necrophages (ghoul-like creatures), Mycanaeds (humans who had lived so long underground that they had adopted an almost symbiotic mushroom-heavy lifestyle, including food, clothing, and phosphorescent mushrooms for light), and THE GREAT BEAST OF QAR (a truly immense Xolth even bigger than the one from the Catacombs of Qeb). 

Some of the Mycanaeds were friendly towards us, particularly a princess. Some of them seemed to have trouble distinguishing between the Upper World and the Home of the Gods. (Both being "way up there!") Others had little use for us at all, including a stuck up warrior type named Bakeera and a priestly type named Ma'anatas. (muh-AN-etas.)

The group traveled deep into the cavernous ruins looking for a temple complex reputed to have studied non-corruptive magic. (Nymox, being Distrustful of Sorcery, is of the opinion there is no such thing.) We did find some clues, but it turned out our Mycanaed escorts, specifically the warrior and the priest (actually Grey Druid) had a plan of their own. See, the Grey Druid thought he had a ritual that would let him control the Beast of Qar, essentially making him the top dog of the underworld. Unfortunately for him, this task proved beyond his abilities.

He performed the ritual in a particular sacred space in the temple complex, but meanwhile tendrils of the Xolth were converging on the spot and the earth was trembling. Oh, yeah, and once we figured out what they had planned, our group was dead set on thwarting this scheme.. 

Our Courtier/Assassin managed to do some impressive slay-age to a number of the necrophages and our bouphon-headed beast man warrior, Cownann one-shotted the chief Mycanaed warrior. Nymox put an arrow in the eye of the druid while he was trying to complete the ritual.(Nymox has issues with Grey Druids). @StMichael ended up spending the last of his Villain Points to keep him alive long enough for the ritual to go to hell. 

Almost literally, as the ground collapsed uncovering an even lower level where the GARGANTUAN Xolth was revealed.

Our 'sorcerer' managed to conjure a vat of "universal solvent" we saw in one of the temple complex buildings (it really was more of an academy than a simple temple) and dropped it into the chasm directly on top of the creature. 

After that, it was a mad scramble to get OUT of the underworld before we tumbled into the pit being created by the death throes (fingers crossed) of the Beast..

We pretty much ended the session collapsed on the grass beyond the fractured landscape that marked the spot where the city ruins had been.

One of the hardest parts of role playing - making sense of your notes! 

Sounds like a climatic end to a saga. I trust everyone is going to relax on a nice holiday after that.

(At the end of a Heroes of Hellas campaign that ended with the Greek takeover of Minoan Crete, my players wanted to go on a holiday. So I sent them off to relax in Troy... Sadly, we never got to play the 'holiday'.)

Gruntfuttock wrote:

Are you off on another great saga soon?

Looks like we're off to the Jungles of Qush to seek out the Sorcerer/Alchemist Jesharek because of some information our sort-of-sorcerer found in the ruined academy beneath Qar. 

GIven Nymox the Red's Distrust of Sorcery, he's kind of hoping something eats us along the way.

(We generally play BoL first Sunday of every month, unless we can't scape together a quorum due to other commitments.)
 

Last edited by CaptAdventure (10/05/2026 10:19 am)

We usually play every Sunday, but I was ill yesterday and spent a lot of the day in bed. Feeling fine today, so Alison ran the third Charlie Flint game today (you can do that on a Monday when you are both retired).

I'm writing the 8th 'Wild Nights in Ulthmar' game for this coming Sunday. Stealing lots of magical texts is great - they are worth a bomb! - but you then discover that your average friendly fence can't shift them for you. So you have to find a specialist dealer in rare (stolen) magical books, which is not exactly easy.