The Struggle to Survive (the story so far)

Inferno
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Inferno
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 21429
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2015 11:05 pm
Location: 1977

The Struggle to Survive (the story so far)

#1 Post by Inferno »

"I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content.” -Conan by Robert E. Howard


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Chronicles of Adventure:

Book I: Lost City of the Pharaohs

Book II: Underground City of the Demon God

Book III: The Lost City of Atlantis
Last edited by Inferno on Sun Feb 21, 2021 4:28 pm, edited 8 times in total.
DM:
The Horror at Briarsgate (1e): Lovecraftian Gothic Horror (N1, homebrew)
Lost City of Eternity (1e): Hyborian Age Sword and Sorcery (B4, JG102, homebrew)
Once and Future Earth (1e): Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Dungeon Crawl (X1, B1, ASE1, homebrew)
Sauron Victorious (1e): Dire Saga for the Fate of Middle Earth (homebrew)

Player:
Agax Gryyg: Gamer of Urth, Ravenloft
Azoth Al-Aziz: Lovecraftian Cultist, Tamoachan
Blodget: Foolish Young 9th Level Hobbit, Dark Clouds
Dredd Doomsmith: Dwarven Deathtrap Engineer, Tomb of Horrors
Elijah Crowthorne: Marooned Prophet, Pirates
Jack in the Green: Ancient Child, Giants
P.T. Codswallop: Larcenous Impresario, Dimwater
Sir Ugghra: Bestial Half-Orc Aristocrat, Brotherton
Swilbosh: Savage Lizard-Warrior, Keep
Tantos Vek: Failed Paladin, Under Streets
Ulfang Chainbreaker: Barbarian Liberator of Slaves, Tharizdun

DM bio is here.

User avatar
Inferno
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 21429
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2015 11:05 pm
Location: 1977

Re: The Struggle to Survive (the story so far)

#2 Post by Inferno »

Book l: Lost City of the Pharaohs

Chapter 1: A Shallow Grave of Sand
Day 1:
The adventurers are lost in the desert after a sandstorm scatters their caravan. They wander for days, starving and thirsty, until they find a lost city emerging from the desert sands. They divide their number and enter the silent necropolis of the ancients.
At dawn they are ambushed by other survivors of the doomed caravan, now transformed by starvation into a ravenous pack of jackals. After a bloody battle, the heroes are victorious.


Chapter 2: Pyramid of the Dead
Day 1, continued:
The heroes make for the colossal Great Pyramid and find a defaced ruined temple to alien, pagan gods. There, they take shelter from the merciless sun and, that afternoon, Goniza dies of starvation. Arthfael and Biblo refuse to. Cannibalism divides the survivors and they climb the pyramid. At its zenith, a brutish corpse is discovered, and a secret entrance. The survivors enter the Great Pyramid and are beset by a gigantic scorpion! After a desperate battle, they defeat the horrific beast and are joined by Attila. Victorious, they feast. While examining the four bronze doors, Loche is suddenly swallowed alive by a pit trap. The explorers plunge after him into a nest of giant, flesh-eating scarabs. Separated, they encounter a white ape and a lesser shoggoth. Evading the protoplasmic horror, half the explorers discover the hidden shine of the oracle. Reunited, they encounter a gigantic tarantula and her ghastly young. Some of the adventurers face the shoggoth as others venture deeper into the ancient corridors of the pyramid.


Chapter 3: The Civilization That Time Forgot
Day 1, continued:
From out of the timeless depths of the Great Pyramid emerges a strange sight. Roan lashes out, killing one of the bizarre creatures of the Lost City. The remaining animal-masked strangers flee into an ambush of the primitive ape-men. Their cries for help are answered by the adventurers, and by golden, hawk masked warriors. Then, into that murderous fray stalks the giant mother tarantula. The adventurers prevail and are welcomed by the hawk-masked Sons of Osorus, Horuk and Ghorom. They hear the dark tale of Khemsa and of Zargoth the Destroyer. They learn of the other cults of Khemsa, and of the fabled Treasure of Xuthalhotep.


Chapter 4: Verulia in Darkness
Day 2:
Dawn breaks and the outlanders descend to the third tier of the pyramid. They discover a strange hallway with bronze panels of hieroglyphic buttons, and advance down a corridor seemingly marked by the symbol of Death. They enter the Hall of the Slain, where shadows of the dead spring to life. Against the eerie foemen, the explorers are victorious. But when Attila claims their prize, something terrible happens. A shadow of Sutekh manifests and the adventurers flee.
The explorers test the buttons and the strangely angled hall opens onto a pack of feral baboons! A battle breaks out in the revolving corridor. It is short lived. The adventurers move the revolving hall again, opening it onto corridors of Spear and Ibis.


Chapter 5: Amazons of the Apocalypse
Day 2, continued:
In the Hall of the Spear, the adventurers encounter the Warrior Maidens of Sekhmet. Gronda alone is permitted behind their barricade and questioned. Then Gronda is brought before Dendara. Dendara questions her. Alone. Gronda refuses to join the amazons of Sekhmet and is banished from their realm.


Chapter 6: The Conjurers of Oblivion
Day 2, continued:
The male adventurers, having parted with Gronda, move west. They soon encounter the strange Grand Magi of Uthoth. One of them, Amethu, will accompany the explorers.


Chapter 7: In Search of the Pharaoh's Tomb
Day 2, continued:
It is afternoon when the explorers are reunited at the revolving corridor of the ancients. Amethu presses the hieroglyph of The Serpent and when the corridor opens, they are attacked by the feral simian colony to the south! A chaotic fray erupts. The Baboon King enters the battle. After the primates flee, the corridor rotates and opens upon a lone amazon, Zahra, who joins with the explorers. Amethu guides them back to the hall of The Serpent, domain of the cult of Sutekh. A trap is sprung, ensnaring half the explorers. A daring rescue is attempted. It fails. Attila and Gronda are buried alive. A lone Son of Osorus named Xorzen emerges from the ageless corridors and joins their ranks. The deathtrap seems to reset itself. They find the rotating corridor is closed and does not respond to their summons. They enter the temple of Sutekh and find the ghastly remains of a summoning gone wrong, magic treasure, and a way down.


Chapter 8: Necropolis of Eternity
Day 2, continued:
At sunset, the explorers find a way down to the fourth tier: the tomb level. In a shrine to the entombed dead of the Great Pyramid, statues are revealed to be demons instead. A battle erupts! One jackal demon is slain and the other escapes. They hunt him down and slay him. The adventurers regroup and Zahra deciphers an ancient curse of the Pharaoh. The explorers rest and recover their strength. They dream of the dread demon Zargoth.
Day 3:
At dawn, Kiri reads the arcane scrolls recovered from the bygone genocide of the sect of Sutekh. He casts a spell from the papyrus and the unopenable door opens. The explorers pass through the sundered portal. In the Hall of Heroes, they are attacked by an army of the dead! War chariots savage Roan, son of Rune. Roan falls in battle, a death worthy of any Vanir, but the explorers are victorious. Beneath the sundered floor, a bone-filled tomb is found. Treasure is recovered from the skeletal sentinels. In the bone crypt, Loche and Xorzen drink of the font of the dead and hear the whispering skulls of the dead. Above, Soruk of Osorus suddenly emerges from out of the timeless depths of the Great Pyramid. He brings dire news and aid. He joins the explorers' quest and they press onward, deeper into the catacombs of the ancients. Suddenly, a diabolical trap sends a gigantic boulder barreling down upon them! With a word, Amethu stops the certain death. Most retreat to a violated tomb for safety where they are immediately attacked by something terrible! A horrific leviathan insectoid paralyzes most of the explorers before Soruk decapitates it! The adventurers recover and explore, discovering a hallway filled with ancient, undead sentinels! A ferocious battle erupts! A second leviathan grub ruptures from the ceiling and is slain! The explorers are victorious, although Mako and Arthfael are grievously wounded. The explorers find a defensible position and rest.


Chapter 9: Zargoth the Destroyer
Day 3, continued:
All hell breaks loose. Zargoth the Destroyer bursts out from the floor, climbing up from the infernal lower tiers of the Great Pyramid! The demon god savagely attacks the explorers that would usurp him. He murders them all.


Chapter 10: The Crypt of Everlasting Life
Day 4:
The explorers wake up. It is dawn. Their deaths were just a dream. Their resolve only strengthened, the adventurers press onward. They discover the gigantic boulder from the deadly trap, and the empty sarcophagi of the mummified undead guardians that beset them last night. Within, treasure is found. The explorers delve deeper, past the boulder and into a magnificent corridor that ranges west. They find carvings of slaves without number. Then they find the mass grave of slaves murdered upon the death of their master, Xuthalhotep. They find a hidden hieroglyph etched into the wall and then, a secret door. They press upon the secret portal and suddenly, a trap is sprung! The floor tilts beneath their feet! Meanwhile, living dead emerge from the grave of slaves! Xorzen flees the undead as Arthfael's calculations and Amethu's sorcery lock the tilting floor at a gentle angle. Then the deathless slaves attack! The battle is joined! And more undead emerge from the mass grave! The tide of undeath is unrelenting. It does not abate. Frustration and helplessness mount. Suddenly, the explorers hack a path to the door and slam it shut! They secure the door and the living skeletons start to chop it down! The explorers race back to the giant boulder and roll it forward, crushing the advancing horde of living skeletons into shattered bones! The immense stone sphere reseals the mass grave of slaves! The explorers balance the tilting floor, reach the secret door, and the passage beyond it! Half the explorers slowly advance deep into the secret passage, while the others are suddenly attacked by a gigantic, glowing protoplasmic horror! The Eldritch thing bears down upon Soruk, entering the tilting floor trap, sending it violently reeling! Soruk, Arthfael and the writhing translucent horror plummet into the gaping maw of the tilting floor! Mako, Amethu and Kiri escape the deathtrap with their lives! Through the secret passage, a magnificent statue-lined hall is discovered and so is a hidden door to caverns below. The explorers enter the chamber of statues and suddenly a new deathtrap is sprung! Razor-sharp blades slice through the raiders of the crypt like scythes through grain. The explorers recover and press on, squeezing into a crawlspace beneath a colossal stone block. Beyond lies the rubble of ancient stones that shattered when they fell to seal the tombs. Xorzen moves the broken rocks and forges a path through the mound of rubble and beyond.


Chapter 11: Curse of the Pharaohs
Day 4, continued:

At last, the explorers of the Great Pyramid discover the tomb of Xuthalhotep and his queen Ankhara. Upon the tomb door is inscribed a dread curse upon all who enter here. The explorers fearlessly unseal the tomb and discover, at last, the fabled lost treasure of Xuthalhotep! The explorers cautiously enter the tomb, assuming each step will be their last. While searching it, the raiders make a grim discovery: they stand in a false tomb. Bitter despair gives way to hope. The explorers break down the false wall and find a passageway hidden behind it. They approach a stone door when suddenly, impossibly, a shimmering, translucent, ghost-like figure appears before them; Queen Ankhara of ancient Verulia! She commands them to turn back! The explorers disobey and suddenly, she transforms before their disbelieving eyes into some ripe carrion... a living, decaying cadaver! She keeps shifting, changing, as she looses a bloodcurdling shriek that chills their very souls. The astonished explorers try to defend themselves against the queen of tombs. Her scream is an icy dagger in the hearts of mortal men. Ankhara is destroyed, her immaterial form rent asunder and sent scattering on the wind! A scroll is read and a trap undone. Then the explorers unseal the eternal tomb of Xuthalhotep and Ankhara! They throw open the lid of one golden sarcophagus, revealing the withered cadaver of the Queen of Ancient Verulia. Suddenly, the second sarcophagus erupts and from it rises Xuthalhotep, unliving pharaoh of pharaohs! Half the explorers are stricken in fear! The immortal pharaoh's fearsome touch bestows a curse upon Xorzen! Undying Xuthalhotep is seemingly invulnerable to their attacks. Xorzen and Zahra implore the others to flee with their lives. Zahra dislodges the golden death mask of Xuthalhotep, revealing a fleshless skull beneath! Then, impossibly, Zargoth erupts from out of the floor! The god-king of Death confronts the demon-god of Chaos! Suddenly, Zargoth disappears into thin air! He was only ever an illusion cunningly wrought by Mako of the east! The explorers flee into the labyrinth of the Great Pyramid, pursued by the soulless remains of great Xuthalhotep! All hope is lost. The adventurers scatter in the darkness. The Pharaoh of Death descends upon them and then suddenly, with a word, Amethu dissolves reality itself!


Chapter 12: Time Out of Mind
Day 4, continued:

Suddenly, impossibly, the explorers are standing before the sealed Tomb of Xuthalhotep! Everything they had experienced after opening the tomb was just a lifelike vision of the future, revealed to them by an oracular spell of prophecy woven by Amethu! Stunned and disoriented, the astonished explorers retreat back to the false tomb to regroup, recover and plan. The explorers sleep through the night. The outlanders are once more haunted by dreams of dread Zargoth, always watching them.
Day 5:
The explorers awaken at dawn and make preparations to lay their trap in the false tomb. Weathering a maelstrom of remembrance, they enter the tomb, open the sarcophagus and flee, averting their eyes from Xuthalhotep's terrible majesty! The deathless god-king stalks them through the shadowed halls of the ancient catacomb! The explorers spring their trap and the immortal pharaoh is engulfed by flames! Xorzen is cursed once more. And again, Xuthalhotep seems impervious to the weapons of mortal men! The trap's ravenous flames recede, revealing that Xuthalhotep undying still stands! His ghastly fleshless skeleton is all that remains of his ancient majesty! Loche is the next to be doomed by the undead pharaoh's damning touch! Then sorceries are woven and great Xuthalhotep is engulfed by flames! The burning mummy, impaled and consumed by fire, suddenly cries out a soul-piercing shriek of rage and agony and despair and relief! And then he is no more. The explorers exalt in their victory and give thanks. Garrin cures Xorzen of the Curse of the Pharaohs. Then they return to the eternal resting place of Xuthalhotep and Ankhara. Suddenly, they are not alone here! The Pharaoh and his Queen are present with them in the tomb! They give heartfelt thanks to the explorers for the peace they have given them. Loche's curse is lifted, and Xuthalhotep and Ankhara are suddenly gone! The explorers descend into the vault below the tomb where they behold at last the fabled Treasure of Xuthalhotep! They survey the priceless treasures of the ancient world and divide them for use against fell Zargoth.




Player Resources:
An Age Undreamed Of (maps and realms of the World of Hyboria)
Men of the Hyborian Age (races of men)
Hieroglyphs (the story so far, in images)
Last edited by Inferno on Fri Jul 17, 2020 12:51 am, edited 2 times in total.
DM:
The Horror at Briarsgate (1e): Lovecraftian Gothic Horror (N1, homebrew)
Lost City of Eternity (1e): Hyborian Age Sword and Sorcery (B4, JG102, homebrew)
Once and Future Earth (1e): Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Dungeon Crawl (X1, B1, ASE1, homebrew)
Sauron Victorious (1e): Dire Saga for the Fate of Middle Earth (homebrew)

Player:
Agax Gryyg: Gamer of Urth, Ravenloft
Azoth Al-Aziz: Lovecraftian Cultist, Tamoachan
Blodget: Foolish Young 9th Level Hobbit, Dark Clouds
Dredd Doomsmith: Dwarven Deathtrap Engineer, Tomb of Horrors
Elijah Crowthorne: Marooned Prophet, Pirates
Jack in the Green: Ancient Child, Giants
P.T. Codswallop: Larcenous Impresario, Dimwater
Sir Ugghra: Bestial Half-Orc Aristocrat, Brotherton
Swilbosh: Savage Lizard-Warrior, Keep
Tantos Vek: Failed Paladin, Under Streets
Ulfang Chainbreaker: Barbarian Liberator of Slaves, Tharizdun

DM bio is here.

User avatar
Inferno
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
Posts: 21429
Joined: Thu Jan 01, 2015 11:05 pm
Location: 1977

Re: The Struggle to Survive (the story so far)

#3 Post by Inferno »

Book ll: Underground City of the Demon God

Chapter 13: Underground City of the Demon God
Day 5, continued:

Armed with the blessings of the ages-dead pharaoh and his queen, the explorers ready to depart the ancient crypts of the Great Pyramid and begin their journey to the dread underground city of the demon god. After countless hours descending through the subterranean wonders of this fantastic underworld realm, they discover an immense underground lake. There, they slake their thirst and fill their waterskins with the clean cold water. Overcome by exhaustion, the explorers sleep by the shore of the subterranean pool. There, the outlanders dream again of Zargoth, the inhuman watcher from the black abysses below.
Day 6:
The explorers awaken, healed by the miraculous Healing Mists of Osorus. Then they continue their pilgrimage to the mysterious underworld below. Over untold hours of descent, the subterranean landscape changes. It is as if they are entering the hinterlands of Hell itself. A broken bridge halts their progress to Pandemonium. The explorers are halfway across the sundered bridge when suddenly, the beastmen of Zargoth trigger their ambush! It was as if Hell itself had released its foul denizens. The monstrous throng brutally savages the explorers with shocking ferocity! The wild storm of chaos and blood rages on! Then Mako conjures within their minds all the horrors of being scorched, scalded and burned alive as the warriors cut them asunder! The creatures of Zargoth retreat in fear! The explorers tend to their wounded, rest, recover, and dream.
Day 7:
The explorers of the abyss descend through more breathtaking subterranean wonders, when another ambush is discovered! From high above, degenerate creatures of Zargoth push titanic boulders down upon the adventurers in a deadly landslide that is narrowly averted! The battle is joined, drenching the ground with hot blood! Outmatched, the surviving beastmen break and flee! Again, the explorers do not give chase. They recover and then they journey on, continuing their long descent through the astonishing underworld.
Finally, they come to an ancient Verulian city under the earth!
As they speak with Tjoruy, a lost inhabitant, a legion of the fell servitors of Zargoth attack! Hideously masked priests bless their inhuman warriors with dark favors of the Demon God! Thus sanctified by ageless evil, the fierce primordial men lunge forward to take the bridge, nearly killing Garrin in one horrific onslaught! The siege of the underground city quickly becomes a maelstrom of blood and steel! Mako conjures more phantom terrors of the mind as Amethu engulfs his enemies in flames! A fiery batrider plunges upward to the vaults of the cavern as another plunges down into the bottomless chasm! Beastmen are decapitated and cut asunder, and then Mako's concentration is broken and the stricken primitives awaken from their terrifying nightmares! The tide of the battle turns! A necromantic priest of Zargoth raises the dead! Then suddenly, the fight becomes a slaughter! The priests fall and the surviving beastmen escape with their lives! But the spine-tingling undead horrors fight on until they are driven back, beaten down and cut asunder. The siege of the underground city is ended. The explorers and the pale stranger are victorious. They gird themselves to enter the underground city of the demon god.


Chapter 14: The Doomed Undying
Day 8:

Long past midnight, with Tjoruy as their guide to Pandemonium, the explorers enter the underground city, a horror of emptiness, decay and ruin. After hours of wandering, they encounter masked ghostly survivors of the once-great Verulian race, aimless and mad; human flotsam adrift on the sea of their own shattered sanity. The explorers rest in Tjoruy's hovel but not for long.
Wretched masked albinos of the underground city advance upon the adventurers!
The explorers struggle to awaken! The battle is joined and sleepwalking adventurers suddenly attack their own! The explorers hack, cut and bludgeon their way into the street! With dread certainty, the adventurers realize: at Zargoth's command, the deranged population of an entire city descends upon them! The explorers plunge from the hovel into a horrific hallucination of violence and insanity! The wild orgy of bloodshed rages on. The battle lines are unmoving. The adventurers are trapped, surrounded. And the thralls of Zargoth hunger for their death! Then the logjam breaks! The enemy's southern line is breached! The adventurers make a fighting retreat into the hell city of unending night! The fight becomes a mad chase. They run, following Tjoruy, quickly losing all sense of direction, until a dead end offers them sanctuary. The adventurers take shelter within a desecrated temple of Osorus. There, they find refuge from the city that hunts them, and a place to hide and rest.
At dawn, undiscovered, they awaken and emerge from their sandy, tomb-like sanctuary. Suddenly, Tjoruy is swallowed up by a sinkhole! Cruloc and Kiri lunge into the hungry maw after him! They crash to the ground and stagger out from the sandslide into a tunnel under the earth!


Chapter 15: Empire Under the Earth
Day 8:

Plunging headlong into the tunnels to rescue Tjoruy, the explorers discover he has been taken by a colony of gigantic ants! They bare steel against this fearless, organized, creeping doom! The battle is joined; the frightening enemy, ferocious and unrelenting! The enormous soldier ants battle on without fear or mercy or doubt, buying precious time for their teeming brethren to marshal their forces... buying time with their lives. The first defenders of the ant colony selflessly sacrifice themselves that the collective might survive.
The adventurers race deeper into the nest in search of their lost comrade, Tjoruy! They come to a fork in the tunnel where they hear the low groan of what could only be a man!
In horror the adventurers discover the ant colony are slave takers, and have humans among their stock of chattel! The human slaves of the anthill charge the invaders! And from the northern channel a soldier ant descends upon their rear flank! The enormous arthropod warrior plunges to its death, impaled on spear and javelin, as the Verulian slaves of the nest are slaughtered without mercy! More gigantic insects lunge out of the darkness: scarab beetle slaves and ferocious soldier ants! Giant worker ants join the deadly fray, selling their lives cheaply! The adventurers desperately fend off another onslaught of rapacious, unyielding jaws! Suddenly, with the blur of silver and an eruption of flames, the enemy's number is halved! Even while being consumed alive in the raging conflagration, one gigantic burning giant will not relent! With a ruthless will, it fells Amethu! The adventurers retaliate with savage ferocity and the battle is ended! Amethu's wounds are treated as the vast food store of the ant colony is seached. Strange artifacts are discovered.
The adventurers continue their search in the ant tunnels, and come out into a great, high chamber teeming with frenzied gigantic ants without number scurrying frantically around their hideous gargantuan queen! The adventurers swallow their fear and set the loathsome queen aflame, spreading panic throughout the giant ant swarm! They riddle her immense bloated bulk with missile weapons. By arrows and flame, by stones and javelin and trident, the explorer's merciless onslaught slays the queen of the giant ant colony! All that remains in the collective mind of the giant ants is fear and horror.
The explorers recover and search the immense royal chamber, finding four tunnels out. They advance into the western channel and discover a hatching chamber filled with immense ant eggs, now untended by the colony. In a second hatching chamber, among strewn human corpses, the adventurers discover Tjoruy's broken form! They rush to his aid and suddenly, the dead plunge up, attacking with ferocious savagery! Inexplicably, they act like the living dead, yet they still draw breath! They fight without hesitation or concern for their lives, pressing forward unflinchingly to their deaths. The adventurers complete the slaughter.
As Tjoruy's unconscious body is examined, Amethu remembers something terrible. Tjoruy is revived and he lunges at his companions! He has been parasitized! He has become a thrall of the colony! Amethu recites magic hieroglyphs from an ancient papyrus scroll of lost Verulia and miraculously cures Tjoruy! The explorers are reunited!
The adventurers take their rest and dream once more of dread Zargoth. In the night, the infested corpses give birth to swarms of hideous giant larvae! With oil and torches the explorers set them afire! Their wailing shrieks draw the attention of giant ants that are quickly beguiled by Amethu's magicks. The final generation of the doomed colony is consumed in silent flames.
Day 9:
After midnight, the explorers ready themselves to press on in their fantastic quest to kill a god. They advance through the twisting, winding ant warren until they come out into a low chamber filled with the pale cadavers of giant ant pupae, abandoned and forsaken. Bereft worker ants shamble nearby, haunting these dark tunnels like forgotten ghosts. The explorers continue onward through the winding ruins of the overthrown collective and enter a vast, high cavern with a hole in its towering roof! A way out!


Chapter 16: Beneath the Starless Sky
Day 9, continued:

Through grapnel, rope and sorceries impossible, the adventurers climb up the long, colossal shaft of the titanic anthill to freedom. They find themselves at the edge of the brooding ruins of the Underground City, near a vast forest of gigantic mushrooms. There, they join Tjoruy in an underdweller's feast. When they are finished and full, Tjoruy asks if they shall go willingly to the Island of Death, where others are dragged screaming, and the explorers' resolve falters.
Those that ate of the immense mushrooms, a majority of the party, feel a wave of dreamy euphoria overtake them as the colors of the towering fungi expand with their consciousness.
They hear the blossoming hues, and see its music grow. Loche, Kiri and Tjoruy see the surface of reality ripple and undulate and fill with potent meaning. The rest of the adventurers try to keep their mad dreaming friends from joining the mad dreaming denizens of the mad dreaming city, never to be seen again. Suddenly they realize their companion Mako, who conjured himself invisible and ate of the towering mushrooms, is nowhere to be found! Kiri sees his dead grandfather as Cruloc finds footprints by the water. The barbarian and Garrin give chase and eventually find the unseen sorcerer. The adventurers hide in the overgrown forest of towering mushrooms until their dreaming companions return to this coarse world.
Then they retreat to the sanctuary of the giant anthill of the doomed insect colony to sleep. Their bloodcurdling nightmares are haunted by dread Zargoth.
Day 10:
The adventurers emerge from the colossal anthill and follow the river to western edge of the ageless labyrinthine ruins. Beyond it, a great cavern looms over a vast subterranean lake. Where the city meets the water, a dark ship is moored. Two of Zargoth's savage beast-men stand guard. The explorers edge closer to the ship of the damned and strike from ambush, swift and merciless! Suddenly, the tables turn! A trap is sprung on them! The degenerate beastmen of Zargoth lunge from hiding!
The adventurers survive their fury and bolt, boarding the dark ship!
They frantically cast off as howling mad beastmen pounce aboard! Suddenly, a heinous priest of Zargoth emerges on deck and the adventurers quickly cut him asunder! More snarling beastmen burst on deck as the ship leaves dock! The feral primitives sow havoc in a wild maelstrom of violence and mayhem! Then the adventurers seize the upper hand and don't let go. Suddenly, the fight becomes a slaughter.
The adventurers take the Dark Ship. Loche inadvertently appeases the gigantic glistening tentacles of a sea monster with the bodies of the dead beastmen! Ahead in the distance looms their frightful destination: the Island of Death... and Zargoth!


Chapter 17: The Island of Death
Day 10, continued:

The adventurers sail a subterranean sea to their dread terminus. Impossibly, the monstrous necropolis is larger than it should be! The explorers dock the Dark Ship in an ancient harbor of towering primal monoliths whose geometry is loathsome and wrong. They disembark and enter the unsettling ancient ruins that seemingly violate all natural law.
A blight of strange black vines flourish. Within them, dead bodies move!
Suddenly, the black creepers release themselves from the ageless wall, freeing the vine-filled corpses to lurch forward in a ghastly mockery of human movement! The adventurers descend upon the cadaverous marionettes, rending them asunder! Thousands of tiny seeds spill forth, engulfing the explorers! The vile seeds take root and Kiri and Zahra scream as something terrible grows inside them. Black vines writhe out from their mouths and nostrils, smothering their agonizing cries. Horrifically, they are changing, transforming into vine horrors, while their bodies are still alive! Garrin summons the grace of holy Mitra and miraculously cleanses Kiri of the foul blight! Tjoruy heals Zahra as more vine horrors stagger into view! The explorers try to slaughter them at range but two macabre cadavers reach Garrin who valiantly fights them alone! The paladin smites the heinous mockery of Men in a spray of insidious seeds! But he emerges unharmed. Amethu studies the blasphemous, otherworldly architecture that surrounds them, as Xorzen finds a hole beneath a small stone. Kiri reads the mysterious pictoglyphs of the strangely-angled stones feels his sanity come under siege! Others venture up the stairs to the forbidding arch. A stone shifts under foot and suddenly a great portcullis hurtles down upon them! Cruloc and Zahra are impaled and trapped beneath the immense gate! Xorzen probes a deep hole and feels something trying to bite his hand! Kiri tears his helmet from his head as his madness drives him blind! The portcullis cannot be raised off of Cruloc and Zahra! Xorzen pulls his hand from the hole and finds a snake coiled around it! The serpent bites his face as the gate is lifted off Cruloc and Zahra! The snake retreats from Xorzen. The explorers cannot hold the portcullis. It falls, dividing their number! Suddenly faceless horrors burst from the shadows, disfigured denizens of the Island of Death! The explorers trapped on the north side of the gate plunge headlong into battle, felling the first monster before it can take a step! Amethu weaves magicks that make him a giant! Blind, Kiri raises the gate as the fight rages on around him! Zahra decapitates another of the faceless monstrosities. Garrin falls beneath the ax of a gibbering horror. Then something unspeakable lurches out of the shadows! Tjoruy heals Garrin and the paladin returns to the nightmare. The monstrous abomination's countless scabrous arms hammer the adventurers with inhuman strength and cruelty! Zahra and Xorzen plunge blade and spearhead deep into the unspeakable atrocity! The ghastly anathema shrieks in many alien voices and its blood is that of a man! In horror and revulsion, the explorers hack, chop, pierce and bludgeon the unholy blight of corrupted flesh into oblivion! Amethu and Cruloc tend to the wounded. Blinded, Kiri is returned to the ship as Xorzen recovers treasure from the snake hole.
Then the explorers cautiously venture deeper into the alien domain of madness and horror. More gigantic insects, warped by the corrupting presence of Zargoth, crawl forth from the stones, each as long as a man! Instantly, one of the gigantic scuttling horrors dies wriggling upon Cruloc's spear in a gruesome spray of viridian gore! The rest of the the bloated, crawling vermin are soon hammered and smashed into oblivion!
Against every instinct of self-preservation, the explorers descend further into the blasphemous ruins of the Island of Death. They slowly back away from a stone portal etched in forbidden words of mystery and power. Loche opens the double doors and beyond it slithers a terrible, indescribable horror! Formless, protoplasmic and vast! The explorers flee for their lives into the eastern chamber!
Suddenly, colossal, otherworldly eyes awaken! Their piercing, penetrating gaze is hypnotic... beguiling! Some of the explorers are enslaved by their malevolent alien will! Tjoruy is rent asunder by his friends! Unseen, Mako continues his painstaking rescue.
The explorers escape the chamber of the living eyes, fleeing into an underground crypt marked with the Eye of Zargoth. They awaken gigantic charnel-house rats, and living corpses that rise from their tombs. As the dead descend upon the adventurers, the burial veil of one bloodless horror falls away. Revealed is a bloated, living cadaver whose dead flesh is infested with eyes! By luck and faith the accursed dead are driven back to their forlorn sarcophagi!
In an empty chamber, the adventurers recover. But where Cruloc and Zahra were touched by the dead, blisters open and ghastly, inhuman eyes peer up through the splits in the flesh! Frantically applied poultices cause the horror to abate! From beyond a shut door, distant chanting can be heard. The strange, alien vocalizations are unnervingly human.


Chapter 18: Kingdom Come
Day 10, continued:
As the sun eclipses over the Great Pyramid, the explorers of the nightmarish underworld find a heinous procession around a sacrificial pit. With sorcerous deception and stealth, the adventurers advance! Deception cast aside, a ferocious battle erupts, and so does the Zargoth Pit! Abhorrent, unnatural radiance not of this world pours forth from that strange void as the wild fray rages! Other worlds, other realms, other spaces reside inside the seething shaft of roiling phosphorescence that flows outward! Loche and Xorzen descend upon the heinous high priestess, disemboweling her where she stands in a ghastly mess of streaming entrails! Then the monstrous stream of unnatural, unhallowed color expands and subsumes them all! They are devoured and transported to regions unimaginable.
They stand alone upon islands adrift above the bottomless black void of their beleaguered sanity. A huge shape looms up out of the fog. Their minds reel, struggling to comprehend the enormity of the madness and the horror. Zargoth has come. A vast writhing pandemonium, coated in eyes within eyes, who speaks in the voice of a thousand screams. It staggers their reason; drives men mad. They find the demon god can bleed. And that he can rend their flesh and devour their souls. Kiri charges forward, trident in hand, impaling the hideous enormity of Zargoth's omniscient eye! Mako's sorcery blinds the countless all-seeing eyes of Zargoth! And the adventurers complete the slaughter!
A cataclysmic shudder of voice, shape and soul rents the air as the immortal demon-god of the Great Pyramid and the Underground City is undone at last! And with him, the world. Existence slips away in a rushing deluge of nameless color and light!
Suddenly, the adventurers stand again in the courtyard of the unholy temple! And then the ground gives way beneath their feet! The earth rocks and quakes in violent upheaval that threatens to topple the monolithic spires of the heinous temple, if not the island itself! Fleeing for their lives, the heroes narrowly escape the destruction of the Island of Death!
Zargoth is destroyed! His reign over Verulia is broken! His tyranny is ended at last! The lost kingdom of Verulia is reborn.



Player Resources:
An Age Undreamed Of (maps and realms of the World of Hyboria)
Men of the Hyborian Age (races of men)
Hieroglyphs (the story so far, in images)
DM:
The Horror at Briarsgate (1e): Lovecraftian Gothic Horror (N1, homebrew)
Lost City of Eternity (1e): Hyborian Age Sword and Sorcery (B4, JG102, homebrew)
Once and Future Earth (1e): Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Dungeon Crawl (X1, B1, ASE1, homebrew)
Sauron Victorious (1e): Dire Saga for the Fate of Middle Earth (homebrew)

Player:
Agax Gryyg: Gamer of Urth, Ravenloft
Azoth Al-Aziz: Lovecraftian Cultist, Tamoachan
Blodget: Foolish Young 9th Level Hobbit, Dark Clouds
Dredd Doomsmith: Dwarven Deathtrap Engineer, Tomb of Horrors
Elijah Crowthorne: Marooned Prophet, Pirates
Jack in the Green: Ancient Child, Giants
P.T. Codswallop: Larcenous Impresario, Dimwater
Sir Ugghra: Bestial Half-Orc Aristocrat, Brotherton
Swilbosh: Savage Lizard-Warrior, Keep
Tantos Vek: Failed Paladin, Under Streets
Ulfang Chainbreaker: Barbarian Liberator of Slaves, Tharizdun

DM bio is here.

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Inferno
Rider of Rohan
Rider of Rohan
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Re: The Struggle to Survive (the story so far)

#4 Post by Inferno »

Book III: The Lost City of Atlantis

Chapter 19: Civilization's End
Day 1:

Midsummer draws near. The heroes' quest for lost Atlantis has brought them to the very end of civilization. At the western border of Aquilonia, in newly-settled land wrested from the savage Picts and tenuously held by a fort that was still some miles before them, the adventurers follow a fresh cut trail through forests thick, quiet and primeval. Deep within the green dark walls that flank them, the sound of a twig snapping underfoot! Suddenly, a Pict ambush is sprung! A life and death battle erupts! The ambush reaps a cruel harvest. Suddenly, the tables turn and the fight becomes a slaughter. The massacre turns more gruesome as the adventurers harvest scalps for Aquilonian silver. The butchery complete, the adventurers press on through the primeval wilderness. Before sunset, they reach the furthest edge of civilization, Fort Tuscelan. The Pict scalps smooth their path among the Aquilonians as they explore the outpost, its inhabitants, news and rumors. A tense standoff earns one swaggering Aquilonian soldier the enmity of Cruloc.
The distant drumming of the Picts is the last thing they hear before they succumb to exhaustion. Night passes uneventfully at the frontier's edge.
Day 2:
Dawn comes sharp and early to the trumpeting of horns! A wake up call sounds at daybreak to signal the first formation in the great courtyard. The adventurers cannot sleep for all the racket. Contrary to last night, the frontier outpost is as industrious as an ant colony. The adventurers take a day to rest and recover in the bustling microcosm of civilization surrounded by a forest primeval. Before sundown, they are already planning their leave. They restock their provisions in preparation for a swift departure.
Decius' scouts agree to row them across. Under cover of darkness, they push the long canoe out onto Black River. Mid-stream the stillness is suddenly broken by the nightly talking of the drums, from deep within the forest! Grigor chants a gypsy prayer, the scouts withdraw their oars, and the river current takes them. They speed southward and run aground on the western shore of the Black River.
And so the adventurers steal into Pictland. Leaving the livid scouts in the longboat, they splash ashore, crunch across the short pebbly beach and take cover within the dark treeline. All is still save the distant, unrelenting drumming of the Picts.
Suddenly, a cry of death pierces the night! Then comes defiant yelling from the direction of the river. It abruptly ends mid-shout! A terrible silence follows and Grigor breaks it, calling the savages down upon them! Merciless arrows fly from the darkness in wave after wave! The four warriors make a mad, desperate charge west, into a storm of unyielding shafts! Suddenly a Pict lies face down with a shattered skull, his fingers spasmodically clawing at the grass! Another savage is dead before he knows it, Dahinna's blade deep in his back! A maelstrom of slaughter and arrows and cries from Pictish reinforcements! Amethu unfurls the brittle, dusty Papyrus of Uthoth from the fabled Treasure of Xuthalhotep and reads aloud its arcane hieroglyphs, placing a ward of protection upon Grigor! Arrows descend upon him with no effect! The superstitious savages retreat in bewilderment and fear before the powerful black magic of the intruders! The adventurers plunge headlong through the darkness after them! When they burst from the treeline at the river, the Picts are some dozen feet from land, paddling furiously in their canoes! The adventurers attack the fleeing savages. The surviving Picts escape to spread the word of the invaders' supernatural might. Then the explorers set out into the wilds of Pictland.
Day 3:
The stars have not yet paled for dawn when they startle a herd of deer and press on until morning.


Chapter 20: The Forbidden City
Day 8:
After days of travel across a wilderness untamed and primeval, the adventurers discover that which the Picts call the Forbidden City of the Dead, and what they believe to be Thracia, the lost colony of Atlantis! The explorers circumnavigate the dizzying rim of the canyon to a path of descent, a gateway to a distant age long gone by.
They descend into antiquity upon a thin and perilous path carved into the towering cliffs. Halfway down, they hear a song, haunting and beguiling. Like sailors drawn to shipwreck by the sirens' call, the men cannot resist. Roped together, they plummet reckless and eager down the narrow cliffside path until Kiri plunges from it! The adventurers pull themselves back up onto the precipice as horrors rise from below and sweet melody turns to inhuman screeching! A wild battle erupts and Kiri becomes ensorcelled by the filthy, winged harridans! By steel and shaft and flame, the adventurers drive off the last of the insidious vulture-women!
The explorers descend the treacherous cliff-path down into distant antiquity. There sprawls the ghost of Thracia. The heroes survey the corpse of empire. As the sun sets, they enter the monumental vestige of lost Atlantis. By nightfall, the explorers reach a ruined temple of the ancient world and warily approach. They cautiously peer within and discover the temple to the gods of Atlantis has long ago been defiled. The explorers brush back the cobwebs and trespass upon the hallowed ground of the crumbling temple ruins. Learned Amethu carefully studies the ravaged murals that speak of an older world than recorded history knows.
As they sleep, the adventurers are seemingly cursed by the strange gods of Atlantis for their hubris! Before dawn, gigantic sinister spiders descend from the shadows onto their waking, scrambling prey! Gnasher and Grigor succumb to insidious spider venom! In alarm and desperation, the besieged party fight for their lives against the vast, crawling horrors! Two creeping terrors are swiftly slaughtered and a third flees up its web! They tend to their fallen and discover Grigor and Gnasher are not dead but in the grip of some insidious paralysis! Soon they are free of it. Among the cobwebs and debris is discovered an arcane tome of ancient, forbidden sorceries of lost Atlantis, which Amethu reads until dawn.
Day 9:
Discovered beneath a loose paving stone is a rope ladder that plunges down into darkness. Zahra climbs down and discovers a door at the bottom, and a stairway beyond.


Chapter 21: The Caverns of Thracia
Day 9, continued:

The explorers descend into the black depths of the mysterious underworld. Primitive murals depict the dark Thracian epoch after the fall of Atlantis. At last they reach the bottom of the steps and find a great cave and a rope bridge extending out across an abyss. Grigor sprints across the suspended slats and gigantic bats descend upon him without a sound! The gypsy priest cuts one from the air as another knocks him off balance! Alone on the swaying spindle-bridge, Grigor regains his balance and fights! The others come to his aid with disastrous results! Grigor hacks the giant bat asunder in mid-air, and then the explorers are attacked by spears from the darkness!
With missiles shrilling through the air, a savage fray erupts! The adventurers charge the Thracian spearmen that hunger for their deaths! Steel, fire, spells and blood! On the eastern front, the battle becomes a slaughter. At the northern front, Grigor charges in to fight two foes alone in a grueling death by a thousand cuts. He falls beneath Thracian steel!
The adventurers are victorious. The bridge is taken. But all around them looms the ominous darkness of the caverns of Thracia. The party recovers from battle, searches the dead, interrogates their prisoner, and explores. With eerie calm, their captive curses them with the vengeance of Thanatos, the Atlantean God of Death. At a stone altar, Grigor is set upon by a swarm of gigantic bats and retreats!
Grigor opens a door onto an ambush of Thracian swordsmen! Cruloc and Kiri slam the doors, and Kiri seals them with magic! Then a pack of murderous war dogs are upon them! A harrowing fray of fangs and steel ends as quickly as it erupted!
With a sickening splintering and a savage cry, the great door is rent asunder and the merciless fight is joined again! Instantly, two Thracians and Grigor are cut down, and Iago almost with them! Beset on all sides, the wounded adventurers are determined not to die without a fight. But Iago is the next to fall. Suddenly, a stranger joins the fray! A Pict savage fighting on the side of the adventurers! The cursed heroes fight for their lives and are victorious. They momentarily recover from the harrowing battle, and then advance, discovering a rotunda holding a basin of skulls, and a column of black drapery. The adventurers retreat, yielding hard-fought territory won with sweat and blood. They hide and recover from their nigh-fatal wounds for two days.


Chapter 22: Underworld
Day 11:

The invaders of the distant, timeless past steel themselves anew and descend once more into the cavernous abyss. On the rope bridge across the bottomless pit, they are besieged by gigantic bats that are quickly cast down into the abyss! They cautiously advance and discover that all the corpses they left here two days ago are gone, and the temple of Thanatos is defiled. Searching the ruin, they find a reliquary door in the base of a broken statue. Trying to open it, Dahinna is stabbed by a poisoned, spring-loaded needle and her life is saved by Amethu and Cruloc! The reliquary is emptied of its treasure.
The explorers venture deeper, to the bat-infested cavern! The whirling vortex of wings and fangs is met by unerring arrows and unyielding steel that carves a trail of crimson through the air! The screeching maelstrom lacerates their flesh! The giant airborne creatures are cut asunder mid-flight in a harvest of gore and blood!
The adventurers cautiously explore west and north. They cross a bridge of the ancients that spans a bottomless abyss and discover a stairwell descending into mystery. They retreat and find an empty pen of the Thracian's domesticated wolves.
The explorers withdraw and follow the rope bridge eastward into a third immense cavern, the largest yet discovered! Cruloc, Dahinna and Torix step off the precipice and follow a precarious path in the cliff face toward a dark portal cut into the naked rock! Suddenly, enormous black shapes descend in silence from the cavern's shadowed vaults! Unerring archery feathers the winged beasts with arrows!
The tethered scouts reach the distant doorway and discover its dark twin. They divide their number and brave the crypt-like regions of the Death God, discovering an unwholesome subterranean growth that has taken root. Suddenly, from it, some half dozen ghastly figures rise! Horrifically, their bodies are infested with the unnatural fungi! The adventurers battle for their lives by spell and by sword and prevail. But Dahinna is poisoned by the insidious spore clouds and paralyzed! The explorers rest, hoping she will recover. Amethu delves the secrets from the reliquary of the shattered icon of Thanatos. At what might be dawn, Dahinna awakens, the explorers prepare, and Amethu wonders what dread necromancy awaits them.


Chapter 23: The Grave of Empire
Day 12:

That morning, the explorers plunge anew into the silent, black unknown. Through winding catacombs and supernatural darkness, they discover the Oracle of Thanatos and dare ask it questions!
Intrigued by her strange prophecies, the adventurers backtrack and search the poisonous, subterranean growth, finding a stone casket crudely carved with the unholy symbols of Thanatos! Cruloc throws it open and discovers within, atop a mound of gold and silver coins, a skull-headed obsidian wand! After an argument, Dahinna is caught stealing and deftly smooths things over.
The explorers continue onward into the eerie catacombs, finding a tapestried chamber with pews of worshippers in bone-white shrouds! Grigor dares find out what lurks beneath. Suddenly and without warning, the desecrators of the temple are seemingly stricken dead by the God of Death!
Dahinna is plunged into darkness! She gets a torch alight and beholds one of the shrouded worshippers, returned from death! It asks her to accept her fate. She falls to her knees and bargains not for herself, but for others. But the charnel horror offers only death. Suddenly, it lunges at her!
Dahinna evades its grasp and wounds it! It seizes her and Dahinna feels a piercing chill; cold like never before and an all-consuming emptiness as it devours her very soul. All hope is lost. Death is near. But Dahinna will not yield. Impossibly, she triumphs over the ancient horror!
Recovering from the crucible, she discovers Cruloc still draws breath! Miraculously, all her companions yet live! They are reunited, seemingly beyond the grave. After regrouping, they press on, westward.
No sooner does Grigor pass through a door when he is suddenly besieged by something unseen and inexplicable! A glistening, nigh-invisible wall fills the winding hallway! The looming, eldritch thing crawls forward and absorbs the stricken gypsy priest into its vast protoplasmic form! Its once-transparent mass horrifically blossoms with a ghastly cloud of crimson as it starts the unspeakable process of dissolving Grigor's flesh! By arrow and sword, the otherworldly thing from darkest nightmare is mortally wounded and loses all physical cohesion, instantly melting to the ground in a splatter!
After recovering, the explorers venture north through the unlocked iron door. Suddenly, wind, darkness and chaos descends.


Chapter 24: Domain of the Dead
Day 12, continued:

The explorers push through the gale and the blackness to discover a spectral figure awaiting them! Revealed to be a statue, suddenly the wind dies as secret doors yawn wide all around them, and from their black maws burst a legion of dead Thracians from beyond the grave! Grigor is the first to fall beneath the merciless onslaught! The shrouded corpses from the Chapel of the Dead rise from the dead and join the massacre! One by one, the adventurers fall. A doom certain closes in upon the bold raiders of Thracia. And Thanatos has come for their souls. Desperate, Torix makes a volcanic lunge at the fearsome statue beside him, toppling it! It shatters and the gale force wind returns in a sudden blast! And with it, all the living dead instantly fall lifeless!
The raiders of Thracia rest and recover. Except for Grigor and Kiri, who succumb to their grievous wounds.



Player Resources:
An Age Undreamed Of (maps and realms of the World of Hyboria)
Men of the Hyborian Age (races of men)
Hieroglyphs (the story so far, in images)
DM:
The Horror at Briarsgate (1e): Lovecraftian Gothic Horror (N1, homebrew)
Lost City of Eternity (1e): Hyborian Age Sword and Sorcery (B4, JG102, homebrew)
Once and Future Earth (1e): Post-Apocalyptic Sci-Fi Dungeon Crawl (X1, B1, ASE1, homebrew)
Sauron Victorious (1e): Dire Saga for the Fate of Middle Earth (homebrew)

Player:
Agax Gryyg: Gamer of Urth, Ravenloft
Azoth Al-Aziz: Lovecraftian Cultist, Tamoachan
Blodget: Foolish Young 9th Level Hobbit, Dark Clouds
Dredd Doomsmith: Dwarven Deathtrap Engineer, Tomb of Horrors
Elijah Crowthorne: Marooned Prophet, Pirates
Jack in the Green: Ancient Child, Giants
P.T. Codswallop: Larcenous Impresario, Dimwater
Sir Ugghra: Bestial Half-Orc Aristocrat, Brotherton
Swilbosh: Savage Lizard-Warrior, Keep
Tantos Vek: Failed Paladin, Under Streets
Ulfang Chainbreaker: Barbarian Liberator of Slaves, Tharizdun

DM bio is here.

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