The Cave of Worlds Campaign Blog, Session #13

The writeups of these two sessions are rather skimpy. I was short of sleep when I ran them, and very nervous; I was caught up in a medical whirlwind which ended up with me getting a colonoscopy and biopsy (I'm fine). I was able to run the sessions, but my memories of the fine details are shaky. So a number of relatively minor encounters have been omitted.

When last we saw the party, they were on the way to a Gloranthan city called "Wind's End", to try to track down records which would reveal the fate of a woman named Amedea and her son, Sed. They had apparently been captured as prisoners by the Empire, but records of their fate were hidden. The party's task was to find them, wherever they were, and bring them back to their employer - a High Comissioner of the Lunar Empire.

The party made it to Wind's End in about two weeks. The trip was uneventful. The town itself was rather odd; it had been an Orlanthi stronghold, but the Empire had conquered and renamed it three years earlier (the Orlanthi were not doing well in my Glorantha). The party busied themselves collecting information. From a naive young file clerk and a bitter and drunken ex-soldier, along with lesser sources, they eventually discovered the following:

When the city was conquered, the 23rd Cavalry Division had played a major part in the operation. In addition to many high-level Orlanthi (including members of associated cults), they had also captured many family members of those prisoners when the town was taken. Rune-level prisoners with families had been separated out from the rest of the prisoners and marched off to the northeast, along with their associated family members.

Relevant records had been altered or removed from the Hall of Records - or at least some of them seemed to have been changed either by or at the order of the city's mayor, a Lunar-appointed functionary. However, the clean-up job was not absolutely perfect, and some traces were left behind.

There isn't much to the northeast; after about two weeks there's one last fortress, a new one built by the 23rd Cavalry Division (or rather, by associated engineering companies). It's called Borast's Fort. Beyond that lies chaos-cursed ruins filled with monsters, wreckage, disease, and danger. According to rumor there's even one of the rare spots which is so utterly cursed that no magic can work there, and even the gods cannot see into or be reached from that place.

Borast's Fort is mostly a sealed fortress, off-limits to civilians, but it has a small trading post which is attached to it.

Gormuz discovered trollkin (they were unknown to the trolls of the Valley of Peace, as were cave trolls and all other troll-types except dark trolls and Great trolls), and became quite excited.

Dominica was the only one to reveal her status as a Lunar Agent, but only did so to the file clerk...scaring him very badly. Agents are extremely intimidating, since they are normally extremely competent and have curious legal powers. [Side note: I actually played an undercover Lunar Agent in a RuneQuest LARP at RuneQuest Con 1, many years ago.]

Based on all this, the party decided to travel to the northeast to investigate. They discussed traveling as merchants, and briefly considered spending four months prepping for that role, but eventually decided to play the part of adventurers instead. It's not unknown for adventurers to go up into the wastelands, although according to all reports it's a very dangerous place indeed. They set out in their wagon for Borast's Fort, on the trail of the lost prisoners.