Why look for conspiracy when stupidity can explain so much. – Johann Goethe

Every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance. – Nicola Tesla

The Inordinate Amount responded to a distress beacon from a Dohwar vessel that had crashed on an unusual constellation of three donut-shaped asteroids. Despite having their own Giff hippo-folk escort, the Dohwar penguin-folk were attacked by another Giff vessel. The Command Team noticed other irregularities as they set about helping the Dohwar repair their vessel to break the dynamic three-body gravity of the constellation. The group entered a moral debate when they found that a passenger on the Dohwar spelljammer was a Ylfen Zealot of the One, Monad, who sought passage with them to Mezsoul. Monad and his kind are unwelcome in Ylfen space for their radical reinterpretation of the Imperyion’s state religion of Theonean worship. He was travelling with the Dohwar to Illithid space in a quest to inspire new adherents against the Imperyion. While salvaging the Giff battleskiff that had been protecting the Dohwar, the away team is attacked by myconid hordes, emerging under the sudden but inevitable shadow of a toroidal eclipse. The attacking Giff returned and a Mexican standoff ensued. The murdering was delayed long enough for the Command Team to learn that the Dohwar Captain brought the situation on herself. She had tried to double-cross the Giff in a complex insurance fraud scam. She is placed in Giff custody who tow the vessel and the castaways back to Braal. 

Yesterday, I reported that the sensor amplifiers that Andru Prince or whoever had installed on the Amount had picked up a distress beacon near the far end of this debris field.

Having departed the edge of the field three days ago, I confirmed that it is coming from a damaged Dohwar spelljammer somewhere on a toroidal binary that seems to have broken free of the debris field. The wreckage of a Giff war barge is nearby. We are about a half day’s travel from the site. I am currently waiting on a decision from the Command Team.

Incidentally, I knew that taking the Amount through that debris field would be a meticulous flight, requiring an intense amount of maneuverability and discipline. As fond as I’ve grown of my Goblin shipmates, their in ability to focus on those types of detailed tasks without growing bored and listless continues to terrify me. As such, the Command Team’s Magluon Cup theatre was a stroke of genius. There hasn’t been an “accidental” fire on board in an entire week and the Amount has never been more responsive to m maneuverability commands.

Order from chaos with the addition more chaos. Who would have known?

Shilynn Luckborn. The Harbinger.

The Dohwar are a mercantilist race of psychic penguins, about the size of Halflings or Gnomes.  Unlike many of the anthropomorphic moreaufolk that populate the Shattered Sphere, the Dohwar appear almost entirely like the arctic aquatic birds found on Sentar, with longer legs. Their innate psychic abilities, skill as traders, and ability to “swim” through Wildspace in massive clan-based pods have allowed them to flourish in places where other races cannot gain a foothold. They are ruthless mercantalists who think they are much cannier traders than they are, and their schemes tend to be over-complicated.

They typically erect their villages on herds of Kindori and use spelljammers to connect to other spacefaring civilizations. It is not uncommon for them to hire Giff mercenaries to protect their vessels in environments where there they determine there are military threats, or when they are transporting valuable cargo.

The Giff are a militarist race of moreaufolk Hippos. They organize into semi-nomadic private military companies, that fight endlessly amongst themselves, largely over perceived slights to their concepts of “honour”, “duty”, and “loyalty.” They tend to be morons, but many would consider them “noble” morons. Under a properly notarized and reviewed contract they can be quite reliable and effectives. However, if there are any loopholes or misfilings, their Honour-Advocates will make you wish you’d never heard of them. Bral does a booming business in storing and interpreting their contracts.

For all of their absurdity, the Giff have one immutable rule that they’d sooner doe than break – a Giff will never fight another Giff!

It doesn’t take you long to find the source of the distress call: a crashed spelljamming vessel with a broad flat triangular base with a cluster of structures down the top central meridians. It looks as though a group of similar structures along the bottom meridian before the vessel crashed here.

The site is surrounded by a makeshift wall of crash debris and trama bricks. The Dohwar at the wall look exhausted. One of them breaks down into tears as you approach. Another one smacks it with his flipper and barks something at it in its own language before it pulls itself together.

The Captain asks, “How much for your goblins?” Are unphased when she turned down.

There is an Ylfe among the crash survivors, humbly robed in a monk’s vestments. He looks on at the goblins with unhidden fascination – though not a hint of hostility.

REPAIRS

Giff Cannon Fire tore apart the Frosted Roost’s maneuverability flaps. Trying to evade further damage, it got caught in the Toloroid Binaries dynamic gravity field and came crashing down.

Their Chief Pilot died in the crash and the Junior Pilot is no match for the Toloroid Binary.

·        They need repairs to their maneuverability flaps (on surface)

·        The attachment of their Helm’s primary motivators (in space, before departure)

·        And a spelljammer of exceptional skill to fly them free of the binaries

-        Transporting goods to __________ for trade, as well as a passenger from Bral

o   This includes paid shipments from the Illithid Embassy on Bral to contractors

o   Strange metals, alchemical materials and clockwork components – probably for constructing multiple identical magical devices or components for something arger.

-        There are 12 Dohwar at the site. 8 are injured. 10 died in the crash, including their healer. They used what healing potions they could salvage to stabilize the wounded. Three more wounded, suffering recent combat wounds, and one a sever fungal infection.”

-        “We took a short cut through the debris field”

-        “We were beset upon by another Giff vessel”

-        “They attacked our Giff mercenary escort”

-        “ The Frosted Roost was damaged in the process”

-        They’ve sent an Away Team (6 Dohwar) to salvage the crashed War Barge to repair the maneuverability flaps, they did not return.

-        The Toloroid is inhabited by hostile fungus.

-        “We’ve been attacked a number of times.

-        “ As a result of the infection the process two of our crewmates have bloated and burst into mushroom people and ran off to join our harassers.”

BASILE:

·        She is psychically hiding something from you

·        She intends to read your surface thoughts

·        You cannot read her surface thoughts: Pendant of Mind Blank

·        She recognizes you as someone who is highly perceptive, trying to determine whether you are psychic

·        Tether Longfoot (First Mate): loyal to the Captain.

·        Waddles Eartuft: Quartermaster – Captain has not been herself. Distracted... (come to think of it, she’s been that way since Bral)

·        Trooper Blueflipper:

The Dohwar hired the Giff War-Barge Target Fixation of the 2,352 Platoon of the 721st Brigade of the Giff Blackstar Company to act as protection for their vessel. Their Giff mercenaries were attacked by another that had lost the contract, and the Dohwar spelljammer got caught in the crossfire. 

MONAD: An Ylfen Zealot of the One. He is anti-Imperyion. Purchased passage to the Inner Sphere. Wants to make contact with the Mindflayer revolutionaries of Okkalappa. Believes they could help his cause against the Imperyion. Excited to talk about theology and revolutionary politics.

Monad is an Oracle. He has been helping the Dohwar survivors as best he can.

He believes that “All Should Become One” in a gnostic and spiritual sense, material and political equality – believes the Imperyion is corrupt and has strayed from the TRUE path of the One. Very interested (even excited) n the goblins and deeply regrets "the Cleansing". Only "the One" can bring all things together...

He is curious about the "Lost Sphere" and wonders if the goblins have come from there. He ask about the city of Vfairnjulian (the Lunar Elf city on Seluna); heard it is filled with Ylfe who defy the Imperyion.

He wants to continue on to Mazsoul and offers to pay for passage.

While the players are at the Target Fixation, they see the Amount break orbit and enter battle stations. They are attacked by the End Around. Before the battle, they see (PERCEPTION) a spelldasher leave the vessel.

Captain Bhholomop Glophandamo, Master & Commander of the Giff Battle Skiff: depending on what happens, he could (1) attack the party, (2) open to being convinced of what he suspects, namely that he has been duped into attacking the Giff ship. Wants to retrieve their skulls to honour them and, if possible, the Dohwar Captain to hold accountable.

Capt Stonebeak took out a sizable insurance policy out on the Giff War Barge. To recoup, she psychically coerced another Giff commander to attack the War Barge on their way BACK from Illithid space, to recoup costs.

Giff enthusiasm for battle, the End Around attacked too soon… as the Frosted Roost left the debris field, not on its return.

My dream of A to B? Smooth sailing? No surprises? Still no.

At least the ship was running… maybe better than it ever had? We finally had a big enough crew, which helped. I think the Magluon games really helped to bond the crew and raise their morale, too. I’d never seen them work that well together. Even Shilyn noticed.

Speaking of Shilyn, coming out of the asteroid belt, she picked up a distress call. Something about a psionic penguin people (I can’t believe I just wrote that. Hieronius’ Holy Arsehole, but Magluon is a strange place) called the Dohwar, and a hippo-warrior people called the Giff crash landing on an asteroid. I guess that should be asteroids, and fucking weird ones at that - two overlapping loops spinning within and around each other. I’ve seen more than my share of asteroids in the last few weeks, and nothing even remotely like that. Wonder how something weird like that even happens?

We’d learned a bit from our experience of trying to find that damned siren beholder at the beginning of our run through the asteroid belt. We used magic and flamewings to pinpoint the distress signal pretty good, and then Fortuna and Khalid did a great job - no shocker - of piloting us down to the surface. 

More strangeness. Again, it’s Magluon. The penguin people had crash-landed pretty badly. Even I could tell their ship wasn’t going anywhere without some fairly serious repairs, but it was what was around the ship that was even weirder. All this strange fungal growth, and closest to the ship the penguins had torn up the fungal growth and piled it into something like a fortress away from the ship. I knew they hadn’t just done that for grins, so I was a little wary as we approached the ship.

And still more strangeness. The penguins had a passenger on board, an Ylfe. But no ordinary one. This guy had a very different feeling about him, and you could tell it right away. He engaged with Fortuna in an overly friendly way, and it quickly became clear to her that he was on an evangelising mission for the One - the force that wanted to collapse all of the spheres, all of creation. So… the force the gardeners and the architects and, well, us, had been fighting since even before we arrived in Magluon. I didn’t pick up on everything in their conversation, but I felt a mixture of being sick to my stomach and a deep hatred any time he opened his mouth. I noticed my right hand looking for the shaft of my spear, and I had to force my mind to focus on my conversation with Captain Stonebeak.

I was focused on the nuts and bolts of the situation, I occasionally tried to throw in a bit of a tough question to see if Basile, who was mostly watching us talk, could pick up on anything in the Captain’s reaction. We found out a lot. Ship’s attacked by another Giff warship (that wasn’t supposed to happen. Giff aren’t the brightest, but they have a strict honour code and attacking each other is about the least honourable thing a Giff can do). Stranded here with dead and wounded, and with their lone healer among the dead. And then the bad times really started. Whenever the shadows of the other asteroid passed over, mushroom creatures would rise up from the fungus carpeting much of the asteroid and attack. This too had taken a toll on the remaining crew. And it explained the removal of fungus from right next to the crash site. They’d been stuck here three weeks, and the captain was, understandably, desperate for us to help salvage some parts from the also crashed Giff escort and fix their ship, to the point where it could limp back out into wildspace.

But there was something about the whole situation with the captain and the attack that smelled like an overripe gujamellon. I could tell Basile knew it. Hells, even I suspected it. We only found out later that Fortuna had found some revealing stuff. The captain had made not one, but two contracts with Giff vessels. My brain immediately latched onto what seemed the most likely explanation - somehow the penguins had found a way to get the Giff to attack their own Giff escort. How they managed to get around the Giff’s strong sense of honour was one thing, but the more important question was why? 

Anyways, we flew over to salvage what we could from the wrecked Giff escort, the Target Fixation, as quickly as possible, and tried to beat the shadows. We failed on that second front, though we would eventually get the first done.

A fight with waves of the mushroom creatures came upon us in within a few seconds of the passing shadow. We managed this well, though Fortuna, again, was taking an alarming amount of hits, but partway through the battle we became aware of a much bigger problem. A sturdy-looking warship - the 2nd Giff vessel - moved to engage the Amount above us. And a Giff shuttle launched and headed straight for us.

The Giff captain came in hot (imagine that), and pulled forth an impressive-looking arquebus, but Khalid and Fortuna managed - just - to stop this second battle by pricking his sense of honour. How, they asked, was it in any way honourable to attack spacefarers doing what everyone agrees you are duty bound to do in rescuing a ship in distress? How had it been honourable to attack their fellow Giff in the first place? Had they no shame in that? Why were they about to attack us - innocents in the whole affair - when it was clear that their target should be their supposed allies, the Penguin people, who had fooled them? Where was the honour in anything they were doing?

I’d actually seen the Giff Captain’s finger start to depress on the trigger, but the barrage of embarrassing questions from my comrades stopped him just in time. Peace. Well, almost. I quickly yelled out that they should call off their attack on the Amount, and - thankfully - they did so. Peace!

The Giff took Captain Stonebeak prisoner to be tried for her crimes in making the Giff attack their own. We managed to get the penguin ship into space - barely - and limping its way back to Brahl. We took their Illithid paid and bound cargo by way of payment for the rescue - a bizarre collection of gadgets and alchemical stuff that not even Basil could immediately make sense of. 

Oh, and we had some tough decisions to make. The Brinkmanship crewmembers that we’d rescued from the Siren Beholder, with their freedom-loving ways and devil-may-care attitude, had quickly shown themselves to be a bad influence on our crew. We’d had to lock them up in the Brigg. And there was the plant (the one we’d discovered, anyway) that Thaliose had put onto our ship. Turns out all three had been magically enchanted with missions, and in the case of the secret agent, much more. Basil had observed him closely and had figured out that if we attempted to remove his geas enchantment, it would turn him into a destructive magical bomb. We managed to alter the enchantments enough on all three in a way that they might prove a problem for the Brinkmanship’s captain and crew, and sent them back to Brahl to, hopefully, work their way back to Thaliose.

The toughest choice, though, was with Monad, the Ylfen disciple of the One. Fortuna wanted to straight up kill him, and I admit, there was a large part of me that wanted to as well. After all, the blood of the gardeners still flowed through my veins, if not their powers. There was a part of me, though, that wondered if this was what the mission of the gardeners really meant, killing defenceless and deluded souls? And what if, just maybe, this weird and repulsive individual might serve a greater purpose in the protection of the spheres by ultimately being a divisive force in the Ylfen Imperion?

I don’t think Fortuna was pleased with our mercy towards Monad, as the rest of us voted to send him back to Brahl. Only time would tell if she was right.

Day 261 - Freeday Claireweek Cordlona

The crew was efficient and into something resembling routine.  Most physical wounds from the Magulon Games were healed though black eyes and bruises were still worn with pride everywhere.  I was mostly recovered myself and comfortable enough with my duties to have some time each day to build items of magic to prepare for our next challenges.  We had even managed to integrate our Modrons from Brahl into some ship's duties.  I began calling them Sine, Cosine and Tangent because I noticed they were excellent a making calculations and taking records.  Our administrative efforts in this time were all caught up.  With a crew of over 35 now it required exacting effort to manage their pay, rations, duty rosters and discipline.  Their skills at geometry and mathematics were even greater and so Shilynn was willing to trust them with some of the more mundane and routine aspects of navigation.

Using my War Room for utter secrecy, the Squad began our detailed and long-term plans for a potential assualt on the Brinkmanship, the deep disguises that would require and endless discussions about what to do on Meszoul and the Twain Hearts. 

Our most serious concern was to determine the fate of Thaliose’s minion in our midst.  Basile had completed a thorough and highly ethical interrogation of Herundis.  Our Investigator had learned that Herundis was a split personality carrying layers of devious and powerful protective magic.  Herundis truly believed he was a simple deck hand but co-existing in that body was a spy of exemplary skill and ruthless cunning.  The magic involved was so devious that to tamper with it would not just kill the spy but likely destroy our ship.  Even to simply execute him could be dangerous.  We imprisoned him while we debated how to best leverage the situation.

Some three weeks after the Magulon Cup’s completion, Shilynn reported a distress call from a crashed Dewar ship along our course.  While the unwritten laws of Wildspace demanded our assistance, we were committed to the task with enthusiasm.  We increased the ship’s speed and made diligent preparations.  The Dewar were a race of psychic penguinoids dedicated to space commerce.  As we approached the target system we saw the difficulties ahead of us clearly.  They had aran afoul of a toroid asteroids in a trinary orbit.  Even during my studies in Jendouba as a boy I had learned that the motions of three objects were fundamentally unpredictable.  This was not mathematical game for a summer day though; Shilynn’s piloting would be tested to the limits.  Luckily our recent experiences searching for the last crash had taught us better techniques with the flame wings.  The Flamewings inn coordination with the Inordinate Amount while casting augury and divination detected and triangulated the distress signal.  With that precision, our Squad of five was able to drop with a minimum of trouble right onto the crash site.

The crash site was surrounded with Dewars and debris.  The asteroid was covered in strange fungus but the Dewars had deliberately and systematically cleared the flora away from their ship.  We were met by Captain Dash Stonebeak; her ship was the Frosted Roost.  She explained they had been towing a Gif war barge called the Target Fixation when they were  attacked in this system and crashed three weeks ago.  The oddity was that the attacking ship was also Gif; even we knew that the race of hippo-humanoid warriors never attacked their own.   Fortuna was able to find evidence of the Frosted Roost’s cargo and mission. The barge had landed some distance away and an away team sent to recover parts and supplies never returned.  The remaining twelve crew were in bad shape, some near death since the ship’s healer died in the crash.  Something from the planet attacked when darkness fell which was unpredictable because of the trinary uncertainty.  Khalid immediately began triaging and organizing the mass of casualties while Hazel delivered actual physical and magic succour to the wounded.  Some had been infected by fungus in battle on the surface and those wounded would need to be treated off the surface.

Among the survivors was an y’lfe aesthetic monk, an evangelist of a breakaway sect of the One, named Monad.  He was travelling to Mezsoul to continue his efforts to spread his creed.  In spite of the highly emotional impact of his presence, we had no time to deal with that.  Instead, we took the flamewings to the Gif crash to look for parts to repair the Frosted Roost.  As we approached the wreck, night fell and the fungal hordes emerged.  Fortuna and Khalid began dropping fireballs to slow their advance.  This created enough scorched ground for Fortuna to block their advance with a flame wall.  A temporary sanctuary in place brought no respite when a Gif Warship, the End Around, entered orbit and began firing on the Inordinate Amount.  An away-team of Gif warriors landed on the surface and began threatening us.  We were however quick to convince them of our strong moral mission to rescue the Frosted Roost and their unsavoury behaviour in stopping us and threatening the wounded.  They stood down and we discovered they had been duped by the Dewar into an insurance scheme.  Together we returned the Frosted Roost to orbit, where we took its cargo of gizmos and alchemy to improve our cover story and journey to Mezsoul. The Dewar crew transferred to the End Around as did the y’lee Monad.  Through the careful magic of Fortuna and Basile, he was placed under subtle gaes in hope that he would stop the promotion of the One and become its strongest opponent.

ARC RIFLE: Arc Weapons discharge directed energy blasts with a loud crack, firing blots of blue-white electricity. Unlike Black powder weapons, they discharge electricity bolts from magically charge energy crystals. Crystals can be recharged by a spellcaster.

• One Crystal: 20 levels (d6 per level) of Lightning Bolt

• One shot 1-5 levels, though firing at 5th level consumes two charges and does 1d6 damage to the shooter

• Distance touch attack

This ARC rifle comes with two spellcharge crystals.

One more thing about the Arc Rifle. It is a fascinating and innovative design. You've been a gunslinger long enough that you have the sense that this is not derived from a black powder design. The spellcaster in you wants to say it is more like a wand. But the soldier tells you, that the design idea came from something else, and that could be important.