An interlude
Because Father Boravdgaz walked into my head randomly.
He went to a Sensate’s* college in Arborea, which, while typically reasonable, did tend to not be particularly kind to the giant population, seeing as, because of their proportions, they were forced to be housed in seperate areas and rendered it impossible for them to easily access classes in the cramped dungeons.
He eventually got fed up with this and acquired several magic items to polymorph him into a human—he’d typically been interested in shapeshifting to begin with, which is part of why he went to a wizard’s school.
This didn’t actually help enough as he found it was actually fairly difficult to adjust to the altered body proportions and, more specifically, the sensory issues (trolls have a very weak sense of pain but are highly sensitive to heat and smell, vs. humans who can basically ignore hot weather but find even something as mild as a large gash on the arm to excruciating)
Also the tools he had were not especially reliable and prone to failing at awkward times, leaving him with another adjustment period in the middle of classes, which ultimately led to him attempting to experiment with more forms to try to ease this transition.
Unfortunately this turned out to not be a good call while enrolled in college and Boravdgaz was suspended and put under a semi-permanent (semi-permanent in that the Illusory Library of Galbdavarz removed it) form-lock effect to stop his transformations from disrupting classes (and to stop him from stealing magical items from the college)
He at around this point had a personal falling out with the cult of Burgud, over his use of shapeshifting, deemed to be the domain of elves who are one of the four insidious ones, and its affiliation with Galbdavarz the exiled, who delved into the secrets of fae.
Ultimately he joined up with a cult of Galbdavarz (which sees Burgud as a judgmental and mildly abusive father figure but still hopes he will come around one day but refuses to speak with him until he does) and dedicated himself to the Illusory Library.
He frequently spends time in humanoid form, though he gave up on the humans because overall while he found it much easier to cope with stimuli in human form it was just… alien to have such dull senses. He prefers elves and gnomes, both of whom have fairly strong senses, though if he has extensive periods of sensory overload he may go with human form or even on occasion orc (who besides light sensitivity have fairly dull senses comparatively.)
(*Father Boravdgaz is a sensate, in that he subscribes to the philosophy, but he has disavowed the Faction formally due to his beliefs, based on his college experiences, that they are largely hypocritical and want everyone to pursue sensory experiences THEIR way. …I’m fairly certain his college was probably atypically hypocritical in that regard and suspect the more formal branches probably have different issues with being shitty because of their beliefs.)
[I’ll start a new scene tomorrow if someone reminds me to :P (WHERE IS EVERYONE DDDDD:)]
In which Tanar’ri do not approve of lawful deities
Ravana looked over Talxerx, mildly irritated that the newcomer wouldn’t spare them as much as a hello. She shrugged her shoulders and simply gave the construct a short nod before looking around at the rest of the group.
“Is this everyone? We’re just missing Solemn and Tesk right? And they’re going to meet us back at the ship later.” She paused for a moment. “I guess we’re ready to go then…” Ravana looked at Father Boravdgaz. “… Whenever you are.”
Father Boravdgaz was busy arguing with the Hezrou, though the Hezrou seemed to be losing quite a bit of its confrontational when it noticed half a dozen trolls, including a leader wearing something akin to full plate mail, approaching it.
“There’s Tesk’s bug-druid,” Talxerx said, “But I don’t know if he came to the market; I was too busy figuring out what all we needed to keep this ship flying.”
Father Boravdgaz turned and rejoined the group, as the Hezrou vanished in a cloud of noxious smoke. ”Fuck I hate those things,” he said, “Smell fucking awful.” He turned to Talxerx, “I think this bag had the supplies you wanted? Or at least some of them. It was a list of supplies Sol forwarded to, so hopefully it was accurate.”
The warforged clacked his jaw plates, and took the backpack off of Father Boravdgaz.
“Sol and Tesk can catch up with us on our way back to the ship,” he said, pulling on the backpack and starting towards the front gates of the market building.
[er I’m assuming based on the post above and the paucity of replies that people are mostly ready for the scene to end; so just like, like this post if you don’t have any more to say.]
(Source: farewellhappyfields)
In which Tanar’ri do not approve of lawful deities
The Hezrou had apparently decided that Talxerx’s presence was blaspheming Demogorgon. Yet more nuisances in marketplace packed full of them.
And yet this one could actually pose a threat, and given the disorder in this marketplace, Talxerx could hardly be certain that the market’s guards would do anything to stop it if the demon decided to eat him.
Talxerx had also heard that such demons smelled nauseatingly terrible, which made him glad his Creator had seen fit to omit olfactory senses from his design.
“Ahem,” a person said loudly from behind Talxerx, interrupting his irritated rebuttle of the prospect that Demogorgon’s perpetual feud with himself was an advantageous trait. (It could hardly be said to be a disadvantage to have two heads, and therefore, two minds, but if you spent three quarters of your time trying to undermine the other head, how could you ever accomplish anything worthwhile.)
“Me?” Talxerx asked, looking over his shoulder to see a trio of large monsterous humanoid type creatures in formal attire. At least some of the chaotic giants had learned that proper dress was essential.
“No, the tanar’ri,” the leader of the group said. ”Your friends are looking for you, by the way.”
“This… abomination cannot be allowed to live and spoil the chaos of this domain!” the Hezrou shouted.
“Oh for the love of Burgud, what ever gave you the impression that you were in charge here?”
“I speak for Demogorgon! I am in charge in ALL the lower planes!”
“Well fortunately we’re in Outland,” the leader said. ”Talxerx, your friends are over there.” He pointed at the trio of passangers, who were standing around—or in Astaero’s case, riding a horse which was standing around, waiting for Talxerx to get away from the creature.”
Talxerx grudgingly turned and started toward them, not particularly satisfied with backing down, but not really wanting to cope with the prospect of being ripped apart again, either.
He glanced over the group of passengers, and nodded and clacked his jaw plates together. Spoken greetings were not worth the irritation.
Meanwhile…
“Yeah Sol told us where the ship is.” Ravana nods her head vaguely in the direction of the craft. “Also, you might want to do that? Then again Zerchai did see the artificer in question it seems, perhaps…?” Ravana took a quick peek at Zerchai, unsure how to refer to the Gith. “… they. Should go find the construct.”
Ravana tapped her nose in thought a couple of times. “You may want to do that first though. No sense in leaving without everyone in the party around.”
“Thon. Do I *look* like a hunter to you? … never mind, I’ll look around. You might want to go ask the crystal merchants if they’ve seen him, or what he was buying next. Astaero, why don’t you help me out, you can see over the crowd from horseback.” Zerchai set off in the direction thon’d indicated, grumbling “you show up on an animal companion one time…”
“Oh its alright, I can see someone that looks like them from here,” Father Boravdgaz said, pointing off into the crowd. ”There’s an advantage to being several feet taller then the tallest humanoids.”
The troll glanced around the market again “Oh dear that looks like a Hezrou he’s arguing with; no wonder nobody’s standing near him. We might want to intervene before violence breaks out.”
The priest tapped his holy sigil, and held out his other hand, and a dark red bird with glowing eyes materialized perching on it in a flash of smoke and sparks. ”Fly to Sazgadzed,” Father Boravdgaz said, and the bird flew off toward the corner of the market.
(Source: farewellhappyfields)
Ezalash the Discorporate didn’t particularly care about days much; boring measure of time
Tesk grinned and clapped their hands together. “Smuggling. I love smuggling. You’re wonderful Sol,” They said whole heartedly, event hough it was probably a given that Tesk would be pouting and frowning and insulting Sol very soon. Later though, that would be later. For now Tesk was wrapped up in the excitement. “And yeah, what Sol said, ‘bout the boxes, lined and… stuff,” Tesk trailed off, once again trying to be sort of official and failing.
Tesk darted forward to look at the map, having enough presence of mind to keep out of the way enough that Sol could see to because really Sol was the one who knew what was going on. Tesk was just curious.
“Food,” Tesk said quickly, look up. “Oh I love food. We always need more of that, what with picking up people all over the place. Everyone needs to eat… or well most everyone… I guess.” Tesk frowned in thought. “Oh yes, good, stuff to keep Elarsis in the air. That’s good. Can’t have them falling apart on me no. How’d I get properly lost then?”
Tesk turned to Sol. “Right okay, we need somethign else?” They asked eagerly. Tesk was quite excite about getting on with this job. Smuggling. Smuggling was so much fun. Plenty of bickering with the ship to look forward to, trying to get them to the right place. Oh this was gonna be good. Jobs were always good, even when they weren’t they were exciting and that was fun.
Sol grinned at Tesk’s praise, though didn’t bother saying anything. As far as ze was concerned it was a given that people thought ze was wonderful. Well, hir thoughts briefly brushed on Astaero, most everyone that ze hadn’t caused to be torn away from their sweetheart anyhow.
Sol moved closer and examined the map, nodding along to Ezalash’s instructions. “Alright cutter, seems a fair rum rig. I’ve heard of the city, though never had cause to go, my sort of body not exactly overrunning the sixes.
Not ful pleased with the idea some berk’s caught a whiff of the dark, but as long as we’re careful I don’t see any bashers causing overmuch trouble- ‘less you’re lyin’, though I see no sense in that.
There any particular place in your ‘shop where the loot goes? We’ll be needing access and be able to avoid any security you got. ‘Less someone’s meetin’ us there?”
“Oh, right,” Ezalash said. ”I’ll be meeting you there. In a different body. See, I’m a discorporate psionic entity, have been ever since my original host died. The problem is, while I can hop easily between bodies, I can’t carry anything with me when I do. Hence, I need this stuff transported.”
“I don’t believe there should be any trouble with investigators, they rarely come near my workshop and I can probably keep them from causing trouble once you’re there if they do show up. You’ll want to land in the courtyard, it should be large enough for your ship. You could also land outside it, but if you see any sort of commotion nearby the workshop, avoid it and head for the court yard.”
Ezalash passed Sol a sheet of paper. ”This should outline the pay for the job; you’ll find its rather more then typical for such a job. I’m not expecting trouble if you go to my workshop instead of the drop site we originally planned—that should throw off the investigators—but if you run into any trouble, let me know and I’ll throw in a bonus.”
Meanwhile…
Father Boravdgaz returned to the group of travelers* where he’d first found Tesk and Sol, followed by two other trolls in similarly formal outfits, each carrying a large crate in each of their hands. Boravdgaz had also found a backpack, which he was now wearing.
“So which ones of you are crew? I’m supposed to find another crew member while Sol and the captain meet with Kalaph’s friend, and deliver these boxes to your ship.”
He glanced around the market. ”Are any of you crew? Sol mentioned a construct of some sort, I suppose he’d be crew if none of you are?”
(*Specifically, Ravana, Astaero, and Zerchai)
Ravana took a look between the other two. An Aasimar Druid on crutches and a Gith. It would probably be better - at least in her mind anyways - if she dealt with the trolls, if for no other reason than she was wearing armor and the other two weren’t.
“Yeah. We haven’t seen a construct though. Or at least I haven’t anyways. I can’t speak for the others.” Ravana looked back and forth between the two trolls, quickly assessing which one of the two would be more dangerous if they dropped the crates or worse decided to use them as stunt doubles for boulders. Boravdgaz got his own assessment separately afterwards.
“What did you need?” She smiled pleasantly, still unsure of exactly what was going on and whether violence would be necessary.
“We aren’t the construct you’re looking for,” added Zerchai. “Just passengers. If it’s a tin can you’re looking for, though, I saw one pass by that way earlier, grumbling about crystal merchants. Just watch for the crowd parting to avoid him.”
“Well did any of you get directions to the ship?” Father Boravdgaz asked. “These crates are the ones you’re… or er, they’re, supposed to be transporting for us, and this bag has got various magic supplies to keep the ship flying.” He gestured at his backpack.
“I can also go alert my scryers to try to find a construct artificer, if you think that’d be better.”
Ezalash the Discorporate didn’t particularly care about days much; boring measure of time
Tesk blinked at Sol and stood in silence for a long moment. Sol was right, Tesk wasn’t really (at all) the expert here. They were the tag along and that was the sort of roll they fit into, for this anyway (not that Tesk really fit into the Captain’s roll either in anything more than name and as a figure head but they weren’t going to think about that… or mention it.) Sol was the one with the contacts (and the honest talent for leading things but that was another bit Tesk wasn’t going to actually mention).
After a moment Tesk wrinkled their nose and only said “But I’m not a glowing ball of light and I can’t fly.”
Tesk hung their head again and just waved a hand dismissively. “It’s okay,” they said softly. “Shouldn’t begrudge you speaking your home tongue.”
Then Tesk listened to Ezalash was saying. They grinned. “You had someone steal hearts off dead war victims,” They asked. “Oh that is wicked. Bit impolite though. ‘Course they’re dead so it’s not like they’d mind much huh?” Tesk cut off their rambling with a short laugh.
“See there Cap’n,” Sol grinned, “I gotcha an honest bit o’ smugglin’!”
“Now where exactly you want us to go? There are more’n a few places in the verse what ain’t so friendly to dead dancers. ‘Fraid you’re gonna have to specify some.
And course the boxes are lined, right? Because our Cap’n Tesk is not takin’ any slippery cargo what ain’t lined, I don’t care the colour of your jink.”
“Boxes are lined in lead, yes. Kalaph did the packing, or probably his trolls did. Anyway, the location.” Ezalash passed a map laying on the desk to Sol.
“It’s my workshop, which is in the mountains of Arvandor*, near a village called Elesen’s Grave. That’s circled on the map. But don’t actually go there; I got word that someone in the village is figuring out what I’m up to, so there’s a slight change of plans. I need you to take the box directly to my workshop, which is about a mile towards this peak over here. Once you’ve dropped the cargo off feel free to visit the town. In fact you should, because I contracted with the farmers to provide you with a large amount of food when you show up, so you’ll probably want to pick that up.”
“If you can’t find the site with your planeshifting, there’s a much larger city down here, the Naaeredrin Lorehall. You might be able to guess from the name that this is Elf territory, though it’s outside any divine realm so you shouldn’t need to deal with that.”
“As far as pay, I believe Kalaph is providing you with some of those exotic supplies he said you always need; and obviously I’ll be waiting with the rest of it, including that stash of food when you arrive.”
(*First layer of Arborea)
Meanwhile…
Father Boravdgaz returned to the group of travelers* where he’d first found Tesk and Sol, followed by two other trolls in similarly formal outfits, each carrying a large crate in each of their hands. Boravdgaz had also found a backpack, which he was now wearing.
“So which ones of you are crew? I’m supposed to find another crew member while Sol and the captain meet with Kalaph’s friend, and deliver these boxes to your ship.”
He glanced around the market. ”Are any of you crew? Sol mentioned a construct of some sort, I suppose he’d be crew if none of you are?”
(*Specifically, Ravana, Astaero, and Zerchai)
Ezalash the Discorporate didn’t particularly care about days much; boring measure of time
“I like ‘em being rude,” Tesk pipped up with a smirk when Sol vaguely taunted Kalaph about being rude. Tesk actually did like the short gnome being in general, it was pretty awesome. Small things were fierce and Tesk admired that. But really Tesk liked the fact that Kalaph was being rude to Sol specifically because Tesk was a little bit cross with Sol being all threatening and leader like and such, even though he was far better at it than Tesk was. Tesk was a kid throwing a temper tantrum sometimes, a lot of the time.
Threats were fine and it was good, easy batter, especially on the Planes. It was a major form of communication. But Tesk’s secondary form of communication was really sulking.
“Hey,” Tesk said indignantly when Sol gave a warning to Boravdgaz. “It’s my ship isn’t it!? I should be the one handing out warnings.” Tesk frowned and then hung their head. “But, well Sol’s right,” They said reluctantly. “Temperamental damn thing. Be nice to them yeah.”
And then words in a language that Tesk did not understand. Tesk wrinkled their nose. Oh they really didn’t like not understanding things. “Hey… don’t I get to know what’s going on?”
Sol turned, mildly surprised Tesk had paid attention at all. “Begging your pardon, Cap’n, each of your crew has their own job- mine being wagger and dealer of negotiations, contacts- that sort of thing. Forgive me for takin’ the lead and such but I find myself figuring you wouldn’t stoop to doin’ my job any more’n you’d stoop to doing Elasris’s.
It was ful rude of me to speak so’s you couldn’t ken though, I was just excited to be speakin’ my home tongue! Fair few cutters in this line o’ business speak celestial.”
“Oh I’m not really in this line of business, per se,” Ezalash said. ”I’m only borrowing Kalaph’s body, my permanent residence is elsewhere. …or it was, until the core decided it’d be a great idea to go raid a Battle Dragon’s lair for treasure. So I’m stuck body surfing.”
“Anyway, Kalaph doesn’t want me to be long because one of his contractors went and got in an enormous mess and needed him to clean up after them. So, the short version: I’ve got some boxes of necromantic supplies—mostly human and related species hearts—that need to be taken to my workshop in a plane that doesn’t exactly like necromancers. Or people collecting hearts off of fallen blood war conscripts.”
“I didn’t do the collection, for the record, a night hag I met in Oinos makes a living doing that, and she got the goods up the Styx as far as Pandemonium. I need you to take them the last leg.”
Ezalash the Discorporate didn’t particularly care about days much; boring measure of time
Solemn laughed, “Oh my dear Father, no no no, if the captain touches anything they’re not supposed to and sours this little deal, Baator is not where they will end up!” Ze pinched Tesk’s cheek, half playful and half ensuring they paid attention, “Well, not all of them anyway. Merry is pretty interested in this little venture going well.” Ze winked cheerily, before turning hir full attention onto Kalaph.
“Kalaph!” Ze exclaimed. “Haven’t you don’t well for yourself! I hope you don’t mind me popping my nose in, most of my folk and kin are off doing other things and besides, I find my presence tends to speed things along. And of course, I just couldn’t resist seeing the result of your little power grab in the flesh.
It’s so good to see friends going places!”
And there it was, nice large room with loads of shelves, boxes stacked everywhere, all manner of things, an interesting little well making an interesting (though a bit frightening) green light and a big chair with a person in it. Tesk smiled as they glanced quickly around the room. really they weren’t quite reckless enough to steal from this person they were getting a job from, but scooping the place out, that was a habit.
Then Boravdgaz was talking to him again, telling him the well went to Minauros, one way portal. Oh that was interesting. Highly inadvisable to go through though. They couldn’t really fit the ship into that well. Nah, not a good idea.
Before Tesk could probably answer Sol was agreeing with Boravdgaz, pinching at their cheek. Tesk frowned and batted at Sol’s hand. What was it with people threatening them, their own crew. Tesk stuck their tongue out at Sol in retaliation and made a mental note to get the little druid guy, not the new one, Ashtryn, to put something nasty in Sol’s food tonight. Ashtryn sometimes did kitchen-y stuff, didn’t he? And there were animals, Ashtryn loved the animals. Maybe rat droppings or something. Damn Sol. Tesk was the captain, weren’t they. It was official. Tesk shouldn’t be having to get all threatened by their own crew.
Tesk settled for crossing their hands in front of their chest and half glaring, half pouting before Sol started talking to Kalaph. Then Tesk sort of reigned their focus in of Kalaph too, a little bit anyway. “Why are we here again,” They asked, shifting their gaze between Sol and Kalaph. “Job yeah? So… what’s the job?” Impatience was somethign Tesk could pretty good at
“Oh yes, Sol, I’m going places. Apparently faster then you, since now its me with minions”—(“Contract employees” Boravdgaz corrected)—“and you who has to show up in person. Plus their big; no more getting pushed around because I’m a short gnome and ‘hey lets push around the tiny thug he won’t go berserk and gnaw off our limbs!’”
Boravdgaz chuckled slightly at this.
“Oh don’t go shitting on berserker rages, they’re really handy when cornered. Anyway don’t you have your men to—”
“Women,” Boravdgaz corrected, “I keep telling you, there’s only three men in your two dozen troll contractors.”
“Right,” Kalaph said, “Just… don’t you have those boxes to deliver to the human’s airship? Go do that.”
Boravdgaz nodded and turned and left the room.
“Now then,” Kalaph said, “One of my friends has a job for you; but I’ll let him explain.”
Kalaph sat up from the slouch he’d been in, and said, with a distinct celestial accent that wasn’t there before “Hello, I’m Ezalash the Discorporate. Kalaph’s friend.”
"Farewell, happy fields, where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail, Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell, receive thy new possessor—one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven." --Paradise LostDespite the literary reference, not so much a literature blog. More a D&D blog.
Currently it hasn't started, and is set in Planescape. Using 3.5 edition. Probably being somewhat lose with canon because I compulsively invent universes and don't like the ableism.
This is the GM's blog. I assume if you're here you know who I am already :P
