- Plumbing the Myrthn Depths
- Silas Goes Full “O Captain, my Captain” Goal of the bear: Silas’ people, the groups we’ve been calling the druids, they sort of see the bear as this wise force elder, in kind of a embodiment of nature hero, the path that Silas is taking with his character, that the bear was this super ancient, wise, almost unknowable manifestation of the nature world and influences. The druids would worship the bear, would be asking the bear for insight, asking the bear to be more obviously present in the world around them, so they could learn from his example and follow in hius fpotsteps. Even if whatever has gone on with the bear, the bear is sleep, there was some sort of hurt done to the bear, the bear is in this healing process, but Silas would want to be… there’s a way in which he’s thinking he’s the disciple, he;s has to bring back the memory of hium, Silas sense of the people in Monsoth is that he’s tapped into something much older. This older tradition is lost and has been lost in all of them, and its something we have to bring back, to be more responsive and cognizant of hearing the bear, WWTBD. And its not necessarily obvious what the bear would do, not a well defined philosophy, hard for people to know. There a sense that the bear is mysterious, because his concerns are not strictly human concerns.
Myrthin: in much the same way in what he’s communicating, not a 1:1 translation with my experience. As for a group, his response to that wouldn’t make a ton of sense. He wouldn’t acknowledge factions. He would just be like “I followed the bear with the people around me.” Get the sense its a loooong time ago. He’s probably been lone for an incomprehensible scratch of time. He’s been hanging out …There would be some confusion, he was probably someone who went off in earch of the bear, and from our perspective found it. He would say that we’ve come to the bear and he’s here so he has too, he might have taken some different path a long time ago, but because he says the bear is everywhere, he would say
Myrthn would be able to teach Silas less about technique and more about the search, e.g. being able to move stats upon discovering a truth.
The Hopps’ lost at trivia.
Mythyn’s aspiring druid advice to Silas: He would be sort of indicating… there are two things, two wys to go. He would be getting the sense that he was saying: pay more attention to the others. Getting the sense that he was talking about some sort of mysterious, obscure that would be pushing Silas to get outside of his comfort zone. Creation is a little bit broader than he suspects.
1. The Three Songs of Ultradruid
Balz: Looking for an indication of what sorts of settings would his song be appropriate for? What effect does it have?
M: His response would be something like, would indicate that the meaning was in the song itself. That rather than the song meaning something, the thing that it meant is the song. It doesn’t reference something, it is the reference. (roll performance: 13) In singing a hint of this back to him and in the ensuing discussion, there’s a certain degree of call and response happening. Balz feels as he’s singing it that he’s suddenly more aware of the sunlight on his face and a taste of warm bread in his mouth and will hear the sound/word “melys”. Hard to know if the word refers to an object or the song or if the song is the embodiment of this word.
He’s going to sing two other songs. These three things are balanced concepts. He sees them as three equal things. The first one we would hear: “melys”, second: “rew”, third: “awel”. They’re not opposed to each other, but they stand in apposition, not opposition. Reflect back and forth as three poles. He would give them each those names.
NOTE: Welsh translations of those words.
melys means sweet, or honey
rew means ice
awel means wind, or breeze
1. Cradle Talk
Bran absently draws The Cradle in the dirt with a stick and tries to get Myrthn to look at it. We would hear him pointing to the center triangular patch in the middle and with a contented calmness would sing the same song we heard the animals outside the cave (Cricket’s lullabye)
Bran points a the purple and black (indicating her eyes and hair, questioningly. He starts singing another song, which nathaniel plays on the piano. Bran rolls memory: 9. She doesn’t have any recollection of that tune showing up anywhere.
We indicate the green lobe counterclockwise to the purple one, he continues singing that song, and seems to indicate that the song is for this symbol in general.
Balz remembers The Cradle as having bad connotations to it like a pentagram.
We talk about The Cradle, and the game with the same name. The tower girls played this.
1. [[Bremphyr]] Corner
He has offered to find us a path to the singing animals, but when he starts talking about location, it starts becoming confusing.
What about the Eye of Night? And the blacksmith?
What does he know of the eye of night?
He would be talking fast, pulling in things, old, sky, falling, snatches of the third song, that would be the most prevalent of the sound we were hearing. Getting a sense of the north wind and a cold barren place.
Does he know the blacksmith that lives there? He’s be talking quickly: we get a bunch of mixed messages. Anger, also some reverence, respect but frustration, battle, ax, loss, things about learning, subtly, the notion of bringing disparate things together into one whole, like weaving but less specifically. There would be some internal conflict he’s communicating. There’s respect but not total agreement.
We discuss the tale os Weyland, and how he was finally able to create a frozen flame after giving up his eye, that we have posited is bronze.ula
We would get the sense that M is unable to separate the concepts of the eye of night blacksmith and Bremphyr.
What did Brem do or does that M has issue with?
We would hear more of the song gone wrong sound, gnashing, ugly, dissonance. Ax, battle, fight. Creeping shadow, pestilence. The connection he’s making is that that figure was involved in that in some way.
1. The Horn of Balzhammerhand
Balz approaches Myrthn, indicates his horns and asks, do you know what this is? Old, ancient, start humming the piano song, there’s a link there to what Balz was up to. Very interested in the fact that one horn is broken off. With Balz permission, he would be inclined to trace the line of the existing horn. Balz would get a sense of Cricket’s lullabye as he did this, easing a wound. Sympathetically also hear the dissonant melody piece. Bla shows him the broken off piece. He would take it and try to hold it back in place, and would look at Balz and be trying to gauge what Balz’s feelings toward that broken off piece were. (roll insight/perception: 13) He’s asking Balz something about it, but not sure what it is.
1. [[Storr]]'s Turn
Storr lays out the compass and the hammer and indicates them to M. (roll perception: 5) Asking him what these are.
Storr would see M look at them, but would no be able to understand him. She would the piano tune again, construction, something reminding us of the blacksmith, snippets of all three M songs. He has some knowledge of what they are, they’re not mysteriewas, but doesn’t have any specific knowledge of any of these things.
Storr: Does he know how to set it, and how to set it to find B?
M has a lot of ideas, but the answer would be no. We’d get the sense that this is not the kind of thing he uses, a man made mechanical object, like Tom B and the ring. He’s not carrying human constructions.
Storr: Can he guide us to Bremphyr?
He might indicate that he could get you away from here, but he doesn’t have much interest in going further than that.
Storr asks about the stones, and how we’ve seen these before. Are they all connected.
Snatches of melody, leaning more heavily toward the piano tune, but we’d be hearing a lot about the “others” to the extent that if he had a name for the stones, they would be called “singers”, and the rest he;s coming out with is ago, depth, otherwordlyness, awe. He has an enormous amount of respect for the stones, where he is talking to everything, everything has a soul, he’s talking about stones having soul, not nec these stones, we’d have a hard time translating..his speech is amorphous.
- Time to Go We take him up on the offer to LEAVE.
He looks at us, he motions us to follow him. He walks across the bridge. He’s in a mode where he’s talking, singing, chirping, waving his hands. We’re privy to this path, he’s making one, through the forest, he’s asking the plants and things to move out of the way, unnerving in some ways. We keep thinking as we walk through this tunnel/path that we keep seeing faces in the bushes and plants, strange almost human faces, but when we turn to look it’s just a tree or a plant, unnerving, but he’s completely casual, talking with his surroundings, greeting them, small talk.
We find ourselves in a place that Storr recognizes. We’ve stumbled into this clearing with a natural spring that she found the first night we got to this island. He indicates to us, offers the well, points off in the dirctiopn of our boat, and goes to wonder back off.
Did that travel feel like a way through the metaphysical forest? (Balz, perc, 23) Balz is thinking as he’s walking and having this experience. The answer is yes and no. It reminds him most of where the sentinels were, and those faces reminded him of those sentinels, but at the same time, he doesn’t feel like he’s gone a great distance. More like we’ve traveled through layers of this island instead of traveling through the island itself. Maybe that tree was the big tree, but we couldn’t quite recognize it.
Storr holds both the compass and Kleghein and see what she sees. K doesn’t have any strong opinions about it.
The weavers had told us we are amidst the “Wicked Isles of Ooburnyn” and not our own continent.
- We Sail, We Fail [[The Mornaswydh#|Green lobe, purple gem, dragon head.]]
We journey:
- Balz: Guide (Travel)
- Storr: Hunter (Hunting)
- Silas: Scout (Exploration)
- Branwen: Lookout (perception)
Storr: Compass has five lobes, five of us, very similar to The Cradle itself. Similar coloration too. Would be interesting to see if we have a cradle five-way.
1. Event #1: Man Overboard Amidst the Shrieking Eels
Balz: 23
We sail for four days and nights. Scout: (Silas, 10).
After four days at sea, a terrible misfortune occurs. A fog bank moves in and the ship is socked in. A wind is blowing, and we start feeling the boat is thumped on the hull, and we’re not totally sure what’s going on. Silas as the scout is trying to pear over the edge, he’s nervous that we’ve reached some shoals and that we’re bumping into sand banks or something. As Silas is leaning over the gunnel, Arthen shifts to try to get a look and knocks Silas out of the boat and he plunges into the water. As he sinks below the surface, he sees these massive shadowy creatures swimming and swirling beneath the baot, sea monster ish looking things. They go to attack him, and he is able, based on his druid skills and connection to creatures, he is able to fight them off to some level of understanding, and spends a lot fo time underwater and is shaken by these ancient powerful spirits, and without any knowledge of what they are, they remind him of the creates singing to the bear, but much larger and more powerful. Everyone is able to get Silas back. They hear the splashes, try to get some rope out to him. Do eventually succeed, but everyone’s pretty beat up by this. Silas has lost half max HP. He’s back on the boat with a feeling of supreme eeriness, uneasiness. The fog bank… where the hell are we?
Fatigue saving throw DC increases by 3.
1. Event #2: Trouble in Paradise
Balz: 20
Another four days.
Lookout (Bran, 9)
Bran is getting anxious, the fog bank and these creatures freaked her out. She becomes convinced that she can see land off in the distance. She and Balz get in a fight. No there’s land. B: But this is what the compass is saying. Bran at one point tries to take the tiller and swing the boat over. No one is totally sure what has possessed her in that moment, but the
stress of it, fatigue saving throw increases by 2. Bran gains one shadow point. WIS save: 6
1. Event #3: Our Journey Continues, Though Hope Yet Endures
The party is shaken, but Balz continues on: 8
The next day, nine days at sea, we’re fucked up. Silas: 15.
The party is wearing down as a group, we’re all desperate and nervous, this is the longest we’ve been on this boat and we don’t see land. Silas is trying to keep everyone’s moral up even as he’s lying int he boat and exhausted. The party is succumbing to despair, but Silas is able to keep everyone from going at everyone’s throats. The wind and the salt are wearing thin. Saving throw increases by 2.
1. We Arrive, But Do Not Thrive
Balz (19)
The next day, Balz pulls everybody through after ten days at sea, we sight land. A lagoon surrounded by some high hills.
We sail through the opening. As we’re coming in, the stretches of land come in. The forested land rises up quickly from here. The shore is cobble and pebble beach. We could probably pull the boat up or drop anchor and wade ashore. There is a waterfall at the head of this lagoon, probably a 30 ft wide sheet of water dropping 20, 25 feet.
Fatigue saving throws: DC 17
- Balz: 16, 1 level
- Bran: 11, 2 levels
- Storr: 13, 1 level
- Silas: 3, 3 levels
- Kram: 12, 2 levels
We want to rest for three total days to shed all our party exhaustion.
Midmorning. The boat is up on land. We stay on the boat and set up camp. Storr sets up a hammock. The day passes. The temp is in the 40s. We’ve got mist coming in, low cloud clinging to peaks, not socked in. Small patches of drizzle come through. Boat has a decent setup, so we’re not bothered too much. But we’re hunkered down. Visibility is not great. Evergreen forest up high with beech down below. The forest is dark with the mist coming in. We hang on the boat and everyone’s able to doze and not have to worry about fighting back the ocean in the lagoon. We pass the day without incident.
During the night, we’re woken several times by a sound we can’t identify. We hear clattering on the rocks of the shore. We wake up and look over, and we can’t tell what we see. CON save. < 10 does not drop a level.
Storr, Branwen and Krambler remove a level of exhaustion.
- Balz: 1 level
- Bran: 1 level
- Storr: 0 levels
- Silas: 3 levels
- Kram: 1 level
The next day dawns. Storr takes out her blanket and drapes it over Silas. She makes her way to the shore to investigate the noises.