Of Siroccos and Sky Skiffs – A Petrichor Campaign Report

Having shattered the seals and released the Demon Lords influence out upon the Sea of Stars, which has had several knock-on effects on the games I run on Friday nights as well -which has been awesome- the characters escape as quickly as they can from the ziggurat as harsh, dry winds and clouds of locusts (and maybe other things) rush past them.

The ziggurat is trembling with the titanic forces unleashed, Pedr and Lorrend climb up through the upper levels which are abandoned, there is no sign of Erisham the Shedu or Elsbeth, they burst out into the air as things flood out around them (though the flow has diminished).  Lorrend and Pedr, accompanied by the demon in Visse form Anatu, descend the stairs on the outside of the building as the “sky becomes as black as sackcloth” above them.  They see a small sky skiff fight its way to a landing at the base of the ziggarat, four people pile out and charge up the stairs.

Pedr and Lorrend round up their prized mounts and, after a brief debate, they decide to steal the sky skiff.  It takes some time to load the horse and pony and get them secured.  Unfortunately, none of the trio is much of a sky sailor, so they get going in fits and starts,  They are only just beyond the city when there is an echoing explosion, the ziggurat shudders and sags.  The winds die down and no new locusts appear.  The darkness begins to clear as something like normality slowly returns to the world.

“What do you think happened?” asked Pedr.

“Nothing we want to be near to,” answered Lorrend as they slowly sailed away.  Having made it a few miles before the end of the day, they settle down to camp.  Having only slightly less trouble getting the animals off they sky skiff than they did getting them on.

Near midnight their sleep is interrupted by the appearance of a very annoyed Captain Ajzure (last seen in Of Rifts and Ruins) who looks like she had crawled out of the wreckage of a building (because she had).  “Why did you take my sky skiff?” she asks wearily.

To my surpise, they attack the good Captain, who, though battered and bruised, is still a member of the Empress’ Immortal Guard and, worst of all (from the character’s point of view), has the souls of the other members of her squad imbedded in magic items.  Rot (as in the German for red) animate the bow he is in and is extremely bloodthirsty, Geel (Dutch for yellow) the squad’s sorcerer is in an amulet around the Captains neck and, lastly, Glas (Irish forgreen) is animating their sword.  It is a tough fight, Anatu goes down first followed by Pedr, Lorrend comes within a hair’s breadth of knocking down Ajzure but the aid of the animated weapons is too much for the knight.

Lorrend and Pedr awake to the light of dawn and cold wind, finding themselves bound (along with Anatu) and watched over by a sword with a flashing emerald in its pommel.  Captain Ajzure is single handedly flying the skiff more effectively that the three of the others did together.  “You are lucky I am in command and not Rot, he would have left you to die back there.  I figure you should at least have the chance to explain yourself to the Imperial authorities before any punishments are meted out.”

And that is where we left things.

Notes: This is a summary of an adventure in Petrichor that took place a year ago.  We were going to get back to the narrative but events intervened (at least for the nonce) but I wanted to do my best to get what I could remember of the last game down before it faded further from my memory.

The Immortal Guard are inspired by the Genetic Infantrymen of the Rogue Trooper series.  When they are killed, their soul is sucked into a gem and from that gem, a new body is grown for them.  The more often it happens, the more of the color of the gem shows up in the new body which is why Captain Ajzure, whose soul gem is a sapphire, has blue skin.

Image top image of the ziggurant in better time was found on the web, no source or artist cold be located (if you have any information, let me know, happy to credit artists), lower image by LesFacettes found on Wikimedia Commons and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.