Showing posts with label Thousand Year Sandglass. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thousand Year Sandglass. Show all posts

Saturday, July 14, 2018

The Texts Have Been Unearthed!


At long last, Book 1 of the Thousand Year Sandglass is now available in Print on Demand softcover paperback format at DriveThruRPG.com.

You can get it here!

Consider adding this handsome volume to your collection. Lavishly illustrated, full of adventure and intrigue, you can take it anywhere, from the burning sands of the desert to the shady galleries of the soukh to your next session around the gaming table with some pita chips and hummus.


I would be most honored and grateful if you did. Sim sim salabim!

Thursday, June 21, 2018

All the Jinni one might Wish for


I've been running the Thousand Year Sandglass as a campaign world for over ten years now, and along the way I've accumulated quite the collection of jinni minis. (Or genies, if you Wish.)

Their extreme power combined with the circumstances under which they might be countered or controlled make them very compelling monsters, and are a big part of why I enjoy using them in an Arabian Nights styled setting. Just fighting a jinni is an option, but they are so much more interesting when negotiated with. Here are creatures who can give you the world, if you only know how to ask properly.

Plus it's just huge fun to talk in a big, booming voice like a gigantic Persian Santa Claus in baggy pants, a la Shazzan. 




What DM worth their dice hasn't relished the chance to grant a Wish in the most obnoxious and obtuse way possible? Or watched their players twist themselves into semantic pretzels trying to properly "code" their request such that they won't get stampeded by a million male deer or crushed under a mountain of gold.

The jinni are of course a prominent feature in my new campaign book The Thousand Year Sandglass, and I cover all four classic elemental types from AD&D:

The Djinn of the Air

The Dao of the Earth
The Efreeti of Fire
The Marid of the Seas
 I've also added a fifth sub-type, the mighty Storm Djinn, bred by the Djinn to fight off the depredations of their mortal foes the Efreeti, fierce as lions with the power of thunder and lightning.

 
Truly mighty indeed! Ho ho ho ho!
Yeah, once you uncork some jinni into your campaign world, it's hard to get 'em back in the bottle.



Thursday, June 14, 2018

Kismet!


I have to give a shout out and a hearty thanks to my friend Paul for his most excellent review and promo of my newly released campaign world book The Thousand Year Sandglass.

As a way of showing my appreciation and also trading a plug for a plug, I'd like to direct your attention to an adventure he's been putting together over the past few weeks titled "The Vile Crypt of the Reawakened Sisterhood"

Here are the blog posts where he walks us through his creation process for this thrilling new adventure. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

Coincidentally, if one were to be stocking a sandbox game in the world of the Sandglass, one might find that this particular vile crypt slots in quite nicely as a challenging destination for your brave heroes to delve.

I would suggest putting it near the Mount of Tombs in the Howling Desert, or somewhere in the western reaches of the Grasslands, or in the foothills around the Jinni's Tooth. But that's just me...

As I was reading Paul's posts I was delighted that he was independently coming up with something so uncannily apropos to the project I was bringing in for a landing.

It could only be kismet!

Wednesday, June 13, 2018

The Thousand Year Sandglass now available on DriveThruRPG!


Behold!

 More than a thousand and one tales await in a brand new campaign guide from BigFella Games!  Inspired by the Arabian Nights, and written to be compatible with Labyrinth Lord, this is the first volume in a series of books bringing my long running campaign to the public.

Contains a world hex map and gazetteer, four new classes, extensive random tables for generating adventures in the fabled city of Kalabad, a fearsome array of new monsters, as well as extensive material on various types of jinni, and 8 fully mapped and keyed adventure scenarios. And much more besides.

I would be honored if you gave it a look, and thrilled if you would be inclined to purchase it!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/244365/The-Thousand-Year-Sandglass--Book-1

Available now in digital format. The Print on Demand version is in the works and should be appearing soon. Watch this space for more!

Like a jinni from an antique lamp, the magic can be yours to command!

Saturday, May 19, 2018

A Thousand And One Tales Yet To Be Told

So over the past month I've been working on the first of a series of books about my Thousand Year Sandglass campaign. It's progressing nicely, and I just recently got the written part of it mostly roughed out.

The base rule set is Labyrinth Lord. It's got four new classes, sections about monsters and treasure, a whole chapter dedicated to randomly generating adventure and intrigue in the grand old city of Kalabad, and eight fully mapped and keyed scenarios of varying sizes for a teller of tales to drop into their own game.

It's essentially a toolkit for building an Arabian Nights themed sandbox, and following books will provide more features and scenarios to expand on this unique world. 

Now I've just got the interior illustrations, the cover, a few more textual extras, and a whole big heap of proofreading and editing to do.

So this post is mostly a progress report and a little bit of a waving the flag to get folks interested. It also makes it harder for me to procrastinate if I announce it publicly, so if you hear the faint sound of a whip cracking fear not, that's me on either end of it.

Were I to put on my fortune teller's turban and make a prediction, I would say it'll drop sometime in June. July at the latest.

So watch this space, O gentle readers, and try not to get any sand in your eyes.

Saturday, April 21, 2018

Helgacon XI - The Resplendent Palace of the Sultan

The Sultan, The Sultana, and the Sultan's Bodyguard, the half-djinn Zephyra.
I've been running an Arabian Nights themed campaign called The Thousand Year Sandglass for several years now, such that they've become a regular feature at Helgacon since Helgacon III. This year I decided that it's time to put the Sandglass on the shelf for a while, so I figured I'd give it a proper finale.

Last year's game "The Black Heart of the Burning Lich" featured a siege of the party's base of operations, the grand capital city of Kalabad, by the eponymous Burning Lich, a fiery undead sorcerer king from ancient times that they'd unleashed from his captivity in a bronze sarcophagus held by an evil sha'ir two years prior in "The Tower of Amashazzar". Long story (and neglected blog posts of yesteryear) short, they took him down and saved the town.

So I figured it was time for a celebration.

Hence the setting, the opulent palace of the Sultan of Kalabad. I posted the game's title on Paul's Helgacon Game listing and a brief flowery description, then had to sit down and figure out what I could do with that. Had to cash that check that I wrote with my big mouth.

I started with an elaborate map of the palace. This was the highest seat of power in a wondrous, mythical middle eastern empire, so it had to be at once fancy and fantastical. Here is the main level. I used it as sort of a game board, with player minis noting where they would wind up each night. I had a random roll for where the Sultan and the Sultana might end up as well, which could double the rewards or penalties if the characters' antics took place while they were there.


If you want to see more, watch this space for when I eventually get a campaign book together and up on one of the .pdf/print on demand sites. (I'm putting a pin in that idea here so that I can generate the gumption to actually do it. I gotta do it now that I've said I would. That's how the cowboys do.)

Next, I decided that since the theme of the game was a grand party at the palace, that its focus would be on Carousing. Taking the example of Jeff Reints' mighty and mischievous Carousing Rules, I made up my own custom tables for both failures and successes.

As an example, here's the top level mishaps table, for when the players failed their poison saves to see if their characters could handle all the exotic liquors and other heady amusements they were plied with. Each entry here had a series of elaborate sub tables for dicing out how each mishap would go down.

The Resplendent Palace of the Sultan Carousing Mishaps (d20)

01) Make a fool of yourself with an egregious social gaffe.
02) Insult a member of one of the four Guard corps. 
03) Awaken in one of the Administrative Offices or Halls of Government.
04) Member of Court has fallen in love with you.
05) Suffer a gambling loss to Member of the Court.
06) Tell such an excellent story at the feast that you now must top it the next evening.
07) Insult a Member of the Court.
08) Discover that some Member of Court isn’t who they seem.
09) Awaken in one of the Gardens
10) Mess with something in the Chamber of Wonders and experience a magical transformation.
11) Overhear conspirators discussing an assassination of a Member of the Court.
12) Awaken in Sultan’s personal Yacht.
13) Insult a Disguised Genie
14) Inducted into Secret Society or Cult
15) Accidentally destroy some precious art object.
16) Awaken in one of the Baths, Oasis’, or Fountains.
17) Awaken in Private Chamber of Member of the Court
18) You fall in love with a Member of the Court
19) Become privy to affair between two Members of the Court.
20) Drunkenly release a tiger from the Garden of Exotic Beasts into the palace.


Now, I've noticed in the past when playing and/or running games with the Carousing Rules in play that players will sometimes have a tendency to turtle up and avoid rolling on them. The risks tend to scare the naturally cautious side folks have more than the potential rewards (and potential for hilarious roleplay opportunities) entice them.

To ameliorate this, I came up with a mechanic I called "The Sultan's Favor".

Oooh! Shiny!
I got a bag of plastic gemstones as tokens. Players started with three each, and could spend them to get out of trouble, or earn them when they did something impressive. At the end, they could cash them in for tangible rewards like commissions in the guard or fiefdoms or even wishes granted by the jinni negotiated by the royal family. The colors of the gems had significance, both in what might be demanded in certain situations and what rewards they could bring.

Of course, all of this is kinda high concept for a D&D game, so I hedged my bets and put several unknown dungeon levels under the palace, in case all the carousing shenanigans didn't gel as a worthwhile experience. I spent a lot of time spinning the wheels of doubt about this thing. I planted a lot of ins to the underpalace throughout the carousing section, and made a handout of a mysterious tablet that contained maps of the palace both above and below that I handed to the players almost immediately.



(Partly this was also to account for the complexity and non-angularity of the palace map itself. I figured it was better to just hand the map to the players than drive both myself and a mapper mad trying to accurately depict the interlocking mandala of the Sultan's palace on a sheet of graph paper.)

How it went down:

So seven worthies and saviors of Kalabad dressed in their finest finery and hied themselves to the palace. For three days and nights, they partook of the delights of the Sultan's hospitality. Spies, thieves, and assassination plots were uncovered. A tiger was released from the Garden of Exotic Beasts, but quickly pacified thanks to a Ring of Animal Control. A shark was evaded in the Garden of Luminous Coral. The Sultan's private yacht was sunk in its berth. (Those Imperial Marines really know how to party.) A wizard was cursed with inverted gravity, forcing him to walk on the ceilings and avoid areas of the palace that were open to the sky. The party discovered a secret door in the Grand Library that led down to a hidden underground cache of ancient and magical tomes, scrolls, and tablets.

From there they explored the upside down palace beneath the Sultan's premises. They fled from a swarm of undead, flesh eating beetles. They discovered a throne room guarded by an avatar of Sekmet, lion headed goddess of war. They discovered a roiling cistern supplying water to the palace above, fed by a spinning, careening Decanter of Endless Water set on "geyser". They climbed down the inverted towers hanging in a vast underground dome, the field of sand at its lowest peak littered with fallen architecture and toppled statues. All of these wonders they reported to the Sultan and his Vizier, and were well rewarded and regarded for their discoveries.

Analysis:

Bottom line, I think I had a lot of good stuff and fun ideas here, but it was all too much. If I don't watch myself, I have a tendency to overstuff a convention game, preparing a campaign's worth of material for a four hour session. I'd intended the carousing/consequences of said carousing segment to last for 7 nights, but we broke it off at 3 goes 'round the table by mutual agreement between the GM and players as it was all getting too complex for any of us to manage. (One of my players said they could almost see smoke coming out of my ears as I furiously tried to roll up and adjudicate each intricate situation.)

I think if I were to do this again, I'd cut out the results on the mishaps table that required a who/what/when/and where along with needing evidence to be gathered (For which I used a version of my Dodecahedrons of Detective Work.) and just have results be immediate, like the ones where a character is magically transformed or inducted into a secret society or something. Too many wheels within wheels within wheels here to work out for such a short term game.

I think I also made a mistake in making the carousing mandatory. It would have been better, as Miz. K suggested, that it be a discretionary/wagering mechanic with the Sultan's favor, closer to how the original rules were intended.

So anyway, it was fun enough, and I think despite the furious flailing about my players enjoyed themselves, but could have been better. I think the stuff I developed will fit nicely in a Thousand Year Sandglass book, so watch for that. I will make myself make it happen.

And thus, we bid farewell, for now, to the desert lands of Sanduk Ramul, the Empire of the East with its glittering capitol of Kalabad on the coast of the Crescent Sea.

Sim sim salabim!

The Sandglass shall return. So it shall be!

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Talkin' testudines

A.K.A. Turtles, tortoises, terrapins.

My lady riding the sea turtle from yesterday isn't the only rock ribbed reptile in my collection. Here are a few more hard shelled horrors to contemplate.

First off, a buncha what Reaper calls Spikeshells. I painted 'em up for "Island on the Crescent Sea" but they never saw action. Still good to have as heavy support for lizard men or other scaly scaries.
Note the blue, purple, orange & red markings.
They haunted a domed temple on their island where you were bound to encounter this guy.

He's a custom job, built from a Schleich giant tortoise and a bunch of GW lizard man heads I had on hand. A little glue, a little paint, and I've got a heavily armored hydra-esque behemoth to keep your hapless adventurers hopping. 

Plus this guy can pull double (or triple, or as many heads as he's got) duty as either a magical monster in a fantasy game or a massive mutant in a sci-fi or Gamma World game. 

I originally cooked up the idea for this beastie a while ago when I was making up swamp monsters for the Southern fried follow up to my original Mutant Bastards game. Behold, and beware, the Snag. 
If you ran into one of these in the river, you'd be in trouble. Hopefully as this year rolls on I'll be able to dredge up some more mutant mayhem. We'll see.

What the shell ?

Monday, February 5, 2018

Here comes the cavalry!

As I'm mostly a dungeon delving GM and not much of a wargamer, I don't tend to have a lot of use for mounted figures. I tend to like minis that are the characters or creatures as is without accompanying mounts. (And I kinda don't favor figs with a lot of set stuff built up under 'em too, like vampires with a tombstone and whatnot. Kinda immersion breaking, honestly. I know it's nitpicky and overly literal, but am I supposed to believe Count Blahcula dragged that stone (often cross shaped which raises even more questions) behind them into the dungeon or drawing room or whatever? But I digress...) I prefer my figs on their own two feet and in a generally kinda neutral pose.

All that rambling preamble aside, I do occasionally have use for mounted figures on special occasions, so here are a few that have cropped up in convention games I've run over the past few years. All of these are from Thousand Year Sandglass games I ran at past Helgacons.

First off, we have the dreaded Kordoka raiders, scourge of the deep deserts mounted upon their carnivorous Leopard Horses. I got these guys intending to do a running mounted battle across the dunes. I've got 4 swordsmen, 4 lancers, 3 archers, and a mounted sorceror armed with a high speed version of Flaming Sphere that worked kinda like a hunter-killer fireball.

Sadly the encounter was stopped before it could really get rolling thanks to several well placed regular fireballs and other mass damage spells from the party that I should have anticipated and accounted for, which is part of why I view "The Black Heart of the Burning Lich" as one of my weakest outings in that particular campaign. I'm not really good at mass tactics from the DM side of the screen (like I said, not much of a wargamer). In more adept hands, this would have been a pretty awesome fight. Ah well.


These minis came from Gripping Beast, their Arab Light Cavalry box. The sorceror's fast rolling flame balls are from Reaper. All were obtained from my awesome local game store Legions Games.

Next up, a passel of pissed off purple pygmies commanding colossal crabs. That year I was doing a Sinbad-esque seafaring jam called "Islands on the Crescent Sea" and I needed some nasty natives to menace the heroes and their ship as they put into port on a series of deserted islands.
This was an example of kludging together a bunch of stuff I had on hand. The pygmies were intended by Games Workshop to be Forest Goblin Spider Riders, and came with The Battle of Skull Pass box set. (Which at the time, circa 2006, was a great deal for about $50 bux, giving you a pretty decent amount of minis. If only GW product was so reasonable now...)

Well, the spiders were too awesome to not use just as giant spiders. (Or convert into even worse things.) So I was left with a bunch of crouching goblins decked out in loincloths and feathers. But then I had a Reeses Peanut Butter Cup inspiration with a handful of crabs from a Target bought set of sea creatures, and there you go. I only had about 5 crabs vs. 10 gobbos, so I got a bunch of assorted crabs via amazon.com and improvised a few special characters.

Here's their chieftain and his bodyguards. The mixed crabs had some beefier versions of the crabs I used for the rank & file, so they became the chief's retinue, and I did some putty and bit boxing on the big little man's horrible, barnacle festooned doom crab to make it appropriately monstrous and gnarly.

Naturally hostile natives gotta have a shaman, so I mounted the unit musician with his skull bonker on a hallucinogenic looking fiddler crab.
Finally, since all I had left were some smaller crabs of a different species, I did a hunter pygmy with a pack of tracker crabs to patrol the beaches and hassle any castaways who dragged themselves ashore.

Finally, taking my inspiration from my crabby little creeps, I mounted an amazon mini I had from Reaper's Savage Beauty box set on a sea turtle, and created Julnar, Daughter of the Sea, who was more of a benign encounter/guide type character.
This is another example of a mini I didn't really know what to do with. (Again, call me over literal but I just thought she'd look odd kneeling her way around the dungeon or whatever when everybody else was in "standing ready for action" kinda poses.) I think she works pretty good on turtleback.

And so that's pretty much what I got for mounted stuff, aside from a bunch of old knights from Battle Masters that my brother and I painted up waaay back in the day. (Like, I'd say 1995-1996 or so.) I painted the three villainous ones on the left and my bro did the noble knights errant on the right. They're okay for early efforts painting wise but honestly don't see much action on the table.  (Pardon the dust. They usually hang out on shelves when I have shelves to spare, right now they're taking up space awkwardly in a plastic container in my closet.)

I'm pretty much including them just to be complete in my cavalry coverage.

Giddyup! Hi ho, Pewter (or plastics) away!

Also, whoot! I surpassed 2016 for number of posts! Onward and upward!

Monday, January 15, 2018

It's Elemental!

No, not him.
I'm talking about some of the best Bones for your buck. Reaper's large elemental figures. The colored translucents are particularly choice.

As I've said before, their pricing is excellent for a cash poor gamer with delusions of tabletop grandeur like myself. When I needed to make a splash with last year's arch-villain in my Helgacon Thousand Year Sandglass game, nothing says "Boss of the Boss Fight" like a brace of fire elementals at your back. (Admittedly, the way the the game played out it wasn't one of my best, but damn if those beasties didn't make 'em sweat when I first put 'em on the table.)

The Burning Lich and his blazing buddies.

I just wish they'd get around to doing an Air Elemental so I could get the complete set. 

That would be simply Splendid!

Update!: Joy! 

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Sim Sim Salabim

Gotta get workin' on my Thousand Year Sandglass adventure for Helgacon soon. I got some ideas...

Sunday, May 8, 2011

HelgaCon IV: The Fallen Obelisk - Analysis


Well, it's been over a month since I ran this thing, so I don't have too much to talk about.

Delta and Paul once again put their best feet forward (complete with curly toed slipper) as the Jarib brothers. Their write ups of the session can be viewed here and here.

That's not to give short shrift to all the other players. (Seven in total, a lucky number indeed since there were no fatalities in a very dangerous delve.) You guys were all great to play with, and hopefully you all can visit the drifting sands of Sanduk Ramul again someday.

Overall, I was very happy with this session. The players seemed a bit slow to act at first, which I'll chalk up to sleep deprivation and a rich meal of traditional Helgacon chili provided by the inestimable Mr. G moments before.

They soon picked up the slack as they got deeper into the catacombs. Good, solid dungeon crawling and all the attendant thrills and chills.

While the map and orrerry didn't really fall into either the "action" or "loot" categories, I was still happy about including it as it gave the players a little more insight into the campaign world, which could become important someday. Who knows?

I was totally jazzed to get to run the chess game with the genie, as it was one of the showpieces of the mini sandbox I'd created. (Also, what's an Arabian Nights themed game without a genie. I ask you?)

The way I set up the mechanic, the player's intelligence was their equivalent to a fighter level, their armor class was 20 - their wisdom, and we played out a combat doing 1d6 dmg per hit with 16 HPs, for the 16 chess pieces, on either side.

The games were remarkably close, and very tense indeed, all while I got to turn on the deep voiced menace of this powerful elemental creature.

The other awesome upshot of this session was the continuing adventures of the Jarib brothers, which its forming up shall indeed continue in more sessions to come, turning this into a very slow motion campaign, which puts the "Awwww YEAH!" in Awesome! Maybe someday they'll work out who really owns that spear, but probably not, knowing those two...

I look forward to finding out in many more sessions. Helgacon V at the absolute latest.

Until next time, sim sim, salabim!

HelgaCon IV: The Thousand Year Sandglass - The Fallen Obelisk


Hearken ye to yet another tale of the Thousand Year Sandglass.

It is said by some that fortune favors the bold. That is as may be, but at times it does not favor the bold's purses.

Thus, did the scoundrel brothers, Jiri and Hakim Jarib, find themselves bereft of the fortune bought by a pair of solid gold hands they had bourne out of the deep deserts by dint of bad bargains and untrustworthy paramours.

And thus, did the brothers resolve to trek into the wastes once more to retrieve the golden statue that they had hacked these treasures away from, in an inversion of the fate that befalls all thieves in our land.

Ho ho ho! But this errand came to naught, as when they returned to the place they had chanced upon their fleeting prize, they found the mighty tombs of the ancient tetrarchs swallowed up by the very sands of the desert itself.

Ever the enterprising rogues, the brothers returned to Kalabad and hatched a new scheme to plunder the riches of old. It had come to them that across the Wailing Desert, there lay a fallen obelisk, a toppled monument to a once mighty sorcerer pharoh, who's very name was now forgotten to history as is the way of all glory.

After purchasing a mule with the last of their money, they gathered about them a band of adventurers to go forth to this forsaken ruin and search for new treasures.


Among these bold plunderers were another set of brothers, Adaman'elderie and Smiling Rashid, two of the jann race, in who's veins flowed the blood of the jinn. Two masters of magic also joined the group, a magician known as Muharrem Atan, and a sha'ir who went by the name Assid of the Shade, about who's head hovered a bound djinnling. Finally, a furtive kedai named Ahaz completed the group.

After a long trek across the Wailing Desert, the band of adventurers approached the valley of the fallen obelisk under the lambent glow of a full moon in the desert night, picking their way down a dried out river bed that led to the foot of the ruin.

They approached the oval doorway set in the face of the base of the obelisk, noting a pair of shining silver shields adorned the set of carven wings flanking the opening. After some uncertainty while they appraised the entry, they finally plucked up their courage and went inside.

Within, they found an expanse of sand blown in by millenia of drifts, flanked by stairs onto a platform above, in which they found three doorways. The doors were of much weathered wood, and bore carvings. In the center, a handsome prince in the kilt and crown of the ancients, to his right a priestess, to the left, a fair princess, both raising hands in supplication to their ruler.

Some prodding beneath the sand revealed a bronze hatch in the floor, a circular plate with a seam running down the center. While his companions puzzled over this mystery, Ahaz the kedai, with his natural feline curiousity, began to poke around the doors. Age made them crumble easily to his touch, and he investigated the chambers beyond.

On the right, behind the door bearing the carving of the priestess, he found a carpet of black shelled scarab beetles that scattered at his footfall, causing him to withdraw in haste with a prodigious backward leap. When his companions looked inside with a torch, they found denuded, scattered bones, and the remains of what may have been a place of embalming.

Moving on to the left hand door, he discovered a chamber with an ankle high layer of lurid green vapors. At their center, a raised dias with a seated mummy wearing a gold funerary mask depicting a woman of surpassing beauty. To either side of the corpse were alabaster statues of slave girls, one holding a tortoise shell lyre, and the other a scroll case. The beauty of human features was lost on him, but the beauty of the pure gold was not, and he reached out to take the bauble in hand.

Alas, that when he did so he set the tomb's ancient guardian into motion. The bronze disk parted, and there arose a skeletal figure of brass, its four spindly arms each bearing a blade of terrible sharpness. It turned its head with a mechanical motion and approached the adventurers, and they knew they faced that most fearsome of ancient devices, which learned men of our time know as "The Doom of Thieves".


With its four blades whirling like the wind, it joined in battle with the jann brothers and the brothers Jarib. When they found that none but blades imbued with sorcery would harm the murderous construct, Jiri prevailed upon Hakim to lend him his magic spear while he fought on with his enchanted scimitar. Thus did the brave plunderers best the artifice of doom, and thus did begin an epic and prolonged argument between the two siblings as to whom the family inheritance had bestowed the mystic weapon that raged for the duration of their sojourn.

The third, central, door yielded as easily as the others had, and revealed a long, sloping downward corridor into the depths of the earth. Down below, they could see a dim red glow, which made them all a bit fearful, but they steeled their courage and went down.

Upon reaching the bottom, their footsteps put to fright the large, red glowing beetles that rustled among the piled bones of many an unfortunate looter who had been hacked to pieces and cast down into the depths by the Doom of Thieves. They gingerly picked their way over the skeletal remains and approached a stone door accompanied by a lever. This they activated, causing the door to recede smoothly into the floor and revealing a strange room beyond.

The walls were carved with magical glyphs, and in the north end they saw a circle of carved scarabs each facing an odd little depression in the floor. Three of these depressions held strange little jars, each lined with silver and containing an odd, sparkling blue mist. In the center of the circle, a sluggish cloud of vapor hung, with the vague impressions of a skull and scattered bones made of thickened smoke drifting in the haze. The sha'ir and the two jann brothers recoiled in horror, as they recognized it as the corpse of a djinni.

They did not ponder this for long, for also as the sha'ir, janni, and magician entered the room, they felt an odd tugging at the core of their beings, and felt their magic beginning to drain away. This put them to flight, and they hurried out of the room to an archway beyond, lest all of their power be drained.

Thus it was left to the three adventurers who did not traffic in the mystic arts to explore the chamber. They found a low couch in a corner with a hookah that was built to hold the odd, silver lined jars, and an alcove containing racks with a few more of the strange containers.

Bearing these back to the others, after some experimentation it was discovered that through imbibing the smoke from this device, they might regain the magic that had been taken from them.

Hakim Jarib tried a few puffs himself, and discovered to his confusion and delight that he was bourne off of the ground and could fly hither and yon as does the falcon over the high desert. His joy at this turn of fate was short lived, as his brother Jiri strengthened his claim upon the magic spear citing that Hakim had all the luck.

Thus the flying Jarib brother was sent on ahead scouting, as the rest of the group followed him down the corridor.

They came upon a glorious room with a mosaic of gold and precious gems along one wall, depicting alabaster maids cavorting by a lapis lazuli stream. The floor was a diamond grid of sandstone, with several old, dark stains, matching a lattice of holes in the ceiling.

This, of course, roused suspicion in the seasoned tomb raiders to the very core of their bones, so they passed the chamber by, ignoring also several large clay amphora that lay half buried in the wall to their left at the end of the hall.

The group came to a T junction, with a set of stairs to the north and a long dark corridor to their south. The flying Hakim agreed to scout up the stairway, which was set with golden scarabs in the faces of the steps. At the top, lay a mound of desert sand, which alarmingly took the form of a hulking, man like shape and lunged at the warrior as he flew overhead. Greatly perturbed, Hakim fled to his fellows and they ducked back the hall, while the thing settled back into the seeming of a harmless mound of sand.

Deciding to plumb safer depths, they headed south, and discovered a sculpted map of the ancient sorcerer king's domain, with fertile rivers of lapis lazuli and green fields of malachite, and beyond this, and even more amazing wonder, an orrery of marble and bronze, a great sandglass with magically glowing replicas of the sun and moon moving about its center on brass arms.

At the base of the hourglass, they recognized the very geography of the world that they themselves had worn out many a sandal traversing, with the Mount of Ages sitting at the center, its peak reaching toward the heavens. Above, in the upper chamber, a vast kingdom with a deep chasm at its center. Atop the hourglass, a dome of brass with a magnificent city at its crest.

Marvelous as these things were to see and ponder, they were also difficult to shove in a satchel and carry back to Kalabad to sell at the Bazaar of Innumerable Delights, so the band of adventurers quit this area and drew their plans to do battle with the sand monster.


After setting up an ambuscade for the creature down the hallway, the warriors challenged the thing by climbing the stairs and calling out jibes and insults. The living dune stirred to life and surged down the steps after them.

With a clever combination of fighting retreat and the artifice of an illusion in the likeness of a wildly gesticulating lunatic, they led it down the hall into the room of the mosaic, where it fell afoul of the rain of barbed spears on chains that fell from the ceiling, confirming their suspicion that it was indeed trapped.

Alas, their satisfaction at outwitting their fearsome foe was short lived, as spears of mere bronze matter little to a creature of living sand, and it boiled out of the room with a hiss. They stood and faced it at the T junction, striking with their magic swords and spear (of contentious ownership).

The battle became desperate as the thing engulfed one of their number in its sandy body, forcing them to strike its imprisoned victim as well as it. Bravely they fought on, forcing it to disgorge their comrade by unrelenting blows. Finally, the sand collapsed at their feet as mere sand, bereft of the spark of sorcerous life that had animated it.

Ascending the stairs, they came upon a bronze door inscribed with a scarab and ancient glyphs. This they pried open, and beyond found a black marble chamber, supported by four kneeling statues of female figures bearing the heads of a vulture, a serpent, a hyena, and a jackal respectively. On a dias against the west wall, they found a black sarcophagus with an eye carved in the lid, set with a large, glittering moonstone.

As they stepped into the room, the face of the sarcophagus slid downward into the floor, revealing a towering mummy of terrifying aspect, who stepped forward and began to chant an invocation to dark powers.


Through the most blessed of luck Muharrem Atan the magician bore a scroll for fending off the undead, which he used to stop the undead sorceror king from advancing upon them as they hurled spears and javelins at him. Weakened, he was quickly cut down by the mystically endowed weapons of the warriors, as they continued their bitter argument over the ownership of the spear.

As they searched the chamber, finding only meager riches scattered about in what should be a glittering treasure room, they discovered a hidden door in the back of the sarcophagus. This, they opened, and revealed an amazing sight beyond.

Here, in a room festooned with silks and fine tapestries, was piles of incredible wealth, towering stacks of ancient gold and silver, and gems without number. At the center, his heavy brow knit in concentration over a chess board of gold and obsidian sitting atop a block of granite, was a squat figure with basalt for skin and glossy black hair, with teeth like tusks of ivory. He sat cross legged, in pantaloons of rust colored silk and a gold brocaded kilt, stroking a short beard thoughtfully, looking up sharply as the group entered. With a faint smile bending the cruel line of his lips, he spoke to them in a voice like the rumbling of deep caverns in the language of the jinn.

"Ah, the old bag of bones loses by forfeit. One more pretty for the pile." And with that, he plucked a gold coin off of a nearby stand with a sharp clawed finger, and tossed it over his shoulder onto the mound of gleaming metal behind him. With eyes glittering like greedy diamonds, he smiled to them. "Mayhap thou mortals wouldst fancy a game?"


And thus did it befall the party of adventurers that they entered into a game of very high stakes with the dao Balakk, who had been bound millenia ago as chess companion for the undead sorceror king in his tomb below, where the wily elemental had been gambling the dead ruler out of his grave goods over the long centuries.

Pushing the wisest among them to the front, they played through two long, difficult games, winning by narrow margins both times, much to the dao's smoldering anger. Sensing the delicacy of their situation, despite winning great sums of gold from the ancient creature, they turned to diplomacy, inquiring that perhaps they might do him some service for being such a good sport about losing two games to a mere mortal.

This may indeed have saved them, for although his wrath was unquenched, his dao instinct for bargains took hold, and he secured their promise to gain his release from the service he was bound to. (The destruction of the mummy had not freed him, for his chess opponent of all the long years had been dead already.) He told them of a cave in the nearby cliffs known as the Redoubt of the Slayers, wherein may be found a mystic scroll that would secure his release from bondage.

As they said their farewells and set out from the tomb, he warned them, still seething from his losses, that a bargain entered with one dao was known to all dao as soon as it was struck, and thus should they take it into their fool mortal heads to default, that not even their graves would provide them safety from his clan's revenge.

And so, much richer but with much upon their minds, did the adventurers quit the catacombs beneath the Fallen Obelisk and set out across the sands of the Wailing Desert once more.

What befell them next, o honored reader, is a tale for another time.

Monday, August 9, 2010

What the swearing cuss is wrong with me?





I bought way too many miniatures at GenCon. It's like an addiction. I've got a kabillion I still have to paint from before this little jaunt, but here's this trip's tally:

A bunch of Arabian Nights guys from IronWind Metals. For eventual use in the Thousand Year Sandglass.

This funky djinn guy, also IronWind. 'cos Arabian Nights type settings need lotsa genies.

A bunch of gals from IronWind's $2 bux a babe box. 'cos they're fun to paint is all.

Assorted robots from Reaper's Chronoscape line, for robotting it up in Gamma World applications or what have you.

Betty the Space Heroine, also from Reaper. Just 'cos she's cool, plus I've already got some robots.

A packet of giant preying mantis', also with an eye toward Post Apocalyptic giant bug fun! From Iron Wind.

Buncha kung fu guys from Alkemy. I knew this was gonna happen sooner or later. I'm starting to not just collect minis, but to collect genres of minis. (Like western/steampunk, post apocalyptic, Arabian Nights, and now, Kung Fu guys...) They were $10 cheaper on sale at Games Plus's booth.

A bear. Because everything's more intense with bears. From Reaper.

And then, of course, the stinking badgers, from this game about fighting critters called Brushfire. Just 'cos they looked cool, and having a bunch of big critter goons with iron claws will make for more awesome Gamma World type shenanigans someday. I'll need to find some good mutant fungus monsters so I can get this kind of action going. I guess I'm most boggled by these 'cos I bought 'em after I'd vowed to stop buying stuff. *sigh*

Seriously, though. Am I nuts? Yeesh... Better get back to painting again...

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Thousand Year Sandglass - The Throne of Changes

The origins of this artifact are lost in the mists of time, as is often the case, but tales come to us from the scribes of the ancients as to this object's immense power. The following description might be added to one's own tale of adventure. The text in purple may be read aloud if you like.

... you find the floor of a long hallway is decorated with an undulating bronze bas relief of a great serpent, who winds into a huge chamber 30' by 70', and curves up into an arching sculpture. The serpent statue's wide, flat head shelters a low, simply carved stone throne at the far end of the room. Two rows of mighty bronze shod pillars range down the great hall at 10' intervals, flanking the throne and its sheltering serpent head. The walls appear to be made of much older, heavily pitted stone, which is worked but is so worn it almost appears natural. About 10' behind the arching back of the bronze serpent, a row of mummified scribes sit, their withered hands still clutching stylus and clay tablets.

On a secret door check of a 1-2 on a d6, characters will see that among them sits one who yet lives, as parched and withered as a mummy yet breathing. His piercing blue eyes survey all in the room under heavy lids. If addressed, he will speak in the tongue of the Ancients that he is the last of the scribes of the Room of Change, his sacred task to record the changes that those brave enough to sit in the throne may undergo. He will be glad to inform characters of the changes the throne may make upon them, owning that immortality was the gift that he himself gained from it, but not eternal youth.

If an adventurer sits in the throne, the eyes of the bronze serpent will flare, thunder will peal, and the occupant of the seat will be engulfed in a blinding flash of light. Roll a save vs. wands or undergo the following transformation:

Roll 1d8

1 Transforms into a writhing mass of snakes, slithering out of clothing and equipment en masse and attacking. There number of snakes is equal to the characters HP total divided by 4. Their clothing and gear can be retrieved from the throne. The character can be returned to normal if all the snakes are gathered alive and a remove curse is cast upon them.

2 Transforms into a serpent ogre, destroying clothing and armor in the process. Roll a save vs. spell to retain original mind and personality, otherwise go mad and attack former allies.

3 Transforms into a mummy, which will rise and attack. Character is dead without chance of resurrection. Gear is retrievable.

4 Strength, Dexterity, and Constitution are instantly and permanently raised to 18.

5 All damage is instantly healed, all limbs restored, and all curses lifted. A dead body seated on the throne may be restored to life if this result comes up.

6 Character is rendered immortal. They cannot die, but continue to age normally. If reduced to 0 hp, rendered immobile until they are healed above 0 once more. All limbs lost will regrow in time, but will reduce the immortal's charisma while they grow back. Even a severed head may be regrown, but the immortal will be blind and senseless while the head grows back.

7 Develops scaly, hairless skin, golden, slitted eyes, and a serpent like tongue. Charisma is reduced by half. Can speak the tongue of serpents.

8 Character's body turns to gold statue. Gear and clothing unaffected. May be cured by stone to flesh spell or remove curse. Weight of body is tripled.

Characters may only sit in the chair once. A dead body placed in the chair will be effected normally, and if the resulting transformation is a living thing(s), they will be effectively resurrected, although perhaps not in a form they might desire.

After the magic happens, the scribe will declare "The Change is Made" in the Ancient tongue, and scribble a note on a clay tablet before him.

Thousand Year Sandglass - Serpent Ogres


Number Encountered: 1d4
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 90 (30)
Armor Class: 5
Hit dice: 5
Attacks: Bite or by weapon, Constriction
Damage: 1d8 or weapon +4, 2d4
Save: F5
Morale: 8
Horde: VI

Lurking beneath the streets of the low quarters of many cities of Sanduk Ramul, the dark cult of Al Hayyat, the great serpent, flourishes in hidden places. Great is their wealth and subtle are their ways, and when the priests of the winding way seek to safeguard their troves of forbidden knowledge and ill gained treasures, they often turn to the fearsome serpent ogres.

These tireless monsters require little sleep or food, laying torpid but ever watchful, until unwary intruders enter their premises, where they then stir to relentless, deliberate life, slaying and devouring without compunction or malice.

It is whispered among sages that the terrible ritual for creating these creatures begins by allowing an enslaved ogre to be half devoured by a great python, before both are struck by a spell of transformation, becoming a chimerical beast with the head and coils of a great serpent and the arms and hands of a mighty thewed ogre, which towers well over the heads of even the tallest of men when reared up to their full height.

Serpent ogres may bite with their fanged maws, or strike with weapons given them by their masters. If a hapless foe is caught in their coils, they may constrict them from round to round, releasing them only when all life has been squeezed out of them. The gear and garments of those they slay are usually scattered about the monsters' lair, while the bodies are swallowed whole, to be slowly digested over several months. A victim of a serpent ogre my be recovered more or less intact within 1d4 months.

Due to their unnatural nature, a serpent ogre may be turned as if they were an undead of their level, but otherwise they are living creatures, albeit terrible ones, and may fall victim to sleep, charm, and paralysis as normal. They will instantly obey a cleric of the cult of Hayyat without question, although their minds are very dull and literal, and often the justice of other gods finds these evil priests when a serpent ogre interprets an order much too literally.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

HELGACON III - Valley of the Forgotten Kings


As the sands shifted about in fitful clouds behind them, a brave party of adventurers found themselves standing at the entry to a box canyon that their hosts at the Saluk nomad camp had whispered to them about as they'd gathered about the sheyk's campfire the night before. A lost valley, where few of the superstitious men of the high desert dared tread, where the tombs of long dead rulers of a bygone era slept beneath the merciless gaze of the sun. The fabled Valley of Forgotten Kings.

The group numbered five, if one chose not to count the gen familiar of the portly sha'ir Nabil Abdel Shafi. At the fore were the two brothers, Jiri and Hakim Jirib, both doughty warriors and seasoned adventurers. Behind them, a furtive priest named Kash Kash, who claimed to serve the Lord of the Desert (although he merely smiled evasively if one asked if he meant Asmar, Desert Lord of the Alwan pantheon) and a golden furred kedai huntress named Faridé Fouad.


The valley stretched before them, high sandstone cliffs trailing down into gravel trailing down into a sinuous river of sand that poured in from the northern end of the canyon form the high deserts beyond. Several dark caves dotted the rock walls, but the two most striking features were a toppled obelisk at the far end of the valley, and a row of majestic statues of seated gods and monarchs carved from the eastern wall, each one with a stone door between their massive feet.


The adventurers decided to approach the row of statues, and as they came closer they gazed upon the visages of the long dead kings. From left to right, the figures were: A two headed god bearing the beaked heads of an eagle and a vulture, with a smaller figure enthroned on his lap, a bald headed scribe with a tightly bound beard, a stern faced warrior in a domed crown, and a pleasant faced nobleman in a flat crown. Liking the softly smiling visage of this last one, they decided to approach him first.

Examining the door, the group saw that it was carved with the images of fish, their open mouths pointed toward the sky. Closer study revealed that one of the mouths concealed a hole in the door. Hakim drew forth a ten foot pole from the luggage strapped to their camel, and thrust it down the opening, and was rewarded with a click, as the stone door receded into the ground before them. Unfortunately, he was unable to withdraw the pole in time, and found himself the owner of a six foot pole as it wedged in the recess and snapped off.

Inside, the group found a large tomb carved with papyrus reed designs on the walls. A towering statue of a stern faced mameluk stood before them, his grim features staring ahead in space. His flattened head touched the roof, and his feet were braced on the ground, as if he bore the polished bricks of the ceiling upon his pate. Beyond him, a stone boat lay, bearing a royal sarcophagus decorated with chipped blue paint, at the foot of which rested a stone box carved to resemble a fisherman's basket. Nearby, in the west wall, a round bronze door with a sunburst design was set in the wall. The party walked into the tomb, looking about in wonderment, and set about exploring.

As Nabil the sha'ir and Kash Kash the priest examined the doorway, finding inch wide holes in the face of the door between the verdegris striped rays of the sun, the others turned their attentions to the casket and box. The brothers Jirib each took a side and lifted the lid, and stood blinking in confusion at one another as the sound of grinding stone continued even as they paused. Looking around, they saw that the statue had turned to face them, pointing an accusing finger at them as they gazed up at its scowling visage. Dropping the lid, they turned to face the animated carving.
As the brothers' weapons flashed in the dim light, the doorway behind them rumbled shut, casting the room into dim twilight. While incredibly strong, the animated statue was crumbling, and the brothers' blades held enchantment. After a brief scuffle, they chopped the living pillar down, then cried out in dismay as a section of ceiling collapsed upon them.

After regaining their bearings and binding their wounds, they saw the glitter of gold among the broken masonry, and found that each fallen brick had contained a gold piece, cast in the likeness of the fallen statue. After gathering up this windfall, they turned their attention back to the box and sarcophagus. Removing the lids of both, they found a mummy wrapped in royal robes, a fishing rod and basket lying in the coffin with him. In the box, they found a profusion of silver pieces, each cast in the form of a tiny fish. The eyes of Faride the kedai glittered in particular at this latest find. They filled their packs with silver and gold and examined the doorways, both the exit to the desert canyon, and the mysterious disk shaped door to the west.

The door to the outside was quickly determined to be openable via a small mechanism attached to a bowl, presumably meant to hold a measure of liquid, but the snapped off end of the pole worked just as well. Taking this remnant of pole, Jiri thoughtfully walked up and inserted it into one of the holes in the face of the sun door, and there he discovered that the door could be rolled aside using the handle like a crank.

Beyond, there was a long hallway with a floor carved to resemble flowing waves on the surface of a river. Dull bronze serpents were set in the floor in the first thirty feet of the corridor. As the party advanced down the hallway, examining this new find, one of them carelessly stepped on one of the broad serpent heads. From down the darkened corridor, a hiss was heard, and a bronze spear shaped like an adder flew down the hallway, barely missing those who were in front. Examining the missile, they saw that the fangs of the sculpted serpent's head were encrusted with some fell substance. The Brothers Jarib looked at one another craftily, and the headstrong Hakim stepped on another trigger in the floor, launching a second serpent spear which he just barely avoided. The two warriors gloated that they had obtained two poisoned spears from this trap, but the rest of the group decided to be more careful and avoided launching any more projectiles down the hallway.

The corridor continued for 90 feet, then turned to the north past a stone lattice in the far wall carved to resemble crisscrossing snakes and papyrus reeds. An eerie blue glow filled the chamber before them, and they sent Faridé ahead to scout with her night accustomed eyes.

The kedai came upon a large chamber with a darkly rippling pool at the center, and her sharp, green eyes spotted a cluster of small snakes swimming across the surface in a tight grouping. The room was lit by bronze disks hanging from the ceiling, each shimmering with blue flames. A row of stone tables and couches lined the north wall, and she saw a length of red cloth and something gold sparkling on one of them. With a low whistle and a flick of her wrist, she summoned her comrades forward, and they fanned out into the room.

As they entered, the cluster of snakes bobbed up and down in the darkling waters, watching them warily. The group found that the cloth and shiny object were a rough, rust colored cloak and an ornate mask shaped like the beaked face of a vulture made of brass and copper. Hakim stepped down to the lip of the pool and thrust his spear into the water.

It was then that a shapely figure rose from the pool, her back turned toward the startled adventurers as serpents cascaded down her back, gazing at the party with glittering eyes. She covered herself modestly and spoke to them in a low voice. "Avert thine eyes if thou wouldst live." Being well bred, the adventurers turned their backs, as the creature rushed over to the stone couch and clothed herself in cloak and mask, then turned to address them.


For a long while, they spoke to her, and learned that she was once a high priestess in service of the Tetrarchs. She told them of the legendary Throne of Changes, which if sat upon would deliver boons or curses based upon the whims of the ancient gods. She herself, in an act of hubris, challenged the gods to bestow all that the Throne might give when she sat upon it, and had been transformed into the creature that stood before them. She'd been granted eternal life and health, but had also become a strange, reptilian being, and her gaze was doom. Since the day of her transformation, she did abide in the catacombs, as she was no longer a creature of the world above.

When asked, she told them there was great treasure buried in the Tetrarchs' catacombs, and also warned that there were many dangerous creatures in the tombs, but if they wished to go on exploring she would not stop them. Her only request was that they spare her the gazing crystal in one of the upper chambers that she used to observe the goings on of the wider world, which was her only source of amusement in the long eons. The party promised her that they would leave it be, and parted company with the creature, after she gave them a final warning not to provoke her acolytes.

The group headed east down a corridor, and found a wooden doorway that they forced open. Beyond they discovered the ancient priestess' acolytes, a pair of grim mummies who sat up on their pallets with burning coals in their black eyesockets. Faridé and Nabil were so paralysed with dread that the burly brothers Jarib and Kash Kash had to physically drag them past, and into a corridor heading north.


This passage led to a crossroads, with a set of stairs to the north and a sloping corridor to the southeast, which they followed until they came to a bronze door marked with a cats head gazing out from a square, which Faridé recognized as the symbol of her people's lost goddess, the Ohai.

Stepping inside, they found a shrine to the Ohai, a long chamber with a dried up pool littered with the skeletons of fish, with the mummified bodies of great cats propped against the walls. In the northern end of the hall, a large statue of a cat peered down through a square hole in the ceiling. The fur stood up on Faridé's shoulders, and she felt an odd pulsing behind her eyes. In a flash of inspiration, she knew that she had been temporarily granted the gift of prophecy. As her green eyes went crossed, she informed her comrades that any one question they put to her, regardless of subject, would be answered truthfully.


Hastily, the party conferred, and decided to ask here where the greatest wealth in the catacombs could be found. The female kedai responded with a series of slurred directions: "Go west, then south, then west, then north, then east."

As they committed the route to memory, Hakim discovered one of the cat mummies was fake, and by turning it's terra cotta masked head, a door opened in the northeast corner. The group decided to check this out before trying to follow their comrade's cryptic directions.

Beyond the hidden door they found a twenty foot hallway, with a door at the other end. A strange, phosphorescent glow issued from the crack at the base of the portal. Cautiously, the group advanced to the door and opened it.

A rough carved room about 20' by 20' lay beyond, with a low basin in the northeast corner beneath a shaft in the cieling, that shone with dim light from above. The walls were lined with some kind of faintly glowing, greenish white substance. As the party stepped into the room, they were ambushed by a gigantic scorpion, as big as two men, which dropped down from the shaft and sprang to the attack, clattering its huge, serrated claws.

The brothers Jarib leapt back and drew missile weapons, as Kash Kash began to chant and ululate, paying homage to his true desert lord, Akrab the Scorpion, whose cult was outlawed in most civilized lands. Nabil ordered his gen Ban Ban into the fray, and the tiny jinni complied with much protestations. The scorpion struck at the party with its claws and tail, as the brothers cast javelins and fired bows at it. Kash Kash swung his heavy flail in a daze, and was struck by the thing's tail, shrugging off its poison. Nabil began to feel remorse for endangering his tiny familiar as Ban Ban swung his tiny fists and bemoaned the thoughtlessness of his master. Chagrined, the sha'ir stepped forward to collect up his diminutive servant, but was caught in one of the monster's clasping claws, then stung in the heart. The rotund mystic's eyes bulged in his sockets, and he succumbed to the venom with a gasp.

Meanwhile, Jiri and Hakim tried to stab the thing with their newly acquired serpent spears, but found the beast resisted the venom, in spite of the fierce wounds they were bestowing upon it. Kash Kash struck the thing again with his flail, enraging it into stinging him again. This time, the poison boiled in the outlaw priest's blood, and slew him. He died as he had lived, stung repeatedly by scorpions. With a final bout of flashing blades, the others slew the beast, and fled the room.

From above, the din of the fight had attracted two wayfarers who by quirk of fate had been drawn to the lost valley by uncanny connection to the adventurers who had just fallen. Their calls down the well shaft stopped the three surviving party members just as they were rushing out the door. The trio looked up to see two men drifting down the shaft as if they were lighter than air, settling down in the basin next to the grisly corpse of the scorpion and the half dissolved bodies of their comrades. One newcomer let out a wail of recognition, and knelt by the body of Nabil, while the other nodded in grim satisfaction at the corpse of the dead scorpion priest Kash Kash. The portly little man introduced himself as Zafir Abdel Shafi, brother of Nabil, also a sha'ir, and who bore a remarkable resemblance to his deceased twin. The sha'ir's gen, Nab Nab, was a djinnling, who had provided the magical flight down the shaft. The other, a stern priest wearing the brown cloak of Asmar, Lord of the Deserts, introduced himself as Ajarabh Scorpion Killer, who hunted the outlaw priests of the Sanam on behalf of his patron.

The party welcomed the newcomers and divested their fallen comrades of any necessities. After honors were spoken, the dao of the earth pulled Nabil's lifeless body into the ground, and they left that place of death to the dead scorpion and its worshipper.

Resolving to follow Faridé's directions, they wended their way back to the chamber of the pool, informing the high priestess of what had occurred as they passed through. The directions led them around a corner to a dead end corridor, full of solid gold statues, some clad in mouldering clothing. The greater part of them were posed as if seated, with expectant looks on their faces. Others looked shocked and cowered in fear. Among these, the twisted bodies of tomb rats could be identified as well.

After determining that the statues were much too heavy to lift, the Jarib brothers started cutting the arm off one of the tomb rat statues. Once they had stowed this weight of gold in their packs, the group decided to explore further down the corridor to the west.

Eventually they came to a chamber lined with earthenware jars, each a set of four with different animal head stoppers. Inside, they found mummified organs floating in a pungent tincture of spices and chemicals. The floor of this room was littered with smashed jars, further evidence that somewhere tomb rats were afoot. An opening led north and further west, and they decided to explore to the north.

This led them around a twisting passage that ended in a dead end with a mirror topped by a scarab design with a carven eye set in its carapace. Zafir stepped up to the mirror to examine it, and was shocked as his reflection reached out of the mirror with an evil leer and clamped his hands around his throat. His djinnling familiar's reflection ran along his outstretched arms and began to fight furiously with its tiny duplicate.

After a furious battle in the cramped corridor, the evil duplicates were slain, and faded into the air like mirages. The party fled down the hall and headed further west.

This brought them to a crossroads. To the north, they saw an alcove with a royal sarcophagus interred, to the south, a long corridor lined with statues of priestesses. Every so often, one of the carvings held a bronze bowl in her cupped hands, and as the party stared, the bowls each lit with eerie blue flames one after the other heading away form them. They could hear the faint whispering and chanting of female voices just at the edge of hearing in the still, cool air.

After checking the sarcophagus and finding it and its contents unremarkable, they headed south, to the end of the whispering hall, where they found a large stone door standing with a pivot in the center, with bas relief of an eagle and a vulture on its face. After examining it for a while and trying to press on the statues, Ajarabh suggested that Faridé touch it, seeing as she was the only female in the group and the decorations in the hall indicated an order of priestesses. Sure enough, the door opened onto the hot, sandy air of the dust choked valley beyond. They were at the door between the feet of the god statue.


From there, they doubled back and headed down the west passage back at the crossroads, following it until they came upon an embalming workshop, with four slabs containing inert skeletons, and a fresco on the walls depicting several goddesses with zoomorphic heads conferring over a mummy. They also found a set of stairs leading upward from the northwest corner, and they followed them.

At the top of the staircase, they found a door made from the lid of a sarcophagus, with a white female face with dark rimmed eyes rendered in chipped paint on the shallow bas relief carving. Finding it sealed tight, the group chopped through the coffin lid with their blades, revealing a room stacked with sarcophagi beyond. Some had been broken open, while a row of them lay propped up against the north wall. There were old dry bloodstains on the floor, crisscrossed with the clawed tracks of tomb rats. Tucked behind one of the standing sarcophagi, they found a tomb rat's shriveled head, neatly severed from it's body, which was nowhere to be seen.

As they searched the coffins, three of them creaked open, disgorging a trio of terrifying ghuls: blackened, shriveled creatures armed with deadly sharp swords and spiked shields, their silently grinning, fanged hyena skulls gazing at the recoiling adventurers with empty sockets. Ajarabh invoked his diety and sent two of them retreating into their sarcophagi, while the third stepped up to the attack without a sound.

After a brief exchange of flashing blades, the misshapen creature fell to the ground, and the party busied themselves exploring the room. They discovered one of the sarcophagi contained a clay jar full of copper pieces, stoppered with a plug of valuable lapis lazuli. It was too soon to rejoice, however, as the ghul they thought slain picked up its sword and rose once more to the attack. With horrified eyes, the group saw that the wounds they had given it were drawing closed and vanishing. In the ensuing fight, Ajarabh was wounded, but managed to keep his feet. Finally, Jiri dealt the thing a mighty blow, cleanly severing it's skull from the body, and the thing crumbled to foul shreds of black and bone fragments.

Following a doorway beyond the stack of broken sarcophagi, the party followed a winding hallway that eventually took them to the crossroads at the base of the stairs that they'd initially seen when passing the acolytes' chamber. Deciding to follow it, they came upon a corridor heading east and west the floor of which was decorated with a gigantic bronze serpent's coils. This led into a vast hall where the flat inlay rose into a huge bronze cobra's head arched over a low, stone and bronze throne. Here was doubtless the mysterious Throne of Changes that the transformed High Priestess had referred to.


Inspired by the mystic aura of the chamber, the priest Ajarabh stepped forward and sat in the throne. In a flash of light and a peal of thunder, he stood once more, marvelling that all of his wounds had healed.


Emboldened, Zafir the sha'ir sat down. In a flash and boom, he looked down in horror to find that his skin had become hairless and scaly, with golden slitted eyes and a forked tongue. On his shoulder, his djinnling familiar had transformed into a serpent. Seeking foolishly to undo his transformation, he rose and sat down again. In a second flash, all of his wounds had been healed. Tempting fate once more, he rose and sat again. With a final crash of thunder, his robes and packs collapsed, as his body transformed into a writhing mass of angry snakes that spread out across the room.


As confusion broke out among the alarmed survivors, Faridé's feline curiosity overcame her, and she climbed the dias and sat on the throne as the priest and the two warriors backed away from the snakes that suddenly infested the room. In a flash and boom of thunder, the hapless kedai was transformed into an undead mummy, her golden coat sloughing away over blackened skin as she rose with flames of ghoulish light in her eyes.


Overwhelmed by the horror of these terrible transformations, the survivors of the party fled the room and quit the tombs, much wealthier and wiser. It is here that the tale ends, and passes into tales for another night's telling.