Session #52: Dr. Sontag's Return!

[Again, again, profuse scrapings and bowings by the Scribes. They're trying to catch up with the chronicles. Also, the notes toward the end of this session are sketchy, so the Scribes welcome corrections or additions to the record.]

It has been some time since one Doctor Sontag, of the hireling-company the Arwah al Safina, was left as a hostage with the Mnor Klackons of the Necropolis of the Tel.

Well, a party finally set forth to rescue him from this no-doubt dire situation! Organized by Arngeir, who had been on the first foray; Arngeir who strode into the tavern in wondrous new plate armor of a green sheen, great frog-mouthed helm under his arm, all bearing the maker's mark of the Ringing Anvil.

But as a preliminary to venturing again to seek the Mnor and to deal with them, Bartholomew, Althis, and Heijo sought out more information on the Klackons, and so secured an interview with a dore-philosopher, one Li-Rei, a friend of Cothon-Under-Star. The lecture on Klackon society can be distilled thus: princesses are fertile females, and the nominal leaders of their societies; dores are the pale-carapaced males, typically more delicately built, and who serve as poets, philosophers, artists, &c; and the drones are the non-breeding females, dark-carapaced, who serve as the crafters, workers, and sword-arms of their society. (It should be noted that this social organization is perhaps specific to the local Klackons, the Xolda and the Attines)

As for the mnor, they are outcasts, bandits, dacoits--disbarred from Klackon society for various crimes, they lurk at the edges, feeding on the castoffs, engaging in occasional banditry, and generally being offensive to the sensibilities of the Xolda and Attines.

The company setting forth on the expedition, after Li-Rei's lectures, was as follows:

• Althis (magic-user)
• Bartholomew Pettibone (magic-user)
  accompanied by Gan ad-Din (fighting man)
• Lars Ghar-Rider (magic-user)
• Heijo (magic-user)
• Arngeir (fighting man)

Althis self-portrait, by Chris

And with them on their return? Doctor Sontag! He has been restored to human society, and happily drinks in the fruits of civilization once again, after his long sojourn among the Mnor:

Doctor Sontag

But what happened?

Eager to rejoin human society, Doctor Sontag's tale is a somewhat confused saga of treating injuries, infections, and malignant fungal growths on the members of the colony of Mnor, but certain details stand out. He was "exchanged" as a hostage to guarantee the delivery of a message to the Survivors of the Tel ... and then remained with the Mnor, uncertain of the fate of the "quest" his former employers had been given, treating their injuries.

The leader, Znor, a drone with only three arms and wearing a scimitar of glittering edge and magnificent hilts, often spoke with the Doctor, and they struck up a rapport. Sontag knew that he was not a prisoner, exactly, but a guest--and yet at the same time, he could not leave, and so he has spent many months in the dusty darkness of the tombs, studying the Mnor and their ailments, always afraid of the strange creatures said to roam the crypts.

Znor spoke of strange insectoid giants that wielded lightning bolts; Kzinti sorceresses who took the form of human women for uncertain (no doubt nefarious) designs; the dread serudla slithering through the darkness; and strange beings, like human children, but with huge dark eyes and grey skin; and much beyond ...

Then finally, his hopes were answered. Human torchlight shone through the outer guard rooms, and the current company appeared! Negotiations ensued between the group and Znor, and ultimately an agreement was struck with the help of Lars Ghar-Rider and his strange red-fronded helm. Znor would send an envoy to new-minded iqtadar Sesel's Iqta' al Saahil al Shamaliy, while Doctor Sontag would go free.

And so he has returned!

A visual expedition-report, by Chris, earning Althis 100 xp per level

There were further adventures, as the company pressed deeper into the crypts, seeking the mysterious Aegis of the Demon Queen, but they lost their way passages and found something else instead, something Lars shudders to remember, and which Bart happily declares was burned away with copious oil and fire. But any further details will have to come from their own accounts, as Doctor Sontag's tales take center place at the tavern that night.

The Lucre

• 600 dinars (gp) from a silver brooch with a kyni-falcon motif
• 110 dinars from a finely crafted but bent tumbaga dagger 
• 90 dinars from the monetary value of a service of six broken electrum goblets
• a sekeker-wax impression of a kyni talon, taken by Bart

The Learning

• 800 xp from treasure
• 3356 xp for mnor x32 (100 + hp ea.); granted that took place
• 111 xp from a strange floating pod (100 + hp)

The Cut

• 145 dinars (gp), 4 dirhams (sp), and 5 fals (cp) to each player-character
  72 dinars and 7 dirhams to Gan ad-Din
• 853 xp per each other player-character
  100 xp / level additional xp to Althis, for the art
  427 xp to Gan ad-Din
• the wax claw-impression

As always, other art or write-ups sent to the Scribes will be published to the chronicle to earn the submitting player-character 100 xp per level. Valued items desired by a player-character may be "bought out" by paying their gp value to the fellow characters.