#cirkanus

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Villain for the D&D module. Was a player in my original module who eventually split from the party and tried to kill them all. Wore a creepy, cracked wooden mask over his face to hide the fact that he had been continuously magically altering his body with dark rituals.

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Tonight we got into philosophical debates of "What is an Ooze?", debated the finer points of the National Association of Chain Manufacturers charts on chain load-bearing for a possible elevator construction project inside a dead volcano lined with hazardous razor-sharp obsidian, and set up the next session for a TPK via the nearly blind, insane, hallucinating frenzied berzerker who is currently positioned in the center of the party on a fragile narrow staircase inside the very same dangerous volcano.

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Currently, the most mysterious and eerie magic item I've given a player in my D&D module is a flowery curtain that, when placed on a wall and opened, reveals a window looking out onto a grassy green field with a single tree and an enigmatic "horse" with eyes that "carry the look of unfathomable wisdom... or fear?"

Honestly nobody knows. There's just a horse behind a tree who seems to be pretty good at hiding considering there's only one thing to hide behind.

 Assuming it's a horse.

The only instruction they've ever received on the conjured window is "never to open it", and for all they know its only purpose is to provide a view to people with otherwise drab, depressing living arrangements.

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Unsurprisingly the more notable aspects of my ongoing D&D efforts are probably eccentric wizards and the roster has grown with time.

I've always had a recurring wizard who lives in the sewers of the main city, Cirkanus, I feature in my modules- one that is very unwelcoming to those of arcane aptitude, hence his unconventional living arrangements. He's an alchemist who's unpredictability is only rivaled by his fervor for thrusting his strange concoctions at unwitting visitors. His potions always do what they're intended to do, assuming there is intent behind their creation, however they never do it in the way one would expect. Notable examples include a potion that, once imbibed, would "illuminate all before your eyes, allowing one to see in the deepest of darkness". The potion immediately blinds the one who drinks it, projecting blinding beams of light from their eyes. A more simple example is a potion of water breathing that turns you into a crustacean or similar water-dwelling creature.

The one beneath the streets of Cirkanus isn't alone however, as he has a twin brother, the only of the two who's name has actually been revealed (though it's questionable as to whether or not it's truly his name, since he hardly remembers it and simply seems to accept it). Artemis, or Arty is a wizard often found in the employ of one other recurring character, a warrior of much renown in the city referred to as Iron Claw. His role involves him advising, as best one of his subset of mad wizardry can, on matters of arcane nature and specifically the revival of Iron Claw in a literal sense with the crafting of a metal arm to replace the one he'd lost. His magic, like his brothers, is more serendipitous than skill and his most terrifying and memorable efforts include teleportation that seems to favor a progressive "piece by piece" methodology rather than the more comfortable and less disturbing normal means. His arcane craft has recently been revealed to harbor some unique strength however, as it's unpredictability seems to bypass traditional means of arcane defense.

The roster of wizards has grown however, and during the course of my module however and so too has the breadth of their influence.

In the west the party encountered a Wizard in the streets of a highly magical city by the name of "Blargus". More of a colloquial title, his name has taken on a likeness of Voldemort's in the Harry Potter series in a way. The utterance of his name has tied to it a certain magic that he can manipulate to behave in many ways depending on intent, but as a renowned evoker specifically and intensely focused on the use of explosive magic and arcane crafts, the results are usually likewise exciting. Every one of his spells witnessed to date involve something of explosive nature- from his teleportation entries, literally exploding him into existence at the given destination, to the more obvious obsession with making anything remotely arcane related to an explosion in some manner or another. It is his specialty after all, so why put it to waste.

And finally, in this last session, the party ventured back into the dreary, harrowing city of Si-Remule ruled by an undead, nearly-omniscient enigmatic government. The city is built high in a mountain, obscured by fog and clouds and often times darkened due to the peak blotting out the sun during almost half of the day. The claustrophobic, winding streets of tall buildings and cramped quarters give little to the townsfolk in regards to a "view" and a recent encounter with a wizard's shop in an alley way gave credence to the ingenuity and desperation of those with nothing to brighten up their lives. Venturing into the dusty, barely-lit shop the un-named wizard immediately confronted the newcomer, thrusting into sight his unexpectedly mundane wares, however as is often with such things they held a more interesting purpose. Stretched before him he held flowery curtains, a simple pattern of yellow flowers on pale cloth, however as he exaggeratedly detailed the quality of the drapery he explained that "in a city such as this, sometimes a good view can be all one needs", a phrase that was repeated thoroughly in his ongoing sales pitches of nearly identical items.

Upon holding the curtain to the wall, it attached on it's own and he excitedly motions for it to be opened- Doing so revealing a window that had appeared behind the curtain, behind that stretching a beautiful peaceful field of rolling green hills and a single oak tree. When questioned about the possibility of opening the window, however, he quickly stifled a grim look and instructed never to open the window before quickly shifting the subject to further sales pitches.

The fact that such a strange magic item was made immediately, and unintentionally useful for the exact purpose it was supposed to serve afterwards was the best part of it all.

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Tonight, the newest addition to the D&D party was an NPC Homunculus that was hurriedly thrust onto one of the PCs by a nameless wizard who only stated "I should have never made it, just take it and don't tell anyone where you got it."

So the PC kept it and bonded to it by providing it some blood so it wouldn't dispel/die from not having a bonded master. The little dude explains that it was created to make poisons by eating up scraps and bits of stuff off the floor, then processing them in its body to create substances of varying potency and effect.

However, the PCs seem to get a kick out of it because it's essentially a little rat-sized jelly-bean shaped ooze blob with one eye, little nubby legs, and a giant quivering ass that passes hallucinogenic gas reflexively as a defense mechanism. It's also "programmed" to find someone and stare them down when it's ready to produce a pellet of poison, that way it doesn't just leave poison lying around everywhere- Which it does by waddling up in front of them, squatting, and quivering with a stressed look on its... mostly expressionless jello face. Which it seems to do at only the most inopportune times.

Due to it being a blob with no real anatomy it is nearly indestructible, though, and also has the chance of creating some fairly powerful poisons, as well as a decent knowledge of them.

The PC who obtained it "lovingly" named it Larry after his sociopathic uncle (Larethion Grimall) who tried to take over the world, and thusly was the reason for joining the party who is currently attempting to clean up the aftermath of his actions.

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D&D tonight was interesting.

First, they finally decide to bite the bullet and draw from The Deck of Many Things they found in a dragon hoard ages ago. Surprisingly they all narrowly avoided death and pretty generally benefited from it. (For those who don't know what that is, it's basically russian roulette with fate itself, there's a 50/50 chance of being doomed or getting something really nice)

After that, they rolled a 1 on a D100 roll for how bad the next encounter they came across was (they were already pretty much guaranteed to fight the dragon they were intentionally looking for- instead they ended up fighting a serious enemy they'd encountered once before).

It didn't go as expected. In one turn the Archivist cleric-type character was able to banish one creature outright back to it's plane of origin. The second was much bigger- an eight-headed half-fiend pyrohydra, essentially like the Hydra from Greek Mythology (Cut off one head and two sprout back moments later) except it also breathes fire, is much stronger, and can fly. However the half-fiend attribute was granted to it artificially by some outside source they'd had experience with before and, upon seeing something out of the ordinary on one of the creature's heads, the lizardfolk removed it. This transformed the Hydra back to it's not-much-dangerous natural state- however, a Hydra has mere animal intellect and was quickly put into a coma when the archivist cursed it's intelligence stat, reducing it to 0. Both enemies didn't even have a chance.

The party plans on chaining it up and selling it to the gladatory arena for a fair profit, back where they came from.