Thursday, May 3, 2012

Doorway to Weird


Last night was another installment of our Weird Adventures game in Lorefinder.  The gang was reunited after a few weeks of partial party adventuring and they made their way back to the Thaumaturgical Society library in Paladin Hill. Thanks to Creskin's membership, they got access to the tome they were looking for in manuscript form: Incursions from Elsewhere by Montagu Ware.

Poring over the manuscript, Creskin finds a chapter on Hoborxen and its alien overlay. Interestingly, Ware mentions a visit by a wizard from the alien city--Faustus Bleys--and his nonhuman scribe.  There was once an illustration on the facing page but it had been torn out.  Creskin also notices the page he's reading is a palimpsest--and the original writing not quite scraped off appears to be a still-functional spell. The spell (when read) should open a doorway to a pocket dimension.

Creskin tears out the page and the guys leave with the librarian none the wiser.  In a secluded alley in Grimalkin Village, Creskin reads the spell.  The page expands to become a doorway.  They step through into a crazy cubical bronze room with doors on all the walls and the ceiling.  And perhaps weirdest of all, a floating, mumbling head in the center.

An attempt to decipher the head's utterances, gets acid vomitted at Creskin for his trouble.  Bored with that conversation, Boris puts a bullet through the head before it can attack them.  Don Diabolico explores the other doors finding: a gold box containing restive, jumping bird skulls, each polished to a porcelain sheen and wrapped in tissue paper; a room that's walls and ceilings are coated with moving globules of a viscous, oil-slick irridescent substance; and a room indentical to the one they're in--complete with duplicates of our heroes in it.

Diabolico plays with these weird places, while Creskin and Boris are sure that all of them are potentially deadly.  After Boris goes out and comes back with a ladder, their able to get into the strangely normal room on the other side of the ceiling door.  Amid the fairly mundane furnishing, they find Indrid Bliss's coat, another glass orb, and a photo of a younger John Vandemaur and Vivaine Vandemaur dressed as a cigarette girl--in a hopping Club Tekeli-Li!

Taking these items with them (as well as an ooze sample and the box of bird schools), the gang runs into Indrid Bliss on the way out.  He's miffed they broke into his place and demands his "beacon" back.  Creskin threatens to break the orbs and Bliss back off, disappearing into a shimmering door.

Questions abound, but the boys are more convinced than ever that Viviane Vandemaur is hiding something.

6 comments:

The Angry Lurker said...

I like Boris the best and good discoveries in the weird place!

Gothridge Manor said...

I like Boris best also. He's quite a guy. It was an interesting adventure in the Dimension that Jack Built.

But Trey has gone and done it. Pushed this campaign way over the line. I know its Weird Adventures but now Boris had to go buy a tie? My god, will this madness ever end!

Canageek said...

Man, I hope you write up some of these items and people once your campaign is done with them.

Chris C. said...

As always an excellent report! Nice tension and mystery in your game. Can't wait to know what will happen next.

Trey said...

@Angry Lurker & Tim: Boris seemed to be a bit frustrated with the others this adventure like he was thinking: "ok, when is this magic stuff gonna be over!"

@Canageek - Thats a good idea. I'll do a post or two on that, I think.

@Bard - Thanks. It's probably the first really concerted mystery I've run. It's sort of challenging (but rewarding) to come up with what all the "clues" there are likely to be as player actions have them coming at info from directions I hadn't thought of.

Unknown said...

I feel I should mention that I'm not normally one to read play reports closely (unless I'm new to a system), but I adore the Weird Adventures write-ups. Mostly, I'm thrilled that the wonderful setting is seeing actual play. Can't wait to take it for spin myself at some point...