Iconoclasm

(Hello! This thread is something of a placeholder, where I'll be posting the opening scene for a game of GURPS I'm hosting for Schazer, Elpie, MrGuy, and Paranoia. I'll also probably post recaps here after each session, and there'll be a reference here in the OP for in-game knowledge that occurs to me that characters should have but players may not.)

It's quiet as the minutes tick down to midnight, but not supernaturally so. It's almost disappointing, as the scene in every other respect is suitably foreboding and mysterious: nine hooded figures stand by the lakeshore, each with a cast iron bowl at waist height on a wicker stand in front of them; a tenth, in rather more ornate robes, waits between a lazily-bubbling cauldron and a well-stoked brazier, a hand gripping one end of a metal rod that rests in the heart of the fire. That tenth figure is the Master of Initiates, whom none of you have met personally before. Important members with a hand in the group's operations tend to stay well out of the public eye, so until now you've only met with recruiters and other initiates; it's not until you've been deemed trustworthy enough to undergo the initiation ceremony that you're allowed to interact with the group proper, and the Master will be the first you speak to as well as your de facto commander.

The other nine people you're more familiar with, because four of them are you and the other five are initiates that were recruited at around the same time you were. You've gotten to know each other a bit in the last months, in part because the group encourages fraternity between members and in part because you've just spent a lot of nights in each other's company.

At the far left – though you can only tell by general build and voice, of course – is Alesandra Liara. A human woman, she's what she likes to call a jack-of-all-trades; she was a member of a thieves' ring in Maras until fairly recently, but is notoriously evasive about why she isn't anymore. Nevertheless, she's likable and extroverted; pleasant to be around, but well known to abuse psych recreationally.

The second-shortest supplicant, after Tiliwo, is a dwarf by the name of Klein Schwarzfelsen. It would be impossible not to know he was a wizard just by looking at him, and impossible not to know he's a prodigious, nay pioneering, summoner as soon as he opens his mouth. He likes to monopolize conversations, and depending on who's describing him, he's either ambitious or megalomaniacal.

A kobold called Glenn Merriweather is next; he's an archer, but more a hunter than a soldier. He's a bit of an odd one out among the initiates, in that he joined less because of a personal zeal and more because the zeal of his long-time friend. That friend was initiated some time sooner than Glenn was, and was sadly killed on his first mission. Glenn is very friendly but a bit of a follower, and seems to be trying to find a surrogate for his lost confidante.

Another human, Clara Mansfield, stands between Glenn and Evangeline. She's actually the daughter of an apparently-important member of the group – not that you know who – and firmly believes the world will be a better place for its existence. She's extremely excited to be initiated, and despite being the youngest of the group by far, she's also a natural leader and a capable swordswoman.

Near the end of the line, just to the left of Zed, is the towering figure of the only elven initiate. Daelyan Alionorwineth (who everyone else calls Dylan, much to his quiet consternation) is unlike the rest of you training to become a priest; it's occurred to you all at one time or another how strange it must be to join an organization that refuses to name itself to worship a being whose name you are forbidden to know (and whose blessings, it's rumored among the initiates, are sometimes more than even its most strong-minded devotees can handle), but if it is, he doesn't let it on.

As the moon finally reaches its zenith, the Master of Initiates begins to speak. Her voice is low and slightly cracked with age, but easily-heard enough over the quiet nighttime sounds of insects and crackling flame.

"This will be brief. You have all pledged your loyalty before, all proved your trustworthiness before. There is no need now for the trappings and bindings of unnecessary ritual, for those are the tools of the churches that seek to destroy us and subjugate the world's people. You will simply be inducted, officially introduced to your new life and tied to your new family. However, to enter Sanctum, you must bear our master's mark."

She twists her wrists and raises her arms slightly, her rod still nestled in the coals; between the fire and the moonlight, you can see a knotted mass of scars on each of her wrists. They resemble a very stylized but blank eye, with a vertical line above and below, and you can only assume that it's the mark you'll be bearing. The fact that she finally draws the rod out of the brazier, revealing its tip to be a brand that matches her scars, certainly lends credence to that assumption.

"However, as most of you will continue to act and operate in the outside world, you cannot bear it on your flesh. You know the value of secrecy by now. Instead, you will bear it on your spirit."

She plunges the brand into the black liquid, which hisses noisily and stops bubbling; she withdraws it and taps it against the cauldron's side, whereupon the branding end reshapes into a large ladle. She scoops a portion out and begins pouring a measure into each of your basins. As she walks, she continues.

"Once each initiate has their bowl filled, I want you all to place your right hands into the fluid simultaneously and hold them there. You will know when to remove them."

As the basins fill, you can't help but notice that the potion or whatever it is neither reflects light from the fire nor from the moon and stars. As the last one is tended to, the Master returns to her original position and nods. Several glances are exchanged between the initiates, and with variable amounts of hesitance, you all take the plunge at more or less the same time.

The liquid is thin and oily, but more importantly it burns like acid and freezes like ice. Glenn yelps quietly and a couple others hiss, but nobody pulls their hand back out. Oddly, you notice it only hurts the back of your hand, not the palm or fingers, and after several seconds, that starts to fade too. Once the searing pain is replaced by simple coldness, you all gradually decide it's time to see what's happened: for a second or two, your skin looks as scarred as the Master's had, but that quickly disappears, leaving your hands seemingly identical to their appearance before the rite. Some of you do notice that you can see the mark traced in black like a tattoo on your hand and others', but only out of the very corner of your eye. If your focus is anywhere near it, it vanishes.

(You all gain the -1 point disadvantage Supernatural Features (Mark of Oblivion), and to compensate, 1 character point. Neat!)

"And with that, your initiation is complete. You may enter Sanctum, but more importantly, you are now and forever one of us."

Before anyone can speak, she turns towards the lake and strides towards it, beckoning you all to follow. As close as she was to begin with, it's only a few steps before she's wading into the shallows and quickly sinking out of sight. Clara is the quickest to follow, confidently trotting into the water, and by degrees, the rest of you join her. As soon as you enter the lake, you realize that a half-inch thick bubble of air has formed around you and your belongings, keeping you dry (if not free from the muck and mud of the lakebottom). The water is still too murky to do much more than follow the vague figure of the Master as she descends, but even as the water closes above you, you seem to have no trouble breathing or moving.

Soon, even the claustrophobic among the group get relief, as you pass a much larger barrier than your personal bubbles; it seems the majority of the lake is artificially empty, kept magically dry and aerated for the purposes of housing what looks for all the world like a very small town. There's a cluster of larger, boxy buildings at the end where the mouth of the River Nur widens to form the lake itself, and an ornate temple – all circles and hexagons – at the center, but the rest of the structures are scattered haphazardly across the lake floor. Most look like workshops, but a not-insignificant number are surrounded by various fungal and subterranean crops. There are a few people working the muddy fields, and a few more moving between the other buildings or going to the temple, but overall the scene is very quiet.

The master leads you all towards the buildings that look for all the world like well-maintained tenement houses and continues speaking.

"Here in Sanctum, all the basic necessities will be provided for you whenever you are not asked to attend to tasks outside. You will be housed and fed; we have a library for the studious among you and various facilities for those of you who ply a craft. We actually have a number of dedicated artisans who live in Sanctum full-time to provide for our operatives, and for basics like maintenance of your equipment and traveling supplies, you are welcome to speak to them. We have no currency here, so anything you feel you need, you may ask for. However, most of their time is devoted to tasks essential to our goals, so anything frivolous or extraneous, you will have to provide for yourself."

This goes on for a few minutes with her explaining the basics of life in Sanctum as you go; it seems to essentially boil down to being given free reign whenever you're not doing something for the group – you're not even required to live in Sanctum itself, as you can be contacted through your marks – so long as you're available when required.

The lecture has essentially finished as you reach what doesn't just look like tenement housing but functions as it as well, and she encourages the group to familiarize themselves with their new homes.

"However, I will need a few of you to come with me. Tiliwo, Zedericht, Evangeline, and Para, if you would."

The four of you break off and follow her towards the temple.

"Ordinarily, I would wait longer before giving a task to new initiates, but it seems this is rather urgent. We became aware that Tiliwo encountered something strange not long before she contacted us, and the more I hear about it, the more I have become convinced it is at least an artifact related to our calling, and may even be a fragment of our shattered master's power."

"Tiliwo obviously must go because she should be able to find the island that houses it again, and I'm sending Paras as well to hopefully ward off or mitigate interference from sea-dwellers. Zedericht may have greater tolerance than most for the kind of influence whatever you find will have – although your marks should inure you against the side effects on their own if it is indeed of the origin I hope – and Evangeline I am trusting to keep the rest of you safe on the journey."

At this point you're drawing level with one of the outer towers that ring the temple; she gestures towards the door facing you and it opens, briefly showing a plaque that reads "MASTER LEONA, INITIATES". She leads you into what looks like a small office, crammed with bookshelves, cabinets, and loose parchment. To the left of the door is the start of a spiral staircase, although you'd have to squeeze between a narrow gap in furniture to reach it.

She seats herself behind a cluttered desk, pulling back her hood as she does; Master Leona is an elderly woman, her forehead branded with the same mark as her wrists, and rather unfortunately afflicted with cataracts for someone who apparently spends as much time with written material as she seems to.

"There's not much else I can tell you about where to go or what to look for, since all my information is thirdhand at this point. I'm relying on you all to discover what I can't devote diviners to. To that end, and because even I'm not sure what you might end up doing or needing, I'm willing to let you take another of the initiates with you if you choose. I can also answer any questions you have, although there's not much for me to say about your task in particular."

Chapter One: Adventures in Tolerance

In the inaugural session, the cultlings spent a lot of time getting to know one another (and, primarily, their dietary preferences) to the increasing dismay of Master Leona. After establishing that Zed would not, in fact, eat a tree if given the opportunity and that Leona doesn't have any books to help Evangeline know how to vampire, the group realizes that their commanders have assumed that Tiliwo still has access to a naval vessel; this proves untrue, and a lengthy discussion about the logistics of stealing a boat and acquiring blood slaves ensues. There is surprisingly little compunction about the prospect of abducting someone unimportant to serve as a larder for Evangeline and a great deal of enthusiasm for all the punching that will probably ensue. Eventually the conversation turns back to Leona's offer to send a fifth initiate with the group, and they settle on Klein as a complement to the temperament and general nonmagicality of its current composition.

The dwarf is fetched, the secret of dwarven blood is revealed, and everyone heads off to Maras to do crimes. It is unanimously decided that the better idea is to ignore the road and follow the river through the woods because it'll be faster. There is some debate over the existence of owlbears, which naturally attracts... some sort of anticlimactic slime monster. Nanda will have to settle for punching an owl and a bear at a later date. The battle ends with Evangeline and Nanda glued together, one half of the blob hallucinating vividly, and the other half of it magically imprisoned. After freeing his arm, Nanda promptly traps it again by attempting to punch the spellbound blob. Team Cult eventually decides not to finish the stupid thing off and leaves.

They bed down for the night, are interrupted by a group of Consolation Peasants, and do not murder anyone.

Eventually, the crew reaches Maras late at night. They are briefly stymied by an unlocked gate, but proceed to case some boats before getting a room at a nearby tavern. Zed shares his gift with another patron, which nearly gets him killed; afterwards, Zed and Klein retire while Tiliwo works on a revolutionary design for an engine made of trash. Nanda finds the fanciest boat possible, while Evangeline skulks off to get her feed on. She does this by attempting to drain a drunk in an alley behind a church, and is promptly interrupted by a priest. Narrowly avoiding discovery of her true nature, she legs it and heroically demonstrates her continued inability to sneak anywhere or roll below a 10 on anything.

Eventually sated, she meets back up with Nanda, where the two discover that the guards have been summoned to the tavern, presumably in response to Zed's generosity. What happens next? Tune in next time on Alternative Unlifestyle Choices to find out. Chapter Two starts Sunday, March First at 7:00AM PST.

Chapter Two: Vagrants in Transit

Evangeline decides that the best way to save her friends and fellow apocalypse-mongers is to lead the guards away from the tavern; at no point does it occur to her that there might be guards inside the tavern already, nor does it occur to share her plan with Nanda. She hisses at him to chase her, then runs away, loudly shouting for him to stop chasing her. Confused, he follows just to find out which one she wants him to do. This does attract the attention of the guards, who give chase and quickly overtake the poor cuttlekin. He's tackled to the ground and Evangeline disappears into the night.

Once she's back at the tavern, Evangeline slips inside and finds Tiliwo, who has been working on her engine. The situation is explained and the pair decides it's time to skip town and steal a boat before everyone gets arrested; Evangeline goes upstairs to fetch Zed and Klein, while Tiliwo stays to collect Nanda when he catches up. Someone suggests that the group leave through the window to avoid being seen as commotion starts downstairs, and despite some protestations from the dwarf, everyone safely descends to the alley. (As should usually be assumed, "everyone" does not include Evangeline, who falls out of the window. She walks it off.)

Concurrently, the interrogation of Nanda is going poorly, mostly because he genuinely doesn't know how to answer any questions and is too straightforward to lie (or even think to). Before long, punching replaces conversation, and he parkours back to the tavern with two very irate cops in tow so someone can tell him what he should be doing. When it becomes immediately clear that he's still being followed, Tiliwo starts a barfight to cover their escape. This gives Nanda a chance to do what he does best with gusto, an both guards are quickly brought down in a very effective demonstration of why the Extra Attack advantage is so expensive. One of the guards does smash some sort of bauble that is presumably an alert or summons before he meets the floor very intimately, so Nanda and Tiliwo head upstairs just in time to join the window escape brigade. Everyone quickly regroups and legs it to the docks.

It quickly becomes apparent that the boat Nanda chose will be literally impossible for five people to crew, especially since four of them know nothing about boating. A smaller, more sensible fishing boat is selected and the group quickly casts off with no supplies or navigation equipment, but with nobody imprisoned. The original plan was to head straight to their destination, but given that nobody has food and Evangeline has neither a blood slave nor enough water to recuperate in (but does have an incapacitating case of seasickness), they'll stop off at the next port over.

Everyone discovers that being in a fishing boat does not make you good at fishing; not being fed and potentially being pursued just makes it more frustrating when the boat is waylaid by merfolk racketeers. The leader of the merfolk points out that this is definitely not the party's boat, and as such they don't have permission to be in these waters; some negotiations commence, and Tiliwo (who has become a male for captaining purposes) reveals that he's developing a prototype engine that could revolutionize sea travel. The merman sees this as a threat to merfolk mersupremacy, and agrees to let the party pass if they hand over the engine and all the notes and blueprints relating to it and agree to halt all development. Tiliwo badly fails a self-control roll and gives the leader a handful of cutlass rather than a fistful of plans.

The remainder of the session is primarily Nanda fighting an underwater battle while the rest of the party tries very hard not to capsize or be knocked overboard (or drown, when Evangeline and Zed fail to stay embarked). Fortunately, while Nanda is only really good at one thing, he is really good at it, and the racketeers are beaten into submission and taken prisoner; unfortunately, one of them realizes they're losing and slips away. Evangeline has a nice feed on one of the captives, but is still wasting away without her recuperative sewer bath. The rest of the party considers whether eating merfolk is cannibalism, but once the leader regains consciousness, they realize that since word of the fight has already reached mersociety, it will be worse for everyone if the captives are killed. They are released instead, and everyone is definitely safe from any retribution, which is great since the remainder of the mission will require a lot more sea travel to rediscover Tiliwo's island.

Evangeline proves to finally be good at something, and it's catching fish. Apparently. Everyone is full and happy, and all's well that ends well.

Chapter Three: Pioneers In Magic

Our cultlets, under Tiliwo's seafarer tutelage, agree to hit up the nearest Generic Port Town to buff out the mermaid scratches off their ill-gotten boat, and stock it for several days' travel on the high seas. They also opt to get the boat painted in kickass red and black, vetoing Evangeline's repeated requests to rename it the Merfucker. Merfucker or Wavepuncher or any other appellation-options are moot, when considering a professionally-done paint job is going to leave the crew grounded for a couple of days. The crew acquires accommodations and heads for the town slums to do various ablutings and lootings, Nanda and Evangeline kept out of ostensible trouble via a buddy system with Tiliwo and Zed respectively.

As we discover the night after disembarking, this was a great idea in theory save for possibly pairing off the wrong people.

The party's resident wizard and token dwarf Klein walks into a bar one night, doing an impressively bad job of looking innocent and inconspicuous as he takes a seat across from Our Only Sensible Cultist, Tiliwo. The local coven chapter of wizards were apparently more comfortable company for him than our gaggle, and they even mentioned some nearby extra credit sidequests potential leads in the acquisition of the kind of artifacts our cultly superiors back at Sanctum might be hankering for. There's an abandoned tower, under previous ownership of some kind of magical sect, rumored to house a capital-t Tome with pages made of skin and the screams of a dying universe if you open it and lots of other fun features. Its original owners were possibly an apocalypse cult of the wrong kind, namely; the kind that wasn't yours, and the book could be another piece of your personal apocalyptic deity. The gang figures it's as good an excursion as any, and set off early the next morning.

En route through hill and dale and forest, while Evangeline fruitlessly searches for drinkable mammals (all of which are repelled by the more... repulsive elements of Zed's animal magnetism), Klein tells anyone who's listening about what kind of horrific traps may await in the tower, because he knows wizards but he doesn't know, specifically, what kind of wizards these ones are. The whole tower could be enchanted and out to kill them, though considering the state of disrepair it's in Klein is at least confident he's not dealing with dwarven traps. Zed suggests scaling the tower and breaking in on a higher floor, assumption being that the treasure lies nearer the top.

Upon encountering the tower, Zed, Nanda, and Evangeline get to clambering up the sucker. About fifty feet up, a substantial chunk of wall breaks off under Evangeline, who barely regains her grip. After coming a hair's breadth of crushing Klein and being oddly-easily tossed back tower-ward by Tiliwo, the rock starts hauling ass back up the tower before slotting itself back in. The resulting ripple across the tower's surface dislodges Evangeline, who fucks up the landing from five stories up and breaks her arm. She walks it off.

Zed and Nanda, meanwhile, break in at about two thirds of the way up the tower, finding bookshelves galore, and are pelted by assorted belligerent books sending them strongly-phrased letters (they're literally letters of the alphabet, laid out on blank pages) to get out. They escape through a different door, get badly pranked by falling bookshelves and hallways that spin around and spit them out where they started, before upgrading to carnival-style barrel-rolling hallways which threaten to tenderise Nanda like a squid in a brick-filled washing machine. (Zed's been dodging most of the hallways by kobold-freak-leaping from junction to junction). Nanda catches up to Zed, and the junction splits off into corridors ending in a door and a mirror. The mirror appears utterly mundane and proves the one thing Nanda is unwilling to punch; the door opens to a featureless black void.

Zed leapfrogs full tilt into the darkness; Tiliwo, Klein, and Evangeline watch him launch himself full tilt out a door and over a balcony, stretch a limb too slowly to grab the tower, and settle for wrapping himself around a merciful spruce. Nanda steps out a little more placidly, onto the balcony; the door slams shut behind him and opens once for good measure to see if it can't knock him clean off the tower too. The two clamber down and rejoin the party, bringing their findings that detail the tower is an asshole.

Klein, who has been jokingly offer to unsummon Evangeline's broken arm so she doesn't have to deal with a broken arm, starts seriously entertaining the possibility of unsummoning the tower's foundations, or otherwise messing with them through earth magic, now that there's nobody inside. Warning the team that it'll be highly experimental spellery, he borrows a stick of charcoal and emblazons the tower with runes and gets the spell working without further incident, because he's an NPC and not cosmically inclined to fuck up at everything he does.

All they get for the first twenty minutes is ominous rumbling, and Evangeline musing how awesome it'd be if the tower's magic and Klein's interact and the tower sprouts massive earth legs and becomes ambulatory. Klein is very insistent that that is the opposite of awesome, considering how much the universe seems to hate Evangeline and/or love making her eat her words. The geo-jiggling ascends into a deafening roar, and even Klein can't say how but the tower begins to descend into the ground, dislodged stonework pushing itself back into place as it goes.

Everyone except Tiliwo heads closer to examine it; Zed offers to climb up first as soon as the tower's peak is a little more accessible. Nanda follows, and Evangeline gives Klein a hand up (just one) and proceeds to chillax at the base of the tower. She's reckless, but not foolish enough to climb a tower with one good hand.

Zed scales the last couple of windowless floors, then finds a single trapdoor in the roof. Opening it up reveals a ladder made of tiny bookshelves, leading into a small room with the ostensible Grimoire sitting on a plinth. Zed grabs the Grimoire, the stepladder whirrs into antagonistic motion as a downward escalator, so the kobold leaps for the trapdoor entrance, misses, and probably barely avoided being decapitated as it snaps unyieldingly shut. Nanda and Klein try tackle it from outside, but it reappears as fast as Nanda can punch it into submission, and jamming Klein's staff and some supportive magic in the gap only gets it wide enough for Zed to slip the Grimoire through.

Klein is close to a panic attack at this point, but performs admirably under pressure and doesn't suggest leaving Zed for dead, even though we all know he was considering it. He instead leaves Nanda on door-levering duty and, for lack of any better ideas, goes to see if he can haul Evangeline up to help out. Evangeline's acquired some rope from Tiliwo, and she ties her pack to the rope as a counterweight and biffs it, missing Klein and braining herself because she's that awful at everything. Klein suggests she inscribe the pack with a rune of Recall, then unhelpfully reminds her it looks like an upside-down rune of Sending, which she also has no clue how to write. Klein proceeds to give the vampire a step-by-step drawing guide for a Recall Rune; Evangeline's efforts look like a shirtless, judgmental ogre hiding behind a comically-narrow pole. The pack vanishes in a fireball as Klein activates the newly-designed Exploding Rune of Recall, but the rappel arrives on the rooftop intact if somewhat on fire.

Evangeline starts walking up the wall as Kleine's dwarven stoutness helps pull her up, until the fire-damaged rope snaps, sending Evangeline plummeting a further twenty feet. Evangeline decides for now that the ground is ok. Tiliwo, meanwhile, has coverted her engine into some kind of rotary shovel, and does some hasty trigonometry to figure out what angle to power-dig at to rescue the others, mistakenly assuming they're all trapped inside the tower.

Klein, with only some encouragement from Nanda, makes an executive decision to open the book.

Everything goes white, the session and possibly the entire campaign is wiped off the face of existence. Whoops!