The History of Sacrifice
| The History of Sacrifice | |
|---|---|
| Date | 9/13/25 - 10/12/25 |
| Storyteller | Doug |
| Tier | Expert/Master |
| Player Characters | Phyl, Arumi, Sanaa, Isaac Davenport |
| Rewards | 200 exp, 800gp, Condensed Mana formula |
| Result | Success |
| Author | Tire |
| Downtime | 8 (for Phyl, Sanaa, and Isaac), 9 (for Arumi) |
Log
Day 1
The council has assembled a team with the explicit goal of assisting the settlement of Skol in repairing their barrier. Their ambassador, Jamir Tolliks, arrives not long after we settle into the chambers to introduce himself as an expert on the druidic affairs of Skol, the former lead expert in Skol itself. Based on what I read in the last report, the problem seems to be that a massive barrier is weakening that may lead to a full-on invasion of Skol by the isle of Mahlah and Apollyon's cult. Jamir brought us a bunch of extremely useful resources - the notes of the wizard Skol, samples of the ritual stones from the town, and a map of the region. My first instinct, as a writer, is to make a copy of the notes. We do not need to lose even more valuable tomes to another apocalypse. I work alongside Arumi for a quite a time, as she begins deciphering the coded language of the journal itself. She notes that while he was a relatively amateurish wizard, Skol the Wizard was certainly an expert at veiling secrets. Isaac starts poring over the map and figures out that the ritual stones are not located at its center, but instead at points along the perimeter of the barrier. Not exactly unheard of for barriers, but certainly unusual - the map indicates a greater pattern, and Isaac is able to find a couple of points of interest in the region. Sanaa examines the stones directly, finding they are bedrock - not particularly useful stones for rituals or conduits of divine power or anything like that, but perhaps better served as conduits for the natural magics of druids. Makes sense, for a Green Man faith...
Day 2
This barrier makes absolutely no sense to me. The days leading up to this I spent nose-deep in the library studying up abjuration magic theory, and everything I can figure out about the Barrier of Skol flies in the face of how things like this is supposed to work. Not a bit of this adds up: the barrier serves so many different purposes, not just serving to exclude or include a certain group of people, but to keep the environment inside safe, almost like a greenhouse effect. Aminara is one of the Green Men, a nature deity devoted to growth, so this immediately strikes me as severely anathemic. But the barrier also counters scrying, purifies the air and water around it. It's not just a miracle that this exists, it almost seems like it needs a miracle that it even works. Almost the worst of it all is the fact that hundreds of human lives were sacrificed to enhance the barrier. Human sacrifice is not an unhead-of "cost", but that amount certainly seems like it. I don't want to alarm anyone, especially not Jamir, but this starting to sound almost devil-ish... a bargain struck to create a miraculous barrier in exchange for human souls? I have no proof of that yet, but one thing to me is clear - the fact there is a barrier seems almost to be an afterthought of the effect. It may be pertinent to look elsewhere. Hopefully Arumi deciphering the journal can shed some more light...
Day 3
Arumi's detailed dive into the journal has revealed that Skol was certainly an academic sort, which makes the whole "divinely and/or naturally sourced barrier" even more unlikely. One of the entries she deciphers indicates that the pages ripped out previously may hold more answers, but that Skol himself saw the barrier as an abject failure. Meanwhile, Sanaa discovers an anomaly of sorts in the topology of the region in accordance with the pattern Isaac discovered. Speaking with Jamir, he indicates that the area is avoided due to the presence of elementals. Jamir is asked to investigate the sites that Sanaa and Isaac have found on the maps.
Day 4
Arumi's finished deciphering the notes. Skol the man seems a short-sighted sort. Apparently he was too hasty calling his efforts a failure, finding that the barrier not only works, but it actually works too well. He makes a few notes of effects he observed, including the inability of a demon to enter the demesne, the purification of water and the sort of greenhouse effect I postulated, as well as a marked deterioration of nature outside of the barrier. My gut reaction was that the barrier was holding back a cataclysmic event, but looking deeper into these effects indicates that the barrier or perhaps the stones were additionally drawing "energy" from nature itself. If it wasn't clear before that this was certainly against a druidic faith, it certainly is now. A few more things have come to light as well - the elementals detailed near what appears to be Skol's Study are confined to that area, almost like they're guarding the site after all these years. It seems unwise to send Jamir to investigate this - I think we should send a team to investigate the study, and maybe find some of the missing pages from the notes we have from Skol's journal. Thinking it over some more, we come to the conclusion that the barrier's efficacy, at least in determining who can and can't come, is directly tied to the souls of the 200 sacrifices, and that they effectively work as gatekeepers.
Day 5
Jamir has been sent off to do some on-site investigations for us while we continue poring over our options. Sanaa came up with a formula for an alchemical solution to the draining nature of the barrier, but we still have the issue of needing to figure out a solution for the barrier. Arumi seems resigned to the potential of needing to follow Skol's procedure again, but there has to be a better way. Sanaa and I put our heads together to figure out a potential "replacement" deity we could beseech for a miracle barrier. The condensed mana that Sanaa could concoct would cover the energy needs of the barrier, but then it lacks the potential to exclude. Sanaa initially seems to think her own patron, Nalinivati, would be a good choice, but she's not quite a good fit. I think over some of the more commonly worshipped divinities, and I come to a few ideas, though each on their own has their own flaws that could expose Skol (the village) to dangers. Though, there does happen to be a trio of gods who: work together as a covenant; being a trio makes them even easier to enshrine with the already triangular setup of the barrier; and, perhaps most importantly, would be unlikely to be crossed by invaders from Mahlah, while also tying the people there by their strong sense of community. The so-called "Good Neighbors" trio of Cayden Cailean, Erastil, and Torag. The team comes to agree with this assessment, and that we should get to work figuring out how to enshrine these divinities on-site.
Day 6
While we sit around waiting for word from Jamir, we double down on trying to figure out the original deity that Skol the Wizard used in the creation of the barrier. There is one that comes to mind - a monitor demigod, and part of the Monad, Dramindyr, the Skin of Creation. They're a deity devoted to correcting planar rifts and preventing planar excursions. Might be useful information to keep in our back pocket, thanks to the Rift... but the fact that it was one of the First Arbiters and not an Archdevil gave me great relief. The fact we're maintaining the boundary shouldn't even draw their attention. Around this point, Arumi gets a message from Jamir, urging for their help and that he's being pursued. We quickly head back to our homes to retrieve expedition gear and head off southbound.
Day 8
We eventually meet Jamir halfway, in the process of being chased by leukodaemons and a humanoid attendant, clearly an Apollyon cultist. Of course, another variant of leukodaemon, because things can never be simple when it comes to Mahlah. Isaac coats us all in invisibility, which lasts long enough for Arumi to maintain a much-longer lasting invisibility spell for the group. We stay still, off the road, as they search for the now-missing Jamir. We whisper quietly as Jamir tells us that Skol is surrounded by Mahlahan forces. Everything seems to indicate that while they were chasing Jamir down, it wasn't so much to hunt him down and kill him. It seemed to us that they were following him to find out about us. About Onadbyr. Bad news. Some time passes as they pass over the area and Sanaa proactively mixes up some antiplagues for the group. Good news, since not long after we down our medicine, the leukodaemon produces a smog of diseased air at the request of its attendant, but they eventually give up and return the way they came.
Jamir luckily managed to survey the sites while we were busying doing the research. One site had a curiously immovable copper orb, engraved with runes and the symbol of Dramindyr, corroborating our prior discussions, but that it was tangled up under a mass of tree roots. Another site near the sea revealed a small cave that was covered in long-dried and mostly-washed away blood - but Jamir confirmed that it was not humanoid blood. Seems a simple leap of logic to assume it was the blood of extraplanar creatures, to reinforce the barrier's purpose. The third site was, of course, the site of the ritual stones themselves. As we return to the city, we collectively agree that the best course of action is to send two teams - one to invesigate Skol's study, find any missing notes on the ritual or anything else useful at all, and one to erect the new barrier, likely using people who already align with the individual members of the Good Neighbors from Skol to provide the devotion.