Session 5.4: Beneath Stonetop

Padrig and Vahid walk in long-forgotten halls.

Last episode, Padrig and his crew earned a place in Stonetop, and Vahid began to delve into the village’s forgotten history. We concluded last episode with Vahid opening a long-forgotten door, hidden at the bottom of the village’s cistern. Any sign of what lay beyond the door had been destroyed — apparently by Hillfolk during a more warlike time in Stonetop’s past.

We also selected an advancement for Padrig through last week’s reader poll — let’s take a look at what y’all chose:

Front-Line Leader it is! This will provide some solid utility for Padrig when he leads the Companions personally, which conveniently he made a promise to do last episode!

Before we dive back into the action, I thought we might look past the GM’s screen and talk about how some of the details of the site we’re about to delve into were created using Stonetop’s system and settings.

Within this place — you might call it a “dungeon,” if you were playing a game with dungeons and/or dragons — there are a few chambers that I envisioned in advance of playing through the story in my GM prep, but the place would feel pretty empty if those were the only things there. To fill out the rest of the episode and to portray this place as ancient and arcane, I dipped into Stonetop’s fate tables, which give us great, flavorful ideas to build on. Take a look at these tables for ruins of the Stone Lords:

Source: Jeremy Strandberg // Stonetop

In prepping for this episode, I did some rolls on the Purpose, Architectural Elements, and Condition tables to generate some initial ideas, and then I developed those ideas to fit with the overall theme and purpose of the place in the broader story. Here are the results I got:

1. Civic Life + Crystals/Makerglass catching light/wind + fully visible and strangely well-preserved. For this result, I selected “monument.”

2. Civic Life + Stones/crystals that emanate emotion/mood/thoughts/memories + crumbling, largely buried. For this result, I selected “theater.”

3. Production + Runes carved into stone + mostly intact.

As Vahid and Padrig go through the dungeon, you should see these elements come through and be woven into the overall theme and purpose of the place and throughout the action, I’ll include some additional notes about how the behind-the-scenes elements are being adjudicated — those of you who are GMs yourselves might find them worthwhile, but if you’re here largely for the story, some of the notes in this episode might be emminently skippable.

Now, back to the fiction, as the young scholar and the old bandit head into the depths:

Scene 10: The Atrium

The pair advance into the chamber beyond, their path lit by the blue-white glow of the Azure Hand. As they cross the arching threshold, the staff’s aetherium headpiece flickers and fades, and it is replaced by a growing white light that suffuses the room as though it was broad daylight.

The light comes from a glowing ribbon of pale, milky makerglass embedded seamlessly into the outer edge of an expansive marble rotunda. The walls are pale grey marble, shot through with veins of gold and pools of sky-blue, shaped perfectly smoothly with no seams nor chisel-marks. Vahid thinks of the makerglass steps of the Pearl Market, the towering marble pillars of the Hieroncourt of Aratis, or the body of the First Despot, turned to purest silver and entombed under glass by the forgotten arts of the mortuary-alchemists, but all the greatest works of the artisans of Lygos fall short of what he beholds.

In the center of the room is a roiling cloud of makerglass tesserae, floating above a dais of black basalt. The motes swirl in white, black, grey, suspended by an unseen force in the empty air and arcing with blue-white tendrils of lightning, a strange simulacrum of a stormcloud crafted from unbreakable glass and high magic.

Vahid and Padrig stare awestruck at the craft of the Makers for a moment, before Vahid’s curiosity brings him to his senses. He approaches the sculpture, making a slow circuit around its base, his sandals splashing in the puddles of water leftover from the emptying of the cistern. At his feet are carved tall, proud runes of the Stone Lords, encircling the monument. “What do they say?” asks Padrig, following his gaze and laying eyes on the unfamiliar, angular letters.

Vahid follows the inscription, dusting off his runic declensions. “It is a commemoration, I believe: ‘Bow your head in reverence, thou who would enter the House of Nine Thunders. Bow your head in awe, thou who would witness the works of Indrasduthir, she who binds storm to stone and sinew.’”

“What does that mean? What is this place?”

“I do not know. But Indrasduthir is known in the histories as one of the last of the Tempest Lords. They were a tribe of the Makers who came from an island empire, far to the southeast, and they bound the energies of the world — lightning and thunder, fire and wind — to their wills and powered miraculous devices with them,” Vahid explains, his erudition spilling out in a breathless rush. “Their home was destroyed in a great cataclysm, and one of their lordly households fled here, led by her. All of her works are in ruin — as far as the most learned scholars know, no living person has seen her craft intact before. And here they stand before us, as though she had completed them yesterday!”

Scene Breakdown

Vahid made a few rolls here — some went his way, others did not, and introduced a bit of danger to the situation.

First, he attempts to decipher the runes around the makerglass monument:

Vahid triggers Cryptographer (reference here): 5+4+2 Intelligence = 11. Strong Hit.

This lets him read the runes out after a few minutes of study. Padrig then asks what the House of Nine Thunders in the inscription refers to, and Vahid searches his considerable body of knowledge about the Makers.

Vahid triggers Know Things: 1+2+2 Intelligence = 5. Miss.

A miss here means two things: First, his Well Versed move gives Vahid a follow-up question, even on a miss, and we must make a GM move. For his follow-up, Vahid asks “Who is Indrasduthir?” and receives the information about the Tempest Lords and their exodus.

For the GM move, we’re going to use a familiar technique: A countdown clock, which we employed last in Marshedge while Anwen and Vahid planned Padrig’s rescue. Vahid’s likely going to be rolling a lot of Seek Insight and Know Things in rapid succession, so rather than dealing a lot of smaller consequences, we’ll just count down to a big one. We’ll use a 4-tick countdown clock and foreshadow the danger now. For Vahid’s miss here, we’ll mark two ticks:

This is a pretty short fuse — after one more miss, (or two more weak hits on any Defy Danger moves that come up) a stone automaton that guards the complex will awaken and threaten our heroes. I once again used Stonetop’s fate table to generate some random features of the threat: It is larger than a human being, has crystalline elements and is skilled at deception/camoflague. Maybe you can spot it before Vahid and Padrig do!

Vahid is interrupted by a gust of warm summer air that rushes through the chamber, drawn into the depths of the ruin, as though it breathes again. As it flows through the swirling cloud of makerglass, the tesserae shudder and vibrate, and a deep, rumbling chant is heard echoing through the marble dome and into the halls beyond.

Padrig looks warily at Vahid. “Was that an alarm?”

“Perhaps a greeting for honored guests?” Vahid assays hopefully. He tears his eyes away from the monument and looks towards the far side of the chamber, where another archway leads to a short, broad hallway, with a glimpse of another room beyond. He moves towards the archway, but Padrig stops him with a firm hand on his shoulder.

“Vahid, is this prudent? Old magic is here. Dangerous magic. What makes you think you can meddle with the works of this sorceress?”

“Perhaps it is not prudent. Prudent scholars of the Lycaeum read the works of better men and women, and recline on divans drinking sweet wine and smoking water pipes,” Vahid replies dismissively. “It is only the occasionally imprudent who discover great wonders.”

“Perhaps we should go to the elders for their counsel before we uncover any great wonders. Or terrors.” Padrig adds warily.

“If we ask their counsel without knowing what is within this place, they will have nothing with which to guide us, save for their fears and doubts,” Vahid says, his voice growing in urgency. “Just as when you stood before them, asking them to trust you and your Companions — Fate delivered into your hands a chance to prove what you could offer them. And so it has to me, here. I will not let it pass by.” He pulls away from Padrig, towards the archway, heading deeper into the complex. After a beat, Padrig follows closely behind.

The baths in the Alcazar of Seville. Inspiration for the place we are about to explore. Source: Ed Schipul

Scene 11: The Pools

The pure, seamless marble of the atrium gives way to a tiled causeway of sky-blue and white beneath a high vaulted ceiling of pale stone. On either side of the causeway are long pools of crystal-clear water, filled to overflowing by the emptying of the cistern.

Vahid walks down the causeway with quiet reverence. The walls above the pools are adorned with ornate friezes, depicting scenes of terrible and valorous battle in sharp profile. Arrayed on one side are nine warriors, men and women geared for war with finely-wrought armaments, their bare arms tattooed with branching bolts of lightning, picked out in the white stone with shining inlays of aetherium. Towering over them and commanding them forward is a trio of lordly Makers with smooth, haughty features and regalia of authority gripped in their three-fingered hands. Arrayed against them is a horde of twisted beasts — a massive boar, its hide bedecked with shattered swords and arrows, a pair of raging drakes with jaws full of dagger-teeth, and corrupted abominations of tentacles and talons — twisted manifestations of The Things Below. Darting amidst the giant beasts are swift human warriors with slender blades and curving short bows, armored in branches and leaves. Vahid’s breath stops for a moment when he sees each of these warriors have inlaid eyes of pure malachite, and the sight of Blodwen’s bright green eyes comes to his mind unbidden.

“Are these the Forest Folk?” says Padrig, his wonderment tinged with worry.

“So it would seem,” Vahid replies. “Their forebearers served the Green Lords, in days long gone by. And it seems the forebearers of Stonetop likewise served the Makers — an alliance between Indrasduthir and the Stone Lords. When the Makers warred against one another, so it seems did their human servants.”

He arrives at the center of the room, and here the path splits into three — one continues forward, ending in great double doors of grey-white marble, intricately adorned with bas relief — a carved serpent wraps around a roiling cyclone, seeming to stir the storm’s fury with its coils. To the right and left, bridges over the pools lead to arched doorways, carved with sharp, angular Stone Lord runes, and beyond can be seen sprawling chambers lit with the same warm, white light from glowing Makerglass.

Now in the center of the room, Vahid carefully studies the stonework above, and a look of relief washes over his face. “Look there, and there,” he points to the ceiling, drawing Padrig’s eye. Above each pool are shafts leading up, one with a ray of sunlight peeking through. “These must connect to the old channels Rhys uncovered during his excavations for the new rain gutters. All we need do is uncover the openings and remove their grating, and the village once again has a water store.”

Padrig peers warily at the pools. “Is it safe to drink? Or has it been ensorcelled somehow?”

Vahid now casts his antiquarian’s eye at the pools. The bottoms are intricately tiled with mosaic, cloud-and-thunderbolt motifs encircling the sky-blue stones in the center. Between the tesserae can be seen intricate tracery of blue-grey, fine wires of aetherium hidden cleverly in the seams of the mosaic, and in the center of each pool is a plaque of the same arcane metal, carved with runic script. These letters flow and interconnect, in start contrast to the sharp, angular writing of the Stone Lords.

Vahid strokes his chin, lost in thought for a time, before dropping to one knee, dipping a cupped hand into the water, and taking an experimental sip. Padrig draws his breath in sharply, but Vahid seems unscathed. He stands and nods at Padrig. “A prudent question, but I think it is as safe as the water we drew from the cistern. There is certainly Maker-magic at work here — this standing water tastes as pure and clean as a flowing mountain stream; I suspect some portion of this place’s vis has been put to use driving out impurities and foulness. But these,” he says, pointing to the plaques beneath the water, “suggest some other magic — a way to draw that same vis into a human body.”

Scene Breakdown

Vahid’s blown a surprising amount of Know Things rolls in the last few episodes, but his luck seems to be turning around. There were two Know Things rolls here, the first when examining the freize for insight into Stonetop’s past:

Vahid triggers Know Things: 4+3+2 Intelligence = 9. Weak Hit.

He recalls a bit about the war between the Green Lords and the Stone Lords — recapping a bit of the lore we delved into in Sessions 1 and 3, with some additional detail about the role of the Forest Folk and their forebearers.

Then, he examined the pools for insight into their purpose:

Vahid triggers Know Things: 6+2+2 Intelligence = 10. Strong Hit.

Vahid learned a few useful and interesting things here, thanks to his strong hit and the follow-up he gets from Well-Versed:

1. The water Stonetop has been drinking all this time has benefited from some ancient Maker magic, which is centered here in the pools, and that it is still safe to drink. (Mechanically, Vahid learned this before taking a sip, but it seemed in-character for him not to say that aloud before drinking).

2. The shafts above connect to the drain system that Rhys and his workers uncovered, meaning that the village’s water supply is no longer at risk from their explorations down here — but the change in routine may cause folk to ask questions.

3. Some additional magic is bound into these pools, which can be uncovered with study.

Let’s talk about #3 a bit more. At this point, Vahid’s player receives a new Minor Arcanum card:

Obviously, we’ve adapted this arcanum — the inscription at the bottom of the pool takes the place of the tattered letter in the arcanum description, and the pools themselves provide the latent energy. Since the magic is integrated into the pools, we also will need to re-write the second checkbox — something like “You risk awakening a danger within the House of Nine Thunders,” our stone guardian tied to the countdown clock. Back to the action:

“Draw the energy into the body? To what effect?” Padrig asks.

“To heal it, perhaps? Cleanse it? Some other salutary effects? This does not seem to be a place of torture or execution, does it? To me, it seems a place of exaltation.” Vahid gestures towards the rightward path. “Come. Let us see what else Indrasduthir has wrought here.”

Scene 12: The Amphitheater

The entrance to the right-hand chamber sits at the top of the bowl of a stone amphitheater, wrought in seamless, unmarked, pale-grey marble. Compared to the grandeur of the last two chambers, it is intimate — three rows of low benches, encircling an unadorned circular stage made of rough brown stone. Opposite the entrance is a box with a half-dozen carved thrones of white and purple quartz, crafted for Maker-stature, lording over it all.

This place has not weathered the centuries as well — one throne is shattered, another shot through with fractures, ready to collapse entirely. The benches are cracked and crumbling, and the stone stage is split down the center. And here is the first sign of the inhabitants’ passing — two mummified forms, their limbs intermingled in a deathly embrace, clothed in tattered linens. Padrig moves to descend the stairs and approach them, but Vahid stops him with a raised arm. “Hold. Look there — the stage. Note the color of the stone.”

Padrig stops short and peers with narrowed eyes. “Brown. What of it?” he asks, with more irritation than he intended.

“Not brown, but rust-red. Red hematite — known as Bloodstone. The Makers could bind human passions themselves into cold stone, and Bloodstone is known to carry wroth and rage. Can you not feel it?” Padrig frowns, and feels a chill wash over the knot of anger growing in his chest. Before he can reply, Vahid continues. “The stone is cracked; no doubt the compulsion within seeps forth unbidden. We should leave this place.”

The two hastily turn back, leaving the fallen fighters to their rest, crossing the causeway to the left-hand path.

Scene Breakdown

This room was something of a trap for these two — you can’t have a dungeon crawl without traps! — which would trigger if they approached the stage unawares. Vahid moves into the room and tries to spot anything of interest or danger.

Vahid triggers Know Things: 4+4+2 Intelligence= 10. Strong Hit.

Vahid receives the information about the Bloodstone arena, allowing him to prevent Padrig from getting closer and perhaps falling under the influence of the rage-magic here. Padrig, forewarned, throws off the influence of the stone, and he has advantage to do so thanks to Vahid’s Sage Advice move.

Padrig triggers Defy Danger: 4+5+1+2 Wisdom = 11. Strong Hit.

Padrig’s an old hand, and once Vahid makes him aware of the compulsion, he quickly gets his emotions under control.

Scene 13: A rune-carved chamber

Vahid enters the left-hand chamber ahead of Padrig, who trails cautiously behind. This room is another rotunda, this one of unpolished white marble. It is lit by an orb of white Makerglass set into the center of the domed ceiling, directly above a tall, simple altar of solid stone. Atop the table is a delicate, slender cylinder of violet Makerglass and a white quartz mallet, functional and unadorned.

Vahid approaches the altar slowly, and the room goes strangely quiet — his footsteps no longer echo on the marble floor, even the tap of the Azure Hand’s metal shodding is quieted. Combined with the pure, white of the marble walls and the cold, unflickering light, the silence is dreamlike and disorienting. He continues towards the center of the room, but Padrig’s hand on his shoulder arrests him, half-turning him around. Vahid’s confusion deepens when he sees that although Padrig’s mouth is moving, no sound can be heard — his voice is utterly stilled by some strange magic.

Vahid casts his eyes around the chamber, searching for the source of the spell. Focusing his mind through his staff, he feels a pull from below, a prickling phantom pain in his hand, and he looks down to the floor to see a dizzying spiral of runes carved shallowly into the unpolished marble below his feet, almost imperceptible in the flat, white light cast from the orb above. Following along the spiral of runes Vahid seeks their end, and at the foot of the altar at the center of, he finds it, motioning Padrig to follow him.

The runes end a few yards from the altar, creating a ring of silence, isolating the rotunda’s center. Once they enter it, Padrig breathes a sigh of relief. “Incredible,” he mutters. “I have never heard silence so deep. What is the purpose of it?”

“Perhaps to control, or contain, whatever power is contained in that Makerglass there. I can feel it through the Azure Hand — vis is bound there to some purpose. If these runes protect it, it might pose a danger to the unwary. Best we leave it undisturbed, for now,” he says, then smiles a bit. “You see, Padrig? I have some prudence in me, which no doubt I learned by studying you!”

Padrig chuckles mirthlessly but then stops short, his eyes drawn to something on the other side of the altar. He rounds the corner and sees another fallen warrior, slumped against the stone and mummified. His black, empty eyes stare up at the glowing white orb above, his mouth lolls open, his teeth bone-white against his blackened lips. Vahid follows behind Padrig and starts with alarm, while the old bandit stands steady and still.

Scene Breakdown

Three rolls here in quick succession:

First, Vahid searches the room for the source of the silence, using both his mundane senses along with his ability to sense the flow of energy through the Azure Hand.

Vahid triggers Seek Insight: 2+4+1 Wisdom = 7, Weak Hit.

Vahid chooses “Who or what is really in control here?” from the Seek Insight questions list and learns about the runes, which are in control of the arcane effect.

They then approach the center of the room and Vahid consults his learning about the Makerglass artifact atop the altar. He learns that it is another minor arcana he might be able to unlock:

Source: Stonetop // Jeremy Strandberg

At the table, Vahid’s player might do some risk assessment and decide that messing around with this chime right now is probably not a great idea, so they leave it be with a perfectly cromulent in-character explanation.

At this point, Padrig notices some more ancient remains, and he tries to learn what he can from them.

Padrig triggers Seek Insight: 6+2+2 Wisdom = 10. Strong Hit.

Padrig chooses three questions from the list: “What here is useful or valuable to me?” “What happened here recently?” and “What should I be on the lookout for?”

From a GM standpoint, we prepped this find for a few reasons — to give the PCs some fun treasure, to foreshadow some danger, and finally, to continue to connect events down here to the broader world outside the dungeon. We’ll return to the fiction to deliver those answers to Padrig:

Padrig kneels before the fallen warrior. In his lap is a strange weapon, familiar and alien at once — a long-hafted, double-bladed axe, forged from a single piece of milky white Makerglass. Its blades are chased with subtly inscribed eddies of wind and cloud, pierced by jagged lightning, and its handle is wrapped by cured, pebbled hide that Padrig has never seen before.

“One of the tattooed warriors, perhaps?” Vahid posits.

Padrig shakes his head. “I don’t think so.” He points to the corpse’s tattered clothes — tan hide woven with horsehair thread, sewn with carved bone toggles, and scarred with burn marks. “Hillfolk, if I had to guess. Old, but not so different from what they wear now — the nomads use horsehair and tanned hide, and here it is.”

“Then an invader? One of the Hillfolk who humbled the forebearers of Stonetop?”

“Seems more likely, though this is no Hillfolk weapon — spoils of war, no doubt,” Padrig says, fingering the cutting edge of the axe, and pulling his hand away, flicking a drop of crimson onto the pristine marble floor with a quiet curse. “Look at the burn marks on his vest. Doesn’t seem like he was done in by blades. He might have been hiding here from something that wounded him gravely. In the center of a ring of silence seems a good place for it.”

Vahid nods soberly. “Let’s press on. One more door yet to open — Perhaps some answers will wait beyond it.”

“Or perhaps whatever killed him waits there instead. We know enough to speak to the elders, Vahid. Let’s return to the surface.”

Vahid ponders this quietly, for a moment. “I will return with you, Padrig, if you wish it. But consider this: I have not been here long, but it seems this village’s seasons of peace are coming to an end. Brennan festers in Marshedge — he is either mad or being influenced by the Willow Witches of the Fen, a dire threat in either case. A sorcerer is rising among the Hillfolk. And the crinwin grow ever more dangerous. We may need whatever power is hidden here to survive. This is your home; you are a strategist — how many advantages are you willing to cede?”

Padrig chews on this like Cerys’ bitter medicines. He kneels and takes up the fallen Hillfolks’ axe. “Lead on, scholar. Pray to Tor we survive the advantages we find down here.”

Scene 14: The Pools, in front of the final door.

Vahid and Padrig stand before the circular stone portal that blocks the way into the final chamber. Wrapping around its outer edge is a stone-carved serpent, coiling around a swirling cyclone rendered in bas relief. Vahid takes his place before the door and reaches out with the Azure Hand, grasping the storm’s vis bound within the stone.

Vahid triggers The Azure Hand: 2+3+1 Constitution = 6. Miss.

Perfect timing, really. We complete the countdown clock, and Vahid’s inability to control the energy he calls up awakens the guardian.

At first, all is as it was before, when Vahid called upon the staff to unlock the first door — the headpiece sparks with white-blue light, the aetherium tracery hidden within the marble flares and glows, and the stone door rumbles to life. But the staff’s light grows brighter still as it draws the storm’s vis from the walls, and the uncontrolled thrum of its power begins to shake Vahid’s very bones until it rises in a booming crescendo accompanied by a blinding flash of white light.

When Padrig’s vision begins to clear, his sight is hazy and the room swims around him, so at first it is hard to discern the strange motion of the massive stone serpent as it rumbles to life, slithering around the edge of the opening door and coiling in front of the entrance, rearing up in front of Vahid, who has collapsed to his hands and knees on the marble causeway.

The serpent’s body is carved from stormcloud-grey marble, cleverly segmented and joined together like a chain of stone. As Padrig looks on, its jaw swings open, revealing rows of crystalline teeth, barbed and honed to razor-sharpness, tensing its stone coils to strike.

We’ll wrap up here at a nice, convenient cliffhanger. Next week, we will find out how Pad and Vahid fare against the stone guardian, and we’ll return to Anwen and make some big decisions about her upcoming initiation.

Before we close out, we’ll level up Vahid and choose his advancement with this week’s reader poll. Right now is a bit of a tense moment for the scholar, but he’s had some time to reflect on his experiences over the last few in-game weeks, so it’s reasonable for us to advance him now — maybe it’ll help him with the guardian! Here are the moves we’ll look at for this level:

Source: Stonetop / Jeremy Strandberg

Quick Study prepares Vahid to make use of the minor arcana he’s discovered much more swiftly. Safety First is a nice expression of his use of the Azure Hand to protect the militia during the thunder drake’s attack. And Let’s Make a Deal was drawn from an earlier poll — Vahid’s always been a bit of a dealer, using rhetoric and argument to persuade people to see how their interests align with his.

Mash the button below to select Vahid’s next advancement, and as always, thanks so much for reading and I’ll see you in your inbox next week!

Next Episode: Session 5.5: Guardians