FF/ASW: The Golden Spiral, Episode 106

Cast

• Asheal (level 3 ishim wizard)
• Hordac (level 3 tarchon battlemind)
• Waive (level 3 scion nomad)

Summary

After they finished loading up Iodes with the shell masks and jewelry strewn about Ostona's room, the party retraced their steps to the dining room to retrieve the cooling and heating boxes, as well as whatever foodstuffs they thought they would actually eat (or at least be able to sell).

Continuing through another tunnel, they came across a passage sealed with a membrane. Waive unceremoniously stabbed it with the celestial salt spear, causing it to shriek and shrivel up. This revealed a cultist quartet, whose confusion quickly turned to fear after Hordac brandished his sword-arms and bellowed out a fiery roar.

But, before he could charge in and commence with their effortless destruction, a blast of corrosive slime struck him in the chest. A trio of cultists slowly descended from a hole in the ceiling. Unlike the other cultists they'd encountered, the snails on their heads had long, spired shells covered in glowing runes.

With a twist of space, Waive yanked one of the snails off of the cultist it was riding on. The cultist seemed confused, moreso when Hordac flung him towards one of the walls and hacked apart what he assumed was a snail autocrat. Waive shoved the salt spear through a spatial ripple at one of the snails; the cultist it was riding on howled with pain, and commanded the other cultists to retrieve it.

Waive viciously tore open the fabric of space, sucking in each of the cultists, giving Asheal a clear shot at the snail mage that he'd wounded. Once she'd vaporized it, the remaining snail held up its tiny arms and, speaking through its scion vassal, surrendered. Initially Waive and Hordac wanted to kill it anyway, but Asheal convinced them to spare it because she sought whatever surely snail-related magical knowledge it could teach her.

The snail agreed and introduced itself as Giganteos. The party interrogated it, learning that Giganteos needed the vassal in order to audibly communicate, and while it could mentally control creatures by attaching itself to their heads, the specially trained mage-vassals had volunteered for this duty. They also learned that Giganteos didn't seem particularly concerned with the destruction of Ostona, possibly because it knew that if it tried to avenge her or flee the party would just destroy it.

More or less satisfied with its answers, Giganteos proceeded to guide the party through the temple. After effortlessly slaughtering a room filled with lesser cultists, they came across another membrane. Giganteos explained that they could be simply passed through by anyone wearing one of the numerous shell gorgets they'd found in Ostona's sanctum. The party each donned one, and as Giganteos stated they were able to move through the membrane without it emitting any noise.

The room beyond was filled with tables covered in beakers, vials, vats, scrolls, scattered notes, and thick tomes. Shelves lined one wall, and large vats filled with an ochre fluid lined another. A trio of snail cultists were hunched over tables, scrawling notes and making adjustments to various instruments. Near the center of the chamber was a mechanical creature, which could have been roughly described as humanoid if it weren't for its three pairs of arms, three faces, and telescoping eyes that allowed it to simultaneously monitor and assist each cultist.

The party was still standing at the entrance, taking everything in, when one of the eyes craned about, followed by several more. After a brief examination each of the faces spoke in unison.

"Ah, fresh test subjects!"

Design & Development

Shane swapped out Hordac's breath weapon talents for actual battlemind stuff, which is good because now I can see how it works in actual play. Though, after the 1.4 update I'm gonna have to redo the battlemind progression to account for the drop in overall fighter efficacy (don't want the battlemind to be a super fighter).

We're gonna try having wizard mana recover more slowly, something like 1/wizard level per short rest. If that works out, I'll try changing nomad power points to something similar. Or, might move closer to the Dungeon World nomad and have them make an Intelligence check in a new area to see how much fold they can find and use.

Announcements

If you're curious about FrankenFourth and/or Dungeons & Delvers, you can find public alpha documents here and here respectively.

The Rogue is our latest alternate-addition to the Dungeon World core class roster. If you want something different and/or more flexible than the thief, be sure to check it out!

Just released our second adventure for A Sundered World, The Golden Spiral. If a snail-themed dungeon crawl is your oddly-specific thing, check it out!

By fan demand, we've mashed all of our 10+ Treasure volumes into one big magic item book, making it cheaper and more convenient to buy in print (which you can now do).