Sage's Report 2 - A Diary and a Curious Book

Many sessions ago while deep in the sub-basements of the goblins' inn, the party stumbled on a bundle of notes written in code. After handing them off to a sage for translation they resumed adventuring, not really troubling themselves about it.

Now they've been decoded, though. And the game might not be the same again!

Bibliography

Let's get this out of the way:

Fire on the Velvet Horizon - Did you buy this and find it too out-there and experimental for your vanilla fantasy world? Then it's perfect for what comes next.

Textual Corruptions and Ritual Disasters - It's hard out here for a wizard... Finally!

Summoning

The Book of Six Circles

All Are Writ in Blood 

*****


"Gentlemen and Lady, here is the closest translation from the Gobbo language I could make after decrypting the author's coded diary. I have taken the liberty of adding my own numbering to the relevant pages. I believe this places them in the proper chronological order. The goblinoid sense of time & date is unreliable, especially as these depth-dwellers normally don't reckon by the sun and seasons, such as they are of late. My guess is these entries span many years, at most a decade of irregular writing.

Should you ever deal with the author of this journal, or his mysterious correspondent, I pray for your souls. Under the one hundred and thirty-seven celestials I remain yours,

-Nicomaeus Vantadel, esq."


Page 1

...told him he could eat mud if he didnt like it. We got kicked hard by the big lizardskins last year and none of us left to fight back. Now there is commotion at the front door, maybe hunters returning. I'm hungry. All of us are hungry.

Was not hunters. The rock-takers came back from the old pinkmans stone building. They dodged the big golem and got some good rocks. They found a book. A big book. They brought it to me instead of the boss. Said they found it inside the walls, behind the bricks.

Its old. Pages are dark brown. Like the river mud outside. Ink is so faded that some pages are blank.


Page 4

Looked through the book again tonight. Instructions for the Men of Peace. The writing difficult to follow. Some words missing. The book asks for strange things. Water that glows. A crystal like a blue eye?

Other things in the book. Different magic. Maybe they are not for me.

I am never afraid. Until now, of this book. Never seen one like this. Not in all the years. The outside feels like skin of a hairless dog. Or a pinkman. The inside is all black and red and brown. Who made it? How?


Page 11

I did what the book says. The Men of Peace did not come! 

Something else did. It is called the Excruciator. It wants things. Bargains, deals, contracts, trades. I trapped it in a circle but it talks to me. Always talks... What have I done?

Page 30

Tanith told me of the Excruciator. Said it came because I made a mistake. Said she would write the missing parts of the ritual for Men of Peace if she remembers. She is old, much older than I, memory not good. Told me that blood would help in her remembering. Fresh blood.

But all sacrifices are due to the devourer, great Tsathoggua whose gullet ever hungers. Can I spare one for Tanith, to help me? Not many gobs this year. Few children. Even so, nobody will miss one.


Page 36

Tanith remembered. As the blood ran from the gobling, I wrote for her and she remembered. Tanith remembered the words. New words, she showed me.


Page 61

I am afraid. The ritual failed again. It hurt, knives in the brain. Tsathoggua preserve your servant!

The Men of Peace are never coming, will never come. How can I? Tanith says I must do it right. Tanith wants to remember more, wants more words more letters. More letters of blood, I will write. I will. I am right.

I tell everyone the lizardskins got them. But it was me, me, me, I did it. Not for Tsathoggua, the hungry one, but for me. For Tanith, for the remembering! Told me of the strange root. That grows in the water and dreams it is a man! I must have it, send the scouts to find it!


Page 77

The Men of Peace finally came! One almost touched me when they came through. I was afraid but did not run. They shrieked at me, asking questions. Asking like squealing, squeaking, strangled children. Always asking! Is this a dream? Is it real?

Now in my temple, it is quiet. They sleep outside to guard me. They are mine, and the boss watch out.

*****


These notes record the goblin cleric Guzboch's attempts to conduct dark pacts with otherworldly entities. He found these rites in a book called Tanith Loraxalin, which he keeps on his person at all times. If anyone could obtain it and attempt the foul incantations described within, having his notes would give them vital clues.

Tanith Loraxalin contains these conjuration magics, some unknown in the current age (Italicized entries from Frog God's Book of Lost Spells. Sub in your own or whatever you like): 

Aerial Servant
Ash Storm
Grease
Hives
Ironshot
Mage Armor
Summon Monster I
Summon Monster II
Yellow Smoke

The bulk of the book is taken up with three binding rituals:

Binding of the Men of Peace
Binding of the Flammeous Lads
Binding of the Curselings


In life, Tanith was a minor dabbler in conjuration magic. Of minimal power, she was lucky enough to be born a high elf during the flowering of their lost civilization, with sufficient wealth to have herself absturated after death [you read the links right?]. Passed down through the years among wizard's libraries, forgotten, rediscovered, eventually sealed away as a heretical text in the walls of an old Imperial mission, abandoned when the Empire withdrew above the Barrier. Since the goblins discovered the building and have been breaking it down for raw materials, they eventually cracked through the walls and found her.

Her remaining personality is weak, but she is still the ambitious and petty social climber she always was. Encouraging her reader to leverage the small power she can give into more and more, she will dole out her advice carefully, always seeking to steer him in the desired direction.

Tanith and her ilk are fed by blood. It is the ink on her pages, all her spells are written with it. Write on her pages in blood (yours) to communicate, or sacrifice sentient beings to help her recall the rituals and renew her faded text. This sacrifice is not religious or overly ceremonial, but does require a few minutes to conduct. Anointing the relevant pages, reciting the book's name, etc. It can't be done in the middle of combat.


*****

Adapted rules will follow for summoning in Pathfinder. In the mean time, let's have some fun.