Assisted by the librarian Jenar, Eight discovers information that could give them clues about their mother’s past.
The librarian Jenar brings Eight to a very old section of the archives. Although she leaves them with an electric lantern, Eight casts a light spell on their head for hands-free assistance. The area has been left disorganized and cluttered, but that doesn’t appear to diminish the Warforged’s enthusiasm. After some preliminary searching to determine the contents of the section, Eight calls Jenar back and the two begin digging in earnest.
Jenar shares that, as part of the War of Seven Hells, Eulelan revolutionists contracted with an inventor in Baukora to design Warforged for their side. However, war profiteers were able to obtain copies of the blueprints and share them with the Adar-Kai Empire. This would mean Warforged have been around for over 400 years.
Scouring old maps and ledgers, Eight is able to figure out the family crest that matches the bird on their plating. Although further information couldn’t be obtained about the missing city, they are left with a mystery on a map thousands of years old.
Follow Dax @GM_Dax, Kappa @TheKappaChris, and Wren @ThornyDryad
Transcript by CJ Kallevig
Upbeat piano intro ends[00:28]
Gentle piano fades in [00:30]
Dax: Eight. Jenar leads you down a wide stone stairway, past several doors and offshoots where you can see that there are various tomes and scrolls in various bookshelves. The farther you go down, the more cluttered and less organized everything appears. Perhaps there is some organization to it, you’re not really sure. It’s very dark, the gentle hum from the lantern that Jenar holds is all you can really hear other than your footsteps clanging on the stone. Eventually, she takes you through one of said doorways, past a couple of bookshelves, and down another set of stairs where the stairway is no longer wide. It is very small and is more of a spiral until you end up in a room where you can see there are stacks and stacks of books. And all these scrolls are kind of laid atop one another. Sheaves of paper are in random piles as far as you can see. She sets the lantern down on the table and takes the other lantern that she has been carrying and lights it.
Dax (as Jenar): [femme tone, British accent] Alright. Eight, these are our oldest portions of the archives. I’m very sorry about the mess. Are you going to be wanting assistance? Are you going to want to search by yourself?
Wren: As she asks if I’d like assistance, I look to the shelves and the records that are scattered about and I just say to her,
Wren (as Eight): That entirely depends on the method in which these records have been organized. Is there a formal way that things have been placed on the shelves? Or is it haphazard?
Dax: She takes a glance about the room. She walks over to one of the bookshelves and opens up a tome. Gives a cursory glance to its contents, walks over to a table, peers at what the top sheet of paper says.
Dax (as Jenar): Well, normally this place would be a little more organized than it currently is. It appears the last person that was searching down here didn’t do a very good job cleaning up and apparently none of the staff has been down here to check. [sighs heavily] We’ll have to remedy that after you’re done exploring. So it appears that as of right now, it’s haphazard. Generally, anything in scrolls and random sheets of paper will be your oldest contents. The tomes will be later. But…
Dax: And she just looks around and a very tired look comes over her face.
Dax (as Jenar): I’m not even sure what they were looking for or what order they left everything in.
Wren (as Eight): I see. Well…
Wren: And I’ll place a hand on one of the top sheaves of paper in one of the stacks and just kind of pull it off and hold it up, just to see what is on it as I hold it by the lantern.
Wren (as Eight): To be quite honest, I do not see what good having assistance would be in this current situation, given the fact that you are not entirely certain where things might be. I don’t see the benefit in forcing you or any of the other staff to sort through this chaos in an attempt to find items that I may be interested in.
Dax (as Jenar): I think that’s a very reasonable conclusion. Alright. Well, I will just stay towards the top of the staircase, and then that way if you do need me, all you have to do is call up and I will come down and assist you. I’ve got a book I can read in my pocket somewhere so, if you change your mind, just let me know. Otherwise, I’ll be within earshot.
Dax: She gives you a brief nod, a smile, takes her lantern and goes.
Wren (as Eight): Right.
Wren: Well, I imagine this area is fairly dark? Because, we went down a few levels, right?
Dax: Yeah. By your estimation, you probably went down ten levels and then through one of the offshoots, you went down a spiral staircase down another level essentially. So you are in a very back corner of the library. How far back, I mean, you don’t really know. But it’s very dark. The lantern light kind of has an electric hum to it and it reaches about twenty feet. So you can get a good viewpoint, but anything beyond that is really dark.
Wren: And, silly question for clarification. How narrow are, like, the passageways in between the stacks?
Dax: About one person length.
Wren: Okay. So they’re tight.
Dax: Yeah, they’re pretty tight. You can, you can tell just by looking around at how the shelves themselves are constructed, that perhaps this is one of oldest sections of, one of the first sections of storage for the library. And it wasn’t intended for people to really spend a lot of time down here. If you were to wander about, there is one little alcove with a table and a chair set up. But that’s pretty much it.
Wren: Okay. And this lantern that was left down here, is it, is it flame?
Dax: No, no.
Wren: It’s electric? Like, how does it operate?
Dax: You would have seen her turn a little knob at the top of the lantern, just where, where you would normally turn, like an oil lamp to adjust the wick. As far as beyond that, you’re not really sure because I don’t think anybody’s given you a lesson in electricity.
Wren: I do believe that it would be beneficial to me to have a light source that’s hands-free, that I might maximize my research capability. What I think I’m going to do is, you know, essentially what I’m thinking is I’d like to cast a Light spell. But I’d like to direct it on maybe a rivet that’s in my faceplate.
Dax: Kind of like a miner’s lantern?
Wren: Yeah.
Dax: Yeah.
Wren: Otherwise, I’ll look for, I don’t know, like a piece of paper, fold it up, and like stick it in my head so that I can light it up. I would just like to have a source of illumination that is hands free, so that I can work in the dark.
Dax: Yeah, if you want to cast a light spell, I mean go right ahead.
Wren: Okey-dokey! That’s an Easy check.
Dax: Yep.
Wren: I don’t foresee this being an issue. [dice rolls] I have four Advantages left over after rolling all those dice.
Dax: Alright, well you tell me how this works then.
Wren: It’s not like I’m doing this where time is of the essence or there’s an urgency to it. So, I imagine it’s just kind of like a matter of, I pull out my spoon from my wrist sheath, and blindly pointing at my head with the spoon. I’m trying to locate an appropriate rivet or nut on my head that I can just kind of tap and light it up. It’s just a couple of instances where I bap myself on the forehead and nothing happens. So, it’s like a couple instances of..
Wren (as Eight): Illuminate. Nope, nope, wait. And, light up! Nope? Nope, okay.
Wren: And then I take the spoon and scrape it a little bit, until I feel it connect with a bolt. Then I nod my head to myself and,
Wren (as Eight): Light Up!
Wren: And then the nut just kind of goes “boop” and a small amount of daylight shines off of my forehead directly in front of me. I wouldn’t say it’s super bright, but like reading by flashlight in a tent.
Dax: Less area, as far as light is concerned, but a little bit more direct before your face.
Wren: And then, with that, I would start moving into the stacks. I think my first general thought would be to look for a section that appears not to have been touched recently and see what the dates on some of those items might be? So that it can give me an idea of what some of the age I can anticipate the rest of the materials being in this section.
Dax: Sure. I’m not gonna make you roll for it. As you meander through the bookshelves and some of the little alcoves where the papers and the scrolls are stored, you come towards the very back of this section. The back of this room. You find that there are several scrolls that are very nicely organized. The velvet cases that they are in are clearly worn with age. That softness that velvet has is completely gone and worn down. It almost looks like leather. You know how you can tell like something, even just by looking at it has a softness? It’s completely gone. You pull open one of those scrolls to check what the date is. And the scroll is probably, based on the date, it’s around two thousand years old.
Wren: As I come to settle on the container with the scrolls, there’s a very deliberate manner in which I open them and pull out the paper that’s cradled inside. It’s very reverent as I’m doing it. Kind of tracing the lining of the case with my fingers, looking for the latch that holds it closed delicately flipping it or fiddling with it to be able to open it. And just, taking very good care as I’m searching through these materials. I know the War of Seven Hells was not two thousand years ago, but the history of Elven culture and maybe, maybe not specifically Elven culture but the history of perhaps geopolitical structure on Eulela would be a good place for me to start with respect to, kind of learning how things worked. How families or certain people would come to power or would gain prestige, and what specifically that might have meant for…how they found their place in that stratification of society. Basically, taking a really far back look at how things first started to shape in the area so that I can move forward with a better idea of how it impacted the future.
Dax: Okay. Are you just scrolling the, are you scanning the scroll that you currently have? Are you putting that away and just kind of taking a look at where things are in this general area to see if you can find specific to that? How are you going about this? Because that is a very broad…
Wren: Broad stroke.
Dax: Request, yeah.
Wren: So basically to start, I’m seeing what’s contained in this scroll as far as subject matter. I’ll check the other one, see what subject matter is contained in that. Then I might move over to another section that’s just adjacent to where these were kept, and seeing what specifically is in materials there. So they should be, theoretically, the same age but they may be organized in a certain way as to keep like oh, scrolls and papers about this topic are kept here. Scrolls and papers about this topic are in this section, so I”m basically trying to figure out how things are stored as well.
Dax: Okay. So to start, I”m going to have you give me a Knowledge Lore check. In part because some of this is in languages that you don’t understand, Dwarvish, Elvish, other hobnobs and dialects of different languages. The other reason being as you scroll things in a language that you do understand, you know it’s one of those… like if you think nowadays if we were to read something from back in the 1400s, we would have a little difficulty trying to figure out, “Is that an f or is that an s?” You know, and just you being able to use that mental acuity to read and comprehend what you’re doing. So go ahead and give me a Lore check, make it Medium difficulty.
[dice rolls]
Wren: Three Success, but a Threat leftover on that check.
Dax: What appears to be the oldest stuff is not necessarily written in Common, but as you kind of go down the line, you start to see writings pop up that are in a language you understand. And, though the writing is very old and in some cases very worn, you are able to kind of piece together that the prevailing political structure tended to be kingdoms. There were a lot of monarchies, they were often fighting for land and territory, control of their subjects. I will say that that threat, perhaps if you’re okay with it, one of the scrolls you went to put away, your thumb rubbed against the page wrong and it, and it tore.
Wren: Hmm. Well geez, I don’t want to cause damage to anything else. Was I able to glean anything about how the informational documents are stored?
Dax: Oh yes, sorry. That was the additional thing that you asked. Yes, with the three Successes, yeah. You were able to, so it looks like for the most part down here, it’s organized by date and not necessarily by subject matter. Perhaps because this is some of the oldest stuff that’s been stored in the library. There’s really no need for it to be further organized by, you know, literature versus nonfiction versus, you know, whatever. So it’s really just going to be by date. This does seem to you that the closer you get to the stairway, the more recent things are going to be. Now how “recent”, recent is in this section is a different story.
Wren: Mhmm. I was about to ask, how wide is the span of time? If I’m looking at two thousand year old scrolls right now, how recent do things get if I move closer to where I came down?
Dax: If you move closer to where you came down and you start looking at perhaps some of the items that look less disturbed in among the mess, you can glean that the writings tend to end maybe about three hundred years ago. Some of the older stuff, like the two thousand year old stuff, there isn’t a lot of it.
Wren: I will approach the spiral staircase and I will call up, craning my neck upwards and just as loudly and projected as possible.
Music shifts to a hopeful piano [16:36]
Wren (as Eight): Jenar! Jenar, I could use your assistance!
Dax: Which considering all the stone really doesn’t need too much help, you do hear it become very loud as it goes up the stairs. It isn’t long before you hear the echoing of footsteps heading your way. You see around the corner of this spiral stair, Jenar’s head.
Dax (as Jenar): Yes, Eight?
Wren (as Eight): Ah! Perfect! There are a number of topics that I would like to have more documentation brought to me, but I am unsure how old they would be. I figured it might be helpful to speak with someone else who might be able to provide some other insight. So, I suppose you could consider this, like, a trivia contest? Of sorts? Jenar, do you know how old the oldest Warforged was?
Dax: She bites her bottom lip.
Dax (as Jenar): Ah! Yes. That would be, let’s see, that was during the War of the Seven Hells, so that would be four hundred-fifteen, four hundred and twenty years ago? Do you not know the history of the Warforged? I mean, I would assume you would because…
Dax: And with that, she kind of gestures up and down at you.
Dax (as Jenar): But then again, you know what they say, you’re never really supposed to assume.
Wren (as Eight): Wise words. I am unfortunately unfamiliar with the history of my own kind. So, I now have a place to start. Which is also fortunate because a number of the other topics that I would like to do further specific research into take place around the exact same time. So, if you would be able to either escort me to an area where this time period is kept, or if you are able to bring me materials with respect to the history of Warforged, the prominent creators of them, and those who practiced the creation of Warforged, I would be very grateful for that. And, along a similar vein, if there’s a way to discover the identities of famous inventors, creators, I suppose, from that time period as well? It may be useful.
Dax: She takes a couple steps further down into the room.
Dax (as Jenar): Hmmm. Alright, so, if back here…
Dax: And she kind of meanders towards, about halfway through the room and starts flipping through a couple of tomes.
Dax (as Jenar): If this is about… alright. So, from what I remember, you’ll have to forgive me. It’s not like I was around at this point. From what I remember, those that were part of the uprising in the War of Seven Hells found some way to connect with inventors over in Baukora who were able to engineer and provide blueprints for creating the very first Warforged. The hope was that they would…
Dax: And she’s doing all of this while she’s shuffling through papers, looking for exact documents.
Dax (as Jenar): The hope is that it would help them turn the tide. Now, as is the case with war on many different occasions, war profiteers existed. They had spies behind the lines that were able to steal copies of the blueprints and provide them to the Empire of the Adar-Kai. Which meant that the Warforged that were supposed to be part of the rebels and help them, ended up being a force on either side. Then when the war ended and the Ruheran Council was created, people agreed that they had to be shut down as a sign of good faith for the peace. Now…
Dax: And she’s meandering through a couple of different bookshelves. When she stops, she ends up pulling out a very squat looking scroll case. She brings it over to the table, she clears off some of the papers and sets this scroll down. When she takes it out and lays it out in front of you, it appears to be a blueprint for one such as yourself.
Wren: I’m actually going to interrupt you. When she was talking about the history, she mentioned…
Wren (as Eight): You said the Ruheran Council?
Dax (as Jenar): Mhmmm.
Wren (as Eight): What was that?
Wren: I’m also doing my own research, like thumbing through things and pulling things out of the stacks, so I’m basically like talking over my shoulder to her at the same time.
Dax (as Jenar): I believe you mean what is the Ruheran Council. Back then, it was a governing body that was formed unifying all the leaders of each region. Without the Empire around to kind of provide the unifying force, the leaders were all at each other’s throats talking about who’s going to claim this portion of the land and who has ancient rights that came before the Empire and all such manner of things. It was, it was threatening to lead into another war, which the country obviously did not need.
So this Council decided ‘Why don’t we work together and we can find a way to maybe not make everyone 100% happy, but at least give everyone something?’ So they came up with the Treaty of Beilar, which is what we’ve been living under for about four hundred years now? Which maintains peace and prosperity across the continent. They’re the ones right now, I don’t know how much you’ve heard about what’s going on, but the Council is actually working right now to try and see if surviving Imperial loyalists would like to be reintroduced into the continent and no longer exiled. Last I heard, those talks were just beginning. So, I’m actually very surprised you’d never heard of them.
Wren (as Eight): Jenar, I regret to say that there are a number of things of which I am ill-educated. And the opportunity to be here and learn more is truly a blessing to me. Now, this Ruheran Council. I imagine the leadership elements have changed over the years?
Dax (as Jenar): Oh yes. I mean, it’s bound to. It’s made up of many different races, many different ruling countries, all different. In fact, if I remember right, many of them at the time were more, almost 50-50 monarchy to mayorships and all those? I think nowadays…
Dax: And she’s looking up as she’s thinking.
Dax (as Jenar): Nowadays I think there are only a few monarchy that are left. I mean, and especially when you have, I mean, it’s not like all even different kinds of Elves live the same length. Some of us only live a few hundred years, some of us live thousands.
Wren (as Eight): Is that so?
Dax (as Jenar): Mhmm.
Wren (as Eight): Is there perhaps documentation of who has been a member of the Council? And perhaps, I don’t know how it’s structured, but, are there crests? Emblems? Flags? Symbols, that these different members of the Council identify with?
Dax (as Jenar): I mean, I’m sure. That’s going to be a very long list. Is there a specific one you’re looking for? That might help us narrow it down where to look.
Wren (as Eight): I have two symbols in mind, but I do not know the names of them.
Dax (as Jenar): Alright, well what do they look like?
Wren: At least out of character, I don’t know the name of Mother’s old family, do I? I would have talked to Theodore Lawrence Briggs, but…
Dax: Theodore Lawrence Briggs was unfortunately able to give you an exact name, like he thought. But he was able to let you know that it is a family that supposedly died off three hundred years ago, or at least had disappeared from the public view kind of thing.
Wren: So, I will tell Jenar,
Wren (as Eight): I’m looking for groups or families or affiliations that may have used this symbol.
Wren: And I’ll point to the carved ibis that’s in my chestplate.
Wren (as Eight): And I imagine that they would have existed around three hundred years ago. Perhaps extending further back than that, but certainly no sooner than three hundred years. And, the last symbol that I have some interest in is one that I saw on some of my previous travels.
Wren: I would take a moment to, if not sketch it out or go through my old journals that I have, I’d look for the, the bull. From the weird cult. And I’d basically present that symbol to her as well.
Dax: So the ibis and the bull with the flaming nostrils?
Wren: Yes.
Dax: Jenar kind of brings her hand up to her chin, almost covers her mouth. Her brow kind of creases a little bit in thought.
Dax (as Jenar): Huh. Well, I recognize the bull. That used to be the symbol of Suvre Dinai, the last Emperor of the Adar-Kai empire. Now, that hasn’t been seen in several hundred years. The ibis on the other hand, I don’t really recognize that one. You said about three hundred years?
Dax: She starts, kind of meanders a couple bookshelves back, checks a few things, moves another couple bookshelves back. Starts shuffling through papers and as she’s doing so, she’s kind of talking to herself. You hear her muttering things like,
Dax (as Jenar): [talking quietly, mumbling] Not really sure why they would want to know more about the emperor’s bull, that hasn’t been seen certainly if that gets, if their kind ever gets sucked back into the.. the war, no that doesn’t even seem right.
Dax: It’s very, very low muttering. It’s almost as if she’s starting to process things in her head and she’s just filtering out through her mouth. Eventually you hear,
Dax (as Jenar): Ah-ha!
Dax: And she comes walking over to you with a very, what looks to be like a ledger book. It’s very long and it’s kind of squat. She kind of has to move in a really weird way so as not to smack the book into the shelves and the walls and what not. She lays this book out on the table, very gently on top of the blueprint that she had left there. And she’s waving her fingers and kind of pointing at various symbols. You can see some of the old families. You see the crest of Sarendell, you see the crest of Wolfholde, and things like that. And to these, she says,
Dax (as Jenar): [normal volume, clearer]These, these families have been on the Ruheran Council almost as long as it’s been around, whereas these…
Dax: And she flips a couple pages very gently, and she points to an ibis that looks very similar to yours but it’s not exact.
Dax (as Jenar): Crests like these have come in and out of the Council’s history. So, this particular one, this is the last time we see this crest on the Council. This was roughly about three hundred years ago.
Wren (as Eight): Is there a name next to it? Or is there a reference to family or land it represents?
Dax: She starts flipping through some of the pages, looking for the actual records, where like meetings would have been held and who was in attendance.
Dax (as Jenar): Alright, so that would be…
Dax: And she’s scrolling her finger down a bunch of names. Just barely touching the page.
Dax (as Jenar): It looks like that crest belongs to the family of… Jruna? I’ve never heard of that one.
Wren (as Eight): Interesting. Jruna.
Wren: My eyes get really bright in the darkness when she says the name of the family. The lanterns that were working around are giving off that little electric hum. If she listens closely enough, she would probably hear very light rattling as my body shakes or vibrates with a little bit of excitement. I will, like, lean in and start trying to read the paper as well.
Wren (as Eight): Does this say anything about Jruna’s interests? Land holdings? Locations? Family history? What were they interested in? What were they vying for? Who was there? What happened to them?
Dax (as Jenar): [chuckles] Eight, Eight! This is nearly a hundred years of Ruheran activity. At that point, they weren’t recording all of that. However…
Dax: And she goes back to the next bookshelf over from where she found this one, she finds another ledger and she comes back.
Dax (as Jenar): Alright, so this is a little bit earlier in the Council’s history.
Dax: She flips through a few pages.
Dax (as Jenar): Ah, yes. Here it is. Alright. So, the Jruna family was a family that ruled over in what appears to be… oh well that’s odd. That is odd.
Wren (as Eight): What’s odd?
Dax (as Jenar): Eight, would you mind moving that ledger? Just pick it up and shift it in towards the back of the table, if you wouldn’t mind.
Wren (as Eight): Of course.
Wren: And I’ll do just that. I’ll stick my fingers under, pull it up, and shift it a good foot to the side.
Dax: She puts down the ledger, and you can see on one page on the left, it talks about some other crest. Where it, you know, it gives a very one-page summary about the, about the family. On the right-hand page is, about half the page talks about Jruna.
Dax (as Jenar): So, according to this, now in history, the Ruheran Council was made up of families in the continent of Eulela because we were the ones at war. We were the ones that, you know, we had land. We had holdings that needed to be sorted out with the Empire gone. All the maps redrawn, all the territories reassigned. Jruna is not from Eulela. Jruna is a family from Baukora. If I’m reading this right, they were the family that actually came up with the designs for Warforged. I wonder if that’s why they got on the Council? I still find that a little odd.
Wren (as Eight): That is quite interesting.
Wren: I’ll go from the ledger that she’s looking at and I’ll kind of move my focus to the blueprints that she’s placed on the table as well. And I’ll just kind of scan them. Is there any symbol drawn on the blueprints or are there references to the Jruna family on the blueprints?
Dax: At the very bottom right corner, you can see that part of the page has been torn off. But what is left of the page, you do see the top left half of the family crest.
Wren: And it’s not on any of the figures for the Warforged?
Dax: No, it was just, it would have been a stamp on the blueprint itself. Kind of like an artist would sign a piece of the painting, but not necessarily on the art itself.
Wren: Or like an architect's seal or -
Dax: Exactly, exactly.
Wren (as Eight): Okay. Interesting. Now, I know a majority of records here relate to Eulelan history. I can’t imagine there would be too much about this Jruna family in the library’s records if they originally came from Baukora. Are there immigration records here in the library?
Dax (as Jenar): Perhaps, but I think, it stands more to reason there might be a little more history about them because they were on the Council. But then again, it’s kind of a shot in the dark. Um, I might have to go and look through our catalogs to see what we might have available. With everything being in disarray down here, I don’t want to hazard a guess that everything you might be looking for is…
Dax: And she kind of gestures at all the mislaid paperwork in front of you.
Wren (as Eight): Right. Well, I believe at this point, information pertaining to this Jruna family would be of most interest to me. Given that there’s an expected one hundred years worth of history, that at least makes it fairly easy to narrow down!
Wren: My mouth is creased into a smile as I say that.
Wren (as Eight): I think that your assistance so far has been entirely helpful. If you’re able to locate more accurate locations of records, I will continue to stay down here and review what we have pulled out already.
Dax (as Jenar): Is there a specific reason you’re so interested in this particular family crest? Is it just because you’ve got the symbol on your plating?
Wren (as Eight): I suppose that would be the most apparent answer, yes. Coupled with the history of Warforged. This makes for very interesting reading for me. Like, discovering one’s past and history. What is it that most people call it? Family trees? Ancestry? It’s like that for me.
Dax (as Jenar): I suppose that makes sense. Alright. Well, if you’re going to kind of just explore down here, I can go check the catalogs and see what I can find. If I’m not back in an hour though, it might be something that has to wait for another day. Alright?
Wren (as Eight): I understand.
Dax (as Jenar): Don’t worry about putting these things back. I”ll, I’ll take care of these tomorrow. I have a feeling I’m going to be the one assigned to clean all this up since I was the one that discovered it. So I will hopefully be back for you, Eight. Unless there was something else you needed before I left?
Wren (as Eight): No, I believe that should be sufficient at this time.
Dax: She gives another little nod, takes her lantern, and heads back up the stairs. You can hear the soft padding of feet that slowly softens as she goes further.
Wren: And I’ll just call to her,
Wren (as Eight): Thank you!
Dax (as Jenar): You’re welcome!
Dax: You hear.
Music shifts to a soft, gentle piano [35:53]
Wren: After she’s gone, I’ll just kind of keep pouring over some of the items she’s brought out. Then as I’m done with them, I will stow them and put them away where she got them.
Dax: Okay. Are you perusing just the books or are you perusing other things on the shelves?
Wren: Well, the next thing I was going to kind of say is, after I’m done reviewing what she brought out for me at my request, as I’m putting things back, I’ll probably just kind of see what else is on the shelves near them. Just to make sure they weren’t, you know, lumped with anything that holds additional information related to what’s inside. I also will, like honestly I’ll probably start looking through what was left scattered around as well to see if there was anything in particular that whoever the last messy library researcher was, was specifically looking for.
Dax: So as you start shuffling through paperwork, there doesn’t exactly seem to be a rhyme or reason for what this person might have been looking at. There’s, you know, documents about trade routes, documents about some of the older division lines of territories, both before and after the War of Seven Hells. One of the items you do find in the stack is a map, a very old map. A map that shows some of the locations of the original members of the Ruheran Council, which originally was only about a baker's dozen worth of families. You see various family crests all around Eulela, and then you see two crests from Baukora. One is the Jruna family, and another unnamed family to the south.
Wren: So, the Baukoran crests are on the other continent, but they’re shown on the other continent. Very interesting. Basically spacing out, I’m staring at the map and the implications of, you know, where this symbol actually comes from. At some point, I basically snap to and kind of shake my head and remember.
Wren (as Eight): Oh. I got so caught up in all of this information about me, I forgot...
Wren: Are there city names on this map? Or town names on this map?
Dax: No. It’s just a territory marking kind of thing.
Wren: Okay.
Dax: A rough geographical location.
Wren: I kind of leave that map and I’m going to start looking for, like a world map, a topographical, maybe not topographical. But, I’m looking for an older map that has city names and town names and things like that. Something that’ll show me more detail of Eulela.
Dax: Alright. So you’re flipping through all these maps. Are you sticking to just the pile of mess that this person left or are you searching throughout, like kind of the section of this room that is more within the last four hundred years?
Wren: The second part. The mess is just an inconvenience at this point.
Dax: That’s fair. That’s what happens, you shouldn’t leave messes in libraries. So as you’re searching through, you do find various maps in their scroll cases. Some of them vary, just as if you were looking at an atlas, in whether they’re talking about topography, whether they’re talking about, and I mean, even design, based on the age of the map, all varies. Eventually, you find a couple different ones that have names with cities and provinces or countries or whatever, within the continents. So it’s just a matter of what specifically you’re looking for that will determine which one might be appropriate.
Wren: With every map that I have that I’ve picked up after, just kind of like brushing off or blowing off the layer of dust or grit that’s on it, I’m looking for the magically vanishing city that I’ve been looking for more information for. I remembered it was to the south-ish on Eulela, so I’m looking for any markings that show Velar. I’m specifically just looking in the area that I know to look, scanning. And if the map doesn’t have it, I move on to the next one. I’m just trying to see if any of them have anything that indicates a settlement in that area.
Dax: Okay. So, when you first heard about this civilization that went missing, the Town of Velar, what you had been told by a different librarian was that there used to a god called Marahu. It was a very prideful god that was very accustomed to receiving bounty and offerings from it’s subjects. War came around and is often the result of war, the subjects were unable to provide a bounty which the god was accustomed to. He grew angry and legend has it, the city completely disappeared. Looking at the maps within the last four hundred years, you don’t see the city. Now, give me a Knowledge Lore check at Medium difficulty.
[dice rolls]
Wren: Four Success and a Threat.
Dax: I assume that you’re kind of met with a little disappointment when you don’t immediately see the city that you’ve been looking for on these maps. Would I be correct in that?
Wren: Disappointment, yes. But with each map that I look at that doesn’t have it, I just seem to grow more determined to keep looking to find it. Nothing can shake my unflappable enthusiasm.
Dax: And that determination sparks another memory. You remember that that librarian also commented that this happened thousands of years ago, when the gods still walked Rejiev. In fact it was one of the catalyst events that caused the gods to depart Rejiev and become, maybe not so much disconnected from mortals, as you know in your own experiences. But, less invested in their everyday lives.
Wren: That’s going to make me feel a little bad. Because I wasn’t even looking in the right area. So, I will put those maps away and I will just buzz straight to the back where I knew the other ones were. Probably like halfway, where I figure it’s going to be somewhere around the time period I’m looking for. Then I’ll do the same thing. I’ll just start looking for old maps.
Dax: The oldest map you find, it looks very much like the really old maps from the 1400s and stuff used to look, where like not every continent is really there.
Wren: Everything’s a funky size.
Dax: Everything’s a funky size, Baukora doesn’t even exist on this map.
Wren: Right.
Dax: You see Eulela and you see the two large islands that are to the south of Eulela, Nadros and Sudrea. Again, you don’t see the Town of Velar. But, you do see, oddly enough, a very large ink split on Nadros. And that is where we are going to end the session.
Music fades out [43:12]
Dax: Thanks for listening! We hope you’ll join us next time but in the interim, follow us on Twitter @RoadsUncharted.
The “Roads Uncharted” podcast is GMed and produced by Dax, who you can find on Twitter @GM_Dax. We use the Genesys RPG system published by Fantasy Flight Games, and music licensed by Epidemic Sound.
Arthas, Champion of Offam, is played by Neil.
Eight is played by Wren, who also composed the music for our opening theme. Follow them on Twitter @ThornyDryad.
Rou is played by Kappa, and you can follow him on Twitter @TheKappaChris.