Session Information

Session Date: 9th Sep 2026
Saga: 9th Saga - Dangerous Deities
Attendance: Sam Gallon,Rowan Hales,Tom Brothers,Caleb Hamlet

Session Summary

The party fled through a cramped tunnel into a hidden vampire enclave, following a hooded figure with a sewn-shut mouth. They met a council of deformed vampires, The Mouth, The Eyes, The Ears, The Hands, and The Manner, who revealed they had been waiting for the party and granted them an audience with "the original." After a long wait, Korrigan appeared through Drache's shadow and cursed him with uncontrollable bodily functions until he opened the heavy wooden door. Inside, they found Marcel suspended in an ornate coffin sustained by pipes carrying blood. The room itself was hostile: Drache and Viktor couldn't breathe, Mordecai was violently pulled in and knocked unconscious by a telepathic scream, and the party quickly realized Marcel was far more powerful than they had anticipated.

When Drache delivered Korrigan's message, that Vaelrith had returned, Marcel's eyes snapped open, the pipes burst, and he emerged from his coffin. He immediately recognized Viktor as the one who took the crystal and Halfbie as present at the church's destruction. After snapping off one of Mordecai's horns for withholding information, Marcel learned that Chenris had ascended to godhood by killing Aeloria. Enraged, he demanded to know who the party's strongest member was before driving his hand into Drache's gut and producing five magical contracts, each with a single clause: "The Fatebreakers will kill Vaelrith." With no other choice, the party signed, though Halfbie paused before signing, a smile flickering across their face.

Full Session Notes

The Party found themselves in pitch black cave. The cave was cramped, either naturally formed or roughly caved out long ago. Viktor, still in Halfbie's bigsby giant hand, began to wake up. Halfbie gingerly set them down and asked, out of breath, what had happened to get them into a pitch-black room.

Mordecai explained what had happened while Viktor was asleep. Once everyone was caught up to speed, they turned to the hooded figure who invited them into this place to escape the vampires. They tried their best to thank him for his help, but he did not respond. Without saying a word, he pointed to a small tunnel in the far wall before dropping to his stomach and crawling to the other side. The Party looked at the hole; it was barely big enough for Drache to fit through, but his shoulders would be battered and bruised from trying to squeeze.

Mordecai looked at Drache and suggested that they cast Polymorph on him to make the journey easier. He agreed and stated that he wanted to be a mouse. Mordecai obliged and turned him into a mouse wearing drag. With a few squeaks, Drache easily hopped through the tunnel. After Halfbie gushed about how cute Drache was, they all began the long journey through. Mordecai made it with relative ease, but it was slow progress. Viktor, clearly not used to his new body, struggled but managed in time.

Halfway through, Halfbie got their arm caught on a rock; the tunnel was too cramped to free it without causing serious damage. Seeing that Halfbie was struggling, Viktor called out to ask if they needed any help. Trying not to panic, Halfbie took a deep breath of the cave's stale air before explaining the situation, but when asked if they needed any help, Halfbie said they were fine. From where they were, they could see the other side of the tunnel and quickly activated their Feystep to teleport to the rest of the Party.

They found themselves in a small room with low ceilings. They stood in the room, hunched over, looking at the hooded figure who had sat down on a small rock. Halfbie took a step closer to get a better look at their saviour. Under their hood was a mangled face; his most striking feature was that his mouth had been sewn shut with thick thread. He also had incredibly long fangs that stretched down to the bottom of his chin.

When Mordecai tried to use telepathy, there was no response from him. After a few moments of trying to talk to him, the hooded figure eventually stood up and started walking down the corridor attached to the room they were in. The corridor was at the same height, so they had to hunch to get through it. The Party walked for nearly an hour in silence as they followed the hooded figure intently. When they got closer, the Polymorph spell eventually ended, causing Drache to revert to his previous form. unfortunately he had been on Halfbie's shoulder at the time, causing them both to fall to the floor in a pile, much to the others' delight.

Eventually, the corridor opened into a small room. A few more hooded figures sat around a table in the room, where a magical projection of what looked like the church hovered. The party could see that most of the vampires that had surrounded them earlier were gone, with only a few left, packing up the remainder of their items. The view seemed to be from something flying around above the scene. The figures in the room were all similar to the one they had been following; their bodies were all deformed in one way or another.

Seeing that their clothes were rather dirty from the journey, Halfbie cleaned themselves up with Prestidigitation. One of the hooded figures gave a sharp reaction to their use of magic but did nothing. Halfbie then gave a bow that was somewhere between a bow using royal etiquette and a stage bow and introduced themselves to the figures in the room.

The figures in the room were as follows: One had no eyes, just black holes where they would've been. His mouth seemed to be fully open, and his ears abnormally large, bigger than any elf. Another sat with no limbs, just a head and torso; none of his facial features had been altered. One sat at the head of the table. His features looked fine, but he wore a thick, rough full-body wrap that left only his mouth free.

The other two figures looked to The Mouth at the head of the table to respond to Halfbie's greeting. He stated that they knew who they were. "I guess that makes things easier, who are you guys?"

The Mouth pointed to the others and introduced The Ears, The Hands, and The Manner, saying the rest were 'around' and that they were still waiting for The Eyes. Viktor took a good, long look at them; despite the darkness, he could tell that these weren't especially powerful or pure vampires (probably 3rd or 4th generation). Most of his knowledge of these specific vampires came from storybooks, all of which had been debunked over the years; nonetheless, he gave a respectful greeting.

Having heard they were still waiting for the others to join them, Halfbie sat on the floor to wait, but before they could get comfortable The Hand walked over and pulled Halfbie up by their collar. Mordecai also used magic to clean their clothing and made a note not to take a seat. Still wanting a seat, Halfbie summoned a Tensor's floating disk and sat down. The Hand did not move, but the others stared intently at Halfbie. They sat in silence for a moment before Halfbie offered to play the dice game with Drache. Before the dragonborn could respond, a small fae creature rushed into the room and took a seat at the table. The table now showed a recurring image of itself, leading the party to assume they were The Eyes.

After a moment the mouth turned to Mordecai and said "We have decided"

"You have decided?"

"You may see him"

"And who is he?"

"I shall not speak his name. You should already know"

"Ahhh, the original", said Viktor.

"I have a good idea of who it could be, one of our party member's need to see you", said Mordecai.

None of them responded; instead, they ordered the hand to take them away, then left the room via another corridor while they were led down a 3rd. The party followed the hand, Halfbie still on the tensor's floating disk, floating along, now unbothered by the continued low ceilings. As they made their way through the tunnels and corridors, they found various copper pipes lying on the walls. Various other vampires were walking the halls as if going about their daily lives. Their men, women, and children, all with distended fangs that all, gave polite smiles as the party walked past them. Halfbie smiled at as many as possible as they walked.

Eventually, the corridor opened up, and the party came to what seemed to be the first people-built structure they had seen in the caves. It was a small circular room with basic furnishings. On the far side of the room was a heavy wooden door with wrought-iron mouldings and bracing. The hand knocks on the door 3 times before stepping aside.

"I don't think it's our place to open it", said Mordecai "Surely someone inside with open the door if weve knocked?"

The door stayed shut while the hand watched them patiently. The party refused to open the door. Mordecai tried to stop Halfbie instinctively, but Halfbie explained that they didn't want to be rude and open the door. The party all nodded approvingly. "god i had such woeful disregard for my life, huh"

Mordecai turned to the hand and asked if they would be waiting long with telepathy, but the hand did not respond. Mordecai then asked Viktor if he thought it would be a good idea or not to open the door. Viktor explained that some clans would consider it trespassing and others would not care, but judging by who was on the other side, it would probably be considered rude.

They all got comfortable as they all got preoccupied with their various hobbies as they waited. Viktor started examining his body further while Halfbie began reading lounging on their floating tensors disk. Eventually Drache spoke up. In a shaky voice, he told the party to look at his shadow; he claimed it looked strange.

Everyone else's shadow was normal, but Drache's shadow looked warped, almost like someone else's, and it felt familiar to those in the party.

"Ok, so you were told by a Fae Trickster to go see Marcel, right?" said Mordecai to Drache. "And now your shadow is acting weird where were very close to finding him. They're probably connected, right?"

"Ohhhhh Drache!" came A laughing voice floating on the wind.

"Oh course it is, I knew it!" said Mordecai.

"Yeah i should've known, what do you want Korrigan?"

"I'm just trying out some new magic. It's fun, isn't it? Are you having fun? Because I am not!"

"i'm defiantly not having fun, this tunnel is tiny!"

"Walk through the door then Drache"

"I was going to but i didn't want to be rude"

"Do it, you coward"

"Well, I'm not doing this because you told me to, im doing it because I want to," Drache said as he tentatively pushed open the door.

Inside was a large room. The walls were lined with copper pipes, all of which seemed to feed into one central pipe that led to a large, ornate coffin atop a raised platform in the centre of the room. Through the coffin's glass front, Marcel was visible. He was wearing nothing but a loincloth, exposing a body covered from head to toe in deep scars. He stood unconscious in the coffin with his head lolled to the side like he had been frozen in the final moments of his life. All the pipes feeding into the coffin seemed to be carrying blood that one could guess to be what was sustaining him.

Drache looked at the coffin as he stretched his back and took a deep breath; however, when he tried to breathe, he choked. Drache suddenly couldn't draw in a deep breath; it was just enough to survive, but only a tiny amount. Drache quickly returned to the party and told them about his difficulty breathing in the room.

Viktor decided to walk in, stating proudly that he did not need air to live. However, as he entered the room, he felt the same, but a little less intense. It felt as if someone was strangling him. When Viktor tried to speak, nothing came out of his mouth. From the door, Mordecai tried to use telepathy to talk to Marcel. However, as soon as the connection started, Mordecai was suddenly and violently pulled into the room until they were no more than a meter away from the coffin. The telepathic connection returned nothing but a blood-curdling scream before Mordecai fell unconscious and was thrown back to the party. Viktor instinctively grabbed Mordecai and began to heal them.

Outside the room, Korrigan taunted Drache, trying to get him to go inside. When Drache said he wasn't sure it would go well, Korrigan didn't care and kept pushing the dragonborn to go inside.

"You tell him, don't you care about me?"

"I do care about you, but you're a group of powerful fighters, insure you'll be fine!"

"but i cant breath in there!"

"Viktor can bring you back no go inside!"

Seeing that the Drache did not want to go inside, Korrigan cast Bestow Curse on him and decided that if Drache did not go inside, then he would continue to soil himself uncontrollably, causing the room to smell foul. Halfbie quickly cast prestidigitation to cover up the smell and clean Drache.

Drache rushed into the room to stop the curse and fought through the choking sensation to tell Marcel the news. "Hey Marcel, I need to tell you something... I need to tell you that Vaelrith is back"

A sudden silence fell over the room before the pipes began to shake and shudder. Drache stepped forward and repeated his message. The pipes responded by shaking even more until some sections began to shake themselves apart and fall to the floor. The blood within the pipes instantly vaporised into red steam that slowly began leaking out. Suddenly, one by one, all of the pipes burst, letting out an enormous cloud of red steam as Marcel's eyes flicked open.

Halfbie gave a friendly wave before suddenly being thrown across the room and hitting the wall. The glass in front of the coffin shattered as Marcel stepped out of it with a confused expression on his face. Covered in rubble, Halfbie remarked, "Nice to see you again."

"You were there..." he said, as if he was slightly out of breath. "You took the crystal"

Mordecai pointed to Viktor, "correction, he took the crystal"

In a second, Marcel appeared in front of Viktor before grabbing his arm and examining the crystal embedded in Viktor's body. "Would it be help to know he used the crystal to kill Aeloria?" remarked Halfbie

"We helped" added Mordecai

"Yes, it was one of our party who did it", said Halfbie

"Is that the light I saw?" his question was more of a demand than a question.

"That sounds about right"

Marcel stood up in front of Viktor, cracking his neck as he did so. As he rose to his full height, the party heard every bone in his body crack and reform into an impression of standing up. He then grabbed the remains of Viktor's cloak and wrapped it around himself. His head then whipped to face Drache. "Tell me again what you said earlier"

"Um, Vaelrith is back?"

Marcel's deep black eyes flashed red for a moment as his hand lashed out to Drache, hoisting him into the air by the scruff of his shirt. "Are you lying to me of all people?"

"Yes, yes its true. Look im only here because i was forced to tell you"

Marcel let Drache drop to the floor like unwanted food. "How"

"Err, basically, one of our friends rang Vaelrith's bell and was then used to reincarnate. um it was strange but they're now back i guess"

"Who was it?"

"I don't think were in a position to disclose that." said Mordecai.

Marcel's head snapped independently of his body to Mordecai as he began walking over to the tiefling. As casually as picking up a pen, he grabbed one of Mordecai's horns and snapped it clean off. Mordecai cried out in pain.

"I can tell you who it is", interrupting the situation, "but I don't think you'll like the news.

Marcel's head moved independently again to stare at Halfbie with demanding eyes. "it was someone called Chenris," Halfbie answered.

"Chenris...?" Marcel muttered. "Where is this Chenris right now?"

"What do you do you want to say hi?"

"Sure"

"Then pray." Marcel's anger was palpable. "We did say Aeloria is dead; someone had to take her place."

"You're all fools"

"No, were the Fatebreakers"

Marcel moved unnaturally towards Halfbie; his talon-like black nails traced the outline of their face, threatening to draw red with each movement. "So you killed a god..."

"You could say that", Halfbie replied.

"... and stole a crystal... which one is your strongest?"

"Well, strength is relative", Said Mordecai, still clutching their horn.

"Do you think this is a game?" said Marcel, as he bared his fangs. He suddenly appeared in front of Drache, and before anyone could react, he drove his hand deep into Drache's gut. With a fragile snap of his fingers, 5 contracts appeared in the centre of the room. They had one clause written on them: The fatebreakers will kill Vaelrith. "I suggest you sign," the vampire sneered.

With little other option, the party signed it one by one. Halfbie took the longest to sign it, but after a moment of thought, a smile flickered on his face, and they signed the contract as well.