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Stepping through the door, you find yourself in what appears to be the inn's taproom. It's built on a scale that would shame the feasting halls of many a noble lord or petty princeling. A vaulted ceilings hangs over two stories of balconies and crosswalks and a main floor with round wooden tables and plentiful chairs, in sizes that seem either calculated to accommodate a prodigious range of creatures, or else not calculated at all.
For all it immensity, the room seems almost empty. Roaring fires burn in fireplaces set in a round column in the center of the room, and torches blaze along the main level. The upper floors are dark. Aside from the man behind a wooden bar encircling the central column, the only other employee of the establishment who seems to be present is a barmaid pushing a mop.
A group of seven other travelers... adventurers maybe... seems to have arrived shortly before you did.
It is a motley group, yourself included... and it seems unusually easy for you to include yourself with them. They all seem weirdly familiar, as though you know them from a half-forgotten lifetime or a half-remembered dream. Images come to you as you look at them: a stone keep hewn out of a black-rock crag... a circus tent, with goblins somersaulting and performing feats of magic and strength... a town overrun with the dead...
This isn't the first time such thoughts passed through your head. They've been coming, in bits and pieces, for almost a year now... mostly when you were distracted or at your rest. You shake them away and focus on the here and now.
There's the leonine woman in the red hooded cloak, who moves with a noble bearing and easy grace. The warrior woman with the cheeky smile seems prepared to equip an army with the weapons she carries. Less capable-looking is a tiny, walnut-colored man--or boy, possibly--who doesn't so much wear his armor of shiny plate as he inhabits it, dragging an equally outsized sword behind him like a toy puppy dog on a string. Next to him is a real man of metal, with eyes too haunted to belong to any mere mindless construct. The white-haired fey man with robes the color of storm and sky is the only one who doesn't seem put out by the weather. Except for maybe the great big mountain of a man with rocky skin who seems to be waiting for recognition of his presence, or possibly applause... he must have been holding that pose for a while, since he must have arrived a bit before you did. A relatively young, long-haired man carrying a druid staff seems slightly uncomfortable with the indoor environs of the tavern. Likewise, a plant-like figure with a bow slung across his back seems slightly out of place.
And then there's the one who just came in... no, you're by the door, so she must have been here before. She seems somewhat distracted counting her own limbs, though she has two of all the usual suspects, from what you can see.
They're all a shade of blue, but in this crowd, that's not exactly a stand-out.
"Oh, sorry!" she says, seeming to just notice everybody else for the first time. She does a double-take around the room, as if she just noticed that, too, then goes back to checking herself over. "I'll be with you all in a moment... I just... coming back so soon, it's not usually done, and so some of the bits get a little tricky. But living's a hard habit to break."
"Would someone be a dear and close that door?" the barmaid in layered skirts of faded red and green says, but the wind blows it shut with a bang before you can respond. The barmaid is looking sideways at the blue woman, as if to say she's not entirely pleased with her patronage. "Ladies, gentlemen... we're just opening up for business. If you'd like to sit down, I'm sure the storm will be breaking momentar..."
Something breaks in that moment. There is a terrific crack and a blinding flash of green light. As it fades, you see a great big shape falling out of thin air. A big blue beast like nothing you've ever seen lands on top of a chair, splintering it. Its two legs, which are vaguely like those of a chicken or a hunting drake, go out from underneath it and its scaly belly makes a sick thunk against the floor. A pale green light is emanating from its mouth, which consists of three mandibles that open and close like a crasping claw.
"There, that's better... oh, well," the blue woman says, noticing what everybody else is staring at. "That's very interesting. Fascinating creature. Beautiful, just beautiful. The perfect planar predator... a dimensional marauder, they're usually called."
"What's it doing in my tavern?" the barmaid says. "For that matter, what are you doing here?"
"Answering questions, looks like," the blue woman says. "Well, they're usually drawn to planar anomalies. Well, they are planar anomalies. See, the marauder's body is never quite in one plane or another. It can pull itself more into one or another when it needs to, play all sorts of nasty tricks with time and space... it needs a clear line of sight to do a point-to-point leap within the same plane, so it must've shunted in from somewhere else entirely."
The creature has been rising somewhat unsteadily as the blue woman talks. It looks around the room, its eyes not seeming to focus. It opens its peculiar mouth, letting you see spiky, tooth-like protrusions that line the insides of its triangular maw. There's something green and glowing, like a small, irregular stone, at the back of its mouth.
"The light's new to me, don't know what that's about," the blue woman says. The dimensional marauder tips its head back, closes its mouth, and swallows spasmodically. It then focuses its eyes on the door... on the other side of you from it... and begins to stomp the ground with one clawed foot. "Do know what that's about. I suggest everybody..."
Before she can finish, the thing charges, but as it does, its body seems to shimmer and fade partly from view. You and the others in its path reflexively try to twist out of the way anyway, but it doesn't matter... like a ghost, the creature runs right through you.
It hits the door at full speed, snapping the wooden latch clean off and running out into what seems to be a bright, sunlit day.
DM's Note: Forgive me for putting thoughts and some minor actions into your character's head. Feel free to make the necessary mental adjustments to put them more in character. If anybody has an objection to the one-line description of their character, I can tweak them.
The main point of this little snippet is so that everyone can be already in the scene when we start on Thursday, where we're going to be picking up right where this ends. When I post things like this for the campaign there will usually be an opportunity to respond in-character/roleplay through comments if you wish. When there isn't (for instance, this one), I'll use the tag "cut scene". This is to signify that the scene is not interactive, not that the game (i.e., me) is going to take control of your character away from you... Gallifreya's part in the drama was discussed with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gamingdragon beforehand.
For all it immensity, the room seems almost empty. Roaring fires burn in fireplaces set in a round column in the center of the room, and torches blaze along the main level. The upper floors are dark. Aside from the man behind a wooden bar encircling the central column, the only other employee of the establishment who seems to be present is a barmaid pushing a mop.
A group of seven other travelers... adventurers maybe... seems to have arrived shortly before you did.
It is a motley group, yourself included... and it seems unusually easy for you to include yourself with them. They all seem weirdly familiar, as though you know them from a half-forgotten lifetime or a half-remembered dream. Images come to you as you look at them: a stone keep hewn out of a black-rock crag... a circus tent, with goblins somersaulting and performing feats of magic and strength... a town overrun with the dead...
This isn't the first time such thoughts passed through your head. They've been coming, in bits and pieces, for almost a year now... mostly when you were distracted or at your rest. You shake them away and focus on the here and now.
There's the leonine woman in the red hooded cloak, who moves with a noble bearing and easy grace. The warrior woman with the cheeky smile seems prepared to equip an army with the weapons she carries. Less capable-looking is a tiny, walnut-colored man--or boy, possibly--who doesn't so much wear his armor of shiny plate as he inhabits it, dragging an equally outsized sword behind him like a toy puppy dog on a string. Next to him is a real man of metal, with eyes too haunted to belong to any mere mindless construct. The white-haired fey man with robes the color of storm and sky is the only one who doesn't seem put out by the weather. Except for maybe the great big mountain of a man with rocky skin who seems to be waiting for recognition of his presence, or possibly applause... he must have been holding that pose for a while, since he must have arrived a bit before you did. A relatively young, long-haired man carrying a druid staff seems slightly uncomfortable with the indoor environs of the tavern. Likewise, a plant-like figure with a bow slung across his back seems slightly out of place.
And then there's the one who just came in... no, you're by the door, so she must have been here before. She seems somewhat distracted counting her own limbs, though she has two of all the usual suspects, from what you can see.
They're all a shade of blue, but in this crowd, that's not exactly a stand-out.
"Oh, sorry!" she says, seeming to just notice everybody else for the first time. She does a double-take around the room, as if she just noticed that, too, then goes back to checking herself over. "I'll be with you all in a moment... I just... coming back so soon, it's not usually done, and so some of the bits get a little tricky. But living's a hard habit to break."
"Would someone be a dear and close that door?" the barmaid in layered skirts of faded red and green says, but the wind blows it shut with a bang before you can respond. The barmaid is looking sideways at the blue woman, as if to say she's not entirely pleased with her patronage. "Ladies, gentlemen... we're just opening up for business. If you'd like to sit down, I'm sure the storm will be breaking momentar..."
Something breaks in that moment. There is a terrific crack and a blinding flash of green light. As it fades, you see a great big shape falling out of thin air. A big blue beast like nothing you've ever seen lands on top of a chair, splintering it. Its two legs, which are vaguely like those of a chicken or a hunting drake, go out from underneath it and its scaly belly makes a sick thunk against the floor. A pale green light is emanating from its mouth, which consists of three mandibles that open and close like a crasping claw.
"There, that's better... oh, well," the blue woman says, noticing what everybody else is staring at. "That's very interesting. Fascinating creature. Beautiful, just beautiful. The perfect planar predator... a dimensional marauder, they're usually called."
"What's it doing in my tavern?" the barmaid says. "For that matter, what are you doing here?"
"Answering questions, looks like," the blue woman says. "Well, they're usually drawn to planar anomalies. Well, they are planar anomalies. See, the marauder's body is never quite in one plane or another. It can pull itself more into one or another when it needs to, play all sorts of nasty tricks with time and space... it needs a clear line of sight to do a point-to-point leap within the same plane, so it must've shunted in from somewhere else entirely."
The creature has been rising somewhat unsteadily as the blue woman talks. It looks around the room, its eyes not seeming to focus. It opens its peculiar mouth, letting you see spiky, tooth-like protrusions that line the insides of its triangular maw. There's something green and glowing, like a small, irregular stone, at the back of its mouth.
"The light's new to me, don't know what that's about," the blue woman says. The dimensional marauder tips its head back, closes its mouth, and swallows spasmodically. It then focuses its eyes on the door... on the other side of you from it... and begins to stomp the ground with one clawed foot. "Do know what that's about. I suggest everybody..."
Before she can finish, the thing charges, but as it does, its body seems to shimmer and fade partly from view. You and the others in its path reflexively try to twist out of the way anyway, but it doesn't matter... like a ghost, the creature runs right through you.
It hits the door at full speed, snapping the wooden latch clean off and running out into what seems to be a bright, sunlit day.
DM's Note: Forgive me for putting thoughts and some minor actions into your character's head. Feel free to make the necessary mental adjustments to put them more in character. If anybody has an objection to the one-line description of their character, I can tweak them.
The main point of this little snippet is so that everyone can be already in the scene when we start on Thursday, where we're going to be picking up right where this ends. When I post things like this for the campaign there will usually be an opportunity to respond in-character/roleplay through comments if you wish. When there isn't (for instance, this one), I'll use the tag "cut scene". This is to signify that the scene is not interactive, not that the game (i.e., me) is going to take control of your character away from you... Gallifreya's part in the drama was discussed with
gamingdragon beforehand.
