The Titles in Athkul’s Library

Whenever a library is introduced into the game, someone always needs to know what titles are in the collection. Those of you with copies of The Dungeon Alphabet know that I've already taken a stab at addressing this referee's conundrum, yet I still managed to put myself in a position where I needed more campaign-specific titles. One of these campaigns, I'll finally learn my lesson...

Below is the complete listing of all 143 titles contained in the crates which were discovered in the sublevel of the Temple of the Goat. Most concern chemistry, astronomy, sorcerous theory, biology, botany, metallurgy, and other topic of interest for a sorcerer/self-made god-king. The total collection weights 1,000 lbs.

1. Of Destiny & Moon
2. The Edition of Eliadus
3. The Able Planet
4. The Pamphlet of Severra
5. Of Crown & Thorn
6. The Manifest Connection
7. Unclean Beginner
8. The Almanac of Larerawen
9. The Dictionary on the Spectre
10. The Vociferous Hell
11. The Primer of Yaregan
12. The Crossing and the Weeping
13. The Tale of Cadigoweth
14. The Toad-Eater's Coarse Tomato
15. The Atlas on the Sickle
16. The Ledger of Cheann
17. The Blasphemous Notion
18. The Repairman's Viscous Folio
19. Unstable Monarch
20. The Prophecy and the Dissertation
21. The Folio of Abelaven
22. The Comber's Carnal Sanctuary
23. The Gourmet's Periodical
24. The Encyclopedia of Kaoanidd
25. Of Sage & Decade
26. Imaginos: The Obsidian Mirror and the Chamber of Jade
27. The Grave and the Report
28. The Manuscript on Sin
29. Of Camel & Algebra
30. The Calm or the Rule
31. The Festering Jailor's Ghost
32. The Guidebook of Boajan
33. The Acater's Gazetteer
34. The Best People
35. The Ironworker's Tablet
36. The Bladed Wight
37. The Periodical of Siraviel
38. The Prince's Abysmal Battlefield
39. The Hopeless Grave
40. The Correspondence on the Lake
41. Bombarded Prince
42. The Translations of Zauri
43. The Advantaged Academy
44. Accentuated Boneman
45. The Tract of Etela
46. Annals of the Ape
47. Of Serving & Entrance
48. The Dissertation of Umassa
49. The Lineage of Eastern Dukes
50. Of Sorcerer & Collection
51. The Crime and the Claw
52. The Anxious Discrimination
53. The Voracious Aunt
54. The Town Crier's Annals
55. The Guide of Uniladith
56. Blackened Courier
57. The Original Student
58. The Bedeviled Infanticide
59. The Joker's Folio
60. Versed Poet
61. The Azotic Injury
62. The Monarch's Primer
63. The Honest Traveler's Dirt
64. Of Occurrence & Heaven
65. Intractable Footpad
66. The Legend of Rerif
67. The Handbook of Qani
68. The Star or the Legend
69. The Important Chaos Beast
70. Of Pump & Grapevine
71. The Apotheosis of Saints
72. The Encyclopedia on the Nothingness
73. The Longshoreman's Iron Golem and the Frost Worm
74. The Midnight Blue Clock
75. Of Strategy & Increase
76. The Custodian's Chemistry and the Creature
77. The Gravedigger's Bony Journal
78. The Labyrinth or the Eagle
79. The Novel of Rhoth
80. Of Sky & Codex
81. Besotted Gladiator
82. The Review of the Year (297)
83. Clever Librarian
84. The Pamphlet on the Shrieker
85. The Fool's Manuscript
86. The Translations of Fyth
87. The Crystal or the Hag Covey
88. The Cheese and the Crocodile
89. Unremitting Witch
90. The Seven Sleepers
91. The Edition of Gomannon
92. The Apprentice's Body and the Romance
93. The Grimoire of Helian
94. The Loser's Chicken and the Ogre
95. The Tired Ice
96. The Brochure on the Life
97. The Sapper's Review
98. The Anthology on the Heavens
99. Of Dress & Golem
100. The Tablet on the Jungle
101. The Grig and the Machinery
102. The Purser's Translations
103. Zealous Empress
104. The Scroll of Ethaya
105. The Lamentable Twin
106. Of Vermin & Celebration
107. Sensible Refugee
108. The Textbook of Diech
109. The Thegn's Tract
110. Aflame Villain
111. The Portfolio of Johadus
112. The Mustache or the Fist
113. The Book on Triviality
114. The Purple Country
115. Of Thing & Tome
116. …And We Fear the Worst
117. The Legend of Jererassi
118. The Glossary of Curses
119. The Compendium of Cerrac
120. The Volume on Death
121. Of Philosophy & Coal
122. Vested Brazier
123. The Dictionary of Jaliwyr
124. I Look to the Stars and Laugh
125. Of Monograph & Yarn
126. The Manuscript of Cen
127. The Lugubrious Symphony
128. The Booklet of Ethoi
129. Of Feeling & Drugs
130. Silken Alchemist
131. The Periodical on the Stirge
132. The Glossary of Nuthiel
133. The Favor and the Talisman
134. The Circular of Dreric
135. The Mistress of the Hounds's Vermiform Dissertation
136. The Journal of Unerip
137. The Drugs and the Month
138. The Desperate Lizardfolk
139. The Libretto of Yoremma
140. The Album of Haykith
141. Dry Sorcerer
142. The Opus on the Fraction
143. Of Grimoire & Accolade

The Ineffable Jest

There are mysteries at work in the world besides the gods and the beings from the cold hell of space. Some of these forces are easily witnessed, such as that which causes a hurled stone to plummet to the ground. Others are fickle powers that possess incomprehensible motives and unknown origins. Of these uncanny powers, the Ineffable Jest is the one most often cited when unexpected events—both for weal and woe—take place.

The Ineffable Jest rears its head when least expected and it can win battles and destroy empires on a whim. Combining elements of the Force, the Tao, and Murphy’s Law into one unfathomable force of nature, the Ineffable Jest is never worshiped, but often warded against and occasionally invoked by those in dire circumstances.

There are tales which connect the Ineffable Jest with a figure known only as the Laughing Fool. Debates rage amongst the wine-sodden sages of the Citadel of Mysteries as to whether the Laughing Fool is an avatar of the Ineffable Jest, one which has taken human form, or if it is a mortal servant chosen by that power as its temporary champion. A third school of thought argues that a connection exists between the Laughing Fool and the Splintered Court, that mysterious cabal of powers which contains the enigmatic figures of the King in Yellow, the Queen in Red, and the Black Jack, but any such relationship would be tenuous at best.

Water Spider

No. Enc.: 1d4 (1d4)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 120’ (40’)
Armor Class: 8
Hit Dice: 1+1
Attacks: 1 (bite)
Damage: 1 + poison
Save: F1
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: None
XP: 27

This creature is not an aquatic arachnid, but rather a poodle-sized spider composed of water. Sages argue as to the origin of these creatures with some maintaining they are minor elementals and others claiming them to be the restless spirits of spiders who perished by water. In either case, they are always found in or near water and they can lurk in narrow pipes and tiny drains in order to ambush their victims. They do not spin webs.

Water spiders are venomous and their toxin, although weak (+2 to save vs. poison), is lethal. Their liquid state makes them resistant to harm and they suffer half damage from non-magical piercing or slashing weapons. Bludgeoning, silver, and magical weapons all do normal damage. Water spiders are also partially immune to fire spells (taking half-damage from these effects with a successful save negating all damage) and are merely slowed by cold-based magic.

The water spider originally appeared on The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope, but I'm archiving all my campaign creations here for ease of reference. It made its first appearance in the Watchfires & Thrones campaign.

Watchfires & Thrones Session #8

With the undead…um, dead…and the coin and gleaming shield policed up, the adventurers observed that this former refectory contained two exits aside from the secret door by which they entered. As tempting as the valves were, it was decided that a return to Rhuun was warranted to acquire suitable transport to retrieve the valuable library of Athkul they had uncovered. After stopping back to grab what texts they could and conduct a partial cataloguing of their titles, they once again secured the door to the library and departed the Temple of the Goat.

Several hours into the return trip, the party rounded a bend in the dry riverbed that leads to the temple only to run directly into a small hunting party of formidable looking humanoids. Dressed in hides and bearing crude weapons, these large-browed and fanged manlike beasts were recognized as “Low Men,” a decayed branch of humanity that had undergone strange alterations in some distant epoch. Both the adventurers and the Low Men were surprised and several seconds elapsed as both groups stared wide-eyed at one another. Then, with empty hands extended and his voice pitched in friendly tones, Habdazar stepped forward to greet them.

One of the Low Men recognized his words and replied in a gruff pidgin dialect. He was Ch’uk, leader of the hunting band. They were scouring the arid hills in search of bear and inquired if the party had seen any. After some discourse, it was learned that Ch’uk and his tribe were laired in an old tower that lay to the northeast. They had recently arrived in the area and knew little of the surrounding vicinity other than “blood birds” made their home in the hills and that the party should be careful of these creatures. When asked for clarification, he raised his hand above his head to indicate a 7’ or more stance and grunted “big bird, big beak.”

Showing remarkable restraint, the party decided to break bread with the Low Men and the two groups sat down to share a repast of trail rations and raw varmint—you can guess who offered which. A new friendship was kindled that night under the desert stars and I suspect the two groups may have dealings again, even to the point of trade. After all, the Low Men are always on the lookout for “bear…and women!”

After a brief rest, the two groups went their separate ways. Sometime afterwards, the party heard the clattered of a dislodged rock in the wild hills to their left. This was followed by the sound of a low cooing, but nothing was sighted. Readying their weapons, the party continued on cautiously but, other than the cooing repeating once more and another sound of crunching gravel, they sighted nothing. Their mules and animals finally relaxed, indicating that whatever was out there has decided to let them be. They arrived back in Rhuun in the early morning on the following day.

Back in town, the party split up to attend to multiple tasks. Fanta and Domdull set off to the temple of Mog to see if the Spider Mother could reverse the fighter’s newly grown eyes and boil clogged throat, while Mars Markus went with them to undergo initiation into his temple’s deeper mysteries. Two hundred gold jitais was enough to convince the spider priests to remove Domdull’s curses and Mars found himself spending the next day under the tutelage of Mog’s earthly servants. At the end of his instruction, he was gifted with a set of spider silk vestments, a silver holy symbol that helps guard against arachnid venom, and a small vial of liquid that would grant him the ability to scale walls as if he were a spider.

The rest of the party decided that after their difficulty in obtaining rooms during the Festival of Erion, they should look into renting a small building to serve as their crash pad/recruiting office. They spread out throughout the town in search of a suitable structure that fit into their price range. Eventually, Habdazar found a former stable for the cheap price of 150 gold jitais a month.

While Bannath and Syl were out looking for real estate, they turned down a side street to look for a possible candidate that they had heard about. As they strode down that dusty alley, both of them suddenly felt their limbs lock up and were unable to move. From out of the shadows came three robed men who promptly placed bags over the duo’s heads and bound them tight. The two were then lifted up and carried off to an unknown destination. As they traveled, the two heard the men carry them into a building, converse with someone in there, then be brought down a steep flight of stairs and into a cool, echoing tunnel. After an indeterminate time, a stone portal was heard opening and the duo were lead through it. There, they were separated, with Syl being imprisoned in a bare cell and Bannath brought into a low domed chamber.

In that chamber stood a stone idol of Yg, done in the Dissian style. Two masked men in the traditional garb of an Overpriest and an underpriest of Yg stood before the statue, while the three men who captured Bannath and his companion/bodyguard waited nearby, dressed in the robes of the Scaled Brotherhood. As the enchantment wore off and Bannath could move again, the masked Overpriest informed the novice cleric that the Scaled Brotherhood had been watching him since his arrival in Rhuun and they had judged him at last to be worthy of learning the first circle of Yg’s secrets—provided he survived the trial. Bannath agreed to undergo the test and, after stripping him bare, he was lowered into a covered pit from which the heavy odor of snake arose.

With the pit closed above him, Bannath took a meditative position and waited. He soon heard the sound of a stone panel being moved and something HEAVY dropping into the room. The sandy floor betrayed a large scaled form sliding across it and he felt the tubular body of a serpent the size of a palm tree brush by him. This snake coiled itself around Bannath’s waiting body, but the cleric remained motionless—even when the serpent took the cleric’s head into its own large and fanged maw. After what seemed an eternity, the serpent finally withdrew and left the newly initiated priest of Yg unharmed. Another three days of instruction would follow, but Bannath would leave the hidden temple with a silver holy symbol that obscured any falsehoods he told from magical detection and a scroll that would neutralize any poison.

As all this was occurring, the party’s homebound sorcerer, Anwar, finally deciphered the Brazen Tablets of the Viscous Mother, completing the task that he and Malbane had started some seven days previously. Amongst the lore contained on those brass sheets were four spells which had been lost from common knowledge: an incantation that lulled slimes and oozes into temporary dormancy; a conjured ball of acidic slime that could be hurled at opponents; an abjuration that protected one against the corrosive attacks of oozes, slimes, and other amorphous creatures; and a summoning that cloaked the caster in a protective layer of slime which could prevent even potent attacks like petrification and energy drain from affecting him. And as if this acquired lore was not enough, the scribe that the sorcerer had hired to decode the spellbook of poor deceased Presto finally managed to decipher a spell of shielding and invisibility from that text.

With training now completed, a new home arranged, and additional spells added to the sorcerers’ spellbooks, the party turned the attentions back to the Temple of the Goat. Arrangements were made to purchase four more mules and a pair of muleskinners to help handle them. The novice sorcerer Tigir also suggested that they bring along an acquaintance of his, the fighting man, Baragkus. With these last additions, the party, now comprised of four sorcerers, five fighting men, two clerics, an Old Blood, a guard dog, a Mhyrakian watch lizard, a domesticated rat, six mules, and two hesitant pack animal handlers, left Rhuun bound for the Temple.

The journey back to that pile was uneventful with the party’s large size discouraging even the dimmest of creatures from confronting them. Upon reaching the temple, they found that another of the legendary toadhemoths had crawled up from the depths of the foul lake which surrounds the complex to dine on several of the fanged toads that lurked there. This bizarre creature took its meal directly before the entrance to the stepped pyramid’s courtyard and had to be defeated to regain entrance. A barrage of arrows again brought the creature low before it could close the distance to use its wriggling tongue and sucker-laden tentacles on the party.


Breeching the temple once again, the adventurers left a small party of mules, the muleskinners, and some of the fighters and sorcerers in the courtyard while the rest descended into the temple’s sublevel to start bringing out the tomes of Athkul’s collection. As they reentered the building, the last vestiges of the temple’s stirge population took flight to feast on the adventurers’ rich blood. As spells were hurled, missiles fired, and spears and swords swung, Baragkus took a minor injury, but the creatures were finally defeated. In the wake of the battle, the party released that they had never given the foyer of the temple a thorough going-over and, finally doing so, uncovered a leaded glass bottle encrusted with dried guano and several dozen silver and copper coins amidst the accumulated filth.

The party, now a little richer, headed back towards the circular chamber that contained the books they sought to recover. However, it was decided at the last minute to finish their exploration of the temple before bringing out the cache of books, as the party wanted to make sure that any remaining threat had been dealt with. Heading towards the refectory from which they had ended their last sojourn into the temple, they again encountered skeletons in the hallway of statues. This time, once they had defeated the bony guardians, they took the silvery-green lozenges which adorned the foreheads of the defeated skeletons’ skulls. Gripping their weapons tightly, they then headed towards the hallway’s far door…

The Hall of Records

Being a compleat repository of the certificates of valor awarded to adventurers throughout the lands.

Baragkus

Lawful Level 3 Fighter
Played by: Jud

STR: 15 (+1 to hit, damage, open doors)
DEX: 13 (+1 missile, -1 AC, +1 initiative)
CON: 14 (+1 hp)
INT: 9
WIS: 9
CHA: 8 (+ to reaction, 3 retainers, 6 loyalty)

Hit Points: 16
Armor Class: 3 (4)

Special Traits/Abilities: Owed a Favor

Weapons: Two-handed sword, "bugbow", light crossbow
Armor: Banded mail

Magic Items: helm of comprehend languages & read magic mace "Tergel"
Objects of questionable value: Gold & silver pectoral (1,100 gp value), hobgoblin helmet

Experience: 14,343 (+5%)
Last Update: 4/09/11

Money

"And just so we have an honest breakdown of the money coming in here tonight, the remaining 40% will be divided up amongst the band."

The jingle of coin, that music generated by crudely stamped disks bearing the images of dead potentates, is what makes the adventurer risk life and limb in foreboding tombs and nasty holes in the ground. These important parts of the life of the PC deserve better names than just "copper," "silver, " or "gold pieces." What follows are the names of the coins most commonly found in and around Rhuun, as well as their value.

Platinum krons (1=10 gp)
Gold jitais (1=1 gp)
Electrum shekels (2=1 gp)
Silver smerduks (10=1 gp)
Copper groats (100=1 gp)

Other coins of note include the Bamen obolus (a gold coin) and the Disian deben (copper coins) and kit (silver coin).