Black City Game 11 - Kneel Before Odin

I hate having two game recaps in one week - as other bloggers can attest, they tend to be the least read, and understandably so, unless you write like Hemingway or something.  I put them out here mainly to keep a campaign log for the players, although from time to time they spur some useful discussions on choices I made, mistakes, and lessons learned.  Since I already spent much time regaling the awesome duel from last game (Game 10), this one is bare bones, just to get it done before tonight's game and provide a recap.  I'm behind on game reports because I lost that week of power and internet due to the storm.

Agnar negotiated with the Byzantine visitors to Thule, learning that the detachment commander, Valens Lascarius, served Himerius the High Hermite and Thaumaturge of Constantinople, a wizard of some repute.  At Himerius' request, Valens and company hired a longship to guide his group and some Varangian guardsmen to distant Thule.  The players secured the services of a magic user and a trio of Russian elves, members of Valens' detachment, who needed guides into the city.  The party was desperately in need of magic muscle and this worked as a way to introduce some new and exotic PC's.

Treasure was disposed of, taxes were paid, and time was spent negotiating with Shafat's servant, Milkyaton, to buy a pair of rare and enchanted blades from far off Carhedon.  Shafat is the eccentric wizard outside of Trade Town who lives in an onion-domed tower in a nearby ravine; Milkyaton frequently points out how the master's genie servant whisks him away each night to the desert lands of North Africa from where he returns the next day laden with wonders from those distant bazaars.  When the group set out again days later, they had a scimitar made in remote India by the Moghul's wisest, featuring a cobra skin handle and a blade imbued with basilisk venom; the other weapon was a Viking style broadsword engraved with the name of the legendary smith, Ingomer, and forged of the crucible steel.

The players were spoiled for choice on where to go and what to do, but ultimately decided to investigate a lonely spire in the south part of the city.  This basalt tower was sealed by guardians, but since they had enough orange passkeys for all, they slipped past the watchers without incident and explored the interior of the tower; in my notes, it's called The Tower of Astronomy.

Within the tower, they fought an otherworldly spirit monster that looked like a man in faded Renaissance finery; good thing they had a few enchanted weapons, this one could have been ugly.  They messed with arcane machinery and summoned an eldritch horror from beyond space and time, the Opener of the Way; fleeing the iridescent globular tentacles of the Opener , the party retreated higher into the tower, escaping through a magic portal to find themselves in Asgard, far above the world and facing the starry void, standing before a 7' manifestation of Odin himself.

At least, that's how the figure identified itself.  Let's see how it goes tonight.

DM's note:  The party was "this close" to stepping through a dimensional portal to Carcosa from within the tower; at times I think the only way this campaign could get any cooler, would be a side trip to Carcosa and return with laser guns and blasphemous rituals.

:sigh:  Another time.

*If you're going to have an Odin show up in a gonzo D&D game, of course it should look like Kirby's rendition from Marvel comics - pictured.