Session 56 - Treasure & Magic Items

Here is a summary of treasure obtained in the last three sessions:

IDENTIFYING ITEMS [1400 sp]:

2 Javelins of Lightning [400 sp]
Single-use item. Range of 90'. On a strike, becomes the end of a 5' wide, 30' long lightning bolt. Deals 1d6 damage to the target. The target and any creatures in the bolt's 30' path take 20 lightning damage, save vs. spell for half.

- The Blank Mask [400 sp]
Mutes the emotions, giving the wearer +4 to saves vs. fear, charm, suggestion, confusion, emotion, etc. It also changes alignment to Lawful Neutral and reduces CHA to 9. Daqqa-Jin refuses to take it off.

- The Bleeding Cross [0 sp]
Zvezdana takes one look at this thing and explains that it is a unique and strange relic of the ancient world. Her sagely knowledge won't help. You will have to find out what it does through further research, other magical spells or experimentation.

- Queen's Lorgnettes [400 sp]
These shaded, gold-rimmed spectacles are held with a long handle instead of sitting over the ears & nose like most eyeglasses. In normal light they are useless and cannot be seen through. Against bright lights (spells, staring at the sun, etc) they can protect the wearer’s eyes from damage, granting +2 to saves and reducing effect lengths by half while worn – of course this will occupy one of the users’s hands for the duration.

- Potion of Extra-Healing [100 sp]
A bubbling purple-black syrup, smells like bananas and cinnamon. Heals 3d6+3 hp.

- Potion of Levitation [100 sp]
A thin, cadaverous-yellow fluid with threads of bubbles rising from the bottom. Smells like buttered rum and hashish. Levitate as the spell, 1d6+6 turns.

[I have taken the liberty of charging player characters shares of identifying costs based on the expedition where the magic items were obtained. As a result, the characters who were only at the Sage's Temple paid almost nothing (identifying one potion). This seems fair since they recovered much less treasure. Unless you guys ask me to do otherwise, this will be my policy with treasure breakdowns going forward, it seems fair and speeds things along.]

BOOKS:

Plain brown book, old and weathered, with a red cross on the cover. No title

Black book with nine-sided geometric figure embossed in gold on the cover. (magical) 

Book - "The Last Opus" 

Book - "Primacy" 

Book embossed with images of cavorting women & satyrs.  "Beyond Good & Evil" (magical)

Book covered in dust, bound in heavy rusted black metal plates. "On Coming Forth By Night"

NET WEALTH GAINED:

Daqqa-Jin, Robert the Swift - 3660 sp

Xenos, Getorix, Uriah - 4233.9 sp

Young Joe Spruce - 2002.3 sp

Cassia, Salzige, Finrod, Owen - 574.2 sp

EXPERIENCE TOTALS:

DOWNTIME CONCERNS:

- Xénos is capped and will need to train before he can gain more experience points. Level 6 awaits buddy!

- Owen the Vitalizer requires 7 days bed rest before he can go adventuring again.

Fear Points:

Recall that for every 20 days of uninterrupted rest with no activity, a character recovers 1 fear point.

- Robert the Swift has fought too many undead, and has slipped into a catatonic state! Until he recovers some fear points, there is a 50% chance he is simply uninterested in anything happening around him.  [14/14]

- Xénos is teetering on the edge, 1 fear point away from madness! [10/11]

- Young Joe Spruce is looking haggard after the last few encounters. [12/14]

- Finrod is coming close to the edge of his limited mental fortitude. [7/9]

- Daqqa-Jin is tough, but has been through quite a lot recently. [10/14]

- The rest of the party is doing well:
Owen [2/16]
Salzige [3/12]
Getorix [4/16]
Cassia [3/9]
And of course Uriah is immune.

WE'RE BACK!

Welcome back to the game boys, thank you all for your patience. 

We are about to begin the YEAR FIVE (AKA Actually Year Four). 

Please read on for a recap, some updates and important changes!

*** CURRENT STATE OF PLAY ***

[This doesn't cover everything that's going on, only the most recent 'action items' of the last few sessions.]

Group 1 - Current Date: Thistleburn 12

Currently: Robert the Swift, Daqqa-Jin, Gorr, Xenos, Uriah, Young Joe Spruce and Lord Fesgate.

- The group is planning a return to the Night Wolf Inn to clear the gnolls occupying Fort Behringer.

- You have finally rescued Reymund the Pale, master bowyer. Gorr is about to spend a ton of his money to get a legendary item, and the rest of you should take notice. Chris took the initiative to make this happen in his first session, and has worked towards it since. His dedication is about to pay off in a big way!

- Guild Service for Robert the Swift is coming up soon (from Harvestime 1 - Goodgrove 11). You will have to RSVP to James Everbleed about your plans. You have the choice of Room IV or somewhere brand new. I estimate this taking about 3 sessions but could easily go longer. Remember that this counts as yearly guild service for any members who come along, and it's mandatory if Robert wishes to retain guild member status!

- You spoke and I listened! There is lots of adventure to be had in Room I - The Forest of Dreams. The lair of the 3rd demon Varthatov awaits you and LOTS more!

Group 2 - Current Date: Thistleburn 14

Currently: Clif, Finrod, Salzige, Cassia, Black Phalaros, Owen and Gaddock. 

- Clif needs to rest until Thistleburn 19. Many of you will need to train (see below).

- Review the play report for Session 40, then see the latest Downtime Thread in Discord for costs of living. (Who is paying to identify all your items?) I know many people wanted to ask questions or look for clues, so refresh your memories about that if you can. All of this must be declared before play resumes with this group, or you will miss the boat!

- You have found the Oil of Revelations which grants the ability to see hidden streets and paths through the city. This will surely help you in your mission for the necromancer Zalán to find the Shadow Market. You have enough for six people. Who is going to use it?

- You have raided the sorcerer Rogat's home. Where is he? Clues point to a criminal entanglement of some kind, and there is the path down to the Undercity...

- Clif has a mission from his elementalist mentor Unazhon: entering the astral fortress of the legendary Shodredh Dachod! You haven't made any progress in this direction yet, but perhaps upcoming events will provide clues.

- Going forward, you will find lower-level adventures in Viridistan. You can be confident that an adventure will be roughly level-appropriate for the character who hears about it, but may provide paths onward to more difficult things.

Everyone

- If you want to swap members between groups, you'll just have to wait 2 days for Group 2 to catch up. Otherwise we can proceed with the current composition.

- The Night Wolf Inn Midsummer's Day garden party is coming up in less than 2 weeks (Harvestime 2) and is open to Guild members and visitors alike. This will be a valuable chance to join the Guild, connect with NPCs (everyone's favourite elf waifu Rain will be there), make new friends, compete for cash & prizes, or play Evocation. Don't miss it!

- There is now a PLAYER'S CALENDAR page on Discord so you guys can see what day it is and when things are happening so you can plan accordingly.

*** RULES CHANGES ***

We're dropping some 'house rules' I added at the beginning of the campaign that didn't really contribute anything, and bringing the rules more in line with AD&D 1st edition (the way God and Gary intended). 

I hope that our long hiatus makes these changes less jarring!

Complex Alignment

To add some more depth, we are moving up to 9-point alignment! This might result in a few awkward moments but we will smooth them over. Other than a few class restrictions, you will be free to choose any alignment that you feel reflects your existing characters the way you've been playing them. 

Please remember D&D is a game of cooperation. 

I would assume by this time that everyone is familiar with classic D&D alignment but if you aren't, the following may provide guidance, along with the blurbs I've posted in the discord.

If you have any questions please DM me or ask in the discord.

With some exceptions, aligned & intelligent items that your character has been using for a while will be set to a compatible alignment so you don't get robbed.

Training

Characters will now have to train with a higher-level mentor to gain levels. This will cost both time (from 1-4 weeks) and money (based on training time multiplied by level).

When a character gains enough XP to level, they will be capped at that point and cannot gain any more experience until they train. However, they still take the same share of experience from the party if they continue to adventure (this extra XP is wasted). You will have to manage this yourselves.

Clif, Owen the Vitalizer, Gaddock the Inebriated and Cassia are the first to fall under this new rule, since they all leveled last session. They will need to train in order to gain the benefits of their new levels, and before they can gain any further experience. Clif needs to rest first before he can train.

Material Components

Some spells will now have expensive material component costs, to bring them in line with AD&D. We will handwave this in general. As long as a spellcaster has their "component pouch" with them, we can simply scratch the money off the character sheet and assume the components were bought previously, except in certain rare cases. There will be a list of affected spells in the player's document on Google Drive.

Heroic Points

A new bonus for you guys!

A simple and versatile house rule to replace other "survivability bonuses." They will balance out some of the lethality of classic D&D, are simple and flexible.

Heroic points can be used to save your ass in a pinch. The rules are simple:

- spend any number of points for a bonus to a roll before it's made (attacks, saving throws, whatever)

- spend a point to re-roll something once (no reroll chains)

- spells can be modified in some ways (saving throws, damage rolls, possibly others)

- you can hoard a maximum # of heroic points equal to your level, excess points are wasted

- points are NOT gained automatically but are awarded for good play, heroic actions, clever solutions, teamwork, playing your alignment, etc. by the DM

Each character will be granted a full stock of Heroic Points equal to their level to start with. Use them wisely, but don't be afraid to spend them when things get dicey - they're no good if you're dead!

Character Creation

Never let it be said that I am deaf to the entreaties of my dedicated players! 

We will now be rolling ability scores using 4d6, drop the lowest, ARRANGE AS DESIRED.

This means a lot of specialty classes with high requirements will be much easier to play. Enjoy rangers, illusionists, paladins and other such cool stuff! There will be some slight tradeoffs for this though (see below).

Spellcasting & Other House Rules

> Previously, all spellcasters got bonus spells for high attributes. This was a house rule I included to give low level study-for-it casters a bit more power, but it is not by-the-book at all, so it's out the window!

From now on, only CLERICS and DRUIDS will get bonus spells for high WIS. 

This means all Magic-Users, Necromancers, Elementalists, Incantrixes, & elves (Finrod) will be losing a fair number of spells per day! Sorry, guys. I hope you took advantage of this boon while it was yours, but it's gone now.

However, affected spellcasters may report to their magical mentors during downtime to get some limited-use magic items in order to smooth the transition into this new status quo. I will be correcting your character sheets for you.

> Another bone I'm throwing to spellcasters. Forget about Read Magic. What a waste of a spell!! There is already a secret language of wizards (called Grimscribe). So why cast read magic anyway? Stupid. 

From now on if you find some magic runes, you will just be able to read them if you know the language!

So you can delete Read Magic from your spellbooks, you never have to memorize it. Instead, every spellcaster will automatically know the written language that applies to them:

Magic-User and Elf - Grimscribe
Illusionist - Secret Tongue
Incantrix - Warding Tongue
Elementalist - Oremouth
Necromancer - Eldritch

These languages are closely guarded secrets, and casters will never teach their languages to outsiders. (This makes the Incantrix class really good, because they can read M-U and Illusionist magic). When you create a new character, these will take up a language choice just like any other - but your existing characters get them for free.

Spellcasters can try to use scrolls from other classes, but there will be a significant chance of failure or miscastings!

> Fighters, Barbarians & other melee classes are losing CLEAVE. We never use it anyway!

> Clerics lose "spontaneous cures" - this was another house rule I added that never got much use anyway. Now you'll have to plan ahead!

*** WHAT'S NEXT ***

If you've made it this far, DM me the passphrase "None. None More Black" and include the following information in your message:

- All of your characters' new alignments
- Your Group 2 character's downtime activities, if any (including training, see above)
- Any questions you need answered in order to achieve these requirements, and
- When you can play next
Do all this to get 1000 bonus XP per character.  [OFFER HAS BEEN FULFILLED]

Prepare for our first session to be a bit longer than usual, it will likely involve record-keeping, explaining new rules, refreshing our memories and updating before we get into playing. 

Then get ready for the COMEBACK SPECIAL!!!

Session 38 DOWNTIME & UPDATES

Thistleburn 11, 4433

The Wretched Company celebrated their new expanded membership roster by whooping it up at The Sign of Olive & Lotus, spending well over ten thousand silver pieces! Even the normally impassive eunuch Merinius is impressed - the group is moving into the ranks of the Emerald City's most decadent.

Clif hit the house spending limit last night (4000 silver pieces!), hoovering up liquor, throwing dice, grabbing the girls, sniffing powders and buying rounds for everyone. Somehow in this state he gambled especially well, winning some extra money [already added]

Finrod gambled especially poorly, losing extra money [already deducted]

Black Phalaris was in his cups and said something rude to an officer of the City Guard! This will surely cause problems for the group later...

Xénos drunkenly invited a young man named Vasu Cervantes on the group's next adventure! He seems to be the third son of some noble house and if he comes to any harm there will surely be trouble. [He will come along on the next session that Xénos plays in]

Hirath, the city guard sergeant who Finrod charmed, actually showed up to have a few drinks with the group. He hung out for a while and left at some point, you don't really remember when. He seemed pretty chill for a guard, anyway. 

Machado, Tafari & Kelci have all spent some of their shares on carousing and each gained a level.

Rumours & News:

When the characters go carousing they will automatically get cool rumours based on money spent. It's assumed that they are buying people drinks, chatting folks up, etc. What you hear might change depending on where you carouse (nobleman's chatter at expensive places, the 'word on the street' in dive bars, etc). If you want to just ask around town, the rumours will be the more generic news of the day in the marketplace or whatever.

***

- The undead war is still on, troops are mustering but there have been no decisive moves made yet. What is the Emperor waiting for?

- An elf over in Otherside is bragging that he has explored the legendary lost Temple of Esma and returned alive.

- Clif's mentor, the powerful elementalist Unazhon Conchobar told him a strange tale: long ago a lich-lord named Shodredh Dachod built a flying sanctum on the astral plane. Many treasure-hunters have sought the wondrous wealth inside, but a strange magic protects the place: the more powerful the searcher is, the harder the sanctum is to find! Unazhon himself cannot reach it; perhaps Clif and his friends will be able to?

- The church of Seker may have a task for Uriah in the near future, he should check back soon.

- Overheard at The Sign of Olive & Lotus: a man with a military bearing, perhaps an off-duty Legion officer was speaking about the undead war: "The vasthosts are ready but we haven't marched yet! The Emperor is going to let Shah Kijdawr deal with himself - and when the restless dead have wrecked all of Smyrsis Province, it'll be all the reason necessary to depose him and install someone new in Tell Qa. The two have never seen eye to eye."

- The necromancer Zalán has a request for his two apprentices, Black Phalaros and Salzige: find the mysterious Shadow Market. This enchanted location can only be found at night, by secret alleys & passages unknown in the daytime. The precise route is obscure, but a sorcerer named Rogat has been overheard discussing the matter - perhaps you can ask him?

- Finrod's mentor is an elf woman named Melpomene. She is something of a local figure in Elftown, wearing a simple black & white robe resembling a nun's outfit. She is concerned about rumours of a new criminal gang popping up called the Night-Born. Apparently they are exclusively elven and have access to strange magics that nobody else recognizes.

Downtime Activities:

Finrod read the Libram of Silver Magic, raising himself from 2nd to 3rd level! A precipitous increase for the elf.

Salzige read the Libram of Gainful Conjurations, raising himself from 3rd to 4th level! He also left the mysterious stone idol with Zalán, hoping his mentor could understand more about it.

Daqqa-Jin and Salzige have been overcome by the darkness of the Moonlit Zones! They have developed neurotic lassitude & are plagued by doubts and fears. This causes them to hesitate in battle. They will be surprised 50% of the time and suffer -1 to initiative rolls.

Uriah cannot carouse due to his paladin's code, but he may spend money on philanthropy. He decides to spend 338 silver on a worthy cause and donates to The White Hand, a tradesman's group that focuses on neighbourhood improvements in the Old City and Dockside. It goes well for a first attempt and although he is an unknown adventurer, a few folks take notice of him and are enthused to see a real-life paladin involved in their cause.

Philanthropy:

Donating money to various causes. Anyone can attempt this but it is (right now) the only option for paladins and others similarly restricted by a special code of conduct. It includes donating to various causes around town, attending events, or even giving out meals to the poor by hand. 

Philanthropic donations are capped by the character's social class. Right now everyone's is low (since they are mercenaries and assorted lowlifes). Although temples are powerful social forces, individual priests & paladins (especially those that go on adventures) can still be of low social class.

At your current class we will try out a cap of 1000 sp for doing philanthropy between adventures. After engaging in this activity and spending silver, make a save vs. spells and we'll see if anything special happens - there may be bad or good events, just like with carousing!

Cost of Living:

Prices have gone up with the undead army spreading from the Starrcrag Mountains. Suppliers of all kinds are finding lucrative deals with the troops so getting good stuff in town is becoming a bit difficult. Standard cost of living is up, which is reflected in the totals below.

I will remind you of these next session but here they are for now.

Experience Totals:

After carousing and using magic books, the party's experience totals are here:

Session 9 Downtime - Viridistan

Suba-Jin

Reports to the great Battle-Dome of Hextor on the Street of the Gods to make his devotions. The dark edifice looms over nearby buildings. It is surrounded by statues of warriors and adorned with stained-glass windows, friezes and murals featuring scenes of historic battles against goblins, elves, monsters and just about everyone else. The clanging of weapons, shouts of battle and cracking of whips ring out at all hours. He passes by Hextor's red-robed priests & soldiers, naked slaves, and the familiar if unnerving skeletal temple guardians to the sanctum of his superior Votgauum, a severe & scarred Viridian.

The clergy finds the mournful, ethereal scent from the Forest of Dreams a bit sensitive, but are pleased at Suba-Jin's diligence & piety for bringing treasure wrested from his enemies. Votgauum also suggests Suba-Jin consider choosing one of the "arms of Hextor" to become proficient with, and he selects the falchion. Votgauum presents him with one as a gift to the promising acolyte.

[Offerings of roughly this value are expected from crusading clerics such as yourself regularly. As you donate more, Hextor will favour you with other benefits: special one-use abilities, magical buffs, guidance, followers or even magic items.]

Votgauum also passes along a request: a seedy-looking pawnbroker in the Old City named Morthevole has asked the church for help, saying his shop was taken from him unlawfully. Suba-Jin found him staying at a bar in the Old City (a lower-class district against the northern city wall. Filled with crumbling tenements, narrow alleys and outlandish structures left by the city's original builders, whoever they were). "The White Egg" is a lousy dive bar on the Avenue of Power, in the shadow of the great aqueduct. It's only made tolerable by a few tough-looking serving girls who work the crowd for tips. The pawnbroker probably picked it because it isn't very busy.

Morthevole is a wienery-looking Antillian in once rich, but now shabby clothes. He looks scared shitless. He is evasive about questions. He says he didn't have dealings with "the things," but that they are so dangerous he fears returning to his shop. They came up from a hole in his basement, and there are at least six or seven he's seen - but he has heard the sounds of more. He wants this whole thing kept secret, and says if nobody finds out, you can keep any treasure you find. His shop is in a part of town called The Nest. It's a district of adobe & brick structures built on top of each other in layers upon layers, until it forms a 3-dimensional maze. Most of the neighbourhood never sees the sky at all. As you would expect it is populated with criminal gangs, scum, mutants & drug fiends. Morthevole can give you directions & the key to his store which is not too far inside, but doesn't know the district well other than that. 

["A hole in his basement" is significant. It is commonly believed that dungeons exist underneath the city. But everyone knows it is illegal to explore below, on pain of death.]

Lothos

Studies magical tomes. From The Starless Stars, Lothos is able to decipher several spells easily: charm person, allure, shocking grasp, jump, scare & arcane lock are added to his spellbook.

To decipher the encoded text of Obliteration Without Glory, Lothos locks himself in his tiny rented room in Otherside, poring over the ancient & forbidding tome for three days straight! At the end of the third day, his efforts bear mixed success. He has decoded one of the spells, but its magic is unusable to him - it requires a spellcaster devoted to the forces death! 

There are several more spells to be deciphered, and each attempt will take three days. There is no guarantee which ones will be usable by elves and magic-users, and which require a dedicated necromancer.

Vanished!!

When you are done resting and get ready for your next adventure, Lothos the Undesirable is nowhere to be found! The rooming-house where he stayed does not remember when he left. With him go the two aforementioned spellbooks, as well as the mysterious engraved staff lifted from Eralion's tomb, and the 'talking book' Pheldrazash.

His whereabouts are unknown. Amongst the indifferent masses of the Emerald City, a determined elf could hide for a long time. Perhaps you will see Lothos again, perhaps not. I am sure you can all guess what might have happened. Mike will need a new character for the time being.

Spotted Around Town

On the third day, you spot some parchment handbills posted around the city:

Unlocking New Character Classes

When player-characters die, this is my gift to you. Each unique death will unlock a new playable character class or sub-class. Lothos didn't exactly 'die' but was taken out of play, so it's close enough for this purpose. For being 'killed' by a magical effect, this class is now available to everyone:

"The Incantrix"

A dimensional guardian specializing in divinations, wards and metamagic. Viewed with suspicion by established magic-users for their dangerous spell-stealing ability.

Requirements: INT 9, WIS 12

Casts a mixture of Magic-User and Illusionist spells up to 7th level

17 INT to cast 6th level spells, 18 INT to cast 7th level spells

Special Abilities:

1st level - charge healing - Drain charges from magical devices to heal (2d4 hp per charge). This takes a full round and does not work on artifacts or items without charges. This can raise hp above max, but these phantom hp last for only 10 rounds.

2nd level - spell steal - The incantrix can steal a memorized spell from another spell caster. The spell to be stolen is determined at random and the incantrix knows nothing about the stolen spell. This special ability by-passes magic resistance and there is no saving throw. The stolen spell may be cast by the incantrix immediately or held for later use, and can be cast without any material components. When cast, the spell functions as if cast by the being it was stolen from (with regards to level). Any spell already in the process of being cast cannot be stolen. 

The incantrix can erase the spell from her mind and inscribe it on a scroll or in a book with the Write spell, though this does not allow her to use it if it is forbidden by her class. Only by such scribing can the stolen spell be identified. The incantrix may use this special ability 1/day at levels 2-4, 2/day at levels 5-6, 3/day at levels 7-8 and so on at a range of 10'/level. There is a small chance of spell-steal victims being mentally damaged in the process, especially after successive strikes.

3rd level and up - other abilities which help fight ethereal & undead creatures, etc.

Session 6 Downtime - The Forgotten Village

Occasionally, adventurers have spare time to work on things between expeditions. These activities are called downtime actions. Anything that might be significant for the game, but doesn't involve immediate danger: buying equipment, constructing a special item, researching new spells, making friends with the locals, running a business, looking up ancient lore at the archives, asking around town for information, etc.

Normally downtime actions are abstracted - we don't care how long they take exactly, just that you get to do something before you go back to adventuring. In this case we do care, because the party is in a strange place and time is a factor.

Players in the last session told me how they're spending their downtime. If anyone else wants to do something, get back to me BEFORE next session or you missed the boat!!!

Trading

In the Forest of Dreams there isn't much of an economy. Some things are available:

Water: At least you won't get dehydrated. There is a small spring not too far from the village with the same metallic, bubbly water as before.

Holy Water (50 sp): Created in the Crucible of Solaris and preserved in a dusty clay jar.

Herbal Tea (200 sp): A collection of forest herbs and dried flower-stems in a packet. Brewing it restores some vitality: 1d4 hit points over 2 hours.

Shadow-Wine (25 sp per cup / 800 sp per cask): The same murky black liquid that Robert & Veigar tried out a few sessions ago. Aged for centuries. Has strange & variable effects.

Incense (250 sp per brick): Made from glowing forest flowers. Comes in four different colours. 

Heliotrope - smells of melon and summer rain & evokes a feeling of serene, dreamlike calm. 

Indigo - burnt leaves & smug sense of superiority. 

Buff - horseradish & warm, fond nostalgia.

Pearl - honey and dry wood & Sunday-morning sadness.

It's worth mentioning that the folk here do not have any food for sale.

Money

The townsfolk do not care about coins! They will trade for any of your metal gear (at 2x book price). Some of the treasure you've picked up on the last few adventures is interesting to them:

Any magic items, the etched metal plate (500 sp), the brick of incense (250 sp), both amulets (200 sp each), the china tea set (200 sp), those old copper helmets (10 sp each). They might also take other strange items you have picked up.

Downtime Activities

Lothos: The Starless Stars is indeed a spellbook with these spells inside: 

1st - charm person, allure, shocking grasp, jump. 2nd - mirror image, scare, arcane lock.

You can spend your whole downtime to study this spellbook, and in that time you can roll to learn as many spells as you like based on your INT.

The second book, Obliteration Without Glory will take work to decipher. Each attempt to unlock its mysteries takes 3 days of intense reading. It may require multiple sessions of study to fully comprehend. There is no telling what might happen in any case, magical traps and safeguards are not unknown in some ancient tomes. Roll a d20 at the end of 3 days and we'll see what happens. Any elf or M-U can attempt this by the way, Aladar can help if he is interested.

Liliya is willing to help. For a favour, she will assist you with one session of reading (+5 to the roll). 

Pheldrazash can help you as well. It thinks you probably have about a 50/50 chance of deciphering the book by yourself. If you consult it to help translate, I will roll for its attempts. Both of your successes are added together, so the book can be deciphered faster. Transcribing things for Pheldrazash does slow you down a bit so one period of study will take 4 days.

It wants you to fetch something for it in return, saying you should consult it when you are back in Viridistan.

The staff taken from the tower basement is a dark blue wood carved with swirling designs. It is likely magical, but a sage or wizard or some other expert is needed to learn more.

Suba-Jin: The seal of Uthummaos (black pit with purple rays emanating) strikes fear into anybody you show it to. It seems to represent some kind of evil god or demon, whose worship appeared around the time the King went mad 1000 years ago. The details are vague, but it appears to rule over shadows and darkness. 

Some of the village folk recall the two-crescent pendant as Eralion the wizard's personal seal. Several folk think it's strange that Eralion had his own fortress. In the ancient days before King Wakelinus' time, royal wizards used to retire to an island in a great lake, not too far from here.

You hear that the Sage of Lune might know more - although she asks a high price for her knowledge, so don't bother going unless your need is great.

Gorr: The amulet you retrieved from the corpse is made of tarnished silver, 2" high and cylindrical, carved all over with exotic runes, images of bones and skulls. It feels light, maybe it's hollow. One symbol stands out, but nobody around here recognizes it:

You are able to chop down a smaller tree. It does not dissolve like the monsters did, and seems to be normal wood, although strangely coloured and exotic.

The shades will let you stay in the village as long as you want. You can keep your gear here, and Shandril assures you that it will be safe while her and Baran are around.

Anybody else who wants to do stuff during downtime, or if anyone has more questions, you know how to find me. Before next game session!

*****

ADDENDUM

Gorr asked about master craftsmen in the hopes of having a bow made.

We are using these rules for commissioning splendid items and creating new magic items through mighty deeds. The leader of the guards Baran had this to say:

"Reymund the Pale was the best bowyer I ever knew. We called him that for he never ventured out to war or hunting. He loved peace most of all, and the feeling of a well-made piece of wood in his hands. A sensitive soul, not suited to the world as it is now, but a good man in his own way. I remember the last time I saw him, when he went off to join the lake-men. Not more than low brigands who call themselves 'rebels' really. We had words over it. Those of us who remain are still loyal to King Wakelinus, mad nor not, and Reymund was never one to take up causes like that. 

Might be he's still with them up by the great lake, but I heard there weren't many left after the King rounded up most and imprisoned them so's we could have some peace around here. If he's among those unfortunates, you'd best forget about him: the King's oubliettes are time-locked within the Moonlit Zones. Nobody ever gets out, and the Zones themselves are dangerous enough."