Ah! Did you see the very nice artwork Jim Garrison did from my old sketch? I think it's still there, on one one of his blogs...
Anyway, this was back about '77, maybe early '78; Kadarsha - still Ahim Basrim, at that point, had been made fief-holder of the two-hex fief of Tu'umnra; the problem, from the Imperium's point of view, was trying to convince him to get out there and stay there to govern the place and remit the tax money. Instead, he and the rest of the group had really messed up the place - causing all sorts of very nasty problems for the Impiruim, the Temple of Vimuhla, and numerous others. The party had been spending the better part of the last year or two in the campaign looting the Jakalla underworld and anything else they could get their hands on to pay for raising legions for the Imperium, which they would presumably command.
The Imperium finally ran out of patience, and sent word that it would be A Very Good Thing if Kadarsha got his butt out to his fief, and did a little 'governing' / domain game stuff. The pretext was that one of the little border forts on the edge of the Chakan forests had stopped replying to messages, and so the party was sent out there with a small escort to see what was going on. Rebel / 'wild' Pe Choi were what was going on; the fort had been taken, burned, and the guards all killed. So, in best PC fashion, they stormed the place in the usual frontal assault, and managed to kill all the Pe Choi. It was a nasty little fight, and of course the Pe Choi had summoned help fro their relatives. (Phil had just gotten and painted up his brand new Pe Choi from Ral Partha, and he was itching for a fight.) So, it's now our turn to get besieged / trapped in the place by all the Pe Choi in the world.
We're on the losing end of another nasty little fight, when somebody suggests looking for the secret postern gate / tunnel/ passage that should be there. It isn't, and we're looking to be well and truly trapped when I bethought myself of Phil's penchant for Chateau Gaillard. The place had been taken by a party sneaking up the latrine; so, since I had made the suggestion, I got lowered down the latrine shaft to see what was down there. (Pe Choi poop, mostly.) Sure enough, that was where the secret passage was - and Phil used this again, in "Flamesong", as he thought it was really a good laugh to have the PCs covered in poop - so out into the tunnel we went.
The tunnel led to a series of caverns which had their own connecting tunnels, and all too soon the blowgun darts came out of the darkness and people started going down. We finally got a look at these big lizards / saurians; four legs, four arms, and looking like something from Barsoom (Not that I would have put that past Phil; he did like his in-jokes, he did.) The medallions with the circle-and-dot of The One Who Is got our attention instantly, and we finally managed to fight out way to dead-end cavern where Eyloa did his Nexus point thing and we got out of there.
Aside from that running fight, we never saw them again. Kadarsha got replaced as fief-holder, and we never had a reason to go back. I filed a report, and that's the last we heard about it - it led to our adventure where we stormed the palace of Bassa, King of the Black Ssu, and thence to the revealing of Mirusiya - so it kinda got lost in the rush.
I assume that they're still down there, living their happy underground lives, and occasionally venturing out at night to terrorize the peasants and grab whatever they can. Sounds like a job for a party of stalwart adventurers to go an investigate, to me...
What else?
Originally Posted by Shemek hiTankolel
Welcome back to the living.. I'm glad you're enjoying the new gig. You couldn't pay me enough at this stage of my life for me to work the off shifts on a regular/fixed shift. No thank you. Been there done that for too long.
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