Trollopulous Adjusted, Secret Downtime Business (Machodor #53 to #96): Echellet and the Dragon Cult Leader

The original design of the Lair of Lord Inferno circa 2023

Introduction

Between sessions #52 and #53, the Talibandit leader Usama Loot Laden, having at last recognised the true identity of his captive, chose to trade her away — a calculated move designed to ensure the heroes of Machodor could not recover her even if they bested him in open battle, which came to pass in session #54. The recipient of that trade was the Dragon Cult Leader, who had been seeking Echellet on behalf of his draconic patron all along. What followed was the culmination of one of the most consequential solo patron actions in the Machodor half of the Trollopulous campaign, adjudicated over Discord. Though subtly influential, its full import went unseen by the player characters for many sessions.

Downtime Report

Mounted on his red dragon Clarice, the Dragon Cult Leader descended into the volcanic depths in the north of the Bandit Mountains to honour his bargain with the dragon he knew as Lord Inferno, Vyrathax the Embercrowned, who believed Echellet's soul to carry the reincarnated essence of his slain mate, Vyrisara the Ashen Queen. 

"I swear, if this is the wrong woman," he muttered under his breath. 

The transit was notable: not merely flight into a caldera, but something felt as a translation in space, as though the lair occupied a location at some remove from the volcano itself. On his first visit, clutched in the mighty claw of Lord Inferno, he had been too preoccupied to notice such things.

The chamber they entered shared the architectural plan of the rest of the lair: outer wall and floor of cooled lava, inner wall of running lava, the whole structure curved as one section of a larger circular complex. At its centre was a great disembodied heart pulsing within a column of that mysterious living fire, flanked by a sleeping female dragon of enormous size, also wreathed in her own separate fire. Between them, on a crystal stand, lay a roughly heart-shaped lapis lazuli. Echellet was placed gently on a small bed near the gem; she lost consciousness immediately, and the sleeping dragon stirred — just slightly. 

"THE PROCESS WILL TAKE TIME," Vyrathax boomed. "NOW FOR YOUR REWARD."

The Dragon Cult Leader was ushered through a curtain of living fire into a second chamber, somewhat smaller but built to the same plan. A great throne stood at its centre, and seated upon it was a figure over twenty feet tall — an Efreeti of immense power. 

The dragon knelt and proclaimed, softly for him: "Za'rathul, I am proud to carry on your name in the miserable plane of existence known as Trollopulous." 

The Dragon Cult Leader, skilled in the arts of illusion, recognised the deception almost at once: the enthroned figure was a very powerful illusion.

Za'rathul the Efreeti Prince

This was the image of Za'rathul, Herald of Cthuga and the true, original Lord Inferno — the being whose name and legend Vyrathax had inherited through centuries of confused local memory. Scenes engraved within the flames depicted episodes from Za'rathul's history: campaigns of conquest across multiple planes, and the image of the Efreeti riding the dragon who now bears his name — a nomenclature problem the campaign will resolve in good time. The dragon rose without ceremony, approached a raised brazier-dais, and presented the Dragon Cult Leader with a hideous dragon mask.

The moment the Dragon Cult Leader donned the mask, flame surged from the brazier and a score of manlike figures took form before it. These were Firenewts, and they knelt at once, exclaiming in their own tongue: 

"Hail Lord Inferno!" — the precise addressee of that greeting was a mystery. Vyrathax turned to the Dragon Cult Leader and declared, for all to hear: 

"YOU ARE NOW KING OF THE FIRENEWTS, TO RULE IN MY NAME. WHEN I AM READY, I WILL CALL UPON YOU TO COMMAND THESE TO SALLY FORTH AND CONQUER THE SURFACE WORLD IN THE NAME OF LORD INFERNO!" 

The Firenewts responded with enthusiasm, "Huzzah! Banzai! Long live the King!" 

The Dragon Cult Leader, who had arrived to deliver a hostage, departed as crowned sovereign of Cthugarak, elevated in a single ceremony from cult leader to king.

With the ceremony concluded, the King of Cthugarak put his new subjects to immediate use. He questioned the Firenewts regarding their most recent contacts with the surface world: troublesome adventurers, ongoing relations with mountain towns, and the general strategic picture as seen from below. They had much to say.

The outer world was still foremost in the Dragon Cult Leader's thinking. To provide cover for Echellet's true fate and serve as a sustained distraction for his enemies, he devised a campaign of illusion. First, an image of the Countess fleeing into the mountains, placed where it would be witnessed and remarked upon. Then, on every full moon, illusions of Echellet glimpsed fleetingly in her most famous dress, drifting through the streets of various highland towns.

As chance would have it, that very week was already a full moon — an opportunity he did not let pass. The gambit was elegant in its cruelty: it kept the Countess technically alive and at large in the minds of those hunting for her, while the truth — her soul merging with the slumbering body of Vyrisara within an extra-planar lair — remained known to him alone.

Epilogue

This single downtime action seeded months of campaign complexity. The Dragon Cult Leader had won big and obtained a substantial boost in power; at the time I mused that he had secretly won the campaign. But what he did not know was that the full moon he was exploiting for illusions was the same window in which the real Echellet, in the one moment of clarity the draconic soul transfer permitted each month, was gradually attempting to make contact with outside help. A hidden thread of dramatic irony was set in place: false sightings of a woman whose true location only one patron knew, while that same woman was struggling to get word to the one paladin who might save her.

The Dragon Cult Leader's actions and elevation to King of the Firenewts would not become apparent to the player characters until he mobilised the Firenewts to attack Castle Irish — and even then, the details remained shrouded in secrecy. Until now.

Downtime between Machodor Sessions #94 and #96: Chaos Windows and the letter from Cthugarak to the Fire Giants.

Introduction

In the last two sessions the adventurers of Machodor discovered or obtained things that were ripe for downtime investigation. In session #94 it was strange windows of chaos. During session #95, last session, in the first rooms of the Hall of the Fire Giant King, the heroes surprised a merchant party preparing to depart and managed to kill them after a tough battle. On one of them was a map and a the other a letter, but both of these were damaged by wine from the giant's broken wineskin. Sever brought these back to Minas Mandalf and tasked Poindexter, his magic-user henchman, with getting them repaired by obtaining a casting of Macho Mandalf's Greater Mending.

I didn't have the whole thing ready to go when they got it last session, hence the *water damage* was just a device to give me a bit more time to come up with the details. It is always a good idea to come up with ways to give out partial information to players and see if they are at all interested in it before locking in the details.

Neither of these are really exciting, but I highlight them here as the background information that they are.

Downtime Report

Macho Mandalf's Greater Mending is a spell that can be cast by various magic-users in Minas Mandalf, but attentive readers will recognise that it has not yet been published on the blog. I am still tweaking the exact rules for it, the spell will be published when I've finished, but for now it works to allow the map and letter to be restored.

Map found on a dead Fire Giant and repaired in Minas Mandalf

In a similar way, the letter that was with the map could also be restored, and later read using comprehend languages.

To the Honour of the Basalt Gate-Fort
and the Watchful Eyes of the Temple Flame,

Let it be known that on the turning of this lava-cycle, there comes to Cthugarak a delegation of our lava-kin, the Fire Giants of the upper slag-lands, under the lead of Gorvak Ironbrand, Scion of the Black Anvil and sworn vassal of the Fire Giant King.

[repaired water damage]
The first of their kind to do so, know them by their red hair and great height and strength. I have provided a map showing the route from their domain to the causeway gate tower where they must check in before entering the city.
[repaired water damage]

By this letter, I, Captain Sszharrek Flame-Scale of House Blazenewt, commander of the western tunnel-scouts, bear witness that Gorvak Ironbrand and his chosen warriors come not as raiders, but as traders and honoured guests. They bring tribute in heavy iron and dark ore, to be weighed and judged in our forges.

They seek in return:

• Alchemical flames and munitions fit for giant hands.
• Chains, cloaks, and arms sanctified to the Lord of Fire.
• Counsel with those Houses whom the Temple deems worthy.

At the command of the Eyes of the Inferno, three Ignisalam brooches have been granted for their persons, marking them as pilgrims under watchful flame. Let these be respected at the Basalt Gate and within the main avenues, subject always to priestly inspection and the justice of Lord Inferno.

Further, six pendants accompany this letter, to be hung upon their lesser attendants and interpreters as your officers deem fit, that no honest servant be taken as stray slave through ignorance of our customs. I charge the Gate-Tower to see these marks properly placed, and to correct any error in their wearing with firmness, not haste.

I request that:

1. The giants be granted provisional [repaired water damage] heat-cloaks for all who bear a pendant for the span of their first stay, to protect their weaker servants from the heat of our great city. [repaired water damage]
2. They be escorted from the Basalt Gate-Tower [repaired water damage] to the Foreigner Quarter unmolested, there they may find such lodging as is available at the time. [repaired water damage]
3. Any offence that springs from [repaired water damage] ignorance of our laws be first laid at my feet, that I may answer for the teaching of foreign allies. [repaired water damage]

Should Gorvak or his kin betray this trust, let this letter stand as my seal that Blazenewt will answer blow for blow beside the Gate-Fort, as befits those who guard the causeway.

By scaled hand and seared oath,
under the gaze of Cthuga's Sacred Flame,
Captain Sszharrek Flame-Scale
Shield of the Causeway, House Blazenewt

Chaos Windows: Gurt's Story

You return to Minas Mandalf and seek the guidance of Chrysogonus, patron of the Planar Corps of Machodor, telling him all you can remember of recent events in the underground river system. His expression grows graver as you speak, describing the chaos windows—the way the edges shimmer like oil on water, the impossible geometries that twist behind the glass, the faint, eerie sounds that sometimes drift through them.

He exhales slowly.

“Those are no mere planar rents,” he says. “You have seen true Chaos windows—such as those described in the old tales of Melniboné and the Young Kingdoms. When such windows appear in numbers, it means the balance is tilting. The Lords of Chaos are preparing to reshape the board.”

He steps closer, lowering his voice though no one else is near.

“When Chaos grows bold enough to manifest these windows openly, a terrible bargain is offered to mortals. He who fights Chaos directly—he who confronts its champions, closes its gates, or slays its greatest servants—may claim dominion over the newly formed lands that Chaos intends to birth from the wreckage. Victory does not merely preserve the world; it carves fresh principalities from the stuff of unformed possibility. Macho Mandalf himself has been one such victor, divesting all of Machodor from the great ship of space and becoming part of this world. Only the very wise can perceive the borders between the two."

Chrysogonus’ eyes search yours.

“Why the windows have appeared now, in the Bandit Mountains, so close to the fire newts and their dragon-lord? I conclude that Lord Inferno and his Fire Order have weakened the barriers. Chaos smells opportunity. If the windows spread—and they will, the entire region could become a crucible. Whoever stands against the tide and prevails could walk away with a kingdom of their own making… or lose everything to the entropy that follows failure.”

Chaos Windows: Sever's Story

The bard Fico (former henchman of Prince Barin and now freelancing in Minas Mandalf) offered this cryptic interpretation to Sever.

― Fico, Bard of Arboria ―

In caverns deep where rivers run through stone,
You spied the fractures, Sever, windows thrown
Open to the formless dark that waits —
Not wounds in Law, but doors the Chaos gates.
No random tear, no crack from storm or quake,
But invitations cold, for mortals' sake.
When these appear in numbers, stark and bright,
The balance trembles on the edge of night.

The Lords of Chaos muster, press the veil,
Their hunger swells where mortal hopes grow pale.
Yet hear the bargain whispered through the flame:
He who meets their chosen, bears the name
Of victor, claims the lands they mean to birth
From ruin's womb, new realms of solid earth.

Macho Mandalf walked that path of old —
Tore free his realm from void's unyielding hold,
Anchored Machodor here where once it sailed
On ships of starless dark. The border failed
Only to the wisest eyes; the rest see plain
A single world, unscarred by ancient pain.

So tread those depths with open eye and blade,
For windows watch, and they are never sated.
Fight, and win, and kingdoms may be made —
Or falter, and the dark will claim its due unpaid.

Chaos Windows: DM's Story

Both the bishop and the bard are expressing the truth as they understand it, but how accurate and useful this is for the heroes remains to be seen.

Cthugarak, City of the Firenewts

Basalt Gate-Tower

Cthugarak is a sprawling Firenewt city moulded from living rock inside the caldera of an active volcano in the Bandit Mountains. The city proper sits within a roughly circular slab approximately 1000 yards in radius across two tiers, surrounded by a lava moat accessible by raised causeway or aboard giant striders. It is reached from the surface via a lava tubes that converge at the Basalt Gate-Tower checkpoint, which seals all entry. Every visitor must pass inspection, no exceptions.

Arriving with a pendant is the standard way in. Guards confiscate the device, ask a few brief questions about the purpose of your visit — trade, sport, gambling, scholarship — and issue a heat-cloak in exchange. The glowing orange cloak marks you as a sanctioned visitor and, critically, keeps you alive in the volcanic heat.

Pendant

On the way out, the process id reversed: return a cloak, receive a pendant.

Holders of a house or clan brooch from one of the merchant clans or noble houses have it easier; they keep their brooch, skip the cloak entirely provided they can withstand the heat by other means, and face far less scrutiny at the gate.

Anyone without a valid cloak or brooch faces enslavement or death. A brooch from an enemy house, or one that cannot be verified as legitimate, is cause for immediate suspicion.

The below introduction or similar would be experienced by any adventurer that obtains a suitable pass to the city.

Crossing the Causeway

---

As you step onto the raised obsidian causeway, the lava moat churning orange and black below, Lieutenant Vraks falls into step beside you. He does not look at you. He speaks in the clipped, precise tone of a city guard who has said this a hundred times and found it beneath him every time.

---

VRAKS: "You will listen. I will not repeat myself.

"The city you are entering is Cthugarak — he pronounces it KssTHUGaRAK — city of Lord Inferno, Herald of the Eternal Flame, also called Cthuga. Everything here belongs to him. You do not. Keep that in mind.

"The lower city is divided into eight quarters. Each is held by a noble house. The houses hate one another. That is not your problem; unless you make it your problem, in which case it becomes the last problem you ever have.

"You carry heat-cloaks. They cool your weak bodies, they grant you passage on the main causeways. They do not grant you entry to house strongholds, noble estates, the Temple Precinct, or the Upper Caldera. If you are found somewhere you should not be, there is only one verdict and two sentences — slavery, or death. I mention this as a courtesy, not a warning. You will not receive another.

"Now. The houses."

He pauses to let a giant strider patrol clatter past, its rider scanning your party with flat yellow eyes.

"House Ignisalam — First among the houses. Their mandate is the priesthood. They hold the Temple Precinct, and they hold the ear of Lord Inferno himself. The High Priestess governs the faith. Cross them and you cross Cthuga. I mention them first because that is the correct order of things.

"House Blazenewt — Second rank. Military conquest. They hold the Chattel Quarter; slaves, livestock, the pens. They also hold the gate you just came through. They hold me. You will find them on every patrol and every causeway. Do not be foolish when Blazenewts are near.

"House Flamesaur — Third. Entertainment. They run the arenas, the gladiatorial pits, the beast fights. Their quarter is loud, it is dangerous, and it is popular. If you lose your coin there, that is your own affair.

"House Infernagecko — Fourth. Weaponsmithing. The Obsidian Forges are theirs. If you need arms of quality in this city, you go through them. If you try to go around them, they will know.

"House Emberdrake — Fifth. Trade routes and diplomacy. They hold the Foreigner Quarter. You will spend most of your time there. It is where your kind lives. The Emberdrake tax collector Zhurask holds considerable sway there — he is a moneylender as well. I advise you not to borrow from him.

"House Cinderwyrm — Sixth. Lore and fire-magic. The Scholars Tower is theirs. They know things. They sell access to what they know. Do not steal from their archives. They will find out, and they are patient.

"House Pyrotoad — Seventh. Alchemy. Their quarter reeks. Their brews are useful, but unstable. Their people include addicts and failed experimenters. Avoid the fumes, they are not always accidental nor harmless.

"House Scorchviper — Eighth, and lowest. Slavery, espionage, poison. They are universally despised. That does not make them harmless. Their slavers work the Outcast Quarter and they will take anyone who cannot account for themselves. If you lose your heat-cloak, you become their business very quickly.

He stops at the Foreign Quarter; beyond, the High Street runs to the Noble Gate.

"Your kind sleeps here in the Foreigner Quarter. There are three places worth knowing. The Drake's Ember Rest, on Westflame Boulevard; four stories, cooled chambers where you can remove your heat-cloaks, twenty-five gold a night. Clean, well-guarded. The Coilfire Arms, on Haze Fissure; three levels, five gold, run by a human named Drask Embercoil, there you sleep with your cloaks on. The Ashveil Flophouse, on Stranger Causeway; one gold, straw pallets, Pyrotoad fumes seeping through the walls from their quarter to the north. Save your coin there if you must, but sleep lightly.

"The Hearth is the central concourse, where the High Street meets Westflame Boulevard and Eastpyre Avenue. It is the heart of the lower city. Lose your bearings, go back to The Hearth.

"Stay on the main causeways. Display your heat-cloaks when asked. Do not touch a brooch that is not yours. Do not look at a patrol for too long. Do not look away from a patrol for too long.

"One final matter. The noble estates and the King's Palace are on the plateau above; the Upper Caldera, across the Obsidian Bridge, beyond the Noble Gate. You will not go there uninvited, the likelihood of receiving such an invitation is near zero.

"Welcome to Cthugarak."

He turns and walks back the way he came without another word.