The Otter Side

Last time ended on a bit of a cliffhanger. The God Squad had just finished holding the Feast of Declaration, a massive party in which Arzet Devadov made a special bond with Kailio and seemed to be coming forth as an Incarnated Architect. After going to Mohomwa Cove and giving the Tidewalker Bracelet to Kailio, the party faced the possible consequences of what they'd done. Were they ready to come forward as Gods?
Well, before they did anything else, they needed a long rest to recuperate from their strenuous magic use.

Wake Up

After waking up on the beach of Mohomwa Cove, Arzet was bombarded by Sending spells sent by various interested parties that night. One was from Revered Speaker Elder Aimella Danohel, asking for Arzet to speak to the Selkie Circle of Elders. Another was from a prominent member of Clan Manuhel seeking to leverage their patronage of the party to create a partnership (or perhaps make them clients to Manuhel patronage). And the third was from a mysterious synthetic Prism voice demanding that they solve their puzzle or "they die". The voice told them to "search for the gloom" and that they had left a "street full of messages." This was immediately intriguing, but the party had other fish to fry first.

First, it was time to investigate the cove. The party didn't have long before another group underwent the Test of the Depths, so this would need to be relatively quick. Potha and Kipilu went to go scour the beach, sending Kaidoko to search the shallows, while Makar and Arzet investigated the pier.

Strange Tidings

Potha used her Primeval Awareness to check the area for potential Safia influence, and confirmed that this was not her work. Closer inspection of the beachfront did indicate recent disturbances in the sand, like something large moving into and out of the cove. Kaidoko found something even more interesting: a weird fish that appeared among the many magically-spawned fish, with a growth similar to an amulet of a praying woman. Kaidoko caught this fish before it vanished again and brought it to Potha for closer examination. Using Speak with Animals, Potha communed with the weird fish. It claimed to be from the sky and wished to return to the sky and to eat sardines. It asked Potha to launch it, so Potha threw it with as much force as possible. It seemed unaffected by gravity at a certain point and began swimming upwards. She used Hunter's Mark to help track the fish's ascent and watched as it flew upwards for twenty-five minutes before vanishing. Kipilu and Kaidoko set to work trying to catch a new fish and were able to snatch a small sardine with melted text carved into it. The sardine insisted that it was a book, and demanded to be thrown. Kipilu struggled to read the small and distorted script, as did Potha, but they hung onto the sardine for Makar and Arzet to decipher.
Meanwhile, Makar and Arzet checked the pier. Arzet's investigation of the top and sides found nothing, but Makar found a salt-crusted carving on the bottom of the end of the pier: a Corrupted Contact sigil, carved deeply into the wood. Arzet used a Burning Sphere to burn away the end of the pier in a controlled manner, erasing any sign of the sigil. Arzet did notice that the burn marks appeared to be bleeding after this, and began jabbing it with his dagger. Makar then targeted the pier with a Dispel Magic spell, which caused the pier to suddenly return to normal. It was only after this spell took effect that both of them realized that the pier had been profoundly wrong before, existing out of ordinary space but camoflouged into the landscape. Potha and Kipilu then joined them as they examined the pier, and Arzet identified the sardine's text: an Ishkibite psalm describing Ishkibal purifying the Architects, in an obscure language from Ukaram.

Piercing the Veil

Having found a lead, the gods sent Kailio to distract the authorities and oncoming pilgrims while the God Squad explored the water itself. First, though, a test: the party decided to throw the Book/Sardine in the mouth of a Cat Summon from Kipilu. Potha threw the cat, and then Arzet used the Catapult spell to launch it high into the air - high enough for the sardin's upward pull to overcome the cat's added weight. The weight would still lead to the ascent taking while, though, so the rest of the party went for their detective's swim. Arzet used the Water Breathing to allow the entire party to carefully explore the bottom of the cove.
Potha was quite determined to search for traces of the mysterious clay that she'd heard had been dropped in the cove, and after long searching with the others she finally found some trace residue that burned her skin. She and the others also discovered that fish were not just appearing from the illusory kelp, but vanishing - a sign that the magic of the cove had been subtly altered. Potha tried to use meditation and different ways of seeing or searching to find any invisible things in the area, but had no luck - whatever was going on here wasn't invisible, but somewhere else entirely.
Arzet examined their Riddle Sphinx's Coin to see if it had any strange qualities, and used Arcane Conjuration to summon a version of the coin from memory to serve as a baseline. The real coin seemed subtly different and on closer examination reflected light entirely differently from the magic coin. Arzet then changed the conjuration into a mirror and did his best to have it reflect light as the coin did. Once the mirror was attuned, it began reflecting a spectral world overlapping the ordinary one - not just kelp and fish, but fuzzy spectral structures and figures. Each of the party members created a kind of pool of stability, which made the spectral surroundings more detailed and coherent.

The Other Side

Arzet directed Potha to move towards a nearby humanoid figure, and the mirror revealed it to be a highly mutated and transformed selkie wrapped in a clay umbilical cord attaching it to a profaned and melted statue of a robed woman that was monitoring the party. Potha did her best to try and see into this world, and caught a glimpse of a drained and barren cove in a red-mooned otherworld while meditating. She also got a closer look at the statue, and was able to articulate a copy of it through Celestial Animation for the party to examine. Arzet identified it as a twisted copy of a popular temple idol of a Zesheko Water Mother, though it was impossible to tell which.
While Arzet and Potha explored with the mirror, Kipilu finally made it to the transition point with his sardine and was able to phase across with it. On the other side, the sardine opened up into pages like a tiny book and fluttered away, leaving Kipilu in a scarlet sky-sea. The world here was covered in red light from a massive Crimson Moon that always seemed to be drawing closer. The island of Okailu was an active volcano here, covered in a grand and imposing citadel of selkie style. Flying ships with large fins docked along the citadel, while others swam off into the distance. The cove below was covered in tangled red kelp and strange fish, though a grand construction seemed to be making a Corrupted Contact symbol across the whole of it. Instead of a narrow straight across to Motosui, an enormous black pit yawned out like a vast crater. On the other side of this pit was another volcano and another tower.
Kipilu descended down to the cove to watch the strange figure near the party and saw the situation on the ground more closely. Near the pit's edge, he saw workers operating large pullies and wooden cranes to lift equipment and haul some kind of bloody material out of the depths. A dazed worker (seemingly unaware of the place he was in) was also slumped near the pier, where a large 'skin of a pier' lay crumbled and inoperable. The distorted sentry watching Potha barked for the former pier operator to go collect his paycheck and take a break, and directed the worker towards a door into the Dream Labyrinth. Kipilu followed the worker into the maze and watched the worker almost instantly die from a horrific magical trap.
The prominence of the tower in the dream world convinced the party to investigate Mohomwa Citadel - so Arzet took the lead to accept the Revered Speaker's invitation.

Elder Evils

Arzet and Makar decided to address the Selkie Circle of Elders directly while Potha and Kipilu would stay behind, talk with the guards, and assess the area for anything suspicious.
The Circle welcomed them into a grand audience chamber, with nine of the ten elders covered by a silk screen and projected illusions of the ocean depths. The Revered Speaker, Elder Aimella Danohel, was illuminated on her throne alone, veiled but clearly visible while the others magically whispered to her. A series of magical chimes were present, which produced a series of notes that Arzet understood to mean the various magical items and enchantments on their person. This detection system did not pick up Arzet's vestiges, though, and Arzet figured that the bells couldn't detect magic beyond mortal means.
The Elders got to the point rather quickly: they wanted to know what had happened during the Feast of Declaration and what exactly Arzet was claiming. Arzet clarified that he did not claim to be an Incarnated Architect and that he had no idea what had gone on with Kailio and himself. The speaker seemed relieved that Arzet wasn't going to be causing any civil or political disturbances and became a bit friendlier after this.
Makar and Arzet then began pressing the council to investigate the Nightmare Cults they expected may exist in the Khilaia. The Elders recognized the danger of the Rot Plague and the False Halcyon but had not formally recognized either the Martyr or the Nightmare Cults as direct and existential threats. The Speaker said that she would have to speak individually or open the floor to the whole council to discuss the matter, so the party asked to talk with her individually at the hot springs before discussing it with the council with an open floor.

Scoping Things Out

While Makar and Arzet talked with the Elders, Potha and Kipilu talked with the palace guards. Potha spoke with the guard seargant and learned about the Vault of All Gods. The guard spoke about two mummies who were supposedly the original Lovers Arakara - which Potha knew was obviously untrue, as the lovers were given a sky burial upon death - but Potha was generally outraged at the idea that plundered Loanuan artifacts were being kept here. She continued to talk with this guard while she waited for Kipilu to scout on the Dreaming Plane. The plan was to have Kipilu scout for oddities, and then for Potha to use Celestial Animation to create an elemental to silence the magic-detection bells while they searched. 
Kipilu's journey on the other side was not so easy, though. Upon entering the other-side palace, he quickly noticed that it was a trade hub of Nightmare Cults: Desmians, Choricals, Kobolds, and Calazan merchants and mages all congregated here, exchanging goods and transporting items. Huge elevators pulled by chains moved people and boxes between levels, while numerous floating ships docked along the sides of the palace. To avoid detection, Kipilu cast Lesser Invisibility and then slipped inside. Getting closer to the action, it became clear that this was more or less a normal port of trade: people were complaining about port fees and haggling over prices. Kipilu looked into one of these boxes being brought in by a Chorical, which contained a strange tube of milky-grey substance connected to rubber tubes and syringes labelled "Essence of Eggshell". Unfortunately, the strange movement was noticed and a Chorical detected Kipilu with their blindsense. A port worker (a mutated selkie) cast their lantern light towards them, which revealed Kipilu to the entire market. He fled as people began to demand his capture as a spy; strange statues melded with the walls emerged and began to grasp for him as dock workers pursued. Kipilu's only escape was with a group of ordinary-looking selkies heading into the Dream Labyrinth, led by a strange figure carrying a crimson censer spewing unusual smoke. The smoke seemed to surround and bless everyone in the party, and Kipilu accepted this blessing to continue with them. 
The selkies seemed fairly normal, and all of them wore a plain white badge on their clothes. This contrasted with a different group of selkies at the market, who were wearing plain red badges. These white-badge selkies seemed agitated and afraid of the labyrinth as they moved through it. The blessing protected them and essentially allowed them to skip the dangers of the maze as they moved towards their destination. At the half-way point, the group stopped in a grand chamber containing a statue of Verkon the False Chimera in front of a massive Moonstone-and-Adamantium door with an arcane lock. The statue began speaking to the group, who were deeply uncomfortable with it; it said there was an unexpected presence with them carrying his blessing. The statue then gloated that, as they had his blessing, they also were subject to his whims - and so he cast the entire group, Kipilu included, out of the maze and into pure chaos. While the rest of the group was immediately torn into possibilities, Kipilu was thrown into an entirely different reality where he was a noir detective. He and Verkon did some noir genre lines at each other and then Verkon shot Kipilu dead in the street. Thankfully, that wasn't his main body, so Kipilu proper didn't die. Still, no luck on the original plan.

Negotiations

When it was clear that Kipilu wasn't going to be able to scout, Potha joined Makar and Arzet for their private meeting at the Mohomwa Citadel hotsprings with Elder Aimella Danohel. Danohel explained that it would be impossible to meaningfully purge cults or ideologies from selkie government as long as selkie cultural law (a kind of unspoken constitutionalism) protected individual speech, religious practice, and ideology - and as long as the government remained factionalized. She asked them to call for her to gain emergency powers to suspend some of those protections and to allow her to force through favorable policies. All of this was done a bit more subtly than this paraphrasing, of course, and she made sure to couch all of this in a casual down-to-business attitude. Potha seemed amenable to unifying the selkies and Makar didn't discount the idea, but Arzet was firmly opposed to this. Makar considered their research on Selkie Politics and quietly explained the specifics of the party system; Potha began to sour on the idea of Federalist Party rule, and flipped towards favoring the Judicialist Party as a way to keep power divided and cultists away from total control. Regardless, it didn't seem that the Revered Speaker was necessarily a Nightmare Cultist, but their requests for support were still quite persistent across the meeting. 
All four Gods then went to the open Circle meeting, where all ten members had the opportunity to speak freely and without unity. Makar again proposed a formal condemnation of all four Nemeses, but several Grand Elders began to voice confusion and skeptecism about what exactly that meant. One woman, the most vocal Judicialist Elder, seemed particularly concerned with the idea of adopting any formal religious stance for the whole Khilaia (a sentiment echoed by the handful of Libertaines )  - while an aggressively Pratasa Elder aligned with Clan Naimaka took the opportunity to call for the Circle to take an actively pro-Suweskivar stance and to become a more active agent in moral policing. Some elders seemed to see this as a legal issue, others as a moral issue, and others still as pure politics. To try and de-escalate the tension, Makar and Arzet argued that Nightmare Cults were not inherently religious or a matter of speech, but rather represented a supernatural threat associated with unusual magical phenomenon. Rather than attack groups or ideas, they proposed that the council make a task force to investigate supernatural disturbances for any potential community dangers.  This seemed to pacify the council, which decided that they would put Elder Wanalo Kaipalaho in charge as the most historically-minded, politically-neutral elder who spends most of their time on the large island. They also seemed to consider it appropriate punishment for Wanalo's frequent evasions of duties recently, which the God Squad considered a bit unfair.
Before leaving, the Gods asked for any possible leads on unusual selkie behavior abroad. The Judicialist Elder immediately pointed to a rogue selkie group calling itself the Red Badge Fleet, which was actively raiding Zesheko forces in the Southern seas and gathering around a single charismatic leader named Sovereign Admiral Wakahepa. While the Gods advocated for this Admiral to be condemned as a pirate, an outspoken Clan Manuhel Elder immediately contested this as an abuse of pirate-hunting authority (an issue she had apparently been focused on for some time). Potha challenged her vision of the Khilaia's role, which only seemed to embolden her refusal to condemn this Red Badge group without any direct evidence of treaty-breaking. The issue seemed like it was going to drag on well past this meeting, but the Gods felt confident that it would swing in their favor. The whole Dina/Martyr thing didn't really get advanced much, but did not appear to be a pressing issue. 

Disappointing Old Men

The Squad sailed back to Motosui with Elder Wanalo Kaipalaho and his retinue, and chatted with him as they waited. He explained his role in coordinating with the Warcallers and warned them that Elder Aimella Danohel had leaned on his connections to the Warcallers to funnel weapons and mercenaries into Zeshem trade ports to turn riots into rebellion there four years ago. He joked around with them and seemed a potential friend and ally, but Potha quickly ran into a wall with him when it came to the Vault of All Gods. While she demanded that he begin working with her to return artifacts, he seemed unwilling to begin any returns unless they had broader government support and a safe museum space to be returned to. He did seem more knowledgeable about the actual artifacts; he explained that the Loanuan mummies were not the Lovers Arakara, for example, but Rurana mummies intended to mimic the Lovers that were kept by the Rurana Tribe before they were conquered and dispersed by the Kingdom of Karzado in the 1990s ME. Kaipalaho had personally overseen their capture as contraband leaving Tailotha along with illegally held Rurana slaves, and had taken them to the Vault to be remembered even as their original culture died. Potha felt that the mummies should go to other Weniko tribes until the Rurana formed once again, but the Elder seemed to consider the Rurana truly dead and gone and refused to return any Loanuan artifacts to the island as an active warzone. Potha was going to put in the work, but the Elder seemed very evasive despite his apparent appreciation of the artifacts. 
The group asked Kaipalaho for information on the Red Badge Fleet from the Warcallers, which the Elder agreed to provide. Potha said she would be sending regular updates to him demanding artifact repatriation around the world. He said he would consider it, but still seemed unwilling to rock the boat by acting unilaterally without broader political support. Makar attempted to rouse the Elder to fight for a more just and righteous future, but Kaipalaho seemed generally bitter and disillusioned in such things. He warned the Gods that things were going to escalate as selkie politics grew more extreme and that the Elders were the least in touch with the actual broader selkie community; he predicted that, in a number of years, a new selkie emperor would be crowned and the old Khilaian government would end. He seemed to accept that he would go along with wherever direction the selkie people ultimately chose, whether conquest or otherwise. He also seemed generally bitter about the existence of Purgatory. 
The Gods and the Elder quietly and indirectly acknowledged their status as the Incarnated Architects, which he could easily guess from attending their party. They threatened him with elevation to a new Lunar Pantheon they would make after ascension if he didn't fully cooperate, which meant he would be stuck working with politics forever. He gave them a little more insight into elite politics: that while the Manuhel Elder was the most outspoken and extreme Libteraine, there were three other "moderates" who reliably voted with her despite being voicing less extreme viewpoints - making a pretty substantial voting bloc that could easily freeze the Circle's actions. Most of the Circle was divided between Federalists and Libertaines, with basically only one consistent Judicialist present and himself often acting as the tiebreaker. The Motosui Assembly, meanwhile, was largely under Judicialist control with the Federalists as the significant minority party and the Libertaines as a slim minority most useful in tie-breaking. In short, the executive branch was unlikely to take action against the Red Badges (who advanced the imperialist aims of the Federalists while also attracting Libertaine sympathy) while the Legislature was more likely to cooperate but was also more likely to get bogged down in protocol. 
The Gods had done what they could in Mohomwa Citadel and parted ways with Elder Wanalo Kaipalaho as they made landfall in Halamahi. Next, they wanted to investigate that strange message they had received, which seemed rather pressing given 'lives being on the line.'

Components

Goals

QUEST:

• Scout out the powers and weaknesses of the Nemeses
• Make connections and allies
• Marshal resources
• Scout out the Khilaia for Nightmare cults
• Connect with the allied Zeshem
• Liberate Loanua

Backdrops

Past Events

This is the 22nd session of God Campaign, following Architects.... of Fun!

Parent Plot

Architects.... of Fun!

Subplots

• Would you like to play a Game? Prelude

Related Characters

• Arzet Devadov
• Elder Aimella Danohel
• Elder Wanalo Kaipalaho
• Kipilu of Tezitkal
• Makar Mesaba
• Potha Sarana

Related Organizations

• God Squad
• Selkie Circle of Elders
• The Khilaia

Related Locations

• Mohomwa Citadel
• Mohomwa Cove
• Vault of All Gods