Holy Crap an update! (12/21/08) Part 1

Forgive me player for I have sinned. It has been 168 days since my last post. Wow, have I totally dropped the ball on that one.

Well, here’s to picking the ball back up and hopefully keeping it aloft for another year.

Due to the LARGE amount of game time, I will be doing a lot of summing up and getting progressively more and more detailed as we approach present game sessions.

You may want to peruse the Tuesday July 8 Post to catch you up on where I am starting from…..

While training in Jenna you also bought a lot of items to help do some rituals for Alakast. Not to mention a lot of sending spells back and forth to Anna Taskerhill. You find out that the politics in Cauldron are bad. Maavu gave himself up in order to save the city of Redgorge. Skellerag accepts Maavu’s surrender and brings the attacking army back to Cauldron and promptly puts Maavu to death in a public execution.

The Churches are in disagreement. The Cathedral of WeeJas is being accused of blocking the suns rays for the temple to Pelor. St. Cuthbert has a huge recruitment session going on and Jennya is having less and less to do with the management of the church.

The party begins making their way towards Caulderon… a 500 mile journey. Making their way through the rough scrub into the mountains the party is attacked by a large group of Babau demons. The party barely makes it out alive but takes out the Babau.

The next day the party is attacked again.. this time by a larger group. Chasing after the Babau is a short cowled sorcerer. He immediately enters the fray reading a scroll that banishes 3 of the Babau from the plane. Then he flashes into combat rittling the enemy with magic missiles. With his help the Babau are easily disposed of.

The Sorcerer introduces himself as Kaurophon. He continues to say he was sent “by the power of smoking eye” to guide the party to the outer plane of Occipitus. If the party can pass the Test of the Smoking Eye. They can cleanse Occipitus of evil and win a great victory for the forces of good.

After a bunch of questions to Kaurophon, you find out the following:

What’s Occipitus? Occipitus is another plane, once part of Celestia but now corrupted and consumed by evil. I’ve traveled its lands for years, and I think I’ve uncovered the secret of controlling the plane and cleansing it.

Who lives there? Few creatures do. Even demons regard it as haunted, because the light of good still shines there. Yet the evil is so strong that the angels of Celestia count it as lost forever. Unfortunately, some demons and other creatures have moved there, trying to pass the Test of the Smoking Eye and expunge what good remains there.

What is the Test of the Smoking Eye? It’s a test created by the former ruler of the plane, who disappeared years ago. Whoever passes the Test of the Smoking Eye becomes the new rightful ruler of Occipitus. I know the test has three parts, each hidden somewhere on Occipitus. Passing the first part of the test reveals the location of the second part, and so on. I stumbled upon the location of the first test, but I’m not powerful enough to pass it. The prophet’s final words give me hope that you have sufficient power.


Who ruled Occipitus before? A demon lord named Adimarchus, I believe. He vanished fifty years ago, likely slain by one of his countless enemies.

Where did the Babaus come from? Your recent actions against the forces of evil got you noticed by someone, and that someone sent the babaus out to finish you off. In fact, I suspect the attack may have something to do with the true enemy you face.

There is a lot more but this is the guts of what you find out.

You also learn that Kaurophon is evil due to the fact that he is ½ demon half human. However he is trying to change this about himself.

So, Minding the dying wish of Tercival you follow the smoking eye to Occipitus.




You all plane shift to Occipitus, the 507 layer of the Abyss. While most of the Abyss is crawling with demons, Occipitus has areas where the power of good hasn’t been completely expunged, so many fiends give the layer a wide berth.

This isn’t to say that Occipitus is a hospitable place to visit. When the part of the celestial landscape fell into Occipitus, Adimarchus used the power of the layer itself to consume the wreckage. This had the side effect of twisting Occipitus into the vaguely organic layer it is today. And the consumption of the celestial landscape is neither complete nor a one-way process. Parts of Occipitus remain a testament to the enduring power of good.

Occipitus appears as a great basin surrounded by impossibly steep mountains that rise to the sky. Near the center of the basin is a low mountain that looks likea half-buried skull. Amoeba-like blobs, known as plasms, bathe the entire landscape in a reddish light.

Despite its unusual nature, Occipitus is still a part of the Abyss, and the layer is mildly evil-aligned and mildly chaos-aligned.

When you arrive:

The Sky seems to be made fo flame, bathing every thing in a reddish flow. Off in the distance looms a massive skull: a white monolith the size of a small mountain. Clouds of flame stream from the skull’s single exposed eye socket and up in the sky. About a half-mile ahead stands a cluster of gently curving white pillars, almost oas if giant rib bones had been stuck in the ground. In the distance looms a steep mountain ridge whose top seems to touch the fiery sky. It stretches around the entire horizon – as if you were standing inside a vast bowl with a fiery lid. The ground is spongy and wrinkled. It’s more like skin than dirt.

Kauraphon quickly gets his berrings and begins leading you away from the ridge of cliffs infested with Slaadi.

You have an entertaining combat with a grey Slaadi and come across some local fauna.

The most important encounter you come across is with a group of Vrock. Eventually you have a long and frightening agreement with the Vrock. The agreement is that they are to take out another group of Demons on the other side of Occipitus. By removing them, the Vrock become the “ruling” band on the plane.

After these negotiations you make your way to the Cathedral of Feathers, a ruined structure once part of Celestia. The cathedral is in terrible disrepair, and is sitting at a slight angle. There are holes in the ceiling and the floor is covered in areas of light to very heavy rubble.

Every once in a while the whole structure flickers back to its original grandeur. It only lasts for about 10 seconds or so, but when it does, healing and spells of good and light are automatically maximized. The cathedral is gorgeous and fills your souls with warmth and wonder. Then the images crash back to the reality of the cathedrals current state.

The party searches the cathedral finding books and ancient bits of religious artifacts. While looking around the main Sanctuary you are attacked by a Succubus and spell wielding Noble Salamander. After these two enemies are dealt with you have some more time. You realize that some one has built a statue of Orcus in place of the statue of some other god. The party dismantles the statue and finds a stairwell leading down.

Kaurophan finds out that he is unable to descend the stairs and enter the first test of the Smoking eye

More updates to come shortly.