Session 1 and 2

Having been sent on a drug bust mission from the Priest of the Reach, concerning Snakestorm, an addictive and deadly substance on the black market, an investigation led the party into criminal territory. Using Nick's 'contacts' the party found found and captured some drug dealers for interrogation. Following these commoner's directions, they were led down the Sewer Mains along a recently built railway. Closely avoiding a black hole anomaly, with the conciquence of Nick catching Cholera by falling in the sewerage, they arrived in a cave where they encountered a female Dune Druid and two Sand Golems. After cleanly dispatching the Druid and her hyenas, Jessen led the Sand Golems into the mouth of the sewer pipe exit, Daniel lighting the Methane filled tunnel with prestidigitation. A Hollywood worthy explosion consumed the sand golems, turning them to useless glass statues. Unfortunately the party later finds out they have caused colossal damage in several of the underground districts wasting thousands of civilian lives. As a result, the Priest of the Reach orders the Party to leave the City until false identities have been set up for them, and the damage has been cleaned up, lest certain 'knowledgeable' citizens seek revenge.

Using a Circle of Truth the party discerned the location of the workshop where the Snakestorm was being magically engineered to withstand desert conditions, and so the party joined a Trade Caravan to travel 6 days to a town close by. The contract signed by the party demanded that they help the Caravan deal with a Riddler who protected a bridge shortcutting a large chasm that divides two major trade towns.

Arriving at the country town Paddy made a deal with the local cowboy raiders through a corrupt sheriff. The raiders and the party in two separate groups, one approached the Chasm, only to find the Riddle master approaching them with 'What is your name?' What is your quest?' and another obscure third question. The death of the sheriff, a Maximized Reverse Gust of Wind pulling him into the cavern, caused by his lies in the second question, are making the party wary of how the raiders in the second group will react. They are now scheming about how to dispatch their 'allies', the raiders.

Meanwhile, James's cleric tricked the guardian of the bridge into sucking himself into the chasm. It turns out a Dryad's enchanted tree was one of the supports of the bridge, the power of the Gust of Wind, and demands the party to find her a new uncorrupted true neutral guardian. Jessen suggests they find the fabled 'yeti', maybe the ONLY true neutral creature left alive in this barren wasteland.

Pictures

Rhinos trotting along the desert plains.

The Desert, and it's stretches of roses

The Floating creatures that stalk the anomalies.

People and Power

The highways running through the city, underground, weaving in and out, create wind tunnels from the outside: cool fresh air visits the inner hive when the weather picks up, but some areas of the hive are untouched. The problem with stale air is that it causes moisture, and, with the heat of the furnaces below, disease breeds amongst the citizens. With disease comes the sound of scurrying rats, the messengers of death for those who lack fortitude, and so rat-catchers are employed to find the nests and kill them before they carry the next wave of sickness with them. These rat-catchers are very well respected among the citizens, like a milkman and a surgeon combined. If anyone knows the right people and places, the rat-catchers do.

Commoners look upon adventurers like an asset. Although money is money, people are money, too, in the Hive. Gangs and Ministers will snatch for every character they think they will be able to 'convert' to their cause. Adventurers of stature are not commonplace though, although a few have popped up in recent history, they are better known as myths and stories, told to little children when reciting the epics of the great war. The great war produced, it seems, many powerful people. One was called The Red Bull, painted his armour bright red, so that he could stand out among his brethren in an attempt to draw harmful fire away from others and, in a selfless act, toward himself. It was this armour which later allowed him to skirmish through a large meadow of roses, to slaughter 50 men, including the enemy's commander, in a surprise attack which won the war. Todays City Guard Imperial Armour is in the design of his, in memoriam, a stanch reminder of his valiant bravery. Many have forgotten, or choose to ignore this, however, and it is known that some districts are as corrupt as a black-clad rogue.

The City

All races live amongst the hustle bustle of the hive city, from humans, who dominate the population, dwarves and gnomes, to the animal-like humanoid races, and even elves. The only elves that live in the city are ones that have lost their heritage, humanized.

The warforged in the city are not slaves nor servants, they are paid their own wages, however small the pittance. Thusly warforged from many a nation come seeking the Hive city as refuge from their homelands. They find it is hard to get ahead, but many do not care, and simply do what they love, crafting or working their skill. Whilst most of the black market and crime syndicate dealings happen in their territory, their concern is little more than apathy, as they are not bothered, nor bother.

Quite the opposite, it is usually the elves which strive for top political positions, and it is humans that are over-shadowed by their long-eared brothers. Each cell-block district has a flavor defined by the controlling chancellor and minister. Chancellors are obviously a religious balance in the political system, and each church is always trying to get their chancellor in a place of power. There are well over a hundred districts, and often the ones residing on the outside of the hive collapse and new ones are rebuilt, controlled by the next politica-power-thirsty elf. Above all chancellors and ministers is the mysterious General. No mere citizen will have ever even seen the General.

The before the hive era, the original castle was built off the side of a cliff face, so that it could access the rives that ran down a mountain, and be protected from flanking during great wars. As the Castle developed into a city, they built the great dam, and eventually the Wizard's district was built across as a separate entity, digging a moat around the walls. Now The Wizard's district acts as the Hive's greatest defense: no other city's mages can handle the level of anomaly saturation to infiltrate the Hive's east side by teleportation, so the city only needs to defend itself from the Southern Front.

Although the wizard's district is separate, it is connected by three main bridges.

Considering the strange attitude most citizens have toward wizards, most magic users have adapted to this by industrializing their powers. With industrialization comes specification, and with specification comes a weakness: versatility. Among the thousands of mages, few can do more than teleport and make food, and this is where someone who has a thirst for the power of real magic stands out.

The Intro

You stand atop the Hive's tallest tower “The Heaven's Reach”, and look out over the city's boundaries to the horizon.

A world where there are known to be anomalies, miniature tornadoes, black holes, and randomly appearing figures that seem to be impenetrable and frozen in time: it is an unstable plane. Wizards have a strange place in this world, as if they are another race, their magical powers allowing them status, they are feared and honored at the same time. Every time an arcane spell is cast, there is a chance of an anomaly occurring. For this reason churches often advocate anti-magic, as if their prayer, lacking in arcane lineage, is not considered magic.

It is an unstable plane, in the way that time and space do not act adhesively, easily tearing apart, as if physical constants are not constant. If you climb to the highest building and look out upon the earthy wastelands surrounding the Hive City of Guilds you see vast stretches of wet dull soil. Grass does not grow easily in this soil, instead meadows of bright red roses compliment the large red sun that waxes as it crosses the sky from north to east each day. Most days are cool, even when the sun is blazing, and there are not often clouds. Clouds are a bad omen, leading quickly to violent black storms. Because of the great open land, you can easily see the main roads from the top of your tower, as they snake out to smaller medieval towns, and into crevices where the earth has cracked and swallowed whatever used to be residing on top.

Some of these huge cracks in the soil glow a fluorescent purple, and small specs can be made out, those that are presumed to be the fabled 'floaters' that seem to come from the purple light. They are no threat, as they do not stray from their cracks, but those who have approached the floaters have never returned to tell a tale. It is presumed these cracks are the strongest anomalies.

The Hive City is purely made of stone and mortar, the accumulation of Castle built on collapsed castle, upon castle. Each generation and layer of rooms are salvaged by the lower class peasants, rebuilt into hundreds of hallways and rooms until the city is much like one large castle. There is no machinery, and there is very little magic – engineers are unknown, and magicians have been partitioned out of the city into their own bounds, because of the effect they have on the environment around them – a bit like a factory district being separated from living quarters, the wizards have their own quadrant of the city literally separated by a river-bound moat.

Highways run through the city, horse and cart creating deep ruts in the stone as they clobber back and forth through the stone tunnels that lead to the heart of the city. You will find many peasants have not seen the light of day, the colour of the red sun since they are too poor to pay for a trip to the outside, and it is too far to walk. Many citizens suffer from some kind of lung disease caused by the smoke of the of torches burning to keep the dark tunnels and rooms (read: buildings) light. As such, the deeper you climb into the city, the dirtier and hotter it becomes, until the very center is used as the blacksmith's furnaces and the city's sewers, manned by the Warforged and Golems – few living creatures can stand the constant overbearing heat.

The sewers are simply an integrated system among the clusters of homes and shops. Food has an economy of it's own: flagged in from the wizard's district by thousands of familiars, each with their shop-front at the boarder of the Wizard's district, each taking care of the financial transactions for the wizards as they cart food into the city for profit. It goes the other way, too, where dealers of raw materials sell to the familiars. As such, many wizards make a living in the food industry, magicking fruit, wine and bread. Many men cannot stand to deal with speaking cats and rats and pseudo-dragons, and no one dares cross or kill a familiar animal, for fear that a wizard come after them.

Those rare magic users that do not so boringly fuel the food economy are usually dangerous types, their minds set on a higher tier of achievement, studying the nature of the plane they live in, or simply furthering their own knowledge of magic – they are known to be destined for great deeds, good or evil not withstanding.

Crime is not a problem in the city, as crime is regulated by a 'guild'. It seems there is a guild for everything. Any unsanctioned happenings are dealt with, but you are sure that there are many unknown and unregistered groups.

There is another city that the hive castle trades with for raw materials. They seem a lot more normal, but what do you know about normal? The hive is all you have known. You can see it far in the distance, about where the horizon slides off. It has farms, with rich green grass, and the buildings are separate, and keep low to the ground, though, the area it takes up seems much larger than your city.