Tower of Woe: A Dungeon Thread Campaign

[Darth Hauntruss]

​

Everyone has heard the tale. Or some part of it.
But, you, traveller, you have seen it. Haven't you?
The Tower surrounded by fog atop a fortress the size of kingdoms.
What was it like? Did you feel it?
The terror of a void without comparison.
What will you bring back?
From the Tower of Woe.​

It felt like a dream. And yet. It felt like an eternity. When was it when you fell? When you felt the rush of air and the ground beneath vanish. When was it when the dark consumed your vision and the sound of violent gusts deafened you?

Water. The sensation of piercing cold and pervasive touch of liquid. You find yourself lying face up in a flood of dark waters. Beneath the small feet of water your submerged fingers could feel stone. It felt smooth, eroded into a characterless slab of rock. Even the masonry was rubbed away. You wonder where you are. How did you come to this circumstance? But, then again since the tragedies you have begun to care little of your circumstance.

You feel around for a bit. Your hands caress cold slab and the grooves that separated them. Your rise from the waters and with wanting eyes try to identify your surroundings. Coffins. Great stone boxes with their lids broken and collapsed. Bodies floated limply around you. Above you a beam of light introduces a gaping hole above. Dust and aeons old debris drift into the light mimicking falling snow as they pass. The catacomb is deep and water along with the light pours down from above. And yet, the catacomb seems to not fill with water entirely but, always stays at knee level.

Above you are the other levels of the catacomb, connected by stone staircases with weeping gargoyles decorating their barristers. They hold their horned faces in their bony hands. The sound of disturbed water draws your attention away from the architecture and you notice you’re are not alone. Others have seemed to have been awakened. They are just like you. The fallen. Awakened to a sunken catacomb at the bottom of some ancient structure.

This is the tale of a broken knight, a warrior looking for a honourable end, an elf devoid of a legacy and master scholar with no works to his name​

GM Section​

1.[member="Alec Rekali"] 2.[member="Seydon of Arda"] 3. [member="Vax'ildan"] 4. [member="Fabula Caromed"]​

Welcome to the first part of the Tower of Woe Dungeon Thread Campaign – the Sunken Cathedral. For our heroes, due to a tragedy from which they believe they cannot recover, they succumb to the Eternal Sleep and have re-awakened in a flooded catacomb.

How this works is our PCs will treat this like a game of D&D. The GM will narrate a scene and the PCs react in kind with their own narrative.

Posting Rules
1. Please post in a spoiler at the end of your post your Character Template for others to read and for reference in every post.
2. Please stick to Third-Person
3. And any OOC Questions or clarifications can also be made below labelled OOC.

Readers​

[member="Pyro"] [member="Kadala Skirata"]​

​

CHARACTERS​

​

Spoiler

Appearance: http://img11.deviant...142-d9t0se1.jpg
Name: Vax'ildan
Race: Elf
High Concept: Rogue, Thief who's lover has been killed, along with his friends. He is now alone..
Tragedy: Vax'ildan has been left alone in life. His lover, twin sister, and best friends in the whole world have all been killed. He's just alone now and through a lifetime of fighting, just wants to rest now..
Skills:
Sleight of hand (Good)
Stealth (Great)
Acrobatics (Good)
Background: Vax'ildan traveled around the lands with his party, and party of adventures looking for fun and adventure. They slew dragons, demons, arrested corrupted politicians, and gained quite a name for their group. But, when a trap was set for them, Vax was the only one left. He wandered around, depressed and alone until he ventured into the realm of the Tower of Woe.

Appearance:http://s59.photobucket.com/user/Link71_photos/media/dark-souls-3-screenshots-wandering-knight.jpg.html
Name: Arto Kool
Race: Human
High Concept: A poor knight lost to a forgotten war, wandering bloody mists until the Fates conclude his questing is finished.
Tragedy: Gone to war, Arto soldiered home when the battles finally played themselves out. Returning to a meagre estate, he discovered the grounds were ravaged by a punitive expedition mounted by the enemy. He never found his family.
Skills:
Longsword W/ Shield: Great
Skirmishing: Great
Detection: Average
Background: Knight's can be equal in station but not always equal in luxury. Arto's family came from poor stock in spite of their land rights. To supplement income, Arto spent his formative years between tending the fields and weathering routine bruising's in the training circles. As a man, he took a peasant wife and looked forward to enjoying the fruits of his farm's labours. Obligated, he mustered out to tend to his Queen when a fresh war began. A long year passed before hostilities were brokered through treaty into peace, but too late. The enemy dared into his territories and found his home unguarded.

Appearance: http://orig11.deviantart.net/a47a/f/2014/106/3/d/defeated_by_liyart-d7eoswb.jpg
Name: Keisha the Undying
Race: Cursed human
High Concept: Sole survivor of a warrior tribe from high in the mountains.
Tragedy: Dozens of Keisha's kin met their valiant end in battle against an encroaching kingdom. She didn't.
Skills:
Durability (Great)
Close Combat (Good)
Courage (Good)
Background: Just one of many warriors from her tribe, Keisha Marchbreaker joined her family, friends, and peers in their militant resistance of a kingdom that decided it wanted their land. While the rest of her tribe met their end in glorious battle, on the ends of spears or beneath a hail of arrows, when the snow and smoke cleared, Keisha found that she was still alive despite horrific injuries. For years, she tried to meet death with open arms, but no matter how she fought, her broken body seemed to survive every battle.

Appearance: http://www.goblinscomic.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/ThacoFanartFinishedsm.jpg
Name: Gizznak
Race: Goblin
High Concept: The most erudite scholar of goblinkind.
Tragedy: Gizznak's library fed the campfires of an uncaring army. Not a single volume survived, despite his best efforts.
Skills:
Safely navigating confined and poorly planned corridors (Great)
Stabbing things (Good)
Noticing things, especially stealable things (Good)
Background: Gizznak's name was known far and wide among goblins, once upon a time. He and his compatriots collected a marvelous underground library of goblin lore -- painstakingly hand-copied manuscripts on mushrooms, rust, and tunneling. This archive of purest goblinity fell prey to the base needs of passing humans. When Gizznak and his fellow scholars resisted, a slaughter ensued. Gizznak spent a good bit of time in a slave market before his escape. He has come to the dark tower in hopes of finding ancient lore, the seed of a new collection.

 

[Seydon of Arda]

[member="Alec Rekali"] [member="Vax'ildan"] [member="Fabula Caromed"] [member="Darth Hauntruss"]

Liquid cold. A drip of frigid, razor steel cutting down the bone and meat of his spine. Arto Kool sputtered and thrashed awake, turning over in the shallow melt pool, needing to lift his back free from the sensation of rolling ice. Water pooled inside his gauntlets and his digits began immediately aching, numbing. Knees too. He lifted the helm visor, spat bloody bracken past his tongue, got shakily to his feet and staggered out and away from the pool. Cold. Gods-damned cold. Feeling was slowly warming itself through every nerve end in his flesh and the pain was beyond mere pins and needles. The studded quilting and chain hauberk under the cuirass were soaked and would take too many hours to dry out in the frigid dark. Arto reached out, feeling for a wall.

His gloves connected with smoothed bricks. Fingertips traced a worn seem, flicking crumbling mortar. There, he thought, now wait. Your legs will quit aching soon, the further you press them into motion. Remember the lesson, in both physics and physiology: a body in motion stays in motion. Arto paused regardless, clenching the muscles in his thighs, testing each toe, finger, joint, and limb, rolling his backbone as much as the cuirass allowed. He could stand and he could think. Breathe in, he practised, hold for two seconds and exhale. Repeat it. A worried heart rate managed slowing itself. Arto took a hand off the wall and checked the belting round his faulds.

A sword was waiting in its soggy leather scabbard, needing a whetstone and oil soon. A small hunting knife off the small of his back. A weighty shield clung strapped to his shoulders. All where he'd left them, before he fell awake through a screaming dream, only to come to with his closed helm half submerged in ice water. The knight felt along the wall, paused when there was a jamb and a black hint of empty air. Arto snaked one boot forward and tapped it against a step. Easy now, he thought. One hand on the side of the jamb, he reached and felt for the other. The first step was mounted. The next was toed, mounted in succession, palms flat to either side of the stairwell, traversing up as vision cleared and Arto could detect a faint hum of light.

Torchlight would be sublime, relieving. The tinder and flint in a belt pouch were too soaked for now. And no wood on hand anyhow. Arto kept scaling upwards following the winding staircase, clutching onto a narrow banister protruding from the brick. Shapes of onyx gargoyles weeping into their clawed, skinny hands showed through the gloom. Water ran and plinked incessantly through converging echoes. It reminded Arto of the Hadislauw raid, fighting in the pitch back dungeons under the old duke's castle, crushing bones in his hands when he could no longer wield his longsword with any safety for comrades.

They toasted your name while half the world away, all that mattered was dragged crying into a different kind of night, Arto thought. Bile scorched in his throat. He kept climbing, following the dark stairwell, onto another barren floor. Scuffling sounded in close chambers and connecting halls. Arto drew his blade.

“Hallo!” The cry cut the silence. “Hallo...!”

Spoiler

Appearance:http://s59.photobuck...knight.jpg.html

Name: Arto Kool

Race: Human

High Concept: A poor knight lost to a forgotten war, wandering bloody mists until the Fates conclude his questing is finished.

Tragedy: Gone to war, Arto soldiered home when the battles finally played themselves out. Returning to a meager estate, he discovered the grounds were ravaged by a punitive expedition mounted by the enemy. He never found his family.

Skills:

• Longsword W/ Shield: Great
• Skirmishing: Great
• Detection: Average

Background: Knight's can be equal in station but not always equal in luxury. Arto's family came from poor stock in spite of their land rights. To supplement income, Arto spent his formative years between tending the fields and weathering routine bruising's in the training circles. As a man, he took a peasant wife and looked forward to enjoying the fruits of his farm's labours. Obligated, he mustered out to tend to his Queen when a fresh war began. A long year passed before hostilities were brokered through treaty into peace, but too late. The enemy dared into his territories and found his home unguarded.

 

[Vax'ildan]

Cold. Liquid. Water. It felt nice.. to be completely submerged like this. Cool. Protected from the elements and from harm. Maybe he should stay here. Away from danger, and from hurt. He felt himself slowly drifting away.. but something brought him back. What was it? It was gone now. He started to drift again..

Again, something surged up in his mind and he came back to consciousness, like as if something kept disturbing him the second before he fell asleep. Like a sound of some sort.

Suddenly, his lungs burned. He hadn't been getting air. He opened his eyes to blackness, and his sensations came slowly back to him. He was completely numb, but pressures could still be felt, that was good. And there was a lot of pressure on the from of his body, left side of his face and hands. He pushed against it, and came out of the water, finding himself laying in knee deep water. He gasped for air, the cool mist filling his lungs as he panted for breath, shaking his head free of his hair sticking to his face. He looked up only see a man clad in armor, a sword in his hand and a shield at his back. Adrenaline pumped through Vax and he got up on his knees, drawing two of his daggers from his belt instinctively. One lit up in magical flame to illuminate the dark room he was in.

His eyes were wild with fear and his fight or flight instincts were kicking in.

He had no clue how he had gotten here. He was wandering the planes and hills on his home country, now in ruins by the failure of him and his friends all those years ago. And then he fell asleep under that lone oak tree.. or was that three months ago? He couldn't remember. Time just blurred together so much. But he definitely didn't remember coming here, or crawling into anything underground.

"Who-..." His voice was scratchy, and he cleared his throat as he slowly got to his feet all of his limbs numb to the bone. "Who are you?!" He called out once before his right leg slipped on the grim covering the stone floor, and he had to catch the wall to keep from falling back in. His hand fell into it, but it was too dark to see. He felt something cold and hard with his hand. He held up with dagger with flame flickering off of it, discovering his hand deep in a broken coffin of someone. He cried out in shock and surprise to the bones and stretched skin over them, pushing away from the wall and falling flat on his butt once more in the water before turning again to the man in armor, looking like a knight of some sort.

Spoiler

Appearance: http://img11.deviantart.net/5964/i/2016/055/f/8/critical_role___vax_ildan_by_calindor142-d9t0se1.jpg
Name: Vax'ildan
Race: Elf
High Concept: Rogue, Thief who's lover has been killed, along with his friends. He is now alone..
Tragedy: Vax'ildan has been left alone in life. His lover, twin sister, and best friends in the whole world have all been killed. He's just alone now and through a lifetime of fighting, just wants to rest now..
Skills:

• Sleight of hand (Good)
• Stealth (Great)
• Acrobatics (Good)

Background: Vax'ildan traveled around the lands with his party, and party of adventures looking for fun and adventure. They slew dragons, demons, arrested corrupted politicians, and gained quite a name for their group. But, when a trap was set for them, Vax was the only one left. He wandered around, depressed and alone until he ventured into the realm of the Tower of Woe.

 

[Fabula Caromed]

Keisha felt cold. The kind of cold far deeper than anything she'd felt back home. She'd finally done it. Would she remember how? It didn't matter. At this point, as long as it hadn't been from some weakness like disease or poison, she'd take any death. The important part now was that she was cold, and the world around her was dark. The hallmarks of death. Sometime soon she would find the warmth of torchlight. It would lead to a feasthall where all of her kin would be drinking and eating and fighting with her ancestors, and she would finally join them. It had been so long. Would she even remember their faces? Would they remember hers? Did it even matter? All that mattered was that she joined them, not whether or not she was welcomed with open arms.

Now where was that damn light?

Opening her eyes properly, Keisha looked around a bit more intently at where she was. She was cold because of icy water, not the creeping hand of death. It was dark because the room was unlit, not because the light had faded from her eyes. She still lived. "Damn it all." Her voice crackled as if it hadn't been used in days. The ruined fur of her coat had slapped against her face, and she gave a quiet sigh as she fought to her feet to pull it off of her shoulders. Her boots were practically barrels of disgusting corpse-water by now. Gods knew how much of it she had swallowed. She'd likely be sick for a few days, but again, that didn't matter. She tossed her coat into the water and searched for her weapons. Her knife was still with her, but her sword had slipped its scabbard, and her axe floated off like driftwood.

Her eyes took some time to adjust to the dim lighting of the swampy room she'd been dumped into. Coffins. Corpses. Water. One torch. Shoddy masonry. She was in a lowlander crypt, and the stench alone reminded her of the wisdom of her people's decision to burn their dead. A glorious evening of celebration on a funeral pyre surrounded by spirits and music was infinitely preferable to being thrown into a sewer and forgotten for the rest of time, wasn't it? How these weaklings had managed to slaughter her entire tribe was still beyond her understanding, even years after the fact. Even when it wasn't true. They hadn't killed all of her tribe.

She could hear someone speaking in the darkness. Her own response was cut short when a second voice screamed. Keisha's reaction was to not react. She took a deep breath, let out a quiet sigh, and continued searching for her weapons. Her axe was floating a few yards away. She kicked her sword - or at least a sword - on the way to grab it. When she was properly armed, the half-dead warrior began wandering towards what little light she saw. Unafraid, possibly incapable of fear (or caution), she made for the staircase that...hm. Occupied. From the shiny look of the man currently occupying her way out of corpse-water, he was one of those blasted lowland soldiers.

She didn't speak. There was no need for words yet. Whatever fool this fool was talking to could see her well enough, and nothing between them required her input. Best to save her breath and just look around, stay aware for any real danger, and lament the fact that, once again, she had failed to die when given a perfectly good chance.

Spoiler

Appearance: http://orig11.deviantart.net/a47a/f/2014/106/3/d/defeated_by_liyart-d7eoswb.jpg
Name: Keisha the Undying
Race: Cursed human
High Concept: Sole survivor of a warrior tribe from high in the mountains.
Tragedy: Dozens of Keisha's kin met their valiant end in battle against an encroaching kingdom. She didn't.
Skills:

• Durability (Great)
• Close Combat (Good)
• Courage (Good)

Background: Just one of many warriors from her tribe, Keisha Marchbreaker joined her family, friends, and peers in their militant resistance of a kingdom that decided it wanted their land. While the rest of her tribe met their end in glorious battle, on the ends of spears or beneath a hail of arrows, when the snow and smoke cleared, Keisha found that she was still alive despite horrific injuries. For years, she tried to meet death with open arms, but no matter how she fought, her broken body seemed to survive every battle.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Fabula Caromed"] [member="Vax'ildan"] @Seydon of Arda

The water tasted of dead men, and not in a good way. Spoiled and dusty meat, with nothing appetizing about it. By contrast, the scent erred on the side of freshness when Gizznak breached the surface and got a lungful of air. Even before he'd rubbed foul water from his eyes, he snorted and inhaled again. Three living: two human, one elf, none close. The scents were of varying strength, which indicated variation in distance or hygiene, perhaps both. Somewhere a torch was burning. The mingled smell, smoke and human, cast him back in his mind's eye as surely as a biscuit dipped in tea.

Memory offered a distraction, an obstruction. As he cleared his eyes, he noted that he stood in a canted chamber, half-flooded. (That part he already knew). His claws rasped on the warped and inclined floor. Though in principle he had nothing against gloom and dampness, water could conceal unexpected drops or sharp objects. He stayed to the merely moist portion of the floor as he made his way to the dark door. Torchlight flickered down the hall, around a bend. Maybe the flicker came from the fire itself, maybe from being held. He watched a while, but couldn't say.

A call, a scream -- sounds filtered through the citadel in odd ways, defying estimation of distance. Currents of cold air -- and warm, fetid drafts -- made scent unreliable as well. For all he knew, someone might come around the corner in an instant. Belatedly, he checked that his short sword and knife still hung from his belt. He stayed in the doorway, ready to dart back or out as the situation might demand. Thus far, he'd made no sound of substance.

Spoiler

Appearance: http://www.goblinsco...tFinishedsm.jpg
Name: Gizznak
Race: Goblin
High Concept: The most erudite scholar of goblinkind.
Tragedy: Gizznak's library fed the campfires of an uncaring army. Not a single volume survived, despite his best efforts.
Skills:
Safely navigating confined and poorly planned corridors (Great)
Stabbing things (Good)
Noticing things, especially stealable things (Good)
Background: Gizznak's name was known far and wide among goblins, once upon a time. He and his compatriots collected a marvelous underground library of goblin lore -- painstakingly hand-copied manuscripts on mushrooms, rust, and tunneling. This archive of purest goblinity fell prey to the base needs of passing humans. When Gizznak and his fellow scholars resisted, a slaughter ensued. Gizznak spent a good bit of time in a slave market before his escape. He has come to the dark tower in hopes of finding ancient lore, the seed of a new collection.

 

[Darth Hauntruss]

A Knight, Elf, Goblin and Warrior gathered in the flooded catacombs. As they wandered upwards and followed the eroded staircases of stone, they could see the figures of misshapen phantoms. Wandering souls, featureless. Forms of black bleeding in and out of existence. They seemed to shuffle without purpose. They would pass each other and our heroes without pausing to notice them.

Some groaned. Others clutched their heads in their hands. While some merely cradled themselves shivering. One by the Knight ([member="Seydon of Arda"]) was whispering to himself. Who am I? Why was I brought here....What...was my name? The poor soul, along with his appearance, had his memory washed away. The soul looked like he had been trapped down her for aeons. Perhaps this was the fate of those who never escaped - whatever this place was. Some lost souls were also non-human. The tall homogeneous form of a giant loomed overhead and passed straight through the Elf ([member="Vax'ildan"]). While a legless creature that wheezed pain crawled past the goblin ([member="Alec Rekali"]) and a wandering child passed the tribal warrior ([member="Fabula Caromed"])

But, what they all had in common was they were all drawn to the opening in the ceiling. And as the heroes approached the opening they discovered why. A haunting melody woven by the voice of a weeping woman slithered through the stone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5dTeRroCZI​

​

Her voice bewitched the lost souls. They made way to it. It diffused a strange calm, a calm of nun but comfortable darkness. The melody dance and swerved in the catacombs dragging the fallen from their slumber. Awaking them from one dream to another. And yet the melody held no power of the heroes, although its sound is alluring it did not bewitch them. Perhaps it only affected those who had no memory or tether to their true form left. Regardless the song grew in strength and more and more of the featureless lost souls emerged.

Making way to just below the opening, the heroes now must decide to press on or explore what is hidden in the upper levels of the catacombs.

GM NOTE:​

Players can now mingle with each other and decide which of the paths to take (opening in the ceiling or the upper level corridors).​

 

[Seydon of Arda]

The stream of entropic spirits wafted about in concentrated funeral processions, shuffling out of the skin of the slab walls, dressed in gowns of inky ectoplasm and sporting the same stony, poleaxed expression. Translucent flesh, skeletons of chrome and lightning nerve-endings, buzzing in and out of the corporeal plane. They're shades, Arto thought. Ghostling embers of concentrated humanity, slowly corroding into spiritual... nothingness. With their shape brought a crisis of interpersonal conviction. He'd never thought much of the gods or the unknowable death-pantheons of arch, ignoble arch-things that demanded tribute from mortals festering the world they'd molded. Were these ghosts, though, what awaited past expiration? Or was their wandering condition part of the environment? The granite mausoleum they were all bound in? Arto cocked his helm and listened to the ephemeral voice singing down the ceiling portal.

“That can't be anything well,” Arto muttered. Across the low chamber, another vaulted stairwell wound up into further lightlessness. Save for the song, their own breathing and physical motion, the quiet was returning. He looked from the ceiling to the staircase, thumbing the brushed steel on his sword pommel.

“Truthfully,” He peered up where the notes were issuing. “I don't care much for where this place wants to take us. ...I say we find that singer. Or whatever is making that aria. Should be a clue or somesuch on hand about how to get out...”

Spoiler

Appearance:http://s59.photobuck...knight.jpg.html

Name: Arto Kool

Race: Human

High Concept: A poor knight lost to a forgotten war, wandering bloody mists until the Fates conclude his questing is finished.

Tragedy: Gone to war, Arto soldiered home when the battles finally played themselves out. Returning to a meager estate, he discovered the grounds were ravaged by a punitive expedition mounted by the enemy. He never found his family.

Skills:

• Longsword W/ Shield: Great
• Skirmishing: Great
• Detection: Average

Background: Knight's can be equal in station but not always equal in luxury. Arto's family came from poor stock in spite of their land rights. To supplement income, Arto spent his formative years between tending the fields and weathering routine bruising's in the training circles. As a man, he took a peasant wife and looked forward to enjoying the fruits of his farm's labours. Obligated, he mustered out to tend to his Queen when a fresh war began. A long year passed before hostilities were brokered through treaty into peace, but too late. The enemy dared into his territories and found his home unguarded.

 

[Vax'ildan]

The ghosts unnerved him as the shambled about. He had a past of getting possessed by such things. A chill ran down his spine as he remembered it, and as he did, he heard the singing. In the depressed and lonely state he was in... it sounded like her. Like his love, long since dead, when she would sing. "Y-.. yes, we should go up there and see her..." His gaze was locked on the opening on the roof. Could that really be her? Finally here to take him with her?

Spoiler

Appearance: http://img11.deviant...142-d9t0se1.jpg
Name: Vax'ildan
Race: Elf
High Concept: Rogue, Thief who's lover has been killed, along with his friends. He is now alone..
Tragedy: Vax'ildan has been left alone in life. His lover, twin sister, and best friends in the whole world have all been killed. He's just alone now and through a lifetime of fighting, just wants to rest now..
Skills:
Sleight of hand (Good)
Stealth (Great)
Acrobatics (Good)
Background: Vax'ildan traveled around the lands with his party, and party of adventures looking for fun and adventure. They slew dragons, demons, arrested corrupted politicians, and gained quite a name for their group. But, when a trap was set for them, Vax was the only one left. He wandered around, depressed and alone until he ventured into the realm of the Tower of Woe.

 

[Vax'ildan]

OOC: [member="Fabula Caromed"] Your turn?