RECAP: Strange Aeons, 6-26-26
Summary of Session Introduction and Context
This session marks the 54th episode of “Strange Aeons,” a recurring campaign, highlighting its longevity as an anniversary event.
The previous journey involved searching for the King in Yellow (referred to as “Lowls”), who had apparently been sent to a prison on the moon by mysterious powers.
The party traveled with gifts for the Mad Poet and navigated a surreal environment where the caravan and inhabitants appeared to regress backwards in time or transform. After interacting with a large flying purple elephant, used as transport to the moon prison, the group approached the facility and confronted its unusually unguarded front door.
Interaction with the Moon Prison Gatekeeper
They meet the gatekeeper, initially resistant to allowing them entry but bribed with a mysterious sapphire that induces a violent seizure in him, causing physical harm including broken fingers caused partly by the party attempting to remove the stone from the creature’s hands. . The creature shifts between multiple humanoid forms, indicating he is likely a doppelganger or shapechanger, though details remain partly ambiguous. The guard remains incapacitated, signaling magical or arcane properties of these gems. The seizure ends once the sapphire is removed, but the guard continues unconscious. The group binds and gags the unconscious gatekeeper to prevent disruptions during their mission.
Exploration Inside the Prison, Identification of Items
A search of his pockets reveals the gatekeeper is carrying several spell scrolls: Three Dimension Door scrolls, and three Fireball scrolls. The prison layout includes multiple floors connected by stairways, guard posts with murder holes (arrow/weapon slits), and notably sparse prisoner activity. The absence of traps in many places is noteworthy given the prison’s purpose, indicating either lax security or perhaps a different method of containment.
Encounter with a Ghoul
Inside one barracks-like room, a tall ghoul with a noble bearing greets the party, wary but ultimately cooperative. She exhibits concern for the injured gatekeeper and questions the party about their intentions regarding the King in Yellow. She examines the injured man and gestures toward the unusual nature of his broken fingers and seizure episode, suggesting her medical or quasi-medical role in the prison. The party uses deception (bluff check successful) to explain the injury as accidental, allowing her cooperation to continue to carry the injured guard to an administrative area for examination.
The Prison’s Administrative Wing and Warden Introduction
They meet the prison warden, a large grub-like entity with multiple tentacles and pale, yellowish eyes, named Arach-Nar, who administers the prison and discusses the internal conflict with his rival, Yath-Kheph, a mutinous jailer who has removed himself and his followers to the upper levels. The warden admits he has no desire to work with “the other side” (Yath-Kheph’s faction) and promises assistance if the party can capture or defeat Yath-Kheph. He provides keys and a rough map of the prison, describing cell block locations, administrative offices, and torture chambers, including a mysterious murky black lake outside the prison. It becomes clear that the prisoner population is loosely tracked and varies; cells can hold many prisoners depending on size, even suggesting absurd scenarios such as housing prisoners in halves in adjacent cells, emblematic of the chaotic “moon logic” governing this place.
Prison Cell Block and Prisoner Observations
After circumventing, Elib-style, a moom-dust concrete wall, the cell wing contains many empty spaces, minimal furnishings, leather pallets, metal buckets, and suspicious stains. The confinement cells offer no privacy, and many prisoners appear starved or neglected. The prisoners include a young blonde woman with too many teeth and unsettlingly long tongue, signaling a potentially dangerous or corrupted presence. She claims innocent crimes like vandalism and pestering yet is trapped far from civilization. The party debates whether to help or release her later, recognizing her potential usefulness or importance in upcoming events. There are two other prisoners, but the party does not interact with them.
Exploration of the Torture Chamber and Animated Torture Devices
The torture chamber contains various horrific implements, many magically animated, including tables, iron maidens, and other devices capable of independent attack and movement. The torturer, a ghoul-like woman with swirling rainbow-colored hypnotic eyes, interacts smoothly with the party, seemingly calm but unflinching in her dedication to torture, sometimes including herself. She invites the party to submit to torture for evaluation, showing extensive scarification from repeated self-torture acts to ensure procedural accuracy and morale for others.
Combat with the Torture Lady; Metamorphosis and Tactical Engagement
Upon being attacked (acid damage, corrosive touch) by the party, the torturer undergoes a painful transformation into a large, serpentine, draconic creature with wings and multiple tentacles, expanding into a powerful opponent. She uses an acid breath weapon, inflicting significant damage to all nearby party members, except those with resistances. The creature also emanates a frightful presence causing panic among some party members, further complicating the battle.
Party members take tactical roles distributing damage with melee attacks such as claws and great axes, spells like flame strike, and supportive bardic inspiration, exploiting weaknesses and resisting the creature’s spells as her resistance fluctuates. Animated torture devices also engage the party, creating multiple simultaneous threats requiring coordinated actions for defense and attack.
The draconic creature is eventually defeated, collapsing and sublimating into a gaseous form, evoking imagery of a dreamlike and surreal transition back to partial normality. Upon inspection of the corpse, the party discovers a multi-stomached digestive system containing four large, valuable gemstones (likely tourmalines), scorched but intact. Knowledge checks reveal the creature may be a mythical “dream dragon,” capable of psychic powers and shape-shifting, reinforcing the surreal nature of the Dreamlands environment. The group discusses potentially harvesting magical fluids such as blood or eye fluids, though the ephemeral nature of such substances means rapid collection is necessary.
The torture devices, no defunct, and environment radiate magical energy, primarily necromantic and evocation magics designed for inflicting pain and maintaining control. The party debates the practical use of carrying magical torture implements, questioning the value versus the danger of transporting such curses or enchantments. The discussion touches on the classification of magic schools and their varied role in the Dreamlands and perhaps prefigures future magical research opportunities or quests.
