[MH] Caribbean by Night

[Polydamas]

Parenthically, I notice that "being sacrificed" not "almost being sacrificed" plus your comments about her Ridiculous Luck and Serendipity.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Parenthically, I notice that "being sacrificed" not "almost being sacrificed" plus your comments about her Ridiculous Luck and Serendipity.

Yeah, Alice was totally sacrificed. Has a huge scar over her heart and all. Hasn't discussed it with the other PCs, but one of them, who was present among the operatives who disrupted the ritual, is not entirely certain how she survived having a dagger thrust into her heart, considering that to all appearances, her heart was destroyed and stopped beating.

No one among the PCs knows anything about her period of convalescence, but at any rate, she seems to be alive today, complete with pulse and beating heart and everything.

[RogerBW]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Yeah, Alice was totally sacrificed. Has a huge scar over her heart and all. Hasn't discussed it with the other PCs, but one of them, who was present among the operatives who disrupted the ritual, is not entirely certain how she survived having a dagger thrust into her heart, considering that to all appearances, her heart was destroyed and stopped beating.

No one among the PCs knows anything about her period of convalescence, but at any rate, she seems to be alive today, complete with pulse and beating heart and everything.

Oh, they are so dead. :)

(One PC from my Weird War II campaign is still listed as "missing, presumed damned".)

[Icelander]

Crew of the Sky Pirate Ship Rocinante

Captain: Don Rafael de la Vega
Quartermaster: Calico Jack
Ship's Mage: Zancas
First Mate: Gaspar
Second Mate: Black Sheba
Bosun: Nicholas de Conception
Carpenter: Eduardo Villenueva
Gunner: Alonso de Contreras
Sargento mayor: Lope de Aguirre
Cook: Tao Chi'en
Assistant mage: Alex
Cabo: Marie
Butcher: Los Carnicero

Other Crew:
Juan Gomez
Diabolito
Juan Corso
Angel Garcia, Cabeza de Perro
Barbaroja (Redbeard)
Patopalo (Pegleg)

[Icelander]

I don't know if the PCs in my Caribbean by Night campaign will survive their Dream Quest into the mind of the sorceress Girl With the Kaleidoscope Eyes or if they'll be Lost in Time and Space in their battle with the Monster at the End of the Dream. I am choosing to believe in their chances, however, at least to the point of preparing the next adventure.

An unnamed someone, of the naughty kind who tends to get unscheduled visits by adventurers to give them unsolicited career advice, is running bloody and violent fights at a snazzy resort in the Caribbean somewhere. In a separate thread, I'm looking for suggestions on where such fights should be held.

[Icelander]

In the next session of Caribbean by Night, tomorrow (if lucky, failing that, next week), the PCs will finally reach the end of their Dream-Quest to Unknown Kadath, inside the unconscious mind of the captured sorceress and cultist of the Lords of tne Last Waste, Gwen Delvano. This means, of course, facing the Monster at the End of the Dream.

Through the experimental thaumaturgical ritual that the PCs used to send their dream projections into Gwen's Dreamlands, the PCs took on the role of Questing Heroes and the tear in reality inside the mind (or soul) of Gwen Delvano, created when she failed to contain the titannic energies channeled from the Lords of the Last Waste, was supposed to take a physical form, so that the PCs could destroy it and prevent the incursion of Things from Outside (incidentally, also save the sanity and life of Gwen Delvano).

That physical form seems to be located at a dream analogue of Lake Vostok, Antarctica, located far beneath the ice covering the ancient city of Unknown Kadath on the Plateu of Leng. At this moment, the PCs are not clear whether the immense pressure of a real subglacial lake will translate into the subjective physics of the Dreamlands, but, in any case, they and the good skyship Rocinante are well protected from anything and digging down through the ice at a racy speed in the icy burrowing insect form 'Nonc' Morel has created as a shell around them.

Now, the Monster at the End of the Dream will to some degree be a creation of Gwen Delvano's unconscious mind and the expectations of the NPC magician who designed the Dream-Quest ritual, the PC who acted as lead caster and the other PCs who performed the ritual under her guidance. By dream-logic and the strong fantasy RPG influence on the ritual design, the Monster should be an epic boss fight, most probably, of course, a Dragon.

However, there is a real tear in reality inside the mind of Gwen Delvano and an actual otherworldly being is attempting to widen the pathway, shatter and subsume the mind (and possibly soul) of Gwen Delvano and use her as a vessel to drain the Earth of all warmth, energy, potentiality and hope, adding it to the desolate wastelands 'ruled' over by the Lords of the End of Everything.

He/she/it might not be one of the true Outer Lords, as their vast, cool and unsympathetic intelligences are presumably above noticing any individual human mind, but even if this Emissary is 'only' a survivor of another world fallen under ice and emptiness, trying to prolong its own existence by feeding the Lords of the Last Waste a steady diet of warmth and hope, it is still a being of almost unimaginable power, existing on multiple planes of existence simulataneously, siphoning off vast reserves of power from the heat and energy it funnels to its Masters.

Of course, its true name is unknown to humanity and likely not even pronounceable. Only the Keepers of the Last Hearth, the mysterious cult of the Lords of the Last Waste who operate on Earth, know anything about this Emissary, the Opener of the Way, a dark John the Baptist to the Ice Giant apocalypse, and their fragmented knowledge is more guesswork than factual.

I've established in play that spirits, humans and various magical beings can be enslaved to the Lords of the Last Waste, which is represented in spiritual terms by incorporeal psychic bonds of freezing tendrils that wrap around the enslaved one's aura. These icy tendrils lead to the gateway where the influence of the Lords of the Last Waste comes into the world, and thus, to the Emissary.

I thought that this might be a justification to borrow some arachnid themes for the physical form, although, obviously, the Emissary owes nothing to Earthly biology, and, in any case, will obviously add some dragonic features and a tentacle or ten, at least for the dream-form. The true form of the Emissary might be aquatic or it might not, and it might be adapted for the unimaginable pressures of subglacial lakes like Lake Vostok, but then again, maybe it can just survive such extreme conditions because it can survive anywhere.

Now, to sum up the purpose of this detailed post, I'm looking for a better, more evocative title or moniker to call this being than merely the Emissary or the Monster at the End of the Dream.

The PCs will meet an important leader of the Keepers of the Last Hearth in the dream, just before they face the Monster. To what degree this person is merely a wishful dream construct of Gwen Delvano's mind will not be clear, but this man/shadow/projection/dream figment will have more answers than anyone the PCs have met, though he will impart them in somewhat cryptic fashion.

So, I'm looking for suggestions from forumites as to what this Mysterious Stranger might call the Emissary/Monster at the End of the Dream?

Bonus questions:

A) Any suggestions about the appearance and nature of the Emissary in the dream-form are welcome.

B) The Mysterious Stranger will appear to be a kind of hybrid of the mythic/folkloric/fictional 'Dark Man' and 'the Trickster' archtypes. He'll introduce himself with a variety of names and monikers, letting the PCs pick which they prefer. Among these monikers will be 'The Wanderer' and 'Walter O'Dim'. Any suggestions for others, ideally inspired by pop culture, but somewhat ambigious (i.e. Loki, Satan or Nyarlathotep are probably too on the nose).

[Icelander]

Right, I've got a few ideas for names for the Monster at the End of the Dream. I'd lije input from the denizens of the forums on which sound silly, which work and which they like best.

Refer to post above for background.

New suggestions also welcomed.

Name ideas so far:

1) The Emissary.

2) The Weaver.

3) Wayfinder.

4) Hoarfrost.

5) Angurboda.

6) Hrymnir.

7) Fimbulwinter.

8) Hrymthurs.

9) Morana.

10) Jötunbodi.

11) Moroz.

12) Harbinger.

Which do you like?

[johndallman]

The Weaver, because it shows someone has read Perdido Street Station. That's a plausible book for Gwen Delvano to have read, but you should change a few things around.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The Weaver, because it shows someone has read Perdido Street Station. That's a plausible book for Gwen Delvano to have read, but you should change a few things around.

Excellent point!

I expect that only one of the players has read it, but one PC (ironically not played by the well-read player) is established as an omni-geek, has sky-high Hobby Skill (Fandom) and Literature skills and Eidetic Memory. I very much suspect Alice Talbot has read China Miélville.

That being said, I note that whether the presence of the Man in Black inside Gwen Delvano's dream is wish-fulfilment fantasy or not, there is such a man, in reality. That is, the appearance and voice of the Man in Black (if not his faux-Western wardrobe) reflect a real senior figure in the cult dedicated to the Lords of the Last Waste, the Keepers of the Last Hearth, a mysterious physicist of Russian or other Eastern European origin.

And the Weaver (Harbinger / Angurboda / Moraz) is truly an entity known to the inner circle of the Keepers of the Last Hearth, though likely they refer to It with a worshipful title coined in their esoteric ConLang, based on Ithkuil.

The Man in Black that the PCs meet will be surprisingly forthcoming and helpful, with a proclivity for long, verbose explanations that raise more questions than they answer. As such, I wouldn't put it past him to refer to the Monster at the End of the Dream in some such way:

"It is no mere demon or djinn, to be commanded and castigated by a conjurer in possession of the right True Name. If It has a True Name, that name can never be spoken by human tongues, for who can pronounce the crashing of glaciers or the dying of the light? Little Sybil calls It the Weaver, but the girl always had more poetry than sense. A folklorist might call It Angurboda or Moraz, the forerunner of Fimbulwinter, the emissary of the frostjötnar, the overture to the Götterdämmerung. I've always liked Harbinger, myself."

I'd like to have some reference to the Man in Black's real profession as a physicist. Some way to refer to the Monster inspired by physics, not mythology or literature.

[Icelander]

Player 1: "We won!"

Player 2: "Did we, though? Or did we just not lose?"

GM: "Yog-Sothoth seemed pleased with you. Though it may be cause for concern that Yog-Sothoth is on your side."

Player 3: "What would have happened if we hadn't, you know... any of this? I don't just mean what would have happened to that one girl. Would the world have actually ended?"

Player 4: "Or was it all meaningless, because we're all still high as balls?"

Player 1, 2, 3: "We'll never know!"