Adventure 18: The Citadel of the Winds

After going through the portal in the Hanging Gardens, the party found themselves in the Citadel of the Winds -- the ruins of the ancient home of the wind djinn. The city of blueish stone floated above the Middle World, prowled by pteradons and griffin.

As the party explored, they discovered dikramaa -- memory points where they could interact with the past. Some of these encounters proved to be vital visions of the ancient Citadel, and some proved to be harrowing memories of the adventurers themselves.

The memory points revisited a time when a young girl named Anju caught a wind kami named Akara. Akara fed on memory and faith and grew large and powerful, and Anju became enthralled in his power. Around this same time, Kazim the Abjurer was visiting the Sky Caliph Djinn Lord of the Air, and would later seal him away in the brass vessel.

The party eventually arrived at the Sky Caliph's main citadel, and faced Akara.  Akara had grown massive and threatened the mortals now in his realm. Fearing they could not best him in direct confrontation, the party made a deal with Akara, and some gave up memories to the wind kami in exchange for the brass vessel.

Anden gave up memory of the mean streets of Majirah where he grew up, losing his ability to navigate them quickly. Arashino Maru gave up memories of revisiting his mother (and her family) after his time spent in Adanir with his father, forgetting he had family in the Middle World.

In the end, the party reclaimed the (heavy) brass vessel and left the Citadel of the Winds before it closed off for another year.

Adventure 17: The Hanging Gardens

Having quelled the sandstorms that prevented travel through the desert, the party returned to Majirah in order to begin their journey to the Hanging Gardens, the ruins which lead somehow to the Citadel of the Winds. The intent is to find the Citadel and the brass vessel containing the sealed Air Djinn Lord, and prevent the Naga from gaining its power.

The Hanging Gardens appears only once a year--on the summer solstice--and the party had to race against the clock (which Failn purchased).

The party recruited Suha, for she carried a djinn knife called a mani, which is able to cut the veil between the material and spirit planes. Inside the Gardens were the remains (living undead, of course) of failed adventurers and treasure hunters, as well as the vampyric medusa Avan. The group wandered the halls of the Gardens trying to fight off Avan, whose gaze turned mortals to stone. Unfortunately, her petrifying visage affected Failn in combat, and the party in return decapitated Avan.

A portal to the floating Citadel of the Winds in the Garden took the party skyward, leaving behind (for now) their petrified comrade.

The Legend of Avan

The Creator fashioned the first humans from clay: Aden and Avan. They lived in the paradise of the Middle World under the guide of the Celestials. At some point, Ashnan brought the transplant of the Tree of Life to the Hanging Gardens, where the Air Djinn watched over it and procured medicines and potions. Avan was tempted  by Vasuki, the Naga King, to try a fruit from the Tree of Life, in the hopes of gaining immortality like the Naga. She was so proud of her independent decision, away from Aden, that she didn’t realize the curse the fruit would have. She remained attached to the Hanging Gardens for all her long life.

When the Hanging Gardens were sealed away (when Kazim took away the Sky Caliph’s power), Avan too was sealed away, forced to vampirically feed on mortals who wandered in once a year.

Adventure 16: Nemburu, the Kaftar Stronghold

Nemburu used to be the old southern metropolis of Majirah, but ages ago the hyena-like Kaftar were bred by Buud and took over the southern deserts. From Nemburu they send out their raiding parties and scouts in the hopes of food and destroying the Majirahan Kingdom.

According to Shah Khalid and his advisors, the sandstorms ravaging the deserts and preventing caravans (and, for the party, travel to the Hanging Gardens ruins) are being caused by a Kaftar ritual to Buud, and the party traveled to Nemburu with the intentions of disrupting those rituals.

The cave system Failn discovered led into a small, buried ruin of the old outskirts of the city. The party wound through some old rooms and fought off an umberhulk. Encountering some sealed doors (and acidic resistance), they turned away from further exploration and headed to the surface, where they entered a quiet part of the city. Ardeshir, Anden, and Suha took the flying carpet up for some reconnaissance, finding which of the buildings was being used as the Kaftar wujen (priest) temple.

Using Anden's knowledge of the cities and through stealth the party avoided Kaftar patrols, managing to enter the old palace being used as the ritual space. They fought off several Kaftar quickly and made their way up the ritual space, where Arashino Maru unleashed a devastating lightning bolt. The lightning shattered the ritual area, creating a vacuous portal. Maru was almost dragged in, but Failn managed to reach out and, with effort, drag him away from the portal's effects.

As the skies began to clear, the party unfurled their flying carpet and flew away, the sounds of Kaftar alarms ringing in the early sunset. Back towards Majirah they flew, in the hopes of settling matters with Shah Khalid and Abanazar.

Adventure 15: The Kaftar Threat

Eventually in the wee hours of the morning Abanazar arrived to collect his due from the Vipers. Unfortunately, he meets with the adventurers instead, who immobilize him through magic and then capture him in the hopes of fixing his hypnosis from Shanya the Naga.

Through time and reasoning, the party managed to keep Abanazar from being a threat and get him to explain himself. He said that Shanya was after the location of the Hanging Gardens, and used Abanazar to employ the Vipers to find relics and maps of its location. The Hanging Gardens would allow the Naga to find the brass vessel containing the Air Djinn lord, one of the four Djinn lords the Naga have been seeking to gain dominance over the Middle World.

Returning to the Shah with Abanaazar, the party agreed to help protect or find the brass vessel first. Khalid explained that finding the Hanging Gardens would be difficult because of the raging sandstorms preventing travel through the desert. These sandstorms were caused by the rituals of the Kaftar, the hyena-like nomads and warriors besieging Majirah. To first find the ruins of the Gardens, the party must quell the Kaftar's storms.

Enlisting the help of Suha, the party ventured southward through the desert via camel, heading to the ruined city of NEMBURU, the Kaftar capital...

RECAP:

• The Kaftar base of operations is an old southern capital called Nemburu. (See "The Kaftar" post.)
• The Kaftar have rituals that honor Buud, the Hyena god of the hot desert, and have been controlling sandstorms in order to plague caravans and travelers.
• The Hanging Gardens and the Citadel of Winds are the location of one of the brass vessels sealed by Kazim the Abjurer.

Adventure 14: The Vizier and the Naga

With Ardeshir at the front of the argument of not needing to take the vizier's life, the group talked Shah Khalid into agreeing to pardon the vizier if they could break the Naga's influence over him. The Shah agreed with them that a Majirah with Abanazar would be stronger against the Naga threat.

It was agreed that Abanazar was meeting with someone in order to dictate orders to the VIPER tanzim, who were doing the dirty work in the streets of the city. Ichirou and Anden followed the vizier late at night to a secret meeting with a cloaked woman. When the two parted, Ichirou followed the woman and Anden pursued Abanazar.

Abanazar met with the Vipers in an abandoned building within the city. Anden watched for anything suspicious, while meanwhile Ichirou followed the cloaked woman into a residence. Ichirou followed and was hit with a hidden trap -- a poisoned needle -- and the woman attacked. Revealing herself to be a Naga, she threatened the halfling's life. Only the timely save by Maru, Elaria, and Failn prevented Ichirou's death, who was delirious from the poison. The Naga envoy, named SHANYA, escaped into the night.

With one road dead, the party reconnected with Anden and went to see the Vipers. Within the Vipers' warehouse they found evidence of all the collected maps and information on the Hanging Gardens that the Vipers were searching for Abanazar. The party dispatched them and tried to keep them alive, but slips of the tongue led to them silencing all the Vipers, while they simply waited for Abanazar's arrival....

RECAP:

• Abanazar, under the control of the Naga, meets with the Vipers in order to sift through artifacts of the desert in order to find the Hanging Gardens.
• The Naga envoy controlling Abanazar is a woman named Shanya.

Adventure 13: Majirah, the City of Suns

MAJIRAH, the great desert capital, is a sprawling network of clay and stone buildings, towers with minarets and spires. People in flowing kaftans, turbans, and colored robes walk the lanes that spider through the desert. Its center is the beautiful blue oasis called El-Mir’sari, the Mirage Pool.

 Here the party sought an audience with the SHAH, KHALID, ruler of the desert kingdom. Unfortunately, beauracracy prevented the meeting from being timely, and the adventurers spent downtime in the markets.

While exploring the city, they rescued a woman from a kenku group of thugs. The woman turned out to be a djinn traveler named SUHA. While armed, she remained pacifistic, but thanked the party for their assistance in helping her. She explained that she was being targeted as a djinn for the whereabouts of a map that supposedly held the location of the ruins called the HANGING GARDENS. These ruins reportedly were the gateway to the lost CITADEL OF WINDS, where the wind Djinn lord once resided before being sealed away by KAZIM the Abjurer centuries ago.

Anden, using his street contacts, found a man who had come in possession of such a map from the Black Markets. The party went to find out more about the map from this man, named FIRAZ. Through bargaining and the sale of Failn's gyoubi nuts, Firaz parted with the map.

The party eventually was given access to see Shah Khalid. Upon first being vetted from the royal vizier, ABANAZAR, the group concluded that Abanazar was blocking their progress, but Ardeshir and Maru concluded through skill and spell that he was coerced, probably by Naga influence (like the Haritacandra bandits in Tahirah).

In private audience with the Shah, the party asked for help against the Nagas, and that Abanazar may be compromised. Shah Khalid agreed, being familiar and on guard against the Nagas already. He presumed his vizier to be under their influence and asked the party to investigate. He said if Abanazar was indeed working with the Nagas, the party was tasked with assassinating him. 

RECAP:

• Organized groups in Majirah are called tanzims. One of these is the VIPERS, a group of bandits and thieves looking for the Hanging Gardens.
• Suha is a djinn, a mortal race of fire and smoke humans who used to dwell in the desert before the Naga were exiled. They left when the desert was destroyed and live in a hidden city in the eastern deserts called Ubar.
• Abanazar is the vizier/advisor to Shah Khalid. They are generally respected by the people of Majirah.
• Majirah is home to a thriving Black Market of goods and services. Anden, a street rat, has connections with many of these groups and lowlifes.

Adventure 12: Garm and the Earth Sage

In possession of a new ride, the party took their flying carpet eastward. In order to convince Lord SHIVAN and Adanir that the Nagas were a threat to them as well as all the Middle World, the heroes would have to convince the other kingdoms that the Naga threat needed to be united against.

They started by heading to Majirah, the desert kindgom, and the first step was at the dwarf kingdom of GARM. There they met with LORD BAILSHAR, who welcomed them openly. Although Bailshar thought the dwarves' lives had been to easy simply protecting their borders from Kaftar and goblins.
He agreed to enlist aid against the Nagas if Majirah also pledged help. When asked about the ruins under Rhotas Barav (that the party discovered months ago in their first adventure), Bailshar said they had been excavated and the artifacts brought to Majirah for further study.

In Garm the party also met NAHRINA, the Dwarven High Cleric. While discussing events with her, the adventurers learned that she was concerned about Haozhu, the Earth Sage. She said herbs and other elements of the land were rotting. Haozhu dwelt in an old cavernous hall called the Road of Ruin, which could be accessible from the mountains or, more treacherously, through the Scar.

The party left Garm and traveled via magic carpet to the Scar. During their descent they were attacked by a demonic winged creature, a VROCK. While flying precariously down into the scar they battled the vrock, with Ardeshir eventually jumping off to slam it into the surface down below.

The party found HAOZHU, the Earth Sage, a giant hedgehog. They learned that the earth was being carved out by malevolent forces and that it was having a deteriorating effect on the spirits and creatures of the land. They left Haozhu and took the magic carpet to Majirah.

RECAP:

• Haozhu the Earth Sage is a giant hedgehog. Of all the sages, he is most connected to the land and its spirits.
• Garm is ruled by Bailshar, who pledged to help against the Naga if Majirah similarly joined the fight.
• The artifacts found in the ruins beneath Rhotas Barav were sent to Majirah for catalogue and study.