Elder Blood and Cosmic Cold

Historian: Caleb. Date: 06/23/2025

TLDR – Granny Cracklebones unleashes Tulganneth of the Elder Blood and cocomelons us with a vision of him. She then slaughters us, and we wake up in a ghostly prison cell, where Morgen eventually asks to talk to us. She tells us about her plans to bring Olwen back with the help of the Cosmic, and drops a fuckton of lore. Jericho and Alphie have people they know working with Bran, Olwen’s killer. Gwyn agrees to help her, but buys us some time to rest first.

• Date: 28 Lionnir 777 AR – 38 Lionnir 777 AR
• The recap is given by Anna! Granny Cracklebones speaks.
  • “Oh, having come back so soon? I did not expect this. [...] I suppose that the boar was accurate. Trying to kill me. And for what purpose? I already let you and your friend go.”
• She tells us we’ve caught her, luckily, in a good mood.
  • “I’m just finishing up this ritual, and of course, all thanks to you. All of you. Shall we watch together?”
• She waves her hand, and we see a shimmering effect in the air before us.
  • “The Elder Blood takes its first victim.”
• We see a kingdom floating half on the waves, half below them, sparkling and beautiful. The kingdom of the fish-people. We see the first note of the kingdom’s death begins at dawn. The first horrid beats of the death song. We see a young fish-child, almost like a mackerel, pointing up at the sky and asking her grandmother why the blue sky is turning black. The grandmother’s scaled hands tremble as she follows the gaze upward, recognizing the signs of the Elder Blood. She whispers to run.
• The same command grows louder and louder throughout the city. Run to the deep sanctuaries, the sky bane has found us. But as we watch, nowhere is safe, there is nowhere to run. You can’t run from something that exists everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. The first head emerges from what should have been empty air in the sky, a serpentine nightmare the size of a mountain.
• Tulganneth of the Elder Blood begins to speak. Reality itself seems to fracture around the words.
  • “I have come to feast.”
• The ocean recoils, the waters that have cradled this kingdom for millenia suddenly fleeing towards the distant horizon, leaving the lower city gasping and exposed. A second head materializes, a third, fourth, a dozen more, like thoughts becoming flesh, each unique in its horror, bearing the weight of continents in its jaws. The eater of vile virtues has no center, no form, only an endless probability of destruction.
• A head larger than royal palaces descends with the weight of falling mountains, its maw opening to reveal great pillars of ivory, taller than the giant folk of the northern wastes. That grand spire, that monument, we watch as it vanishes in that goetic throat, its ivory pillars crushing this ancient relic.
  • “Behold.”
• Its voice is the sound of damnation itself. Young and old cover their ears.
  • “I am Tulganneth of the Elder Blood, and I have come to destroy all that you have built.”
• The vision ends. Cracklebones asks if we’d be willing to accompany her to the one that has placed a bounty on us. We ask who that would be, and she tells us a woman named Morgen.
  • “I cannot let you walk away again, especially now that you have come here with such intent. Throwing away the sacrifice of your friend. So sad.”
• One minute, she’s bent over, and the next, a smile flashes across her face, and she’s racing toward us. We have to roll for order.

Combat begins

• Order: Jericho → Anja → Gwyn → Astranna → Alphie → Granny Cracklebones

Round 1

• Jericho attacks into Cracklebones, taking 2 hb from her. Anja uses curse of the shadow chains on her. Gwyn tries to breeze portal us out, but doesn’t feel the magic… instead, she feels the energy Cracklebones had been placing around this area as she was monologuing. She cocomeloned us. Thankfully, Gwyn doesn’t need to expend her action to figure this out.
• Astranna calls for the others to run, and takes the guard action, trying to back up to the edge of the map… and bumps into the barrier keeping us in. Alphie summons Inora, and gives Gwyn +10 SR.
• Cracklebones delays her turn until order 1 to meet some conditions, and tries to teleport each Tattercoat Knight to their place on her pentagram.

• Every Knight but Astranna fails their spirit save and gets pulled onto the pentagram, where they get a choice to make a mental or a spirit save as they’re hit with a mass hex. They all fail their saves, but it’s a different consequence depending on the save – those who did mental take 10 dmg when they move on their turns, and those who did spirit take 3 dmg for each success they roll on their turns.
• Cracklebones approaches Astranna.
  • “You’re the one who got Newton killed, and yet you came back here. I do love a vain sacrifice.”
• Somehow, Astranna survives her attacks!

Round 2

• Jericho shoots one of the tooth structures, and it explodes. Anja runs up to Gwyn to give her the syringe, using her action and bg action to reload it(?). Gwyn clocks that the totems might look important, so she uses phantasm of woe on one to her right.
• Astranna tries to move past Cracklebones to get in range of another totem, but Cracklebones has Warden, and her head is lopped off with a Sheer II weapon.
• Gwyn shoots her totem again, and it explodes with a burst of energy. Cracklebones shoots her a death glare.
  • “Don’t worry, I’ll save you for last. Morgen wants you intact.”
• Cracklebones looks to Anja.
  • “What do you have there?”
  • “Nothing important.”
• Cracklebones activates Blood Trance. The dagger doubles in size, becoming a sickly red color. It drips swirls of iridescent red energy. Anja takes the first strike of 126 dmb on 2ab and 1hb, but is killed by the next strike (108 dmg). She then blink strikes into Gwyn, who sacrifices 3ab.

Round 3

• Jericho looks to the corner of the map, and spots a ghostly figure watching us. He destroys a totem, removing any curses on us. Gwyn uses her action to speak with the Breezestone in her chest.
  • “I don’t really understand you, I don’t really know what you are or why I have you or anything, but I need help now, please. I need something now, something you can do.”
  • “But why would I help you when all I desire is for the flesh of all these parasites to die, to burn, to be stripped away? I am imprisoned within this husk, a mausoleum of failure in the tithe of bone. You dare ask for help. I. HATE. YOU.”
• Gwyn feels an outward pouring of energy, a heavy darkness within her chest. Her systems are flashing warning signs – electrical overload, shutdown, viruses, rust, cold. Everything internally is going haywire.
  • “Is something wrong, dear? Can you hear it singing too? Trust me, there are far worse things than me and the Elder Blood.”
• Gwyn takes one attack on 3ab, and another on 2ab and 1hb. Then she takes a final attack. She hears Cracklebones disappear, then looks down as Alphie’s dagger plunges through her back into her chest. She hears the Breezestone scream in fury.
  • “No, let me out, let me out, you infernal prison, I shall n….”
  • And then it all goes dark, as that force within her dies.
• Cracklebones has Det III from losing her totems. She sends a bolt of blackened lightning at Jericho (10 dmg, reduced by SR), which he takes on sp. She teleports to him.
  • “Hello, my fellow augur. If you lay down your weapon, perhaps I can let you live in my employ.”
  • With very little energy left in his body, Jericho levels his pistol at her forehead.
  • “Oh! So fun!”
• Inora stabs into Cracklebones.
  • “Yes, yes, let the blood flow!”

Round 4

• Jericho attacks Cracklebones for 38 dmg (sp).
  • “Mm, a disappointing answer.”
  • “Yeah, well, I’m full of ‘em, I guess.”
• Alphie looks to her fallen Tattercoat Knights, all fallen by the weapon they gave to the witch. Cracklebones attacks Jericho, knocking him to 1 hb with the first attack, and killing him by the second. She gives Alphie a wide smile.
  • “Don’t worry, I will make sure your travel is comfortable.”
• Alphie has made the mistake of moving within 15 feet of her. She activates blood detonation on them, and they lose 25 hb. They feel this blast of energy, and then… they’re gone. Drifting in darkness.

Combat ends

• As Alphie drifts, they wake up in a prison cell. The cell itself is made out of a ghostly cyan material, still hard. They see their other Tattercoat Knights there, unconscious. They rush to wake us up, approaching Astranna first. They see the place where her head was detached, a thin scar there. The fight happened. We lost. Badly.
• They shake Astranna awake, and she takes air into her lungs with a terrible wheezing sound. Alphie hugs her, and she reaches up to her throat, feeling her scar. Alphie asks if she can stand, then tells her to stay there, going to wake the rest, hugging each.
• Anja checks for Maple. She’s there, shaking, matted blood on her flesh.
  • “What– what– what happened?”
  • “I don’t know, I don’t understand, I died…”
• Maple says she was fed to a dog. Jericho and Astranna check for their pets – Piero is there, but Henrietta is gone.
• Astranna tries to melt one of the bars of the cell. She’s able to easily do so, but outside is just void with no nowhere to go. She paces.
• Anja takes out her fabric to work on. As she looks down, there are all these strange lines and symbols on her body, lightly glowing orange. Just slightly. No one else can see them.
• At some point, Gwyn tries to use the Breezestone. We get slammed into the ceiling and knocked out for a while longer. Eventually, the interior shakes, and we hear a familiar voice.
  • “Hello, everybody. I hope that you’re all awake. I’d like to talk to all of you. Would you be able to behave?”
  • “Would you let us out?”
  • “I would.”
• One of the walls begins to shimmer and shift, becoming a door. Gwyn helps Jericho up.
  • “Jericho, I understand you might not be all here right now. Just stay close to me.”
• We’re led into Morgen’s lab.
  • “Hello, Olwen. And friends. Alphecca. I’ve been waiting to see you face-to-face for… a long time.”
• Alphie is fully not looking at her, looking instead at the Gibbit, which is almost comatose. It occasionally squirms or moves, but isn’t lively. It’s in stasis.
  • “Don’t worry, the creature is fine.”
  • “Can you let him out?” (Gwyn)
  • “No. Olwen, there’s much that must be done. Perhaps in time, very, very soon, dear, we can let the creature out, but it is necessary for… this machine. For so much that I’ve built here.”
• She says the machine will make Olwen whole again, using the magic of this place.
  • “You are very sick, dear. But I’ll make you better again.”
  • What did you do to me? I tried to kill all my friends, I–”
  • “It was for your own protection.”
  • “My mind wasn’t mine.”
  • “Some of your mind was left behind. I only tried to help you, doing what you wanted me to do. I promise.”
  • “What did I want?”
  • “You wanted to be made whole again. I know that you do.”
• Gwyn says she feels full. Whole.
  • “I know I don’t remember what you want me to remember, but I feel like my own whole person outside of that, I know you don’t understand–”
  • “I was truly patient, hoping you’d find your way back, but obviously you’re still lost. But it’s– it’s– it’s all Maddock’s fault. Bran’s fault. You ruined everything, but now, now with Alphecca, and Anja, windfall indeed. A blessing answered. You’re gonna be fine. You’ll be whole again.”
• Gwyn asks if Bran is in the Skybound Lands.
  • “No, he’s not, he’s gallivanting around, fighting, trying to… he… he’s working against us. Working against you, trying to make sure that you stay in that cave forever. Trying to bring us all down. [...] They won’t let you go, whenever I get some of the fragments out of the cave, you’re brought back, It Which Thirsts brings you back. I was a fool, I should’ve listened to the Cosmic, but I didn’t–”
• Morgen turns, whipping her arms about, almost in a mad frenzy of sorts. Gwyn takes a step back, looking terrified.
  • “no, no, sweetheart, sweetheart–”
• Morgen takes a few steps forward, hands out.
  • “We… we are gonna find… your soul. We’re gonna get you back. Our dream, Allatir. We’re gonna– we’re gonna make you whole. [...] You must promise to stay, darling. I don’t want to frighten you.
  • “I won’t be frightened, I promise. I just wanna know more.”
• Gwyn makes a spirit check (1 success). Her mother is hesitant, but she lets out a long, deep breath.
  • “Fine. Fine. I’ll remind you, sweetheart. But just know that this is what you wanted. This is what we want. [...] We were… harvesters of Braxa leaves. You know this, I’ve told you. In Shah Vaedin, nightmare of a continent, to be sure. But we were living lives of luxury and grandeur. Our experiments, oh, what we did. All of this is just a morsel of what we were creating.”
• With them was Bran Maddock – associate and competitor. They needed his ability to artifice, to understand the ins and outs of the flesh. Sigils, how they interact on a dimensional level. There was much they could learn from him, and of course they needed capable people in Shah Vaedin while they were avoiding Arnyr and other monsters.
• They found signs of a cave that supposedly contained a map to Allatir, the mythical city of zostrium, the dream of any artificer. Some of us would’ve heard of Allatir, lying at the edges of the cosmic stack.
• “We went to this cave, my dear, and inside we found secrets unknown to mortals and immortals alike. We gleaned the truest slant of the world for a few brief moments.”
• She shudders as she seems to remember that moment.
  • “We found them. The Cosmic. The cave, it almost took us, but the Cosmic saved all three of us. It offered me a chance to join in on its quest, but I refused. I was scared, but you did not. You agreed. You’re my brave daughter, who I miss very much.”
  • “What did I agree to? What did the Cosmic..?”
  • “Bran panicked and he killed you, he killed you, after you agreed, but then… ah… I tried to stop him, but he was too fast, and the cave… I was weak, I was bleeding, I was afraid. I took your body, paid healers far and wide, but your aether was torn between the land and the afterlife, many fragments still remaining in the cave. Whenever I draw the pieces out, they would always return–”
• Tears flow down her face, like a red-hot knife pressed into the heart. A mother’s grief. Gwyn steps toward her, placing her hands on her arms as an almost-hug. Morgen grabs onto her immediately. She thinks maybe her girl, her lost daughter, is in there, just a piece, just a fragment. And she smiles, a wide, beautiful, happy smile.
  • “Oh, I spent years trying to revive you. But I couldn’t. But then, then, after I built this container to house you, and it wasn’t working, the Cosmic, he showed up at my door, and we had tea, and I was ready, so… they brought me here, to this world. And I agreed to aid the Cosmic in their quest. In exchange, he promised to show me the path to get you back. Show me how to bend this world of new magic, of whimsy and wonder, and so, and so… we’ve been here. I let you go, I built for you a happier peace, a desire for wanderlust so that you might have the good memories. Good memories.
  • I’m sorry I left you alone, but it was necessary. It was necessary. But now… now, we have Alphie, we have Anja, we have… we have this miracle of a creature who can create worlds. We… are going to make you whole. I promise. But we need Alphie’s Gelid Engine. Once we have it, once we draw it out, I believe it would be enough. It would be enough.”
• Gwyn grips her tighter.
  • “I know this is what you think is right, but you were hurting people, good people. I’m right here. I’ve been here. It’s not the same, but… I can try harder.”
  • “Just try for me, Olwen. I need you to try right now, I just need you to trust me a little further. I know that whatever the anomaly was, it scrambled you, my darling girl. I am your mother, and I love you.”
  • “I’m trying to trust you, I can’t let you hurt Alphie, I can’t let you hurt Anja…”
  • “You weren’t gonna kill Alphie, you weren’t gonna kill Anja! That wasn’t my programming…”
  • “I was just about to kill Astranna, what about her mother? You must understand.”
  • “Something is wrong with that girl! I don’t know what, but something is wrong with her!”
• Astranna snaps at her, saying nothing is wrong with her – she’s the one who pulled Astranna here. Anja also speaks up in her defense. Morgen turns to her.
  • “You, Velgersi with a death mark… perhaps it was a prayer answered that you came.”
  • “A death mark, what is that?”
  • “Ah, you don’t know… Well, I’m positive you’ve seen… well, your power. I’m guessing you haven’t always had it, yes? You’re filled with low magic. You were bitten, you became a Velgersi.”
• Anja says she wasn’t bitten by anything.
  • “You went into a forest, I’m guessing, yes? The death mark woods, judging by your mark. And while you were there, you were bitten by a Volgersi, an invisible one made of low magic. Bit rambunctious, probably didn’t even get a physical mark.”
  • “No, I just… I found a stone there, I wasn’t bitten.”
  • “A stone, they do like those stones. Have you been collecting many stones?”
• Anja says she’s been collecting them for her whole life.
  • “It must have loved you, then. But your power only growing recently… Tell me, I’m guessing you were in an environment, unsure of how you fit into the family, not many friends, a tad bit isolated, am I onto something?”
  • “I’d rather you stop talking.”
  • “It gives you power, it needs a host. My guess is that you weren’t a very good host, but now that you are a Tattercoat Knight, well, you see, the Volgersi builds up a host, it hangs around it, making others around this host cherish them, love them. That’s how it feasts. It wants a person to be loved. Isn’t it strange how so many people immediately love you? [...] The Volgersi, Anja, it’s building you. It makes a mountain out of a person in the eyes of others.”
• Morgen says she’ll soon probably be the most beloved person in the Skybound Lands, using the myth of the Tattercoat Knights to help accelerate the process. Anja looks sick.
  • “Of course, you are but a false idol. The Volgersi will build you up. Pride before the fall.”
  • “So that’s why you look so revitalized when Maple is happy with you and is purring.” (Alphie – +1 hp)
  • “Yes, a pet, ooh, enough to allow the Volgersi to survive, with you able to slowly grow. You see, Anja, your power… your abilities… to help unite, to help soothe the soul, you’re exactly what I need for this process, so we can help draw what’s left of my daughter out of this cave. You can help power my device, my machine.”
• Morgen dashes over to the behemoth chunk of metal. We see hundreds of thousands of individual runes carved into it, in meticulous detail.
  • “Please help me bring my baby home.”
  • “You are mistaken. My power does not do what I want it to do.”
  • “Let me help you, then. I can help you. We can help each other.”
• Anja says she doesn’t trust her.
  • “I could’ve killed you, but I did not. I don’t want to hurt anybody, I just want my daughter back. That’s it. And then after that I’ll make sure all of you get back to theRings of Meropis. Yes, that’s where you’re all from? I’ll make sure you’re all back. I just need your magic. I need the Breezestone. I need you, Olwen. I need you to help as we construct a fresh body, so we can fully get you back. And Alphecca, I need your Gellid Engine.”
• Alphie asks what that is.
  • “My dear. I see you beginning to shiver already. It’s that thing they put inside of you.”
  • “Who’s they?”
  • “Hmm? Good question. A good question.”
• Gwyn asks if she can help Alphie’s condition.
  • “I think I can, yes. You see, my sweet, that… that thing in them, it is… a pocket dimension. Created using dark alchemy, but it’s a pocket dimension unlike anything you or I could ever create. A pocket dimension the size of a literal galaxy inside them, but it’s not just that, a galaxy which uses Sisyphus Cooling. Do you know what Sisyphus Cooling is?”
• Gwyn tries to recall it, but only gets 1 success… she’s heard of it, it’s somewhere in there, but it escapes her.
• Alphie’s heard the myth of a Zell soldier who tried to strike Zell down, and was killed by Zell. The Archfiend, under Zell’s request, went to Zell and said they wanted to make an afterlife for Zell, so that none would dare strike down such a benevolent ruler again. Zell said there wasn’t anything bad enough for such an individual. The Archfiend got to work, constructing a mountain and lining it with devils. They placed a boulder made of platinum, heated to the point of glowing, and this soldier, Sisyphus, was tasked with rolling it up the hill as the devils tripped him, attacked him with spears.
  • The goal was, if he got to the top of the mountain, he could take a rest as he watched it roll back down. They never let him get to the top. It would always roll back down. A Sisyphean task. He would not smile. They would know Sisyphus.
• Morgen explains the method of Sisyphus cooling.
  • “Imagine you have two beams of light. Lasers. And when a tiny particle, smaller than anything you can see, tries to move around and gets excited, gets hot, the laser pushes it to a calm spot. The particle gets worked up, but the laser keeps saying go back down the mountain.”
• This is what the galaxy does, from millions and billions of tiny stars, making the temperature of the galaxy exponentially cooler over time.
  • “This… person… they can be used for all sorts of things, but of course they usually don’t last very long. You’ve lasted a remarkably long time, but things here are different. I believe I can extract this galaxy using the Breezestone, the gibbit, and the magic. Anja, you too. And if you would help me, Olwen, and with a detached Gellid Engine, I could bring my daughter back. I could fulfill the wishes of the Cosmic, and I would go on my way.”
• She offers to send us wherever we want, use the machine to create whatever we want. We tell her the machine is a creature she’s torturing, and Gwyn walks to where the Gibbit is being kept. Several of us join her.
  • “I wouldn’t do anything foolish. You are not in a position to escape.”
• Astranna looks around to see if she can spot Henrietta, and Gwyn asks if Morgen’s seen her. Morgen says she hasn’t seen a chicken – on a spirit check, she just gives a quick, dismissive look around. She doesn’t care about some girl’s pet.
  • “This isn’t what I would’ve wanted. Hurting the gibbit like this, hurting my friend.”
  • “The Gibbit is dangerous. After you’re healed, I promise I will make arrangements for the creature, no, I’ll do whatever you want, I just… I have commitments to the Cosmic, things I also must do with this machine. But afterward, I have no reason to keep the creature here. I’ll release it. Besides, me and you, we need to track down Bran Maddock and his apprentices, they’ve been working against us. They are very dangerous.”
• Morgen walks to Gwyn and pulls out a grainy image. There’s lots of noise in the picture. She holds it up to Gwyn, who sees an older-looking Bran Maddock, with 4-5 individuals. Something in the picture catches Jericho’s eye. He can see a human male, middle-aged, salt and pepper hair, walking down the street… and not 5 paces behind him, Galen. He’s still walking in the cloak Jericho bought him so many years ago. Jericho goes from dissociating to scared stiff in half a second.
  • “Who. Who is that.” (Jericho – pointing at the lead guy)
  • “This is Bran Maddock, the person who killed Olwen.”
  • “Why was he with you in the first place?”
  • “He is exceptional when it comes to areas of artificing that I occasionally lack in. You need all the help you can get in Shah Vaedin.”
  • “So he’s what, your assistant? Partner?”
  • “Colleague. Rival.”
• Astranna comes up and looks at the photo. She doesn’t recognize anyone. But Alphie does… at the back of this group of apprentices, she sees big, thick glasses, the eyes looking around. They see Abeada. Anja doesn’t see anyone she recognizes, but she recognizes the street, as does Jericho, who worked on it – it’s a run-down, slummy area in Havell.
  • “It seems like there are some recognizing eyes. Bran Maddock is a very dangerous man. If you recognize people there, you need to help them.”
  • “I just wonder what he’s doing in Havell.”
  • “It’s a great question. Probably working against us, working, being a dangerous fellow. [...] He wishes to keep the Rings of Meropis in darkness, to hoard information to himself. He fears our advances. You don’t have to be involved in this, but perhaps if you all were to get back, back to Havell, you’d be able to warn these apprentices at the very least that they are associating with a bad, bad man. There might be help for them. But in order to do that, I need your help. Will you help me?”
• We ask about helping the people here.
  • “Sure. Sure. You can help the people here, but you haven’t been very helpful now, have you?”
• She says three warlords have come up. She tries to set them against each other. Gwyn speaks.
  • “If I promise to come back, if I swear to come back and become whole again, can you let us go stop them?
  • “You’d have to help me now. What do you say?”
• Morgen reaches a hand out to Gwyn.
  • “Please, will you come back to me?”
  • “I… I will try.”
  • “Good.”
• Gwyn asks if we can rest for a little bit before helping her – we all just died. She says we’ve technically been resting for many days, but Gwyn gets to make a spirit check at B1 [8 successes – exploding]. As she looks into her mother’s eyes… Morgen breathes a sigh of relief, and smiles at her.
  • “Of course, of course. I’m sorry I got overanxious. [...] Here, let me escort all of you to some rooms. The tower’s all mine at the moment, I can show you luxury. Wouldn’t you like that?”
• Gwyn says she would, and asks if the five of us can stay together. Morgen agrees, and the door to the cell disappears. Morgen ushers us out of the room, and Alphie sends a last look to the Gibbit, a silent promise on silent lips. We pan out as Morgen ushers everyone out, and as she’s about to close up she taps a gemstone in her pocket.
  • “I have it. I have them. I’m close. I promise.”
• We begin to zoom out at this moment, fading to someplace else, a throne of some kind in a gaudy, almost icy throne room. There sits an individual on the throne, with a similar gem, dressed in fine silks and jewels. They flick the gem in their fingers.
  • “Good. Good. You’re doing well. Your daughter will be with you soon.”
• We see Stargazer! And the session ends here. It’s revealed (since Dalton won’t be here to tell us) that Gaelen is Jericho’s ex-boyfriend.