Legend of the Elements: Conclusion

Well, wasn't exactly planning on ending this game tonight, but it came to a good stopping place. Here's last time.

The characters had fought off Calri and gotten him arrested, and protected Onil from his attempt to murder her. Now, they just need to get Thunas off on the charges against him. The next morning, his trial begins, and the characters bring Onil to the courthouse.

The bailiff lays out the case: Thunas is a foreigner and hasn't spoken in his defense. He's a watershaper, meaning he had the means to destroy the stables. There are witnesses against him (Calri, who of course is probably lying, and also some townsfolk who say they saw him watershaping), and Onil, who could have stopped the disaster with her earthshaping, was knocked unconscious. The court asks if anyone has anything to say in Thunas' defense.

Gerde stands up and says that it wasn't watershaping, but sandshaping that destroyed the stables. Khatun offers to translate for Thunas and he's finally able to give his side of the story. Ember explains what happened to Onil last night, and Feng elaborates on Calri and what happened to him. The characters' arguments are accepted, and Thunas is set free. 

The characters head back to the Honey Blossom to celebrate, and discuss their next moves. They decide that this is where they part ways - it's been a fun adventure, but Gerde and Ember want to head back to Senda. Gerde buys up a bunch of souvenirs to take home as gifts, and heads back to get chorin'. Ember, back in Senda, works on building up the village with her grandmother's help.

Feng heads back to the Temple of the Seven Rings to teach the students, and Khatun sets up a cultural exchange with her people (which basically amounts to bringing teenagers from her tribe to Greycliff and trying to make sure they learn about the city and don't just party all the time). 

So, this might all seem a little anticlimactic; like I said, I wasn't planning on ending the game here and so I didn't have a big thing planned. But I asked the players whether they'd like to keep playing Legend of the Elements or leave it, since we'd come to a good stopping place, and they pretty much all agreed that they weren't huge fans of the system. Legends is PbtA, which is fine in and of itself, but this particular expression of the game is a little shaky.

Two major issues that I identified: First, when you roll a miss, you get Chi, which is used as XP. So far, so good, a lot of PbtA games do that. But Chi is also used to modify rolls, meaning that when you miss, you're deciding between succeeding at what you're doing and advancing your character. Also, I've decided I'm not a fan of mechanics in PbtA that let you turn success to failure outright (a lot of the games have "help" mechanics, but that only boosts a roll, meaning if you roll low enough you're still SOL).

The other issue is the Tag system. Characters don't have health or wounds, they just get tags, which is fine, but they don't mean anything. They restrict actions in the fiction, but they don't have any mechanical impact and therefore it's easy to ignore them, and that means that the stakes aren't clear in a conflict because you can't really get hurt. 

Oh, and, the idea of having shaping be a way to approach basic moves is great, but if you're going to include shaping as a move as well, it needs not to overlap with the basic moves so much. There, I think that's the long and short of it. 

(And like, don't get me wrong, I think there's a lot to like about Legends, I just think the mechanics are a little sloppy.)

So, next time, a new game! We've already picked it, but I'll talk about that next session when we do chargen.

Elemental Legends: House Built on Sand

Well, not built on sand per se, but...you'll see.

Last time, our heroes were at the tea shop when they learned that an angry mob was heading for the jail to kill Thunas. The characters head out to stop said mob, and Gerde wastes no time getting in front of the jail and turning back the earth-shaping that was being aimed at the doors. Feng, meanwhile, mindwarps some of the vigilantes to head home, while Ember and Khatun survey the crowd trying to find who might be instigating all this. They both spot a man on top of a building, watching over the scene and gesturing as though shaping. 

Gerde tells the folks to go home; Thunas is going to go on trial and that's that. Just then, a layer of sand flies from behind her and slams into the mob (she didn't do that). Khatun causes a tree next to the building to grow up and block his line of sight, and the sand falls. Feng goes and stands next to Gerde, offering strength, and together they get the mob to disperse.

Meanwhile, Ember tries climbing up the tree to get to the guy, but when she gets to the top she gets a face-full of sand and falls back down. She tries to get it out of her eyes, but just makes it worse, and starts to lose control of her powers. The ground cracks and lava starts to rise up, which of course gets everyone's attention. Khatun climbs the building and sees the guy - clearly an earthshaper, by his tattoos. She tries to encase him in ice to keep him from fleeing, but the lava has made things too warm and the ice turns to slush. The man falls off the building and lands in a poof of sand, and then runs of into the crowd.

The heroes reconvene (and Khatun washes out Ember's eyes). Khatun heads back to the inn to meditate on what she's seen, and the others try to follow the man's trail into the city. Khatun reflects on the guy, and while she didn't recognize him, she did notice he was wearing a quartz necklace - very much like Onil's. That would make him Calri, Onil's cousin. 

The others, meanwhile, have been looking at the now-cowed vigilantes (Gerde tells them to go home). Gerde also notes that the man they saw apparently likes to take a high vantage point; this enabled him to avoid her vibration sense. Ember climbs a building and, figuring that she's not going to be able to see the guy, instead tries to find his scent (he had a faint odor of clove). She catches a whiff and runs off towards it, and winds up at Onil's house. She doesn't see Calri, but notes that the whole place is shaking. She sends a flare up to alert the others.

Khatun finds the others and tells them what she figured out - this guy is Calri, Onil's cousin, which makes him a sandshaper and the one that actually destroyed the stable. Just then, they see a blast of fire shoot into the air (Feng notes that either that's Ember or it's something they should check out). They rush to find it and wind up at Onil's house, which is now quaking. Gerde tries to get a bead on the quakes, while Ember, Feng, and Khatun rush into the house to get everyone out. 

Ember goes into a side room to look for anyone who needs help, but an outer wall collapses and leaves her trapped. Khatun and Feng wind up in Onil's room, where she's trying to stop the quake with her own shaping powers, but she can't focus enough to do it. Khatun picks her up and heads for the door. Feng looks out a window and sees that the worst of the quake is coming from a copse of trees. He yells to the others and leaps out the window.

Gerde, meanwhile, is trying to contain the quake, and it hurts. When she hears Feng's direction, though, she parts the trees, and there's Calri, exposed. Ember, panicked by being trapped, blasts open the wall, but the lightning reverberates back on her and she stumbles out, barely able to start. Feng mindwarps Calri and Gerde earth-shapes the ground to bring him out. 

Onil berates her cousin, and says that they had agreed to join their necklaces (which supposedly are items of great magic power) when they turned 21. However, Onil became concerned at Calri's ruthlessness, and refused - and it seems she was right to do so. They take Calri to the jail, and Khatun tries to get the guard to release Thunas, since Calri is the real culprit. She is told, however, that she can present that evidence at his trial. 

Legend of the Elements: Blue Water Heals

Back in the city of Greycliff. Here's last time.

The characters head out to the banks of the Big Dog River to check the scene of the crime, and find a row of stables (the roads here are wide enough that carriages coming into the city can come up the riverbank and board their horses). The stable in question is mostly destroyed, and Gerde realizes that it wasn't washed out by a flood, or at least not a natural one. Khatun checks around, too, and notes that people are watching them, mostly her (probably because her garb is similar to the guy who was arrested for destroying the stable).

Ember approaches a hand from a nearby stable and asks what happened. He motions for her to follow him, and leads her to the street, away from the stable. He says he saw the accused, Thunas, standing on the edge of the river watershaping, but it looked like he was pulling the water towards him, rather than pushing it away. Ember thanks him and asks why he felt the need to talk in private; he says that her companion (Khatun) is dressed like the guy they arrested and he doesn't want trouble. He sods off, and a fellow across the street calls out for Ember, saying that he saw the incident!

She walks across the street and the guy bolts, revealing Miko, the mugger/fireshaper, and his two henchmen. Miko tells her that he heard they swore out a complaint against him, and warns her to drop it. Ember tells him that he should stop mugging people, and he is less than receptive to the request. She opines that he could do more for the community if he helped rather than hurt, and he doesn't much care. He repeats the warning: retract the complaint by dawn or next time he won't be so friendly.

Back at the bank, Gerde reaches out with vibration sense and feels the remains of the stable beneath her in the sand. She realizes that whoever destroyed the stable did it by pulling the ground out from under it, starting with the sand of the riverbed (she's heard of sandshaping, but can't do it herself). She does pull the stable wreckage up from the river, however.

Feng goes into the wreckage to look around, and an angry ghost, apparently one of the stable hands, accosts him. He calls for help and Khatun approaches, trying to talk the ghost (which no one but Feng can see) down. She apparently hits the right notes, though, because the ghost sees her and calms, and goes to her and puts its hand on her shoulder. But Feng feels more spiritual turmoil, and a bunch of horses and two more men, all ghosts, burst from the ground and start rampaging around.

One of the horses kicks Ember in the head and knocks her down. Feng calls upon his spiritshaping and makes the ghosts visible, and Gerde calms the horse and gives it an apple (it doesn't physically eat the apple, but goes through the motions and the apple gets withered and gross). Khatun calls up grass to appease the horses, and the characters manage to talk the human ghosts down. They ask what happened, and the men say that they felt the ground sliding out from under them. One of the horses then kicked Onil in the head, and she was washed out into the river, but then they saw Thunas bring her back with watershaping.

Ember makes a fire to warm the cold, wet ghosts, and they start to fade. Khatun asks if they know why Onil might have been targeted, and one ghost says something about a necklace before he vanishes. 

Clearly, the next step is to talk to Onil, so the characters find out where she lives - a big, clearly earthshaped house. Gerde talks to the guards at her door and gains entrance, and a kind of majordomo named Nase, upon hearing that Khatun has some healing experience, allows them to see Onil.

Onil is still unconscious, her head bandaged from the wound. She is indeed wearing a necklace, a kind of half-moon made of quartz on a leather strap. Khatun lifts it up to examine it, but the walls shake and they quickly put it down. Nase tells them that she's had it since childhood, a gift from her uncle, and it apparently cannot be taken off her unless she agrees or dies. 

Khatun summons her watershaping powers and heals Onil's head a bit, allowing her to regain consciousness. Onil tells them that someone pulled the ground out from under the stable, and then something hit her and everything went black. Gerde asks about a sandshaper, and her eyes get wide, but she passes out.

Nase doesn't know about sandshaping, but he does mention that Onil's cousin, Calri, is an earthshaper. They used to be very close as children, but they had a falling out some years back (before Nase came to work for her, so he doesn't know why). He does know, however, that someone tried to mug Onil for her necklace not too long ago - some street toughs.

The characters figure they might well know those "street toughs," and Ember relates the conversation she had with Miko earlier. The group heads back to the Honey Blossom, figuring they'll deal with Miko in the morning (since he's promised to find them). 

As they're eating, though, they hear a commotion outside. Wae calls a boy in from the street and asks what's going on, and he replies that an angry mob is heading for the jail! They're planning on breaking in to exact some private justice on Thunas.

Naturally, the characters can't let that stand.

Legend of the Elements: The Mean Streets of Greycliff

Tonight was Legend, on we go.

After clearing out the mess at the Temple of the Seven Rings, the characters head for the big city of Greycliff to find Master Sel. Sel is one of the instructors from the Temple, and a close friend of Master Diaf, the instructor who was murdered. They know the Master Sel is an aficionado of tea and puzzles, so they figure they can find them at a tea house. 

Arriving in Greycliff, though, the characters learn that there are lots of tea houses in the city. They stop into a bar to get a drink and maybe see if anyone has seen the Master, and they stumble out of said bar a few hours later, a little poorer and very drunk. 

Wandering down the street laughing at each other, they talk about needing to find a place to stay. Ember mentions that she drank all her money, so only Gerde and Khatun have any coin - they need to find someplace cheap. A man with a staff with a fire on the end of it walks up and says that his cousin runs an inn, and he'd be happy to show them. Khatun opines that he'd better not murder them; the man says of course he won't. If he did that, they couldn't stay at his cousin's inn (this makes sense to Khatun, which is perhaps indicative of the problem).

They follow him through the city and down a dark alley. Halfway down, he turns and says that while he's not going to murder them, he is going to rob them. He swings his staff and fire leaps out, illuminating the alley and the two toughs standing behind the characters. 

Gerde says that if he was trying to impress them with his fireshaping, it needs work. The man says he'll take that under advisement, but they'd better hand over their money. Khatun tries to extinguish his staff with water, but is too drunk to concentrate and the water just splashes harmlessly to the ground. One of the other toughs puts her in a headlock. Gerde, always ready for a donnybrook, lunges at the man with the staff. The man deftly knocks her to the ground and presses the staff against her neck. Ember calls up fire, but the man catches it and hurls it back, blinding her. Feng, noting that the third tough has a sword, tries to touch it and bend it, but the man is too fast - he smacks Feng's hand away and puts the blade to his neck, again demanding money. (Seriously, all four of them failed their rolls. It was awesome.)

Khatun agrees to give them money and tosses some coins to the ground, telling them that this is why people don't trust each other. The leader prods Gerde with his staff and demands her money, which she reluctantly gives up. They try to shake Ember and Feng down, but Feng says he has only wisdom to offer. They ask him what wisdom he has, and he says "monkey steals the peach!" and punches the guy in the nuts. He doubles over in pain, but the other one (the one that was grappling Khatun), socks him in the face and drops him. Feng gets up and the guy takes another swing, but Gerde gets up and takes the blow for him. Ember runs in blind, screaming and flailing, and the guy with the staff tells his boys to head out - they've got all they're getting.

Khatun, though, isn't letting this go. She focuses and ices the alley over. Two of the toughs manage to slide out, but the leader can't find his footing. Gerde calls rocks to her feet so she can skate, and zips over to grab her money back and knock the dude on his ass. He surrenders and melts the ice so he can stand up, and the characters (still drunk) ask him if he actually does know anywhere to stay. He tells them that there are a number of cheap flophouses on the next block - dangerous places, but clearly they can handle themselves. They part ways with perhaps some tense mutual respect.

The next morning, the characters wake up with bad hangovers and hazy memories of renting rooms. They head down the block to a tea house run by a woman named Wae, and over breakfast, ask her if she knows Master Sel. She says she does; he came in once for tea, but she hasn't seen him since. 

Gerde, noting that the characters are very low on coin, asks Wae if there's any way they could earn some money while they're here. Wae says that there's a gang of toughs that mugs people, usually travelers, and the characters point to Feng's black eye and say that they've met. Wae says that if the characters can stop the gang, by whatever means, she'll be happy to cover their room and meals while they're here. Of course, that isn't going to be easy. Folks have sworn out complaints against the gang before, and it never goes anywhere. 

The characters decide that they'll go and talk to a constable, maybe find out what they'd have to do to get staff-guy and his gang arrested. They walk around the city for a while, and eventually wander into a nicer area. They approach a man in a uniform standing on a corner and explain their situation, and he tells them they can come to the constable station and swear out a complaint once the "excitement" is over. They ask what he means, and he tells them that a man accused of some pretty heinous crimes is due to be charged in the city square. The characters look around, and indeed, a crowd is gathering. They decide to stay and watch.

The accused is brought through the streets on a cart, bound in chains. Khatun recognizes his tattoos and clothes. He's from the Steppe, not her tribe, but one she knows. She realizes, too, that whether or not he did what he's accused of, the crowd sure thinks he did - they're howling for blood. She hears someone say "Drown him like he drowned the horses!"

The charges are read: murder, destruction of property, improper use of the shaping arts, assault. He's asked if he refutes or accepts the charges, and he remains silent. Khatun figures he might not understand the language, or his tribe might not practice criminal justice this way. She offers her services as a translator, but the guard she speaks to is busy holding back the crowd and tells her to come to the jail later. 

The crowd intensifies, and Gerde sends out a vibration to hopefully get their attention. All it does is freak them out further, and cries of "he's an earthshaper, too!" go up. Gerde yells that she caused the tremor and that the guy is already imprisoned, and this kind of mob justice is not becoming. The crowd listens and demures, and the man is taken to jail to await trial. Ember asks around and learns that the man allegedly destroyed a stable by causing the river to flood, killing three stable hands and seven horses, and badly injuring one of the people who housed her horses there.

The characters split up. Feng and Ember go to the constable station to swear out a complaint, and Gerde and Khatun go to the jail. Khatun is admitted to see the prisoner, but Gerde is not. She sits and meditates on Master Sel, and realizes that if he's a spiritshaper, he's probably keeping a finger on the pulse of the city's spiritscape. Feng might be able to contact him that way.

Khatun is taken into the jail, made to relinquish her waterskin, and let into the man's cell. She speaks to him in the language of the Steppe tribes, and he greets her. He says that his name is Thunas, and he was part of a caravan that stopped in Greycliff. He decided to stay, and took work at the stables by the Big Dog River - as a horseman and a watershaper, he was very useful there.

One day, though, he saw a stable collapse into the river. He said it looked to him like the sand just flowed into the river, taking the building with it. He froze in fear, but then saw a woman floating in the water and bleeding, and he used his watershaping powers to bring her to shore. He was arrested the next day, accused of causing a flood, and supposedly someone saw him do it. He doesn't speak the language very well, and in his culture, the accused isn't meant to speak until the trial, where the elders listen. Khatun points out that's not how it works here. She says she's help him, and speaks to the guard, and tells him that Thunas is innocent. The guard, of course, says that everyone claims that, and that if she wants to come to his trial and present evidence on his behalf, she's welcome to do that.

Meanwhile, across the street, Feng and Ember talk to the constable they spoke to earlier. They swear out a complaint against Miko (the guy with the staff), but the constable says that while this has happened before, Miko is clever and slippery enough to avoid capture until the complainant leaves town. Ember asks if they can just bring him in themselves, and the constable says that if they do that, they can arrest Miko. Another constable grabs the complaint and says he'll make sure it gets filed correctly, but notes to Ember that Miko seems to have friends that help him avoid the law. 

The characters reconvene and head back to the tea house, and Gerde tells Feng her idea, which he accepts. They have dinner and ask Wae about Thunas and the woman who was injured. She tells them the woman's name is Onil, and that she's convalescing at her home, poor dear. Thunas apparently hit her with a club. Khatun, of course, says that Thunas is innocent, but Wae isn't interested in arguing. She's happy to hear the characters have sworn out a complaint - now they just need to find Miko and his gang. 

Feng asks permission to summon a spirit, and Wae lets him use the back room. He calls up a tea-spirit and asks it to find Master Sel and have them find the characters at their convenience. As the characters are having their after-dinner tea, Master Sel enters and sits with them.

They tell Master Sel about what happened at the Temple, and about the death of their friend, Master Diaf. Sel expresses regret for leaving the Temple, and states their intent to go back and help the place heal. They ask if Feng will be coming back, but Feng says he has some things to finish here, first. 

Master Sel leaves, and the characters decide that tomorrow morning, they'll go to the Big Dog River and survey the scene of the crime. Given that they've sworn out a complaint against Miko, they're probably on his radar, so hopefully he'll find them.

Legend of the Elements: Too Much Metal for One Hand

Last night we finally got "together" and played Legend of the Elements. Here's last time.

(As an aside, having now watched the first season-and-a-half of Avatar: The Last Airbender, I can now say that this game isn't so much wearing its influence on its sleeve as wearing a shirt made from the skin of its influence. And that's fine, it's just a little jarring to look at the Watershaper moves and realize, oh, shit, this is totally Kitara.)

The characters talk amongst themselves and decide that they need to get a better handle on what's happening at the Temple. They split up and go to chat with the various members of the Kestrel's Talons. Khatun finds Citla, the Talon watershaper, as she's doing a lesson for some of the initiates. Khatun asks to watch, and Citla graciously says she can, and then opens an orate metal box and shapes a volume of shiny, metallic liquid.

Khatun has seen this stuff before, but isn't familiar with it. Citla tells her it's "quicksilver," and reminds her students that while it looks like water, you can't shape it using watershaping - it's metal. Also, it's toxic, so don't touch it. She passes it around so her students can practice, and then returns it to the box.

Khatun asks her about the fascination with metal, and Citla tells her that quicksilver is perfected water. Khatun balks and demonstrates her powers of ice-shaping, but Citla scoffs and shatters the ice sculpture with well-placed shards of metal from her sleeves. Khatun lowers the temperate until the metal cracks, pointing out that subtlety and precision trump brute force, but Citla scoffs and implies that this temperature manipulation is brute force.

Gerde finds Lang, the Talons' earthshaper, sitting near the waterfall (inkfall). She asks him about the Talons' philosophy and why their focus on metal; after all, you can't eat it and it's not as useful as the other elements. Lang disagrees. To them, metal is the most useful element. It's an equalizer, because anyone can use metal to improve their lives and work the world around them. Metal, he claims, is the future. Gerde says that this makes for imbalance, putting one element above the others, but Lang claims that this is, balance, because metal is above the others. She asks how he would present the universe, if not a wheel with each spoke equal, and he shows her how the whole mountain hums in harmony when the metal in it vibrates. Gerde takes his point, but is still troubled.

Ember finds the Wounded Man and Asht, the fireshaper of the Talons, where the main Temple used to be. She asks about the spiritual changes, Sable splitting into two monkeys, but they take the position that this is an improvement, an evolution of the spirit. The Wounded Man points out that physical changes to a place alter the spiritual makeup; if, for instance, a village were to be burned down, the spirits there would certainly change (this rather pointed barb is not lost on Ember).

Feng, meanwhile, finds Barnu, who is washing the ink off his face at the living quarters. He apologizes for injuring Barnu, and posits that Barnu isn't a shaper, but rather a smith. Barnu confirms this, and Feng asks why he uses a staff rather than a sword or an ax. Barnu says that it's mostly to avoid making a mess.

The heroes reconvene that evening over dinner, and agree that the Talons' philosophy seem wrong and dangerous. They also worry about where the masters of this place have gone. If they left voluntarily, surely some students would know about it? Feng summons Spot, the dog-spirit companion of Master Diaf, and asks where the master is. Spot doesn't know, and he's been trying to sniff out his master, but something always gets in the way. Feng offers to help, and the characters go after the dog. They get as far as the living quarters, but a bunch of the initiates are playing instruments (chimes, gongs, and other metal things, of course). Spot flops over and whines, unable to handle the noise. Feng takes on the burden and immediately goes painfully deaf, but Spot is able to continue and leads them out the back, down a hill, and to a crevasse where the Temple dumps its trash and waste. Spot sits on the edge and howls - there, he says, is Master Diaf.

Gerde wades out into the filth and retrieves a corpse. The characters are horrified, not only by the apparent murder the the disposal in the trash. Khatun washes the corpse off and checks it for signs of cause of death. She finds no wounds, but Diaf's tongue is black. Apparently, he was poisoned. Feng guesses that the poison in question might be quicksilver.

The characters decide to wait until morning and confront the whole school together, along with the Talons. They realize that if they give the Talons time to spin this, they'll probably be able to get the students on their side. Feng further decides to summon Diaf's spirit so that he can directly accuse his murderer.

And come the morning, the characters hear a crowd gathered where the main Temple was. Now, instead, there's a huge metal...thing, shining in the morning sun and belching off metallic smoke. The Wounded Man offers the secrets of metalshaping for anyone who takes the oath, and an initiate steps forward and swears to uphold the "Sacred Forge."

Before anyone else can, though, Ember summons thunder to get their attention, and Feng calls up Diaf's spirit. He roars and accuses the Wounded Man. The Wounded Man tries to talk his way out, but the characters notice that Lang, Mumet, and Asht seem shocked by the revelation, while Citla, Barnu, and the Wounded Man close ranks. The Wounded Man touches the Sacred Forge and a horde of silver monkeys swarm over the students, while he and his two compatriots try and escape.

The characters aren't about to let that happen, however. Gerde blasts rock into the air and block's Barnu's exit, Khatun freezes Citla solid, and Ember calls down lightning at the Wounded Man. He throws something made of metal from this sleeve and grounds the lightning, but Ember follows up with her old standby, fire, and burns him. He leaps forward and strikes her, but she retaliates and knocks her right out. Feng, meanwhile, enters the fray and disarms Barnu. He uses his own metalshaping power and binds up Barnu with his own weapon.

The threat over, the three killers are bound in not-metal. The others talk with the characters, and Asht says that they're going to split up for a while and go and reconnect with their main elements. Gerde tells Lang that her village could use an earthshaper to help with planting, and he agrees to go there. Feng suggests that after they complete their meditations, maybe they could return and instruct here, but, y'know, without the maniacal focus on metal? Asht says that would be good, and mentions too that the Wounded Man replaced their previous spiritshaper, Citla's sister, Ahru (whom the characters have met).

The characters decide to head to Greycliff to find one of the masters from the Temple who did leave. Next time, then, we're city-bound.

Legend of the Elements: Kestrel's Talons and Divided Monkeys

After a month-long hiatus caused by...just the general state of shit, we're back!

Our heroes have traveled far from the Great Stork Marsh, and have made it through the plains and past Greycliff to the Temple of the Seven Rings. The outermost ring is made of gold, and as they pass it by Feng sees the familiar sight of initiates cleaning the rings of debris. They hear the ever-present sound of chimes in the background, and for a moment all seems normal.

But as they enter the second ring, Feng notices that the initiates training are using different forms than he remembers. Their forms are more aggressive, even angry. They continue on and an initiate approaches, asking who they're looking for. He doesn't seem to recognize Feng as a higher-ranking member, which is worrisome.

Feng asks to see his master, and he seems confused, but goes off. The heroes wait for him to return, and when he does, he brings with him a man dressed in browns, carrying a three-section staff. He introduces himself as Barnu, and asks the characters' business.

Feng explains about the spirit and their need to contain it, and he appears to consider it, but then leads them deeper into the grounds. They pass a man in green teaching a group of students. By his tattoos, he's an earthshaper, but the forms he's teaching are strangely flowy and fluid for earthshaping. Gerde wanders over to watch for a moment, and then the characters move along.

As they pass the fifth ring, they see a large man dressed in grey performing a kind of demonstration for the students. He summons a sword, and then channels lightning through it. He seems to be an airshaper, but again, his form is strange.

On the steps of the main building, they see a man in black sitting in meditation. Barnu stops them and goes up to the man to confer, and then brings them into the temple. Feng and Ember accompany him, but Feng asks Gerde and Khatun to stay outside and watch for trouble. Barnu leaves them in the temple and heads back out in the grounds.

Inside the temple, Feng notes that while the Black Monkeys are still here, there don't seem to be as many of them. He calls up Sable, the spirit of the temple, and delivers the fruit he promised to bring. Sable munches happily on the fruit, and Feng muses that things seem different around here - maybe this wasn't a good time to come. Sable says that this was actually a very good time to come.

Outside, the man in black rises from his meditation and talks with Khatun and Gerde. He calls himself the Wounded Man, and when they ask why, he shows them - he has a stab wound in his chest that never heals. Gerde asks how that happened, and he says he made a bargain with a spirit that went badly for him. He starts to head into the temple, and Khatun, observing him, realizes that something akin to a spiritual flash flood is about to happen, and they need to avoid being ambushed. She whispers as much to Gerde and they follow the Wounded Man in.

The Wounded Man talks with Feng and asks for the spirit jar, so that he can commune with the spirit and see how best to keep it from harming anyone. Gerde gestures to Feng, trying to indicate that giving the Man the jar would not be good, but Feng goes a little overboard and smashes the jar on the ground.

The Hungry Land spirit, free from confinement, rises up and consumes the temple, becoming a massive man made of rock. The Wounded Man reaches forward and touches it, and it drops to one knee, and then turns and walks toward the Ink Spring, the mystical center of the temple. It puts its massive hand down with fingers crooked, forming a kind of cage around the spring. "Magnificent," whispers the Wounded Man.

And then Feng hears a scream behind him. He sees Sable fall to the ground and split into two monkeys. One is so black it seems to be made of shadow, and that one vanishes into the distance. The other is made of metal, with pointing fingers and teeth, and it leaps on Feng and tears at his face.

Khatun calls up some water and knocks the monkey away, and Ember kicks it, knocking it out. But the Ember gets hit with a wave of water and is washed down a hill. Khatun sees a woman in blue wielding water like she does, and approaches her, trying to figure out what's happening...but then everything goes wibbly and she feels dizzy.

Gerde earthshapes the ground and turns the spring into a waterfall (inkfall?), routing the ink away from the rock-giant's hand. She tries to hurl rocks at the creature to distract it, but the Wounded Man gestures at her and she feels weakened. She grits her teeth and manages to keep the boulder in the air, as it were.

Ember winds up at the bottom of a hill, and finds herself face to face with the big chubby guy she saw earlier. He tells her to stay put until the folks up by where the temple used to be figure this out, and calls down lightning to make his point. She counters by summoning up some lightning of her own, but he launches shards of copper from a wrist band. They blaze searingly bright and blind her, and he tells her again - stay put.

Feng, now free of the monkey, sees the guy in green waving his hand at Khatun, and Khatun stumbling. He tries to Mindwarp the earthshaper, but feels three painful strikes (head, legs, ankles) and falls on his back. Barnu stands there with his three-section staff, warning Feng to stay down.

Feng, however, is annoyed. He tries to summon Sable, hoping to put the monkey back together again. Instead, the inkfall turns into an ink geyser, and the Black Monkey stands atop it. It leaps down and lands on Feng's chest, and Feng says he wants Barnu to feel his pain. "That's easy," says the monkey, and flings ink into Barnu's face, burning him.

Khatun, not getting anywhere being chatty, focuses long enough to encase the watershaper in ice. At the bottom of the hill, Ember tries talking to the airshaper, and he says that if she'll come with him and not be violent, maybe they can get people to calm down. She agrees, and he air-blasts them both to the top of the hill and creates a thunderclap to get everyone's attention.

Gerde carefully sets down the boulder, and Khatun frees the watershaper. They all kind of group together, and a woman in red and black with a half-burned scalp arrives. She introduces herself as Asht, and says that she and the others here are the Kestrel's Talons. They are acting as instructors here, trying to bring the temple into a more modern framework.

They talk about the Hungry Land spirit, and the Wounded Man claims that he made a bargain with it - it would stay put and not consume the entirety of the grounds in exchange for a few drops of ink a day. But then Gerde messed with the topography, so who knows.

Feng asks about Sable, but the Quicksilver Monkey leaps onto Asht's shoulder and she says that this is an evolution of Sable - an improvement. Feng notes that for this kind of division to occur means a dramatic spiritual shift in the temple and not necessarily a good one. Asht says that she and the Wounded Man have something to take care of, but now that the misunderstanding has been sorted, the various folks are free to chat about shaping or whatever.

Ember talks with Mumet, the airshaper, about creating lightning. He does it much like she does, just moving things around really fast. He says that she should talk with Asht, a master fireshaper. Ember asks about the Kestrel's Talons, and he says that the Talons are committed to a mindset of being direct, swift, and honest about the most powerful element. "What's that?" asks Ember.

"Metal," he replies.

Legend of the Elements: Giant Monster!

Last night, we zoomed in for another exciting installment of the Legend of the Elements. Here's last time.

Our heroes are at the bottom of the cliffs, near the Dog Falls, watching as the titanic spirit-creature, in a body of wood and mud and fire, climbs towards the tops and the city of Greycliff. 

Gerde creates a trench, rerouting some of the water from the Falls toward them, which allows Khatun to create a geyser pulling them all up to the top. As they land, Feng sees a pair of kids flying kites get pulled off the cliff by the geyser. He grabs them both and tosses them to safety, but misses his footing and falls (which prompts Gerde to nod in Respect). Ember, trying to catch him, plummets as well.

They both land on the monster's head, and a third arm grows out of its back to try and swat them. Khatun, thinking quickly, freezes the water in the arm and Gerde makes the earth weak and crumbly, immobilizing it before it can reach them. Feng, having regained his equilibrium, uses Mindwarp to control the monster. He and Ember step off onto a ledge (helpfully provided by Gerde) and forces the monster to do a backflip off the cliff wall. It falls to the Small Dog river far below, and is washed away toward the Western Sea.

Inhabitants of the farms nearby come out to see what's happening, and the kids that Feng saved tell them that these shapers defeated a monster! The adults don't really buy it, though - surely these shapers were just having fun and conjured up something that looked monstrous. The heroes don't press the issue - the people are safe, and that's fine.

However, Ember notes, they've left Laird, the Healer, down at the bottom of the Falls. They decide they could walk, but it would take hours to trek all the way around on the actual path down the rise to the flatlands below, so they decide to take the "easy" way down. To wit, Khatun uses her watershaping to fashion a waterslide. It works, mostly - they're down and they don't die, but they'll all dropped into the water at the base of the Falls, and driven far under the surface.

Gerde and Ember swim to the shore easily (but wind up on opposite sides of the RIIIIVEEER), while Feng and Khatun are washed downstream in the Small Dog. Ember feels a tap on her shoulder, and Laird asks her what's happening. She tells him that the monster has been defeated, and he says that they probably should head to the village of Jasmine. Ember wisely decides to find her friends first, though. She spots Gerde on the other side of the RIIIVVVERR and yells to her to start heading downstream to find the others.

Speaking of the others, Feng and Khatun are washed way down into the Great Stork Marsh, before they, too, manage to swim ashore (and they, too, are on opposite sides of the RIVVEERRR). They start walking upstream, and the two groups meet each other before too long.

No sooner have they met up, though, then two tree trunks emerge from the mud, bracing themselves on the banks like arms, and the spirit, now composed mostly of mud and wood, tries to yank itself up again. The heroes spring into action - Khatun increases the flow of the river to try and erode the creature's mud, while Ember studies it carefully and realizes that it seems to take on aspects of different elements, and that might be vulnerable when that shifts. She also hurls a lighting bolt at one of its tree trunk arms, toppling it.

Mud bursts from the ground and nearly buries the heroes, but Gerde changes the banks to thick clay to make that more difficult. Feng tries to siphon off the spirit's energy, but it strikes at him hard and buries him in mud. He tries to break free, but it just buries him deeper. It offers him a choice - he'll let the heroes leave if they let it alone to rest here. Feng considers this, but refuses - he doesn't trust the spirit. The spirit sucks him deeper into the mud, immobilizing him.

Khatun, furious, threatens the spirit with an immense wave, but the spirit calls her bluff and prepares to eat it. She releases the wave and the spirit absorbs it, but is now gorged and drowsy. Gerde studies it carefully and realizes that the spirit's heart is its weakness, and yells as much to the others as she manipulates the earth to free Feng.

Khatun spies the heart - a swirling vortex of water, mud, and debris in the center of the spirit's mass, and pulls it out in a bubble of water. The spirit collapses into the river, and Khatun passes the heart to Laird, who encases it in an air pocket. Gerde and Ember quickly work together to make a fired-ceramic jug to hold the spirit's heart, and the heroes trek on to Jasmine.

There, Laird and Crell meet up and Laird agrees to train Crell in the arts of healing. The heroes, at Feng's suggestion, decide to take the spirit's heart to the Temple of the Seven Rings, way up the mountains past Greycliff, since this destructive, hungry spirit can be safely contained there. Besides, Feng promised to bring Sable, the monkey-spirit, some fruit.

Legend of the Elements: Soot-People and Mudslides

Mudslide is often my drink of choice, actually. Here's last time.

The characters are in a cave partway up a mountain above the burned remains of the village of Marn, and their fireshaper is, once again, losing control of her power. The flames lick outwards, but Khatun thinks fast and douses the whole area in water, extinguishing the flames but causing a bunch of steam.

Ember steps forward and talks to the spirits below, telling them that she was responsible for the destruction of Marn and she wants to make amends. The spirits tell her that they're hungry, and that Ember's earthshaper friend looks meaty enough ("Hard no," replies Gerde). Ember is understandably unwilling to sacrifice any of her friends to this spirit, so the characters start looking for other options.

There's a tunnel at the back of the cave, as they discovered last time. The tunnel is steep, but they aren't sure how steep or how far it goes down. They discuss the situation and decide that going down the tunnel and getting out of this cave is a good start, though Feng points out that they need to put this spirit down, and everyone agrees. Gerde earthshapes some handholds to ease the descent, and they start heading downward.

Khatun descends first, landing fluidly at the bottom. She can see a tunnel leading outside, but it's tight and there's a thick layer of loam on the ground. Said loam rises up and humanoid, dirty figures start climbing at her. She yells a warning to the others and leaps back up the shaft. Gerde tries to get a handle on these creatures, but a geyser of dirt shoots up the tunnel. One of the creatures grabs Ember and tries to pull her down. Feng tries to free her, and the dirt just solidifies over top of all of them, smashing them all down the shaft and burying Khatun (the others, however, are unharmed).

With soot-people swarming in, Gerde puts her hands on the walls and blasts the tunnel into a wide open cavern, giving the characters room to move. Ember calls down lightning into the cave and blasts apart the soot-creature holding her, and Feng pulls out a piece of fruit and summons Sable, the Black Monkey spirit, to fight alongside him. Khatun saturates the earth with water, turning the loose loam in the cavern into mud, and Gerde forces it all out of the cavern back into the village. As she does so, she sees the mud reveal something strange - a man dressed in white and green, sitting in some kind of bubble in the lotus position...but then he's covered in mud again.

The characters step out of the cavern and Gerde creates a path to the man, parting the mud. Ember recognizes him as Laird, the healer of Marn (that's whose cave they were in, looking for anything he may have left behind). Ember puts her hand on the bubble encasing him, trying to find a way to free him, but the mud slithers over it, forms a face, and laughs.

Feng examines the spirit and realizes that this creature isn't the collected spirits of the villagers of Marn, it's something else, something more powerful and elemental...and hungrier. He commands it to release Laird, and it laughs and spits the bubble high into the air. Gerde earthshapes a column of mud to catch it, and Ember talks to the spirit, offering herself as a sacrifice if it lets Laird go.

The mud recedes from the bubble and Feng starts to push it into the cavern, but the mud also swallows Ember. Gerde screams in rage and starts pulling up chunks of earth, looking for her, but apart from making some boulders doesn't find much. Feng and Khatun concentrate and realize that Laird isn't so much asleep as dormant, his chi flow stopped to prevent him from dying. They start working to get his chi flowing again.

Ember, buried in mud, tries to burn her way out, but there's no oxygen. The spirit whispers to her and says that it won't let her go, but it can make her death quick. She agrees ("make it quick, spirit") and feels mud fill her mouth and nose, but then Gerde focuses on the earth. She feels the hot spot where Ember is interred, and forces it up, creating geysers, one of which expels her. Ember lands, and the spirit screams as the oath is broken. Ember, in response, sets the whole damn place on fire.

Meanwhile, Khatun and Feng have managed to revive Laird, and he looks perfectly refreshed and rested. He notes that everyone is still on fire, much as it was when he went to sleep - and there's Ember, so that makes sense! The characters quickly fill him in on what's happening, and he calls up a cloud of steam from the geysers to cover the characters as they leave the village. The burning loam-spirit still howling, Laird has everyone sits down and he tends to the characters' injuries.

As they talk, though, the loam-spirit rises up into a 100-foot humanoid figure, made of earth, fire, trees and the stones of the remains of Marn. It screams in hunger and starts climbing the cliff face.

"I've been gone a while," says Laird, "but is Greycliff still at the top of this?"

"Hasn't gone anywhere," says Gerde.

"Oh, dear," says Laird.

Next time: Legend of the Elements meets Shadow of the Colossus!

Legend of the Virtual Elements

This being the new normal, we did some Legends of the Elements online last night. Last time was like a month ago.

Anyway! The characters trek back to the village of Jasmine with the until-recently angry mob, and also carrying the old man that Ember inadvertently set on fire. They take him to the healer's hut, and Khatun notes that the healer's hut is full of herbs and objects that she doesn't recognize - they don't seem to be typical of the village people, and they don't look like they're from the Steppe, either. The village healer is a very young man, barely an adult, and he sees the man's burns and kind of panics.

Ember, who's pretty familiar with burns, finds some herbs and preparations in the hut that should help, and Khatun adds water to make a salve. They spread the stuff on the man and he falls asleep, and the shapers talk with the healer in a bit more of a relaxed way.

The healer, Crell, tells Khatun that he came from across the Western Sea and wound up in Sand Port, but then was driven out by the flood and wound up in Jasmine. He had some training as a healer, but not much, so he's kind of learning on the job. The previous healer died without training an apprentice (she was...difficult) and, at her insistence, was buried with all of her materials.

Ember considers this. The healer of Marn, her home village, had notes and wisdom that he'd written down, and his home was in the cliff wall above the village, so it might have survived the conflagration that destroyed Marn.

Meanwhile, Feng looks around for other shapers. He sees a few small tattoos - folks who are learning how to use shaping powers - but the only full-fledged shaper he sees is a hard-looking woman with blue and black tattoos that mark her as a Metalshaper. He approaches her and she tenses into a defensive stance. He assures that he's not there for her, he just wants to know how she trained as a Metalshaper. She tells him that training one's will to be like iron and reshaping literal iron aren't so different, once you figure out how. He asks to train with her, and she scoffs - she knows him, and she hears the spirits whisper his name. She tells him, though, that if he goes to where the Small Dog River empties into the Western Sea and finds the spirits there, he might have the will he needs to learn what she can teach.

Ember convenes the group and says that she wishes to go to Marn to find the wisdom of the healer, Laird, and asks for their help. The characters agree, but decide they'd like to build a boat and travel up-river to the village (which they can do with Khatun's help). They take a couple of days to construct a raft, and Gerde takes a trek around Red Rock back to the village of Senda to let everyone know they're alive and get some provisions. She returns, and they climb aboard the raft.

Khatun's watershaping propels them easily up the river, and they beach it as they hear the Dog Falls in the distance (where the Big Dog river crashes over the cliff; it sounds like a whole bunch of dogs growling). Ember remembers that sound well; she grew up here.

The characters walk into what's left of the village. It's been 10 years since the destruction of Marn, and the huts are mostly empty shells. The whole place is covered in rich, black, loamy earth, and green moss and plants. Ember finds the remains of her home, now barely visible, and falls to her knees, weeping. Khatun tries to comfort her, but feels heat coming off of her and backs off. Gerde approaches her and helps her meditate and find her pace. Feng, meanwhile, not really equipped to do emotional maintenance, pays attention to the spiritual landscape - and feels a disturbance.

Branches burst up through the loam and grab him, pulling down into the dirt, tiny tendrils wrapping themselves around his body and caressing his tattoos. He calls for help and Khatun tries to pull him loose, but the branches grab her, too. Gerde earthshapes, turning the ground harder so that the branches can't pull them as easily, and Ember, trying to learn a lesson about rash action, observes the plants and realizes that they aren't multiple organisms, but rather one big one.

Khatun freezes the branches holding her and gets free, and Feng Mindwarps the plant-creature into freeing him, but is infected with a maniacal hunger. He grabs the pack of provisions from Gerde and starts gobbling their provisions, and Gerde, taken aback, watches, trying to figure out what's going on.

Ember realizes that there's a mound of loam growing, cutting them off from escape. She yells at them to run, and heads for the cliff wall. She and Gerde climb right up and head into a cave; Khatun and Feng both reach for the same handhold, but Khatun gets it first and makes it in. The plants grab Feng and try to pull him back down, but Gerde grabs him and yanks him into the cave.

The plant creatures whisper, calling Ember's name, and saying that she burned them to ash and sent them into the loam. Feng finds a tunnel in the back of the cave, so at least they're not trapped, but Ember starts to break down. The others try to keep her grounded, but she loses control, and flames erupt from her body...just as they did when Marn was destroyed.

Next session, we'll see what happens next!

Legend of the Elements: Mud

Last night, we descended into the madness that is Legend of the Elements once again (I'm exaggerating, it's not really that mad). Here's last time.

Our heroes ride an ice floe, courtesy of Khatun, down the underground river. It emerges from beneath the Red Rocks and carries them towards the Great Stork Marsh, ending, as far as they can tell, between the village of Jasmine and the ruins of the village of Marn (side note: Marn is in ruins because Ember accidentally burnt it down). The river slows and then stops in the marsh, which is thick and sluggish. Gerda calls on her Earthshaping and makes a little island of solid ground they can camp on, but they have a couple hours before dark.

Feng summons Sable, the great Spirit-Monkey of the Seven Rings, to ask for help and advice. He's figuring that there are undead or spectral enemies here, and maybe he'll have to fight them. Sable, though, asks if he's sure that's what he'll need to do. After all, if someone is sick, can you punch the infection? Sable agrees to help Feng, but asks that he travel to Seven Rings before the new moon and bring Sable an offering of fruit, which Feng agrees to do.

Khatun looks around for edible plants that could be used to supplement the hard tack that she has to eat, and Ember makes a fire. Khatun notices that the marsh is dead - trees are barren, reeds are brittle, and there's no sign of animal life. She feels that the marsh spirit is battling something, but she isn't sure what. She decides maybe eating the local flora isn't a great idea. Ember meditates, meanwhile, and tries to focus on why she lashes out (with destructive results) when afraid. She remembers being terrified at the village of Marn, but not what exactly it was that scared her.

The characters come together around the fire and talk about what's happening. They decide that they need to keep watch as they sleep, but they have a bit of time before nightfall, so they poke around a bit more. Gerda looks into the swamp and tries to understand it through the earth, and steps out into the mud. She gets stuck, and sees the animals moving toward her (and they look dead and milky-eyed), but she learns that the marsh-spirit is devoting all its attention to the fight that it's in and that's causing the marshlands to die. Ember pulls her out of the muck, and Feng summons the marsh-spirit closer to try and figure out what's going on. The marsh-spirit laughs at his attempt, however, and a wave of mud pulls him out into the bog.

Khatun water-shapes and dilutes the mud in the area, making it harder to get stuck. Gerda focuses and looks for the heart of the marsh-spirit, and finds it in a rocky spring under the mud. Looking carefully, the characters realize that the marsh-spirit is fighting with something made of water...and also, night has fallen. The characters see human figures emerging from the dark, people who look gray and sallow and dead.

Ember, characteristically, panics, hurling fire at the walking dead, burning several. The campfire goes out, plunging the area into darkness. Feng focuses on the marsh-spirit, using mindwarp to control it and separating it from the other spirit, which it turns out is the spirit of the river.

Now free, the river-spirit rears up and threatens to drown out the marsh, the nearby village, and whatever else is there. Khatun tries to shape it, but the river laughs and floods the area, washing Ember away. The walking dead grab Gerda and drag her into the brush, but she holds fast. Khatun, defiant, sending in a gush of water to wash away the walking dead and Gerda creates a dike to form a barrier between river and marsh, and Feng and Gerda talk the spirits down.

Some distance away, though, Ember comes across a crowd of people from Jasmine. They've seen the walking dead in the marsh, and they're terrified and angry, ready to burn the marsh. Ember tries to talk them out of it, and they agree to come with her. They find an old man hung up in a tree, moaning in pain and covered in burns. Ember realizes with horror that this is the "walking dead" guy that she burned earlier; the dead are apparently returning to normal. The villagers get him down, and he doesn't remember what happened, but now the Jasmine villagers are all the more ready to burn this place down.

They emerge from the woods and see the other characters (and the recovering "walking dead" folks). They talk with the characters and demand to know how the old man got burned. Ember confesses, and the villagers get annoyed and hurl their torches, and one whacks Ember in the gut with a cudgel.

Khatun calls up water to put out the torches, and Gerda catches the cudgel on the upswing. They tell the villagers to settle down, that the warring spirits have resolved their differences. Ember promises to make amends, and the villagers accept this oath. Everyone trudges back through the marsh to the village of Jasmine.

Legend of the Elements: Beneath the Red Rock Temple

Last night we (the group that's been playing Blades in the Dark for the last two years or so) started playing a new game: Legend of the Elements. It's actually taken us like a month to get started; we spent a week choosing a game (other contenders included Remnants, Aletheia, Aricebo, and Iron Edda) and then a week doing chargen and setting creation.

With that in mind, a bit about the world. The action takes place (to start, at least) in the village of Senda. Senda is a farming community; they grow wheat, barely, and suchlike. Senda sits at the foot of the Red Rocks, a massive rock structure at the top of which sits the Red Rock Temple. The Temple is a holy place but isn't claimed by any particular faith or faction; the God of the Temple is a powerful spirit that gets cranky if people try to live there. The interior of the Temple is full of petroglyphs that reputedly contain wisdom, and sleeping the Temple brings prophetic visions.

The Temple has a bridge, built by Earthshapers, that leads to the city of Greycliff. Greycliff has a population of about 10,000, and has everything you'd think a big city would: artisans, temples, corruption. It sits on the Big Dog River, which thing cascades over the cliff to form the Dog Falls, and then cuts through the land as the Small Dog River before eventually ending in the Western Ocean. The city of Sand Port sits on that ocean, and it's a lot more lawless than Greycliff.

Outside of Greycliff, we have the Seven Rings Temple, where Spiritshapers train. This temple contains the Black Spring, where ink wells up from the ground. Monkeys called Ebon Howlers live in the temple and are treated as holy. 

Shapers are tattooed, and the inks are based on their element; Fireshapers' inks are made from ashes, while Earthshapers' inks are made from crushed up minerals. Spiritshapers in this region get their ink from the Black Spring.

• Feng, the Spiritshaper: Feng's mother was a crafter, while his father was from Greycliff. He studied at Seven Rings. Feng tried to summon a great sea-spirit at Sand Port, but that didn't go well and he was driven back to Senda.
• Ember, the Fireshaper: Ember is from the village of Marn, around the Red Rocks from Senda. She accidentally destroyed the village learning to control her power, and her grandmother was the only survivor. They relocated to Senda.
• Khatun, the Watershaper: A rider and herder from the Steppe, Khatun is a trader and would-be ambassador of her people. She plans to join the farming and herding communities. 
• Gerda, the Earthshaper: One of a large family from Senda, Gerda is a farmer and a land-worker. She cares about her people and her land first and foremost, but she also promised Feng she'd guard him during summons.

The four of them are in the caves beneath the Red Rocks as Feng summons the God of the Temple, looking for wisdom. Gerda provides an ornate bowl of grains, and Feng touches the ground and calls the spirit. It appears, the grain dust settling on where its tattoos would be, and asks what Feng is looking for. He says that he's looking for wisdom, and the spirit asks him how wisdom is passed along. Feng says it has to be shared, or taught, and the spirit recommends he listen to his companions in order to find the wisdom this place has to offer.

The group looks about, but then realizes that the back wall of this cave isn't there anymore. They search a bit (though Gerda considers taking the bowl home first). Ember conjures some light so they can see, and they find petroglyphs on the wall. Khatun starts reading them and notes that one of them looks like it indicates a cliff, and then promptly falls down a hole. She winds up clinging to the side of the wall, and Gerda creates a ledge for her to crawl up. Feng, meanwhile, also studies the glyphs and hears a voice in his ears, telling him that footsteps are treading on land where no living people should be. He expresses a desire to help, and they ask what he would do. "Put them to rest," he says, and the voice responds SWEAR. Feng does, and feels he has made an Oath.

Khatun isn't ready to climb out quite yet, though. She stands on the makeshift ledge and drops a pebble into the abyss, and hears a plop at the bottom - water. In fact, she thinks she hears moving water. Perhaps it's an underground river? Feng, wanting to see, leaps into the abyss, but everyone else is a little more patient and lets Khatun lower them down on a waterspout.

Feng is unhurt, though. They all wind up in the river, and Khatun directs the flow to get them together and the water carries them along into a big cavern full of stalagmites and stalactites. They're also rushing a little too quickly toward a sharp bend, so Gerda creates a ramp they can all roll up. They explore a little, but then a stalactite falls and nearly hits Gerda, and Ember decides they need a bit of light.

She illuminates the room, and the characters see a bunch of people with slightly greyish skin and shaper tattoos. They leap to attack, and Ember, in panic, burns one of them. He staggers away, his flesh melting, and he falls into the river. Khatun calls up a wave and knocks a few of them over, and Gerda calls the rocks together and forms a fence, blocking more of them off. Feng mind-controls one to force him to attack his companions, but the man resists and he reaches for the ceiling and calls down a rain of stalactites. Gerda deflects them, but exhausts herself in the process.

Khatun isn't interested in killing these people (or, y'know, dying) so she looks around for a leader. She finds a guy clinging to a big rock formation across the river, and calls on him to cease hostilities. He agrees, and walks across the river to the characters. The characters apologizes for trespassing, and the Cave-Shaper acknowledges this, but then they bring out the man that Ember burned. Ember apologizes - she got scared and lost control. The leader says that the man won't live through the night, and hands Ember a sharp stone knife. She plucks up her courage and stabs the man, killing him.

The characters ask what they can do to atone, and the leader tells them that there's a place along the river where the water continues on, but the River stops, where everything dies. This, Feng realizes, is what the voices he heard were referring to. The characters agree to correct this, whatever it is, and continue along the river.

Character Creation: Legend of the Elements

Had planned on doing Hot War first, but then the weekend was busier than I thought and since I just ran this game, I figure now's a good time.

The Game: Legend of the Elements
The Publisher: The Logbook Project
Degree of Familiarity: Some. I just ran a one-shot and I'm pretty familiar with the PbtA system in general
Books Required: Just the one.

 

This game is basically a PbtA spin on Avatar: The Last Airbender, which I haven't watched, but am reliably informed is good. Anywhichway, the game begins by picking a playbook, so let's do that. I'll use one of the ones that didn't get played the other night, so I don't have to print anything else.

Well, I like the Spiritshaper a whole lot. Sure, let's make a character that deals with the ethereal. I start off picking a name (which I'm actually gonna save for later), and a look. I get one choice from each list. I'll pick "totally covered" and "frightening eyes." (There's also a "many tattoos" option, but I'm trying to avoid falling into too many ruts.) My Spiritshaper keeps himself completely covered in silk, because his skin is sensitive to texture and temperature.

Now, Chakras. These are personality traits that, if I play to them and they get me into trouble, I earn Chi. I'll pick "intimidating and secretive" and I'll make up a set: "jumpy and paranoid."

For Gear, I get a charm against spirits, but I need to choose its function from Sealing, Summoning, Destroying, or Befriending. I'll take "Sealing," I think. The talisman is a silk belt or scarf that he typically wears around his waist, but that he can whip off and use as a weapon or a spirit bane.

Now stats. Most of these playbooks have multiple arrays to choose from, but in this case I just add one to a stat and start with a predetermined array. Hmm. I should check the moves again.

Well, I want to be good at moving with intention, and so I think I'll put my free point into Fluid. That gives me Natural +1, Hot -1, Solid 0, Keen +1, and Fluid +2.

I start with two Spiritshaper moves. I want mindwarp (allows me to exert my will over a being's essence), and...is there an exorcism type of move? OH SHIT. No, but whispering spirits is fucking amazing, allowing me to answer questions instead of asking them when I observe carefully, um yes, please.

And now Backstory! I have three questions, but two of them require a group so I'm not gonna do those. I do have the Respect of a Great Spirit, though, so I know its True Name. I'll say that the Spirit I met is called Malou, the World Dragon, and he's one of the biggies. His children are all throughout the world, whispering, but the shit they say is existential horror on a Lovecraftian level, so I try not to listen much.

My character's name is Koppa (it's one of the suggestions and I like it). He wears robes and a hood that cover his skin, but his eyes are always visible and they're way too intense. He'll use his powers as a Spiritshaper when he needs to, when he's in danger of breaking an Oath or someone's life is on the line, but in general he finds them disturbing and uncomfortable. His fighting style is very much based on fluid movement and flexible weapons; strikes and (ew) especially locks and holds are too intimate for him.

And that's me done!

Legend of the Elements: Cabbages and Explosions

Last night I ran a one-shot of Legend of the Elements (I'll do a character for it sometime soon). A good time was had by all. First, meet the characters:

• Brian played Chng Fa, the Fireshaper. Chng Fa is the ninth in a large family of magistrates and officials, and tried to depose his father for being corrupt and impure. It...didn't go so well. He wound up cloistered for years, and has only recently rejoined the world. His Chakras are excitable & energetic and volatile and explosive. 
• Sarah played Hin, the Earthshaper. Hin's family is known as rebuilders; when some disaster happens that wrecks a place, a Hin shows up and helps fix it. "Hin" is, in fact, a family title, not her actual name. Her Chakras are dedicated & stubborn, and intentional & thoughtful. 
• Michelle played Mei Lin, the Scholar. Mei Lin has been studying for years and is now interested to put some practical application to her knowledge. Specifically, she's interested in making better explosives. Her Chakras are excited & reckless, and absent-minded & unaware. 
• Megan played Yu, the Peasant. Yu was a cabbage farmer in a tiny village who had the misfortune to be around when Mei Lin was practicing new and exciting applications for gunpowder. She and Mei Lin escaped the ensuing fire and Yu swore to help Mei Lin in her studies. Her Chakras are cautious & superstitious and ignorant & sly. 
• Jerry played Janna, the Airshaper. Janna doesn't talk much about her past; she is as mobile and flighty as the wind, and moves from place to place as she will. She is dedicated to helping others and easing suffering; in fact, she helped put out the fire in Yu's village (well, she may have spread it a little). Her Chakras are hasty & quick to react, and resolute & forgiving. 

So then we did some world-building, which is always fun: 

The central, kinda shamrock-shaped island houses the Imperial University, where Mei Lin studied. There's a bridge leading to the mainland (constructed by Earthshapers), and at the base of the bridge is the City of Forbidden Delights, where one can purchase just about anything. Further inland, we have a mountainous region that includes Yu's village, and then further south (from your perspective), there's a mine that yield marble with gold veins. On the border of that region is a small village called Valley View, and that's where we set our story. 

The characters have been traveling together since leaving Yu's village. Mei Lin blew up Yu's farm, Janna helped put out the fire (kinda), and Hin rebuilt Yu's house. Chng Fa wishes to help Hin loosen up a little and be comfortable with his destructive power. They all roll into the village in the afternoon, and note that it's doing fairly well - the village sits atop a rise with a view of the valley (hence the name), and the people here grow poppies and create dye and drugs. 

Mei Lin and Yu talk with a weaver, and Mei Lin buys her servant a blanket, which Yu immediately treasures as the nicest thing she's ever owned. Janna observed the town, and notes that goods are lined up at vendors as though they expect to be sold or moved soon. This is normal - probably there's a wagon or caravan coming to bring goods to the City, but what Janna finds strange is a bunch of empty baskets outside one stall. The baskets themselves don't seem to be for sale, so what's happening there?

A wind picks up and whips through the town, but the townsfolk don't seem bothered - indeed, they seem to be used to it. Some of the character suspect that an Airshaper is nearby, and Chng Fa and Hin go up to the rise to see who's approaching. They see a caravan, led by a man in blue robes riding a horse. Some of the villagers identify him as Sen, coming to take goods to market.

Chng Fa slides on the rocks and winds up tumbling down the hillside, coming to rest near the caravan. Hin uses her powers to smooth out the rockslide into gravel so that it doesn't become dangerous, but can't do much to help Chng Fa. Sen helps the Fireshaper up and blows the dirt right off him - Sen is, in fact, an Airshaper. Chng Fa asks to ride on a wagon back up to the village, and Sen looks a little uncomfortable, but indicates one wagon back that has a seat.

Chng Fa winds up riding next to a stout, sturdy woman named Owa, whom he immediately becomes smitten with, and perceives that his general disdain for government and law is going to make him attractive to her. For her part, Owa starts out a bit guarded, but quickly warms to Chng Fa and informs him that the way to the City is long and dangerous, and she would appreciate him watching out for her. Chng Fa swears to do so.

Up in the villager, the caravan arrives and Sen amplifies his voice and informs the townsfolk that they need to bring their goods out to load up. Mei Lin speaks to Sen and asks if she and Yu can accompany their wagons to the City; Sen has no problem with that. The characters also notice that one of the wagons has a tarp over it, and is being pulled by three oxen - something in it is heavy. 

Sen goes to the home of the local magistrate and walks in without so much as a knock (Chng Fa is shocked, but Owa tells him that Sen and the magistrate are close friends). Mei Lin, overcome by curiosity, sneaks over to the wagon and peeks under the cloth covering whatever is in back, and sees something sparkle. One of the caravaners, though, smacks the cloth back down and tells her to move along. Janna, sensing trouble, zips over and interposes herself between Mei Lin and the henchman. Mei Lin walks off, but Janna, deciding to make things difficult, blows the cloth up and sees that underneath the cloth are a bunch of slabs of marble, riddled with gold. 

Now, the gold found in this marble, as Mei Lin knows, is a powerful incendiary. Mining it and transporting it without Imperial license (and a Fireshaper on standby) is highly illegal. Janna tells Hin what's going on, and they decide to talk with the magistrate and see if he knows what's happening in his village.

They knock on the door and someone inside tells them to enter. The magistrate is dressed all in black and his face is hidden, but his voice is deep and resonant. They tell him about the gold, and and Janna expresses her concern for the safety of the villagers. Hin, meanwhile, observes the magistrate, and realizes that he's not surprised to hear about this. The magistrate shows them an Imperial seal, and tells them that there was a Fireshaper, but he met with an unfortunate accident. Janna mentions that they have a Fireshaper with them, so they could accompany the gold to the City!

The magistrate seems to accept this, and the characters' suggestion that they move the wagon out of the village for safety's sake. Hin and Janna go back outside, and Sen comes out a moment later, informing his people to move the wagon. 

Mei Lin sees her chance! She figures that she can dissolve some of the marble and take some of the gold, and sneaks up to the wagon with Yu. Unfortunately, she gets the mixture wrong. 

The whole wagon goes up in flames. The tethers break and the oxen trot off, terrified, and the wagon disintegrates. The marble and gold is completely consumed. Sen, watching this, grows furious, and the skies darken. He points to Yu and Mei Lin, and the caravaners produce sharp weapons and close in. 

Janna swoops over, and Chng Fa, not at all understanding what's happening, calls up a wall of fire between Mei Lin and Yu and the caravaners. Janna calls up wind to push the fire closer to the folks with weapons, just to threaten them a bit, but overdoes it and sets them on fire (including Owa!). Chng Fa, horrified, calls on his newly discovered skills in Watershaping and extinguishes the fire. Mei Lin and Yu, having officially hit their limit, run away, liberate an ox, and climb aboard, figuring they'd better get out while the getting's good. 

Hin stomps, causing a small earthquake, which sends the other caravaners fleeing (Owa hides behind Chng Fa). Sen flies up and engages Janna, and causes a boom of thunder. Janna redirects this attack, but doesn't quite master it, and deafens Mei Lin and Yu. Janna recovers her poise, though, and forces Sen down with a blast of air, and Hin calls up the earth to immobilize him.

This seems to panic Owa, who asks Chng Fa to run with her. Chng Fa, swept up with passion, agrees, and they steal Sen's horse and gallop away toward the City. 

Janna gives an impassioned speech, saying that this was all a misunderstanding and asking for everyone to forgive. Sen, his rage apparently spent, agrees, and Hin releases him. Hin and Janna agree to accompany the caravan (now sans exploding gold) to the City, and they pick up Mei Lin and Yu on the way, who really have no idea where they're going. All in all, a bit of a comedy of errors, but the characters all feel like they've done the right thing.