The Eye of Anubis: A Ravenloft Campaign

[NeoTiamat]

Tiamat Productions Presents:

The Eye of Anubis: A Ravenloft Campaign

May 29st, 760

“Shenti get up here!” The whisper carried down the cliff-face, the owner of the voice clambering onto the narrow ledge. “And douse that torch!”

“But how am I supposed to see?” Shenti called plaintively as he tried to scramble up the rocky side of the cliff. He was a round, pudgy man, with a shaved pate and heavily bronzed skin. Climbing rock faces in the middle of the night was not what he preferred to be doing.

“’How am I supposed to see’ ‘How am I supposed to see’ Osiris Above, you want that she-devil to see us? Now hurry!”

“Hurry hurry, always Fassahd with your hurry. Menetnashte isn’t getting any deader you know.” Shenti huffed as he grasped the cliff-ledge with one hand.

“Now but if Snefru finds us we’ll get deader.” Fassahd grasped his brother by the hand and pulled him up onto the ledge, then grabbed the burning torch and doused it. The other man was thin and wiry, with a jackal’s sharp features and glossy black hair. The sky was studded with stars, but no moon rose up above the distant sands. It was the darkest night of the month, and this played no small part in Fassahd’s decision of this night for their expedition.

Shenti caught his breath and stood up. “So where is the old bag of bone’s tomb anyways?”

“In here,” Fassahd pointed to a fissure in the cliff-face. “Now come on!”

The two men grabbed their tools and ducked into the fissure, keeping their heads low. Fassahd relit the torch and waved it in front of them, warding off whatever may be in front of them. The smoke made their eyes water and their noses sting, but it was a necessary precaution.

They turned a corner in the fissure and nearly ran into a thick web. A fat, hairy spider the size of a child scuttled down the web away from the smoke, coming towards the two men.

“Aaaaaiiii!” Shenti screamed as he kicked out with his sandals at the hideous thing. It clicked its mandibles but before it could bite down at the flailing fat man’s limbs, Fassahd hit it straight on the abdomen with a torch. It wheeled and bit into the wooden stick, but then Shenti managed to kick it straight in its many multi-faceted eyes. The ugly, hairy spider fell to the ground, whereupon Fassahd hit it again and again with the torch till the body started to smoke and didn’t move any more. Fassahd hit it a few more times for good measure, then turned and slapped his brother on his bald pate.

“Shut up! Osiris Above, if we end up decorating a pair of stylish stakes in front of the village, I’ll haunt you in the afterlife!”

Fassahd whirled away and burned through the webbing as his Shenti glared sullenly. Shenti didn’t need this, not really. He was a big man in the village, a baker of breads, but then Fassahd comes by with one of his ideas, and now Shenti was scrambling up cliffs in the dead of night and being attacked by giant spiders. Shenti sighed. Relatives were a curse greater then any priest could lay down.

“Come on, I think I smell fresh air ahead.” Fassahd pointed the torch through the darkness of the fissure. Shenti nodded and followed. Some minutes later, the two men came out of the narrow tunnel, into the first chamber.

“Osiris Above…” Fassahd said softly. His brother whistled quietly.

It was like looking at the front of the temple of Osiris back home, but greater, more beautiful. A natural cavern in the sandstone of the cliff, the chamber was immense, larger even then Shenti’s bakery back in the village. An opening in the roof let in fresh air and a hint of light, but it was the far end of the cavern that had grasped the brother’s attentions.

Someone had carved the façade of a temple into the cavern wall. Brilliant designs covered the face of the temple wall, of men and gods and monsters, of the rituals of embalming. Jackal-headed men dominated the reliefs, and hieroglyphics were scrawled above the lintel of the immense doorway. Two statues in sand-stone and ebony-wood flanked the sides of the doorway, depicting a jackal-headed man many times life size, great bronze swords sheathed by the sides of their carved war-kilts.

“Fassahd? Was Menetnashte a priest of Anubis?”

“He must have been. Come on, the door is open. I just hope no one’s beat us to it.”

The two brothers passed through the door-arch, beneath the shadows of the Anubis-statues, and into the tomb-temple proper. Trusting instinct, Fassahd led the way through the maze of passageways and side-chambers, probing deeper in the mausoleum, looking for the main burial chamber. There, they would find Menetnashte, and there, they would find treasure beyond the dreams of avarice. Or at any rate beyond the dreams of Fassahd and Shenti, though the two brothers could dream quite nicely.

Some hours and some near-death experiences later, the two entered the treasure chamber. Gold and lapis lazuli, fine woodwork and heaps of myrrh and frankincense reflected the light of the torches. A senet set of inlaid rosewood and ebony lay on a gilded table, while a war axe with a ruby-studded head hung on a hook in the wall.

“We’re rich Fassahd, we’re rich! Ha ha!” Shenti enfolded his brother in a bear hug. Fassahd returned a quick squeeze but he was looking at something else. At the far end, a sarcophagus was propped up against the side of the wall, atop a series of pedestals. The coffin seemed solid gold, with large inlays of lapis lazuli and a death mask with shining sapphires for eyes. The carved hands of the sarcophagus seemed to circle around its center, and there, set into the gold and semi-precious stones, was the largest emerald Fassahd had ever seen. It was the size of a young child’s head, a tapering oval six inches long and three inches around, with a strange flaw in the center. It looked like an eye.

Fassahd move towards it, crossing the treasure room quickly, to rest his hand upon the emerald. Shenti was whistling cheerfully to himself, putting gold and gems into a sack. Neither man noticed the shadow boiling out from the corner of the chamber.

“We’re rich Fassahd! I’ll never have to bake another loaf in my life!” The fat man lifted a pair of golden earrings shaped like wrens, tiny rubies glittered in the eye sockets. “Think Nefrit will marry me if I give her these?”

“Fassahd?” Shenti looked at his brother with concern. “You alright?” The wiry man was caressing the emerald, seemingly hypnotized by the play of the torchlight on its faceted surface. Suddenly Shenti noticed the growing shadow. “Hey, what’s that!”

The shadow rushed forward like an angry sea. Shenti grabbed his sack of loot and started to run for the chamber door, but then he saw Fassahd still enthralled with the gem. He ran quickly, fear lending wings to his feet, and slapped his brother a few times on the cheeks. “Wake up! Come on, we’re rich, let’s get out of here.”

“Huh-wuh?” Fassahd woke groggily to consciousness. The shadow had covered more then half the room. “Osiris Above, what is that?!”

“Dunno, and I don’t plan to stay and learn, run!” The two tomb robbers made for the exit, jumping over golden chairs and chests of rosewood as the shadow followed fast on their heels.

For a while, it seemed like the brothers would make a clean getaway, but the life of a baker is not an athletic one, and a few feet before the door Shenti tripped on a rise in the sandstone flooring. The shadow, like an angry, viscous tide of darkness, washed over him.

“SHENTI!”

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Which is the deadlier, the secret that has rested for a thousand years untouched, or the secret born in the heart of a man?

==============================================

A New Ravenloft Campaign, DMed by NeoTiamat

To the four corners of the Demiplane went the call. Scholars in their studies, mercenaries in their pubs, all heard it. The University of Dementlieu, the finest in the Land of the Mists, was funding an expedition to the burning sands of the Amber Wastes. Through the dark forests of Barovia, through the trackless deserts of Sebua, into the foul, fetid tunnels of the Tomb of Menetnashte, this would be the voyage of a lifetime. Endless wealth, recognition throughout the Core, and whispered rumors of greater things to the victor...

...And a tormented, loathsome death to the loser.

==============================================

Any Volunteers...?

Further details in a future post.

[NeoTiamat]

Any similarity to overwrought Hollywood trailers is wholly coincidental.

If there's a bit of interest, I'll post the second expository cut-scene in a week or so, and will start the campaign sometime after finals start, depending on how many people express desire and how fast the characters get created.

Starting level will be 5, characters will be scholars, mercenaries, or other specialists that the University of Dementlieu would hire. Further details on mechanics will have to await the second post. Emphasis of the game will be on interaction and investigation. Roleplay heavy (goes without saying).

[DocBeard]

I'd be all kinds of interested. I have a concept I've wanted to try for a while that includes time at the U of D-want me to send you the concept, or shall I wait for the offical call?

[NeoTiamat]

Feel free to send the concept. Hold off on any mechanics or character-statting till I get the second big post up.

[Georg Kristianokov]

I may be interested. A Dementlieuese Archivist?

[NeoTiamat]

Well now, you might have something in common with DocBeard's character then.

Hope you decide to join, the more the merrier.

[ewancummins]

Will this be taking place after Tarlyn's campaign ends?

[NeoTiamat]

Don't worry I'll still be a part of Tarlyn's game (you'd have a hard time getting me out), but I've been planning to DM a campaign for ages, so....

All players from there are very welcome.

As for chronology, it's set in early 761. If you want to arrange for a PC crossover, I don't see why not, we can slightly fudge the dates and have the PC come in.

[Lord_Pruitt]

Very interested, as I've always wanted to explore that part of Ravenloft. At least as a character. The only hesitation would be in how often I could post. Maybe only once a day......

[NeoTiamat]

If once a day is all you can manage, but if you can post at least once a day, five or six days a week, then that will be quite satisfactory.

Also, just so everyone is on the same page, the game will begin in Dementlieu and journey overland to Hazlan, then Pharazia and the desert. So while there'll be *plenty* of sand and sun, the first, mmm, quarter of the game will take place in the Core.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I'd be interested. Do you take applications from newbies? I might not be able to post every day, but I'd check back frequently whenever I can. As a character concept, I'm thinking either wizard or bard - please let me know which would be more welcome. What are the rules for character creation?

[lostboy]

Id be up for it, if theres room!

I promise I wont put together as weird a character this time though....

[NeoTiamat]

Lostboy, welcome aboard! Don't worry about room, there's always space for a good player.

Rock, feel free to join. We've all been newbies at one point or another. Character creation rules will be posted a bit later, as I mentioned.

Wizard or Bard, either would work. If you want to, you can wait a while till more people have submitted characters and then see which'd mesh better.

[NeoTiamat]

Regarding Background:

Send me backgrounds via PM or Email. The theme of the campaign is secrets, after all, and I would want to be tempting you with metagame knowledge, eh?

[lostboy]

Cool

Quick question are we doing native RL characters only and any classes / backgrounds youd rather us not use? I have a vague plan about a saracen inspired ranger, howd that do?