TLDR
The pilgrim’s road delivers, and it costs. An old Imperial road south from the ruined town, weeks of rain, a 300-foot river with a dead bridge, a week east along its north bank — then a surviving bridge, a landslide-buried complex, and a large, placid lake with the southern hills reflected in it. Three days of mapping a buried, maze-like religious complex end in a domed hall where five masked figures demand, in the Black Speech, the “pilgrim’s sign” — Ari understands them — and attack. Titus is killed by an axe to the head. The five die too; under the masks they are Corrupted. The party cremates Titus, finds a hidden, lightning-trapped hatch in the floor, and at the bottom of a long, well-kept stair meets Mirriam — a teenage girl in priestly robes who greets them in Hazadi, offers “pilgrims” a place to stay, notices something off about their prayers, and tells them they are welcome to go down and meditate. Down is cold, and at the bottom is an octagonal room like the one under the Monastery of the Dawn — with six two-foot shards of a broken crystal laid out, with intent, in a star. They read as overwhelming evil and overwhelming magic.
Key Developments
The road south
- An old Imperial road leads south from the ruined town of S8 and the party follows it; despite its age it eases travel. Rain throughout. Minor rivers and streams, some with surviving bridges. Foraging and hunting to eat.
- Haroun notices a few places that have been used as campsites “at various points in the past.”
- The remains of a few other settlements appear to match the pilgrim’s descriptions — the party believes this is the right road.
- After a few more weeks: a river 300 feet wide — very deep, not fast. Bridge pylons, no intact bridge. A smaller road on the north bank matches the next step of the pilgrim’s path; the party follows it east. Much more degraded — in places the river has shifted and eaten the road.
- After about a week: a surviving bridge. Across it, a complex of some sort, mostly covered by a major landslide. It looks like the river widens here into a large and placid lake in which the southern hills are clearly reflected. North side heavily forested; south side very hilly. See The Mirror Lake.
The fort and the buried complex
- A ruined fort with a small walled town on its west side. The fort’s store room appears to have seen some use since the fort was abandoned; the party camps in it. Gnaeus’s closer search of the fort finds little — a few shards of stained glass and the like.
- In the town, an entrance to a structure that appears to have survived under the rubble: very deteriorated, quite large — domes, atriums — maze-like. A tunnel carved into the stone at the back, left for later. Two days of mapping find two sets of stairs; it feels like the entrance area of a religious complex.
- Down the stairs is in much better condition.
The masked five — and Titus
- In a large domed room below, five humanoids wearing masks step out: three in armor, two mostly naked with scars and tattoos. The masks are very odd; some have antlers. Axes, warhammers, great axes, sundry secondary weapons.
- They speak a harsh language the party doesn’t understand. Ari does: they are speaking the Black Speech, and asking for the “pilgrim’s sign.” See The Pilgrim’s Sign.
- They attack. A brutal fight. Titus is killed by an axe to the head. The party kills all five.
- Under the masks, their faces are viscerally disgusting. These are obviously Corrupted.
- The next day the party cremates Titus’s body with Farraj’s fire magic. A ceremony was held and his ashes kept (Aaron). Only a light search was made of the five bodies (Aaron).
The tunnels (day four)
- The carved tunnel branches five ways: (1) back to the fort’s storeroom — walled off (Gnaeus opened a temporary breach by magic); (2) out into the hills; (3) out into a gully away from the lake; (4) back into the ruined complex — perhaps a document storage area, nothing surviving; (5) into a different section of the deeper religious complex, in good repair — a large room with a pool where ritual washing might take place.
- Rooms where “they” may have been camping; the bodies still where they fell; some shrines in the back.
- Haroun spots a hidden floor panel in the domed room where the fight was.
Under the hatch (day five)
- A lightning trap on the hatch hurts Haroun. Below: a spiral stone staircase — clean, well maintained, very long and deep.
- At the bottom, an old shrine to the Maker, with magical lights — well appointed, though in a rather old style — and a young lady in priestly robes: Mirriam. Mid to late teens, human, dark hair; appears to be Amani. She greets the party in Hazadi and offers them — “pilgrims” — a place to stay. She did not ask for a sign, and she mentioned a head priest who visits sometimes (Aaron).
- When the party prays at the shrine, Mirriam notices something off about their prayers.
- A stairway off the shrine: she tells them they are welcome to descend to meditate — and to be sure to wear robes against the cold. A small antechamber partway down holds two sets of clerical robes that appear to be enchanted to resist cold. A deeper room has paintings of wings on the walls. The deeper, the colder. (Farraj and Gnaeus take the robes; Haroun and Ari use magic.)
The octagon
- At the bottom: an octagonal room, like the one at the temple of the Dawn (Sanctum of Sethariel). Smooth black/purple walls.
- In the center, six shards of a broken crystal — roughly two feet long each — laid out with intent in a star pattern.
- Haroun detects evil on the shards: overwhelming — it stuns him. He detects magic: overwhelming.
- This is the Moon sanctum, and the lake is the mirror lake (Aaron). The crystal is a brighter shade of purple than the Dawn gem (Aaron).
- The notes end there, with the party in the octagon and the shards untouched. See The Sanctum Investigation.
New People Met
Mirriam — the young woman in priestly robes at the shrine under the hatch · five masked Corrupted (unnamed; all killed)
Notes
(raw session bullets — click to expand)
- We find the remains of an old imperial road leading south from the settlement and follow it, since it heads in the direction we need. Despite the age, it eases our travel
- Downside, it’s really rainy
- We cross a number of minor rivers and streams, some even have surviving bridges
- Haroun notices that there are a few places have been used as campsites at various points in the past
- We pass through the remains of a few other settlements, that appear to match descriptions from the pilgrim’s path, leading us to believe that this road is the right road
- We do have to do some foraging and hunting
- After a few more weeks of travel we come across a large, 300 foot wide river.
- There are bridge pylons, but no intact bridge
- The river is very deep, but not fast moving
- There are the remains of a smaller road on the north bank of the river, the side we approached from, that matches the description of the next step on the pilgrim’s path, so we follow it east
- This road is much more degraded, with places where the course of the river has shifted, consuming the road
- After about a week, we encounter a surviving bridge across the river
- There’s a complex of some sort across the bridge which was mostly covered by a major landside
- It looks like the river widens into a large and placid lake, which we can clearly see the southern hills reflected
- The north side is heavily forested
- The south side is very hilly
- The ruined fort has a small walled town on the west side
- We explore the ruined fort
- The store room in the fort does appear to have seen some use since the fort was abandoned
- We set up camp in the store room the night
- Gnaeus explores the fort in some more detail, but doesn’t find much of interest. A few shards of stained glass and the like
- We spend the next day exploring the ruined town
- The landslide affected different parts of the town differently
- We spot the entrance to a structure that appears to have survived under the rubble
- The structure is in immensely poor repair and very deteriorated, for having been eaten by a landslide and then rained and generally existed under the earth for hundreds of years
- It is quite large, with domes, atriums, etc
- There’s a tunnel carved into the stone in the back of the complex, which we elect to not explore yet
- It takes a lot of time and energy to explore
- We back out after exploring for hours and retreat to the fort to clean up and rest
- We go back the next day and continue exploring the massive, maze like complex
- We map out a bunch more of the complex, find two sets of stairs
- This feels like the entrance area of a religious complex
- Being tired and dirty, we back out and rest for the evening again
- We go back for a third day of exploring and start moving down the stairs
- Down the stairs is in much better condition
- There is a large, domed room down the stairs
- 5 humanoids wearing masks step out
- Three with armor, two mostly naked with scars and tattoos
- The masks are very odd, some have antlers
- All are armed
- Axes, warhammers, great axes, and sundry secondary weapons
- They speak a harsh language we don’t understand
- Ari understands it and says they asking for the “pilgrim’s sign” and that they are speaking the Black Speech
- They attack us
- It’s a brutal fight
- Titus is killed by an axe to the head
- We manage to kill them all
- Under their masks, their faces are viscerally disgusting
- These are obviously corrupted
- Three with armor, two mostly naked with scars and tattoos
- We then retreat back to the fort and rest
- Day four, we head back and very cautiously explore
- We explore the tunnel
- One direction leads back to the storeroom in the fort, though it’s walled off (Gnaeus used magic to open a temporary breach in the wall)
- Another direction exits into the hills
- A third tunnel emerges in a gulley away form the lake
- A fourth tunnel leads back to the ruined complex, perhaps a document storage area (none have survived the centuries)
- The last tunnel leads to a different section the deeper religious complex in good repair
- Specifically a large room with a pool where ritual washing might take place
- We find rooms where they may have been camping
- The bodies are still there
- There are some shrines in the back
- Haroun spots a hidden floor panel in the large room we had the fight in
- We stop exploring for the day and take the time to cremate Titus’ body with Farraj’s fire magic
- We explore the tunnel
- Day five, exploring the hatch in the floor
- While opening it, a lightning trap hurts Haroun
- There’s a spiral stone staircase leading down
- It’s clean and well maintained
- It’s also very long and deep
- At the bottom is an old shrine to the maker with magical lights
- There’s a young lady in priestly robes at the bottom of the stairs.
- It’s a well appointed shrine to the maker, though in a rather old style
- When we pray at the shrine, Mirriam notices something off about our prayers
- There’s a stairway off the shrine that Mirriam tells us we are welcome to descend to mediate, and for us to make sure to wear robes to protect from the cold
- There is a small antechamber partway down the stairs with two sets of clerical robes that appear to be enchanted to resist cold
- A deeper room has painting of wings on the walls
- The deeper it goes, the colder it gets
- Farraj and Gnaeus use the robes, Haroun uses magic to resist the cold and Ari uses her magic too
- At the bottom is an octagonal room, like at the temple of the Dawn we saw.
- Smooth, black/purple walls
- In the center of the room are shards of a broken crystal, six of them, laid out with intent in a star pattern
- The shards are roughly two feet long each
- Haroun detects evil on the shards
- They read as overwhelming evil and stun him
- Haroun detects magic on the shards
- They read as overwhelming magic
Addendum (Aaron, 2026-10-03 — not in the original notes)
- The settlement we left from is the ruined town from last session.
- The lake is the mirror lake, and the octagon is the Moon sanctum.
- The fort, the walled town and the buried complex are all across the bridge, on the south bank.
- The crystal is a different shade of purple from the one at the Dawn sanctum — brighter.
- The rooms that had been camped in were the five Corrupted’s. We think that’s all of them.
- We only did a light search of the bodies and need to do a better one.
- Mirriam mentioned a head priest who visits sometimes. She didn’t say so, but she is obviously Amani. She did not ask us for a pilgrim’s sign.
- We did not know Ari understood the Black Speech, and don’t know if she speaks it.
- We don’t know whether the lake is on one of Ari’s three intersection points.
- The session ended with us in the octagon; the shards haven’t been touched.
- We kept Titus’s ashes, and held a ceremony.
Loose Threads
- Titus is dead. Killed in the domed hall, cremated the next day by Farraj’s fire. With the party since Session 1. The party held a ceremony and kept his ashes (Aaron). Who is owed the news — his family, House Ulpia, Decius — and how to send it from here, is open.
- Who is Mirriam? A teenage girl in priestly robes, keeping an old-style shrine to the Maker at the bottom of a hidden, trapped stair, beneath a hall where five Corrupted were camped — weeks beyond the last road. She speaks Hazadi, expects pilgrims — and mentioned a head priest who visits sometimes (Aaron). Who, how often, and by which door?
- What is the “pilgrim’s sign,” and who carries one? The Corrupted asked for it; Mirriam, per the notes, did not. See The Pilgrim’s Sign.
- What did Mirriam notice about the party’s prayers? The notes say only that something was “off.”
- Six shards of brighter purple, laid out with intent in a star. At the Dawn sanctum the gem’s shards lay scattered around a dead abbot. Here somebody arranged them — and they read as overwhelming evil and magic, strong enough to stun Haroun. Who laid them out, and when was this crystal broken?
Is this the Moon sanctum?Yes (Aaron) — and the lake is the mirror lake. Still unknown: whether the lake is at one of Ari’s three intersection points — the party doesn’t know (Aaron).- Ari understands the Black Speech — the tongue “learned by those who study the enemy.” The party hadn’t known she understood it, and doesn’t know whether she speaks it (Aaron). Where she learned it is open.
- The road has other users. Campsites “at various points in the past,” a storeroom used since the fort was abandoned, a walled-off tunnel into that storeroom, exits into the hills and a gully. See The Pilgrim’s Sign.
- The call. Haroun is standing in a second octagon. The notes record him stunned by what he detected — nothing more, so far.
- Paintings of wings on the walls of the room above the octagon.
- Reporting. The party is now many weeks from anyone it answers to, has found Corrupted and the Moon sanctum, and has lost a man.
Assumptions & Open Readings
For Aaron — two minutes, and it saves a session's worth of rework
Everything below is something the notes did not say and the wiki now assumes. Notes taken during play are lossy, so filling gaps is expected — but each fill is listed here so a one-word correction lands before anything gets built on it. Strike what’s wrong; the rest hardens into fact.
Status: ⏳ open · ✅ confirmed/resolved · 🟡 partly · ⚠️ superseded
| # | Status | The assumption | Where it shows up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ✅ | “The settlement” the Imperial road leads south from is the S8 ruined town where the diggers were — i.e. S9 picks up exactly where S8 stopped. → Confirmed (Aaron, 2026-10-03). | The Mirror Lake; Timeline |
| 2 | ✅ | The lake is the pilgrim’s mirror lake. The notes say only “a large and placid lake” reflecting the southern hills, at the end of a road matching the pilgrim’s steps. The wiki treats the party as having arrived at The Mirror Lake — is that how the table took it? Did the pilgrim’s account describe the fort, the town, or the complex? → Confirmed (Aaron): it is the mirror lake. | The Mirror Lake; Home; The Sanctum Investigation |
| 3 | ✅ | Layout: the fort, the walled town on its west side, and the landslide-buried complex are all across the bridge, on the south (hilly) bank — and the buried structure is entered from within the town. → Confirmed (Aaron). | The Mirror Lake |
| 4 | ✅ | The octagon is a sanctum. The notes say “an octagonal room, like at the temple of the Dawn.” The wiki calls it a second sanctum-type chamber and the party’s Moon candidate — Moon unconfirmed. Did anything at the table (Mirriam, the wings, the GM) name it? → Confirmed, and more (Aaron): it is the Moon sanctum. | The Sanctum Investigation; The Six Voices; The Mirror Lake |
| 5 | ✅ | The crystal’s colour isn’t recorded. The wiki does not assume it matches the Dawn sanctum’s translucent purple gem. Same stuff? → Resolved (Aaron): purple, but a different shade from the Dawn gem — brighter. | The Mirror Lake; The Sanctum Investigation |
| 6 | ✅ | “They” who may have been camping in the rooms = the five masked Corrupted, and those five were all of them. → Confirmed (Aaron): they were those Corrupted — “we think that’s all of them.” | The Pilgrim’s Sign; The Mirror Lake |
| 7 | ✅ | The notes don’t record the party searching the five bodies or their camp — for the “pilgrim’s sign,” or anything else. Listed as a next step, not as “nobody looked.” Found anything? → Resolved (Aaron): only a light search of the bodies; a better one is needed. | The Pilgrim’s Sign; Home |
| 8 | 🟡 | The notes don’t record anything Mirriam said beyond her name, the welcome, and the invitation — nothing about who she is, who else is there, the Corrupted upstairs, the dead, or what was “off” about the prayers; nor whether the party told her about the fight. The wiki says “the notes don’t record,” and has her alone as far as the notes show. What was actually said? → Partly (Aaron): Mirriam mentioned a head priest who visits sometimes. Still not recorded: what was “off” about the prayers, what she knows of the masked five, and whether the party told her about the fight. | Mirriam; The Pilgrim’s Sign; Home |
| 9 | ✅ | “Mirriam” is the spelling (no GM text to check it against), and “appears to be Amani” = of the Aman, the Highlands people. Her page hedges the ethnicity. → Confirmed (Aaron): the spelling stands; she didn’t say so, but she is obviously Amani. | Mirriam |
| 10 | ✅ | Mirriam did not ask for a pilgrim’s sign — the notes record the Corrupted asking and her simply welcoming “pilgrims.” The contrast is used on The Pilgrim’s Sign. → Confirmed (Aaron): she did not. | The Pilgrim’s Sign |
| 11 | 🟡 | The notes don’t record anyone asking Ari how she comes to understand the Black Speech, or whether she speaks it. Recorded as an open question on her page. → Partly (Aaron): the party did not know she understood it, and doesn’t know whether she speaks it. How she learned it is still open. | Ari; Ari and the Ring; Languages |
| 12 | ✅ | The notes don’t record whether the lake sits at one of Ari’s three intersection points. Left as an open action item. → Resolved as a known unknown (Aaron): the party doesn’t know. Stays an action item. | The Sanctum Investigation; Home |
| 13 | ✅ | In-game timing: roughly mid-to-late autumn 1739 — S8’s “early autumn” plus “a few more weeks,” about a week, and five or six days on site. Arithmetic, not stated. → Confirmed (Aaron). | Timeline; Home |
| 14 | ✅ | The session ended in the octagon — Haroun stunned, the shards untouched, nothing yet decided. The wiki’s “current situation” has the party standing there. → Confirmed (Aaron). | Home |
| 15 | ✅ | Titus’s death is final as far as the notes go: killed, cremated the next day; nothing recorded about ashes kept, rites, or word sent home. His page is marked dead. → Resolved (Aaron): the ashes were kept, and the party held a ceremony. | Titus Caetronius Surus |
Reviewed with Aaron, 2026-10-03: thirteen of fifteen resolved; #8 and #11 are partly answered.
Canonical-name picks this session: none against a GM source — Mirriam is new and kept as the notes spell it.