Here is the setup for our next sessions, which will take a highly unusual format:

Here is the setup for our next sessions, which will take a highly unusual format:

After Adrianna has had time to consult the copied text you have provided her, Valtropis comes to fetch you (still avoiding Salinger's gaze). As you mount the narrow stairs to her cramped apartment, the smell of the stables beneath is strong in your nostrils. Adrianna's youthful face is resplendent with innocent joy as she clutches to her chest in a girlish manner the copied pages you have secured her. When you are assembled, she speaks to you in her gravelly voice,

"Evocations of the Doomed City contains, or perhaps is, a spell that evokes an unimaginably ancient city, a city that fell under a curse so terrible and irrevocable that its name must never be spoken, for it is said that to speak it is to bring oneself under the curse, and forfeit one's life. But certain books do give us hints, referring to it obliquely as the wandering city of the Caliph of the Painted Dawn, and describing it as the abode of an ancient race that far outstripped man, a race some texts call the Gringling.

The beginning of Evocations of the Doomed City is "the Song of the Six Vessels". The evocations contained within summon a vehicle for the soul of those who would seek the city, for none may travel in their own form to the place where it is, which is closed to us utterly. So, conveniently, it provides its readers with a gallery of vessels. As each of the Six Vessels is evoked, one may step forward into their shoes, and the soul of the one who steps forward will be projected into the place where the vessel is, and in some way that is hard to understand, they will become of one mind.

While you inhabit the vessel, he or she will be your living, breathing, form, and you will acquire their talents and powers for as long as the Doomed City is evoked. But beware, for the book is clear that should the vessel be destroyed, the soul of its occupant is often lost irrevocably [save vs. death]. And the Doomed City is filled with peril, even for vessels such as these.

The book says of the six that they are:

'weavers of unforgettable deeds, whose name ring out in song, so they might have a second, and a third, and indeed many lives, stolen from grim Death. For death, dogged, and unrelenting, cannot claim them, try as he might, for when he has them, he turns only to find himself cheated, and once more they stand facing the cyclopean walls of the great city that cannot be named, dwarfed, exchanging wry looks and knowing smiles, game to ply their strange trades another time, together.'"

And of the six vessels, here is what the book says about each:

'Baiba Addiq who speaks with a stutter, and is lame, but who once stole the World Egg before it could be hatched from a young god who wished to found a new reality, and who came to watch Baiba because he was said to be a legendary shaper of clay, his hands moving so deftly across his potter's wheel that brought it tears to the eyes of the divinity, and it was only when the clay egg in his hands did not hatch eons later that the divinity realized, startled and laughing, that his cosmic creation was gone, and he could not say when and where. [Thief 14]

The philosopher Abu Farazi, who while a callow youth invented a new, and obviously superior, syllogistic, upending a millennium of thinking with a few deft insights, Farazi, who when older, debated the Djinni Vybari about the metaphysics of change while he slew his minions with sorcery, until Vybari relented and returned the Princess-and all who watched, and were in the least objective, said that Farazi won the debate. [Magic-User 12]

And who could forget the sisters, Marjanna and Afeerah!

Marjanna, overflowing with proverbs and warm wit, who in her spinning dances has pierced the sixteen veils of reality, who is said to have danced once for eight days, and they feared for her life and tried to stop her, but none could approach for the sparks of heaven poured from her spinning form, and she cannot speak of what she saw, except to say that it cannot be expressed in Farazi's syllogisms. [Monk 10]

Afeerah, scourge of the slavers, hellion, who disrupted the routes along which the swaying caravans of human wares traveled, until the Caliph's men captured her, and covered in filth and spit upon, she taunted his legendary captain until he had no choice but to fight her to save face before his men, and calling her great spear to her whistling though the air, she slew him and then his men when they intervened, until the Caliph interceded and made her for a time his captain, and she led legions; but then she grew bored, and walked one day into the desert from whence she came. [Fighter 13]

And the jurist, Oman Ibn Atta, beloved of the light, who went once into a stony place where a village was, because he had heard that there a grandfather was possessed by a demon of the desert; and, as it happened, it was no ordinary demon, but great father Pazuzu, and Oman Ibn Atta offered himself in exchange for the grandfather, and the demon was delighted; and had there been even one speck of doubt, or a single shadow of vice, in the heart of Atta he would have been lost, but was there was none, and great father Pazuzu could not find even a toehold in the soul of the holy man, and was cast out into the desert, where Atta pursued him, to render judgment against him, not for what the demon was, for none but the Almighty may judge on that score, but for the terrible deeds he had done; and great father Pazuzu knew fear for the first time in countless cycles. [Cleric 13]

And let us not forget Yazid al-Salehi, the gambler and cunning hunter, handsome and daring, who was able to solve the Sphinx's riddle, but gave the wrong answer knowingly so that he might slay in self-defense when she came to devour him. And when the green elephant plunged to his death rather than be captured, it was al-Salehi who followed him into the spirit world, and captured him nonetheless. None escape the shaft of his arrow, or his cunningly laid traps, and it is said that he, owing to a blessing rung from the Marids, he knows and excels at every card game, even those from other times and places. [Ranger 12]

If you will be playing in our next session, on Thursday, you must select one of the Six vessels. Once you have said yes to the session, you may note your selection in the comments below. I will provide you with a character sheet for your character in advance of the session.

Note that if you wish to have your central PC engage in business in Rastingdrung during the evocation, which Adrianna says may take days (she seems somewhat unsure how long), you are welcome to play a hireling or a new character inhabiting one of the vessels, but with the understanding that experience will accrue to whatever character occupies the vessel. I will post further rules over the next few days.