Welcome to A Lichdom Story: Memoirs of Van Venivel – Sojourn into Darkness Pt 2! If you missed the first part, you can find it here. Part 1 contains the origin narrative and the first couple of events. Part 2 contains the bulk of the events with the conclusion residing in part 3. My narrative occasionally wanders between a past tense, memoir style of writing and a present tense journal style. I chose based on the feel on the event as some of them made less sense as a memory. I imagine Van Venivel using his journals to write his memoirs, sometimes simply adding the journal entry. The events generated from the card-drawing mechanic in the game do a fine job of providing story points and narrative resources from which to draw. There’s still plenty of room for interpretation, however, and the game will give prompting questions to help make the story your own. Without further ado, let us continue the Memoirs of Van Venivel.
The Perpetual Quest for the Forbidden
I sailed through the Shattered Seas, careful not to disturb the tiny islands and the horrific standing stones protruding through the water. Demons lurked everywhere. I could see them watching from the shallow pools and could feel them biding their opportunity in the depths. The unclean creatures anchored themselves to those grotesque stones, twisted with agony-ridden faces and grasping appendages found on no creature I had ever seen. I followed the River of Clots toward its source. That bizarre sanguine flow meandered between the broken islands as if on land. I watched the sharks and other creatures drawn for a meal. Many became meals for others, some for the demons.
Finally, I came upon the source of its perverse emanation. The head of a great creature lay in a wide shallow. Appearing almost like that of a human but with three eyes, horns, and a visage painted with pain and rage, its apparently stone structure lie broken in the water. From the remains of its mouth flowed the crimson font. At once tattooed and carved, on its misshapen forehead I found what I sought: the First Spell of the Primordial Wizard. The ancient and cracked clay tablet that held the riddle of the Spell’s location had alluded to its use. Twice before had the ritual and incantation been used, once to shape the whole of magic and once more to break it. I spent six days transcribing every detail. Afterward, I defiled the skin of the great beast. I alone would grasp the third and final casting of that reshaping.
A Fortuitous Acquisition
I spent the following years learning the nuances of that spell. But that did not mean that the opportunities of the world slept. My spies informed me that the powerful Merchants’ Guild had acquired the petrified heart of a fire serpent. Such a rare find would certainly enrich my collection and experiments. It would also rouse attention. I directed my Cult of the Wyrm to take the heart and sacrifice the merchants for their blasphemy. Their zealotry carried the day and now they safeguard the heart in their Temple of the Star. I enjoy the privilege of using it for my alchemy and rituals whenever I need.
Rot in the Jungle
I heard of a dead city of necromancers deep in the steaming jungles of an island to the south. While I doubted the resilience of the undead in such a humid environment, such a discovery could yield some wonderful results. Several guides and porters fell along the way to the local flora and fauna. Alas, their bodies could not be recovered for reanimation so that they could continue to serve. Travel was slow, but oh what wonders when we finally arrived! Jade statues of exquisite nuance adorned the streets. Cyclopean edifices and monuments of impossible engineering towered over us as we explored. The dark secrets, hidden in an alien tongue, called out to me. Their undead emphatically provided more resistance than I had expected. The rest of my porters and the sole remaining guide fell to those ghoulish guardians. The hordes of decay swarmed from unseen passages as we neared the heart of the city. I was forced to retreat with but a taste of the knowledge safeguarded there. I will someday return.
A Lingering Mark
Upon my return to the Wyrm’s Temple of the Star, I discovered that the unseen tribes of the jungle city had sent a headhunter in my wake. I did not expect that sort of vigorous response to my trespassing. He sought to regain their honor and any secrets I may have collected. Perhaps even to extinguish my knowledge of their existence. He brought great skill to bare, but my cultists trained from childhood to defend the temple. He carried fell talismans that shielded him from my magics, but my cultists captured him anyway after some losses. The fine warrior will make a delectable sacrifice in my good time.
Asleep in the Spirit World
I spent an unknowable span of time scouring the Spirit World for the lost shaman Agoston Magziklar. During my search, I came upon the sleeping hulk of some god of chaos, perhaps banished or imprisoned. I cannot say. I thought to escape from its ire, but alas, some part of its recondite consciousness awakened and followed me back to the material plane. For miles around my point of return, the dead have risen. They possess that same gibbering hunger as that primordial force of entropy surely had. For days I worked my sepulchral influence over the dead. My cultists spent their time hacking and chopping, smashing at those dead days and centuries. Although not those fallen for sacrifice. The great serpents leave not enough of those vessels to reanimate. In time we quelled the uprising and concealed ourselves as its epicenter. Some few wandered away but I trust some enterprising adventurer will vanquish them heroically.
⨒∹∎⟴§₰
Mind ∦⊍⊗⨘! So difficult ⊯⪺ to control. The potion was meant ∐ to focus my ₱ower in the CHAOS plane. Instead I was ⨑☈∀Ƥ₽∃ↁ! I managed to escape…
Another Trap…
Seeking an ∄₦∂ to this mental chaos, I searched the tomb of Thoth Amon. ∎∰↬ His trap was exceedingly clever. Locked in the mind of the primate demon ∅⋦௹៛. Who knows how long I have been crushed under his willɁ
Escape
Years I have wasted, probing for a blind spot. Opportunity often comes at the expense of another. Some desperate seeker was as foolish as I. The demon, preoccupied with his new entertainment, did not expect my escape. Still I remain trapped in his realm. An ancient sorcerer’s chimera stands guard at the way out. Irolo’s chimera slavers with the iron jaws of a hellhound and flies with the speed of the shadow bat. It stalks this weird land with stealth and claws sufficient to gain the envy of a Slethian tiger. Its tail, three paces long and thin as a whip, snapped with such speed that it cut as surely as a razor. But intelligence burned in the beast’s cruel eyes. It chafed at its captivity although it had long despaired of finding a way to break its bonds. My mastery of the Spirit Shards could carve its mystical chains and the truce would hold so long as I let it free into the world to do as it would. And so I secured my escape. The demon Hemah will feel my vengeance some day but for now there is much that I must attend. Of Irolo’s chimera, I cannot say what became of it.
In My Absence
In the years that I was detained, a new cult arose. Cruel and seeking to eradicate magic, it supplanted my Cult of the Wyrm. As it sought to destroy any grasp man may have of the higher powers, my followers were forced into hiding. I found the world much more hostile to my intentions. Time also ravaged my body, protected though it was. My weakness brings me shame. I feel the weight of the years lost and the long carefully planned months needed to return to my former strength.
A Game of Strategy
This new Cult of Nagrasadiel continued to tighten its grip across the land. Their hatred of magic and fondness of staking heretics out for the scorpions created precarious conditions for my quest. I probed their ranks with my spies. Unsurprisingly, they thirst for power just as much as any other cult. They wrestle with one another, ceaselessly seeking a way to the top of the pile. While they bluster with their sanctimonious piety, they every one deceive and scheme among themselves and those in secular power. My agents uncovered myriad details of their machinations. They didn’t seem to take care at hiding them but I expected that the power they conveyed to their partners made it worth the risk.
Regardless, open exposure would surely mean many of their deaths as those kinds of betrayal could not be ignored. And so, I had found my leverage against this obnoxious cabal of persecutors. I would hold my advantage until needed, however, as I still did not wish to attract their attention.
Theft!
Abominable wretches! They have stolen from me but I will find and destroy them. They have taken the techniques of alchemical life essence extraction among other unimportant baubles. It is not lost to me. How many years have I performed the process and extended this shell? But time has long been my ally against foes and irritants. Their brash disrespect will be repaid.
Thieves’ Remedy
The audacity to attempt to steal from me again! I could have scarcely believed it although I certainly took pains to remedy the oversight last time. My own chimeras, created thanks to Irolo’s inspiration, devoured two of the three with savor. The last gave up his secrets in turn although the time taken was certainly a luxury that soothed the affront. He now languishes in the lonely dungeon, his life essence slowly being drained. His will be the slowest of deaths although I am reserving the most creative for Tinal of the Cult of Nagrasadiel. He is the fool that thought to purloin my treasures and find some advantage over me.
The Past and Its Consequences
My divinations revealed that the demon Hemah hunts me in the physical realm. Evidently, he was not well please with my escape nor my freeing of Irolo’s chimera. He seeks to return me to my imprisonment in order to visit new untold torment upon what remains of my soul. Rivals stealing my secrets, the primate demon hunting me; my situation grows desperate.
An Answer to Two Questions
Now, with Hemah hunting me and the Cult of Nagrasadiel growing in power and longevity, I could not abide these threats for any longer. I had horded advantages and it was time to weave the web of their demise. Gathering all of the information that my spies could acquire, I had set in motion their revelation. I readied the spell of the Primordial Wizard. It felt as though using this prized knowledge was a waste but these obstacles had grown beyond simple solutions. Thus, at the time of revelation, I used the spell to bind the demon Hemah to the leaders of the Cult so that they could not be sundered. The Cult turned on its own leaders when they learned of their connection to the demon. The kings sought vengeance for their humiliation. The Cult survives but I struck the head from the beast. Cult paladins sealed them all in a buried vault together, tormenting one another for untold years. I say it was a fitting end while burying my alchemical secrets with them. Regaining the freedom to move as I pleased again was gratifying. I still wonder how long until they win free.
Commentary on A Lichdom Story
I really got into the meat of the game through this section. Lichdom works with a deck of cards and a simple resolution test so each of these sections was a different challenge or event that arose from the cards. I would draw a card, read the entry in the book, roll for resolution, then interpret it in the context of my story. There was plenty of inspiration. A few of the cards involve assets and advantages that can be used later, and that’s what the spell of the Primordial Wizard was. Catastrophes also arise in the cards that will endanger your quest.
I started to get into more of a groove working through the events so I tended toward less narrative as I was now really playing the game. I find myself doing this in solo games somewhere around the middle. Narrating every single event becomes exhausting so I begin summing them up to avoid feeling like it’s become a chore.
I want to thank you very much for reading and visiting my blog. Hopefully you have enjoyed the Memoirs so far. I still have a few more pages before the conclusion but I think the next blog should wrap it up.
You can find the final part here:
A Lichdom Story: Memoirs of Van Venivel Pt 3
Thanks again and if you’re interested in checking out Lichdom , you can find it here:
