The Fallen World

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The Fallen World — Campaign Wiki

As of Session 9 (2026-10-03) · ~mid-to-late autumn, Year 1739 MCY (derived from travel times; confirmed by Aaron)

The Situation

The party is standing in the Moon sanctum, under a ruin by the mirror lake, many weeks south of Hazad — and Titus is dead. The pilgrim’s road held all the way: an old Imperial road south from the ruined town (old campsites along it), a 300-foot river, a week east along its bank, and then a surviving bridge to a placid lake that mirrors the southern hills — The Mirror Lake. Beside it: a ruined fort, a small walled town, and under a landslide a large, maze-like religious complex. At the very bottom, past a deepening cold, is an octagonal room like the one at the Sanctum of Sethariel, with six two-foot shards of a broken crystal — a brighter purple than the Dawn gem — laid out, with intent, in a star. Haroun read them as overwhelming evil — it stunned him — and overwhelming magic. This is the Moon sanctum (Aaron) — the second the party has entered, and one the Order of the Owl never found. The notes end there, with the shards untouched. See The Sanctum Investigation.

The site is occupied — twice over. In a domed hall under the ruins, five masked Corrupted challenged the party in the Black Speech — Ari understood them — for a “pilgrim’s sign,” then attacked. Titus took an axe to the head; the five were killed; Farraj’s fire cremated Titus the next day; the party held a ceremony and kept his ashes. Under a hidden, lightning-trapped hatch in that same hall, a clean and well-kept stair leads down to an old-style shrine to the Maker and Mirriam — a girl in her mid-to-late teens, in priestly robes, Amani by her looks — who greeted the party in Hazadi, offered “pilgrims” a place to stay, noticed something off about their prayers, and told them they were welcome to go down and meditate. She mentioned a head priest who visits sometimes. Tunnels run from the complex to the fort’s storeroom (which appears to have seen recent use), the hills, and a gully.

Behind them (Session 8): the Owl’s math is readable, and the party is using it. At Al-Hakim University, Master Bahadir showed the notation in The Recovered Documents to be equations that need inputs, partly in old dwarven symbols, apparently about angles on a sphere (in a world whose consensus is flat). Ari uses the orrery to supply inputs and got three candidate lines on a map, which the party is fairly sure cross another line at three possible Moon-site locations — nobody can tell which is right — and Master Najlad’s reading of its rings (stars, constellations, the moon) suggested “less static” intersecting lines whose equations the party appears not to have. Najlad, intimidated by the orrery, was given a cover story by Haroun. Then Estelle came back to Farraj’s dreams, apologetic and awkward: the orrery is a copy of the original and may not work exactly the same — the party suspects a reverse-engineered copy of the Monastery of the Dawn’s long-lost jeweled orrery — and the equations’ origin point is arbitrary, as far as she knows.

At Castromar, House Menenia made clear it wants the Ulpia match — perhaps not with Silvia. She seems to see Gnaeus as old and has been instructed to make sure this goes well; her cousin Julius apparently calls him a “dissipated playboy”; Duke Mettius hinted that her sister Opia might be a better match. Atilius’s map with the mirror lake on it is what got the party here. On the road south, at a ruined town, diggers sent by a man called Gaius ambushed the party; half fled.

Further back (Session 7): the capital riot’s aftermath — ~100 “riot leaders” publicly executed (by whom, nobody has said) and roughly half the capital’s ten thousand elves dead; the snipers at the Ulpia estate, which the party is fairly sure were targeted, never found. The Balventia library’s discoveries — True Divination as a Church ritual art, and The Orders of the Five Courts, including an order of the moon anathematized with its head Aurelius Balventius — are still the frame for everything above. The notes still don’t record anyone checking whether Ari’s contacts in the elven community are among the living.

The Party

Gnaeus Clodius Ulpius (Aaron) · Farraj ibn Ihab al-Rabi (Colin) · Haroun al-Affan (Justin) · Ari (bound elf alchemist) · † Titus Caetronius Surus (bodyguard — killed S9)

Standing Assignments

  1. The Sanctum Investigation — follow up on the three sanctums
  2. Why Did the Phoenix Knights Come to Hazad

Current Action Items

At the lake (S9 — new)

  • Decide what to do in the octagon. Six shards reading as overwhelming evil and magic; Haroun stunned; nothing touched, as far as the notes go
  • Talk to Mirriam — who she is, who else is here, who the pilgrims are, what the octagon and the shards are, what was “off” about the party’s prayers, and what she knows of the masked five. And the head priest she says visits sometimes — who, how often, from where, and by which door
  • The “pilgrim’s sign” — get the Corrupted’s exact words from Ari; go over the bodies, masks and camp for anything that could be one (only a light search of the bodies so far — a better one is needed); re-read the pilgrim’s account for it
  • Ask Ari where she learned the Black Speech — the party hadn’t known she understood it, and doesn’t know whether she speaks it
  • Is the lake on one of Ari’s three intersection points? The party doesn’t know yet. The first real test of the Owl’s equations — and of which line is right
  • Watch the exits — tunnels to the hills and a gully, a storeroom that appears to have been used, old campsites on the road. Five Corrupted are dead; nothing says they were alone
  • Titus — his ashes to carry home (kept; a ceremony was held), and word to his people and to House Ulpia when there is a way to send it
  • Expect Estelle. She found Farraj by divining who had entered a sanctum

On the pilgrim’s road (S8)

  • The missing equations for the intersecting, “less static” lines. The party meant to ask Estelle; she appeared; Farraj forgot. Next visit
  • Who is Gaius, and how does he choose where to dig? The diggers who fled know armed strangers are on the road
  • Who copied the orrery? Estelle calls it a copy; the party suspects a reverse-engineered copy of the Monastery of the Dawn’s jeweled orrery. Someone had the original, or its plans, 10–20 years ago — and the Clan Grum lead is how to find them
  • Write down Haroun’s cover story to Master Najlad before it has to be repeated

House Menenia (S8)

  • Silvia or Opia? The Duke has made his hint; Gnaeus hasn’t (per the notes) answered it. See Silvia Menenia, Opia
  • Did Gnaeus get the Menenia archives he asked for in his letter, or only Atilius’s maps?
  • Julius Menenius — “dissipated playboy.” The cousin Silvia admires is also the family’s man in the Eagle

The university visit (S8 — done)

  • Master Bahadir — equations requiring inputs; old dwarven symbols; angles on a sphere (S8)
  • Master Najlad and the orrery — rings = stars, constellations, the moon, etc.; he was intimidated, and bluffed (S8). Not recorded: whether he was asked about the mirror lake, or his resemblance to the document diagrams
  • Master Baram — knows some of the pilgrim’s stop names, not where they are; pointed to House Menenia (S8). Not recorded: whether the Moon Court sites or the Holy Orders of the Five Courts came up
  • Maps — copied via Berdi: southern Hazad and the old, abandoned Imperial areas to the south (S8). Not recorded: any wider archive search with Master Beczat al-Azari
  • Road note: ~20 bandits on the university road — “trip is uneventful” (S8), both ways

From the riot (S7)

  • Find out whether Ari’s contacts in the elven community survived. Half the community didn’t. This is also the party’s only line into tracing the rumor campaign
  • Who ordered the ~100 executions, and how were “leaders” identified in five days? Ask Ismad — and ask him the old questions too: did Uncle’s Men see the riot coming, and do the snipers match the Baahir professionals?
  • Finish the safe house for Ari. The mob has seen her face, and the Uryula staff problem says the household one isn’t solved either
  • Handle the aftermath of Farraj killing scores of commoners with lightning in front of witnesses — the executions may have absorbed the city’s anger, or merely delayed it

The church-history thread (S7 — new)

  • Copy the mirror-lake journey description — already done: Gnaeus directed the copy during the library visit (Aaron; unrecorded). The party holds possible Moon-sanctum directions — the live question is when to follow them
  • Ask Abbess Zafara the real questions — asked at the time (per Justin): she knew nothing of the Courts, the old orders, or the Order of the Dawn. Dead end — which makes the library routes below the live path, and the Balventia shelves quietly extraordinary
  • Decide whether to ask the Countess about Aurelius Balventius and the anathematized order of the moon — her own kinsman, her library, her church. Delicate
  • What happened to the order of the dusk? The one Court order with no recorded fate. See The Orders of the Five Courts
  • Longer-range sources: the Grand Abbey of Chlumzen and The Holy City libraries (per the Abbess); Felice D’Oiseaux at Touraine; Salemon Fouquier (living Fifth-Crusade diviner, if only pro/con-level per the book — approach = telling the West you’re interested)

The leads Ismad handed over (S6, still open)

  • Go back to Visenne de Tarrand and Isabel d’Allais and ask about the sanctums — still the entire reason the party wanted them; release-to-custody offer still open. Also: Marin’s Agaddum cousin’s name, whether Isabel knows her father is dead — and now the Euglerrand de Tarrand family story
  • Ask Estelle where she got the orrery — partly answered (S8): a copy of the original (the party suspects of the monastery’s orrery). Still open: ask what she is, given Blessed Benedict’s precedent — her art looks like Church True Divination
  • Reach Clan Grum — or ask Clan Zum / Dolgrim Zum-Akar who commissions precision instruments from them
  • Trace Amalricht von-Haup and Kristof Gruben — both died ~1736, both Krenau men, in the year the Owl was purged. Causes of death
  • Ask why Uncle and Ismad doubt Benedicto Malipiero’s execution — answered (GM): no good evidence he’s dead, and a man of his background knew what his heresy would cost — so foolish, indifferent to death, or possessed of a plan. The live question moved to his page

Haroun’s threads

  • Meet Sadiq again — “within the month” (S6). The notes through S8 don’t record the meeting, and the party is now far from the capital. He is holding something back
  • What did Naqi’s sister die of? — cancer (“lumps disease”), per the GM. A slow natural death weakens the engineered-removal theory. Still open: when, relative to the expedition
  • Get the roster of who did go with Awad — but not via Sadiq: asking him for privileged order information would violate his office’s trust (GM), which is presumably why Haroun hasn’t. Another route into the Eagle
  • Decide what, if anything, to do with Rashida al-Sabri, Naqi’s widow
  • Sister Alasia — and note that Uncle’s Men have now put Madeline in front of the Eagle

Still open from before

  • Ask Madeline about Marie-Celeste de la Courcel and Marc Abayante — gently: her rumored lover and her child-charge both died in one night, and the GM notes this is emotionally fraught ground, not an interrogation topic. She has told the party the small half of her story
  • Pick the next sanctum — Moon, via The Mirror Lake (S8) — reached (S9)
  • Debrief Lindse on the dark-haired woman — the lord half is done: her description and Madeline’s matched, as far as they went (Justin, GM-agreed)
  • Write down the scholars Madeline named before they’re lost, and follow the Krenau / Gandolfini lead — establishing first what survived the 1731 sack and university fire
  • Await Master Bahadir’s research on the strange notation; take the orrery to him and Master Najlad — folded into the Al-Hakim University plan block above

Open Mysteries

See Mysteries Index for the full ranked list: The Sanctum Investigation · The Pilgrim’s Sign · The Elf Scapegoating · The Orders of the Five Courts · The Riot at the Ulpia Estate · The Death of Naqi al-Akram · Why Did the Phoenix Knights Come to Hazad · On the Summoning of Guardian Spirits · The Night in the Royal Castle · The Lord of Kraus’s Folly · The Monastery of the Dawn and the Orrery · The Halwa Ambushes · The Death of Crown Prince Awad · The Attacks on Baahir · Ari and the Ring · The Call at the Sanctum

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