Our party gathered after Kai, a faun messenger boy, approaches Jericho about a job from Relic, an artifact collector. They made their way to Relic’s abode, where they learned the details of the job: a creature has been twisted by the slumbering chaos titan, and resulting has veins of solid arcana growing throughout it’s body. If the party would be so inclined to hunt the creature down and harvest the Star Splinters, as they were referred to, Relic would pay handsomely for them.
While working through the details of the job, various items in Relic’s vast collection caught the eyes of our party members. Relic took note, and offered a deal: they could take an object, but in exchange offer a memory of belonging to Relic. Greedily, the party all accepted the deal, and equally greedy, Relic plucked the memories from their minds. Mechanically, a piece of gear was upgraded or a low level consumable/ magic item was granted. In exchange, a PC had to mark a stress and give the GM a fear.
Freshly geared up, the party began their expedition into the muddy, storm-soaked expanse of the Downside Prairie, each contributing ways of keeping morale up despite the dismal travel conditions.
After a full day’s journey, they stumbled upon two Chimera-ish creatures, out adrift in the prairie. They had the body of a wolf, a head and talons of a falcon, a tail like a horse, a mane of a lion, with protrusions like budding antlers growing out of their torso. The party quickly killed the beasts, but not without sustaining grave injuries of their own. The creatures seemed to be siblings, protective of each other to the end. Merka cast Speak With Dead, learning the colossus was their mother, corrupted, and was pointed in her direction.
The party rested for the night, only gaining the benefits of a short rest thanks to the sub-par conditions. Come morning they set off again, guided by the directions from the colossus’ young. Presently, they stumbled upon a section of prairie where the grass and standing water behaved oddly, and in the center lay a Star Splinter. As they neared it, a vision took hold of multiple party members: eyes, formed from the grass, staring, dredging up insecurities and confirming them true. As the chaos titan gazed upon them, multiple chaotic effects triggered (chaos table rolls!). The vision faded, they quickly harvested the Splinter, before suddenly the water whipped up into a flash flood around them. They more or less safely navigated their way out, but seemingly the whole ordeal alerted the colossus to their presence.
As the colossus approached, they could see it was indeed like the creatures from earlier, save two main differences: the protrusions had grown into full antlers, laced with Star Splinters, and eye stalks like a star mole’s mouth grew from the face. The party quickly scaled it, and primarily targeted the eyestalks, which were triggering chaos table rolls. The rule that Tag Team rolls could be used however much was well utilized, with 5-6 combo attacks being executed. It wasn’t an easy fight though; at least two party members fell and had to be revived, and everyone was badly injured. As the last eyestalk was sliced off, the growth melted away, revealing normal eyes beneath. In a flash of insight, Mitzi and Flick realized that it was no longer driven to fight by corruption - it was now an animal fighting for safety. Nonetheless, it was a towering beast trying to kill them, so fight on they did. Eventually, they managed to slice off a limb and shatter the beak. As it fell to the ground, a lullaby was sung and the creature was put to rest.
Though much of the antlers had been destroyed when the colossus rolled around, the party was still able to harvest enough Star Splinters that they could keep some as well as sell plenty to Relic. Paid in full, they trekked back to Dirtwater to await their next adventure.
