![[Publish/Assets/Session Headers/2026-07-29 — The Whispering Mace & the Horn Thief.png]] # 2026-07-29 — The Whispering Mace & the Horn Thief > [!quote] Session Hook > Two hours digging through a boneyard turns up a weapon made of blood that begs to be carried — and then something ten feet tall reaches into the same crevice and walks off with the horn. --- ## Overview The party arrived in the Canyon Trove (W4) to find a valley of bones and wailing tentacles: enormous worms that erupt from the ground, shriek, and sink back down with a Doppler moan. [[The Party|Casanova Frankenstein]] dredged up a fragment of War-Slough lore that saved everyone a fight — the worms are endemic to the Trove, they wail because of the thousands of years of slaughter that happened here, and they scavenge bone and blood rather than hunt. Leave them alone and they leave you alone. The party did. What followed was two solid in-game hours of digging through the accumulated dead of the Blood War under punishing heat. [[The Party|Lilly Pallywally]]'s *locate object* returned a horn, then another, then another, all drifting — the Slough's chaotic magic made divination useless. So they searched by hand. The first hour turned up something nobody was looking for: a voice in a femur, and a mace formed of blood that offered [[The Party|Tahara Rahma]] and [[The Party|Ara-Ara Avannatto]] the power of fury for no stated price. The second hour finally turned up Rex's horn — wedged in a crevice, fleshy, and unmistakably wiggling. Tahara reached for it. Something else got there first. --- ## Key Events ### 1. The Wailing Worms A tentacle burst from the canyon floor with a mouth at its very tip, wailing as it rose and Doppler-moaning as it sank. When one wailed, the rest surfaced and joined in. [[The Party|Celeste Valentin]] argued immediately for restraint — *"I am going to urge Celeste not to stomp, not to kick, not to punch. I don't think these things are necessarily hostile."* Tahara Rahma reframed the swaying as feeding rather than aggression: not hostility, just *"feeling out some food."* Lilly Pallywally dismounted, put a hand to the ground and found no tremors, no cause, nothing. Casanova Frankenstein settled it with a History check, digging back through everything he'd read about the worms of Avernus. There was one surviving fragment out of the War-Slough: these particular worms live only in the Canyon Trove, they wail because of how many thousands of years of fighting happened here, and they survive off the fragments of bone and flesh and blood they can find — *"but usually they will not harm you if you do not harm them."* There was also a legend attached: wait for one to withdraw, stick your head down the hole, and you might find magic items. Tahara declined on behalf of the group — *"waiting for it to go back inside and sticking your head in, not my cup of tea."* Not one attack was made on a worm all session. ### 2. The Boneyard The Trove floor is a compacted mass of the Blood War's dead — demons, devils, humans, and every race that got fed into the war, in every size, layered together past the point of identification. Mixed in are fresher corpses: demons that came through more recently and fought each other, and, as the DM put it, *"the unlucky treasure hunter that was sent in by Rex. You never can tell."* Celeste searched for any sign of Jack's body and found nothing identifiable — *"You might see a horn here and there, but it's hard to say what it came from."* Celeste proposed a shortcut: did anyone have *locate object*? Lilly did. The warning came first — magic behaves very strangely in the War-Slough when it comes to finding things, and *"Rex probably should have explained that to you."* Lilly refused to metagame the warning and cast it anyway. The result: *"You detect a horn, the horn, but then you detect another and another. And then sometimes it feels like it's closer... it's just moving around, like you can't make sense of what you are even seeing here. Like the whole area is just in a constant state of disarray."* Celeste, flatly: *"Stupid time-space distortions."* That left digging. ### 3. The Voice in the Bones An hour into the search, Tahara Rahma and Ara-Ara Avannatto — and only those two — heard something inside their own heads: *"Psst, hey over here, over here."* It was coming from a small hole in a spine, or a femur, in the middle of the pile. Tahara heard it from clear across the valley, and had a theory about why: *"I do have a connection with the dead, so it makes sense that I would hear the dead in my head."* Inside was a mace unlike anything either of them had seen. As Tahara's attention sharpened on it, the weapon began to exude blood and then draw it back in, holding its shape — pulsing, as Tahara put it, *"like a beating heart."* ### 4. The Mace's Offer It introduced itself as something that had been waiting a very long time. *"I am so glad you found me. I've been waiting here for so long. I can help you. I can make you truly powerful."* Pressed on how long, it couldn't say — *"Very long time, very long time. I can't remember how long it's been. So many battles."* Then: *"I don't even know which battle it was, but I've been laying here for thousands of years and finally, finally somebody truly worthy has passed by."* Asked whose side it fought on, or who carried it last, it had nothing — only *"Very, very powerful warrior though. But even the most powerful fall."* Asked what it actually did, it volunteered everything: *"Well, I have some tricks up my sleeve, and I will tell you since you asked."* Attune to it and it grants the power of rage, in one of two boons — a martial boon (+4 damage on Strength-based melee attacks, plus a reaction to strike back at anything in reach that damages you) or a caster's boon (+4 damage on spell attacks, plus a reaction to cast a cantrip at whatever damaged you). *"I will let your fury boil up to slay and dismember any of your foes on the battlefield."* Tahara felt his Dhampir side answer it — bloodlust rising as the weapon talked about dismemberment and power, until he described being drawn toward it against his will, *"like a pie on a windowsill."* He also asked the only hard question of the scene: **is there a cost?** The mace said no. *"No cost. Just take me out and let me experience battle again, like I was meant to."* Tahara also tried, briefly, to convert it: *"Well, Mister Evil Mace, allow me to help you too. Have you accepted Osiris as your personal lord and savior? I can unlock a world of very wonderful possibilities, if you just read this pamphlet I brought."* The mace was unimpressed — *"maybe I can't make you more powerful. Maybe I'll wait another thousand years for the next one."* ### 5. "Angry Sword, I Choose You" Both clerics had been called; only one could carry it. Ara-Ara Avannatto offered to stand aside, and Tahara refused the charity — he'd been roleplaying, not staking a claim, and insisted they settle it properly on a d100. Ara-Ara won. She went straight for it: *"Angry sword, I choose you."* And then, without a pause: *"To avenge my brother."* The DM tied it off — *"you couldn't protect your brother, but Ara-Ara can now protect everyone."* She's calling it **Bob**. It's a sentient artifact weapon with a real name she hasn't learned yet, and until she spends the time to attune to it, it's a magic mace and nothing more — the attacks count as magic, but there's no bonus and no fury. ### 6. The Horn The second hour of searching came down to a group survival check with Tahara Rahma as the deciding roll, and it landed. The party moved to the far end of the canyon, where the search turned up an **eternal bone dragon** — and, wedged in a crevice beneath the punishing heat, the horn itself. Handheld. Constantly wiggling. Distinctly alive. Exactly what Rex had sketched and described. Tahara reached in for it. ### 7. Lurr Something else reached in at the same time. A ten-foot fiend — a nalfeshnee — pulled the horn out from under Tahara's hand, stepped out of the crevice, and announced: **"This is my horn. You will not take it."** Then it opened [[The Party|Dr. Herbert Who]] up with a claw before anyone had rolled initiative. Tahara named him on the spot — **Lurr**, a Futurama joke, *"being a horn thief and all"* — and the name stuck for the rest of the night. Celeste decided he sounded Cuban. Casanova asked how long this was going to take; Lurr stared at her and said **"I go all day."** The party opened hard. Tahara's blight landed for 15 through a saved throw. Ara-Ara's sacred flame burned through his dodge. Lilly cursed him, drove Longinus home, and buried a third-level divine smite in him for 38. Celeste charged in, punched him, **grappled a ten-foot demon**, and started kicking — what Tahara accurately described as *"a straight-up kangaroo mugging."* Casanova hasted Unit-NULL. Dr. Herbert Who added frostbite and stepped away through the mist. Surrounded, grappled, and bleeding, Lurr simply vanished — 120 feet in an instant, screaming **"This is my horn!"** No somatic components, no spell, nothing to counter. He'd told them what to expect: **"I'm very quick. You cannot keep me still. I will bring the horn back."** ### 8. The Chase Round two was a footrace across the canyon. Hasted, [[The Party|Unit-NULL]] burned 120 feet and swung — and missed, earning a taunt: **"A little tiny demon swings better than that. You think you can take my horn with that?"** Tahara considered a blade barrier and discarded it once he clocked the small wings that let Lurr fly, and dashed instead. Ara-Ara landed the best hit of the night, a **critical guiding bolt**. Lilly readied Longinus with a thunderous smite waiting on the trigger. Celeste galloped the length of the field and got another kick in. Casanova's firebolt landed at half — the Trove's demons resist fire, prompting his verdict: *"Every demon down here is resistant. Everyone up at the surface wasn't like this."* Dr. Herbert Who flew down and put three magic missiles into him, which earned the night's best line: **"Stupid bird! You stop that!"** Cornered, Lurr threw out a burst of scintillating multicolored light meant to scatter them. Lilly shrugged it off outright. Unit-NULL simply cannot be frightened while conscious. Everyone else who caught it did — but by the DM's own admission the moment fell flat, and Lurr just stood there dumbfounded that nobody ran. ### 9. The Recruitment Attempt Unit-NULL, true to the Oath of Redemption, spent a reaction trying to end it without a kill — **"Nalfeshnee. There is still hope for you. There is still hope for you."** — offering him his life in exchange for the horn. He refused. Asked whether he was retrieving it for someone, he was insulted by the premise: **"Because it's my horn. I've had this horn. You walk into my house and steal my horn?"** Lilly tried the other direction entirely, and meant it: *"What if you left your home, kept your horn, and joined our party? I like you. I like your accent. I like your attitude. I like your style. I like how you don't take no shit. You decide something and boy howdy, you've stuck with it. So I don't know — instead of dying and losing your horn, why don't you keep your horn and come with us?"* He turned it down for a reason nobody at the table expected: > [!important] Lurr > **"No, no, no, no, no... stupid, stupid sword tried to take my horn same way — talking in my head. You go."** And, at the very end of the night: > [!important] Lurr > **"Stupid robot, just like stupid sword, tried to steal Lurr's horn. Try to say, 'Oh, we all be at the party. We kill the devils together.' But no, that's not how it works."** Somewhere out in this canyon — or possibly already in Ara-Ara's hand — there is a weapon that has done this before. The session ended mid-combat, at the top of the turn order. Lurr is bloodied, mobile, and still holding the horn. --- ## Notable NPCs | NPC | Type | Notes | |-----|------|-------| | **Lurr** | Nalfeshnee (Large fiend) | Ten feet tall, broken imperious speech, small functional wings. Claims the horn as his by right of possession. Innate 120-ft teleport that is not a spell; resistant to fire, reduced damage from cold, no necrotic resistance; AC 18. Can emit a burst of frightening multicolored light. Refused both a threat and a genuine offer of alliance. Named by Tahara Rahma. | | **The blood mace ("Bob")** | Sentient artifact weapon | Found telepathically calling from a femur in the boneyard. Formed of blood that pulses in and out of its shape. Claims thousands of years buried, no memory of which battle or which side, and a last wielder who was *"a very, very powerful warrior."* Offers the power of rage in exchange for being carried into battle. States there is no cost. True name unknown. Now carried by Ara-Ara Avannatto. | | **Rex** | Devil broker (referenced) | Not present. Sent the party for the horn and — per the DM — should probably have warned them how divination magic behaves inside the War-Slough. | --- ## Locations - **The Canyon Trove (W4)** — A bone-choked valley inside the War-Slough, littered with the compacted dead of the Blood War in every size and species, plus fresher demon corpses and at least one failed treasure hunter. Riddled with caves, indentions, and small cul-de-sacs. Chaotic magic here scrambles divination outright. - **The worm ground** — The stretch of canyon floor where the wailing worms surface. Endemic to the Trove; found nowhere else. - **The crevice** — Where the horn was wedged, alongside the remains of an eternal bone dragon. Also where Lurr was waiting. --- ## Decisions & Consequences | Decision | Consequence | |----------|-------------| | Casanova pushed his History check for everything he could recall about the worms | Confirmed the worms are non-aggressive scavengers; the party avoided an entirely optional fight and saved their resources for what came later | | The party declined the legend about reaching into a worm hole for magic items | No worms provoked, no casualties — but whatever's down those holes stays down those holes | | Lilly cast *locate object* despite being warned magic goes strange in the Slough | The spell returned a horn, then another, then another, all drifting. Useless. Two hours of manual searching followed | | Two hours spent digging the boneyard | One level of exhaustion taken by at least one party member from the Slough's corruption, plus the mace, the bone dragon, and finally the horn's location | | Tahara refused to be handed the mace and insisted on a d100 roll-off | Ara-Ara won it and claimed the weapon; Tahara walked away with nothing | | Ara-Ara claimed the mace to avenge Oruo | The party gains an artifact-tier weapon that has volunteered its powers and denied any price. It is not yet attuned, and nobody has verified its story | | Unit-NULL offered Lurr his life for the horn; Lilly offered him a place in the party | Both refused — but the refusal revealed that a *"stupid sword"* once whispered in Lurr's head and tried to take the horn the same way | | The party engaged Lurr rather than negotiating first | Lurr took the horn before anyone touched it and has kept it through the entire fight | --- ## Open Threads > [!warning] Unresolved > - [ ] **The horn is not in the party's hands** — Lurr took it before anyone touched it and still has it. The fight is unfinished > - [ ] **The "stupid sword" Lurr described** — a weapon that whispered in his head and tried to talk him out of the horn. Is it the mace Ara-Ara just picked up, or something else still out here? > - [ ] **The mace's true name and true price** — it claims no cost. Nothing has verified that. It is not yet attuned > - [ ] **Lurr himself** — bloodied but alive, mobile, winged, and able to teleport at will. Can he still be talked around? > - [ ] **Lilly's readied strike** — Longinus and a thunderous smite are still held, waiting for Lurr to come within ten feet > - [ ] **Haste is still up on Unit-NULL** — Casanova's concentration. If it breaks, Unit-NULL loses a turn > - [ ] **The eternal bone dragon** — turned up during the search; its significance is undetermined > - [ ] **War-Slough exhaustion** — the corruption saves are now live and escalating with every hour spent inside > - [ ] **Jack's body** — Celeste searched the boneyard for it and found nothing identifiable > - [ ] **Oruo's phylactery** — still at the Demon Nest (W3), still the reason any of this is happening > - [ ] **Damon Charles** — still missing since the River Styx > - [ ] **Paladin of Bahamut's undisclosed news** — still never delivered --- ## Combat Summary ``` Encounter: Lurr the nalfeshnee — Canyon Trove (W4) Status: UNRESOLVED — session ended mid-combat at the top of the turn order. Lurr alive, mobile, still holding the horn. Opening: Lurr emerged from the crevice, took the horn before any PC touched it, and clawed Dr. Herbert Who for 15 before initiative was rolled. Initiative was then re-rolled fresh. Round 1: Tahara Blight — Lurr saved, took 15 anyway (no necrotic resistance); repositioned behind him for a reaction shot Ara-Ara Sacred Flame — Lurr failed the Dex save, 6 damage Lilly Hexblade's Curse (BA); Longinus, first swing missed, second hit + 3rd-level Divine Smite = 38 damage Celeste Unarmed strike -> successful grapple on a Large fiend -> kick for 21 ("a straight-up kangaroo mugging") Casanova Haste on Unit-NULL (concentration, still up at session end) Herbert Frostbite, 5 cold (reduced); BA Misty Step LURR Teleported 120 ft while grappled and surrounded. Ruled an innate ability, not a spell — Counterspell does not apply Unit-NULL Hasted; ~120 ft of pursuit; claw attack MISSED Round 2: Tahara Considered Blade Barrier, discarded it (Lurr can fly); Dashed Ara-Ara Guiding Bolt — CRITICAL HIT Lilly Thunderous Smite (BA); readied a Longinus attack, trigger = Lurr within 10 ft. Trigger never fired Celeste Dash + kick, 8 damage Casanova Fire Bolt 18 -> ~9 landed. FIRE RESISTANCE CONFIRMED Herbert Flew down, 3x Magic Missile, 9 damage LURR Burst of scintillating multicolored light, DC 15 Wis. Lilly alone passed. Unit-NULL immune (cannot be frightened while conscious). Others frightened 1 min Unit-NULL Reaction: demanded the horn for his life — refused. First attack missed vs AC 18, second connected Lurr's known defenses: AC 18; resistant to fire; reduced cold; NO necrotic resistance; innate 120-ft teleport; frightening multicolored burst; small wings, can fly War-Slough attrition: DC 13 Constitution save after 2 hours in the Slough. At least one party member failed and took a level of exhaustion. Escalating with continued exposure. Party damage taken: 15 total, all to Dr. Herbert Who. Nobody dropped. ``` --- ## Loot & Acquisitions | Item | Who | Notes | |------|-----|-------| | **Sentient blood mace ("Bob")** | [[The Party\|Ara-Ara Avannatto]] | Artifact-tier sentient weapon won on a d100 roll-off against Tahara. Currently a plain magic mace — attacks count as magic but grant no bonus — until she spends the time to attune. Offers a martial boon or a caster's boon once attuned | | **Eternal bone dragon** | Party | Turned up during the second hour of searching. Significance undetermined | | **The horn** | ❌ **NOT ACQUIRED** | Located, but Lurr took it before anyone touched it. Still in his possession | > For a full loot breakdown see [[Session Loot]]. --- ## Party This Session | Character | Highlights | |-----------|-----------| | [[The Party\|Tahara Rahma]] | Heard the mace calling from across the valley, roleplayed his Dhampir bloodlust pulling him toward it, and asked the one question nobody else did — *"Is there a cost?"* Refused to be handed the weapon and insisted on rolling for it, then lost. Was the deciding roll that finally located the horn, opened combat with a 15-damage blight, and gave Lurr his name | | [[The Party\|Ara-Ara Avannatto]] | The other voice the mace called to. Won the roll-off and claimed it with *"Angry sword, I choose you — to avenge my brother."* In combat, opened with sacred flame and then landed the single best hit of the night: a critical guiding bolt. Not yet attuned to the mace | | [[The Party\|Casanova Frankenstein]] | Carried the whole first act on one History check — recalled the worm lore that kept the party from starting a fight they didn't need, and shared it immediately. Hasted Unit-NULL for the chase and volunteered to track the duration. His firebolt exposed Lurr's fire resistance | | [[The Party\|Celeste Valentin]] | Argued for leaving the worms alone, proposed *locate object* as a shortcut, and searched the boneyard for Jack. In the fight she charged a ten-foot nalfeshnee, punched it, **grappled it**, and kicked it for 21, then galloped the length of the canyon in the chase for another 8 | | [[The Party\|Unit-NULL]] | Volunteered to hug a wailing worm on the grounds that she can't die. The only creature on the field immune to Lurr's fear burst. Hasted through 120 feet of pursuit for three swings, and — pure Oath of Redemption — spent a reaction offering Lurr his life for the horn: *"There is still hope for you"* | | [[The Party\|Lilly Pallywally]] | Busiest player at the table. Dismounted to hunt for what was agitating the worms, cast sanctuary, then burned *locate object* on a spell she'd been warned would fail rather than metagame it. Cursed Lurr and buried a 38-damage smite in him, the biggest hit of the night. Only PC to shrug off the fear burst — and delivered a completely sincere pitch inviting a demon to join the party | | [[The Party\|Dr. Herbert Who]] | Flew clear of the worms early. Took the session's only damage — 15 from Lurr's opening claw — then answered with frostbite, a misty step, and three magic missiles that earned him a personal grudge from a nalfeshnee: *"Stupid bird! You stop that!"* | *[[The Party|Damon Charles]] did not appear this session and went unmentioned — still missing since the Styx.* --- ## Table Notes - Session ran ~2h and ended mid-combat at the top of the turn order, with Tahara Rahma up next. - **No session between now and the party's return** — the table is dark next week; the fight resumes when everyone's back. The DM's own name for the cliffhanger: *"the ballad of Lurr."* - Session header artwork has not been generated for this note yet. --- *Session recorded on Plaud · File ID: `48655794c39415ff74fb1819cb7ce9ac` · Duration ~2h 0m*