Session 12 Recap — Something from Nothing

Campaign: Astrodia
DM: Tommy
Players: Jim, Kat, Emily, Kenyaita, Yemko, Roy (full table)
Date: September 23, 2026 (Session 12)

Where We Left Off

Session 11 ended in an alley in Pentamarone. The swashbuckler from a rival adventuring party had just run up the back of Red’s lion form and put her rapier through Cocytus’s eye. Aleister the Invoker had flown off a rooftop and escaped. Howl was still shaking.

Meanwhile Aren and Asha had spent the whole fight at the WitchCrafters guild hall with the Golden Chalice, and Tommy had promised them their own scene to open the night.

Meanwhile, at the Guild Hall

While the others chased an owl across the city, the WitchCrafters decided the two who stayed behind might as well help with the fireworks. The festival preparations turned into an informal tour, with each witch showing off her part of the show. Schmietta demonstrated how she treats and presses the gunpowder, and Pittore explained the chemistry behind the colors.

Aren’s Mission

Marka noticed that Aren had been helpful all week but hardly said a word, and asked what had brought her to the group.

“I’m on a mission to cleanse this world of the abominations that are undead.”
“A mission from who?”
“You needn’t concern yourself with that… It is a holy mission.”

“We love a girl with a mission.” The WitchCrafters practice their religion to varying degrees. Most of them honor Venus, because they understand their crafts as channeling the Agent of Creation. On undead, the city itself has never had trouble, though they’ve heard tall tales of haunted ruins or a haunted mansion somewhere nearby, and news reaches them from all over the greater Endymion Empire. They promised to keep an ear out for her.

Asha’s Mother

Seed asked Asha about the copy of the woman from the library. Asha confirmed it was her mother. Asha explained that she herself was expelled from the Academy for doing magic she “shouldn’t have been doing” and for going into the White Forest, for reasons that “don’t really add up, because I’m not the only one who’s done this.” Her mother went missing after that, and Asha believes she is in the White Forest.

The WitchCrafters offered to provide supplies for the forest if the party is set on going there. Their parting thought: “Kind of crazy how it just happened that y’all came across this seemingly very powerful item. So, maybe it’s fate.”

How Long They’ve Served

Every WitchCrafter was open about why she came to Pentamarone except Genni, who still isn’t. Their shared story is that traditional schools of magic felt too strict and not artistic enough.

Haine is the most senior and has worked directly under Madame Verre for about a decade. Several of the others knew of the guild by reputation long before joining.
Genni is the second most senior.
Ceramia is the newest. She really is a young girl (unlike her boss) who “showed a lot of promise,” so Verre took a liking to her.

The Truce, Per Verre

Aren asked what deal keeps the Empire off Pentamarone. Genni answered, and said she takes Madame Verre’s word on it “because I trust her a lot.” In Verre’s version, Rellyona and the Emperor went their separate ways after stopping the Great Cataclysm but kept a deep mutual respect. The Emperor has never encroached on the city, to honor her legacy.

Aren’s reply:

“We shall see how long such respect lasts. You never know what’s in the hearts of men.”

The Alley, After

The fight had drawn a crowd. Leif was badly shaken and apologized repeatedly for running off without his focus and putting everyone in danger. The party told him he was being too hard on himself.

Howl came out of her shock and landed back on his shoulder. Asked how she knew the man, she whispered two words aloud, “Bad man,” and told Leif the rest privately (delivered in a DM to Emily; see below for what Leif later shared).

The Sundered Watch

The adventurers who had cornered Aleister apologized for dragging the party into it. Their leader introduced them:

“We’re a group that we call the Sundered Watch. We’re a group of resistance fighters against the Endymion Empire. So we kind of go from town to town.”

(Name as heard at the table; unconfirmed.)

They told the full story:

They met Aleister in a town far to the north. He offered to help them explore a set of ruins rumored to hold a magical artifact.
Underground they were overrun by undead. Aleister summoned one of his creatures to fight them off.
While the fighting went on, he walked straight to the artifact and took it, which turned out to be a sword. He decided it “wasn’t going to be able to help him,” tossed it aside, and fled.
His summon killed the undead and then turned on them. Two of their friends died. They’ve been hunting him for weeks.

The table immediately checked the Sinful Spoils list (lance, book, chalice, gown). A sword isn’t on it, but the party’s read was that Aleister may be hunting the Spoils too, and that he rejected this sword because it wasn’t one of them.

The Sundered Watch plans to patch up and get back on Aleister’s trail. The party gave them the name of their inn and said they’d be in town at least the week. Both sides agreed adventurers should stick together.

Úlfr later made sure Aren heard about the undead-infested ruins in that story. “You might be interested.”

Madame Verre Hears About Aleister

Back at the guild hall, the party told the WitchCrafters about the man who had summoned a monster into their city. Aren, standing beside Genni, saw her perk up at the word “monster.” When Genni asked what kind, Aren described a water creature, something like an elemental but “scarier looking,” that could be slowed by freezing parts of it. Genni went quiet and started slipping away, saying Madame Verre should know.

Aren followed her. Úlfr decided he should come too, gave himself Bardic Inspiration, took Aren’s Guidance, and made a Persuasion check (14): “I saw it firsthand.” Genni let them both in.

Madame Verre was fast asleep on her glass throne.

Úlfr made the pitch:

“You like interesting things, right, Madame Verre? We’ve got something interesting for you.”

She had heard of Aleister, but “didn’t think he was real.” She wasn’t impressed at first (“a lot of wizards can fly”). The party then pooled their memories of his appearance, and Red added a natural-20 perception as helper:

Green hair, a white robe with red detailing, and a monocle
A book, and a staff that seemed to emerge from the summoned creature’s chest.
Summoned from a sigil
Glowing red symbols on his hands: a diamond with an eye inside it

With each detail Verre sat up a little straighter. By the end she was fully upright.

“Yes. I very much do need to check out this monster. Is it still there? You left the corpse untouched?”

Nobody had searched the body. Then she vanished. She reappeared a moment later just long enough to toss Leif his staff, and vanished again.

“I’ll never be without my staff again.”

Úlfr apologized to Genni for suspecting her: “I should never question your honor.” She accepted gracefully. She had only wanted to keep the head of the guild informed.

The Dagger Stays

Leif tried to give Aren back the dagger she bought him. She refused.

“Keep it. It’s always best to have at least a secondary weapon. More is preferable, though… Never leave yourself defenseless.”
“Safety is an illusion.”
“As long as you do not continuously repeat mistakes, it’s okay.”

Leif admitted that the moment his Eldritch Blast fizzled, “I felt the spirit of Aren telling me, I told you so.”

The Research Montage, Concluded

Day three went well: a day and a half of work done in one day, which left a single final day. Úlfr went back to Athletics at Schmietta’s forge, Aren to Insight in the archives (separating the useful sources from the fluff), and Asha to History. The party pooled their findings with each other along the way. Tommy confirmed they’d made real connections but held the details for the report.

Late that day Leif knocked on Verre’s door to ask about his focus. She put him off until the chalice work was finished. “I definitely learned some things. I’m happy to share them.”

Day four ran long. Around eight or nine at night, the evening before the fireworks festival, Genni announced she had put everything together. The party chose to hear it right away. “Sleep is for the weak.”

The Report

Everyone gathered in Verre’s office, WitchCrafters on one side and The Fallen on the other, with the chalice sitting on Verre’s desk. Genni opened by thanking everyone and was about to disclose the guild’s funding sources when Verre told her to get on with it.

I. The Chalice Itself (Edel & Schmietta, with Úlfr)

Indestructible. No physical or magical damage left a dent or a crack.
Pure gold, too pure. Schmietta’s words: it is as if someone crafted it out of the idea of the pure essence of gold, not mined gold. There are no imperfections or impurities at all. It is “too pure to be made of this earth.”
Age undeterminable. It shows no wear, so it could be new, or it could be prehistoric for all anyone can tell.

II. History (Genni & Marka, with Aren and Asha)

The party knew the chalice came out of Caelwyrm, so the team searched for chalice references tied to that region and found stories from dragon-worshipping clans:

One clan worshipped a white dragon and used a ritual object that could conjure whatever the dragon required.
The object was fought over by rival dragon-worshipping clans in the region of the Great Ravine, where Lucian Cugg found the chalice.
The last record of it disappeared a few centuries ago.

It is unconfirmed that this is the same object, but it’s the best match they have.

III. The Magic On It (the whole guild)

Every dispel failed. The magic can’t be separated from the object.
The nondetection extends to whoever holds it. Scrying on the holder returns nothing, as if they were not on this plane of existence. If the holder stands near someone else being scried, the image shows that person with empty space where the holder should be. Carrying the chalice makes you invisible to divination.
The magic is every school at once. When they tried to dispel it, they couldn’t tell whether the dispel failed or whether the magic was replaced so fast it was imperceptible. Tommy’s analogy: you can’t tell if you’re failing to flip the light switch, or if it’s flipping back on instantly, and the light switch is all of magic.

The party’s immediate reaction: if the Academy is trying to track them by scrying, it can’t.

IV. The Copies (Haine & Pittore with Leif; Seed & Ceramia with Drolta)

Objects:

100% physical copies, made of the same material, down to the imperfections.
No magical properties carry over. Leif’s duplicate chalice is only gold.
The copy can reproduce details the drinker doesn’t know about, as long as the drinker has shared physical space or interaction with the original. Genni’s example: if someone tears a page out of a book you’ve seen, then hands it back without telling you, your copy will be missing that exact page.
Things the drinker has never encountered can’t be made. This is why Leif couldn’t conjure the repo man.
A copy would pass physical inspection as the real chalice.
A copy can be enchanted afterward. Asha’s idea: make a mundane duplicate and then imbue it with magic of your choosing. Genni confirmed it would work.

Living things:

Physically real, but hollow. They feel no pain and don’t bleed. They can be injured, and injuries that would kill or maim the original destroy them.
No self-preservation, emotion, or social response. They are inert husks shaped like the creature.
Pieces separated from the body evaporate, and a dead copy leaves no trace. The horse had evaporated by the time anyone got to the library. (Tommy compared it to a dead Titan in Attack on Titan.)
The cats were put down. The guild explained, apologetically, that they aren’t technically alive. Aren was visibly upset and got even quieter than usual.
To Asha, directly: the copy is not your mother, has no connection to your mother, and feels nothing.

Úlfr needed one clarification:

“So you’re telling me, if I punch a real horse, it would explode like that?”
“You’re a strong man, Úlfr.”

V. The Cost

This is what “you feel a little weird” meant.

Repeated use of the chalice shapes the drinker’s psyche.

It produces unnatural feelings of grandeur and a drive for power, a growing god complex, and an unnatural sense of superiority.
It prompts thoughts and impulses the user would not normally have. WitchCrafters who drank during testing documented these feelings themselves.
The effects are cumulative and scale with the size of the request. Asking for more, or for something bigger, costs more.
It varies by person. The same request can affect two people at different speeds and intensities.
Reversible? Maybe. Their best guess is that it fades with time if the chalice goes unused, but they can’t guarantee it.
Overuse could lead to involuntary actions, possibly a full psychotic break.

The party’s ruling: no one uses the chalice except in extreme emergencies. Someone asked, “Like needing horses?”

(Tommy confirmed that the players he messaged privately about how their characters feel after drinking still feel that way.)

VI. Something from Nothing

Genni’s summary is the most important finding of the night:

The chalice generates something from nothing.

Ordinary spells transmute material components or channel ambient arcane magic through verbal and somatic components. The chalice does neither. It doesn’t draw on arcane magic and needs no components. Under every known rule of magic, that is impossible. The table called it a violation of equivalent exchange.

As a contrast, Genni pointed at Red’s Alchemy Jug. It seems to make liquid from nothing, but it actually siphons microscopic amounts of that liquid from all across the world. Each cup of beer is less than a drop taken from a thousand cans elsewhere. The chalice doesn’t siphon from anywhere.

“And I think that is what makes it sinful. From our best ability, we believe that this object violates the laws of nature — and specifically, quite appropriately, the domain of the Agent of Creation.”

Venus. Who could make such a thing? A god, possibly, or given the history, the dragons.

Verre Withdraws Her Claim

Genni had one more point to make before Verre gave her judgment:

“Given the effects the chalice has on its users and the nature of it, I don’t think it should be used for what you want to use it for.”

Verre thought about it and agreed.

“I think the risk is too great. And I don’t want what we’re working on to be tainted by whatever magic this thing has.”

She returned the chalice and honored the contract, simply not exercising her right to use it. She still won’t say what the goal was, “until I’m certain of a few other things.”

Q&A

Can they track the other Spoils? Genni suggested adapting Simone’s sand-map spell to look for hotspots and offered to contact her through the party. Verre cut in: “That won’t be necessary. I know the spell.” The guild will look into it, though the nondetection will make it hard if the other Spoils share it.
Leif asked Verre for time afterward. She said she had a lot on her mind and asked to talk the next day.

Back at the Inn: Theories

With just the party present, the talk ran late.

Destroy the Spoils? (Someone asked whether there was a volcano nearby.) The consensus was that they must stay out of the wrong hands, and the Academy counts as the wrong hands. “Honestly, I just feel like they’re corrupt.”
What does any of this do for the White Forest? That is still the party’s actual goal, and nobody could answer it.
Is Aleister the Seeker? The theory went: he’s looking for a Spoil, he carries a book, the Seeker supposedly already holds one Spoil, and his hood resembles the wanted poster. The case against: the poster shows a woman in black and red, and Aleister has green hair. “That’s androgynous in my mind.” It’s unresolved.
Lucian Cugg. Someone remembered the man they got the chalice from, and wondered whether he set them up so he could watch how it’s used.
Untested: what happens if you pour something into the chalice and pour it out, without drinking?

One Spoil Per Agent?

Red led a round of religion checks, and a pattern clicked. If the chalice is sinful because it mocks Venus’s domain, then perhaps each Spoil mocks an Agent:

Spoil	Candidate Agent	Reasoning
Chalice	Venus (Creation)	Established: creation from nothing
Book	Mercury (Wisdom)?	Speculation
Lance	Mars (Force) or Pluto (Death)?	Speculation
Gown	Pluto (Death)?	Red: a white gown as a mockery of a burial shroud

Aren became very concerned that a Spoil might rebuke her god, and about what a rebuke of death would look like: unnatural, eternal life. That pointed straight at Madame Verre, who is suspiciously alive and wears a white dress. The party wondered whether she carries a Spoil, knowingly or not.

The count doesn’t match either: there are nine Agents and only four known Spoils, and the party suspects there may be more. Someone also raised the flames at Morgana’s Tower: five blue and four ordinary. Could the blue five be the Agents targeted by Spoils?

The plan for now: keep the chalice close.

Private Audiences

In the morning Leif went to see Verre, and Aren went with him. The guild hall was busy with festival preparations.

“Not many people can just walk into my office, but I guess y’all have made enough of an impression to earn that privilege.”

Verre asked Leif whether he was comfortable hearing what she had to say in company. Aren stepped out. On her way out, she quietly grasped her pendant.

No undead.

She waited by the door anyway, since she doesn’t trust Leif alone. Leif chose to have the conversation with Howl present: “I don’t know enough about you yet, and I think it’s time that we knew each other more.” (Played out in a private channel.)

Then Verre asked for Aren, who went in alone (also private).

What Aren Came Out With

Madame Verre is not undead, in the necromantic sense. Her condition is the result of an experiment. She was researching eternal youth, and the result wasn’t what she was aiming for. It is “a simple accident. Which we’ll see how long it remains an accident.”
It isn’t frozen time. It’s more like the hands of the clock were wound back. She is still aging and still moving toward her end.
Aren now wants to visit Marseille (heard at the table as “Marcio”; possibly also the “Marcell” where Marka studied at the Grand Spellbook Tower). “I know interesting ways of magic there.” It may hold something useful against her undead problem, though she wouldn’t say more.

Leif was delighted. This was the most Aren has ever said to him. “The shell is cracking.”

The Whispering One Has a Name

Leif told the party he had learned something about himself. They found a private room, closed the door, and turned the water on to cover their voices. Then he told them.

The Whispering One’s name is Sorath. (Spelling as heard; confirm with Emily/Tommy.) Howl told him.

Howl is a servant of Sorath.
Aleister has fought Sorath before. That is why Howl reacted with rage and then submission, and why Aleister recognized her immediately. “I don’t know if he’s also my enemy, but now he’s really my enemy.”
According to Verre, Leif unknowingly made a pact with something not of this world, a being from another plane, world, or dimension, which somehow reached Astrodia and is probably living in his home forest, the Purodetapo Forest. That is the same forest Leif told Aleister about.
Can Howl help him contact Sorath? Yes, but not yet. If he opens his mind, he’ll be able to reach it. Leif admitted that in most of his dreams he has been trying to run away.
What does Sorath want with him? Howl is not at liberty to say.

Aren had never heard of an accidental, non-consensual pact. The group wondered whether it’s a trait of the entity.

The Cataclysm Was a Door

Then came the part Verre told Leif not to share. He shared it anyway, inside the room, and the party agreed it stays among them:

The Great Cataclysm was caused by a group of people opening a portal to another world.

The rift let magic that isn’t of this world into Astrodia, and other things came through with it. Sorath is probably one of them. Who opened the portal is lost to time. Verre warned that the information could “really impact some people” if it got out.

The party’s conclusion: The Fourth Magic is otherworldly magic. It runs along the Cataclysm’s path because it leaked in through the rift. Aren suspects Verre knows because she was a disciple of one of the Magistus, most likely Rellyona.

Leif hadn’t asked the obvious follow-ups (“Listen, I was very stunned”): where the portal was, and whether it was ever properly closed. If it wasn’t, that would explain why the magic is still leaking.

(Tommy clarified the timeline at the table: the Severance was about a millennium ago, and the Great Cataclysm about 150 years ago.)

Word to the Satyrs

The party lined up a new round of S.A.T.O. tasks via the Sending Stones:

Satyr	Task
Ersmatok Rostch	Is magic conserved? Can it be created or destroyed, or only change form? Once a type of magic exists, can it change type?
Myrna Nor	The history of Marseille
(another Satyr)	White Forest lore, specifically any magic that would stop someone from entering it
(another Satyr)	Venus’s enemies
Tobin	(ongoing) The Oracle
Simone	(ongoing) The star tablet

(Results not yet reported.)

The Temple of Venus

The party took Red’s suggestion (“Who feels like going to get religion today?”) and visited the Temple of Venus. The goal was to learn whether Venus has enemies who might build something to mock her.

The statue out front matches the one on the roof of Morgana’s Tower: Venus with her three orbs, the muses of creation. Red has been seeing those orbs in his dreams.

The Scriptures

Red and Aren read the books in the entry hall (the investigation roll survived, of all things, disadvantage):

The Solemn created the world, made the Agents to govern its domains, and then receded into the ether, like the deist clock-winder.
Below the Agents were the angels. Some of them, the Dark Lords, rebelled and fell. The first was the Morning Star.
What caused the rebellion is disputed; scholars of scripture argue about it.
Venus lets those who pray to her thrive and manifest what they desire in their lives.

The Priest

A commoner pointed them to the priest’s office. He was happy to talk.

Venus is the Agent of Creation, one of the hands of the Solemn. She watches over all artistic expression and the making of goods and services, and works through her three muses, which usually appear as spheres orbiting her.
There is no documented ill will between the Agents. They respect each other’s domains.
The Dark Lords do hold ill will toward her, the Morning Star most of all. Venus was one of the hands they felt had overreached, but he knows of no personal feud.

Red asked about his dream of the three spheres (purple, blue, and red) orbiting the moon while animals sat staring at it. The priest’s reading:

The Moon is thought to be a tenth Agent, though that’s disputed. She may instead be the protector of the Agents, the one who “makes sure that everything stays as it should.” That includes protection from the Dark Lords, “ideally.”
Perhaps the divine is inspiring Red to create something with animals. “That certainly is [something that resonates]. I love animals.”

Red then mentioned the people he saw back home with banners showing no Agent he recognized. The priest identified them as the Church of Dogmatika in the Closed Land:

They claim a new pantheon and deity separate from the Solemn, reject the Solemn Pantheon, and say they have saints who perform miracles.
They have grown exponentially over the last couple of decades. His guess is that they were founded about a century or a bit more ago.
Around the time of the Great Cataclysm? “It might coincide with it… In times of great peril, people are always looking for hope.”

A theory was whispered to the party afterward: what if Dogmatika’s new god and saints are things that came through the rift too?

The party presented themselves as “students of life” doing anthropology. Nobody joined the church.

The Mural

In the basement, at the priest’s recommendation, is the temple’s prize artwork. It depicts the Solemn and his host against the Morning Star and his armies at the moment the rebels were cast down to earth. Ever since, the Dark Lords have tried to reclaim enough power to ascend again.

Asha (History): the mural is old, probably a couple of centuries, and well preserved. It wasn’t painted here; it was brought from elsewhere. The style suggests the South, from cultures that revere the higher beings (the oceanic kingdoms, Fire King Island, the Phoenix worshippers). It isn’t the work of plain Pantheon worshippers, and it’s unsigned.
Drolta (Religion) knew the story and sensed that something in the depiction doesn’t belong to it. Red found it: a small flaming meteor falling in the middle of the scene, clearly a deliberate addition, not an artistic flourish.
In the timeline (creation → the war with the Dark Lords → millennia → the Severance → millennia → the Cataclysm), this event predates everything.

Drolta meditated and reached out to Nephthys.

“I do not know what this is trying to invoke. The battle between the Dark Lords and the Solemn Pantheon was even before my time. There are still many mysteries about it that the higher beings are not aware of.”

Then she asked about a portal to another world, and beings coming through it. Nephthys was silent for a moment.

“I cannot speak of this freely.”
”…But continue on your path.”
“Of course, my child.”

She Who Fell Before the First Fall

Back in his office, the priest explained the meteor:

A sect within the church believes it represents the cause of the Morning Star’s rebellion, and its members slip that belief into artworks like this one. In their account, a being was exiled from the Sanctuary in the Sky before the war, and that exile is what spurred the Morning Star to rebel. Nobody knows her name or whether she existed. She goes by a pseudonym:

She Who Fell Before the First Fall.

He doesn’t personally believe it. Aren passed a check and had heard of it before. One or two believers turn up in many of the churches she’s visited. It’s a fringe belief with a quiet following. In their version she was an angel, a woman, who did something that angered the gods so much she was exiled to earth, and the Morning Star’s rebellion came in response. What she did and what became of her are unknown. The Morning Star’s fall was the first fall; hers came before it.

Someone asked aloud what everyone was thinking: what if she’s the Seeker of the Sinful Spoils? A fallen woman who makes things that mock the gods.

The Library

Downstairs, a Sunday-school classroom and library had no books on her. “It’s a bit of a fringe theory.” (Aren: “You don’t need to have evidence to have faith.”)

Aren read about Pluto’s enemies. It was mostly necromancers and other things she already knew, with one exception: the “Prophecy Destroyer” (as heard), thought to have been an enemy of Pluto in some unknown capacity.
The religion of the Empire: the Endymion Empire enforces worship of Mars, the Agent of Force. Pentamarone worships Venus. The two neighboring powers have two different patron Agents.
Two more Agents identified from the book’s illustrations. The creepy figure with blue hair, red eyes, and yellow beneath them is Uranus, the Agent of Entropy. (Tommy noted he has “dropped a blue-haired guy a couple of times” that the party hasn’t picked up on.) The water-themed Agent was confirmed as Neptune, whom Leif’s clan worships.
No record of any conflict between Agents.

The Fireworks Festival

That night the city held its festival. Tommy showed the WitchCrafters’ show as an animated sequence over Discord, and Red appeared in the crowd in lion form. There were drinks, games, and the guild out mingling with the town. The results of the competition weren’t covered.

Leif found Madame Verre, in a very good mood, and asked the questions he’d forgotten:

Where did the Cataclysm begin? In the northern mountain range of what is now the Endymion Empire, from where it traveled southeast across Astrodia. This matches the green line on Simone’s map.
Was the rift ever healed? “Oh, yes, the Magistus did what they had to do to seal the rift.” She pursed her lips. “Ooh. I don’t think I was supposed to say that.”
Is the leftover green magic from the original leak? Yes. To her knowledge it is still present across Astrodia.

Her farewell:

“You and your group have found yourself in the crosshairs of a number of very interesting happenings in Astrodia at this point, I will say.”

She expects them to leave soon, probably for the White Forest “by way of a temple or two,” and invited them to come back later, when “maybe we’ll be done with our project.” She also warned them:

“Keep that chalice safe. Very powerful artifact. If word of its power were ever to get out, more powerful people would probably be after you.”

She asked how long they have before the Academy comes for it. After some checking of recaps at the table, the repo clock is about 10 days.

End of session.

Loot & Acquisitions

Item	Notes
Golden Chalice (returned)	Verre declined to use it and gave it back. It is now understood as indestructible, all-schools, undispellable, with nondetection that covers the holder, and corrupting with repeated use
Leif’s staff & Leif’s Glass Orb	Returned by Verre, tossed across the room, before she teleported off to examine Cocytus
A dagger	Leif tried to return it; Aren told him to keep it
An open offer of supplies	The WitchCrafters offered to help equip the party for the White Forest
A standing invitation	Verre asked them to come back later, when her project might be finished
A new contact	The Sundered Watch, anti-Empire resistance fighters, who know where the party is staying

Open Threads

The Whispering One is Sorath, an otherworldly being that probably came through the Cataclysm rift and probably lives in the Purodetapo Forest. Howl serves it. Leif can contact it “at another time” by opening his mind. What it wants is still unknown. And Leif told Aleister where to find his home.
The Great Cataclysm was a portal. Mortals opened a door to another world; otherworldly magic (the fourth magic) and beings came through. The Magistus sealed it, which Verre let slip. Still unknown: who opened it, where exactly, and whether the seal holds. Nephthys “cannot speak of this freely.”
Aleister the Invoker fought Sorath once, may be hunting the Spoils, rejected a sword from the northern ruins, and roused Madame Verre from sleep to go examine his summon’s corpse. Is he the Seeker? He carries a book; the poster shows a woman.
She Who Fell Before the First Fall, an angel exiled before the Morning Star’s rebellion and possibly its cause, shown as a meteor in a centuries-old mural from the south. Is she the Seeker of the Sinful Spoils?
One Spoil per Agent? The chalice mocks Venus. The book, lance, and gown may mock others. There are nine Agents and four known Spoils. Aren fears a Spoil against Pluto. Do the five blue flames at Morgana’s Tower mark the targeted Agents?
The chalice’s cost. Grandeur, superiority, impulses that aren’t the drinker’s own. It’s cumulative and scales with the size of the request. Five PCs have drunk. The party has sworn off using it except in emergencies.
What was Verre’s goal? She still won’t say. She dropped it because she doesn’t want her project “tainted.” She knows Simone’s sand spell. Whatever she’s working on may be finished if the party comes back.
Verre’s youth was an accident from eternal-youth research. She is still aging, just rewound. Not undead. “We’ll see how long it remains an accident.”
The Prophecy Destroyer, an enemy of Pluto in some unknown capacity.
Marseille. Aren wants to go there for “interesting ways of magic.” It may be the same place Marka studied. Myrna has been asked for its history.
Dogmatika’s new god and saints, founded about a century ago, possibly at the time of the Cataclysm. Did they come through the rift too? This ties to Red’s home.
Religions of the two powers: the Empire enforces Mars (Force); Pentamarone worships Venus (Creation).
Uranus, the Agent of Entropy, has blue hair and red eyes. Tommy says he has dropped a blue-haired figure “a couple of times” that the party missed.
The Sundered Watch, anti-Empire resistance fighters on Aleister’s trail. Their undead-infested northern ruins are a lead for Aren.
The Satyr questions are out and unanswered: conservation of magic (Ersmatok), Marseille (Myrna), White Forest entry, Venus’s enemies, the Oracle (Tobin), and the star tablet (Simone).
Genni is still the one WitchCrafter who won’t talk about her past. She did tell Verre about the monster right away, and Úlfr apologized for doubting her.
Untested chalice experiments: pouring something in and out without drinking, and enchanting the duplicate as a decoy.
The repossession clock: about 10 days. The good news is that the Academy can’t scry whoever is carrying the chalice.
An observation, not established: the Solemn in the mural is a heavily built man with a long white beard in pale robes, close to the man in Asha’s vision being attacked by the white-and-red-haired figure (Session 10).
Where next? The Nephthys temple (the original plan, still unvisited) or straight to the White Forest for Asha’s mother.

(Carrying forward: the repo man and the Hall of Oracles, the Endymion Empire army’s pincer north of town, The Orb and its prisoner, Morgana’s ties to Verre and/or Rellyona, the Empire-marked keystone safe under Genni’s desk, the question of warlock casting under Empire law, and Úlfr’s and Asha’s undisclosed dreams.)

Next Session

The chalice is back in the party’s hands. It is better understood and more frightening than before, and it is now officially off-limits. The WitchCrafters have finished their report, the fireworks are over, and Madame Verre expects them to leave.

The party has about ten days before the Academy’s repo man is due, a new name for Leif’s patron, and a new theory about what the green magic is. They also have to choose between two roads: the Temple of Nephthys, or the White Forest.

Next session: Wednesday, October 7, 2026 (assuming the usual two-week cadence; confirm with Tommy).

The Astrodia Campaign

Explorer