ADVENTURES ⟩ THE LOST CITY OF ELUSHA
Characters who can read Forms can decipher the inscriptions, which identify the structures. The leftmost is the Gate of Stone. The middle is the Gate of Cloud. The rightmost is the Gate of Heaven.
For reasons described below, the gates are magically active. Destroying or disabling even one gate causes the whole island to start sinking. Each gate has Structure 32, Toughness 6.
A character who knows the Code of the Clay King can also figure out a more surgical way to disable a Gate, by chiseling off specific forms from the Gates.
The voice is Zephiram (Glory, Freedom) is a Kananite wizard-turned-wraith and the source of the strange wind that propels Elusha through the sky. A lifetime ago, he was one of the original authors of the Wisdom of Adod. Heroes who know this lore recognize his name.
Zephiram made his name experimenting with variations of the Disassociate spell, seeking to combine its effects with wind magic to explore the breadth and depth of the Skysea. But Zephiram dove too deep. He now exists as a swirl of air, magically sustained, and bound, by Elusha’s three gates. He can’t see, but he can hear and has a vague sense of ambient pressure.
Constant chanting. Zephiram propels the island upward by chanting in Shinarian:
Let stone arise to cloud
Let cloud arise to heaven
Let heaven [bless/arise] to stone
This chant’s magic relies on the words “bless” and “arise” being homonyms in Shinarian, which forms a recursive loop.
Anyone near the Gates can hear this chant. If Zephiram is talking to a hero or otherwise distracted, he has to stop chanting, which causes the island to stop rising.
Magic. Zephiram can take -1 stamina and cast Windwave, which can push any aircraft away from the island temporarily. He can also attack and Shove characters. (He knows other magic spells, but can’t use them in his current form as a blind, disembodied breeze.)
Objective. Zephiram holds out a dim hope that he can return to his human body (he can’t), but is more than willing to settle for a Shinarian body at this point. He is desperate for the heroes to help him do this. In exchange, he promises to share whatever arcane knowledge the heroes desire. He's an expert on the Wisdom of Adod, the Path of Air, and the Code of the Clay King.
Zephiram hides the fact that he relies on the Gates to exist. Destroying even one of the Gates will cause the wizard to dissipate—and cause the island to sink back into the Sea of Death.
Attitude. Zephiram tolerates characters who exhibit intelligence, though his relationships are transactional and he is prone to treating people as tools. If heroes mention the Company, the wizard reveals that he despises the organization—“puffed-up imbeciles and bumbling amateurs, destroying every piece of wisdom they stumble upon!”—and is annoyed that they are here.
Zephiram has tried many times to possess the Elushans nearby, to no avail. Each time, he was expelled from the body before he could permanently modify it. He enthusiastically explains his theories about his predicament to heroes who express interest.
Zephiram has some ideas about how he could overcome this difficulty, but he needs help from corporeal assistants. Specifically, he needs:
An Elushan body. It doesn’t even have to be a whole body—he’ll settle for a head, as long as someone is willing to carry him around. He mostly wants eyes to read.
Help carving Forms into the body (or head), to make it a suitable vessel for a wind-based soul.
To help Zephiram in this task, heroes must drag a body or head to the Gates. Any of the Elushan dreamers in areas 1, 2, or 3, will do. If defeated, the judge in the Ziggurat (6) will also work, though its body is too big to move without magic or clever engineering.
Once the body is in place between the Gates, one hero rolls Maneuver as a rest activity, using a chisel to modify its Forms.
✦ 7+: The vessel's soul or soliton is destroyed, and Zephiram takes its place. ⬖ 4–6: The vessel's soul or soliton is destroyed, but the Forms aren't quite right. Zephiram can't inhabit this vessel.ⓧ 1–3: The vessel's soul or soliton is destroyed, and Zephiram's maximum Life is reduced by 10.Arbiters and heroes who know the Code of the Clay King have compel advantage on this roll—but are also fully aware of what will inevitably happen to an Elushan dreamer's soul. If heroes share these concerns with the wizard, he is dismissive, arguing that without an animating spirit, the Elushan dreamers aren't truly alive. If the heroes still refuse, the wizard doesn't press the issue. Instead, he suggests using a judge's body, since the judge only has a "soliton" and not a true soul.
After the Company's skyreme arrives on Elusha, the heroes might learn of the source of of its propulsion—the so-called holy rowers—and share this information with Zephiram. The wizard becomes intrigued and excited, and quickly conceives of another path toward embodiment that may interest the heroes (see The Company Arrives).
If Zephiram gains a body (or bodies), the cyclone in the Gates dissipates, and the island begins to sink. Thus, Zephiram won't initiate the the ritual unless he's sure he has some way off the island, like the heroes' balloon. He hasn't stayed alive this long through sheer force of will to simply fall back into the Sea of Death.