Game summary for February 17, 2026, Chronoshift: Spelljammer campaign, Pathfinder Roleplaying Game, for Phoenix Gaming Club. Session included: Adeline Tormak (Human Magus played by Andrew Renfrow), Callum Spellhardt (Human Sorcerer played by Parker Harmon), Helg Ingvar (Aasimar Cleric played by Chris Harmon), Herezis Tahriol (Mongrelfolk Paladin played by Preston Harmon), Piper Quickstep (Human Druid-Mage played by John Osborne), Skree Grizzlehide (Mongrelfolk Gladiator played by Peyton Harmon), and Ursay (Mongrelfolk Slayer played by Paul Potter). Game Master for this session was Charles Plemons.
The Shooting Star was not where they left it. The ocean waves gently rolled. The party was certain they were in the correct place, but the ship was not there. There was no wreckage or sign of disturbance. Did trouble come along forcing the ship to move? Was there a storm? Pirates? Where the hell is their ship?
Ursay recommended they start a search pattern in the air using their makeshift raft fitted with a furnace helm. Meanwhile, Callum cast see invisibility and observed a whirling mystical vortex of energy shimmered, nearly invisible. The flowing energy caused slight disturbances in the ocean current. It was a portal of some sort, existing partially in reality and partially in a magical realm. Motes of energy shaped themselves into sigils that bobbed in the water, sank beneath the waves, and then flowed back upward again. They were illuminated by a faint ruddy light from a strange star hanging directly above the party’s position, a star unknown to them.
They might have been able to predict the currents and catch and arrange the sigils, or perhaps they could decipher the arcane energies and force their way into whatever realm it concealed. The team began trying to put together the puzzle of the sigils and began wearing through the fabric of reality. Two dark tentacles burst through and attacked! Ursay and Herezis battled them while the team tried to decipher symbols and arcane riddles. Finally, the team was able to open the portal!
They were unsure where they were. They were not even certain they were awake. The realm was dim like twilight and seemed to stretch forever. It was like a night sky filled with stars stretched over a dark, cold ocean. Islands floated above the water, with strange bridges of fragile light connecting them. An enormous moon, far too close, hung in the sky. Droplets of moisture, blood, formed on the surface of the ocean and drifted upward like a faint crimson drizzle. Sound was distorted and echoing, stretching out into eternity.
Gravity felt particularly heavy, but it pulled toward the center of the island upon which they stood rather than downward. They found themselves standing on an island with the sky straight ahead of them and the ocean behind. It was as if they were standing parallel to ground and sky rather than the normal perpendicular. Even though they felt the ground pulling at them toward their feet, the blood droplets flowed past them unaffected, falling upward toward the sky, which seemed to them as if the droplets were drifting forward into the distance.
Far ahead, or perhaps above, they saw The Shooting Star. It was moored to a drifting island. A series of bridges connected several islands between them and the vessel. In a few minutes, they thought they might be able to reach it.
Dark shapes flitted through the night, nearly black and faceless. They could hear bat-like wings beating in the strange, echoing air, though they could not make out how many shapes lurked in the darkness. Dark clouds drifted across the sky, and noiseless heat lightning flickered in the distance, causing brief flashes of illumination. In those moments, they thought they glimpsed movement beyond the clouds. Something enormous and tentacled filled the horizon, its appendages slithering slowly across one another in the darkness.
Indistinct forms emerged from the shadows, hazy and distorted. Slowly they took solid shape. Monstrous, nightmarish shapes. The creatures bore bizarre, aberrant forms: tentacles, too many limbs, not enough eyes, too many eyes, and worse. A tall, black-furred monster rose up before them. Its limbs were split at the elbows, forming two sets of forearms and hands per arm. They guessed it stood at least sixteen feet tall. Its head was chiefly terrible because of its mouth. That mouth bore great yellow fangs and ran from the top to the bottom of its head, opening vertically instead of horizontally. Another beast resembled a ten-foot fleshy cone, with a head and claws attached to writhing tentacles. Smaller, but no less bizarre, entities formed around them. They could not tell whether any of it was real, or just some crazy dream.
Violence erupted as flickering shadows detached from the party and attacked them! The team advanced on a small army of aberrant monsters following close on the heels of the strange deadly shadows. Nothic thaumopticons rotted flesh with their necrotic eyes and hurled various spells at the team. Dark nightgaunt grinless fetches swooped in, one catching up Adeline and tickling her mercilessly as it flew into the air. The might gug that had risen up was cut down by Herezis’ mighty lance charge! Piper cast release the hounds and mad monkeys to hamper foes with swarms. The hounds proved particularly effective the entire encounter, locking down one of the nothics. Torturous Denizens of Leng bit into Skree’s flesh, draining his Dexterity. Callum hurled multiple blasts of Dalamar’s lightning lance with pretty good effect. Helg cast bane weapon on Ursay’s bow, and the mongrelfolk then set about laying waste to the battlefield.
Upon one of the floating islands stood an oddly shaped Yithian. The creature was able to erase Herezis’ mind, leaving him temporarily crippled. Once the Yithian was slain, he regained some of his memories, but lingering gaps will hamper his future skill efforts.
Adeline was freed from her fetch and plunged into the water, but Helg was likewise swept up and eventually dropped in the water when the nightgaunt snatching and tickling him was destroyed. The group managed to slain all the foes and catch their breath just for a moment in this horrible dreamscape.
