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Carthago! is a game by G.M., louisxiv just made a site for it.
Carthago! is a game by G.M., louisxiv just made a site for it.
Thu, 25th September ’25
7:45pm for 8pm BST
From: Sammus’s Boast:
Kallicrates told us he was delighted to see us safe and sound after crossing the desert. He reported that spies had gathered while we were in the desert and he had been warned, so he had moved our gear to safe storage with Zachary. He and Baal-Shaq nodded to each other. He told us that he had started sailing back and forth to Kart and when he had arrived in Kart he had been stopped by the authorities, and the Morning Breeze had been searched from stem to stern. He had gone to the temple and had sworn that he knew nothing of our travels in the desert or of any sacrilege and he had been allowed to continue his voyages. He added that his ferrying passengers to and from Kart had annoyed Hamilco, who had normally had a monopoly on such business. He asked us what news we had and Agripinus told him about Tamuda, which surprised the Greek as Tamuda had been hale and hearty eight days ago when the Morning Breeze had set sail.
Agripinus told Kallicrates that spies had called up ramships to take us when we left harbour and then asked the Greek how long it would take to load up the ship and make ready for departure. Kallicrates told us that it wouldn’t be long – because he had just been ferrying passengers, he had no cargo to load just our own gear.
We then discussed further what our options were and Toxoanassa explained that she would be loath to leave without completing her quest. We thought there might be more to discover under the mountain and that Tamuda ought to be ready to grant us freedom to do this after Agripinus’s healing. Baal-Shaq asked if wanted to see Tamuda now or tomorrow morning and we decided we should do this as soon as possible. Si'aspiqo, Agripinus and Baal-Shaq set out straight away.
After a couple of hours, they all returned looking pleased. Agripinus reported that Tamuda was in good health and following the diet the priest had prescribed. Agripinus then gave a box to Toxoanassa. When she opened it, there was a cloth wrapped around something inside. As she unwrapped it, she gave an exclamation of delight and beamed from ear to ear. Inside was a red rock similar in size and shape to the white one she had from Kart – she had completed her quest! Now she just had to get them safely back to the other End of the World and her family curse would be lifted.
Si'aspiqo told her that he had confirmed that like the first one, it had power. She tried to place the white rock in the box with the red one, but when the white rock came close to the red, it started to glow.
Agripinus said that Tamuda as well as giving the rock, he was also prepared to swear an oath to Tanit and the City of the White Veil if Agripinus would have an emissary sent from the temple of Tanit in Carthage.
Baal-Shaq suggested we should return to Carthage as soon as possible and sell the proceeds from the trip to the Red Dune – as Toxoanassa had fulfilled her quest we all agreed. This would also allow Agripinus to arrange the sending of an emissary to accept Tamuda’s oath and strengthen Tanit’s foothold in the area. Kallicrates explained that it should only be a few hours to load our potions and other loot from our travels, along with everything that was now stored at Zachary’s.
Baal-Shaq, Toxoanassa and I went to Zachary’s to collect our goods and Kallicrates returned to the ship and sent sailors to start loading the potions carefully onto the ship. Si'aspiqo cast a cantrip to determine the weather. He detected a change to a warmer wind from the south, which would be ideal to commence our voyage and would hinder the arrival of any ramships. The Numidian guards lit the way and cleared off any people who they saw hanging around watching. Soon everything was loaded and stowed securely ready for departure, and we set sail soon after midnight on 4th July guided in the starlit night by the night vision of Amphius.
As we sailed, he saw no signs of waiting ships, just a large semi-submerged tree trunk, which he guided Kallicrates around. Just before dawn Agripinus prayed to Tanit and asked her to watch over Tamuda so that he would be able to swear his oath to Carthage and Tanit when the emissary arrived. We sailed on in the daylight heading east of north towards the open sea and then more eastwards as the wind switched to a favourable direction. We did see a sail, but it was just a Phoenician trading ship, and it tacked on westwards as we sailed east. Mago saw some more flotsam and jetsam, probably from a wrecked ship, but we saw no sign of survivors and sailed on for the rest of the day and then continued at night with Amphius keeping watch. He again saw wreckage or a large floating log, which he guided as around and we sailed on until dawn on 5th July.
Party & company:
Met:
Places:
Party Loot:
From: Si'aspiqo’s wheeze:
-or- Tamuda Juggles the Hot Cobble
After some discussion amongst us of our options, Agripinus with Baal-Shak’s encouragement, decided to test, gently, the extent of Tamuda’s gratitude for Tanit’s intervention on his behalf.
It being somewhat after dusk Baal-Shak called an escort of Tamuda’s guardsmen as link-bearers for the ruler’s healer, himself and a supporter — that was me — to return to assess the results of the earlier treatment. At the residence we were required to lodge our weapons before approaching the presence, so I gave up a number of small daggers, insignificant though they looked beside the weapons of the merchant-warrior Baal-Shak and the warrior-priest Agripinus.
Stripped of physical weapons we were admitted to the same chamber where Agrinius had invoked Tanit to save the sickened ruler. To say Tamuda looked well would be untrue, but compared to earlier in the day when we left him, it was clear that his recovery continued, thanks no doubt to the intervention of Tanit’s servant, the departure of the villainous Tabat and tearing down of that one’s baleful-daubings on Tamuda’s sleeping tent. Though clearly weak, he was sitting up in large chair and conversing with his court and servants.
The Head Guard Micipsa brought us in and immediately Tamuda took notice. He called for chairs for his visitors. I was somewhat surprised to be included as one of the seated, thinking my own role tiny beside Agripinus’s, but arguing with Tamuda’s judgement could have no good outcome and so I kept silent and seated myself.
Agripinus though was quickly out of his seat, urgent to care for his patient, so the room was cleared, somewhat, for Tanit’s priest to examine Tamuda while I pottered in Agripinus’s shadow checking the food and drink for gross signs of poisons, stimulants or sedatives, of which I detected none. I was reasonable sure, short of a tasting, that there was nothing at all interesting about the thin gruel and watered wine at Tamuda’s hand.
On the matter of the villain Tabat, he had not been found despite searches. He has not been seen to leave by land or sea, and no one had informed the guards of his whereabouts. Though there was a watch set for the rogue witch doctor should he still be in town, it was quite possible, Tamuda knew, that Tabat’s arts might allow him to lurk, or flee, unseen.
Tamuda remarked on the return of the Morning Breeze at dusk, but Agripinus assured him that we had no plan to leave soon, so that he and his Goddess could attend to Tamuda’s recovery. Even though, he mentioned, we had recently learned our enemies had placed spies and plotters in this city with plans to summon warships from Kart to take us, particularly himself, in some dispute over theological boundaries. But he considered the health of Tamuda more important, as evidenced by Tanit’s gift of healing channeled through himself. Agripinus also mentioned the matter of our hero-Amazon Toxoanassa’s quest to the mountain Abyla was yet incomplete and she would soon petition for his permission to return to further her quest-weird for the pillar-rock.
Tamuda nodded thoughtfully at all this and said he knew from talking to Toxoanassa last autumn that she, we, sought the Heart Stone of the holy mountain Abyla. He acknowledged that he must and would repay us for saving his his life. What he had would be ours, he said.
He called his man Juva, muttered instructions in his own speech rather than the halting — likely half-remembered — Arma he had been using with us. Juva disappeared briefly, returning with a wooden box which he placed in front of Apripinus. This contained a piece of red stone of a notable Presence…
Tamuda then said “Two things. First. You should leave my town tonight or as soon as there is light enough to sail by.” His guards would keep the peace in face of any strikes by our enemies already present, and assist us with the loading of all our goods and chattels aboard the Morning Breeze to speed us on our way, with his thanks.
And the second point was his instruction to Agripinus to tell Carthage to send an embassy, bearing with them the sign of Tanit, and he would swear allegiance to the White City!
I think it is fair to say that Agripinus was momentarily dumbfounded by this mark of thanks and favour, but upon confirming that he had heard correctly and that the red stone was of more than a mundane sandstone brick, he acknowledged that Tamuda’s life-debt to us was paid in full and that he would bear the offer of allegiance to the White City as speedily as fate permitted.
Then Agripinus turned healer again and made parting healing prayers for Tumuda (and I added a marks of protection about Tamuda’s seat and sleeping place for his seat turned out to be a cunningly artificered reclining throne-couch). During this Tamuda gave orders, lengthily, in Numidian, to Guard Chief Micipsa in regard of our safekeeping and with particular emphasis on the necessity of our rapid, safe departure.
We were back at our lodging house well before midnight and away from the shore before dawn.
Party & company:
Met:
Places:
Party Loot: —
I set as the era the year of the accession of the Pharaoh Ptolemy II, son of Ptolemy, so we begin in the year 18 of that reign, and I use a simplified system of twelve months with no regard for the multiple systems of intercalary days, weeks, months or moons of our own various cultures nor those we have passed through. I shall use the month names used by the main story-teller, a Gaul, Sammus the Strong, but number them to disambiguate their order.
–Si'aspiqo
| 18 Ptolomy 02 – February | Scroll 3: Teveste Investigation | |
| 18 Ptolomy 03 – March: | Scroll 30: A13 Preparations in Carthage | ref. end of March) |
| 18 Ptolomy 04 – April: | Scroll 31: A14 Ambushed by Darklings | |
| 18 Ptolomy 05 – May | Scroll 71: A36 News from the Darklings | |
| 18 Ptolomy 06 – June | Scroll 77: B1 Arrival in Sardinia | |
| 18 Ptolomy 07 – July | Scroll 89: C1 A Problem in Emporion | |
| 18 Ptolomy 08 – August | Scroll 95: C7 A Month in Emporion | |
| 18 Ptolomy 09 – September | Scroll 106: E4 Into Baria | |
| 18 Ptolomy 10 – October | Scroll 118: E14 An Agreement | |
| 18 Ptolomy 11 – November | Scroll 119: E15 Climbing Abyla | |
| 18 Ptolomy 12 – December | Scroll 125: E18 The Black Lion | |
| 19 Ptolomy 01 – January | Scroll 137: E26 The Jabba Worm | |
| 19 Ptolomy 02 – February | Scroll 142: E31 Three Asuf and a Scorpion | |
| 19 Ptolomy 03 – March | Scroll 166: E46 Return to Fort Adjel | |
| 19 Ptolomy 04 – April | Scroll 173: E53 — An Ambush Defeated | |
| 19 Ptolomy 05 – May | Scroll 184: Back to Boujje |