Oneshot report: Shadow of the Crystal Palace

Shadow of the Crystal Palace! I reverse engineered this Call of Cthulhu oneshot from the Critical Role oneshot by the same name, for a game with my wife and her colleagues. Six odd fellows enter into the annual cat exhibition as a way to enter the darkened Crystal Palace museum to find a valuable relic. The more they explore, the more strange things they find...

A great game, even though I only managed to drive one character temporarily insane and everyone made it out alive as the Crystal Palace burned to the ground! Of course, 'everyone' includes an ancient entity now possessing a herd of prize cats and rampaging through the London fog. Still, all the surviving players have earned a free reroll for the next game we'll play.

 

If you're interested in my reverse-engineered notes, find them here! No copyright claim is intended by this - basically this is a write-up of how the original CR session panned out.

Movie: map of the Crystal Palace on foamboard, with tiny magnets hidden inside. The Jade Planchette held a piece of flux detector foil: micro-capsules with particles that move in magnetic fields to darken the foil. Too bad that the players didn't discover this in-game, as this would have helped them to find a ton more of wacky items. A great prop idea mentioned in the Critical Role blog about this game's props that I just had to copy!

How on earth did that strange little American know when I was going to burgle his bedroom? The blackmailing scoundrel promises that he'll keep my nightly activities a secret from mama and papa, if I retrieve a certain casket for him from the Crystal Palace exhibition space. Hopefully this won't be a drag. Though the airing of my deepest secret would be detrimental to my good name, and by extension my parents', the tedium of every day life and its endless soirees is worse.

These people with their cats are almost enough to give me apoplexy, and the organiser takes the cake with his monotonous drivel. The tap on my shoulder by the handsome captain Bentley Badger is a welcome reprieve.

Mr Merriweather, and his American accent, greet us - a strange group of people that could only have been gathered by such a strange man. He once again explains the goal of this mission - find a casket made of soapstone with inscriptions - and we move into brief introductions. No time for niceties apparently.

Imagery on the table as we started off. The left image is of the Crystal Palace in its hey day back in 1851. The newspaper clipping uses a photo of one of the Critical Role players to sneakily introduce this player character-turned-NPC due to an absent player.

Badger's Burglars

Critical Role's write-up of the characters, my character picker for the players, secret character backgrounds

• Capt. Bentley Badger - ex-British Cavalry captain, now butler and manservant of Mr. Rupert Merriweather. Bad memories of the cave creature with shining eyes that shattered his leg and sanity in the Second Anglo-Afghan War
• Hanako 'Hana' Hayashi - socialite daughter of the Japanese ambassadors to the UK, secretly a thrill thief and looking for an intriguing electrical generator of Japanese design
• Ida Codswell - electrical engineer who is along for any mechanical issues - and to steal back the advanced Stirling engine model her former boss stole from her
• Dr. Mason Pocket - disgraced historian at the British Museum, wrote a delusional pamphlet about shadow entities and arranged the paperwork to move the casket to the Crystal Palace
• Septimus Goodfellow - celebrity spiritualist and expert in all matters occult, along to provide security against any entities from the other side. Secretly a con artist called Archie Orlick with zero occult abilities but mucho interest in talking the rich and gullible out of their money and secrets

One player couldn't make it. I turned the last of the six pregen characters into an NPC stuck in the hellish spirit mirror trap that is the Crystal Palace:

• Alexandra O'Neill - famous traveler and adventurer in the Orient, looking for a jade planchette to help the monks of Likir track down hungry ghosts.

The first barrier to be overcome was the guard, my first instinct was to sneak, but the talkative academic (he would not shut up about this pamphlet he had written..what a bore) had the right paperwork and browbeat the poor man with inane babbling. We were quickly let through.

The first thing that is very clear is the lack of any organisation in the Crystal Palace. The place is a mess, and it needs to open soon..wondering if they will make it for opening day. Boxes are everywhere, and there is no system to discern, and the atmosphere is so weird that I think I see ghosts...I'm sure there is someone sitting at the desk in the Babylonian court. Terribly creepy and not at all boring.

The Automated Scribe. If the players had experimented with it, I had a bunch of fucked-up fortune cookies ready. But the players bolted at the sight of this thing's silhouette, sitting stock still in a darkened room. Can't imagine why.

Electrical Arcade

We locate the Electrical Arcade and I hunt for the Elekiter. Meanwhile, Ida is jubilant to retrieve her stolen electrical generator.

Under the elekiter - yes I opened the glass show case - I found a puzzle box, and opening it (an easy task) revealed an obsidian mirror. Dr Pocket immediately burst into one of his inane spells of academic babbling at the sight of the mirror. The accompanying text in Japanese (writting by a person from china and translated in to Japanese by what must be a brit) reveals that this mirror "reflects the wish for your safety". The captain manages to find something else in the box, a roman key of sorts - perhaps we will find something in the roman court that can be opened by this key.

Two-compartment puzzle box and a 1800s mirror we found in the flea market. Rolled up paper with Japanese text courtesy of Google Translate.

Looking into the mirror, I had a glimpse of fingers reaching out..it scared me terribly, I don't know what is going on with me this night.

Our resident spiritualist Mr Septimus Goodfellow - terribly handsome and walks the right circles - briefly inspects the mirror and immediately is asaulted by - what looks like - the ghost of Alexandra O'Neil, she disappeared quite suddenly from the face of the earth. Hopefully she is still alive, she would be a hoot at parties.

Alexandra seemed to be very adamant about us moving to one of the bigger windows in the arcade, and sure enough when we did she appeared there. By breathing fog on the windows and writing on them we were able to communicate with her.

Alexandra: Can you see me? burglary accident - hungry ghosts - need to get an item to Tibet

I immediately try to write something back, the glass however feels very gooey, like I would have little trouble trying to pass through to where Alexandra is, but I steady myself and press on.

us:what item

A: jade planchett 

us: where

A: somewhere, looked in all courts

she mimics the size of it, around handsized but she hasn't seen it.

us: how did you get there

A: walked into glass wall or door in the Egyptian court

We need to be wary, if this is indeed real. Part of me hopes we can help her get back to the real world...if indeed this is not some mass hysteria.

The players promise to get Alexandra out of the mirror, but first, their mission! However, in the excitement of the night, nothing comes of the solemn vow.

Office space

There is currently no idea in the group where the casket could be, so to the offices we go, in the hope that the right papers are found quickly.

None of our group seems to be able to pick a simple lock. After a bit of pushing and a totally uncalled for comment by Captain Badger - he was clearly informed by his employer on my extracurricular activities - I was able to open the door. Looking for the papers looked like it was going to be a tediuous and terribly soul destroying, thankfully Dr Pocket knew what he was looking for and was quick about it. Ida had much less luck and managed to mess up the papers and was not able to find whatever it was she was looking for; documents to prove that her competitor Jasper Stagwells had entered her electrical generator into the Crystal Palace exhibits under his own name.

Into the Courts again

We quickly move on to the Greek and Roman courts, and indeed a keyhole is found in the roman court and a red stone of power is revealed - cue the good doctor and one of his academic babblings. Septimus senses (very theatrically, how immensely thrilling) that the casket has passed through the Greek court, however no trace is found there.

Septimus is a fucking fraud, and I love how he's milking the creepy atmosphere! 

Coming to the Egyptian court tension rises, this is the place that the image of Alexandra claims she disappeared from. We find something that could potentially be such a doorway.

The doctor appears to be mesmerised by the statue of Isis with its head-mounted sun of black glass, however he is roused by the captain and whisked off to check the bazaar for the casket. They come back with the Jade planchette instead, which they find in one of the exhibition cases around the fountain area.

There seems to be a strange attractive force between the planchette and the obsidian sun on top of the Isis statue. Septimus takes a closer look but is not immediately forthcoming with what he sees. (later he confided that he saw the most disturbing thing of gathered people that wanted to come through to our reality, a hungry people that meant to do bad things once set free)

Lucky fuckers that they are, the players avoid my nudging to steal the obsidian mirror. I'd have had it shatter and unleash a sea of shadow ghosts on them from any shadow in the darkened building.

Casket found

We continue our search for the casket and eventually find it in the Nineveh court. Between the stacks of cats, all looking at us with their eerie glowing eyes, we finally found the Casket we'd been looking for! I wanted to get the casket back to Merriweather very quickly, but my curiosity got the better of me. I could not resist to open the lid of the casket, it was almost like it wanted me to.

A big cloud of mummy dust spews out of the casket and envelops us before moving to the cats who inhale it. The cats high on the mummy dust go literally insane and try to claw their way out of their cages. I have never seen anything like it, and it highly motivated me to get the casket out of the museum and back to Merriweather. This is most definitely not boring.

We tried to get the casket out, but the cats are organising and try to get our lights. We are attacked and I have sustained some heavy scratches. Badger throws down his lantern and sure enough, the wooden floor catches fire. 

First cats, now smoke and soot. This dress is done for.

Make for the exit!

When they attack Septimus, who carries the light, captain Badger finally showed the skill of the army man he is and fights them off with the sword that was originally his cane - what an exciting piece of weaponry. Dr Pocket and me are carrying the casket, but I trip, damn these shoes. With a feat of immense strength the doctor carries the casket out of the Nineveh court by himself. Very impressive.

We make a beeline for the guard post and the exit that has the coach - hopefully - ready for us. The guard post is empty, and strangely enough it looks like the guard left his post quite abruptly.

The immediacy of the cats prowling around us, just out of sight, in the shadows makes us run even faster. However seeing the guard standing just ahead looking out of the window like nothing is happening startles us. What is more, he does not appear to have a reflection in the very window he is looking out of. It is very unnerving.

Our exit door is locked, but with a little luck I manage to open it. What would they have done without me? The promised coach was indeed there, we deliver the casket and the driver takes all of us back to a location of our choosing.. Time for a stiff drink and some time to put this behind me. It was not boring, but I'll be glad if I never have to go through such an ordeal ever again.

In hindsight, I overestimated both the size of the elekiter, and the opportunity to return to the electric arcade...circumstances arose, as they say. Fortunately the museum burned down for the most part and thus no one will have the elekiter. And the favor for Mr Merriweather means my secret identity is still safe. All in all, a good night!

Belswick 9: Escape from the Isles of the Dead

Last session, the party managed to murder the wizard Vedric von Vermis in his favourite bath house, but ended up paying with their lives. This session, they make a shady deal to escape from the Isles of the Dead and take triple revenge on the asshole spellcaster. Returning to life, they get to raid Vedric's tower, a restocked Arcanist's Mill.

...it's an interesting thing to see the group so viscerally enjoying the punishment they get to heap on the wizard Vedric von Vermis. Interesting because I'm not quite sure where the feeling comes from.

Tilbørd's player fills me in after the game: not only is the guy thoroughly unpleasant, or trying to kidnap an NPC they've taken a liking to, he's clearly out of their league and happy to rain death on poor villagers (even if those level 3 villagers pack a punch). Most damningly, Vedric managed to escape, barely, the first time they met. (Thanks to this good advice!)

"You cannot imagine how good it was to end that bastard", Tilbørd's player tells me. The party definitely earned this victory.

CREW

• Tilbørd, a nosy human priest of the Authority with more supernatural deals than he or we can count
• Lomin Mor, an elf thief who masquerades as dear old Lady Olga of the struggling fief Cullfield 
• Mike, a human druid/fighter with the grand wish of starting a big animal sanctuary 
• Guy, a human diviner who hunts smugglers and other rogues while looking after a crippling 10,000 gp college debt to the Lodge of Augurs and Diviners
• Aju, a hammerhead shark-fishling of the barbarian persuasion, looking for the magic amulet that will turn him into a regular shark again (absentee player)

Paper mini's and a handcrafted gallows out of cardboard. Inspiration: CardboardDM.

SETTING THE SCENE

The party remembers dying. They are woken by a bell ringing someways in the distance. They wake up side by side, swinging from the gallows. The rope hurts like hell but their lungs don't burn. Crows circle overhead. "Give us your coins and we'll set you free! *snigger*" Two copper coins in their pockets - their favorite clothes, but all their belongings are gone. Lomin alone has no coins.

Some acrobatics sets the group free. As they look at each other and speculate in what part of the afterlife they are, they notice weird details. Aju seems to flicker between a full shark and a fish-man. Lomin looks his usual self. Mike and Guy each have a weird spectral tentacle emerging from the back of their head, trailing off into smoke.

And Tilbørd? Oh boy. He's covered in spectral markings. A black flame tattooed H on his left forearm from the smugglers of Harkness, an third eye amulet on his brow, hands blazing with the Radiant Maiden's golden light and the voice of the Authority in his voice. His breath, not that anyone came close enough, smells like that of a ghoul.

Arnold K's Isles of the Dead are great to have in your DM binder. Just knowing that you can continue play even after a total party kill is freeing.

EXPLORE AND ESCAPE

The party explores the island. From the belltower, they can see a larger island up north, and smaller islands to the east. On the main island is a forest, a tower that can't make up its size and a hill with a shining silver-golden light at the top. They head for a dock on the island they're on.

Passing the gallows again, they find a familiar face: their victim Vedric von Vermis! He wants to team up to escape, but the PCs only tie him up tight. When they walk away, suddenly black-gold light blazes in a circle on Vedric's chest, draining away almost all of his soul; he's now see-through and expressionless and drifts off to the dock.

The water is quiet as the grave, a mirror surface you can't see below. "We're NOT swimming in there", my players decide. Wise, as it's chock full of angry skeletons.

The mute ferryman demands two coins from each passenger. Lomin nor Vedric are fondly remembered among the living and they have no coins. But there's another way: the ferryman offers his oar. Vedric, listless, agrees. The moment his hands touch the oar, grey floods his transparant flesh. For the rest of eternity or until he can convince someone to take his place, he is now the ferryman of the Isles of the Dead.

ESCAPING JUDGMENT

Ferried to the main island, the party discuss where to go. Face judgment? Their feet didn't sink as deep into the sand as Vedric's did, but it's clear their souls aren't clean. (None of them ever prayed for forgiveness or bought an indulgence.)


A line of people snaking up the hill, the tower behind the dark wood - neither are appealing, and the party opt for the third path. On a rocky outcrop they find Mary, crying for a devil to take her back to the land of the living. Tilbørd looms close, eyes her. "You called me?" It turns out Mary wants to return to life to warn her sister Agnes not to marry Edmund, her murderer. Tilbørd assures her it will be dealt with and sends her up the hill, presumably to be judged.

I'm not sure what the penalty on impersonating a devil is.

From the outcrop, the party can see a structure on the small island to the east. At the beach, they are greeted by a shade of someone they knew and helped. This shade helps them across the water via an invisibly submerged path. Each sees another person:

• Mike sees his father, killed by a cult to Outsider horrors;
• Lomin sees his fiancée, murdered by his princeling brother;
• Guy meets his sister who he thought was alive, poisoned by agents of a Baron Ballumbie;
• Aju greets his wizard friend Nunawe, a turtle-ling;
• Tilbørd is surprised to see the hapless Swanling merchant Dinadan, his heart burst by the spectre riding him for spilling secrets to Tilbørd.

Charon, etching of Gustave Doré (from)

THE BURNED CHURCH

Brimstone fills the air near a ruined church on the easternmost island. There is a defaced statue of an angel, six-winged and four-faced above an altar, split by a crack in the ground. Red light and heat from below. Buddy, a shadow dwelling demon in halfling form, offers to bring one person back to life if another will offer his soul for eternal service; or two souls to bring back three.

To bring back the entire party? Murder the judgmental angel on top of the hill. Or, I improv off-hand smuggle Buddy to the world of the living by letting him ride one of the party for five months.

Mike's player is down with that shit. He hands me a note with five demands: no children or animals hurt, not in the barony where the party lives; a week instead of 5 months (he agrees on 5 weeks), and a reward of 1500 gold.

"...You're asking him for money?"
"Sure! Gotta build that animal sanctuary."

This will become interesting. Belswick's demons are...different. Buddy has secured the right to ride Mike's buddy for five weeks "to do something about a priest", but he's not starting that clock just yet.

A raft is quickly constructed out of skeletons and crows serving Buddy. All sneak aboard and cast off to the east. Under the waves, hundreds of skeletons turn their skulls to see the strange ship go by.

BACK AND ON THE CUTTING BLOCK

The party wake up in a cave, armored in full plate and lying on ritual altars. Seems someone has hauled their bodies away from the bath house. Whoever did so was planning to use their souls to animate these constructs, but called it a day and left them to continue the next day. Sleeping bodyguards in a room nearby, still with the burn marks from Vedric's final fireball. Lomin economically slits their throats. In a ceremonial room they find another armor, with Vedric's body inside; a glowing coin/medaillon on the chest holds the remains of his spirit from the botched ritual they saw happen on the Isles.

"We take his head for Liselle, his body to give to the ghouls, and the soul coin because I bet we can think of ways to pester this asshole with it."

Sneaking on, the party finds themselves emerging from a cave system under Vedric's water mill / tower. Under the millstones is a room with a lightning apparatus that is used to energize the plate armor constructs. A voice calls down: "My name is Vedric von Vermis and you are trespassing in my tower!" Apprentices trying to stand in for their master are just adorable.

The animated armors are bull-dozered aside by Mike, who wildshapes into a bull for the occasion. The apprentice, Disguise Selfed as Vedric, is pushed down a hatch by bath house owner (and assassin) Seymon, who decides to make a run for it. Apprentice goes down in a flash, Mike (heavily wounded AGAIN) shifts into Wolf shape and runs down the assassin, who has at least 5 levels on him. But no way to gain sneak attacks, and the party joins up to bring the murderer down in seconds.

My restocked version of the beautiful Arcanist's Mill by Jonathan Roberts. (Added the bridge and docks myself.) An awesome place hanging over the edge off a cliff. Full of accidents waiting to happen like massive turning axles and grindstones and rickety bridges over a deep drop to the rocks. Decidedly easier to fight your way through from the catacombs at night than via the locked and warded front door.

JUST REWARDS

It is, finally, time to rest and then ransack. Find the list of loot below. "Hey, if we're in Lord Vennax' territory, we don't have to pay taxes to that bastard!" How quickly they learn.

We time skip weeks to make all that possible. And next session? There'll be a Bard in town who can spin tales of scary dungeons to loot - the players can describe, then I get to roll to find out what was rumour, what was true and what twists I get to add. In addition, I've asked each player to send me ideas for cool magic items they would like to find for their players, and also to suggest one such item for another player. Secret Santa with magic items, they're sending me awesome stuff.

For now, they'll have to make do with:

Total value: 8025 gp
XP value per PC: 1605 XP

(Overview of all rewards, taxes etc)

• boots of elvenkind, worth 500 gp
• stone of good luck, worth 500 gp
• potion of flight, 1hr, worth 500 gp
• scroll of rope trick, worth 50 gp
• gold bracelet, worth 25 gp
• embroidered vest, worth 25 gp
• silk handkerchief, worth 25 gp
• Vedric's spellbook, worth 500 gp (see tab "Spellbooks")
• Apprentice spellbook, worth 100 gp (see tab "Spellbooks")
• 3 amethysts, worth 300 gp
• piece of jade, worth 100 gp
• garnet, worth 100 gp
• chess set, turquoise animals, worth 250 gp
• gold bird cage, worth 250 gp
• gold ring with bloodstones, worth 250 gp
• silk robe, gold embroidery, worth 250 gp
• 2500 cp, worth 25 gp
• 7000 sp, worth 700 gp
• 1100 gp, worth 1100 gp
• Vedric's library, worth 725 gp (see tab "Labs and Libraries")
• Lady Liselle's reward for Vedric's head, worth 1000 gp
• Incriminating letter from Baron Ballumbie ordering Vedric to kidnap Liselle, worth 250 gp
• Incriminating letter from Lord Vennax ordering Vedric to assemble bandits and plunder the Cullfield/Crossroads trade road, worth 250 gp
• Incriminating letter from "H", blasphemously in the Archbishop's handwriting, ordering research of more advanced animated armors, worth 250 gp

Handicrafts: felt ocean and islands for pirate battles

If you're running a piracy campaign, you'll need rules for naval combat - and a battlemap to go with them. A quick trip to the local fabric shop gave me enough felt to make layers of deep ocean, shallows, sandy beaches, jungle and rocky cliffs. Wooden boats from spielematerial.de

Interestingly, this has the same colour palette as Skerples' pirate maps - which I've been redrawing in a more parchmenty style.

Quick and dirty, sure - but on the plus side it's light weight, easy to fold and transport, and stacking layers of felt gives a nice height map effect. The base ocean layer is 76x76 cm and has 4x4 cm squares drawn with a ruler and black marker pen. Large enough to fit a couple of boats into the same square for boarding actions!

Going forward, I'll probably make more smaller islands rather than a few larger ones. Easier to recombine (for instance, into an atol!)

Rocky islands like the one above were a blast to make. Cut anthracite felt with traight edges and sharp corners, layer on top of each other with glue and add some red felt for lava streams and green for scant forest. (Green flet is thicker than the red and anthracite - may need to shave a bit of height off, it looks wonky in close-up.)

Crack this Ugears safe

My birthday (41, ouch) was a relaxed get together with friends. Played bocce, had a few drinks and went out to dinner in my old university town. Gifts-wise, people went overboard. A bunch of dice, card and board games, and this great wooden model from Ugears: a working safe, nice and big and just begging to store valuables or messages in, then having the players hunt for the code. Or try and open it by feeling the tumblers slide into place.

Some assembly required: 176 wooden parts, no glue but quite a lot of sanding to get toothpick axles to fit.

Size is 19.5 x 18.5 x 17.5 cm on the outside, inner space 15.5 x 14.5 x 10.5 cm (the lock with its three rotating disks takes up a bit of space). Locking the safe is as easy as rotating the dial counterclockwise a couple of times; unlocking requires dialing in the correct code going left/right/left. You can change the code during assembly and technically also afterwards, although that will take a lot of difficult work.

So much loot inside, you won't believe it. At least once I get a huge pile of coins to actually fill this thing. Two liters worth of volume is a lot of coins.

...I just spotted two more models on the Ugears site: a dice tower and a folding DM screen. Splinters, here I come.

Dice tower - Ugears

 

DM screen - Ugears

My paper army, let me show you them

Busy week at work, little energy to finish a post on Demigod Marketing, so you get a different post this weekend.

Over the past few months I've been printing and cutting and glueing veritable hordes of paper miniatures. End not in sight, but pretty happy with the result so far. I like how they're hugely affordable and take a bit of effort to put together (which also gives the freedom to modify them a bit - check out the 2.5D minis of trees, ropers and barrels below).

SOURCES

There are many paper mini makers out there - here's the two I've used material from so far.

• PrintableHeroes.com has swarms of minis - many for free, some reskins for a couple bucks per month on patreon. 
• Paperminis' patreon takes a bit more searching for the freebies, but has pretty little gems in there.

BANDS

Need some way to store these light-weight little bastards. (Makers advise sticking washers on the bottoms, will make a trip to the hardware store at some point...)

Egg cartons for storage

I've posed these guys in A vs B battles. Here's a bunch of witch friends (trolls and ogres) going up against a snake cult.

Troll ambushed by snake cult

Which is also taking on an ogre

...but reinforcements on the way: three witches get involved

with a rat army

and spiders

and so. many. wolves.

Next up is a horde of goblins and their barghests getting surprised by a bunch of bandits.

I like how the trees turned out: take two copies of the same tree, cut vertical slits at the top and bottom, slide into each other and mount on a base.

One sheet of paper gives you a nice hordlet of goblins. I didn't stop at one sheet of paper. You always need Moar Gobbos.

Meanwhile, in the tap room...

Printableheroes does cool props as well, like these cupboards, tables and barrels. I took one side of left-over barrels and made them into bases for a 2.5D effect.

Tired of fighting cults? Then get them to fight each other. Here's a bunch of fire worshipers harrassing ice culties during a big summoning. Note the cool little props again. The Krampus "mini" makes an excellent ice demon.

Like that fight with your office mate over how high to turn up the heating.

All hail the lord of Air Conditioning.

Whoops, forgot to showcase the pack of hell hounds. Here we go. I thought the city watch looked a bit out of their depth going up against a bunch of demon summoners. Luckily two summoners staggered out of the tavern to help out with an angel and an elemental:

Check out the dead-eyed freak front right. This is how I imagine our party cleric.

Next up is two kinds of things-that-shouldn't be. The fae lady Sister Autumn rules decay and corruption. Big on fungus and oozes and slimy things. Which of course messes up the tidy tomb complex that these three liches have going:

Keep the noisome glooping down, will ya? Fun detail is the purple Grasping Hand model on the right. Zoom in for a look at the liches - two of them are from Paperminis. These guys have a lot of energy!

Again, it's the little things that count: like this flock of disgusting stirges. The roper (had to make it 3D like the trees) and oozes are nice and goopy. I love how dynamic the Aboleth model (in the back) is. Will definitely reskin and use as a water spirit.

Finally, look at this guy leading the ghouls and zombies. A dried out mummy with a fiery sword? He's got to be crazy. Stay clear.