NOW LIVE! Dungeon Delver's Guide: A Sourcebook for 5E and A5E. An essential tome for creating, exploring, and running dungeons in your 5E or A5E game.

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 3469561" data-attributes="member: 3448">Thanks HOHB.A couple of quick encounters ahead.----With our preparations completed, we crossed over from Tarkenia into Shadow.  For three centuries, Shadow surrounded Caldefor on three sides.  The land was mountainous and rocky, less fertile and with a lower population than the other realms that bounded the Shadowlands.  But still, it was alive, with plants and animals, crops and villages.  Now, Caldefor is a dusty wasteland.  We saw the occasional small white plant with red berries, although none of us recognized it, but otherwise, no vegetation was left.  And so we rode on. The first day passed without incident.  In the first night, however, a patrol approached us.  The patrol consisted of five figures, each mounted on a nightmare, with four wearing partial plate and the fifth wearing full plate with embedded crystals.  We recognized them as death knights, probably members of the Grand Count of Caldefor’s court, now that the Grand Count has turned apostate and entered the service of the Shadow, willingly betraying his country.  They hailed us in the name of Urlodo and the Count of Caldefor.  We posed as loyal servants of Caldefor, as indeed we were and they were not.  They asked why we were still so close to the Shadowline, now that the assault was over.  They had only participated because Gnnnst, one of the six great servants of Borsh’tro, had forced them to.  They ordered us to return to the nearest fortification, where a black dragon has assumed command.  They then rode off. The second day also passed uneventfully, but we were attacked during the first watch of that night.  Yellow eums burrowed beneath our camp and attacked, trying to pull Sgt. Cilorean under ground, where they would surely have eaten him or worse.  The yellow eum are foul beasts, about four foot tall and with mangy yellow fur and a long tail, wearing only a belt.  They can be quite difficult to fight-- while they are not very powerful, their burrowing tactics make them dangerous foes.  But we were able to keep the Sergeant on the surface, and kill enough of the eums to drive the remainder away. During the third day of travel, a spirit looked us over and spoke to Spring, mistaking him for an undead servant of Shadow.  The spirit asked him where he had found such a plump group and asked if he was taking us to the dragon or to the Spider Mistress in the fortifications.  Spring said that we were a gift for the dragon and asked the spirit its mission.  It said that it was sent to scout the border on behalf of one of the great death knights. We continued to encounter forces of Shadow.  In the fourth day, we met a group of emaciated humans, with spears and partial armor.  They identified themselves as true born.  The true born are one of three pure human tribes maintained by the masters of Shadow.  The true born are the largest of the three tribes, and in Caldefor, but they are weak.  They are more than slaves, but only barely.  We bullied them for more information, and they said that they bring word to the dragon, and that they were loyal.  We also learned that the great monk who serves the Count has come forth from her lair to command one of the fortifications.  We thanked them and sent them on their way.  It pained me to allow forces of Shadow to leave when we could surely have bested them, but the sergeants said that it would be too dangerous as it might draw attention to our mission.  I obeyed their orders. That night, a column of black eum-- the reptilian, almost draconic, eum servitors of Gnnnst-- passed by our camp.  They were not a large group, but were taller than the yellow eums and moving as a disciplined unit.  Again, we let them pass, for the black eum are one of the most advanced armies in the service of the Shadow. [During the fifth day, a voice on the wind taunted Stumm, saying that he was the only one loyal to Caldefor.  He lost some sanity to the experience, but the rest of us did not know about it.]</blockquote>

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