"Azarr Kul's Ambition" - homebrew adaptation of Slaughtergarde & RHoD (Gaia's Dream)

[Stormtower]

Hello ENWorlders,

This is my first attempt at a Story Hour for ENWorld or any other site. I have been DMing and playing D&D since 1983 (Moldvay - RIP - purple box Basic Set). The game world Gaia's Dream is my own 15-year-old creation and has seen five successful long-term campaigns through to completion thus far. I usually use "from scratch" encounters and avoid published modules and scenarios, but I decided to intentionally alter the flavor and style of the campaign by using Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde and Red Hand of Doom for a much more hack-and-slashy game. This is a departure for me because my Gaia campaigns generally involve slower level advancement, deep roleplaying and character development and multiple plot threads of political and social intrigue. What we have here is a much faster playing and less detailed mini-campaign which, if the PCs survive in whole or part, will transition nicely into high level play when RHoD is completed around 12th - 13th level.

The PCs at campaign start:
Jack Dunstan, male human fighter (fey heritage, will multiclass to warlock) - Neutral - my wife based him off Bullet-Tooth Tony from the movie "Snatch"

Altaer Fangmaw, male human sorcerer (draconic heritage) - Neutral Good - his Brass Dragon heritage makes him chatty and his young age makes him impetuous

Dvalin Windhammer, male dwarf rogue - Neutral - a serious and solid dwarf of the Kagan nation trained from his youth to be a Delver, an underground troubleshooter

Ayotunde Taenik, female human cleric of Shandae - Neutral Good - a mixed ethnicity hippie chick with green values from the Three Vales region to the south

Cyndele, Bumblebee of Arinna, female halfling paladin of Arinna - Lawful Good - a redheaded holy warrior with a penchant for charging into battle without thought of her own safety

Klar Wolfbrother, male half-orc ranger (will multiclass to barbarian/Eye of Ijruk PrC) - Chaotic Good - on the run from his tribe for crimes which he will not detail, even to his traveling companions

I have a campaign gazetteer which I will post (detailing the nations, deities, history, etc. of Gaia) if there is sufficient interest from ENWorld readers. Short deity primer: Arinna = Sun Mother, Bright Lady, goddess of the Sun (LG); Shandae = Earth Mother, The Flowering Vine (NG); Ijruk = God of the Orcs, the Bitter Spear - a kinder, gentler Gruumsh (N). Orcs of Gaia fall along a normal alignment distribution and are not uniformly or even mostly evil as depicted in the MM.

Story hour begins (Shattered Gates of Slaughtergarde):

Faerisa 7, 22CR: In the city of Sumberton, within the Valley of Obelisks in the northnern reaches of the Kingdom of Oberwald, the Dance of the Wellspring festival has just begun. The townsfolk of Sumberton are engaged in traditional bridge dances, long-throwing and swimming contests, and the drums and string instruments sing out through the City of Bridges. A female halfling paladin of Arinna, Cyndele, “Arinna’s Bumblebee,” looks out from her survey point near the south bridge and smiles at her friend Altaer Dragonmaw, a young human sorcerer assigned to the same drilling company in the city’s militia.

Cyndele watches the proceedings with due diligence, and begins to overhear grumblings that an expected spice caravan from the Chicane Guild – a local halfling trade association – is running late. She soon gets an order to check the south gate for any sign of the caravan. Her friend Altaer, eager to prove his worth as an adventurer, follows the halfling to the gate.

Meanwhile, two newcomers to the city – a human cleric of Malo/Valefolk descent named Ayotunde Taerik, and a scythe-wielding human with darkly fey eyes called Jack Dunstan – are welcomed through the gates. The two travelers from the southlands enter on the heels of a pair of rugged wayfarers from the region: a tall, muscular half-orc known as Klar Wolfbrother, and a golden-eyed dwarf troubleshooter of the Kaganish, named Dvalin Windhammer. Dvalin and Klar met on the road to Sumberton, and both are veterans of the Wellspring festival, which welcomes the first thaw of every year.

Klar immediately gets into the spirit of the festival, engaging in a log-throwing contest and besting a local hobgoblin lumberjack at his own game. The strapping half-orc wins 10 gp from the goblinoid, and attracts the attention of a winsome young black-haired girl, whom he puts on his broad shoulders. The two new friends dance through the streets and then retire to the bushes to enjoy themselves for a time.

Cyndele arrives at the gates and peers through a borrowed spyglass at the south road, but there is no sign of the caravan. She spreads the word of this trouble to those nearby, and attracts the attention of the four newcomers; Cyndele invites them to join herself and Altaer in reporting the bad news to Guildmistress Vintra Marktunsel at the Sly Wink Tavern and Smokehouse.

Vintra is a middle-aged and businesslike halfling woman, and she offers the six adventurers a proposition: 200 gp paid to each of them to recover the eight missing crates of valuable spices from the lost caravan. She received word from her caravan drivers that the shipment was attacked by goblins in the Kurkle Ridge, south of Sumberton, but has kept the news under wraps to avoid disturbing the festive mood. The newly-formed adventuring party agrees to her terms, and Jack Dunstan quietly convinces the Guildmistress to pay half the agreed-upon fee in advance. The paladin Cyndele graciously donates her share of the fee to her local Temple of Arinna, requesting that the donation be made anonymously, of course.

After purchasing some gear from local shops with their advance fee, the party quickly departs for the nearby Kurkle Ridge, which lies about 15 miles south of Sumberton. The journey passes without incident until they reach a hilly area adjoining a box canyon. The group is looking for a good place to camp for the night when several of the party members spot a glint of metal behind a copse of trees. They advance forward, and suddenly hear the feral hiss of two ghouls, who jump out from behind the trees and move in for the kill. Though Cyndele is bitten by a ghoul, she avoids contracting Ghoul Fever, and the party dispatches the undead with relative ease. Searching the area for the glint of metal they saw, the party comes upon a chewed corpse wearing a damaged masterwork-quality breastplate. They salvage the fine armor, and Jack grimly notes the signs of Ghoul Fever upon the human corpse, suspecting it will rise as a ghoul unless he takes action. Without delay or ceremony, he cuts the head off the body, and Klar helps dig a shallow grave to prevent further despoiling of the unknown victim. The party makes camp for the night in the shadow of the foothills, and though they hear all manner of nighttime sounds, nothing disturbs their watches.

Faerisa 8, 22CR: After a quick breakfast, the party douses its campfire and breaks camp, advancing further into the box canyon. Ayotunde picks up a trail of goblin footprints, and Klar notices that the goblins’ tracks seem weighted down by extra loads – probably the spice crates they stole from the Chicane Guild caravan. The party follows the tracks deep into the canyon, coming upon a fissure in the earth which leads deep underground via a sloping passage. A rope has been placed strategically along the middle of the 10’ wide corridor, with pitons hammered in at regular intervals to allow easy passage down the steep underground slope. The party moves forward into the darkness together, lighting lanterns to guide their way.

Using her divine senses, Cyndele scans for evil presences, and feels that an aura of otherworldly evil seems to permeate the whole place. As the party reaches the bottom of the slope, they come around a corner and meet face-to-face with three hobgoblin sentries: two pick-wielding impalers and an archer, who is positioned on a 5’ high precipice above the main entry room. The hobgoblins put up a decent fight, but the party’s superior numbers soon overwhelm them, and the goblinoids fall. Listening at the large, bronze doors the hobgoblins were guarding (which are carved with leering demon faces), Dvalin detects the sounds of sniveling goblins preparing an ambush in the room beyond.

After Jack has a bit of fun defacing the demon faces with some dried fruit soaked in water (he also sticks a raisin up the nose of one of the demon faces), Klar kicks open the doors and tosses a hobgoblin body inside the next room. The nervous goblins pincushion their dead comrade with javelins, and the fight is on! The party charges in and takes the four goblin scroungers apart with ease. Their incursion into the complex becomes an efficient sweep-and-clear operation of adjoining rooms, as they head west down a wide corridor and defeat several more sets of goblins, including some well-trained goblin troopers wielding battle axes.

The western edge of the complex seems to be a dumping ground for refuse, and before anyone can stop him, Altaer dashes ahead towards a stinky pit filled with garbage, looking for hidden treasure or other valuable baubles. What he finds instead is an angry, acid-spitting ankheg! The young sorcerer scrambles away from the large insect and casts his color spray spell into its eyes, stunning the bug and allowing the party’s melee fighters to cut it to pieces. Perhaps after coming face-to-face with mandibles the size of his own arms, the over-eager arcanist has learned his lesson about scouting ahead without backup.
All the noise with an ankheg attracts the attention of a returning goblin patrol, a party of three scroungers led by a hobgoblin impaler. They charge down the western corridor towards the party, and at the same time, a pack of four dire rats crawls out of a hidden nest, attacking the adventurers’ flank. The party briefly finds itself in a pincer between two groups of foes, but another expedient color spray from Altaer knocks out the rats, and some vicious melee fighting from the frontliners neutralizes the goblinoids. Even Ayotunde gets into the action, spearing one goblin to death and putting a crossbow bolt through the eye of a stunned dire rat.

The western end of the complex seems relatively clear now, so the party heads northward up a short flight of stairs, and they detect some strange, glowing green mirrors in a darkened room ahead. Klar throws a goblin body at one of the mirrors, cracking its façade and setting off another battle against two goblin troopers. Though the troopers manage to drop the half-orc bleeding to the ground, Jack slips past them and delivers a potion of cure light wounds to his companion, getting him back in the fight quickly. As the fight continues, the noises of battle attract the attention of a large, gravelly-voiced construct in a sunken room adjoining the mirror chamber to the east. The rock-like being urges the party to fight on and destroy the goblins. The adventurers take out the two troopers, one of whom falls to the sting of Cyndele’s needle-like rapier.

After the battle, they speak to the rocky construct, who is initially suspicious of them, but soon warms to their presence. He claims he is a maug named “Boraan,” and that he was summoned to this chamber from the plane of Acheron by his masters, the Thulkarr. He awaits their return, and will guard until that time arrives. Boraan speaks with the adventurers at length once they gain his trust, telling of the ancient war which brought him here: the Thulkarr were one faction of an army of law and good that stood against the demonic forces of the Abyss. A fiendish hobgoblin known as Mu-Taan Lah attempted to bring a portion of an Abyssal layer – the Mountains of Sorrow Beyond Measure – to the Prime Material Plane through a series of gates built in his demonic fortress of Slaughtergarde. The agents of law and goodness watched him, and prepared a mighty army from across the planes to stop his plan. Elves of Valharic, Kagan dwarves, and early humans of the region constructed great black obelisks to siphon off the demonic energies, giving the Valley of Obelisks its name. The evil Mu-Taan Lah was defeated, as his chaotic forces were no match for the well-organized and devoted armies of light, and the gates of Slaughtergarde were shattered, preventing the planar transposition he had planned. All that now remains of Slaughtergarde is a desolate region of the Valley of Obelisks known as the Slaughterscar. But perhaps some of Mu-Taan Lah’s gates have survived after all…
Boraan will not fight on the party’s behalf, as he is unwilling to abandon his assigned post even after thousands of years of pacing and waiting, but he does speak of an adjacent foe in a nearby room: a demonic hunting creature known as a Howler. The great stone construct also agrees to watch over the party as the sleep and prepare their spells for further adventuring.

 

[Firedancer]

I for one say post your homebrew details. helps gives us flavour and context, plus I like others well developed ideas, inspiration comes from many sources.

 

[Leinart]

Yea this does look interesting. Hope to see more.

 

[Stormtower]

Thanks for the comments, Firedancer and Leinart. I will post my campaign gazetteer in parts as addenda to the story hours.

Second session log follows:

Faerisa 9, 22CR: After resting and preparing spells under the watchful eye of the unsleeping maug Boraan, the adventurers contemplate their options in exploring the rest of the Slaughtergarde Laboratory. They decide to leave the howler alone for the moment, since it is trapped on the arcane diagram and cannot trouble their other movement throughout the complex. They return to the central corridor and investigate the large copper doors marked “danger!” in goblin, and Dvalin cautiously advances inside the room beyond. The dwarf sees some irregular notches carved into the floor stones, and four dark recesses in the ceiling. Using his stonecunning, he realizes the room contains a deadly four-bladed scythe trap, and after an initial mishap where he is lightly wounded, Dvalin rigs some crate splinters beneath the floor’s pressure plates to disarm the trap.

The party advances forward into a short corridor, and quickly comes upon a pair of hobgoblin impalers guarding a room which may have once been a demonic surgery or experimentation chamber. The impalers attack aggressively, calling for their goblin minion up a set of stairs to the north to join the battle. Five goblins charge down the stairs and clog the corridor, but between the party’s frontline fighters and a skillfully-placed color spray by Altaer, the goblinoids are subdued without much difficulty. The one goblin who was not incapacitated by Altaer’s casting surrenders, and he and two other survivors are tied securely in their northern barracks while the adventurers loot the area, collecting coins, gems, and some valuable masterwork surgery tools.

Klar decides to have a bit of fun with two of the goblin corpses, and throws them down to the howler from the top of the stairs. The abyssal beast rends and gobbles its unexpected meal, and Klar chuckles grimly to himself, having disposed of a few stinking corpses of his favored enemy, and also intimidated the other goblins into speaking about their leader, a hobgoblin cleric of Maglubiyet called Nambrakh. His sanctum lies to the east, down a long corridor, but the goblins are forbidden to go there.

The party moves through another set of copper doors carved with demonic faces, heading eastward down the aforementioned corridor. Cyndele peeks around the corner and is startled by four hobgoblin zombies armed with battleaxes! The zombies are guarding a broken demon gate of some sort – perhaps one of the shattered gates of Slaughtergarde, broken long ago by the Thulkaar champions of law. A vicious running battle breaks out, and the sounds of goblinoid chanting can be heard to the south through another corridor. This can only be Nambrakh, who is singing the praises of his dark goblin god, Maglubiyet. Though several zombies are still standing and engaging the party, Cyndele charges the noise of the chanting through a set of red curtains, but may have bit off more than she can chew… because the hobgoblin cleric is accompanied by three spear-wielding skeletons and a skeleton archer!

Cyndele bravely holds the line, chipping bone from the skeletons with her hammer, but she is surrounded and things look grim. Just then, Ayotunde clasps her holy symbol of Shandae and intones: “Malo Tor-Oya, hear my prayer and protect us!” Green rays of light radiate from her body and strike the remaining zombie and three skeletons, obliterating the undead with the holy power of Shandae. With the undead minions cleared away, Klar and Jack charge Nambrakh and deal the wretched cleric a pair of mighty blows, with Jack’s scythe neatly severing the hobgoblin’s head from his body after Klar’s glaive cut deeply into his torso. Nambrakh’s head rolls across his dark altar of Maglubiyet, knocking over a small statue of the god and extinguishing some black candles upon the altar as well. The party gathers a large pile of coins and gems from the foot of the altar, as well as a divine magical scroll.

A set of copper doors in the west wall of Nambrakh’s sanctum bears investigation, so after Dvalin pronounces it safe to advance, the party moves ahead into darkness, brandishing their sunrods in hand. Inside the room, a pair of Dark Creeper emissaries and a sorcererous ghoul await them. Another battle is joined, and though the spells of the ghoul and the shadow cloaks of the creepers frustrate the party for a time, they are victorious. Jack claims an amulet of natural armor +1 from around the neck of the ghoul sorcerer, which he personally felled with his sweeping scythe blade.

While searching the room for clues, however, a vengeful goblin ranger called Bruntalgoik attacks from the rear, skulking with his shortbow in a narrow southern corridor. Bruntalgoik is set upon revenge for the killing of Nambrakh, and he orders his hyena companion to attack the vulnerable Altaer. The hyena quickly drops Altaer, who lies bleeding, but the party responds to Bruntalgoik’s challenge and defends their young sorcerer. The hyena falls to Klar’s slashing glaive, and the rest of the party’s warriors chase the goblin ranger down the southern corridor, where he falls after a brave stand.

Exhausted and drained of spells from the recent fighting, the party elects to rest for the night inside the emissaries’ room. Jack finds a small, twisting passage in the room which he can barely squeeze into, but which seems to lead back to the surface of Kurkle Ridge. The passage is apparently some sort of back entrance, through which the dark creeper emissaries traveled to arrive here for some unknown purpose.

Their purpose, however, becomes clearer when two documents are found in a false compartment in a desk: one is a sketch of the shattered gate in the zombie room, with some unintelligible notes in an unknown language beneath. The other is a hastily drawn map of a forest area, with a building indicated upon it, as well as a hidden passage leading somewhere… however, no one in the party can read the language in which the sketch and map are annotated. Satisfied but still curious about the nature of this laboratory and the mission of its late occupants, the party sets watches and rests for the night.

Faerisa 10, 22CR: Nothing troubles the party’s sleep, so the adventurers assume that they have cleared nearly the entire complex of foes. However, the howler still remains, and Cyndele burns to destroy this abyssal foe. First, the party completes its search of the laboratory, discovering first a muddy room inhabited by an aggressive monitor lizard (they easily dispatch the hungry reptile), and then an old, arcane library, from which they claim eight valuable old history tomes and an arcane spellbook containing a number of simple 1st-level spells… including one that Altaer identifies as comprehend languages.
The sorcerer immediately casts the spell right out of the book, causing the magical script to vanish forever. However, he uses the knowledge imparted by the spell to translate the notes on the two pages recovered from the dark creeper emissaries. The first – the sketch of the demon gate – says “Destroyed! No salvageable sigils.” The second – the map – leads to the forest of Shul Sennek, in the southeastern part of the Valley of Obelisks, and indicates a “Surrinak Hunting Lodge” with a “trapdoor hearthstone.” The humans of the Surrinak family rule the forest of Shul Sennek, and have a reputation as reclusive but competent lords.

All that remains in the complex is to defeat the howler and send its corrupt soul back to the infinite layers of the Abyss. The party concocts a clever plan, deciding to utilize a classic pincer maneuver and come at the beast from two sides simultaneously. Altaer, Dvalin and Klar attack from the west, while Jack and Cyndele charge in from the east, supported by Ayotunde. The howler, surprised by the party’s boldness, growls its defiance and brutally tears into Cyndele with its teeth and quills, but Arinna’s Bumblebee will not be denied her quarry. After a bloody but short melee, the howler falls with a defiant roar, pierced, slashed and blasted by the adventurers’ combined strength. Its lithe, demonic body quickly crumbles to black, stinking dust.

Victorious and unbowed, the party gathers its gear and treasure, as well as the eight crates of spices they recovered for the Chicane Guild, and after bidding farewell to the stalwart maug Boraan, they return to the surface and pack up their two mules to return to Sumberton. The late morning sun greets them as they return from their first foray into the deep and hidden corridors of Slaughtergarde. It seems their next target is the forest of Shul Sennek and the hidden Surrinak Hunting Lodge within, but a return trip to Sumberton seems to be the first order of business.

--------End of Session---------

Gaia's Dream Campaign - a gazetteer excerpt:

I. GAIA TODAY

The Convergence: Gaia’s Dream is a place where two worlds have collided; twenty-three years ago a mysterious cataclysmic event known commonly as the Convergence (or the Great Shifting), caused the planet Gaia on the Prime Material Plane to forcibly merge with its own parallel Dreaming plane. Since only a relatively short time has passed since this cataclysm, a global society which was only starting to recover from an age of widespread war and extraplanar invasion has been uprooted and supplanted by chaos and strife. Areas formerly thought to be safely under the control of civilized nations and their armies are dangerous to travel in, and there are numerous reports of increasingly bold incursions of creatures into civilized surface lands from the vast Underlands and other ancient ruins.

The Convergence took the form of repeated carrier waves of probability fields which combined arcane, divine, and dreamstuff energies into a devastating cocktail of hallucinogenic destruction. The waves began simultaneously at the north and south poles of Gaia and steadily increased in duration and strength over a span of two months (between Maia, 5-6264CG and Rhoslyn, 7-6264CG) until they covered the entire Planet in an overlapping pattern of violent planar upheaval. It is widely believed that nearly 7% of the population of Gaia perished in the cataclysm, as buildings crumbled or simply absorbed their inhabitants into their walls, oceans rose, volcanoes spewed forth tons of magma, and magical storms raged across the globe. Entire coastal regions were swallowed up by the rising seas in some areas – notably, the city of Ryjarlin, the Jewel of the South, on the Taliraen peninsula once held by the now defunct House Zirski. Individuals of all races were deeply affected by the waves of energy, with those living along known aetheric ley lines reporting the most intense experiences – at least, those who did not perish outright or lose their sanity. Even those who came through the Convergence with their minds and bodies intact almost uniformly reported massive sensory hallucinations and disturbing visions which in some cases affected all five (or six, in the case of aetheric or psionic sensitives) senses simultaneously.

Scholars, priests, arcanists and ordinary people have debated the nature of the Convergence and its possible origins since the event’s conclusion 23 years ago. Some blame the incident on Shik’rael, the Savant of Khyraundros, whose meddling in the cross-dimensional “pocket plane” known as the Dreaming Web may have intentionally or inadvertently set off a chain reaction of planar shifting. Others believe the deities of Gaia themselves caused the Convergence – choosing to become more directly involved in the affairs of mortals by assuming flesh shells and walking the face of Gaia amongst their worshippers. Some scholars have concluded that the succession of wars between the native peoples of Gaia and the evil Hierarchy of Souls – led by the Devouring Overlord Khyraundros – weakened the seals between the planes and allowed a sudden and overwhelming influx of unstable dreamstuff to diffuse into the Prime Material Plane.

Arcane Artifice, Technology and Industry: The civilized peoples and nations of the world are still recovering from the effects of the Convergence 23 years after its conclusion. While the major cities and other population centers have largely been rebuilt and repaired, the process will probably not be complete for at least another 25 years. Further, sea travel has been severely disrupted by massive changes in ocean currents and the appearance of aggressive leviathans on the open seas. Intercontinental trade and commerce has slowed to a trickle, and the only reliable means of communication between leaders of nations on different continents are expensive magic arrays such as sending stones.

Complicating matters further is the rapidly increasing availability of arcane technologies built via the intersection of industry and magical artifice: among others, there are the aforementioned sending stones, wagons enchanted to keep meats and other perishables cold and frosty during overland journeys, lanterns of continual flame adorning street corners, and functioning clockwork effigies built to resemble animals or even humanoids. Societies were struggling to integrate these new technologies and recover from the devastation of the Harbinger War even before the Convergence, and the transition has only been made more difficult by the recent cataclysm.

The Zadonites: Another theory surrounding the onset of the Convergence involves the zadonites, a strange race of garnet-skinned, tattooed and scarified beings from a distant plane known as Zadythian. The zadonites’ home plane combined elements of the Dreaming and the Prime Material Plane, and the Convergence occurred less than ten years after the first zadonites plane shifted to Gaia and settled in the Tuhliss Freehold region on Talirae in 6255CG.

The zadonites’ deep connection to the Dreaming and their coincidentally-timed arrival just nine years before the Convergence has led many to believe the race was somehow responsible. Further implicating the zadonites is the fact that an immensely powerful being known only as “the Exile” – a zadonite himself – appeared in their wake and involved himself in the famous Battle of the Wall outside the gates of Aerendale, where Hathoraen forces were battling the gri’morg army of Shik’rael as the first waves of the Convergence hit.

Dreambrands: The zadonite race is known to have perished in the Convergence, and General Ishak Al-Sayidd of Hathorae (among others) claims they knowingly and intentionally sacrificed themselves to prevent a worse cataclysm than actually occurred. The effects of any such sacrifice, if true, are still being debated among scholars, arcanists and theologians.

There are numerous theories on the nature of the zadonites and their sacrifice; some planar scholars believe they are an offshoot of the githyanki or githzerai, or perhaps a nomadic rebel race from the Abyss. What is known for certain, though, is that Gaian adults and children conceived and born after the Convergence have begun to occasionally manifest dreambrands on their bodies similar in style to the tattoos and scars once worn by the zadonites. These dreambrands grant powerful supernatural spell-like abilities to their bearers, so their appearance is of great interest to many.

Alignments: Gaia’s Dream is a complex and nuanced world, and as such, players should not expect every monster or NPC they encounter to adhere to standard alignment guidelines. For example, adventurers may encounter a chaotic evil silver dragon or a lawful good ogre mage, or anything in between.

Thanks for reading! - Nick

 

[Stormtower]

A stiff breeze blows through the red rock canyons of Kurkle Ridge, but the party makes good time on their way back to Sumberton. Led by Klar’s orienteering skills, they head west through the canyons for several hours, with the mules straining under the weight of spice crates and assorted plunder. Early in the afternoon, Klar picks up a set of fresh footprints which appear to belong to a pack of three ghouls. Not long after picking up the trail, the party arrives at a slightly sunken rock grotto, the center of which seems to be an old funeral pyre, blackened with soot, ash and old bones.

Suddenly, a hissing growl echoes through the grotto, and the three ghouls the party was tracking spring their ambush. One of the undead, a vile purple-skinned hunter, turns out to be a ghast! His sickening stench fills the area, but most of the party bravely resists. Battle is joined, and after a short time the party is victorious. Jack spots a glint of something metal in the ashes of the old pyre, and discovers an old silver bracelet, cracked and studded with small garnets.

As the day wears on into dusk, the group finds a sheltered camp site at the edge of the Kurkle Ridge and settles in for a good night’s sleep. However, during the third watch, they are attacked by a group of five bandits, who thought they might be an easy mark. Unfortunately for the brigands and their foolhardy leader Robert, they are wrong. Jack hears them planning their attack, and manages to awaken the party in time to respond. Though Robert sticks his dagger into Jack’s ribs, severely wounding him, the party cuts down most of the brigands and chases down one fleeing bowman. This sole survivor, one Eric Stavnos, surrenders his weapon and agrees to go quietly as a prisoner back to Sumberton.

Faerisa 11, 22CR: The party travels through the morning and early afternoon back north along the road to Sumberton, aided by pleasantly crisp weather. Shortly after lunchtime, they arrive back at the city to find that the Dance of the Wellspring festival has ended. Sumberton stinks of spilled ale, dying bonfires and trash, but the mood in the city is upbeat following the festival. The group reports to the Sly Wink and Vintra Marktunsel meets them there, ordering her assistants in the Chicane Guild to unload the spice crates from the exhausted mules. The halfling merchant pays each adventurer the agreed-upon sum of 100 gp, and invites them all to join her for a complimentary lunch at the Wink. The meal is sumptuous and filling, consisting of dry-rubbed spicy pork ribs with hot pepper sauce, smoked salmon on alder wood with lemon-dill sauce, fresh bread, and plenty of ale. Klar eats so many ribs that he has no room for the dessert course, a fresh baked pie filled with cheddar cheese and apple compote.

After lunch, the adventurers head off in different directions around town to sell their treasure and purchase equipment. Altaer meets a misshapen fellow named Eli, the Purveyor of Wonders, who works for an association known as the Ebon Cabal. Eli gives the young sorcerer a fine price for the spellbook found in the Slaughtergarde Laboratory, and offers Altaer further opportunities to work for the Cabal, should he wish it.

Cyndele reports to her high priestess at the Temple of Arinna, and gets a referral to Luminary Captain Armin Harreck of the Luminous Order. Captain Harreck apparently noticed that some of the gear the party sold had the markings of old Slaughtergarde, and is curious about the party’s adventures at the Laboratory. Cyndele delivers a message to the others that Captain Harreck would like to speak to them all later in the day.

Early that evening, the group gathers at the local Luminous Order chapterhouse. The full name of the Order turns out to be “The Luminous order of Bahamut,” and their coat of arms is a golden sun pierced by a long sword, from which two platinum dragon wings sprout. Enjoying some refreshment in the outer lounge, the party meets a kindly halfling wizard named Jonas, who speaks well of his many years in the Order. They are soon ushered in to speak with Captain Harreck, who is a tall, commanding human with long black hair and a slightly wolfish cast to his features.

Harreck is concerned that the Surrinak Hunting Lodge marked on the map left by the Dark Creeper emissaries may be a focal point for evil operations in the area. He speaks of the Stilleto Crew, the local thieves’ guild, which has been infected with a plague of wererat lycanthropy of late. The wererats have begun traveling south regularly, past the town of Riverbend, and Harreck believes they may be operating out of the Oakwood near Shul Sennek. The Order cannot move against the Surrinak family or the Stilletos without political ramifications, but “independent agents” such as the party certainly can. Harreck offers 800 gp each to the six adventurers if they will travel south to the hunting lodge in the Oakwood and see what they can find there. He urges them to destroy any evil items they find within, and suggests they may be on the trail of another complex connected to ancient Slaughtergarde. If they return successfully, each member of the party will also earn the Commendation of the Luminous Order of Bahamut, and be eligible for membership and further missions in the organization. Satisfied with their day’s work, the group retires to their sleeping quarters. Cyndele and Altaer remain at the chapterhouse of the Order, while the other four return to the Sly Wink to rest in the larger, softer beds provided by Ms. Marktunsel.

Faerisa 12: The party meets at dawn by the south gates of Sumberton, and moves south along the road toward Riverbend. They intend to turn east at Riverbend – which is about three days’ journey south – and head east from there into the Oakwood towards Shul Sennek. Storm clouds appear from the east, and Klar indicates they may be in for some freezing rain before the day is through.

However, before the bad weather hits, the group encounters three people on the road, moving quickly towards them. Two are human woodcutters, and the third appears to be a wolfen morph, also dressed as a woodcutter. The morph introduces himself as Ralva, and tells a sad story of his kidnapped son. A nearby ogre and a pair of goblin flunkies ambushed the woodcutters less than an hour ago, and Ralva’s son was taken for the stewpot! The adventurers follow Ralva into the forest, and after a ten minute run, they find themselves at the mouth of a cave.

They call out a challenge into the cave, and an ugly ogre responds “Haw haw haw! Little people cannot stop me… time to add more to the stew pot!” Battle is joined, as Jack and Klar charge into the cave to meet the ogre, followed quickly by the other adventurers. The ogre’s two goblin pals provide no challenge, falling quickly, but the ogre deals Jack mighty blow, charging into him with a large greatclub. Klar springs forward and cuts the giant a terrible, mortal gash with his razor sharp glaive, slicing through internal organs and sinew. Before the dumb ogre even realizes its life is over, it has fallen to the earth with a thud. Klar stands over the fallen giant victoriously, while Jack and Dvalin move into the cave to untie the struggling morph puppy. The wolfling is happily reunited with his father. Though Ralva has nothing to pay the party with, the group does find a bag of coins and gems in the corner of the ogre’s cave.

Leaving the woodcutter and his son behind, the adventurers make their way south along the road. Within the hour, a cold rain is upon them, and the sky above rumbles with distant thunder. The occasional burst of horizontal purple lightning can be seen across the turbulent sky. However, the poor weather does not bring any bad luck with it, and the party camps peacefully that night in a sheltered copse of trees off the road.
Faerisa 13: The cold rain turns to freezing sleet during the night, and continues unabated throughout the morning and early afternoon. As the party heads south, they spot some movement – several humanoid beings, apparently – up in the hills behind them to the west. They are being followed.

Deciding to set an ambush of their own for their pursuers, the group heads towards a group of trees off the road and waits. In a short time, a warband of four gnolls, two goblins, and a hobgoblin impaler come down out of the hills and approach their position. One of the gnolls, a tall and rangy fellow with a composite longbow, spots their hiding place, and the warband charges!

The lead gnoll, who seems to be a demon-worshipping cleric, casts bless upon his allies, praying in Abyssal for the swift death of his enemies. The gnolls and goblinoids yell “For the glory of Gashkarr and Slaughtergarde!” and “For revenge!” as they charge. A fierce battle breaks out, and Klar bravely charges into the thick of the fray. He is surrounded by foes, but manages to fight clear before they can take him down. Altaer blasts the gnolls with magic missiles from afar, and Ayo keeps everyone standing with her healing magic. Jack and Dvalin work towards the gnolls’ flank, trying to close distance with the gnoll ranger, while Cyndele and Klar face the bulk of the warband. After a long fight, the party is victorious against the cleric of Slaughtergarde and his minions, but the day is not yet over, and the cold sleet continues to fall, making everyone cold and wet as they continue to travel south towards Riverbend.

 

[Stormtower]

More milieu background for Gaia's Dream - Cosmology

From the Gaia's Dream Campaign Gazetteer:

A Brief History of Gaian Cosmology

The story of Gaia’s Three Sisters – the first deities that awakened in the distant past, eons before the rise of the dragons – has been told countless times since the birth of language and civilization. The legend says that the Planet Gaia slumbered peacefully in the void, and in the moment it first glimpsed the Sun, both the Planet and the Sun saw one another reflected in each other’s vision. In a moment of sublime divine revelation, both Sisters (Arinna the Sun goddess and Shandae the Earth goddess) awakened and glimpsed each other’s beauty… but in so doing, they forgot the dark Void in which they both floated – the third Sister, Irindix. Angered by their ignorance, the goddess Irindix departed for the realms of the Underlands beneath the surface of the Planet, content to seethe quietly in darkness.
In the early Darastrae Epoch – the Draconic Era – the Three Sisters nurtured the Planet’s life force, each in their own way. Shandae and Arinna cooperated with one another, using the heat of Arinna’s Sun and the supple life energy of Shandae’s Earth to create new life. Irindix worked from her cold and hollow caves in the Underlands, quietly birthing and amassing a collection of squirming life which thrived under her dark tutelage and learned to think of the surface world as Other. The greatest of the prime races was the dragons, who at first looked only to the Sisters for guidance, but quickly grew intelligent enough to seek out other forms of divinity in the aether flows of the multiverse.

Over time, other deities sought out the Planet Gaia as a source of divine energy: Zor the Aetherweaver, and Mirael the Fatespinner. The origins of Mirael and Zor are cloaked in mystery, but theologians agree that the two deities arrived with open arms and peaceful intentions, and so were welcomed by the Sisters and grudgingly accepted by Irindix. Mirael manifested as Gaia’s solitary moon, a small satellite devoid of life or breathable atmosphere but clearly visible as a silvery-white orb in the night sky. Zor took no physical form just as his inscrutable nature has always dicated, but worked diligently to weave the wild aether of the Planet Gaia into a vast and complex network of ley lines and fractal spiraling currents and patterns. Thus the possibility of arcane magic born was into the world.

The five deities labored for millennia until a great rising of life force began with the birth of two new races – the elves and the dreamkin. The appearance of these two fey races signified the end of the Darastrae Epoch and the start of the Verisae Epoch. Significantly smaller in stature and shorter lived than the dragons, and also mammalian in nature, the two races were practically identical in physical nature. However, the elves maintained a vital and inseparable connection to the divine life force of Gaia while also mastering the arcane arts, whereas the dreamkin chose to focus exclusively on arcane pursuits, forsaking the gods and worshipping the Five Elements of Fundament – Air, Earth, Dream, Fire, and Water, and seeking knowledge in the exploration of the newly discovered Dreaming realm. Around the year 48800CD a schism occurred between the elves and dreamkin, with the elves remaining on the four largest continents of Gaia (Saradhassa, Malo, Talirae and Asarya) and the dreamkin departing forever to the plane of the Dreaming.

A legendary pair of distantly related siblings –Valis from the dreamkin bloodline of d’Mirathos, and Anilmathien from the elvish bloodline Ceriendór – rose to global prominence around the year 48290CD. The two powerful fey princes discovered the arcane secrets of prolonged mortal life and walked the Planet for over 3,700 years, each following his own path to greatness with passion, diligence and fortitude. In the year 52000CD, the elf lord Anilmathien achieved divinity and was uplifted by the other deities to join the celestial pantheon. At that time he assumed the name Jenoic, and notably became the first native Gaian deity to manifest as a male. So uplifted, He began to labor intimately with Shandae and Arinna to seed the Planet with what would become known as the venal races – humans, dwarves, gnomes, halflings, orcs, and many others. By this time, Irindix had fully withdrawn into herself and needed no male to spawn forth her creations; the shadows of Irindix’s Underlands writhed with her innumerable legions of dark hunting creatures.

Valis d’Mirathos chose a different path and remained a mortal being, albeit an astonishingly powerful and long-lived mortal. Rumors persist even today in 23CR that Valis lives on as a baelnorn – an undead fey lich – and many claim that he was seen briefly at the Battle of the Wall in Hathorae during the initial waves of the Convergence.

The legends say that as the first deity to manifest with primarily male aspects, Jenoic coupled repeatedly with the Sisters, and his seed blossomed in the fertile womb of Shandae as the fires of the two were stoked by the loving warmth of Arinna. From this union, the vernal races came to populate the Planet and were carefully guided by the intervention of the six Gaian deities (at the start of the Vernal Epoch, these were Arinna, Shandae, Irindix, Mirael, Zor and Jenoic). As legendary heroes and heroines of the vernal races arose and caught the gods’ attentions, the greatest of them were welcomed into the pantheon to serve the Planet alongside their progenitors. These were Elaera the Sky Maiden, Faeridian the Traveler, Gwardo the Dissident, Ijruk One-Eye of the orcs, Laedré Meadowheart of the halflings, Merin Jewelshine of the gnomes, and Thiannon Forgefather of the dwarves. This era of unprecedented uplifting became known as the Vernal Rising, and theologians place the era between 62500CD and 65000CD. The gods foresaw dark times ahead, when the Planet would need the efforts of many stalwart defenders to protect it from the corrupting incursions of the Hierarchy of Souls.

At the time of the Vernal Rising, a disturbing trend asserted itself against the benevolent machinations of the Gaian deities: the rise of the Elder Banes. The epic 300-year long Banespawn War began when evil and debased mortals began to glean the secrets of divinity and rise to demigod status of their own accord; Irindix was widely blamed for this phenomenon, as she had adopted a separatist stance in relation to the other deities. The first of these upstart Elder Banes was Ethoar the Soul Burner, Lord of Agony – he stole the secrets of fire-making from Arinna and built a cult of worshippers devoted to his dark molten flame. Soon after, two more Elder Banes arose: Yshunor the Plagueherald and Tyraudon the Warscourge. Theologians agree that the goddess Irindix was reclassified as an Elder Bane during this era, due to her alleged role in sharing the secrets of divine ascendancy with mortals unfit for the responsibility. The ascendancy of the Elder Banes and the formal schism between Irindix and the other deities heralded an unprecedented new era of competition and strife throughout Gaia.

The legitimate Gaian deities competed openly with Irindix and the other Elder Banes throughout the late Vernal Epoch and during the years recorded by the Calendar of Gaia; even the arrival of the Hierarchy of Souls led by Khyraundros did not convince them to join forces – throughout all three post-Vernal Hierarch incursions (the first on Sardhassa, and the next two on Talirae), the deities fought amongst themselves even as the Hierarchy preyed on their faithful. It was left to the mortals to follow their deities’ instructions or the calling of their own hearts as best they could and drive back the extraplanar invasion of the Hierarchy. During the 5th Hierarch incursion in 5309CG, a human girl named Judith Lonvarke of Urgorae – a paladin of Elaera – was martyred in a successful crusade against the forces of Khyraundros, and was uplifted by the Sky Maiden to become the newest and youngest of the Gaian deities.

The Convergence may have fundamentally changed the relationship of the Gaian deities to the Planet and its collective peoples forever. The rampant speculation among theologians that the deities took on aspects of flesh during the Convergence, and are walking the Planet alongside their worshippers, has now been confirmed. The goddess Arinna is known to have appeared outside the capital city of Nashwamidha in Saradhassa and walked many miles into the desert, finally stopping and singing a great sandstone city into being from nothing but the grains of sand in the desert. This new city, which exists in the shape of a mighty ziggurat with 13 levels, is known as Asahn-aliya. Several scattered instances of a tall and pale “veiled lady” clad in black who appears with portents of the future have also been reported; this may be the goddess Mirael. The Goldor dwarves north of Rachspire have reportedly been in direct contact with Thiannon the Forgefather, and may be harboring him somewhere deep under their mountain strongholds.

There have been no reported sightings as yet of Shandae, Jenoic, Zor, Elaera, Gwardo or any of the other racial deities, nor of Irindix and the other Elder Banes. However, worshippers of all the divines are operating under the assumption that their god or goddess has already physically manifested in a flesh body and will make him- or herself known when the time is right. This change in the nature of the gods and their unprecedented direct intervention in mortal affairs will likely have ripple effects throughout the new age of post-Convergence Gaia.

Aspects and Domains

Each Gaian deity and/or Elder Bane may manifest in multiple aspects, and many of their domains overlap. For the sake of clarity, domains are the areas of divine influence which deities have some control over, and aspects are the potential physical manifestions of the deities themselves. For example, the deities Jenoic and Elaera both govern the domains of Craft, so a cleric may choose those domains if s/he is a worshipper of either deity. Alternately, a cleric who wants access to the Summoner domain might choose to worship the goddess Shandae, for example. Were Jenoic to physically manifest before His cleric for whatever reason, he might take on the aspect of The Walker Beside, Great Brother, or even Anilmathien (his elvish aspect). Likewise, Shandae might appear as the Mother of All, or even Hathor the Cow Goddess or some heretofore unknown aspect.
Per the standard rules in the Player’s Handbook, clerics of a particular deity may select any two domains to which their deity provides access. Clerics worshipping different aspects or domains of the same deity are not necessarily members of different religions. Many of the aspects have various respectful surnames (for example, the Fate & Oracles aspects of the goddess Mirael are sometimes called The Veiled Lady), but all aspects are recognized as parts of the whole deity. All clerics worship the whole of the deity first, and their chosen aspect second.

Gaian deities are transcendent beings of immense power, and may manifest in different physical forms or aspects to different races and ethnic groups, as they desire. A dwarven priest of the god Jenoic might likely see a dwarf if Jenoic appeared before him physically or in a divine vision; likewise, a human priest would probably see a human – and most likely, a human with physical traits of that priest’s ethnic group.

 

[Stormtower]

CALENDAR, HOLIDAYS AND TIMEKEEPING

RECKONING OF YEARS
A Gaian solar year is three hundred sixty (360) days long with no leap years. Each of the twelve months has exactly thirty days, and each day consists of 24 hours, each hour containing 60 minutes.

The first recorded appearance of the “vernal races” (humans, dwarves halflings, gnomes and orcs) was noted by the elves approximately 2,000 years after Jenoic’s ascendancy, in the year 54002CD. The vernal races subsisted in primitive hunter-gatherer societies for approximately 6,000 years, until the first permanent agrarian communities were formed and the Vernal Epoch began around 60000CD.

Prior to the Convergence, the agreed-upon standard was the Calendar of Gaia (CG), which stood for 6,264 years and ended with the final throes of the Convergence. Year 1CG was marked by the 20,000th anniversary of the ascendancy of the legendary elvish hero Anilmathien Ceriendór to godhood – at that moment, it is said he took on the name Jenoic. The elves of Gaia and their sibling race, the dreamkin, reckon their existence to approximately 32,000 years prior to Year 1CG. They two fey races share a calendar with the dragons of Gaia, who reckon the passage of years back as far as 72,000 years with a calendar is known as Calendar Draconae, or CD.

After the Convergence, the nations of the world across all four major continents agreed to adopt a new reckoning for the new post-shift epoch: Convergence Reckoning (CR). The first two branches of the Gaia’s Dream campaign – Heroes of Falgenor and Falling Stars, Rising Hope – began on 6-2-22CR (Nerida 2, year 22 Convergence Reckoning).

CG/CR MONTHS & SEASONS

1. Janiver (midwinter)
2. Chelmont (late winter)
3. Faerisa (early spring)
4. Alindor (mid spring)
5. Maia (late spring)
6. Nerida (early summer)
7. Rhoslyn (midsummer)
8. Auborean (late summer)
9. Tenanyé (early autumn)
10. Shandaeval (mid autumn)
11. Aerenval (late autumn)
12. Yeshingal (early winter)

GAIAN DAYS OF THE WEEK
1. Aer
2. Mir
3. Taen
4. Maed
5. Thael
6. Fir
7. Val

Holiday Date(s) Deity/Deities
Turn of the Year Yeshingal 30 – Janiver 1 Gaian Pantheon
Mother’s Night of Dreams Chelmont 5 Mirael, Shandae
Dance of the Wellspring Faerisa 7 Shandae-Risa
Prankster’s Day Alindor 1 Gwardo, Merin
Dawn of the Armistice Alindor 11 N/A
Vernal Equinox Alindor 20-21 Gaian Pantheon
Revelry of Maia / Beltane Maia 1 Arinna, Jenoic, Shandae, Shandae-Risa
Feast of the Meadowheart Maia 15 Laedré
Hammersfall Festival Nerida 10 Thiannon, Merin
Summer Solstice / Aerenshine Nerida 21 Arinna, Elaera, Ijruk, Jenoic
Celebration of Living Water Rhoslyn 14 Jenoic, Zor
Accord Day Rhoslyn 28 N/A
Travelers’ Rest Auborean 12 Faeridian, Gwardo, Laedré
Tournament of Valor Auborean 16-29 N/A
Feast of All Divine / Summersend Auborean 30 Gaian Pantheon
Autumnal Equinox Tenanyé 22-23 Gaian Pantheon
Three Vales’ Harvest Tenanyé 24-27 Arinna, Elaera, Jenoic, Shandae
St. Judith’s Pyre Shandaeval 9 St. Judith
Allhallow’s Night / Samhain Shandaeval 30 Gwardo, Mirael, Zor
Feast of Aeren’s Slumber Aerenval 24 Arinna, Ijruk, Mirael, Thiannon
Yuletide Wassail Yeshingal 21 Eleara, Jenoic
Winter Solstice / Yule Yeshingal 22 Gaian Pantheon

 

[Stormtower]

Though the damp, miserable sleet storm continues throughout the afternoon and evening, the party manages to build a sheltered camp off the road to Riverbend in a quiet grove of ash and oak. Klar and Jack erect a shelter with oiled canvas and watched are posted, but nothing disturbs the group’s rest except the relentless freezing rain.

Faerisa 14: The sleet storm breaks in the early morning hours, and by sunrise the party is enjoying the return of the sun as they eat a warm camp breakfast. They resume their march, with Klar pushing everyone to move as fast as possible towards Riverbend. The day is clear and cold, with only the occasional wispy clouds blowing across the deep blue sky.

The forced march continues, and everyone is able to keep up the faster pace throughout the day. In the late afternoon, the party comes over a hill and glimpses the outer watchtowers of Riverbend. A fallen log acts as a bridge across a nearby riverbed, which slopes 10 feet down into a partially frozen stream. Hills bracket the party on either side of the log. Suddenly, Dvalin’s keen eyes pick up the glint of an arrowhead off in the trees past the log bridge. He calls a halt, and the party moves into battle formation.

The arrow streaks towards the group, and a deep orcish voice calls out “Attack! Take the half-orc!” Two orcs with reach weapons (a glaive and a guisarme, respectively) emerge from hiding while a third orc hangs back, firing arrows with his composite longbow. The polearm wielders hold the bridge against the party’s front line combatants, but Jack and Klar eventually break through their whirling thicket of blades with Dvalin’s help on the flank. The orc ranger back in the trees sends his wolf companion forward to assist, but the animal is quickly wounded and retreats. As the two polearm-wielding orcs fall to Jack and Dvalin, Klar angrily pursues the fleeing ranger into the forest, cutting down his wolf for good measure. Unfortunately for the big half-orc, his prey eludes him in the trees, and Klar rejoins the party soon afterward.

After gathering the valuables off their fallen foes, the group continues on towards Riverbend. Less than an hour later, they have arrived in town. Riverbend is a small community of about 450 citizens, and its low buildings are primarily constructed of thick pine lumber and packed clay. A ring of six watch towers surrounds the outer edges of the town, but no wall protects it. The adventurers spend a bit of coin purchasing alchemically silvered weapons from the local weaponsmith, Kyra, who is a retired adventurer and the local representative of Bahamut’s Luminous Order. They re-supply their mundane gear at Jorge’s General Goods, and spend the night at the Red Raven Inn. Jack makes the acquaintance of the local farrior, a dwarf named Udrin, who agrees to make a cloak for Jack out of the wolf pelt that the party claimed earlier (from the orc ranger’s dead wolf companion).

Rumors of wererat rogues from the Stiletto Crew are running rampant in Riverbend. Apparently, the rogues use a river barge to ferry contraband equipment to parties of drow along the east bank near the edge of the nearby Oakwood. The party decides to head into the Oakwood, which also holds their primary objective: the Surrinak family’s hunting lodge.

Faerisa 15: After a pleasant breakfast of eggs, cheese and toasted bread at the Red Raven, the party heads east across the river towards the Oakwood. Klar finds evidence of a recent barge landing, but oddly there are no tracks nearby. Eventually, the party surmises that an allied druid must be hiding the Stiletto Crew’s tracks (and possibly those of the drow) with divine magic. Armed with this knowledge, they move from the edge of the Oakwood into its heart. The day is clear, and golden light streams in through the canopy of trees which is still thinned by the frosts of winter. A gentle breeze subtly hints of warmer weather to come. By evening the light is fading into dusk, and the party comes to a halt some miles west of the elvish settlement Shul Sennek.

That night, their rest is disturbed by a marauding owlbear, which crashes through the trees towards their camp hoping for a tasty meal. The party scrambles to action and forms a defensive line against the fierce magical beast, which hoots and screams disturbingly as it charges in and tears at their flesh with sharp claws and beak. Despite several of their numbers being unarmored, the group puts down the owlbear, which dies with a gurgling hoot as Dvalin slices deeply into its throat with his dwarven waraxe. After disposing of the carcass, the party rests for the remainder of the night and is not disturbed again.

Faerisa 16: After a quick breakfast and a short march through the oak, ash and pine forest of the inner Oakwood, the adventurers find themselves within sight of Shul Sennek. Like all elvish settlements, the landscape around Shul Sennek has been twisted by the energies of the Convergence. Trees bear unnatural twists and spikes, and some of the arboreal platforms that the elves use for shelter and living space have still not been sung back into working order by the tree-singers. Despite the significant damage to their bodies and their community, the elves of Shul Sennek are welcoming and amiable to the party’s goal of rooting out the drow and wererats at the Surrinak hunting lodge. An elf sentinel named Findar, who has long golden hair and an extremely sharp pointed chin, shows them to a platform where they may rest for the night. Glowing runes placed on wooden pillars by elven magewrights keep the open air platform warm throughout the night.

Findar tells Altaer that a powerful brass dragon once inhabited the region now known as the Slaughterscar, and that he might have a tale to tell of that dragon’s role in the Battle of Slaughtergarde should Altaer return successfully from the Surrinak lodge. Jack draws a unique spiraling pattern on a piece of parchment and gifts it to Findar, who remarks that Jack’s work looks much like the mysterious dreambrands which have been appearing on the skin of certain individuals since the Convergence.

The party sleeps peacefully through the night on the elvish platform under the boughs of ancient oaks, and the elvish sentinels guard their sleep. A cool breeze drifts through the trees all night, rustling tree branches and whispering into the adventurers’ dreams.

Faerisa 17: The good weather continues to hold, so the party’s hike south out of Shul Sennek through the heart of the Oakwood is not hampered by poor conditions. Aside from the quiet voice of the breeze in the tree branches and the sounds of wildlife all remains quiet, yet there is a sense of foreboding and hidden darkness as the party heads south towards the Surrinak lodge. By early afternoon they have arrived at the lodge grounds, which are nothing more than a small clearing in which rests a squat, wide stone building bearing the Surrinak family crest on its wooden door. The shutters of the building are closed, but not locked; nor is the front door locked. Dvalin leads the party on a thorough search of the deserted rooms of the lodge, and soon enough the hearthstone spoken of on the dark emissaries’ map is located. It slides aside as Dvalin manipulates it, revealing a 10’ wide set of stairs heading down into the darkness.

The stairs continue down for more than 60 feet, and the party activates their sunrods and lanterns as the blackness envelops them. The stairs open up into a larger room, but three Surrinak house guards – male drow warriors – have prepared an ambush below, having detected the group’s bright lights on the stairs. The dark elves fire their longbows into the party’s ranks, yelling dark prayers to their goddess Irindix. The adventurers move into their orderly battle formation and engage the drow, but the sounds of battle alert more nearby foes to the incursion.

A pair of doors to the south slams open, and three blind, grey-skinned grimlocks rush into the battle to reinforce the staggering Surrinak guards. They are followed by a short, horned and red-skinned little creature armed with a razor sharp spear. This odd fellow seems to emit an aura of silence; he is a witchknife, a member of a race of mystical warriors known for their mercenary tendencies. A pitched battle ensues, with the party steadily advancing on the witchknife and the grimlocks as the drow are cut down before them. More reinforcements arrive from the rear, as a drow lancer mounted on a riding lizard charges down the north corridor and skewers Ayotunde in the back. Dvalin moves up to engage the rider and reinforce Altaer and Ayo in the rear rank, but two more Surrinak drow arrive at the southern front. Altaer fires a burst of color spray into the eyes of the drow rider and his mount; while only the lizard is blinded and stunned from the blast the sorcerer’s spell gives the three adventurers an advantage against the now-dismounted rider.

One of these house guards heads away down an eastern corridor, calling out an alert in Undercommon. He draws two quaggoth slaves into battle – the massive albino-furred felines brandish greatclubs, swinging with abandon. Jack moves down the southeast corridor to intercept the quaggoth and the drow warrior, followed quickly by Cyndele. Klar moves south to engage the crafty witchknife, who retreated and healed himself with a potion. The raging half-orc cuts deeply into his foe, dealing him a mortal blow that nearly severs its head.

Meanwhile, a small dark shape slips out of the shadows, tumbling past Jack and trying to bury its dagger in his vitals – another dark creeper! The fighter’s breastplate deflects the stab, and the creeper soon falls to Jack’s sweeping scythe and Cyndele’s rapier. The quaggoth slaves fly into a frenzy, but Dvalin, Altaer and Ayotunde manage to take down the drow rider and his mount, and they arrive to reinforce the rest of the party. Shortly thereafter, the quaggoths are put out of their misery, and the exhausted party begins searching for a safe place to rest.

They follow the dead quaggoths’ trail back to a small rock quarry, where Dvalin finds a sheltered shelf of rock nearly 10 feet deep in which to hide the group for the night. Though strange sounds of chanting, shuffling and tapping haunt the group throughout their slumber and watch shifts, nothing disturbs their rest, and they are able to recover from their running battle at the outer entrance of the Slaughtergarde Temple.