Don't worry KidCthulhu, I haven't forgotten Alix's battle with the orc. The first Brotherhood of Night story arc is coming up. Crellar's Inn Revisited (Dopplegangers Part II) is a much creepier sequence, and it happened after Nostradis Ghend (coming next).
There are a lot more details in that story, so I'll try to go into a bit more depth. Hijinks from Rofan included.
Darklance, I kept a journal through the first several years of the campaign. I also kept nearly every scrap of source material (letters from people, maps, scrolls, etc.) that P'Cat gave the Defenders for the entire time we adventured together. I admit I'm a gaming packrat, but you'd be amazed how often holding onto those little details saved our bacon down the line. Plus, as KidCthulhu has indicated before, no one else wanted to do it.
The original entries from the journal are very terse, more reminders for my character of the shape of the plot and the important people we'd met. Some of the stories I wrote in more detail, and you'll get to read those. P'Cat and others will have to pick up the thread at the Academy of Flamecraft, where things finally got so convoluted and complicated that I gave up taking meticulous notes.
I am editing all of the journal entries as I go to make them read more naturally (and, I hope, more interestingly to non-Defenders).
As Piratecat says, the psionically-empowered staff was a great mystery to us all for many years. Even Tom-Tom, the psionic, was unaware of it's characteristics. At least, he never mentioned any suspicions to me! We knew of it, fondly, as TMOSAT (The Master of Space and Time) as it initially introduced itself in that way. TMOSAT was always exceedingly arrogant (having been empowered by a grand vizier). It insisted on being well-cared-for and polished at every opportunity. It also would use its power for me only when asked nicely (and occasionally only when bribed). It took years to coax it into revealing what it could do (which was quite a lot.)
I should point out that, at this point in the story, the staff had never spoken. It stared at people, nothing more. Arcade had a proficiency in quarterstaff, so he thought he might use in combat. You'll see how that came out!
We
had learned from the sage Kinxanthrias of Kindric that the staff was made from hovering elm (a very magical wood), which came only from Kanach'hurian in the Desert of the Screaming Sands, 220 leagues away. He suggested we ask Imperial Librarian Hurnd in the city of Oursk for more information, but the group didn't make it to Oursk for many years....
