The adventurers receive a letter from Valthrun the Prescient,
a sage and scholar who dwells in the small fortress
of Winterhaven. If you played H1: Keep on the Shadowfell,
the characters may have already met him. Otherwise, he
knows of the adventurers by their reputation in the area.
(You can replace Valthrun with any sagacious NPC in
your campaign.) His letter reads:
“Honored heroes,
Your deeds speak well of your good intentions and your concern
for the civilized lands. I write to you to ask for your help in a
most troubling matter. For the past several days, I have observed
a glittering, red streak in the sky. Last night, the red streak flared
like a star before disappearing from the sky. If my readings of the
Analects of Tzunk are correct, this heralds the appearance of a
great evil in our land. I dare not reveal what I know in this letter
for fear it may fall into the wrong hands, but I beg you to make
due haste to my tower in Winterhaven.”
You can insert the comet’s appearance in the night sky,
making it an event for the adventurers to puzzle over
before they receive Valthrun’s letter.
If the adventurers travel to Winterhaven, Valthrun
treats them as honored guests. He throws a feast in their
honor, after which he tells them what he knows. At the
feast, emphasize the hero worship that Valthrun and the
other people of Winterhaven lavish upon the adventurers,
particularly if they defeated Kalarel in adventure H1: The
Keep on the Shadowfell.
After eating, Valthrun tells the adventurers what he
knows:
✦ Because of Valthrun’s research and after consulting
with an archmage from the Therund Barony via magical
means, the sage is convinced that the events in the
night sky foretell the rise of a new exarch of Orcus.
✦ Undead have been drawn to the ruins of Shadowfell
Keep, an ominous sign of Orcus’s growing power.
✦ Valthrun completed a series of divinations that revealed
the location of the exarch’s arrival, a point somewhere
beneath the Cairngorm Peaks. The Miser’s Pit, a shaft
that extends deep into the Underdark, is perhaps the
best place to begin searching for this new, evil being.
Knowing the way to thunderspire...and that it has an
entrence to the under dark...the PCs head there first
Should the adventurers have a frostier relationship
with the Saruun Mages they find:
The Mages dispatched one of their number,
a wizard named Onotor, to establish a trade alliance with
the drow. Reeling from the events in H2: Thunderspire
Labyrinth, the Mages are eager to find new trading
partners.
the Mages approach the characters as friends in
need. They relate the little that Onotor could tell them. An
undead army, strong enough to threaten the surface world,
attacked a drow outpost. Onotor is in danger, and adventurers
are needed to either defeat the undead or learn more
of their origin to prevent their spread.
the Mages give the adventurers an iron
pendant shaped like a spider. This item is a diplomatic
pass, a symbol that allows the adventurers to pass safely
through drow territory and gives them a chance to attempt
to parley with the drow.
